Masterpiece In Shadow Slave

When I passed the giant, water-filled hole and climbed the hill beyond it… I realized something strange.

The puddles were gone.

No shallow basins, no mirrored surfaces glistening in the dark. Just grass—lush, damp, alive. Not scorched or dying, but thriving. A soft carpet under the faint light. It shimmered faintly with dew, as if untouched by what had happened behind me.

The land beyond the hill wasn't dry. It felt untouched. Untouched—but not safe.

Still, the next phase of my plan was simple—at least on the surface.

I had to destroy them to make a path forward.

But the moment I did, it would trigger a chain reaction. Not tens. Not a few hundred.

But Almost thousand.

They would come.

And they wouldn't stop.

Even if I reached the bottom of the hole, even if I made it through unscathed... they would eventually catch up. The question wasn't if. It was how fast.

Wouldn't they turn to diamond before that? That was the logic I had.

But soon decided otherwise.

This was scale. And scale changed everything.

With that many bodies pressing in—more with every passing second—they would push each other down like debris in a flood.

Crystallization would still occur, yes. But the sheer pressure of their descent would force more and more of them downward, faster than before. A living avalanche of diamondized corpses.

So, I needed something stronger than distance. I needed something absolute.

A barrier.

A cover that could take everything they could throw at me.

And that's what I built.

I lured them. Moved to the farthest edge of the hole and deliberately provoked the Vowalkers. Woke them up. Agitated the entire swarm.

If enough of them turned into diamond in one place, their bodies would pile and stack and eventually form something unbreakable.

A natural barricade. Self-assembled. Unthinking. Inescapable.

And it worked.

***

Now, buried within the pit, I had cover—real cover. The kind no weapon could pierce, no monster could claw through. A jagged, uneven structure of Vowalker corpses turned to diamond mid-motion.

They had come down in waves—faster than I'd ever seen. Not from hunger or rage, but from momentum. They trampled each other in mindless pursuit, becoming the very barrier they could no longer bypass.

The wall held. Denser than anything man-made. Its strength wasn't engineered—it was inevitable.

And with that, half the world had been erased.

Half of this cursed nightmare was now nothing but crystal remains and silence.

***

It must be around 2 a.m.

I exhaled slowly and lowered my hand into the river again.

Colder.

And deeper.

I'd first noticed it while collecting water for the third time. Each hour, the river sank more.

At first, I tried to rationalize it. A natural phenomenon—maybe limestone erosion beneath the surface. Water eating away at soft stone, carving a deeper path over time.

But limestone doesn't dissolve this fast. Not by meters. Not by hours.

This river was sinking at an alarming rate.

Something was changing here. And fast.

***

Eventually, the sky began to shift. Pale light touched the horizon.

Sunrise.

Judging by the shade—soft gold bleeding into gray—it had to be around 5:30 a.m.

The most common time for the sun to rise. Even here, in this distorted place, patterns held.

I had spent the entire night in mental warfare. Not against monsters—but against the world itself. Against what it wanted me to become.

I kept my thoughts sharp. Clean. My sense of self intact.

Physically, my body had rested. Enough for basic function to return. I wasn't numb anymore.

The water's cold had faded from my skin, leaving soreness in its place.

I wasn't exhausted now. Just hurt.

My muscles had unclenched. My feet had stopped bleeding, but the pain lingered—throbbing like a warning not to forget.

I drank again—for the fifth time.

***

I dipped my hand in the river once more.

This time… I couldn't reach the bottom.

It was time.

I stood.

There was no more room for hesitation. The world was moving beneath me, and I had to move with it.

I crouched, scooping up a handful of dirt from the edge and placing it carefully beside the river.

Then I reached into down.

One by one, I threw the four remaining organs in a line—straight ahead, across the deepening water.

Three had already been used to obliterate half this world.

Now, it was time for the last four to claim the rest.

Seven organs in total.

I stepped back several paces, anticipating an explosion, a rupture—something. Even the randomness of this world had patterns. And when those patterns broke, chaos followed.

...

I should stop trying to predict in advance, nothing happened.

I was confused. Something was off.

Did all the organs… just happen to land in safe zones?

Statistically, the odds were absurd. The terrain wasn't flat. The throw wasn't precise. The entire path behind had twisted and curved ways.

And on top of that all four to land cleanly?

No. That wasn't luck.

And going back down into that hell to retrieve more was out of the question.

Small pebbles wouldn't work. I'd already tried.

So—Plan B.

I had arranged the organs in a line for a reason. I had accounted for this possibility.

If the organs landed in safe spots, then those spots would become my path.

They'd have to.

Still... how deep had the river become?

***

I crouched again, this time drawing water into my cupped hands and pouring it over the patch of dirt I had set aside.

Again. Then again.

Until the soil darkened, softened, and clumped.

I coated the soles of my feet with it, layering mud to buffer the raw skin from further tearing.

Then—rip, rip—I tore two strips from my already tattered clothing and bound them tightly around each foot.

It wasn't perfect, but it was better than nothing.

There wasn't much room to build momentum here. The crater edge was narrow, and my legs were far from recovered.

