The Cathedral hit the water like a meteor.
The impact wasn't just physical. It was dimensional. Reality folding in on itself. The sound was beyond sound—a frequency that made my bones vibrate, my teeth ache, my skull feel like it was splitting open.
Then: nothing.
Silence so complete it hurt worse than the noise.
I opened my eyes—or tried to. My vision was blurred. Red. Everything tinted red through the Mask of Hunger.
You're alive, the mask whispered. Barely. But alive. Now GET UP. We need to FEED.
"Shut... up..." I groaned, rolling onto my side.
Pain. Everywhere. My left arm bent at a wrong angle. Ribs cracked—maybe broken. Blood in my mouth, metallic and thick.
But I was breathing.
I forced myself to my hands and knees. Vomited grey water onto grey sand.
Grey.
Everything was grey.
I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision. The red tint from the mask faded slightly, and I could finally see where we were.
A beach.
But calling it a "beach" was too normal. Too clean.
This was a shoreline of ash and bone.
The sand beneath my hands wasn't sand. It was ash. Fine, powdery, sticking to my wet clothes and skin. Grey ash that smelled like cremation and salt and something else I couldn't identify. Something organic and rotting.
The water that had soaked me wasn't water. Not really.
It was grey. Perfectly, unnaturally grey. Like liquid concrete or melted stone. It lapped at the shore with thick, viscous waves that moved too slowly. Each wave left behind a residue—a film of something oily and faintly luminescent.
When I touched it, my fingers came away cold. Not just temperature-cold. Empty cold. Like the liquid had no heat in it at all. Had never known warmth.
Don't drink it, the mask warned. That's not water. That's absence. Drink it and you'll fade.
I scrambled back from the shore.
The sky overhead was wrong.
Not blue. Not black. Not any color that should exist.
It was grey, like everything else, but with streaks of other colors bleeding through. Purples that hurt to look at. Yellows that made my eyes water. Reds that pulsed like veins in meat.
There was no sun. Just a dim, sourceless light that came from everywhere and nowhere. Perpetual twilight. Like the world was stuck in that moment between day and night when reality feels thin.
And the smell.
Oh god, the smell.
Salt and copper and decay. Like a beach where a whale had died and been left to rot for months. Mixed with something chemical—formaldehyde maybe, or embalming fluid. And underneath it all: something sweet. Sickeningly sweet. Like flowers left too long in a vase until they turned to brown sludge.
This is the Flesh Cradle, the mask said. A Tier 4 Mirror World. Where flesh and stone and water blur together. Where boundaries dissolve. Where the Mother feeds.
I turned around, still on my hands and knees, and saw it.
The Cathedral.
Or what was left of it.
It had broken apart on impact. The main structure—that beautiful red-carpeted hall with its golden decorations and theatrical elegance—was now a twisted wreck half-submerged in the grey water.
The walls had cracked open like an eggshell. Red carpet spilled out like entrails. Broken furniture floated in the water—chairs, tables, pieces of portraits with painted eyes still staring.
But the worst part was the flesh.
Black-red organic matter clung to the broken stone like parasitic vines. It pulsed. Breathed. Grew before my eyes, spreading across the Cathedral's corpse like infection through a wound.
The ichor. The corruption. The Mother's influence.
It was consuming what remained of our safe zone. Digesting it. Making it part of this world.
Survivors were scattered everywhere.
Some were pulling themselves from the water, coughing, bleeding. Others lay motionless on the ash-beach. Dead? Unconscious? I couldn't tell from this distance.
I saw maybe thirty people moving. Maybe forty. Hard to count through the haze and my blurred vision.
Where had everyone else gone?
Into the water, the mask answered my thought. Into the Mother's embrace. Lost.
I stumbled to my feet, using a piece of driftwood—or was it bone? Hard to tell—to steady myself.
That's when I saw my reflection in a tide pool.
And froze.
My face. My face.
The Mask of Hunger covered the upper half—bone-white, with those empty eye holes. But that wasn't what made me stare.
My eyes.
They weren't brown anymore.
They were black. Completely black. Like someone had filled them with ink. No whites. No iris. Just endless darkness staring back at me.
And my hair—
It had been black. Dark brown-black, thick, short.
Now there were streaks of white. Not grey. Pure white. Like shock-white, like someone had bleached sections of it. They ran through my hair in irregular patterns, making me look... wrong. Older and younger at the same time.
