Qaritas never finished the word.
"Please—"
His voice shattered into a sound that wasn't human.
The purple fire crawling over his skin detonated.
It erupted from him in violent plumes—wild, jagged, too bright to be normal flame. The air convulsed. The shadows under the tables warped and tore, pulled toward him like gravity had reversed.
Something came out of him.
Not memories.
Not light.
Not even magic.
Beasts.
Six of them.
They tore themselves from his shadow like something being ripped free of wet paper. Each one the size of a carriage—wolf-shaped, but wrong. Too many teeth. Too many eyes. Purple fire dripped from their ribs like molten glass. Their bodies were made of shadow so dense it bent the lantern-light around them.
They circled him.
Teeth bared.
Eyes burning.
Waiting.
Students screamed.
Chairs scraped backwards.
Smoke-servants dissolved on instinct.
"Everyone, DOWN!" Zcain barked.
A wave of sin-shadow rolled out from him, slamming into invisible walls around the nearest tables, forming barriers to shield the mortals. Lanterns burst. Light stuttered.
Komus was already moving.
"Q!" he shouted, vaulting over a bench. "Hey—hey, hey, look at me—"
One of the beasts snapped at him, jaws closing inches from his face.
Space bent.
Komus folded sideways through a slit of darkness, reappearing several meters away with his hand pressed to his chest.
"Okay," he muttered. "Not friendly. Got it."
Ayla reached for Qaritas with shaking hands, light sparking uselessly around her fingers.
"Qaritas, please—listen to me, you're safe, you're not—"
He didn't hear her.
Didn't hear anyone.
His thoughts dissolved under the roar of panic and betrayal and Eon's delighted purr.
"Run," Eon whispered inside his skull, thrilled. "Run, little prison. Before they try to chain you again."
Qaritas bolted.
He didn't decide to.
His body just went.
He surged to his feet, flames trailing, the six shadow-beasts flanking him in unison. They moved when he moved—guard dogs made of nightmare and godfire.
"Qaritas!" Zcain thundered.
But he was already sprinting toward the towering doors at the far end of the hall.
The doors didn't open for him.
They fled.
They ripped themselves apart, folding sideways into black, letting him and his beasts vanish through a corridor of darkness that swallowed them whole.
For a moment, the dining hall was nothing but stunned silence and the echo of his footfalls fading into the deep of Taeterra.
Then—
"I'll get him," Komus said.
His voice was calm.
Hard.
Very unlike him.
Zcain's eyes blazed. "I'm coming. Ayla—"
"I go too," Ayla said, already moving. Her voice shook, but her feet didn't.
Hydeius stood half out of his seat, fire roaring under his skin.
Cree reached for him, eyes wide. "Hy—"
Zcain snapped, "Stay. Protect the others." His aura flared, making even gods step back.
Then Sin turned—
and vanished in a spear of shadow.
Komus and Ayla blurred after him, swallowed by the same darkness.
________________________________________
Floor 33 — Develdion Ward
The world spit them out into cold, humming metal.
A vast circular chamber stretched around them, carved from polished black stone veined with crimson. Rings of runes spun lazily in the air, each one etched with numbers and Ascendant sigils. A massive platform in the center thrummed with power, surrounded by rows of coffin-like pods—Develdion conduits, each one big enough to hold a god.
At the far edge of the platform—
Qaritas knelt.
Purple fire poured off him like a waterfall pouring upside down, defying gravity. The six beasts flanked him in a loose semi-circle, hackles raised, eyes burning holes into the air.
He looked less like a boy
and more like a wound in reality.
Ayla sucked in a breath.
"Q…"
Zcain lifted an arm, halting her.
"Let Komus speak first."
Komus swallowed.
Nodded once.
Stepped forward.
"Hey, Shadonborn," he said lightly. "Cool pets."
One of the beasts snapped its head toward him with a low, vibrating growl. Komus's muscles tensed—but he held his ground.
