Belial reached the training ground just as the early amber light filtered through the jagged skylights above. Dust floated in slow motion, catching the sun like gold flakes suspended in a timeless vial. The silence of the chamber was deep, almost reverent.
At the center, the statue knelt.
He approached with careful steps, as if afraid to wake something that should remain asleep. The knight figure was massive—twice his height, sculpted in a stance of honor with one knee to the stone floor and a hand on the hilt of a buried sword. Its crystalline armor shimmered faintly in the low light, and the intricate engravings caught his eye immediately. Every curve, every plate of armor, every exposed joint—crafted with such precision that it felt less like sculpture and more like a being caught mid-motion.
He circled it slowly, awe replacing caution.
Up close, the craftsmanship was even more astounding. He ran his fingers across the surface. Cold. Solid. But marred. Along the plated chest and shoulder were faint striations—too thin to see from afar, too perfect to be natural. Sword marks. But they were nearly invisible. He had to tilt his head and squint, then trace them with his fingertips. The angles were deliberate. Fluid. It wasn't random damage. These were strikes from an actual battle.
"This thing fought," he muttered under his breath.
And lost, by the looks of it.
Then he noticed the head.
Its hair was long—stone rendered like liquid quartz—and tied back in a warrior's tail. But embedded within the crystalline strands were three metallic like pins, half-hidden, spaced with strange symmetry.
Something about them felt... wrong. Or maybe too right.
Curiosity, as always, got the better of him.
He reached up and touched the middle pin.
There was a soft chime—like a bell echoing in reverse.
Then everything changed.
The doors disappeared first, vanishing in silence as though they'd never existed. The shadows shifted. The far wall pulled back like a curtain, and suddenly, the chamber was no longer a training room. It was vast—cathedral-like in scale. Pillars that hadn't been there before reached into infinity. The air grew thick with static.
And the statue moved.
A low creak rolled through the floor. The knight's arms flexed. Dust fell like snow from its plated shoulders. Then its head turned, slowly, deliberately, until two glowing blue eyes locked with Belial's.
He froze.
The statue—no, the General—rose to its full height, unfolding from its kneel like an ancient king reclaiming a long-forgotten throne. For a moment, it stood still, its chest expanding with a soft hiss, like an exhale that had waited a thousand years to escape.
Then it tilted its head.
Recognition?
Belial's heart pounded.
This wasn't how it worked in the game.
He'd been through this hall a dozen times. Every time before, the statue was broken. Crumbled. Shattered across the floor in scattered pieces. A ruin among ruins. You could scavenge fragments from it—a helm here, a finger there—but it had never stood.
Never moved.
Never looked at him.
What changed?
He took a slow step back. His boots scraped against the stone floor, the only sound now in the colossal room. The General didn't react. Just stared, like a beast sizing up something unfamiliar.
Was this some kind of alternate trigger? An event path he'd never activated?
Had his presence... fixed it?
Belial's hand went instinctively to the hilt at his side—not that it would help. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't bound by the same limits anymore. It was whole... Alive in some way.
The General took one step forward.
The ground trembled. Dust leapt into the air.
And Belial suddenly understood.
The game had started.
The statue's eyes gleamed a ghastly yellow, the glow pulsing like a heartbeat in the shadows. With a deep mechanical groan, it raised a stone hand and drew a massive greatsword, jagged like it had been chipped from a mountain and far too large for any living man to wield. The weapon shrieked as it dragged against the pedestal, and Belial instinctively took a step back, his own hand moving to the hilt of his longsword.
Steel hissed as it left its sheath.
The weight of the air thickened, silence trembling just before the clash. Belial's stance was rigid, his knees slightly bent, muscles drawn taut like a bowstring. He knew—knew—what was coming, and yet it didn't help.
In the very next instant, the statue vanished.
Not a sound. Not a shift in the dust.
Gone.
Belial's eyes flicked wildly around the chamber, heart hammering against his ribs. His breath caught.
A looming shadow bloomed above him.