But the water ahead was still. That meant bacteria—stagnation. Swimming across it would be dangerous… and besides, I didn't want to swim.... But I had to.

If the river was deepening like this, then something down there was waiting.

Something I wasn't supposed to touch... But had to.

***

I took a few steps back—reached the highest edge of the crater I could stand on.

My legs tensed, mud weighing me down. The pain in my feet flared again.

But I ran.

As fast as I could.

And as I ran a trail of dirt was left behind.

I leapt.

The jump was pitiful. 3 meters, maybe—held back by injuries, by lack of space, by gravity.

But it was enough to reach the edge of the water.

The rest, I swam.

My leg couldn't even feel the surface now.

7 more meters, across the cold silence of the river—toward the line of organs that might be my salvation.

Or my end.

𓁹𓁹

As soon as Ayanokouji Kiyotaka crossed the river and reached the organs, he pulled himself up with effort—his hands slick with water and mud. Then the world shifted.

The once-decayed trees around him suddenly burst into life, their bark stretching with groans as new branches snapped outward and bloomed with thick, dark green leaves. In seconds, they grew to twice their former size, looming like ancient titans.

Twenty meters ahead, the land rippled unnaturally, and a hill erupted from the earth, climbing up thirty meters before leveling into a forest.

The ground beneath his feet trembled.

But that was only the beginning.

Grass sprouted rapidly across the terrain—thick, vibrant, and wild. It shot up like spears, growing until it was nearly a meter high.

The soil became damp, soggy, and hostile. Water no longer trickled gently as a stream. It surged. The river swelled unnaturally, rising up the banks with an almost sentient rage, as if rejecting its own size.

The floodwater split, carving channels through the ground as it chased after Ayanokouji's steps.

He was already running and calculating, grass tearing and swaying violently around him, but he could hear them—the rustling.

Countless blades of grass shifted in unnatural waves. Figures were sprinting beneath the green canopy, slithering, crawling, running. The Vowalkers. No longer hidden. No longer passive. Now, this forest was theirs.

He sprinted toward the nearest tree, leaping up and climbing its trunk. As he reached the first thick branch, he looked down.

Dozens of figures emerged from the swaying grass. Gaunt and humanoid, yet twisted in design. The Vowalkers. They surrounded the tree, their clawed scratching bark and soil alike.

The tree groaned and trembled blood coming out of it.... Which didn't miss Ayanokouji's eyes.

The river behind him overflowed. Water burst over both banks and began consuming the land—rushing even toward the side Ayanokouji had come from. He waited. Calculated. Watched.

And then the wave hit.

A deluge of water surged across the forest like a beast unchained.

The Vowalkers were caught in its grip but did not resist. Instead, they absorbed the water, their skin glowing faintly as they siphoned its energy.

Ayanokouji leapt into the flood and began swimming toward the hill ahead.

Water connected the shattered land like a bridge, rising thirty meters high between two severed hills.

Beneath him, more Vowalkers sank into the depths, their bodies crystallizing, turning to diamond beneath the pressure.

Fifteen meters. He swam, relentless. Then finally—land.

He pulled himself up onto the hill's surface, immediately running through the tall, wet grass. Behind him, the river was no longer a river.

It was a lake—wide, raging, and alive. What had once been ten meters of water was now over a hundred and thirty.

And the grass rustled.

Again.

Hundreds—no, thousands—of ripples. Swarms of Vowalkers surged after him like a wave of shadows with form.

Their grotesque limbs thrashed through the grass, clawed feet stomping and tearing as they gave chase.

The once-hidden monsters were now part of the world, unshackled by the forest's awakening.

Ayanokouji dodged left, barely avoiding a clawed hand that lunged from the grass.

Another one came from the right. He ducked. Rolled. A third leapt from a tree branch—but he twisted midair, kicked off its chest, and kept running.

His breath was steady. Movements economical. But even for him, this was extreme.

The forest blurred around him—green and grey, shadow and light. Branches cracked. Bark shattered. He slid under a fallen log and vaulted another.

Behind him, dozens of Vowalkers screeched in frustration as they collided, falling over one another like insects. But more came.

He took sharp turns. Zig-zagged through trees. A claw grazed his shoulder—barely cutting skin. He didn't stop. He couldn't.

Another Vowalker dove at him from the left, but he caught its arm midair, the claw stopping inches away from his eyes. He redirected its body into a trunk before dashing forward.

>>>

Every second, the forest thickened. Every step, more rustling.

And then—silence.

The trees ended. The grass halted.

Ahead was a clearing.

A ruined village revealed itself in the mist—broken walls, hollow homes, and silence so sharp it hurt. Ayanokouji crossed the threshold. Behind him, the rustling stopped.

He turned.

The Vowalkers stood at the forest's edge, staring. Motionless. As if something bound them from crossing.

He didn't take a sigh of relief. He just breathed.

Ayanokouji was running aimlessly with the hope of finding a pond to dive into... but instead he found a village.

***

Ayanokouji stood at the edge of the clearing, chest rising steadily as he watched the Vowalkers.

They had stopped completely—dozens of them—frozen beneath the canopy of trees like sculptures carved from ash and bone.