Qaritas lifted his head slowly.
His eyes weren't just glowing anymore.
They were lit.
Amethyst fire ringed the black of his irises, pupils stretched thin, skin hot enough that the air above him wavered.
"They used me," he said.
The words came out shredded.
Komus's expression sobered. "Who?"
Qaritas's lips trembled.
"They used me to save— to save the— the A— Apo—"
His throat seized like an invisible hand had grabbed it.
He choked on the word.
On her.
His body jolted with the effort. Purple flame surged higher, licking at the ceiling. The beasts' heads snapped back toward him, growling as if physically pained by his struggle.
"The Apo—"
He gagged.
"Apoca—"
His tongue burned.
No sound came out.
He clutched at his own throat, eyes wide with horror.
"What did you do to him?" Komus snarled, half-turning on Zcain.
"I bound his tongue from her title," Zcain said, voice flat with self-loathing. "And from speaking the true name of her domain. The Apocalypse must remain veiled from his conscious mind—at least until his Awakening stabilizes."
Komus stared.
Ayla swallowed hard.
Her voice cracked as she spoke. "Komus… there's more."
He flicked his gaze to her.
"Talk," he said.
She stepped closer to Qaritas, ignoring the beasts pacing between them.
"This morning," Ayla said quietly, "Qaritas went with Zcain into the curse ward. He met Xheavaend. The Ascendant of the Apoca—" she flinched as the binding tugged at her throat, forcing her to soften the word—"of the End."
Qaritas shuddered violently.
Ayla's eyes glossed with tears.
"And during that… Sin bargained. With him." Her gaze flicked to Zcain, then back to Komus. "To break her curse. To break his. Eon took control and—"
Her hands trembled at her sides.
"Qaritas is Eon's prison," she whispered. "His living vessel. His lock. His cage. His—"
"Enough," Zcain said, voice low.
She bit off the rest.
Komus went still.
All his usual energy, all the flailing, all the jokes—gone.
He looked at Qaritas like he was seeing him for the first time.
Slowly, Komus asked, "Who knows this?"
Zcain answered.
"Just the ones in this room. The seven artificial Ascendants. And my daughter, Xheavaend, Ascendant of the Apocalypse."
Qaritas jerked at the word—Apocalypse—even softened, even veiled.
His eyes squeezed shut, teeth grinding.
Komus exhaled.
"Good," he said. "Better if it's only a few of us."
He paused.
"Wait," Komus added, blinking. "Ascendant of the Apocalypse—that's what you were trying to say, wasn't it?"
Qaritas's fingers dug into the stone.
He nodded once, jaw clenched.
Komus huffed out a breath somewhere between a laugh and a groan.
"Lot of information today," he muttered. "My brain is having a stroke."
One of the beasts tilted its head at him like it agreed.
Komus looked back at Qaritas and, somehow, smiled.
"Well, Shadonborn," he said, "you keep things interesting, I'll give you that. Eon being your brother? Didn't see that one coming."
Qaritas's head snapped up.
"Doesn't that scare you?" he rasped. "Doesn't this—" he gestured at the flames, the beasts, his own shaking hands—"make you want to run?"
Komus laughed.
Actual laughter.
Bright. Sharp. Honest.
"Qaritas," he said. "You seem to forget something."
He stepped closer, weaving carefully between two of the beasts. They snarled, but didn't strike. Their eyes flicked from Komus to Qaritas, waiting for a command that never came.
"In my previous life," Komus said, "I fought under Ecayrous. And trust me—I know you haven't been around him enough to understand. If Eon is supposed to be stronger than the Fragments—even Ecayrous—"
He grinned, feral.
"Then needless to say, if you're his prison, I'll gladly be comrades with both of you."
Qaritas stared, stunned.
"Even if it means going against the other Ascendants," Komus finished quietly.
Ayla inhaled sharply.
Zcain's eyes narrowed, weighing the words.
Komus didn't care.
