Dirga stepped through the massive doors, and the world changed.
The inside of the castle was exactly as the outside promised — steeped in a gothic and Victorian atmosphere.
Everything screamed decadence and decay. Shadows curled at the edges of crimson carpets.
Stone walls loomed high, chiseled with patterns like the bones of ancient beasts.
The air was thick — not dusty, but heavy, like it remembered blood.
"Definitely Dracula vibes," Dirga muttered to himself.
He moved cautiously, his boots echoing softly over marble. The grandeur hit him immediately.
A vast, luxurious great hall welcomed him — more lavish than anything he’d seen since Domiscus Vantasio’s warped banquet. But this was worse. This was colder. Dead.
A monstrous chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling, dripping with crimson crystals that pulsed faintly, like they bled light.
Twin staircases curled upward at the back like serpent tongues. Four hallways split off — two to the left and right, two in the rear.
His voice cracked the silence.
Only his own echo answered, bouncing off the stone walls like mocking laughter. The vastness of the hall swallowed his cries.
"Seriously, where the hell are they?" he muttered, already tense.
He closed his eyes, focused, and activated his gravity sense.
Somewhere deep inside the castle.
Not much — barely a ripple — but enough.
Careful steps. Watchful eyes. The castle creaked and groaned, but otherwise remained eerily silent.
Empty. Velvet curtains, dust-covered furniture. No signs of life. No clothes.
Peasant clothing, faded and Victorian in style, but clean and whole — folded neatly across a vanity. A black vest, long-sleeved shirt, and trousers.
Simple. Worn. But still far better than the ruined hoodie and half-burned sweatpants clinging to his frame like torn rags.
He quickly slipped into the new outfit, flexing his limbs to test the fit. Loose, but manageable.
"Still look like a corpse on holiday," Dirga muttered, catching his reflection in a cracked, dusty mirror.
His hoodie and sweatpants were now gone, replaced by a faded Victorian-style vest and slacks. At least he wasn’t half-naked anymore.
With a sigh, he stepped back into the hallway.
The castle twisted around him like a coiled serpent.
It was a maze — stone corridors winding into each other, stairs that led both up and down with no indication of direction.
Cold drafts whispered through the halls like unseen hands brushing against his skin.
High-pitched. Distant. Familiar.
Dirga’s body moved before his mind caught up.
The three girls had entered the castle in a panic, rushing blindly through the endless halls.
They had no idea that every goblin pursuing them had already been cut down by Dirga’s hands.
"Stop!" Saelari shouted, skidding to a halt. The rune magic around her flickered out, and they gently touched down from their hovering escape.
"What?" Kaela and Theryn echoed in unison.
"There’s no one following us," Saelari said, her breathing steadying. Her smooth, luminescent blue skin shimmered faintly in the low light, casting a ghostly hue on the cold stone floor.
Theryn glanced over her shoulder, her ash-gray skin nearly blending with the castle walls. "She’s right. I hear nothing. No movement."
Kaela’s golden eyes pulsed softly, the glow flickering as she scanned the corridor. "We... panicked," she said quietly. "But how do we get back?"
"Let’s try retracing our steps," Theryn suggested, already turning.
The trio began walking.
But the trail they’d come from... was gone.
No footprints. No magical residue. No sign they had ever been there at all.
"It’s like someone erased the path behind us," Saelari whispered.
Kaela narrowed her glowing eyes, focusing harder.
The God Eyes — a mark of royalty from a forgotten human kingdom. She still didn’t know how to fully use them, but they revealed what others couldn’t. Even now, she saw it faintly — the air shimmering with threads of power.
Multiversal energy. The raw essence that all races reshaped into their own systems — mana, soul power, runes, gravity, even karma points. But Kaela, with the God Eyes, could see it directly.
"This castle is... saturated in Zarion," she murmured. "I think we might be in—"
Something burst through the darkness.
"KYAAAA!" Kaela screamed as a bat-like creature the size of a grown man dove at them, jaws open and glistening with black ichor.
Saelari was already moving — runes igniting along her arms, glowing with radiant blue light.
"Light—Pierce!" she shouted, flinging a bolt of energy through the air. It struck the creature mid-flight. The thing shrieked as its body sizzled and exploded into embers.
From the ceiling, the walls — dozens of them.
Theryn stepped forward, but her powers were useless here. No plants. Just dead stone.
Kaela froze, shielding her head as the swarm closed in.
A crimson blade sliced clean through three creatures at once — the corpses dropping like shredded paper.
A voice echoed from the shadows behind them.
The girls turned — eyes wide.
Dirga stepped into the dim light, Crimson Core in hand. As the blade shimmered, it morphed back into a floating crimson cube and hovered near his shoulder.
His black vest fluttered with each step, boots tapping lightly on the stone floor.
Though his new clothes were plain, his expression — that feral grin — spoke volumes.
A hunter. A storm with legs.
"Dirgaaa!" the girls shouted in unison, startled and relieved.
"The goblins?" Saelari asked, breath catching.
"The oni?" Kaela’s voice trembled.
"Dead," Dirga said simply, cracking his neck. "All of them. Done."
Crimson Core pulsed once, floating in lazy orbits beside him.
Theryn’s gaze sharpened. "An interesting weapon," she murmured, stepping closer, golden slit pupils locked on the cube.
Crimson Core twitched — then promptly floated behind Dirga, hiding like a child behind their parent.
Dirga raised an eyebrow. "You’re getting more personality every day, huh?"
The cube vibrated faintly in response — almost like a pout.
He shook his head, then turned to the girls. "Alright. One of you know what this place is?"
Then Kaela stepped forward, hesitantly raising her hand.
"Yeah... I might know."