Belial's breath was shallow, his pulse hammering against his ribs as he stared into the abyss. The image of the monstrous figure below burned into his mind like a scar. He knew this creature. The Blind Witness.
A monster of pure terror.
The bane of his existence.
In the game, it had kept him trapped in these cursed catacombs for over fifty attempts. Every strategy he had tried had ended in failure. No matter what he did, it always found him. It moved with terrifying speed, striking the moment it detected sound. He had learned, through endless deaths, that the Blind Witness had no eyes. It hunted through echolocation, sensing the tiniest disturbances in the air, the faintest whispers of movement. One step too loud, one panicked breath, and death followed instantly.
But this wasn't the game.
There were no retries.
No do-overs.
This was real. As much as he didn't want it to be.
Belial pressed his hand even harder against the anxious man's mouth, feeling the tremble of his lips beneath his palm. His companion's breath was ragged, erratic, his entire body shaking violently.
Don't scream. Don't move. Don't even breathe too loud.
The abyss below remained eerily silent, but that meant nothing. The Blind Witness was patient. It didn't stalk like a mindless beast—it waited. Listened. Anticipated. It knew they were there now.
Belial slowly, painfully, turned his head toward the rest of the group. Their faces were pale, their eyes wide with unspoken terror. No one dared to speak. No one dared to even shift their weight. They had seen it too.
He had to think.
They couldn't fight. The Blind Witness was too fast, too efficient. Even in the game, the only way to get past it was through perfect silence and precise movement. And right now, they were trapped in near-total darkness, holding onto dim bioluminescent flowers that barely provided enough light to see beyond their own hands. Fighting was suicide. Running? Even worse.
Belial's mind raced. The catacombs had been his prison in the game. over Fifty tries and over fifty failures. He had lost count of how many times he had seen that thing lunge from the abyss, clawing, slicing, devouring. He had only made it past it once—and that was with the game's mechanics allowing him a small window of escape. There were no such allowances here. No scripted patterns. Not against this one at least.
A single mistake, and they were all dead.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Belial removed his hand from the anxious man's mouth, meeting his terrified gaze. He placed a single finger over his own lips. Silence.
The anxious man nodded frantically, his face wet with sweat, his entire body trembling. Belial felt his own pulse pounding in his ears, the sheer tension making his muscles lock in place. He had to get them out. But how?
The stairwell was ahead—ascending into the unknown. It might lead to safety, or it might be another death trap. Either way, staying here wasn't an option. The hallway leading to it was long and narrow, the kind that funneled sound and gave no room to maneuver. If they moved as a group, even the faintest shuffle of their boots against the stone might be enough to alert the Blind Witness. And once it heard them…
Belial grimaced. He had fought many things in his life, but Blind Witnesses were something else entirely. They didn't see. They didn't need to. Their perception was sharper than any sighted being, their senses attuned to the slightest breath, the barest hint of movement. Worse, they held grudges—big ones. If one had been wronged, even unintentionally, it would pursue its target with obsessive, terrifying persistence.
He stole a glance at the others. The anxious man was in bad shape, barely holding himself together. The woman, was calmer, though her hand hovered near the hilt of her dagger, her knuckles white from gripping it too tightly.
Belial swallowed hard. They couldn't afford another mistake.
The Blind Witness still loomed at the far end of the corridor, its massive, hunched figure blending into the shadows like some nightmarish sentinel. Its presence was suffocating, a constant reminder that one wrong move would mean certain death. Thick armor plates jutted from its grotesque frame, forming an irregular, overlapping carapace that gave it an almost insectoid appearance. Beneath that armored shell lay its true form—an exoskeleton reinforced with sinewy, hardened flesh, resistant to all but the most precise attacks.
Its head was elongated, tapering into a faceless void where eyes should have been, but it needed no sight to hunt. The Blind Witness relied on an uncanny perception, a fusion of acute hearing and something deeper—an awareness that bordered on the supernatural. It responded to sound, movement, even the faintest disturbance in the air.
The only known weak spot was just beneath the layers of plated armor, near the base of its spine. But getting close enough to exploit that vulnerability was nearly impossible. Even a whisper of hesitation could mean death.
Belial exhaled slowly, forcing himself to think. A distraction. That was the only way. If they ran now, they wouldn't make it ten steps before the thing descended upon them. He reached into his belt pouch, fingers brushing over a small, sharp throwing shard. Useless in a fight—but perfect for making noise elsewhere.
Belial clenched his jaw.
One by one? No… too much of a risk. If one panicked, it was over. All at once? No, too much movement. Someone would slip, make a noise… His thoughts whirled. He needed a distraction. Something to mislead it. But what?
A sudden, distant scrape of stone sent ice through his veins.
It was moving.
Somewhere in the abyss below, the Blind Witness had shifted. It was listening.
It knows we're here.
The sound was faint but deliberate, a slow, methodical scrape of claws against stone. Belial could picture it in his mind—the lean, armored frame shifting, its head tilting as it focused on every sound. It wasn't mindlessly hunting. It was waiting for them to move.
Belial swallowed hard. There was no waiting this out. They had to act now.
He reached into his belt, his fingers brushing against a small shard of stone he had picked up earlier. It wasn't much, but it was enough. A distraction. He took a slow breath, steadying his hand, then—
click
A pebble, barely larger than a fingernail, slipped from his fingers and bounced against the far wall.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—
A small explosion just under three meters was
Almost instantly.
A sharp, wet clicking sound reverberated from the abyss. It was followed by a low, guttural rasp, like something inhaling through a hollow throat.
Belial felt the air grow thicker, the pressure around them shifting, as if something immense had suddenly leaned forward.
Then—
It moved.
The sound was indescribable—a rush of displaced air, the rapid clatter of claws against stone. The Blind Witness surged forward, slamming into the far wall where the pebble had landed. A sickening crack echoed through the hallway as chunks of stone crumbled under the force of its impact.
Belial moved Instantly.
He grabbed the anxious man by the wrist, hauling him forward. The rest of the group followed, their movements controlled, desperate, but silent. They glided along the hallway wall, pressing their backs against the cold stone as they neared the stairwell.
Behind them, the Blind Witness exhaled another clicking breath, its massive form shifting in confusion. The distraction had worked—but not for long.
They reached the base of the stairs.
Belial turned, looking at the group. They were all here. All alive. He nodded once, signaling them to ascend.
One by one, they began their climb, each step painfully slow, deliberate.
Then—
A cough.
A single, stifled cough from one of the group members.
Belial's blood turned to ice.
The Blind Witness stopped.
For the briefest moment, the catacombs were silent.
Then—
It turned.
A shriek tore through the abyss, high-pitched and deafening, as the creature lunged. It knew.
Belial shoved the anxious man forward. "RUN!"
They bolted up the stairwell, feet pounding against the stone. Behind them, the Blind Witness charged, its movements a horrifying blur of speed and strength. The stairwell shook as something massive slammed into its base, sending a tremor up through the walls.
Belial didn't look back.
He didn't need to.
He could hear it.
Something was grabbed. A scream cut short.
Someone was gone.
He didn't know who.
He couldn't stop to find out.
The stairwell twisted upward into darkness, and the only thing he could do was run.
Because if he slowed down—
He would be next.