For a few breaths, nothing happened. The silence stretched. Then, without any warning, the other two paths simply vanished.
"What the hell?" Primus muttered, eyes wide.
It was as if those paths had never existed. No destruction, no essence ripples, no distortion, just gone. The illusion of choice shattered before our eyes, leaving only the path we stood on. We were further surprised when the three doors at the end began to blur and melt together.
Within moments, only one remained, the center door, glowing faintly red mixed with blue.
Before any of us could process what was happening, the ground beneath our feet began to shake violently. A deafening rumble echoed through the abyss, and a crimson barrier erupted around us, cutting off everything outside.
The screams of the chained monsters below stopped abruptly, replaced by an eerie, suffocating silence.
"Do you—" Steve started to speak, but his voice was cut short.
A chain shot out from the abyss, moving faster than even I could comprehend, and latched onto his back.
"STEVE!" I shouted, reaching for him.
Before I could grab the chain, two more tore out of the abyss. One latched onto Primus, the other to North.
"Damnit!" I hissed, grabbing Steve’s chain, trying to channel essence into my grip.
My mind raced back to what I’d done before, to how I had broken Dante’s link. I started gathering power to do the same when Primus suddenly roared.
Flames burst across his body like an inferno. His eyes blazed crimson, and before I could stop him, he turned toward North, who stood frozen, her expression blank and threw a burning punch straight at her head.
"Primus, stop!" I shouted, but it was too late.
Rage surged through me. I extended my hand instinctively, tapping into the Law of Polarity. The force inverted instantly, and Primus was hurled backward, slamming into the crimson shield. The impact echoed like thunder, but the barrier didn’t even ripple.
He slid down the shield, smoke rising from his skin. When his head tilted toward me, my heart sank. His eyes were now glowing red, veins pulsing with dark energy. Corruption.
I clenched my fists as I noticed both Steve and North trembling the same way as Primus. Their bodies stiffened, veins darkening with that same red glow spreading under their skin.
Then it started, soft at first, almost like a nervous chuckle.
"Hi... hi... hi..." Steve’s voice broke into a strange laugh that didn’t sound like him at all.
It grew louder, sharper.
"Ahahaha—hahaha!"
A moment later, North joined in. Her laughter rose in perfect rhythm with his, cold and hollow, echoing against the crimson barrier.
Even Primus, who had just pushed himself up from the ground, tilted his head back and laughed with them, three distorted voices blending into one unnerving sound.
Their laughter synced. It wasn’t joy. It was madness.
I took a slow step back, my grip loosening on Steve’s chain. His head twisted toward me mid-laughter, the sound warped and stretched. His eyes glowed a deep crimson, and his grin was too wide.
"Hello there, Executor."
All three of them spoke at once, their voices perfectly in sync. Their crimson eyes gleamed with the same twisted light, and that eerie smile stayed fixed on each of their faces.
"So you’ve finally shown yourself," I muttered, raising my hand. Frost burst out from my palm, crawling up their legs and freezing them in place.
I didn’t want them to attack each other or me before I knew what I was dealing with.
Then I stomped the ground lightly, channeling Essence through my feet and into the chains that held them. My energy surged forward, trying to block the corruption spreading through their bodies.
"I was always there," they said, ignoring everything I did.
My eyes narrowed as I felt a sudden tremor deep in my chest, the null core inside my heart quivered violently.
"See? I’m always there with you," they chuckled again, that same synchronized voice echoing around me.
Steve tilted his head slightly, still grinning. "What’s this? You don’t trust me now?"
Then North spoke next, her tone mockingly sweet. "I gave you your class, remember? Even the power to summon the beast... that was me. And now that you’re stronger, you turn your back on me?"
My heart pounded in my ears. The words hit harder than I wanted to admit. Could it be true? Had this thing interfered with the mutation of my talent? I had always believed the null core came from the System, that everything I had was Systems doing.
"System?" Primus said suddenly, rubbing his chin, eyes glowing brighter. "No, no, no... you’re giving credit to the wrong one, dear. That machine can barely guide you through what’s coming. It was all me. Just me. Always me."
Primus’s laughter rose again, wild, cracked, and echoing off the crimson shield, while the other two just stared at me, smiling too wide..
"Who are you?" I finally asked.
Steve tilted his head slightly, his grin stretching further. "Don’t play dumb now. You know who I am... right?"
North’s lips twitched as she echoed, "Right?"
Primus stopped laughing all at once. His head turned slowly, his expression turning sharp, eyes burning crimson. "Riiiiiight?"
If I still had the emotion of fear left in me, that sight alone would have made my skin crawl. The way they spoke, the way their movements matched, it wasn’t them. They were puppets. Something was speaking through them.
"You’re the one I saw in the visions," I said finally, keeping my voice steady. "The chained one... the fallen, or whatever you are."
All three began clapping in perfect unison, the sound echoing unnaturally around us.
"Exactly! Perfect answer! Spot on!" they said together, their voices overlapping into a warped harmony. "You’re smart, aren’t you?"
I almost rolled my eyes, but my heart was pounding.
North tilted her head, her voice playful but hollow. "Oh, why so tense? Don’t you have questions for me? Come on, come on, ask anything you want."
I took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and decided to play along.
"Fine," I said. "Who are you? What’s your connection to my class? What exactly is the null core? Why did you create this realm? Did you mess with the mirror too? And finally... what is your real identity?"
The words came faster near the end, my tone sharper, my patience slipping. By the time I finished, my jaw was tight and my fists were clenched.