He looked up just in time to see the sword—an immense, obsidian arc descending from the air like the guillotine's fall. With a strangled grunt, Belial dove sideways, slashing his own blade against the stone weapon as he rolled. Sparks spat from the clash of steel and stone, biting at his skin. His shoulder slammed against the floor as he skidded out of range.
The statue landed heavily behind him with a tremor that made the walls shudder. Stone dust flurried from the carvings high above, cascading like snow in the flickering torchlight.
Belial leapt to his feet, wincing. The general...this ancient monstrosity of war—turned slowly to face him, assuming a low, back stance. Strange. Defensive. Unorthodox for such a hulking creature, but somehow that made it more dangerous.
And then it charged.
Belial pivoted sharply and bolted toward the far wall, boots pounding against the marble floor. He leapt at the column beside him and used it to kick off, twisting midair as the sword cleaved through the space he had just vacated. The wind from the blade's swing roared in his ears.
The chase had begun.
He wasn't fighting anymore. Not yet. Not properly. He was surviving.
Vaulting over a broken statue, he dashed along the narrow ledge lining the wall, barely keeping ahead of the general's relentless pursuit. Sword in hand, he ran at a diagonal angle and kicked off another column, flipping backward to avoid a thrust that nearly impaled him. The tip of the blade scraped his ribs, tearing a gash through his tunic and leaving a hot trail of blood.
Belial hissed, landing roughly. He staggered but didn't fall.
He had no time to consider the pain. No time to think at all. The general pressed forward with unnatural speed, its great sword crashing down in rhythmic, tireless arcs—like a hammer forging death itself.
He ducked beneath one strike and sidestepped another, the edge grazing his cheek. Blood trickled down his jaw.
Too slow, he thought. Always too slow.
He dove through a broken archway, rolled, and sprang up again. Behind him, the statue didn't slow. It simply crashed through the arch, sending shards of stone flying in every direction. A chunk of debris slammed into Belial's shoulder, spinning him off balance.
He hit the wall hard, gasping, and rebounded into a sprint. He reached for the crumbling pillar ahead, kicked upward, and used it to vault himself higher—onto the second-tier balcony encircling the ancient war chamber. He landed with a grunt, turned, and looked down.
The statue paused below. It looked up at him, the yellow glow of its eyes narrowed like twin suns.
Then it leapt.
The platform exploded as the greatsword struck where Belial had been standing a half-second earlier. He'd already launched himself backward, landing in a clumsy roll across the balcony floor. He came to one knee, panting, sword trembling in his grip.
His lungs burned.
His arm ached.
He was bleeding from too many places.
The statue emerged from the rubble again, and this time, there was no retreat. No pillars. No corners. Only open stone floor and the edge of the balcony behind him.
It rushed.
Belial raised his sword—and failed. The blow came faster than he could react. The stone blade struck his side, slashing clean across his abdomen, opening flesh like paper. He screamed and stumbled back. The second strike came from below—an upward slash that tore from his belly, through his chest, over his collarbone, and up across his face.
His world exploded into white-hot agony.
The force of the blow lifted him off his feet. Time warped.
He felt his sword slip from his fingers.
He felt the warmth of blood spilling from his torso.
He felt the rush of cold as his body arced backward.
He had fractured something in his body...and it wasn't just one.
but he couldn't know what it was—he wasn't a anatomy expert...Oracle was.
He saw the ceiling—those ancient carved warriors locked in eternal battle—and then nothing but darkness.
He hit the floor .
And didn't rise.
The chamber was silent, save for the quiet drip of blood on stone.
Somewhere in the haze of fading consciousness, Belial's eyes fluttered open. He saw the statue looming over him, still. Unmoving now.
Maybe it was satisfied.
Maybe it thought he was dead.
Maybe he was.
He closed his eyes again. He couldn't move. Couldn't lift his hand. Couldn't feel it.
Each cut was a burning brand on his body—a cruel reminder of his failures, of every moment spent neglecting the sword in favor of games, or studies, or empty prophecy. The general had tested him. Judged him. And found him worthless.
But beneath that flood of shame, beneath the dark tide of pain and unconsciousness, there was a flicker.
A beat of defiance.