He lifted his hand—and sliced his wrist with a flicker of warped space. No blade. Just folded reality. Blood welled, dark and hot, dripping to the floor.
"So let me pledge it to you properly," Komus said.
He held his bleeding wrist out, not to Qaritas's flame,
but to his eyes.
"Qaritas," he said, voice firm, "from this day on, I'll be your comrade until the end of the Fragments' reign. I'll grow strong enough to stand beside you. And I'll grow strong enough to stop Eon if you ever lose control."
The beasts stilled.
Even Eon went quiet for a breath.
Qaritas's voice was barely more than a whisper.
"There's no catch?"
Komus smiled.
"I don't want anything from you," he said. "Not power. Not debt. Not glory."
His gaze softened.
"All I want is your friendship. And frankly? I'm pissed at them too." He tilted his chin toward Zcain and Ayla. "So let's go kill some monsters and blow off some steam. You don't need to forgive anyone right now."
He added, lighter:
"Besides—you've got a match in the Hellbound in less than two days. Might as well warm up."
Ayla took a step forward.
"Komus, that's not—"
He shot her a look over his shoulder.
"We'll talk later, Ayla," he said—gently, but firm. "You. Me. Sin over there. All the apologies and explanations and screaming into the void."
His smile faded slightly.
"But right now? He doesn't need words. He needs something to hit."
Zcain didn't argue.
He just watched Qaritas with an expression that was half guilt, half grim calculation.
The purple fire around Qaritas had softened from chaotic explosions to a steadier burn. The beasts no longer looked ready to pounce—just coiled, waiting.
Slowly, Qaritas pushed himself to his feet.
His knees wobbled.
The flames steadied them.
He looked at Komus's bleeding wrist.
Then at Komus's face.
Then, with shaking fingers, he reached out—and pressed his flaming hand over the wound.
Purple fire seared across Komus's skin.
It should have hurt.
Komus hissed—
but didn't pull back.
The blood boiled away into violet smoke.
A sigil flared on Komus's wrist—jagged, amethyst, the shape of a cracked circle bound in chains.
A bond.
Not of god to servant.
But comrade to comrade.
Qaritas's voice shook.
"Thank you," he whispered.
Komus grinned.
"Don't thank me yet," he said. "We still have to not die."
He turned and strode toward the Develdion pods, rolling his shoulders.
At a rack of training weapons, he grabbed two swords and a shield. He spun one sword experimentally, testing its weight, then tossed the second blade toward Qaritas in a lazy arc.
Qaritas caught it without really looking.
The metal sang when his fingers closed around the hilt—eating his flame, then exhaling it along the edge.
Komus tilted his head, impressed. "Shiny."
He glanced at Ayla and Zcain.
"Try not to blow up Taeterra while we're gone," he said. "Feels like a bad way to start the day."
Ayla's eyes brimmed, throat tight.
"Komus," she whispered. "Take care of him."
Komus flashed her a brief, genuine smile.
"Always."
He stepped into one of the pods.
It hissed open at his approach—metal unfolding like a jaw. Inside, the cradle of soft restraints and arcane conduits glowed to life, waiting to weave his consciousness into Develdion's simulated realms.
Komus lay back.
"Come on, Shadonborn," he called. "Let's go make some desert nightmares regret respawning."
Qaritas glanced at Zcain.
The god of Sin met his gaze head-on.
"I cannot undo what I did today," Zcain said quietly. "But I will help you survive what comes next. Train. Break things. Scream if you must. Two more days, Qaritas. Then your Awakening completes. Then Hellbound."
He spread his hands.
"Rage, if you must. But live."
Qaritas said nothing.
He walked past him and stepped into the pod beside Komus's.
The six beasts flowed after him like liquid shadow, slipping into the metal and vanishing as the conduit sealed. As if the Develdion itself swallowed his monsters.
As if it recognized one of its own.
The lid shut over Qaritas's chest with a soft clack.
