Chương 157: Number 4021 (Part One)

The fragrance of rare magical herbs faded, and the warmth of the World Tree's green pulses withdrew gradually from his senses, as though an invisible, merciless hand were tearing him from a temporary paradise to hurl him into a deep abyss. Lumia was no longer beside him, and he could no longer feel the imposing presence of Okonnor standing guard over his sleep. Dex woke, but his soul did not wake in the safety of Falus Forest, and it did not remain even in the world of Ekarthas.

Instead it plunged at terrifying speed across the barriers of time and worlds, returning to his previous life on the planet Earth, descending into the darkest and most desolate vault of his memory, the place where the monster that inhabited him had been born. The vision was not clear at first. Everything was wrapped in a thick gray fog, a fog that resembled the color of diseased nightmares, suffocating and cold. But the sound. The sound was real to the point of terror.

It was a harsh, mechanical sound that tore at the eardrums: the screech of enormous rusted gears eating into each other with great difficulty, followed by the boom of cast steel striking cast steel, a boom that shook Dex's bones and rattled his entire being. He opened his eyes with difficulty, each blink burning him as though his lids were coated in sand.

In that moment, he wished with all his heart that he had remained submerged in the darkness of unconsciousness, or that General Vargas had crushed him in battle and ended his existence in Ekarthas, rather than force him to relive this brutal material moment all over again. Above his head there were no tree branches swaying to filter golden sunlight. There was a black concrete ceiling carved harshly into the belly of a cursed mountain, dripping salty, viscous water like the tears of demons.

There was no birdsong or rustle of leaves, only distant, muffled screams and hysterical laughs from men who had lost their minds long ago, echoing through the cement corridors like a funeral song with no end. Dex found himself standing, no, being dragged, in a long queue of shattered men. He was shackled in heavy iron chains, not only at his hands and feet, but a thick chain ran from his neck to the waist of the prisoner before him, and another from his waist to the neck of the prisoner behind.

They were a herd of human livestock being driven to slaughter. The air in the place was heavy and dead, empty of any particle of mana to refresh the soul, reeking of a nauseating smell that could never be forgotten, a blend of ancient rust, congealed sweat, urine, and old despair accumulated across generations of forgotten prisoners. Before him, through the thick fog, the great gates of Blackrock Prison began to loom.

These were no mere gates, they were a maximum-security punitive facility designed for one purpose: the destruction of human hope. Built from anti-ballistic black steel. The prison where names were forgotten the moment one crossed the threshold, where every human right dropped away, and where souls were buried in narrow cells while still breathing the foul air. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

When the enormous iron gate finally swung open with a terrifying metallic groan, Dex felt a gust of cold, dry air strike his face like a slap of ice. He took his first hesitant step into the prison's wide main corridor, and his entire body shook with a violence he could not control. It was not merely a step into a new place. It was his first real step inside his earthly grave, the grave in which human law had sentenced him to spend the next twenty years of his youth.

He felt the weight of his shackles grow heavier with each step, as though the gravity of this place were stronger, as though the concrete floor itself were trying to pull him downward to swallow him alive.

"Move it, you filth! Lift your dirty feet! This isn't a summer cottage or a five-star hotel!" snarled a tall guard in riot-control tactical gear, gripping a serrated electrostatic baton. He brought the baton down against the nearby iron bars, producing a thunderclap that made the entire queue flinch in terror.

"From this point on, you are nothing! You are the refuse of this society, and we are here to sweep you up!" On both sides of the wide corridor, which stretched as far as the eye could see beneath the flickering white fluorescent lights, the fortified communal cells were lined with thick steel bars. There, behind those bars, stood the veteran prisoners. They were no longer human beings, they were beasts caged in pens.

Men with faces disfigured by primitive knife wounds, bodies covered in gang tattoos, and eyes completely empty of any mercy or humanity, gleaming in the darkness like the eyes of hungry hyenas that had caught the scent of fresh blood. The moment the queue of new arrivals entered, the sardonic and terrifying welcome rituals began. Throats cried out from every cell in a symphony of pure human madness.

"Oh, look, look at this! Fresh tender meat!" screamed a hulking prisoner with a deep and hideous scar covering the left half of his face, banging his rusted metal cup against the bars with deranged enthusiasm. His one remaining eye met Dex's crushed gaze.

"And one of them is handsome too! How long will you last, pretty boy? A week? A month? I'll bet a rotting crust of bread you'll be begging us to kill you before the end of the first week!" Jeers cascaded after it, offensive whistling, foul insults that stripped the air of decency, from every direction. Some prisoners spat through the bars, their spittle landing on the faces and clothes of the new arrivals.

Dex walked with his head bowed, yet he could feel their piercing gaze pass through his skin and reach his bones. In that precise moment, in the middle of that corridor filled with monsters, Dex understood the full truth of his absolute helplessness. He was walking with heavy steps toward his inevitable end at the bottom of oblivion.