For a long, long moment, not a single one moved.

Then, without warning… they turned away.

One by one.

No sound. No hiss. No snarl of frustration. They simply receded back into the forest like phantoms fading into fog. Grass rustled gently in their wake, and within seconds, the forest was still again. The unnatural ripple of pursuit vanished as if it had never existed.

Ayanokouji waited.

Ten seconds.

Thirty.

A minute.

Not a trace remained.

Only the prints in the dirt proved they'd ever been there.

He didn't question it. He didn't need to. Whether it was instinct, programming, or simple discipline, Ayanokouji understood one rule better than most:

when something inexplicable gives you a moment of calm… use it. Don't waste it.

He turned and stepped into the village.

The air inside was different. Denser. The light here was dimmer despite the open sky, as though a gray filter had been painted over the world.

The village itself looked ancient—structures broken, roofs half-collapsed, windows hollow and gaping like dead eyes.

Each step echoed.

The ground beneath his feet was cracked and uneven, overtaken by creeping vines and stiff weeds.

A half-buried wagon lay on its side near a collapsed building. A rusted pan hung from a shattered doorframe, swaying slightly in wind that didn't exist.

He paused beside what might've once been a well.

It stood at the center of the village, covered in moss and wrapped in faded cloth bands, some of which bore unreadable markings.

Water dripped inside, rhythmic, slow. The sound was oddly loud—as though echoing from somewhere far deeper than the ground allowed.

Ayanokouji's eyes swept the rooftops.

No movement.

No shadows.

No pursuit.

Still… he didn't relax.

The Vowalkers were gone, but this place felt wrong in a different way.

He passed a broken house, glancing through the open frame. Dust lay thick inside, undisturbed. No footprints. No signs of life. No signs of death either. Just… absence. Like this place had been untouched for years. Maybe centuries.

He kept walking, each step careful and deliberate.

If the forest had been chaos, this was the calm that followed a massacre. And in some ways, it felt worse.

And suddenly he felt a presence.

𓁹𓁹

I pressed my back against the cracked stone wall, breath low and steady. The ruins around me were dead quiet — unnaturally so. Not even wind moved through the broken shingles above. And then, I heard it.

Footsteps.

Soft. Uneven. Hesitant.

Light enough to be someone untrained — probably a girl.

Sniff… sniff…

She was trying to stop herself from crying, holding it back like a dam about to burst. The emotion in her steps betrayed her. Grief, fresh and raw. Maybe she'd seen the Vowalkers. Maybe she'd just arrived here.

Either way, she was vulnerable.

She passed me, unaware.

I moved.

My arm looped silently around her neck, drawing her back behind the wall in a swift motion. Not tight enough to knock her out — just enough to keep her quiet.

She froze in my grip. Her breathing quickened but didn't fight. Smart. Panic gets you killed.

I whispered near her ear.

"Lingua."

A test. A single word that reached beyond barriers. The most common root for "language." Latin — still found in half the world's tongues. Useful when you don't know what else to use.

She twitched.

I repeated it. "Lingua."

She looked the part.

Even through the sweat and dirt, she was striking — with beauty shaped by sharp angles and quiet resilience.

Her curls, long and unbrushed, fell over her face like ivy over a ruined sculpture. Her olive skin was cracked with dust, but beneath it, there was warmth — Mediterranean. Her hazel eyes held both panic and pride. The kind of grief that didn't come from weakness — but loss.

A person carved by disaster, not broken by it.

She tapped my arm three times.

I loosened the hold just enough for air. Still no room to resist. I didn't need her to fight. I needed her silent.

That's when I felt them.

Two more presences.

Close. Coordinated. Flanking me from both sides.

They weren't Vowalkers — too precise, too human. One moved heavy on his left side. The other mirrored me perfectly — footsteps matching rhythm like a reflection.

The girl whispered, barely.

"We're the same as you."

I narrowed my eyes.

Those weren't the words her lips formed.

She spoke Latin.

But I heard English.

A system rule, then. Automatic translation? Or something deeper embedded in this world's laws?

I released her.

Not out of trust.

Out of preparation.

Because one of the presences had already stepped into view.

He looked at me and paused... A cold sweat appearing through his forehead.

"…Kiyotaka?"

He was my age—seventeen. Lean. Controlled. His posture, his breath, his stance—it all screamed conditioning. Not White Room's average product.

Something rarer.

His brown hair fell neatly to the side.

framing eyes that scanned me like data—nothing wasted. His expression was calm, but under it? Tension. Not fear—intensity.

Familiar.

My body didn't tense. But my mind did. A quiet pull, somewhere deep in memory.

He was the only one with me remaining in white room's 4th genration.

One of the only few who defeated me once just to get overshadowed the next time.

The first one I had meaningless talk with about carrots.

He left white room once he saw he couldn't surpass me.

The one that gave me idea of freedom.

I still remember what he said that day.

I want to be free. I want to have friends. Isn't it normal for you to feel this way?

I know him.... I remember him.

But I can't remember his name.

System has done something with my memory.

"Long time no see."

The question is... If these guys are human or another monsters.