The mask is changing you, the voice confirmed. Consuming your essence. Remaking you. Soon you'll have white hair. All white. And your eyes will never return to normal.
"What..." My voice came out hoarse. Damaged. "What's happening to me?"
Evolution. Adaptation. Hunger.
You wanted power. This is the price.
I touched my face. The mask was warm. Alive. I could feel it breathing against my skin. Feel it feeding on something inside me.
My hands were shaking.
No. Not shaking.
Trembling with need. With hunger. With the desperate craving to consume something. Anything.
The mask showed me essence signatures all around me. Survivors glowing with their internal power. The Cathedral ruins pulsing with residual essence. The water thick with strange, alien energy.
And beneath it all—far beneath, in the depths—something MASSIVE. A concentration of essence so vast it made my head spin.
The Mother, the mask whispered hungrily. Imagine what we could become if we consumed her.
"I'm going crazy," I muttered. "I'm actually going insane."
Not crazy. Just hungry. There's a difference.
I felt anger spike through me. Rage at the situation. At being trapped. At losing the Cathedral. At this fucking mask eating my soul.
And the mask responded.
The bone-white surface rippled. Changed.
I watched in the tide pool's reflection as the smooth, neutral mask transformed. The eye holes elongated, becoming sharp and predatory. The edges curved upward into points—like horns, like a devil's mask. The bone darkened to grey, then black around the edges.
My anger was reshaping it.
Yes, the mask purred. Show me your rage. Your hunger. Your NEED. The more you feel, the more I become.
I forced myself to calm down. Breathe. Center.
The mask slowly reverted. The horns receded. The darkness faded.
But it had changed. I'd seen it. Felt it.
This artifact wasn't just a tool. It was a parasite. A symbiote. Something that fed on my emotions and grew stronger from them.
"Sidd!"
I spun around.
Lucy was stumbling toward me across the ash-beach. Her clothes were torn. Blood ran down her face from a cut above her eye. But she was alive. Moving.
Her Lightning Wand was in her hand, crackling with nervous energy.
"You're alive," she gasped when she reached me. "I thought—when the Cathedral hit—I couldn't find—"
She stopped.
Stared at my face.
"Your eyes," she whispered. "Sidd, your eyes are—"
"Black. I know." I touched the mask. "The artifact is... changing me."
"And your hair..." She reached out hesitantly, touching one of the white streaks. "It wasn't like this before. Was it?"
"No. It's getting worse." I looked past her. "Have you seen Gery? Somi?"
"Gery's helping survivors near the Cathedral wreck. Somi's..." Lucy pointed. "There. Organizing people."
I followed her gesture.
Somi stood on a piece of broken Cathedral wall, elevated above the beach. Her red coat was gone—destroyed when she'd accepted the new artifact—but her silver-white hair caught that strange twilight glow.
The Magic Seeker half-mask covered her lower face. Silver metal with glowing blue runes. It made her look clinical. Cold. Inhuman.
She was speaking. I couldn't hear the words yet, but I could see survivors gathering around her. Some were helping injured friends. Others were just standing, shocked, staring at nothing.
Gery was nearby, using his new Azure Fang katana to cut away flesh-corruption from trapped survivors. The blade moved faster than his old sword ever could—quick, precise cuts that freed people without hurting them.
But I could see the strain on his face. He was limping. His left leg looked bad.
How many had survived the crash?
I started counting as Lucy and I walked toward the gathering.
Thirty-seven.
Thirty-seven people moving, conscious, alive.
Out of how many? Fifty? Sixty?
So many dead, the mask observed. So much essence wasted. We should have consumed them.
"Shut UP," I hissed.
Lucy looked at me, concerned. "Sidd?"
"The mask. It won't stop talking."
"Is that... normal?"
"I don't know. Nothing about this is normal."
We reached the group just as Somi began speaking loud enough for everyone to hear.
"—need to assess our situation systematically," she was saying. Her voice was different. Flatter. More mechanical. The Magic Seeker mask was affecting her already. "We have thirty-seven survivors. Multiple injuries. No supplies. No safe zone."
"WHERE ARE WE?!" someone shouted. A man I didn't recognize. Mid-thirties, bleeding from a head wound. "WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CATHEDRAL?!"
"We were transported," Somi replied calmly. Too calmly. "The Cathedral was corrupted and pulled into a Tier 4 Mirror World. We're now in what appears to be—"
"The Flesh Cradle," I interrupted, climbing up beside her.
Everyone looked at me.
