Olivia looked down, dropping her gaze toward her wrists. Her breath came in ragged gasps. The threads were still there, but for the first time, all of them vibrated simultaneously and all pointed behind her.

Olivia knew that was a sign she had moved far away from the residence, so she did not think much of it. Still, it made her heart rate skyrocket.

What does all of this mean?

She whispered to herself. One thread that should have led toward Javien now split into two different paths.

One led to the cell in front of her. The other... led deep into the dungeon. By this time, she could no longer think clearly. She wanted to follow her heart, but she was afraid that one wrong step would make matters worse.

And this place... it was never mentioned in the novel...

She said again in her heart. Her eyes darted repeatedly between the two directions.

"Impossible..."

Olivia shook her head slowly.

The threads of fate had never vibrated all at once like this.

Olivia disregarded the warning pulsing through her wrists. The threads of fate now vibrated violently and chaotically, yet it felt like background noise compared to the singular, desperate command screaming in her mind

Save Javien!

She pushed aside her heavy apprehension and sprinted toward the deeper dungeon corridor.

The air here grew colder, heavy with the damp, metallic scent of iron that made her lungs ache. This dungeon level was never mentioned in the novel; it felt as if the walls themselves were exhaling a dark, ancient hunger.

Finally, she reached the end of the corridor. There was only one cell there.

Through the dim, flickering light of the torches, she saw a figure slumped in the corner. Even in the darkness, that unmistakable shade of silver hair caught the faint light. Her breath hitched. It was him.

Javien.

Relief flooded her, so powerful that it momentarily extinguished the frantic vibration in her hands.

She did not care about the threads of fate anymore. She did not care about the dangers or the impossible riddle of destiny.

Every instinct in her body urged her forward. She reached the heavy iron door, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

"Javien..." she whispered, her voice barely audible in the oppressive silence.

She reached out, her fingertips finally brushing against the cold, rusted bars of the cell door.

Clack..

The moment her skin touched the iron, the entire room was plunged into absolute darkness.

Every torch in the dungeon corridor extinguished simultaneously, as if snuffed out by a sudden, icy gust of wind.

Olivia gasped, her hand freezing on the metal. The silence that followed was far worse than the darkness..it was a suffocating weight that felt ’alive.’

She could not hear Javien’s breathing. She could not hear the chains

Javien!!

A moment ago, she had seen Javien’s silhouette, but now, she saw nothing at all.

The world around her felt as if it had swallowed the man whole.

Olivia still stood in front of the iron cell door.

Her hand gripping the iron bars began to tremble slowly.

Then....

Tap. Tap. Tap..

The sound of footsteps echoed throughout the room. Olivia immediately lifted her head. The sound did not seem to come from the narrow prison corridor.

Instead, it echoed from every direction.

It was as if the room around her had suddenly become much larger than it should have been

.

Tap. Tap. Tap..

And the sound did not belong to a single individual, but to more than one. Maybe two, maybe five, or perhaps even more than that. Olivia could not be certain because the entire room was pitch black. There were more than a few.

A sense of dread began to crawl through her entire body. Reflexively, she looked down at her wrists. Usually, when danger approached, the threads of fate would glow brightly.

They would vibrate.

Give a warning.

Tell her the direction.

But this time... there was absolutely nothing. The light of the threads, which usually glowed, had been replaced by a grey-black light that grew dimmer and dimmer.

It was as if it was losing its strength little by little.

"Why...?"

She whispered slowly. Her fingers began to tremble.

Her eyes were fixed on those threads.

And that was when true fear began to engulf her.

The threads were just still. They did not move, let alone pulse. It was as if the threads had lost their lives. They no longer looked like the threads of fate that had guided her all this time. They looked more like ordinary pieces of thread that held no meaning whatsoever. Olivia’s chest felt tight.

Never..

Not once had anything like this ever happened before.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound of the footsteps came closer and closer. And for the first time since she had arrived in this world... the threads of fate provided no answer to her.

Olivia squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted to scream Javien’s name, but her throat felt as if it were being choked by something unseen.

She realized she could no longer wait for the threads to move. If the threads were dead, it meant the destiny here was no longer written.

"If destiny refuses to guide me..." Olivia whispered to herself, her voice trembling, yet a spark of courage began to grow.

"...then I will write it myself."

She opened her eyes again.

Even though the darkness was still thick, she began to pay attention to the pattern of the footsteps. She no longer looked at her wrists.

Instead, she stared into the darkness, trying to find the moving shadows.

In the pitch-black void, suddenly, one shadow after another appeared. They stood stiffly around her, forming a circle that began to close in.

All of them wore black cloaks that swallowed the light, covering their faces so that only empty spaces were visible behind their hoods.

Olivia stepped back, but her foot tripped over something. She looked down and her breath hitched.

