Chapter 244: Core....

It's dark…

Where am I?

I knew, and yet... somehow I didn't. This strange, fractured place felt like it could be somewhere I belonged—and yet was utterly foreign.

–SEEZZEEE~!!

A jagged sound pierced the silence, fragments of broken echoes, just out of reach.

My head darted toward it, but all I met was darkness, thick and endless.

Only the echoes of that unsettling noise remained, bouncing back and forth like a taunt.

It's cold…

I shivered, an icy sensation clawing its way over my skin, and only then did I notice: I was bare, without a thread to cover me.

Strange.

But despite the absurdity of it all—wandering naked through a realm of shadows—I kept moving forward.

My feet, numb with cold, pressed onward, dragging me deeper into the pitch-black void. I should have felt terrified, each step painful and hollow, yet strangely, I wasn't.