Linegias

The Earth had been swallowed. Absorbed by the new world, an infinite ocean dotted with continents stretching as far as the eye could see. Humanity found itself thrust into this place, left to fend for itself in hostile lands teeming with creatures and civilizations from multiple origins, ripped from their own realities.

Where the Earth once stood, another world took its place. Then another. And another. The cycle had begun. Each conquered world was duplicated, absorbed in turn, fueling the inexorable expansion of this endless domain. An unknown force wove this network of universes, engulfing everything in its path.

Ages passed.

What remained of humanity? Feared remnants. Captured by the Tower of Chaos, which had risen without warning. On the continent of Winet, the first earth to have been absorbed, the landscape had transformed. Once dominated by humans, only one thing remained of their reign: the Tower, immense and menacing. It had taken the strongest.

Those who had not fallen under its yoke were now a scattered group, too insignificant to weigh in on history. To the new inhabitants of Winet, they had become rare creatures, objects of desire and fascination. Symbols of wealth and power, they were held captive, weakened, carefully studied to prevent the awakening of their potential.

And it’s in this delightful chaos that I, Mana, find myself working. Enslaved by beings even more terrifying than myself, I’m condemned to watch the world descend into carnage, to dig through past ages for stories worth telling.

Really, what a mess.

___

"Please note that the current coverage is provisional and does not belong to me."

Chronicles of the Engulfment

Domgis woke slowly, stifling a yawn. His room in the cave was dark, as usual, but he could hear the distant, rhythmic dripping of water, steady and reassuring. The sound of everyday life. An ordinary day, with nothing special to do, no particular reason to worry.

He got out of bed, absently patting his face to shake off the drowsiness. The lamp on his table burned softly, motionless. It had always been there, as far back as he could remember.

The day passed uneventfully. He wandered through the corridors of the cave, examining the walls as he sometimes liked to do, without any real purpose. He spent hours observing the cracks, scrutinizing details he had already seen a thousand times but found strangely fascinating. It was a quiet life. A bland life.

Boredom crept in at times, but he didn't complain. After all, what more could he hope for?

Much later, as he moved through the darkness, guided by a small, flickering light, he came across a door. It stood there, mysterious and silent, as if it had been waiting forever. At the sight of it, something stirred within him, an insidious curiosity, almost a shiver, that urged him to approach, despite the strange foreboding that brushed against him.

He opened the door and found a long tunnel of mirrors. The reflections danced on the walls, refracting the light in an almost hypnotic way. It was… different. Domgis stepped forward, his heart beating harder than it had in a long time. There was a pull, something he didn't understand but that compelled him to move forward.

The end of the tunnel revealed a glass heart, glowing and menacing, its pulse resonating deep in his bones. He approached. A strange sensation washed over him, a mix of fear and irresistible fascination. But before he could do anything, the light intensified, and he found himself…

Domgis opened his eyes in his bed, breathless. He wiped the sweat from his damp forehead. Another ordinary day in his cave. Nothing unusual, nothing worth recounting. Yet, a fleeting feeling tormented him, like a dream he couldn't quite grasp. He shook his head and resumed his routine, ignoring the sensation tightening his chest.

Domgis found the door, explored the tunnel, reached the heart. Each time, he tried something new: striking it, observing it, speaking to it, resisting it. But every attempt brought him inexorably back to his room, drained, without memory.

He didn't remember trying to shatter the heart with a stone.

He didn't remember screaming at it for hours.

With each repetition, he was there, motionless, starting over without understanding why.

**Partial Forgetfulness but a Subtle Change**

The heart itself seemed to weaken. Domgis got a little closer each time before being sent back. Sometimes, a strange detail lingered after his return: a slight pain in his hands as if he had clawed at something, a lingering dizziness that lasted longer than usual, or that gnawing feeling that he was forgetting something important.

The mirrors in the tunnel cracked ever so slightly, almost invisibly. But to Domgis, this change went unnoticed. He was doomed to move forward, to struggle, without ever knowing why he failed or how many times it had already happened.

And with each return, he woke up in his cave room, watching time slowly pass, his heart weighed down by a dull boredom. A life without meaning, which he accepted as a given.

But in this loop, something, somewhere, was beginning to erode.

Chapter 7 : The prisoner of the tower