The silence that followed Victoria’s departure was louder than any scream. Celina remained on the cold, damp stone, her knees digging into the grit of the dungeon floor. Her breath came in shallow, jagged hitches that rattled in her throat.
She looked at her hands. They were the hands of a knight, calloused and strong, yet they were trembling so violently she couldn’t even ball them into a fist. The shame was a physical weight, heavier than the plate armor scattered around her like the shell of a slaughtered animal. Just minutes ago, she had been a "protector." Now, she was a woman shivering in her underwear, her dignity stripped away by a man who hadn't even had to touch her.
Locus lay a few feet away, a grotesque heap of broken meat. The side of his face was caved in, his jaw hanging at an impossible angle. Victoria hadn't just hit him; she had erased the threat with a terrifying, clinical finality.
I was his puppet, Celina thought, a sob finally breaking through her discipline. I said the words. I unbuckled the straps. I let him in.
The adult reality of the dungeon hit her then. It wasn't just about monsters with claws; it was about the death of the self. If Victoria hadn't appeared, Celina knew with a sickening certainty what the next hour of her life would have been. She looked at the dark corridor where the mysterious girl had vanished. Victoria hadn't stayed to console her. She hadn't offered a hand. To Victoria, Celina was just an obstacle removed, a minor detail on the way to something deeper.
With teeth chattering, Celina forced herself to move.
Dressing was a slow, agonizing ritual. Every time she touched a piece of her armor, she remembered the "Master’s" voice telling her to remove it. She felt a surge of nausea as she slid her arms back into the gambeson. The steel, once her pride, now felt like a cold reminder of her failure. It took her three tries to buckle her breastplate, her fingers slick with cold sweat.
She stood up, her legs feeling like water. She looked down at Locus. Part of her wanted to draw her sword and finish what Victoria started, to reclaim some shred of her honor through blood. But as she looked at his unconscious form, she felt only a hollow, bone-deep exhaustion.
“You’re coming with me,” she rasped, her voice sounding like breaking glass.
Dragging Locus was a grueling labor. Each step toward the surface was a battle against the dungeon's gravity. Her mind kept replaying the image of Victoria’s amber eyes—those eyes that hadn't seen a "victim," but simply a problem to be solved.
When Celina finally emerged from the Sunken Spire, the sun was still high, the world still golden and indifferent. The transition was jarring. To the merchants and guards at the entrance, she was just a disheveled knight bringing in a high-value bounty. They didn't see the shattered woman beneath the steel.
“Got him, did you? Good work, Dame Celina!” a guard cheered, stepping forward to take the chains.
Celina didn't answer. She couldn't. She simply handed over the prisoner and walked past them, her eyes fixed on the horizon. She didn't head for the tavern to celebrate. She didn't go to the guild to brag.
She went to the river.
She stripped her armor off one more time—this time by her own choice—and plunged into the freezing water. She scrubbed her skin until it was raw, trying to wash away the phantom sensation of Locus’s voice. As she sat on the bank, shivering and wrapped in a simple cloak, her thoughts turned back to the depths.
Victoria was down there. While Celina was here, trying to piece her soul back together, that girl was descending into the dark, deeper than any knight would dare. Floor 8. The legendary abyss where the rules of reality supposedly unraveled.
Celina looked at her sword, leaning against a tree. The "Golden Morning" was over. She understood now that the dungeon was a place of absolute corruption, but she also knew that there was a power that could walk through that corruption and remain pure.
She wasn't a hero today. She was a survivor. And as she watched the sun begin to set, Celina made a silent vow. She would train. she would harden her mind until it was as sharp as her blade. She would never be a puppet again.
But deep down, a new question haunted her: What kind of monster do you have to be to
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survive Floor 8?
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and then Add to home screen.