And I saw it. The fear. The disgust.
They were staring at my eyes. My mask. The white streaks in my hair.
They're afraid of you, the mask purred. Good. Fear is useful.
"How do you know that name?" It was Kael. The older survivor, level 15, grey hair. He looked exhausted but alive. "How do you—"
"My artifact," I tapped the mask. "It shows me things. And this place..." I gestured at the grey shore, the wrong sky, the flesh-covered ruins in the distance. "This is the Flesh Cradle. A Tier 4 Mirror World. We're in the domain of something called the Mother of Limbs."
Silence.
Then someone laughed. Hysterical. Broken.
"Tier 4?" A woman's voice. I recognized her—Rina, one of the healers. "We can barely handle Tier 7 enemies! How are we supposed to survive Tier 4?!"
"We probably won't," another survivor muttered.
"QUIET!" Gery's voice cut through the rising panic. He'd joined us, leaning on his katana like a cane. "Panicking won't help. We need to figure out—"
"Figure out WHAT?!" The same man from before, getting hysterical. "We're TRAPPED in a Tier 4 death zone! The Cathedral is gone! We're all going to DIE here!"
He wasn't wrong.
I could feel it. The wrongness of this place. The hunger beneath the water. The way reality felt thin and unstable, like we were guests in someone else's nightmare.
My mask showed me the truth.
Thirty-seven survivors. Most injured. All terrified. All weak.
Against a Tier 4 boss.
The math didn't work.
That's when I felt it.
Something... different.
My mask showed me essence signatures—that was normal. But here, in this place, the essence looked wrong.
Back in Sanctus Mortis, essence was clear. Distinct. Red for Tier 7, white for Tier 6, yellow for Tier 5, blue for Tier 4.
Here?
Here the essence was corrupted. Grey and red mixed together. Thick. Viscous. Like the water.
And the survivors—I could see their essence flickering. Weakening.
"Something's draining us," I said suddenly.
Somi turned to me. Her tactical vision mask glowing. "What do you mean?"
"Look." I pointed at a survivor nearby. "Their essence. It's leaking. Slowly. Into the environment."
Somi focused. Her mask provided analysis.
"He's right," she said, voice clinical. "This world is siphoning our power. Slowly consuming our essence reserves. At this rate, within 48 hours, we'll be too weak to fight."
"So we die anyway," someone said. "Even if the monsters don't kill us."
"No," Somi continued, still analyzing. "There's something else. The environment itself contains essence. Different from ours. Alien. But present."
She pointed at the ruins in the distance. The massive structures covered in flesh.
"This world has its own power system. And if we want to survive, we need to understand it."
She's right, the mask confirmed. This place follows different rules. Your artifacts will work—they're bonded to your souls. But everything else? Different. You'll need to adapt. Learn. Consume.
"Consume what?" I asked out loud.
Everyone looked at me again.
"Your mask," Kael said slowly. "It's telling you things."
"Constantly," I admitted. "It won't shut up."
"What's it saying?"
I hesitated. Should I tell them? That this world operated on different rules? That we'd need to learn a whole new system just to survive?
But before I could answer, something changed.
The grey water rippled.
Not waves. Something under the water. Moving. Rising.
"Everyone back from the shore!" Gery commanded. "NOW!"
We scrambled away from the tide line.
The water churned. Bubbled. Something massive was approaching the surface.
And then I saw them.
Arms.
Pale white arms, dozens of them, breaking through the grey water like reaching plants. They swayed in the air, searching, grasping at nothing.
Behind the arms, partially submerged, I saw a face.
Beautiful. Terrible. A woman's face, serene and smiling, eyes closed like she was sleeping.
The Mother, my mask whispered hungrily. She's here. She's watching. She knows you're in her domain.
The arms withdrew slowly. The face sank back beneath the water.
But the message was clear.
We were in her territory now.
And she was aware of us.
From somewhere beneath the water—or maybe from everywhere at once—the singing started again.
That lullaby. Soft. Sweet. Wrong.
Sleep, my children. Sleep and dream.
No more pain. No more screaming.
In my arms you're safe forever.
In my womb the world can't reach you.
Several survivors dropped to their knees. The song was affecting them. Making them drowsy. Compliant.
"Don't listen!" Somi shouted. But her voice was flat. The mask had made her emotionless. The warning had no urgency. No fear.
I covered my ears, but it didn't help. The lullaby came from inside my head.
My mask reacted.
