The sky broke without warning.
There was no thunder, no storm—just a sudden tearing sound, like reality itself had been ripped open by careless hands. Then the world inverted.
Mara had been walking home when gravity vanished.
One moment, stone beneath her boots. The next, empty air.
She screamed as the sky opened and swallowed her.
Around her, others fell—men, women, children—ripped from their lives in mid-step, mid-breath. Towns vanished upward into a widening wound of green fire. The air burned her lungs. Her bones screamed as her body stretched, twisted, reshaped by forces that did not care if she survived.
Below was Hell.
And it went on forever.
The fall did not feel fast.
It felt inevitable.
Bodies struck unseen barriers and shattered into ash mid-descent. Some burst into flame and never stopped screaming. Others twisted violently, limbs fusing, faces melting as sin carved itself into flesh.
Mara burned.
Memories tore free—every lie, every theft, every small cruelty she had buried under justification. They branded her from the inside out. Her skin blackened, hardened, cracked open to reveal ember-veins.
She hit the ground screaming.
Many did not.
The impact zone was a vast basin of bone and molten stone, runes circling its perimeter like waiting teeth. The Circle glowed overhead, cold and attentive.
Those who survived crawled, sobbed, begging in voices already warping.
Then the Choir sang.
Lady Sevrayne descended slowly, suspended by cords of flesh and sound, her form an obscene cathedral of mouths and stretched throats. Hundreds of bound demons followed her—once-human souls reshaped into living instruments, ribs split to form pipes, lungs glowing as they screamed in harmony.
The song cut.
It flayed sanity, peeled thought from mind, turned pain into obedience.
Mara clutched her head as her memories fractured. Around her, survivors rose—not by choice, but by command—skin tearing as horns erupted, jaws splitting to accommodate new voices.
Sevrayne's laughter chimed musically. "Sing," she whispered.
They obeyed.
Then the ground shook again.
Not from the fall.
From approach.
The Choir faltered as shadows moved across the basin's edge—organized shadows. The Ashen Horde emerged, formation loose but purposeful, Thomas at their center, molten veins dim but steady.
Sevrayne tilted her head. "Ah," she cooed. "The merciful demon arrives."
Thomas looked at the fallen humans—what they were becoming, what had already been stolen from them. He felt the Circle's attention sharpen.
"Release them," he said.
Sevrayne laughed, the sound splitting into a thousand harmonics. "They belong to Hell now."
"So do I," Thomas replied.
The Choir attacked.
Sound became weaponized agony. Demons fell clutching their heads as resonance tore through hardened forms. Thomas pushed forward regardless, forcing himself through the pain, carving a path toward Sevrayne.
Liora struck from the flanks, severing flesh-cords, silencing voices one by one. Kael Varrox fought beside her, brutal and unrelenting, earning every step forward in blood.
Thomas reached Sevrayne.
She lashed out, voices screaming accusations from every mouth—murderer, liar, coward—each word striking with supernatural force.
Thomas endured.
"I was all of those," he said, gripping her core. "And I fell anyway."
He tore her from the air.
The Choir collapsed into disarray as their conductor screamed.
The Circle pulsed—approval uncertain.
Thomas turned to the survivors.
Some were too far gone.
Some were not.
"This isn't salvation," he said. "It's a choice."
Those who could still choose followed him.
Those who couldn't… screamed as Hell finished claiming them.
When it was over, the basin was silent.
Mara stood among the living demons, shaking, eyes burning with new fire—but hers.
She looked at Thomas like a god.
He looked away.
Above them, the Circle shifted again.
Mercy had been witnessed.
And Hell was deciding how to punish it.