Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 235: Ch233. The beast in the hollow

Chapter 235: Ch233. The beast in the hollow

They didn’t speak as dawn faded into dusk.

Then, dusk faded into that colorless dark that only the basin seemed to know. No stars, no moon, just the steady pulse beneath their feet.

They had made camp at the rim again, despite the danger. To descend now felt like submission, like walking into a mouth that had already swallowed them once in a dream.

The roots beneath their tent whispered in the dry, hollow voice of old wood, and the mist never lifted.

Dee paced at the edge, low to the ground, hackles raised. Sarissa sat with her back to a thick root wall, checking the haft of her spear again and again. Her hands moved like clockwork, but her eyes didn’t blink.

Miles stood watch. Not because it was his turn, but because sleep had abandoned him.

Because something had changed.

The pulse wasn’t just rhythmic anymore. It beat out of time now, faster, slower, shuddering at odd intervals like it was waiting for something.

Or someone.

He looked down at his hand and flexed it. The System’s interface had long since vanished. No status screen, no stats, no gear tags. But sometimes, when he looked too long, he saw flickers. Words that weren’t written, suggestions that were just out of reach.

Choice, path, weight.

They weren’t commands, they were reminders.

And then, the world snapped.

Not in sound, but in pressure. The kind of stillness that meant something was holding its breath.

Dee froze, its ears flattened, and then growled, a sound like broken chains, sharp and desperate.

The mist moved.

But there was no wind.

It was motion. Massive, deliberate, slow at first, then too fast. A streak of pitch through fog, like a shadow that remembered what it was to be real

A blur to their left, then above them, then...

A cracking sound.

The ground erupted as something landed. A splintered ruin of root and dirt sprayed into the air, and Dee shrieked out a warning as Miles threw himself sideways.

A shape stood in the basin. Humanoid in outline only, stretched and too long, as if made from wrong memories of people. Its limbs bent at strange angles, and its back jutted like it had too many bones.

No eyes, no mouth, but when it turned its head... Both Miles and Sarissa felt like it knew them.

The creature didn’t breathe, but the mist did. It coiled around its limbs like threads being drawn into a needle.

Then it moved.

Sarissa barely got her spear up in time. The thing came on all fours, silent and swift, slamming into her with the weight of a boulder. She rolled with the hit, coming up with blood in her mouth and Dee between them, snarling, its claws out and teeth bared.

Dee leapt, but the creature caught the small reptilian mid-air, too fast to follow, and threw it aside like a rag. Miles screamed and charged, a rock in one hand, a memory in the other.

Because he remembered this.

The dream, the pool, the moment where the world offered him something.

Not power, but permission.

It wasn’t strength that Miles used to strike the thing. He struck with decision.

The rock shattered against the thing’s shoulder, but where it broke, it burned.

A hiss of steam, or maybe rot, peeling from its side as it reeled back.

"So, you can bleed..." Miles smirked.

The beast didn’t cry out. It didn’t even react. It only twisted toward him with a jerking, broken-motion turn and swung with one long, blackened arm.

Miles flew, hitting the roots, and slid through the motion.

Everything went fuzzy.

Sarissa launched herself at it instead, her limp forgotten, her stance perfect like a warrior sharpened beyond their limit. The spear plunged in, past the collarbone, and for a second, it shivered.

Like it had been pinned to something it didn’t want to remember.

Then, it grabbed the shaft with two hands and snapped it, the pieces bursting apart like twigs.

Sarissa stumbled, and then Dee came back.

This time, the salamander didn’t leap, biting straight into the creature’s back, where its spine should have been. And for a moment, the world changed.

Because the creature finally shrieked.

Not with a voice, though. With voices.

Miles’, Sarissa’s, others. All at once, like it was echoing the ones it could no longer wear. And for a moment, Miles saw it.

He truly saw it.

It wasn’t just a beast. It wasn’t even alive. It was something the forest had rejected.

A creature too broken to become a legend, too angry to die. It had been touched by the forest, its body bore faint traces, glyphs half-burned and bleeding, but it had never been claimed by the forest, or by Tir’Serene itself.

It was never given a title. It was never completed.

Like a corrupted file, or a memory gone rabid.

A virus.

It wasn’t hunting them to eat.

It was hunting them to replace them.

"I’m not let you have it." Miles stood. "Winning or not, you’re not going to have us."

He had made a choice.

"Enough." He said.

And the forest heard him. Not with words, but with response.

The pulse beneath his feet aligned, the beat steadied, the roots trembled.

Because they recognized him.

They finally acknowledged him.

Miles ran forward, barehanded, bleeding, broken, and tackled the thing off of Sarissa. They rolled, it shrieked again, clawing, tearing, but its limbs slowed. Its edges blurred.

Because it wasn’t the only one that could echo.

Miles had seen Endings. He had lived through a few of them. Dee’s, Mara’s, Alric’s, Elise’s, and many, many others.

"You’re not even truly finished, are you?" Miles smirk widened slightly, not with malice.

With intent.

And so, he finished it, cutting it off.

With thought, with choice.

"No more." He whispered. "You don’t get to wear me, or Dee, or Sarissa."

And it dissolved, like fog under sun. Like a page never written.

The mist drew back, the basin stilled, and the pulse quieted.

Sarissa crawled to Dee, who whimpered and nuzzled against her. She ran trembling fingers through its scales, checking for blood.

There was some, but not too much, thankfully.

They were alive.

Miles sat down, back to a root, his chest heaving. Not from effort, but from the weight of what they had just lived through.

The System had not saved them, nor had power. They had survived because they simply chose to.

Together.

Sarissa limped over and sat beside him, shoulder to shoulder, with Dee nestled in her arms. They didn’t speak.

From the center of the basin, a light began to glow. Faint, green-gold. Like a thread woven from memory.

Miles looked at Sarissa. She nodded, and together, they rose.