On the wrist

of every cloaked figure, there was something glowing faintly. Threads. On the left hand, pitch-black threads that looked like dried blood. On the right hand, strangely glowing white threads.

And what made Olivia’s heart feel as if it would shatter those threads... all of them were connected.

They slithered out from their hands, crossed the dark space, and latched firmly onto Olivia’s own wrists.

"What... what is this?"

Olivia yanked her hand, trying to break the connection, but the threads would not snap. They felt like a part of her own veins.

She pulled with all her might, but every time she pulled, the figures only swayed slightly, as if she were pulling their very souls.

Nausea struck her.

She did not know who they were, but the threads... they were too familiar.

But her logic resisted;

Impossible.

"Don’t come closer!" Olivia screamed, her voice sounding shrill and desperate in the space that suddenly felt as vast as an endless field.

One figure stepped out from the shadows. Delia.

The woman’s face was pale, her eyes hollow as if there were no soul within, yet her lips curled into a smile that was too wide.

She did not speak. She only raised her hand, showing the black and white threads connected directly to Olivia.

Olivia retreated until her back hit the iron cell door. She panted, her eyes darting around to see the dozens of threads now tangled around her, connecting her to all these terrifying figures.

Her head began to throb violently.

Why were these threads on her? Since when were they connected? Was she the one who had pulled them here, or were they the ones dragging her into the darkness?

"No... this isn’t in the novel..." Olivia sobbed, tears falling without her realizing it.

Every time she looked at those threads, an extraordinary fear gripped her soul.

Why weren’t the threads glowing? Why were they all silent?

The sound of footsteps stopped right in front of her. Delia was now only a step away from her, and the thread connected between them vibrated slightly not with light, but with a pulse that was very slow and painful.

Olivia was trapped, her threads were "dead," and she was surrounded by figures who had a mystical connection to her.

The tension escalated.

Delia stepped one pace closer. The distance between them was now too near.

Olivia could smell a strange scentbnot the smell of earth or a prison, but the scent of something old, the smell of books that had long since rotted and ink that had dried up. It was the scent of a ’script’ that had been altered

"Olivia..."

The voice came from Delia’s mouth, but it sounded echoing, as if dozens of other voices were speaking simultaneously from behind her vocal cords.

Delia did not attack. She only looked up, her hollow eyes staring directly at Olivia’s wrists, which were filled with threads.

Pull.

Delia pulled slightly on the white thread on her right hand.

Instantly, Olivia felt a painful tug inside her own chest. Not on her hand, but in her soul. She was shoved forward, nearly falling onto Delia. Each pull made her feel as if a part of her own memories was being forced out.

"Stop!" Olivia tried to yank her hand away, but her efforts were in vain.

She began to realize one terrifying thing: each time the thread was pulled, her vision became blurred.

*Pull!!*

The spark of energy sent Olivia reeling backward, slamming hard against the iron cell door.

The sound of the impact echoed throughout the vast space, yet the cloaked figures did not budge. They still stood stiffly, as if the spark had no effect on them at alllm

Olivia gasped. Her chest heaved rapidly. She held her wrist, which felt stinging the place where the threads were connected.

"Why..." her voice trembled violently.

"Why won’t you stop?!"

She tried to look around, searching for an exit, but every time she turned, she only saw the same line of cloaked figures. They did not attack; they did not speak. They only stood there, holding the threads that connected their lives to Olivia.

Pull.

Once again, the black thread on Delia’s hand tightened.

Olivia felt a sharp tug on her wrist. This time, it was not just a physical pull. It felt as if something was being ’sucked’ out from within her. Something warm, something that felt like... a memory.

"No, no, no..." Olivia shook her head rapidly. She held her head with one hand.

"I have to get out. I have to find Javien!"

She looked toward the iron cell door behind her. She knew Javien was in there. She could feel Javien’s presence behind the rusted iron door, even though the situation out here had become extraordinary.

With trembling hands, she tried to stand up. But every time she tried to move, the threads connected to the cloaked figures tightened, holding her back as if she were being bound by heavy iron chains.

She looked down, viewing the threads once more. This time, the dim light began to flicker erratically. The black and white colors began to mix, forming a pattern that grew more tangled on her skin.

Olivia let out a small scream when she noticed something that made her nearly lose her composure.

Beneath the skin of her wrist, the threads were now beginning to move. They were no longer just strings tied on the outside, but had started to seep in, moving beneath her skin like living veins.

"This isn’t... this isn’t destiny..." she moaned, tears of terror wetting her cheeks. "This... this is a trap!"

She did not know what would happen if the threads reached her pulse. She did not know what would happen to these figures if she continued to fight backm

Suddenly, one of the figures on her right side bowed its head. Its dark cloak opened slightly, revealing a small corner.

Olivia held her breath. Her eyes were fixed on that small angle of the wrist. But it was too familiar.

Her hands trembled.

"...That’s impossible," she whispered.