Lian woke with a start, his body jerking upright as if pulled by invisible strings.

Darkness pressed in from every direction, thick and heavy, swallowing all sense of space.

No chains bound his wrists or ankles anymore; the familiar weight was gone completely.

He flexed his fingers slowly, expecting resistance, but nothing held him back.

Cold stone lay beneath him, rough and uneven, coated with a thin layer of ancient dust.

He pushed himself up onto one knee, he felt pains, he heard aches.

The air tasted old, carrying the faint metallic scent of long-forgotten decay.

He blinked several times, trying to adjust, but no details emerged clearly.

Only a weak silver glow filtered down from high cracks in the distant ceiling far above.

He rose fully to his feet, as blood rushed back into his legs.

The ground beneath him felt solid but cracked, pieces shifting under his boots.

He turned in a slow circle, scanning the shadows for any sign of movement or life.

No Elara stood nearby with her quiet alloy presence.

No old blacksmith watched with kind but firm eyes.

No healer hovered with green-aug arms glowing softly.

No voices whispered inside his head, mocking or calculating or tempting.

The silence felt unnatural, almost oppressive after so long with constant noise.

He took one cautious step forward.

Fragments of stone and rusted metal crunched underfoot with every movement he made.

Broken pillars rose around him like some long-dead giant structure.

Cracked walls high on both sides, written with faded carvings he could barely see.

No light source burned anywhere—no forge fire, no glowing runes.

Only that faint silver illumination leaking from cracks high overhead in darkness.

He walked slowly through narrow corridors.

Walls towered above him, higher than any building he remembered from Nova Prime.

Ceilings vanished into shadow, lost somewhere far beyond his limited line of sight.

No sound of dripping water echoed through the passages like in the forge before.

No crackle of coal or hum of machinery reached his straining ears at all.

Only his own footsteps and breathing filled the emptiness around him completely.

He passed collapsed chambers with empty weapon racks.

Shattered armor pieces lay scattered across the floor in forgotten piles.

Old weapons rusted beyond any hope of use rested against broken walls quietly.

Nothing moved except dust stirred by his passage through the ancient corridors.

He kept moving forward, drawn by some instinct he could not name or explain.

Corridors twisted left, then right, sometimes upward or downward.

He climbed broken stairs that crumbled.

He jumped small gaps where sections of floor had fallen away long ago.

He avoided loose stones.

After what felt like hours of walking, he stepped out into open space finally.

A massive arena appeared before him, circular and colossal in scale.

Seats rose into darkness on all sides, row after row disappearing upward.

The central ring stretched wide and empty, covered in a thin layer of sand.

No crowd, nobody, no life form, just nothing.

Just silence, vast and unbroken, pressing down from every direction around him.

He stepped onto the sand, boots sinking slightly beneath.

Air felt heavier here, thicker, carrying a faint metallic taste on his tongue.

He walked slowly toward the exact center of the enormous empty ring.

No sound reached him except the soft crunch of sand under his boots alone.

No wind stirred the air.

Only his own heartbeat echoed faintly inside his ears, steady but loud.

He stopped dead in the middle of the ring, turning slowly in a full circle.

He scanned every direction carefully, searching for any sign of life or exit.

The ring stayed silent, abandoned, forgotten by time itself long ago.

He stood motionless for several long minutes, waiting for something to happen.

Nothing did.

No voice spoke.

No figure appeared.

No pain struck.

Just silence.

He started walking again, circling the ring slowly, searching for any clue.

He looked for doors, for stairs, for any path leading out of this place.

He searched for signs, for symbols, for anything that might give meaning.

Nothing appeared before him.

Only ruins.

Only silence.

Only dust.

He stopped once more in the exact center of the vast empty arena.

He closed his eyes tightly, trying to listen for any sound at all.

Still nothing reached him except his own slow, steady breathing in darkness.

Then sudden.

Pain exploded deep in his guts without any warning whatsoever.

Sharp.

Deep.

Like an invisible spear thrust straight through his abdomen from behind.He gasped sharply, doubling over instantly with both hands clutching stomach.

No blood appeared on his clothes or skin despite the searing agony inside.

No visible wound marked his body where the pain radiated outward fiercely.

But the torment felt utterly real, raw, impossible to ignore or deny.

He dropped to his knees hard, sand shifting cold beneath his weight suddenly.

His breath became short.

Vision blurred.

He tried to stand again, his legs trembling under the crushing weight of pain.

He failed completely.

Pain flared brighter, deeper, sharper than before in his guts.

He collapsed fully onto the sand, face pressing into the cold.

Body curled instinctively into a protective ball against the unseen assault.

Darkness closed in around the edges of his vision slowly but surely.

Not unconscious.

Not awake.

Something between the two states gripped him tightly now.

The arena watched in perfect silence from every shadowed tier above.

Empty.

Abandoned.

Waiting patiently for whatever came next in the dark.