Mike felt the air shift the moment his body reformed. No heat. No sound. No sense of gravity, direction, or even time. Just black.
His claws clicked softly against stone as he stepped forward, cautiously at first, then more determined. The ground was uneven. Pebbled. Sharp in places. It crunched beneath his bare feet, tiny shards of rock scattered across what felt like an endless cave floor.
He walked for minutes. Then hours.
No light. No scent. No echo.
Only the crunch of his footfalls and the heavy thud of his heartbeat in his ears.
And then a splash.
His foot sank into shallow water. Cold. Still. Undisturbed until now.
He stopped.
Looked around.
Still nothing. No glow of runes. No divine sigils. No natural light or starlight above. Just void.
"Bahamut?" he asked into the darkness.
No answer.
Mike stood still, flexing his hands. He wasn't sure how long he had been walking, but something in the atmosphere was changing. Slowly, steadily, a faintglow appeared in the far distance, like a dying candle swaying in a breeze.
He watched it for several long seconds.
It flickered. It moved.
Closer.
The splash of an oar joined the silence. Water sloshed gently. Ripples spread outward in the stillness.
The glow resolved into a lantern, swinging lazily from the bow of a small wooden boat. Its hull was cracked and aged, with faded carvings etched into the rotted surface. At the front of the vessel were three skulls, lashed together with black twine.
The boat drifted to a stop a few feet from where Mike stood.
A tall, hunched figure stood at the stern, cloaked in tattered robes that hung from his body like torn sails. In one bony hand, he held a long oar dipped halfway into the black water. His skin was gray-white, his cheeks sunken, his beard long and yellowed. His eyes were twin points of smoldering crimson.
Mike watched the figure in silence.
The man stared back.
"You don't belong here," the man rasped. His voice was a mixture of sand and smoke. "You're not dead. Not yet."
Mike said nothing.
"I am Charon," the man continued. "Ferryman of the river Styx. I transport the dead. The judged. The damned."
Mike narrowed his eyes. "Good for you. I'm trying to get the fuck out of here."
Charon didn't flinch. "That's not how this place works."
Mike took a step closer to the boat. "Then tell me how it does. Or I'll decide you're edible."
Charon raised one sickly hand.
"I do not answer questions," he said coldly. "And I do not grant passage to those who do not pay."
Mike's eyes flared with light. Heat rippled around his shoulders.
"I'm not dead, boatman," he growled. "But you can be."
The old ferryman didn't move. He stared at Mike, as if trying to look through him.
And then he smiled.
A slow, crooked, ugly thing.
"I have seen scarier dragons, whelp. Even they paid the price."
Just then, a voice echoed inside Mike's skull. A roar layered with wrath and recognition.
"Foul boatman! Provide passage!"
Mike exhaled steam. "Bahamut?"
Charon's eyes glinted with interest. He raised his chin slightly, examining the air above Mike.
"So that's what you are," he muttered. "A cursed flame wearing bones. The last breath of the First Fire."
Mike's expression darkened. "You want to keep talking or do your job?"
Charon licked his cracked lips. "You must be smaller to board the boat," he said finally.
With a snort, Mike let his body shift. His towering form shimmered, scales sinking into skin, wings vanishing, muscles tightening until his human shape stood on the bank.
"Fine," he muttered.
He stepped onto the boat and sat, watching the ferryman closely. The wood groaned beneath his weight.
The lantern swayed above them.
Charon didn't push off right away.
He stared forward, then whispered, "We'll have a specialguest for the queen tonight."
Mike didn't like the way he said that. But the boat was already moving, gliding soundlessly through the dark waters.
At the caverns with the gates to Tartarus.
Binyai reappeared in a flash of violet light, taking the shape of a desert hawk before returning to his preferred form of a small tortoise.
He looked up at Hamza, who was helping the djinn finish placing the relics into sealed containment jars crafted from obsidian and veiled scripture.
"He's not on this plane," Binyai said flatly. "Mike has been transported elsewhere. I can't trace the coordinates. Not even dimensional echoes. Wherever he is… it's old. Older than the gateways."
Hamza cursed under his breath.
"Another realm?"
"A domain," Binyai clarified. "Maybe underworld-adjacent. But cloaked from the threads of normal planar travel."
Hamza turned toward the rest of the djinn. "Secure the cavern. Make sure no more undead or divine echoes linger. Then seal it. We need to sanitize the battlefield before we depart. The council, angels, or other gods must never learn that we recovered the relics. Each must assume the other has the relics."
He turned back to Binyai. "Go to King Maymun. Tell him Mike is missing. We'll need his help to track the signature."
Binyai nodded once, his form flickering before vanishing again.
Back on the River Styx
Mike sat in silence.
Water stretched endlessly in every direction, too still to be natural. The lantern barely pushed the blackness back more than a few feet. He felt like he was floating in ink.
"How far does this river go?" he finally asked.
Charon gave no answer.
"Where are we headed?"
Nothing.
Mike gritted his teeth. "You said you ferry souls. So whose soul are we going toward?"
Still, the ferryman said nothing.
Only when the black shoreline appeared on the horizon did Charon speak again.
"You walk in the lands between the living and the damned. This river flows toward the Palace of Dusk. Few tread its halls while still breathing."
"Great," Mike muttered.
Charon ignored him.
As they approached the bank, Mike finally saw it:
A vast dock, forged from blackened iron and crumbling marble, stretched out into the water. Jagged torches, lit with green flame, lined the stone stairs.
Beyond that was a palace.
Not a palace built by mortals or gods.
A monolith.
It rose into the void above, made from obsidian veined with silver and bone. Towering statues of horned women and blindfolded judges guarded its front. The main gate was shaped like a mouth open, jagged, smiling.
Mike stood as the boat bumped softly against the dock.
Charon said nothing more.
Mike stepped off, scanning the dark road ahead.
Torches began to light on their own, one by one, leading toward the great doors of the palace.
Behind him, the ferryman let out a single raspy sentence before drifting away into the dark:
"Welcome to the threshold, dragon. The Queen will meet with you."
Mike stared at the massive palace.
A stale cold chill hung in the air as he walked forward.