Darkness.
Then—
Eon laughed quietly in the back of his mind.
"You're lucky, little brother," he murmured. "You've made a lifelong friend. That is very rare."
Qaritas's thoughts trembled.
Don't ruin this, he thought, not sure if Eon could even hear him.
Eon hummed.
"How about a compromise?" the god said. "You let me help you kill the monsters. You torture them, not yourself. For once."
The darkness around Qaritas trembled—
and then shattered.
________________________________________
Develdion — Floor 33 Simulation
Black Sands of Skaragumo
The world built itself around them.
First came the sky—a vault of starless black, so absolute it seemed to eat thought. Then the ground, pouring in like liquid shadow before solidifying into dunes of jet-black sand. Each grain gleamed like powdered obsidian under a distant, blood-red moon.
A wind rose.
It carried the scent of scorched stone and ash, the bitter tang of old venom.
Komus appeared at Qaritas's side, his form coalescing out of a swirl of midnight and silver static. His armor shaped itself around him as if remembering him—dark plates edged in starlight, a cloak of thin space-sheer that flickered in and out of existence.
Qaritas landed with a heavy step, black sand crunching beneath his boots.
He wasn't wearing the training leathers from before.
The Develdion had clothed him in something else:
armor forged from purple-black light and shadow, his own flames hardened along the edges. His hair simmered with violet embers. His eyes glowed like distant dying stars.
He looked less like a boy
and more like a nascent catastrophe.
The dunes trembled.
"Welcome to Floor Thirty-Three," Komus said cheerfully, spinning his sword. "Home of Skaragumo—the 'oh-god-why-is-it-ON-FIRE' spider-scorpion things. You'll love them."
As if on cue, the sand in front of them bulged.
A cluster of dunes shuddered, then split apart as something clawed its way out.
Ten somethings.
They rose like nightmares waking.
Each Skaragumo towered over them at ten feet tall, upper bodies resembling humanoid torsos forged from blackened chitin—muscles corded and molten-cracked, glowing faint orange between plates. Their lower halves exploded into eight curved scorpion stingers instead of legs, each one dripping thick, steaming venom that hissed when it hit the sand.
Their heads were a spiked fusion of arachnid and skull. Many eyes glowed ember-red, flickering in the dark. Their maws unhinged wider than seemed possible.
They shrieked.
The sound was like sandbones grinding on metal, like dunes being flayed alive.
Komus winced. "Gods, I forgot about the noise."
Flame billowed from the Skaragumos' mouths in jagged arcs. The black sand fused to glass where the fire passed, leaving slick obsidian trails across the desert.
They pivoted in eerie unison—
and locked onto the two figures on the ridge.
On Komus.
On Qaritas.
On the smell of divine power and fractured rage.
"Oh good," Eon purred inside Qaritas's chest. "They're hungry."
Qaritas raised his sword.
The purple fire on it snarled.
Komus flashed him a sharp grin.
"Right," he said. "Knight lesson number one: don't die."
He stepped forward, planting himself solidly at Qaritas's side.
Darkness stretched behind them, doubling as a cape—their two shadows overlapping, fusing, deepening into something thicker than night.
A strange calm slid over Qaritas.
The anger didn't vanish.
It just… reshaped.
Focused.
Eon murmured softly:
"Let me guide your hands. You still swing like a mortal. Think like a god."
For once, Qaritas didn't argue.
He exhaled—
and let some of the instinct coiled inside him surface.
The nearest Skaragumo lunged.
It moved fast. Faster than its size suggested. Eight stinger-legs hammered the sand, propelling it across the dune in a blur of black chitin. Its jaw unhinged, fire blooming in its throat.
Komus flicked his fingers.
Space bent.
The distance between him and the creature folded like paper. Komus appeared beneath its reach, already sliding on the glassy sand, sword flashing.
He carved a crescent of silver-edged darkness across one of its front stingers.
