Before the First Step.

Dante sat beside the golem's ashes, pale-faced, his eyes staring at nothing... or at everything. The earth wasn't breathing, the air wasn't alive, as if the world was waiting for something, a moment of relief or another catastrophe. The ashes were still warm, uncharacteristically inanimate on this frozen continent.

Dante reached out, hesitant, then gently dug his fingers into the rubble. The radiating heat wasn't harmful... just eerily familiar. Amid the remains, he spotted something faintly gleaming. Carefully, he brushed the ashes aside, and there he saw a small black crystal heart, pulsing once... then fading... then pulsing again.

"...pulsing?" he whispered unconsciously.

He lifted the crystal in his palm, and its surface shifted for a moment, as if reflecting images invisible to the naked eye. It wasn't a clear image... but flashes: glimpses of battles, strange places, and creatures born of smoke and light.

Suddenly, he felt a voice—more like an echo inside his skull—saying:

"What doesn't make sense... doesn't mean it doesn't belong."

Dante froze. The voice wasn't a stranger's, nor did it have an external source. It was as if it... came from within him.

He felt his fingers ignite with a strange tingle, as if the crystal was interacting with something inside him, something that had been dormant for too long. He quickly moved away from it, but didn't drop it. He kept looking at it... then he muttered hesitantly:

"What is this...?"

At that moment, the ground shook beneath him, first gently, then violently, as if something had awakened from its slumber. He heard the cracking of snow in the distance, an echo rising among the surrounding mountains. Something Dante had seen in that crystal... began to manifest itself in reality.

And he had to decide... would he follow its trail? Or would he try to bury it again?

Dante was still staring at the crystal when he first felt the slight vibration… but he ignored it. He didn't think the earth was warning him.

Then he heard the sound. It wasn't a roar or a screech… more like a burial, as if something were being ripped from the bottom, from beneath everything the world thought was asleep.

He slowly raised his head, then gasped softly.

There… beyond the gray mist, something emerged.

It didn't walk… it appeared. It was as if the forest had given birth to it. A creature not created but resurrected, from petrified clay and dead roots, its gray skin absorbing light, its sunken eyes that didn't shine, but sank into eternal blackness.

It advanced. It didn't run, it didn't attack, it didn't express any emotion. It just walked… with slow, heavy steps, so that the earth seemed to ache with every step.

Dante whispered, without realizing it, "What… is this?"

He raised his sword, hesitantly, then said to himself, as a soldier would to avoid running away: "It's a golem... right? Just... another golem."

He ran towards it, cautiously, then quickly took a quick step and slashed at its neck. The metallic clang sound emanated as if his sword had struck a wall forged from another planet.

Dante recoiled, surprised... the golem didn't move. It didn't fight back. It didn't wince. It didn't react at all.

It didn't acknowledge its own existence.

Dante began to feel something he'd never felt before. Not just fear... but that its existence didn't count. That this being didn't see him as a rival, an opponent, or even an obstacle.

It didn't see its function as anything but moving... towards him.

He said in a strained voice, as if trying to hear himself for reassurance: "It's... not alive. But it's not dead. It's..."

And he stopped.

What is something that doesn't live... or die... or stop?

The golem drew closer, only a few steps away.

And Dante, for the first time since the beginning of all this, didn't raise his sword immediately...

Instead, he whispered to himself, "Am I the one who has to run... or am I the one who's expected to stand?"

Before Dante could complete his inner questioning, a sound echoed in the forest… not a scream, not a howl of a beast, but the denting of the earth, as if the soil itself were being forced to utter what it had hidden for centuries.

Dante turned quickly—then his eyes froze.

One… Two… Four… Ten…

Out of the thick fog, heavy shadows began to emerge. All of them looked the same… the same dead roots, the same cracked gray skin, the same meaningless faces.

"Impossible…" Dante whispered.

He took a step back… then another. The earth shook with each new appearance, until the sound was like the drums of the apocalypse.

"All of them…?!" Dante cried, retreating.

He gasped, staring at them as they moved with the same rhythm, with the same coldness, with the same destiny, creeping toward him as if an inaudible call were between them.

"Have they… evolved?!" he asked in a trembling voice as he ran through the trees, his pack swinging and his sword shaking with his breath.

"In just this short time... they evolved?! Impossible! A golem doesn't think... it doesn't change... it doesn't evolve!"

But he saw the truth with his own eyes—they were different.

They were walking toward him, not to attack him... but as if they knew he was there. As if they were searching for him alone.

"Are... they following me? No, this... this is planned. This isn't random!"

He leaped onto a rock, turned back, panting, then ran again. Ice fell from the trees around him, and the cold began to bite his flesh, but he didn't stop.

"Who moved them?! And why now? And why me?!"

He ran... and ran... the cold deepening, the fog closing in, the shadows behind him growing.

But in the midst of all this chaos... he whispered:

"If they evolved this way... what would happen to me if I stopped?"

The fog grew heavier… as if it were breathing with him, creeping into his chest and weighing down his feet. Every time Dante took a step forward, the air closed in on him like a transparent chain. The trees became like silent walls, watching him mercilessly, and the refracting light from behind the ice became like dead eyes watching him from every angle.

"It's… a cold hell," he muttered, panting.

The sound of the golem's footsteps didn't stop; it multiplied.

Cracking… cracking… stone myths walking according to a destiny written for them alone.

They emerged from underground, from between the cracks, from between the tree trunks, even from beneath the surface of the frozen ice, breaking it quietly, climbing slowly, without haste, as if time were with them alone.

