'Something here is alive?'.

Levi froze. His breath hitched, a chill crawling down his spine. Alive? As in breathing, moving— capable of tearing him apart?

His inner voice cracked with fury. 'What do you mean something here is alive? And why are you only telling me now?'. If he'd known he wasn't alone, he never would have stepped inside. Now, he was standing in plain sight while whatever lurked here remained hidden.

[ I couldn't sense it before. Not until your hand brushed against that skeleton when you took the orb. ]

Levi's eyes darted back to the kneeling remains. "The skeleton… is alive?". His throat tightened. The memory of how casually he had touched it— how close he had been— made his skin crawl. He'd brushed shoulders with death itself.

'Is it pretending? Playing dead?'. His mind spun. Was it a spectral thing bound to the bones? Or the bones themselves waiting to strike? If he bolted now, it would sense his panic and attack. But standing frozen much longer was just as suspicious.

It still didn't move.

Levi clenched his fists, forcing his thoughts into order. 'Think. Think! THINK!'. Then, like a spark in the dark, the answer came.

"I got it. Checkmate'.

The spectral chessboard flared into existence, its ghostly squares spreading across the chamber. On one side, the pieces stood ready; on the other, the skeleton loomed alone.

A pawn advanced. Its form warped, enclosing the kneeling figure in its grip.

Levi body eased up, his plan was a success. He took advantage of the inaction of the skeleton to enslave it with his Avatar ability.

The pawn snapped shut around the skeleton like a coffin sealing. For a moment, the chamber was silent.

Then the tether convulsed.

It wasn't pain— it was awareness. A crushing, suffocating presence pressed against Levi's mind, heavy and endless, like a corpse trying to breathe again.

The skeleton twitched.

Its head rose with a grinding crack, bones straining like rusted hinges. Violet fire burned in its hollow sockets, its jaw sagged open, spilling dust like rotted marrow.

The room was silence, save for the sound of a broken exhale that rattled like something dead but refusing to stay buried.

The pawn trembled. The thing inside it pushed hard against the board, and for a terrifying second Levi thought his Avatar would shatter.

Then flesh bloomed.

It spread across the bones in hideous blossoms— wet muscle swelling like petals, sinew twisting into cords, veins pulsing as if they had remembered blood. The skin didn't cover— it split outward, folding and blooming again, layer upon layer of raw, twitching tissue.

Levi's stomach lurched. His control held, but only barely. He could feel it in the tether— this wasn't submission. It was rage bound in silence. A predator straining at the leash, waiting for him to slip.

The leech collapsed flat to the floor, quivering in terror. Levi forced himself upright, though sweat ran cold down his spine.

Through the tether, a single sensation bled into him.

Cold. Not the chill of air or stone— this was unholy, the cold of a grave that wanted to drag the living down into it.

Levi swallowed hard, forcing a weak grin. "Welcome to the game". He whispered.

The creature didn't answer. It only stared at him with its burning sockets, its grotesque flesh blooming and writhing like a garden born from nightmares.

And Levi knew— he could barely contain it.

The spectral Chessboard cracked apart, dissolving into drifting motes of misty light. When it vanished, only Levi, the trembling leech, and the thing he had bound remained.

The flesh that had bloomed across the skeleton had taken on a shape— wrong, distorted, but deliberate.

It had many arms, more than Levi could count at first glance. They unfolded from its torso and back like roots torn free from the soil. Yet every single hand was the same— clasped tightly in a posture of prayer, fingers locked together, unmoving.

Its head tilted upward, but there was no face to meet him with. Its eyes were sewn shut, the lids pulled taut with blackened cords. Where its mouth should have opened, the lips were crudely stitched, puckered and sealed. Even its ears had been bound shut, jagged threads piercing flesh and knotting them closed.

A body built to worship, silenced in every way.

The hands twitched faintly against one another, not in movement but in restraint, as though straining against the act of prayer itself. Its sewn face leaked faint trails of harsh violet glow from the cracks where stitches bit into flesh.

The leech pressed lower to the ground, quivering, refusing to move closer.

Levi stood frozen, his throat dry, the weight of the thing pressing against him like a tide. He had bound it, yes— but it felt less like a servant and more like a chained god, its silence louder than any scream.

The thing raised its head and stared at Levi with its faceless visage. Then it spoke— at least it tried.

"@#§∆¥^¥€".

"???". Levi blinked, his brows tightening. 'Was it… trying to communicate?'.

The figure froze, its clasped hands trembling faintly. Then, with a sick crack, one arm at its lower back twisted outward. The palms split open, glued together by strands of viscous slime. The ooze stretched, snapped, and from the raw split another clasped hand bloomed like a grotesque flower.

Levi gasped. That sound— that motion— was all the thing needed.

He felt it, like his words were being stolen, tugged from his throat and drawn into the sewn face. The sensation crawled up his spine, invasive and cold.

His eyes widened. 'It's like the murals… stealing my voice to speak. Where am I—? The Deprived Clan…'.

The figure shuddered, and then it spoke again. This time, the voice was his own— but twisted.

Harsher, deeper, guttural.

"Apolo…gies… for mine… past strayin'.

We… art of the Thyrrhaal, once flesh of Deprived kin. Long entomb'd… long starv'd… long unnam'd."

The cadence was broken, its rhythm old, every word stretched with weight like stone grating on stone. It did not say the name Thyrrhaal so much as drag it through the air, leaving the sound raw and wrong in Levi's ears.

But Levi focused on two words.

'Deprived clan'.

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