The chitin cracked.
Molten blood sprayed out, hitting the ground and igniting in small explosions.
The Skaragumo shrieked, twisting—but another was already charging from the left, venom-dripping tails stabbing.
Qaritas moved.
He didn't think about where to put his feet. The darkness did it for him—pushing here, supporting there, flicking his body just out of reach of the stingers.
He slashed his sword down.
Purple flame burst from the blade in a jagged arc, colliding with the creature's chest. It screamed as the fire clung—burning not just flesh, but heat itself, choking the creature's inner flames.
"Better," Eon murmured approvingly. "Don't fight the darkness. Command it."
Behind him, their merged shadow broke apart.
Six shapes rose from it.
The beasts from the dining hall—reborn in the simulation, jaws slick with purple fire, bodies sharper, more defined. They were no longer just out-of-control manifestations.
They were his.
They flanked him without being told, snarling at the Skaragumo in perfect synchronization.
"Go," Qaritas whispered.
They leapt.
Two beasts slammed into a Skaragumo from the side, jaws clamping down on its stinger-legs. Shadow-teeth punched through chitin, dripping venom that turned to violet steam when it hit their flesh. They didn't flinch.
Another beast sprang up onto a creature's back, ripping into the soft chinks between armor plates.
The desert devolved into chaos.
Fire.
Venom.
Shadow.
Glass.
Komus bent space itself, warping blades of darkness into existence in mid-air, then stepping through them. Each step was a teleport through slits in reality, letting him appear at a Skaragumo's blind spots, slashing vulnerable joints.
"Left!" he shouted.
Qaritas moved without questioning.
He swung his sword down as Komus folded sideways through a tear in the sky, their attacks landing in perfect unison—Komus's blade severing three stinger-legs, Qaritas's purple fire exploding up the creature's torso.
It toppled, roaring.
It didn't die.
Yet.
It convulsed, sucking in heat from the air, chitin plates glowing hot as its internal flame tried to reignite.
Eon spoke inside Qaritas's mind, voice steady now:
"Don't just burn its flesh. Burn the fire that feeds it."
Qaritas snarled under his breath.
"Show me."
Eon laughed.
"Gladly."
For a fraction of a second, the world slowed.
Qaritas felt the creature's heat like a living thing—a molten spiral caged inside its ribs. His flames weren't just fire. They were a kind of inversion. Anti-heat. Anti-light. He focused on that spiraling core—
—and pushed.
Purple fire streaked from his chest, down his arms, into the blade.
He drove the sword straight into the Skaragumo's sternum.
Its roar choked off midway.
The flames in its throat sputtered, then sucked inward as if someone had reversed them. The glow beneath its chitin flickered, then went dark.
The Skaragumo collapsed.
Dead.
Completely.
Komus whistled.
"Okay," he said. "That was horrifying. I approve."
The other nine screeched in unison, their many eyes blazing hotter. One spat a spray of fire across the dune, forcing Komus and Qaritas to dive in opposite directions.
Komus rolled, came up on one knee, and slashed a crack of emptiness across the incoming fire. It vanished into a tear in space with a sound like water down a drain.
Qaritas hit the sand, rolled, sprang back to his feet.
The beasts regrouped around him, three charred but still snarling.
One Skaragumo barreled straight at Komus, eight stinger-legs pounding in a deadly rhythm. Another three shifted toward Qaritas, forming a semi-circle, cutting off retreat.
"Little help!" Komus yelled.
"I'm busy!" Qaritas snapped.
Eon chuckled. "Share, brother. You are not the only monster here."
Qaritas gritted his teeth.
He snapped his fingers.
The shadows under Komus exploded upward—forming a shield of condensed night between him and the oncoming Skaragumo. The creature slammed into it, momentum buckling for a split second.
It was enough.
Komus bent space beneath the creature. Its front half warped a few feet to the left; its back half lagged behind.