Dante ran… and the ground behind him filled with them.

"Why won't they stop…?!" he shouted, running as if all life had been squeezed under his feet. The wind whipped his face with icy blades, but it was his heart that was bleeding.

He stumbled, fell, and got up immediately. He felt them close, not to his body… but to his soul.

"It's like… they know who I am."

He passed a cliff, nearly fell into it, clutching a stiff trunk, but it broke in his hand. He fell to the snow, his breath shattering like glass.

He looked up—and there they were.

Three… five… seven…

They stood silently, just staring at him, those sunken eyes, as if trying to remember him.

He ran again, thoughts gnawing at his brain:

"Are they just chasing me? Is someone directing them? No… it's impossible… the golem doesn't think… but…"

He hit a tree with his shoulder as he passed, blood pouring from his forehead, but he didn't feel it. Everything became a backdrop to his terror:

Unbearable cold.

Absolute solitude.

Enemies who don't speak, who don't stop, who don't understand.

And again... from far away... he heard the sound of the earth cracking.

Another... bigger... slower... but his voice alone was enough to make the snow tremble beneath him.

Dante opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

In this white hell... he had nothing left but to run.

Here he is running... and here the earth narrows.

The fog has become a wall, and the silence a voice screaming in his ears. His footsteps leave faint traces in the snow, but they are quickly erased, as if the world itself refuses to acknowledge that he has passed through here.

But he hears them.

Behind him. Beside him. In front of him.

The footsteps. The sound of the stones beneath them. A sound neither like life nor death.

And suddenly—

His feet sink into the snow. He is no longer running, but dragging himself as if dragged into a heavy dream.

He looks behind him.

The golem is there... the hollow eyes piercing his heart.

And for the first time—he glimpses something strange.

One of them isn't moving toward him. Rather, toward a small stone, which he places his hand on, and seems to… feel it.

Dante stares, his breath ragged.

Then the second does it.

Three of them knelt on the ground, touching it... as if searching for something.

"No... this is impossible..." Dante whispered, a chill running down his spine.

They weren't just chasing him... they were searching.

For what?

He ran, now with a burning heart, not feet.

And suddenly... his foot slipped on translucent ice, and he fell and rolled until he reached the edge of an icy cliff. He stopped with difficulty, grabbed a protruding stone, and looked down.

There...

A temple half-buried in ice.

A massive door... armored with carvings unlike anything he'd seen before.

The carvings moved slowly, as if breathing.

"What is this...?" he muttered.

But he didn't have time.

A cracking sound behind him...

The golems began to descend the slope.

He had to decide.

He entered the temple...

Or did he face them alone in this white hell?

Dante's breath quickened, the cold bit his skin and grief weighed on his heart, but he didn't stop. Ahead of him lay the temple gate, and behind him... danger, immeasurable.

He ran toward the snowy entrance, and before he could even take a step, he tripped over a stone buried under the snow and fell.

His satchel hit the ground first, its contents spurting out as if it too had decided to escape.

The book rolled until it lay open, its pages fluttering in the wind.

The dry piece of bread fell near the edge of the snow.

The gloves scattered, one here and another there.

The scarf tore at the end.

And the black crystal... slid slowly across the ice, as if it knew the way.

Dante, kneeling, reached out hesitantly, his eyes on the crystal... his voice whispering:

"No... not now..."

But he didn't have time.

A heavy shadow fell to the snow beside him. He raised his head and saw a golem approaching.

It came closer.

Then—

It bent down.

As if this golem didn't care about Dante, didn't even see him.

He reached out his stony hand and picked up the black crystal.

For a moment, time froze.

Dante didn't dare breathe.

Then... without a word, without a look, the golem turned... and walked away.

The other golems followed, one by one, as if something had been accomplished, as if the goal had been achieved.

They left. All of them.

Only the deep traces of their footsteps remained... and a silence too great to bear.

Dante stayed there, frozen, staring at the spot where the crystal had been.

He didn't feel relief... he felt as if something bigger had begun.

Something left him... but it didn't go away.

Dante remained kneeling for a few moments, silent, as if the cold had frozen his thoughts along with his limbs.

Then slowly, as if every movement tore something apart inside him, he began to crawl toward his belongings.

He picked up the book first, brushing the snow off it with trembling fingers as if wiping an invisible wound.

He then gathered his gloves and wrapped the torn scarf around his neck. Despite its rips, it still held the warmth of memories.

He returned the bread to the bag, as tough as it was, because it was the only one he had left.

But what he didn't find was... the most important.

The Black Crystal.

Finally, after resliding the bag over his shoulder, he stood a few steps from the temple.

He looked at the ground where the crystal had disappeared, then at the distant horizon, where the golem had marched into the unknown.

A question crept through him as if carried by the wind:

"Why did this happen? Or rather... how long will this last?"

His tone was faint, but he felt as if it had broken something around him. Emptiness, silence, mystery… all pressed on him from within and without.

He looked at the temple.

It was towering, mysterious, its walls covered with ancient inscriptions, and covered in snow as if nature were trying to bury it but failing.

He took a step… then stopped.

His hands tightened around his bag, but he didn't know what to do anymore.

Should he go inside?

Should he wait?

Should he run away?

Are these answers within the temple?

Or was there something worse than all the questions he carried?

He stood there…

as if waiting for something to shake him from within, so he could finally decide: "Who is he? And why is he still alive?"