The purple light along the walls pulsed faster.
Not like torches reacting to movement. The pulse was irregular. It was alive. Like a heart suddenly forced to beat harder after a long sleep.
Clive felt it at his temples.
The pressure came from every direction, pressing against his awareness, forcing his mind to spread outward. This corridor was not merely an enclosed space. It was a system. A network of consciousness stretching from end to end, observing every emotional pulse, every vibration of intent.
The stone faces on the walls did not move.
They did not blink.
They did not breathe.
Yet Clive knew they were alive.
There was awareness behind those hollow eyes. Not a single entity. Not a single will. But many. Connected like neural nodes, silently exchanging information. This corridor did not see with eyes. It sensed with existence.
And now, the entire network was focused on a single point.
Glenn.
Glenn kept walking.
His sword was already drawn. The blade vibrated faintly, not because Glenn's hand was shaking, but because the air around it had thickened. Each step he took made the purple light flicker, as if responding to his presence with barely restrained excitement.
Clive took half a step forward. His body tensed.
"Glenn, stop."
He said it again.
His tone changed.
Not a command.
A plea.
Glenn stopped.
He stood in the middle of the corridor, several steps ahead of Clive. His shoulders rose and fell slowly. When he turned around, his face was no longer empty.
There was focus there.
Too much focus.
Like someone who had finally found something that had been calling to them from a nightmare that never truly went away.
"I can hear her clearly now," Glenn said softly.
His voice was steady. Too steady for someone who should have been afraid.
"Hear what?" Clive asked, even though the deepest part of him already knew the answer.
Glenn stared straight ahead, not at Clive.
"Her."
The air changed.
Not with an explosion or violent tremor. The change was subtle, like dew suddenly settling over awareness. The voice appeared before Clive could fully reinforce his mental fortress.
Not a scream.
Not a command.
The voice spread. It seeped into the air, into the stone, into bone.
A woman's voice.
Soft.
Warm.
Almost soothing.
"At last," it said. "You've come."
Clive felt intense pressure behind his eyes. The two monster wills within him reacted simultaneously.
The small monster curled in on itself, trembling in fear, shrinking into the corner of his mental prison like a child reliving old trauma.
The black furred monster, on the other hand, moved forward. Its instincts quivered, not from threat, but from recognition. Like an animal catching the scent of something older, stronger, more dominant.
Clive slammed both of them down with his will.
Silence.
A small laugh echoed.
Not loud.
Not mocking.
The purple light at the end of the corridor thickened.
Not brighter, but denser. Like glowing mist compressed into a single form. Slowly, the silhouette became clear.
A young woman stepped forward.
Tall.
Slender.
Each step made the floor tremble faintly, as if the corridor was adjusting itself to her presence.
Her skin was pale, almost translucent, like porcelain cracked from within. Her hair was long, falling straight past her shoulders, black with a faint purple sheen that shifted in rhythm with the pulsing light on the walls.
Her eyes were light blue.
Not empty blue.
Living blue. Too alive.
Embedded in her chest was a core.
Not green.
Not blue.
Deep purple, almost black at its center, pulsing like a second heart.
"Mola," Glenn whispered.
The name left his mouth like a prayer.
Or a curse.
Mola smiled.
The smile was identical to the ones carved into the stone faces on the walls. Calm. Gentle. Lacking clear emotion, yet filled with dangerous meaning.
"It has been a long time since someone came and spoke my name in this dwelling of mine," she said softly. "The last time was about four months ago."
She looked at Glenn with clear interest.
"I'm glad you still remember me."
Clive stepped forward, positioning himself between Glenn and her.
"Stay away from him," he said coldly.
Mola turned to him.
Her smile widened slightly.
Clive raised his hand.
Too late.
The walls moved.
The stone faces that had formed a semicircle behind Clive and Glenn suddenly merged. The stone melted and shifted like thick liquid, sealing the path between them and the rest of the team.
"Clive!" Dilos shouted.
Clive turned.
The wall had become a single solid barrier. No gaps. No cracks. The faces had fused into a smooth surface, though faint traces of smiling expressions remained, like scars deliberately left behind.
Zorilla slammed it with his fist.
A heavy impact echoed.
The wall cracked.
Then closed again.
Like a wound healing too quickly.
"No good," Zorilla muttered. His breathing was heavy.
Ted threw a knife.
The blade lodged for a moment, then was pushed out by the moving stone, falling to the floor with a clink that felt far too small in the now silent corridor.
"This isn't a wall," Dilos said, his voice tight. "It's an organism."
Mola slowly raised her hand. The movement was graceful, like a calming gesture.
"Don't damage my corridor," she said. "It's sensitive."
With a light flick of her finger, the wall behind Clive and Glenn sealed completely.
The stones fused with a low sound, like a long exhale.
Silence.
Zorilla, Dilos, Ted, and Dorde were cut off.
Clive stood rigid.
He could no longer feel his team's presence behind him.
This corridor severed that connection.
Mola stepped closer.
"Don't be afraid," she said to Glenn. "I have no intention of killing you. Not like you think."
Glenn let out a small laugh.
It was dry. Broken.
"You killed them," he said. "Dean. Reis."
Mola tilted her head.
"Who are they?" she asked gently. "I don't recall ever killing anyone named Dean or Reis."
Clive turned to Glenn. "Don't take the bait."
Mola stopped a few steps away from them.
The light around her pulsed in harmony with the core in her chest.
