Chapter 20: The Quiet Before the Storm
~ The Calm That Screams ~
The silence was louder than any roar Ryo had ever faced.
No blood on the walls. No screaming metal or snarling beasts. Just stillness… deep, choking stillness.
The corridor he walked through was carved from polished obsidian, and it echoed with each step he took. His boots, caked in dried blood and dirt, sounded almost sacrilegious against the perfection of the floor. This place didn't belong in the Maw. It was too clean. Too sacred. As if it had never known violence.
But Ryo knew better.
He'd learned long ago that silence didn't mean safety.
It meant waiting.
Waiting for the next battle.
Waiting for the storm.
And now, with the final trial drawing near, the Maw had gifted him something rare: a moment of stillness. A cruel offering from a crueler world.
He stepped into a domed chamber that radiated with a strange, ethereal glow. Crystals embedded in the ceiling shimmered like stars—thousands of them. It was the first beauty he had seen in the Maw. It felt… almost wrong.
In the center of the chamber was a stone pedestal.
On it rested a single item: a photograph.
Ryo approached cautiously, his heart suddenly heavy. He picked it up.
It was him and Ren.
Much younger. Ryo was maybe ten. Ren, thirteen. They were barefoot, standing in front of a golden rice field, holding each other in a half-embrace, half-headlock. The sun set behind them, and their grins were bright and pure—untainted by the horror that would later shape them.
His breath hitched.
He remembered that day. He'd twisted his ankle racing Ren to the village. His brother had carried him the rest of the way on his back, never complaining, even joking that Ryo owed him a mountain of steamed buns for it. They'd collapsed by the field, laughing.
Back then, all they had was each other.
And now… now Ren had become something unrecognizable. An enforcer of the same nightmare they both once vowed to destroy.
Ryo clutched the photo tight. His knuckles whitened, shaking.
For the first time in a long while, he sat. Not to meditate. Not to recover. But simply to feel.
The chamber welcomed his silence. It swallowed it. And in return, it gave him something else:
Memories.
He remembered the warmth of their childhood home. The songs their mother used to hum. The weight of her pendant around Ren's neck after she passed. He remembered the first time he ever saw Ren fight—not out of rage, but to protect Ryo from a street gang. That day, Ren bled from a split lip and smiled like he'd won a trophy.
They had grown up believing they could survive anything—as long as they had each other.
But now, sitting in a chamber built by the very machine that tore them apart, Ryo wasn't sure anymore.
What had he become?
The serum. The battles. The fury. Every opponent he'd crushed brought him closer to something monstrous. He'd seen it in their faces—the Hollowed, the corrupted. Warriors who looked human but had nothing left inside.
And sometimes… he saw glimpses of himself in them.
His hand moved to his chest. His heartbeat was steady, but cold.
Would Ren even recognize him now?
Or would he see just another beast?
Footsteps echoed.
Ryo snapped his head up, tensing. But it wasn't an enemy. It was the old man from the Maw's medical bay—the silent one who patched up wounds without ever asking why they were caused.
He carried a wooden box in his wrinkled hands.
"This is for you," the man said simply, placing it on the pedestal.
Ryo looked at the box, then back at the man. "What's inside?"
"Truth," the man replied. "And a decision."
Then, without waiting for a response, he turned and walked away.
The chamber was silent again.
Ryo opened the box slowly.
Inside were two things.
First: a vial of shimmering serum—denser, darker than anything he'd been given before. It pulsed faintly, as though alive. A final-stage variant. If he injected it, it would boost him beyond anything he'd ever known. Faster. Stronger. Almost invincible.
But there would be a price.
The more powerful the serum, the higher the cost to his soul. Too many had crossed that line and never returned.
Second: a cracked pendant. Small, round. Rusted slightly at the edges.
His mother's.
The very one Ren had sworn to wear every day. The one he used to clutch when afraid. When mourning. When needing strength.
It had survived. Just barely.
Beneath the two items was a folded slip of paper.
Ryo unfolded it with trembling fingers.
Ren's handwriting—sharp, hurried, familiar.
"If you're reading this, it means we're too far gone to talk like brothers.I became what I had to.Not because I wanted to—but because I didn't see another way.I searched for you. Even when I stopped believing you'd survived, I kept looking.The Maw broke me. But not completely.I need to know if it broke you too.
If you still have something left…
Find me.Ren."
Ryo stared at the words for minutes. Time didn't exist in that chamber. Only the sound of his breath and the weight of his decision.
This wasn't just about fighting anymore.
It never had been.
It was about who they had become—and who they might still be.
He placed the serum back in the box.
He tied the pendant around his neck, the cold metal pressing against his skin like a quiet promise.
And then… he rose.
No longer as a fighter.
But as a brother.
Elsewhere…
Far below the chamber, beyond steel gates and bone-thin guards, stood Ren.
Alone.
Cloaked in silence.
He stared out over an empty arena—a monstrous coliseum of jagged stone and crimson sands. Chains hung from the ceiling like nooses. The torches along the walls burned blue instead of orange, casting a ghostly hue over the battlefield.
In his hand, he held a photo.
Two boys in a rice field.
Smiling.
Whole.
He touched it gently, and for the first time in years, his lip trembled.
A voice—low and guttural—whispered from the shadows behind him:
"He comes."
Ren didn't flinch.
He tucked the photo into his coat and whispered back:
"Then let him."