"You should be ashamed of yourself."
The man sighed, stretching lazily as his gaze drifted over my comrades, as if none of them were worth his attention.
I approached him carefully, even though something felt off.
A sudden weight settled in my chest.
Despair.
Agony.
Pain.
For a moment, I couldn't tell if it belonged to me.
Memories…?
No.
I forced the thought down, my grip tightening around the dagger.
It wasn't that.
It was something deeper.
Something crueler.
"Goddamn it… focus."
"Bring me someone of my own size," the man said, his tone laced with boredom. "I could kill this boy while holding back."
I ran.
The ground shifted beneath my feet as I closed the distance, my dagger steady in my hand. Fire gathered along its edge as I committed fully to the strike.
"Ah," he sighed. "A dagger."
The blade grazed his throat
and then the world lurched.
A dull thump echoed through the air as everything around me seemed to compress. The atmosphere thickened instantly, pressing against my body from all sides,
making it hard to think.
My hand felt light. Too light.
I looked down.
The dagger was gone.
Just gone...
Like it had never been there to begin with.
By the time I looked up, the man had vanished as well.
Silence followed.
Only the faint sound of wind brushing past my ears, mixed with the distant chirping of crickets, grounded me in a world that suddenly felt… wrong.
Then something warm slid down my neck.
DRIP
Another drop followed.
Heavier this time.
I raised my hand instinctively, my fingers coming away slick as they brushed against my skin. Dark red smeared across my collar.
I tried to speak.
"B—"
Nothing.
No sound.
Panic rose in my chest as I forced air through my throat, but it came out empty—useless.
I can't… speak.
What the hell is happening?
My hands trembled violently, and with each passing second, my heartbeat slowed, dull and distant, like it no longer belonged to me.
"Looking for this?"
The voice came from above.
I lifted my head.
A figure stood on a tree branch, high enough to look down on me with ease. Something hung loosely from his hand—wet, dark, dripping.
My stomach twisted.
"I cut off your larynx," he said calmly. "Repulsion magic."
The words didn't hit all at once. They settled in slowly, piece by piece, until the meaning became unavoidable.
"Though," he added with a quiet sigh, "you didn't seem very talkative anyway."
My vision blurred as I tried to breathe, but nothing came out.
I tried to move, to crawl, to create distance, but my legs gave out beneath me and I collapsed to the ground.
It hurts…
It hurts when you're the weaker one.
"The moment you truly reject something…" his voice continued, calm and distant,
"…it cannot touch you."
I barely registered when he moved.
One moment he was above—
the next, he was in front of me.
Watching.
Waiting.
"Of course," he said after a brief pause, "repulsion magic has its flaws."
He crouched, leaning closer.
"But I'm glad it rejected you."
His hand closed around mine, firm and unyielding. My fingers twitched weakly, slick with blood, but I couldn't pull away.
"I heard you wanted to judge me," he said.
He lifted my hand with ease, guiding it upward.
"Correct?"
I tried to answer.
Tried to force even the smallest sound out of my throat.
Nothing came.
"I'll give you a chance."
Before I could react, he pressed my bloodied hand against his forehead.
"Don't fail yourself twice."
My vision darkened at the edges, the pressure in my chest tightening as my thoughts slowed.
"The first time…"
His voice dropped slightly.
"…was disappointing."
I blinked and I woke up.
My entire body throbbed with a dull ache.
My throat felt like it had been stitched shut with rusted wire.
I tried to shout, but only a dry, raspy wheeze escaped my lips.
The silence of the void pressed against my eardrums until they hissed.
Everything was wrong.
I stood on the familiar ground where I judged souls, but the surface had changed.
It was no longer stagnant. The floor pulsed with a slow, sickening vibration.
It rose and fell in uneven waves, mimicking the breath of a dying titan buried beneath the stone.
Chromatic light rippled outward from my feet with every heartbeat, casting oily, rainbow reflections against the nothingness.
My hands shook. I forced a dagger into existence.
The blade flickered. It glowed with a frantic, blinding light that scorched my palm.
The hilt felt greasy, sliding against my skin as if the weapon itself was trying to reject my grip.
Get a hold of yourself....
I crouched.
I tried to focus on my breathing, but the air was hollow. No scent of pine. No smell of dust.
When I looked up, it was waiting...
The figure was tall and impossibly thin.
It was a silhouette carved from leaking black ink.
Its edges frayed and blurred, dripping thick, dark droplets onto the ground. Every splash hissed. Every drop spread like a spreading bruise, corrupting the chromatic light into a stagnant, lightless grey.
Was this the manifestation?
Probably...
I waited. The creature didn't flinch.
DRIP
DRIP
DRIP
The sound echoed in the hollow of my chest, vibrating through my teeth.
Something about this presence was fundamentally broken.
It wasn't just a threat...
It was something else...
I raised my hand. Fire gathered in my palm, roaring with a heat.
I hurled the flame.
The fire tore through the air and passed straight through the ink.
No impact.
Just absence..
The silhouette splashed outward into a thousand black needles, then slowly pulled itself back together.
It reformed with a sound like wet silk sliding over gravel.
My chest tightened. I couldn't beat a shadow.
The thing didn't attack. It didn't need to. It simply existed in front of me.
Then, the world blinked.
In a tenth of a second, it was there. I never saw the strike..
My ribs shattered inward with a sickening crunch.
The air vanished from my lungs.
My body folded like wet paper before my brain could register the pain.
I tried to raise my arm. My left hand hung at a sickening angle, the joint popped from its socket.
A second impact followed.
My vision exploded into a white, static haze. Sound died.
My balance evaporated. I hit the floor hard, the vibration of the ground rattling my broken bones.
By the time I blinked, it was holding me.
Its hand clamped around my throat. It wasn't skin.
It felt like a fist of frozen lead.
Cold.
Heavy.
My legs turned to water. I couldn't even claw at its wrist.
"Choose."
"Hell."
"Or."
"Heaven."
Each word felt like a weight being added to my soul.
They dragged behind them a trail of static and rot. My heart hammered against my cracked ribs, but my breathing slowed to a crawl.
"H—how c—could I—"
Heaven meant Forgiveness...
Hell meant Condemnation..
I saw nothing.
No memories.
I didn't understand him...
"I—it's n—not f—fair."
Tears blurred my eyes, hot and stinging. My throat burned as I tried to scream for an answer. The grip tightened, crushing my windpipe.
"JUDGE."
The command hit me like a physical blow.
"H—He—"
Suddenly, the pressure vanished.
I dropped to the floor, my knees hitting the pulsing ground with a dull thud.
Air rushed back into my lungs in jagged, broken gasps.
I choked, my lungs burning as they fought for air.
I looked up.
The silhouette had already turned away. It walked with a slow and rhythmic pattern
THUMP
THUMP
THUMP
THUMP
Each step sounded heavier than the last, like a hammer striking an anvil.
The figure didn't stop. It didn't look back. My body remained frozen, locked in the cold wake of its presence.
"I know what your answer was."
It stepped forward into the abyss and vanished...