"You carry so much guilt, Glenn," she said. "It's heavy. I could feel it even before you stepped into this corridor."
Mental pressure increased.
Not a frontal assault.
More like a hand slowly pressing on an old wound.
"She's manipulating you," Clive said, his voice firm even as his head began to throb.
Mola turned to him.
"And you," she said softly. "You think you're different just because you managed to imprison two wills. But you're wrong. You're only postponing it."
Clive growled and raised his sword.
"Enough. You will not touch his mind."
Mola smiled.
"You're already too late."
She raised her hand.
And the corridor changed.
Purple light flowed out of the walls.
Not as a wild burst, but as a controlled stream, forming images too clear to be called illusions. The corridor stones reflected memories, projecting them into the air like mirrors of recollection forced open.
Glenn staggered.
He saw himself running.
The same corridor. The smell of blood. Screams that had never truly left his sleep.
Reis struggled as the wolf monster dragged his body into the center of the monster circle, claws scraping against the stone floor, eyes wide and pleading.
Dean fell. His body slammed hard. He coughed blood as the serpent monster released its coils, ribs crushed with a sound that still haunted Glenn to this day.
"You ran," Mola whispered. "You lived."
Glenn screamed and collapsed to his knees.
Clive tried to move toward him.
The floor beneath his feet turned slick, resisting every step.
"Glenn!" he shouted.
Mola knelt in front of Glenn, level with him.
"I can stop it," she said gently. "I can make the voices go silent."
Glenn looked at her.
Tears mixed with blood streamed down his face.
"How?" he whispered.
"No!" Clive shouted.
Mola's smile widened.
"Give yourself to me."
The energy within Glenn fluctuated wildly.
This was not core absorption.
It was subtler.
More dangerous.
Symbiosis.
Or a gradual takeover.
Clive did something he had never tried before.
Not because he was confident.
But because he had no choices left.
He opened his mental prison.
Just a little.
The crack was invisible from the outside. No light. No explosion. But within his consciousness, the boundaries he had painstakingly built shifted. The narrow space where the two monster wills were confined expanded for a fraction of a second.
Enough.
The pressure of his will poured outward.
Not as wild rage. Not as a desperate scream. But as a cold, absolute decision. Like a massive hammer lowered slowly, yet carrying unstoppable weight.
The corridor reacted.
The air trembled. The stones in the walls creaked, not from physical fractures, but because something behind them had been shaken. The stone faces that had once been calm began to quiver faintly, their smiling expressions warping, becoming unsynchronized, like a neural network suddenly receiving a foreign signal.
Clive felt the rebound of his will echo back to him.
This corridor felt pain.
Mola turned sharply.
For the first time since she appeared, her smile paused. Her light blue eyes narrowed, not in anger, but in interest.
"Oh," she said softly, her tone changing. "So you can hurt my corridor too."
She straightened. The purple light in her chest pulsed faster, no longer perfectly aligned with the walls. A small disharmony had appeared.
Clive seized the opening.
He stepped forward, each step feeling like walking against a current trying to drag his soul backward. The two monster wills inside him raged, not to attack, but from direct exposure to Mola's presence.
The small monster curled inward, begging without words.
The black furred monster pushed forward, wanting out, wanting to challenge.
Clive crushed them both mercilessly.
"Let him go," Clive said. His voice was low, trembling not from fear, but from the strain of will he was forcing out of his own body. "Or I will destroy whatever connects you to this place."
Mola stared at him for a long moment.
Then she laughed softly.
Not a loud laugh. Not a mocking one. It was gentle, almost understanding, like an adult watching a child try to threaten something they did not fully comprehend.
"You think this is about connecting or releasing," she said. "When you've been inside its network since the moment you stepped in here."
She raised one hand.
The corridor pulsed.
Clive felt something moving behind the walls. Not merely stone. Not merely an organism. But streams of energy being squeezed, siphoned, redirected.
His team's energy.
Zorilla.
Dilos.
Ted.
Dorde.
Their presence weakened. Not gone, but thinning, like a fire starved of oxygen.
Clive froze.
This corridor was not only separating them.
It was consuming them.
Mola turned to Glenn.
"That's why," she said gently, "I'll let you choose. As I always do."
She stepped closer to Glenn, not touching him, yet close enough for the air between them to vibrate.
"Become my servant," she said. "Or watch them die one by one out there."
The words did not need emphasis.
The corridor did it for her.
Muffled screams echoed faintly from behind the walls. Not clear sounds, but emotional reverberations forcibly drawn through the stone network.
Clive felt them as a blow to the chest.
Glenn looked at Clive.
And for a moment, truly only a moment, Glenn became the man Clive knew again.
Not a monster killer.
Just a young man carrying too much death on his shoulders.
His eyes trembled. His shoulders sagged. The sword in his hand nearly slipped free.
Afraid.
Exhausted.
Human.
"What should I do?" he whispered.
The question was not for Mola.
It was for Clive.
For the one person he had always trusted to hold their direction.
Clive opened his mouth.
He knew what he should say.
He knew what was right.
He knew what would destroy Glenn and what might save the others.
But before a single word could leave his lips, the corridor shook violently.
Not a small tremor.
Not a warning.
Stone screamed from every direction, like the bones of a giant being forced to shift all at once. Purple light flickered wildly, the faces on the walls distorting, their expressions twisting into something closer to joy.
Mola laughed.
The laugh was clear now. Full. Echoing.
"Time is up," she said.