Long above a million meters from the abyss, atop the fractured remnants of a once-ancient white cathedral suspended in the void, the cohort stood frozen—shocked, horrified, and speechless. Dylan was gone.
Dragged into that infernal pit.
The hole below wasn't just darkness. It was absence. A hungry void that didn't swallow light—it erased it. No stories, no legends, no history spoke of what lay below. And for good reason. Nothing ever returned. Even myths dared not wander that far beneath.
Even Zephyr—indestructible, iron-willed Zephyr—had clenched his fists tighter than usual.
The others tried to rationalize it, but the overwhelming pressure rising from below left no room for hope.
"He's dead! No one's coming back from that hellish shit!" Necros spat, his usually calm tone snapping into something jagged. "Not even god could've escaped from that pithole of darkness. Dylan—you'll be forgotten. You were always just a pathetic slave."
Lilith chuckled, but it lacked her usual poison. "I knew he was just a yapper. But... this?" She cast a glance toward the still-open void. "Didn't think he'd end like that."
Tenshin didn't respond. His bow was in his hands, one arrow nocked, the tip glowing slightly in case something decided to crawl out. His eyes were fixed on the pit with unnatural focus. A warrior's intuition whispered something terrifying.
Only Zephyr remained still, statuesque, his body chiseled in silent defiance. "The real terror," he finally said, voice rumbling low like distant thunder, "has yet to begin."
Lilith turned toward him, eyebrow raised. "What do you mean?"
Zephyr's lips curved into a grin—cold, unshaken. "You'll see soon."
Suddenly, the earth groaned.
The floor beneath them trembled.
Lilith stumbled, cursing as she fell to her knees. The once-pure white tiles began to crack—lines spiderwebbing across the surface. From above, the cathedral's ceiling split apart like a skull being shattered by unseen hands. Shafts of white light pierced the void, searing through the cracks, burning through their vision.
The air buzzed with pure malevolence. The temperature dropped. And then the sound came—not a scream, not a growl, but a hum of hatred, as though the void itself was hating them into submission.
Then—a flash.
A blinding, holy-unholy light exploded above.
When they regained their sight, they weren't alone anymore.
Before them stood a towering demonic figure.
Over ten feet tall, its skin was pale as a corpse left to rot in snow, veins black and pulsating. Two jagged horns twisted upward from its forehead like dead tree branches. Its eyes—no, its eye sockets—were rivers of flowing black blood, streaming endlessly down its face. Its long hair—black and matted—dripped with tar.
Lilith's body shut down. Her mind snapped. She collapsed, unconscious from the sheer pressure.
Tenshin and Necros dropped to their knees, their bodies failing them, bones shuddering under an invisible weight.
Only Zephyr stood.
Hovering now.
The demon's lips curled upward. It looked at Zephyr... and smiled.
Zephyr tore off his long coat, revealing his armored chest and the blood-red sigil pulsing there. With a flick of his boots, he launched into the air—hovering above the demon, eye to eye.
The void trembled as they clashed.
Their collision cracked the very dimension.
Time stilled. The battle began.
Far Beneath — The Black Hell
Down—far, far, far beyond the light of heaven, beyond the memory of god, where even the screams of the damned had long faded—Dylan opened his eyes.
The blackness was thicker than blindness.
There was no "up." No "down."
He was nothing—only floating in a terrible stillness that devoured sanity.
"What the fuck... where am I?" he whispered, breathless.
He blinked. Again.
Still nothing.
Suddenly, his hand brushed against something wet.
Thick.
Viscous.
He brought his fingers to his nose. The scent—iron, rot, decay—flooded his senses. It wasn't water.
It was blood.
Old, rusted, decayed blood, flowing like a quiet river beneath him.
Instinctively, he tried to summon his weapons—his sword, his daggers, the Ring of Death—but his inventory was gone.
His body felt heavy.
His aura—gone.
His meditation field, the one that allowed him to see in the darkest pits, to resist terror—it was wiped out completely.
"Seriously... what is this place?" Dylan muttered.
His breath fogged despite the absence of cold.
He stood slowly. Each step he took felt like a century dragged behind him. He couldn't see anything—no terrain, no sound. Just black, infinite space. But something was watching.
Still... he'd faced voids before.
He remembered the Black Void. The pain. The monsters. The mind-breaking isolation. But he'd made it through.
So he did what he always did.
He closed his eyes. Focused on his breathing.
Heartbeat. In. Out.
Even though he couldn't see anything, he reached inward, to that piece of himself untouched by fear.
And then—
A vision.
A figure seated on a massive obsidian throne.
The figure was draped in cloaks of living shadows, a violet-purple aura pulsating like a dying star. Behind the throne was an eye—a single, enormous, vertical slit, glowing with the color of raw insanity. It wasn't just watching—it was studying. Judging.
Then... Dylan opened his eyes.
And froze.
He wasn't alone anymore.
Thousands of eyes stared at him.
Floating all around him.
They weren't creatures—just disembodied, massive, unblinking eyes, suspended in the darkness like stars in reverse.
Each eye radiated rage.
Judgment.
Hunger.
Dylan's heartbeat exploded in his ears.
The eyes moved.
One by one, blinking. In perfect unison.
Then they spoke—not with mouths, but with thought.
"YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE."
"YOU ARE NOT WORTHY."
"YOU DO NOT BELONG."
And then, without warning, one eye shot forward.
A beam of darkness—so pure it distorted Dylan's reality—erupted from its center, and he dove just in time, rolling over the thick, floating blood.
He screamed—not in pain, but in helplessness.
The void was bending. Folding. Warping.
Suddenly, the throne from his vision appeared before him in the real space—or what counted as "real" here.
The cloaked figure stood from its seat. Towering. No face visible. Just a gaping abyss beneath the hood.
Then it spoke—unlike the eyes, it had a voice.
One that sounded like it echoed from the end of time.
"DYLAN DANIELS. WE HAVE BEEN WAITING."
Dylan gritted his teeth.
"You know me?"
"WE KNOW ALL WHO TOUCH THE CURSE. WHO CARRY THE RING. WHO HOLD THE WOLF."
Dylan's eyes widened. "You... You mean the Ring of Death? The wolf form?"
The figure said nothing—but the eyes around him pulsed, vibrating the void like an earthquake.
"DOWN HERE... EVEN THE GODS DIE."
Before Dylan could respond, chains erupted from the void and pierced through his limbs, holding him in place.
His arms spread.
His legs bound.
He screamed.
The throne figure stepped closer.
"WE OFFER YOU A CHOICE, DYLAN. DIE AS A FORGOTTEN MORTAL... OR EMBRACE WHAT YOU FEAR MOST."
Dylan, blood pouring from his wrists, eyes shaking, growled through clenched teeth. "Fuck... you."
The figure paused.
"SO BE IT."
Suddenly, the blood below him turned to flame—black flame. Burning upward. Enveloping him.
And far, far above...
Zephyr and the demon froze mid-fight.
The demon looked down—and for the first time—its smile disappeared.
Something else was rising.
From below the pit.
From where Dylan had fallen.
Zephyr narrowed his eyes. "He's not dead... is he?"
The demon turned—and spoke in an ancient tongue, the words lost to time but carrying one truth:
Something older than the demon had awakened.
And it had chosen Dylan Daniels.