Everything went quiet.
For one fleeting moment, Raizal felt something dangerously close to peace — as if his soul had finally achieved salvation from the endless nightmare.
Then his eyes snapped open.
The suffocating forest was gone. The blood-soaked dirt, the rotting trees, the mutant's stench — all of it had vanished.
Instead, he stood inside a vast, cold hall made entirely of obsidian.
Black as midnight, glassy and unforgiving, the material swallowed what little light existed. The walls, floor, and towering ceiling were all carved from the same dark, reflective stone. His footsteps echoed hollowly through the enormous space, each step ringing like a death knell in the silence.
On both sides of the hall stood twelve massive chairs — six on the left, six on the right — arranged like the seats of some ancient kingdom's ministry. They were grand, cold, and imposing, as if waiting for judges who had long since abandoned this place.
At the far end, one enormous throne dominated the hall. From certain angles they looked almost demonic — sharp, angular, and radiating an aura of quiet malice. Their surfaces gleamed faintly, reflecting distorted fragments of Raizal's own silhouette.
Raizal took a slow, deep breath. There was no shock in his eyes. No surprise. No fear. Only the tired acceptance of someone who had long stopped expecting the world to make sense.
He walked forward, the echo of his boots the only sound breaking the heavy stillness.
Tall, narrow windows lined all four sides of the hall, but they revealed nothing. Thick, swirling white fog pressed against the glass from the outside, dense as winter mist, hiding whatever nightmare lay beyond.
Raizal stopped for a moment and calculated coldly in his mind.
"That bastard must have died by now," he muttered under his breath. "If I'm right… only one hour remains before the test ends. It'll take me nearly twenty to twenty-five minutes to reach the hill from here."
Then Axel's face surfaced in his memory — pale, trembling.
A faint, bitter smile tugged at Raizal's lips.
"He must have reached the hill by now."
Raizal stood motionless in the vast obsidian hall, the silence so complete it pressed against his ears like a living weight. His gaze drifted across the twelve cold chairs lining both sides — empty seats that felt like silent judges waiting for a verdict that would never come.
He remembered the first time this place had dragged him in.
He had been ten years old, still living in an outside City with his father normally. Then they discovered he was a Defect. His entire life flipped in a single day. They dragged him away to the Restricted Sector, locked him behind walls like an animal. On that same day, his father vanished without a trace.
After months in the orphanage of that rotting sector, one night he suddenly appeared here — in this cold, black hall. That was the moment he first learned about the Obsidian Hall. He had kept it a secret ever since. Any abnormality in a Defect meant immediate execution. They didn't ask questions or any interrogation. There was just death.
Besides… this place has always helped him. Just like it had tonight.
Raizal walked slowly toward the throne, his footsteps echoing like distant gunshots. He sat down heavily, closed his eyes, and murmured in a low, tired voice,
"Time to return back."
A few moments later, the same strange black-and-white mist began to rise from his body.
Thin threads of pure black and ghostly white coiled outward like living smoke, cold as death yet burning against his skin. The mist spread rapidly, wrapping around the throne and swallowing Raizal completely. For a brief second the entire hall seemed to flicker, the obsidian surfaces reflecting distorted fragments of his figure before everything blurred.
Then the mist vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
The throne was empty once more.