Chapter 27: Judgment of Living Fibers
The air there was thick as raw meat. The walls pulsed to their own rhythm, squeezing and dilating like the alveoli of a hungry lung. Each of Eren’s steps produced a wet sound, as if he were treading on freshly expelled organs. The lights that had guided them until now — luminescent mosses, pulsating fungi — extinguished one by one behind them, forcing the group to move only forward.
The corridor opened into a wide, oval hall, whose living dome contracted and inflated at irregular intervals. On the ceiling, veins of light ran through the grooves of the organic structure, and on the floor... corpses.
Not complete. Just remnants: hands with contract rings, fragments of melted grimoires, mouths still open in screams that no one would hear anymore. The atmosphere there was not of death. It was of failure.
The system flickered once, hesitant:
[Your Bond will be tested]
And nothing more. No instructions, no maps, no hints. Just the warning. Kaela stepped forward, eyes wide, but not growling. Nyssa shrank against Eren’s leg, trembling as if the air vibrated against her gelatinous form.
Eren said nothing. He just walked.
The ground gave way.
For a moment, everything turned to light. Then, darkness. When he regained his vision, Eren was alone.
"Of course. Individual test. Dramatic."
Around him, the space was distorted. There were no walls — just a darkness that seemed to suck in attention, shaping itself according to the gaze. When Eren looked to the left, a throne appeared. When he looked to the right, a field of bodies. The center, however, revealed the figure waiting there like a mirror etched in rancor.
It was him.