The whispers hadn't stopped.
Even in the silence, they crawled under his skin.
"The Apostle... He has come..."
Kairo sat still, back against the stone wall. The glow had gone, but the symbol stayed — burned into his chest like a warning.
He didn't understand it.
Didn't want to.
But he couldn't pretend this was a dream anymore.
His breath came in ragged pulls. The air still burned. Maybe he was just learning how to suffer better.
He forced himself up and stepped into the open.
The world greeted him like it was alive — watching.
The red sky never changed.
The rivers of gold still hissed.
But something was different now.
Kairo wasn't as scared.
He was still shaking, still hurt, but the part of him that wanted to collapse — that part had gone quiet.
Every step forward made his legs scream.
But he moved anyway.
He wandered.
Passed dead trees with hanging bones for fruit.
Stepped over cracked stone that bled when stepped on.
He didn't ask questions anymore.
He just walked.
Then he heard it.
Movement.
Quick.
Light.
He turned fast.
A beast leapt at him — smaller than the last, but faster. Insect legs, twitching eyes, a mouth too wide.
He ducked. Barely.
Its claws missed by inches.
He grabbed a bone shard off the ground.
Swung hard.
Crack.
The thing screeched.
He stabbed again. And again.
Black blood soaked the dirt.
Kairo stood there, breathing heavy. Arms shaking.
The creature lay still.
Smoke rose from its body — thick, dark, alive.
It spiraled toward him.
Kairo didn't run.
The smoke entered him.
Memories.
Images.
Screams.
Hunger.
Pain that wasn't his.
Thoughts that weren't his.
He dropped to his knees.
Then the voice returned.
Clearer.
Deeper.
Colder.
"A human...?"
"No... not just human."
"Heaven made a mistake."
Kairo looked up. The voice wasn't just around him.
It was inside.
"Who are you?" he asked aloud.
Silence.
The voice was gone.
But it had left something behind.
Not power.
Not answers.
Resolve.
He had killed two things now.
Survived longer than any human probably ever had here.
That meant something.
He rose to his feet.
Looked down at his bloodstained hand.
This world was trying to break him.
But it hadn't.
Not yet.
His gaze turned forward.
In the distance, through smoke and flame, rose a city of ash and bone.
Massive towers made of ribs.
Fire pits instead of streets.
And something circled above it — wings of shadow stretched across the sky.
Kairo's jaw tightened.
"If you're watching," he said quietly, "then remember this."
"I'm not dying here."
He turned.
Started walking.
Behind him, the red wind carried a whisper only he could hear.
"We'll see, little ghost."
Kairo didn't stop.
He walked on.
In a palace of writhing flesh and jagged obsidian, where the walls pulsed like a living heart, the First Sovereign of Hell lounged upon his throne of bones. His crown twisted horns, blackened with age and blood gleamed in the firelight as he stared into a basin of shifting black flames.
The image within flickered.
A boy.
Bleeding.
Breathing.
"The anomaly survived," the Sovereign murmured, his voice a landslide of gravel and malice. It echoed through the chamber, shaking the very foundations of his domain. "His presence... it burns."
He turned, slow and deliberate, to the creatures kneeling before him, shadows given form, nightmares given flesh. They were his Hellborn Hunters, forged in the deeper layers of the Seven Stages, each one bred to kill without hesitation.
They did not speak. They did not breathe. They waited.
"Send Azareth."
A ripple ran through the floor at the name. Azareth, the Hollow Fang. The First Sovereign's enforcer, the shadow that hunted in his name. A demon whispered of in fear, even among the damned.
A pause.
A smile, jagged as a blade.
"No... send three."
His fingers curled, claws scraping against the armrest of his throne.
"I want him broken." "I want him begging." "And then... I want answers."
He had his suspicions. Whispers of a divine mistake. A mortal sent here by accident, one connected to the Five Immortal Beings, the cosmic architects of existence. If true, then Kairo was more than a threat.
He was a crack in the foundation.
It came when the false night deepened, when the fires dimmed just enough for the things that lurked in the dark to stretch their limbs and hunt.
Kairo had found shelter in a shallow cave, his back pressed against the cold stone, his fingers locked around his bone shard like a lifeline. His wound had crusted over, but the pain was a constant companion, gnawing at his ribs with every breath.
Just one more hour.
Just one more.
The first hunter arrived without sound.
One moment, the cave mouth was empty.
The next, a figure stood there.
It was not a demon. It was a nightmare dressed in a corpse. Azareth.
Twisted armor fused with flesh, blackened claws dragging along the stone, and a cloak that bled shadow. No eyes, only voids. No voice, only presence. The stench of death followed him like a promise.
Kairo froze.
Azareth stepped forward.
"So you're the angel," the voice echoed, as if spoken through countless mouths in unison.
Kairo's grip tightened. He raised the bone shard with a trembling hand.
"I I'm not..."
"No matter."
Azareth moved.
Pain exploded across Kairo's face, claws raking his cheek, splitting flesh like parchment. He stumbled, rolled, slashed out with the shard. It struck Azareth's chest.
And shattered.
Useless.
The fight wasn't a fight.
It was a massacre.
His ribs cracked. His arm bent the wrong way. A boot crushed his knee. Blood spilled from his mouth as he gasped, throat raw.
"Pathetic," Azareth hissed.
Then something inside Kairo cracked.
A flicker. A spark.
The air trembled.
Then light.
Purple-white. Blinding. A pulse of raw, warped power erupted from Kairo's chest, searing through the cave like an arc of twisted lightning. Azareth recoiled, smoke rising from his arms as his flesh hissed.
The Order.
Not divine. Not infernal. A force born of mistake. Born of conflict. Heaven's structure. Hell's fury.
Kairo collapsed. His skull burned. His eyes blurred.
He ran.
Stumbling through stone and fire, into the abyssal dark, dragging his broken limbs through the ash. He didn't look back. Didn't dare.
He ran until his body gave out.
Until he dropped beside a river of molten rock.
He coughed, spat blood, and laughed.
"They think I'm an angel..."
It was a broken sound.
He wasn't divine. He wasn't anything.
But if fear bought him time. If it kept the monsters at bay.
"Let them believe it."
And deep within him, something stirred.
Back in the throne room, Azareth knelt, his armor smoldering.
"He escaped," the voice whispered. "But he's awakening."
The First Sovereign leaned forward, grin widening.
"Good."
The word tasted like blood.
"Let the games begin."
Across the Seven Sovereigns of Hell, the command echoed, a whisper, a roar, a hunger:
"Find him." "Break him." "Or bring him to me alive."
Far below, in the dark where even demons feared to tread, a boy with shattered bones and a cursed light in his chest curled into himself.
And endured.