The hunger intensified. The need to consume. To feed. To devour the source of that song.
The mask began changing again. My anger and fear and hunger all mixing together. The bone-white surface darkened. Horns sprouted from the edges. The eye holes became sharp, predatory.
I looked at my reflection in the tide pool again.
A devil stared back.
White streaks through black hair. Eyes like holes into nothing. A mask that looked demonic. Hungry. Wrong.
This is what you're becoming, the mask purred. This is what we are together. Beautiful, isn't it?
"No," I whispered. "This is wrong. This is—"
"SIDD!" Lucy grabbed my arm. "Your mask—it's changing—are you okay?!"
I forced myself to calm down. Breathe. Center.
The mask reluctantly reverted to its neutral form. The horns receded.
But the damage was done.
Everyone had seen. Everyone knew.
My artifact was corrupting me. Changing me. Making me into something else.
"We need shelter," Kael said, breaking the silence. "Before nightfall. If night even exists here."
"It does," Somi confirmed, her mask analyzing the environment. "The light will fade in approximately four hours. And based on essence signatures, this place becomes significantly more dangerous after dark."
"The ruins," Gery pointed at the distant structures. "We head there. Find shelter. Figure out our next move."
"Those ruins are covered in flesh," someone protested.
"And this beach is exposed," Gery countered. "We're sitting targets here. At least the ruins offer cover."
"He's right," Kael agreed. "We move. Now. Before the Mother decides to fully emerge."
Slowly, painfully, the survivors began organizing themselves. Helping injured friends. Gathering what little supplies had survived the crash.
I looked at the ruins in the distance.
Massive stone structures jutting from the grey water like the bones of dead gods. Connected by bridges—some stone, some flesh. Covered in that black-red organic corruption.
My mask showed me essence signatures there. Strong. Alien. Dangerous.
But also... something else.
Opportunity, the mask whispered. Power. This world has its own system. Learn it. Master it. Consume it.
"Consume what, exactly?" I asked.
Everything.
We moved in a loose formation. The stronger survivors at the edges, protecting the injured in the middle.
Gery took point, his Azure Fang katana ready. Kael covered the rear. Somi coordinated from the center, her tactical mask analyzing threats.
Lucy stayed close to me. I could feel her watching. Worried.
"Sidd," she said quietly as we walked. "Your mask. Is it... hurting you?"
"Yes," I answered honestly. "It's hungry. Always hungry. It wants to consume essence. Constantly."
"Can you control it?"
"For now." I touched the bone-white surface. "But it's getting harder. The more I use it, the more it changes me. My hair. My eyes. My thoughts."
"Maybe you should take it off."
"I can't."
She looked at me sharply. "What?"
"I literally can't. It's bonded to me. Part of me now. Removing it would be like... like ripping off my own face."
More than that, the mask added. Remove me and you die. We're one now. Symbiotic. I need you to host me. You need me to survive.
Lucy swallowed hard. "This is bad, Sidd. Really bad."
"I know."
We walked in silence for a while. The ash crunched under our feet. The grey water lapped at the shore with those too-slow waves.
Behind us, the Cathedral's wreckage grew smaller. Our old safe zone. Destroyed. Consumed.
Ahead, the flesh-covered ruins grew larger.
And beneath the water, I could feel the Mother watching. Waiting.
She's patient, my mask observed. She has time. You don't. This world will drain you slowly. You need to learn its rules. Adapt. Or you'll all fade into nothing.
"What rules?" I whispered.
You'll see. Soon. When you reach the ruins. When you find the first Anchor Point.
"Anchor Point?"
This world's version of essence. Its power system. Different from Sanctus Mortis. Different from the Mirror Worlds you know. Here, power comes from Anchors. From binding yourself to this place. Becoming part of the Flesh Cradle.
"That sounds like a trap."
Everything here is a trap. But it's also the only way to survive.
I looked ahead at the ruins.
At the flesh-covered stone.
At the bridges made of bone and organic matter.
And I realized—we weren't just trapped in a Tier 4 Mirror World.
We were trapped in a completely different reality. With different rules. Different power. Different everything.
Our artifacts would work. But everything else?
We'd have to learn from scratch.
While being hunted by a Tier 4 boss.
While our essence slowly drained away.
While the world itself tried to consume us.
My mask began changing again. Responding to my growing despair.
The horns started emerging.
The devil was surfacing.
And deep inside, I felt myself laughing.
Not humor. Just madness.