The mocking, white-eyed laughter spilling from Dika’s mouth still echoed, shattering the dark silence of the grim death canyon. All around them, the once-grand phantom market had vanished completely, leaving behind only a landscape of jagged rock ravines and heaps of human skeletal remains scattered across the foul-smelling black mud.

Rian, who had just managed to break free from the swirling fog vortex of the narrow alleyway where he had been lost moments before, tumbled to his knees beside Gani. The boy’s chest heaved in ragged gasps while his eyes dilated in sheer horror as he stared at the scene unfolding before him.

"Gan... Dika... Sita... what is happening?!" Rian shrieked hysterically, his voice fracturing on the edge of sobs as he looked upon Dika, whose lower body had fused into the thorny tree roots, while Sita was nowhere to be seen save for fading wisps of mist in the air.

Maya, who had just been dragged out of another dark alley by Rian with violent tremors, collapsed unconscious straight into Rian’s arms. The girl’s face was as pale as chalk, her lips tinted blue, and tear tracks streaked across her cheeks.

"Rian! Wake Maya up! We don't have much time!" Gani barked, half-shouting, his voice raspy with raw desperation. The broad-shouldered boy forced himself up with immense effort, his legs dragging as he marched toward Dika, who continued his horrifying laughter with his head locked backward.

"Dika! Snap out of it, Dik! It's us, your friends!" Rian panicked, supporting Maya with one arm as he lunged forward alongside Gani to grab Dika’s rigid, slumped form on the rotting wooden bench.

"Gani, help me pull his arms! Let's get Dika out of here!" Rian yelled, clamping his hands tight around Dika’s wrists.

Gani moved in close, grabbing Dika’s shoulders with all his might. "Dika, wake up! You can't give up here!"

Yet the instant Rian and Gani’s palms made direct contact with Dika’s skin, a bizarre, bone-chilling sensation rippled through their bodies.

It felt as though Rian and Gani were plunging their hands into an empty, freezing shadow, or hitting an unyielding, invisible wall of solid density—like pressing against thick ice plates separating two distinct worlds. Dika’s flesh felt hard and petrified, completely rejecting any touch from the living world.

"Huh? Our hands... we can't grab him!" Rian gasped in shock, trying to grip tighter only to find his fingers passing through frozen, empty air.

Dika slowly ceased his laughter. His head swiveled back to its normal orientation, locking his dead, pupil-less white eyes straight onto Rian and Gani. The warmth and easygoing banter that had once defined Dika were gone entirely, replaced by a cold, lifeless expression, as though his human soul had died long ago.

"It's useless... you'll never pull me out..." Dika whispered, his voice carrying a dual resonance blending with the howling canyon wind. "This place is my new home... the three of you belong here, too."

"Dika, stop talking crazy! We're your best friends!" Rian choked out, tears spilling down his cheeks. "Come on, let's go home!"

"Home?" another voice joined from beside them.

Maya, slowly drifting back to consciousness upon the muddy earth, fluttered her eyes open. Yet her gaze held no confusion; the girl’s eyes were completely vacant, staring straight out into the dark ravine with the exact same stiff, chilling smile plastered across Dika's face.

"Maya? You're awake, May? Thank God..." Rian sighed with relief, moving to pull her into an embrace.

Maya gently batted Rian’s hands away. She pushed herself stiffly to her feet, spun around to turn her back on Rian and Gani, and marched with clumsy, robotic steps toward the edge of the death drop.

"Maya! Where are you going?! Don't go over there!" Rian panicked, moving to chase her, only to be yanked violently backward by Gani, who clamped a heavy hand down on his shoulder.

"Don't chase her, Rian!" Gani barked with a trembling voice, his eyes blown wide as he stared at the radical transformation gripping Maya.

Maya stopped at the precipice. She glanced back over her shoulder, fixing Rian with a deathly pale, horrifying smile. "It's peaceful here, Yan... no thesis papers, no crushing life burdens... you two should hurry up and join us."

"Maya, please snap out of it!" Rian wept openly, thrashing against Gani’s grip.

Gani swallowed hard past a throat made of gravel, his jaw locking tight against a rising tide of grief and terror crushing his chest. He understood with absolute clarity that the nightmare unfolding in this death canyon had completely bypassed the laws of human reality. If he allowed doubt to paralyze him here, Rian and his own life would be permanently locked away as eternal sacrifices to Mount Aruna.

"Rian! Listen to me!" Gani snapped firmly, gripping Rian by both shoulders and forcing the boy to lock eyes with him.

Rian stunned, whipping his head around with ragged breaths. "But Maya and Dika, Gan! We can't just leave them behind!"

"They aren't the Maya and Dika we know anymore, Rian!" Gani roared, hot tears finally breaking free to stream down his face. "If we stay here wasting time trying to save something that's already gone, both of us will die joining them! Let go of your hold on this place! Run and save your life right now!"

Rian shook his head frantically, glancing toward Maya—who was slowly stepping off the ledge to plunge into the silent dark below—and toward Dika, who smiled coldly from his seat upon the tree roots.

"No... the three of us have to make it down together..." Rian whimpered in total defeat.

"There's no time left!" Gani yelled in a desperate fury.

Without waiting for Rian’s consent, Gani hauled Rian up by the wrist with brute force, spinning him around and breaking into a frantic sprint through the fog wall and steep rocks, abandoning the death canyon behind.

Rian, dragged along by Gani’s desperate momentum, was forced to pump his legs and run flat out, leaving the horrific scene behind his back. Sobs tore from Rian’s throat the entire length of their flight, mourning a friendship ripped apart in a single, cursed night on the mountain.

Yet barely a few meters into their desperate dash across the narrow stone ridge...

Thud!

The heavy sound of an impact struck the dirt directly before their path.

Gani and Rian slammed to an abrupt halt. Rian, stumbling forward, cast his gaze downward to see what had dropped to block his path.

Rian’s breath instantly failed him. His throat locked tight, and a muffled shriek escaped his lips.

Atop the rocky earth right before the toes of Rian’s boots lay Dika’s severed human head.

The head had been detached clean from its neck without spilling a single drop of blood. Dika’s pupil-less white eyes stared directly into Rian’s soul, while his jaw slowly dropped open wide.

And utilizing a layered, dual-resonant voice, the severed head resting in the dirt shrieked aloud, echoing across every corner of the ravine walls:

"You will never escape beyond this boundary!"