The Skaragumo screamed as its own motion turned against it, all eight legs tangling. It crashed down in a spray of sand.
Komus appeared above its head in a blink, bringing his sword down in a two-handed arc. Space compressed around the blade, turning it into a guillotine of void.
The creature's skull split.
Flame blew out the sides—
—and then Qaritas's purple fire licked across the wound, snuffing it.
Two down.
Eight to go.
One of the beasts yelped as a scorpion-tail impaled its flank. It burst into smoke, dissipating into the dark.
Qaritas flinched like he'd been stabbed.
Rage spiked.
Then focused.
He pointed at the Skaragumo that had hurt his shadow.
"You," he snarled.
The darkness obeyed.
It rose around the creature's legs, thick and tar-like, slowing its movements. Komus saw the opening instantly and warped in, slashing at the immobilized stingers.
They moved together.
Space and shadow.
Fire and void.
Komus cut the lines that defined distance; Qaritas filled the gaps with annihilating flame. Komus carved angles into reality; Qaritas turned those angles into killing zones.
For a moment, there was no hall.
No betrayal.
No curse ward.
No Xheavaend screaming in a bed of insects.
There was only the work.
Kill.
Move.
Breathe.
Burn.
Eon hummed approval with each efficient strike, each clean kill.
"Yes," he said. "This is what you were meant for. Not being their pawn. Not being their bargaining chip. This."
Qaritas didn't answer.
He just kept moving.
Another Skaragumo reared back, drawing in breath for a massive blast of fire. Komus darted forward—
and tripped, leg snagging in suddenly glass-slick sand.
"Komus!" Qaritas shouted.
The monster exhaled.
Fire roared toward Komus in a torrent.
Qaritas didn't think.
He flung his hand out.
The darkness between Komus and the fire folded—not like Komus's neat space-warping, but like reality panicking. The fire hit a patch of black that wasn't there, vanished for a second—
—and detonated harmlessly forty feet above, raining sparks into the night.
Komus stared up, then looked over at Qaritas, wide-eyed.
"Did you just—"
"Apparently," Qaritas panted.
Eon laughed, delighted.
"You're learning. You bent the path of causality. Sloppy. Beautiful."
More Skaragumo closed in.
Komus pushed off the ground, renewed grin carving across his face.
"Knight lesson number two!" he called over the roar. "If the world doesn't have an opening—"
"Make one," Qaritas finished.
"Hell yeah."
They did.
________________________________________
By the time the last Skaragumo fell, the black sand was a battlefield of shattered chitin, fused glass, and cooling flames.
Ten bodies lay scattered across the dunes, some still twitching as residual heat escaped. The air shimmered with leftover fire and warped space fractures slowly knitting themselves closed.
Qaritas stood in the center of it all, chest heaving.
Purple flame still curled around his shoulders, but it didn't feel like a wildfire anymore.
More like armor.
The beasts padded back to his side, one by one, then sank into his shadow, their forms dissolving into a single, steady pool of darkness at his feet.
Komus flopped onto his back in the sand, sword stuck upright beside him like a planted flag.
He groaned.
"I am… so sore," he announced to the uncaring stars. "I think I dislocated my soul."
Qaritas let out a broken little huff that might have been a laugh.
He walked over and dropped beside Komus, not quite as dramatically, but close.
For a few breaths, they just lay there.
Two weapons.
Two boys.
A graveyard of monsters around them.
Eon was quiet.
Not gone.
Never gone.
But… quieter.
When he spoke, his voice held something almost like satisfaction instead of constant hunger.
"This," Eon said, "was a good choice, brother. You bled the rage without drowning in it. You bent the dark without letting it swallow you."
He paused.
"I approve of the idiot," he added. "The loud one. Komus. Keep him."
Qaritas closed his eyes.
"I planned to," he thought back.
Komus turned his head, squinting at him.
"You still mad?" he asked, no judgment in it. Just curiosity.
Qaritas stared up at the black sky.
"Yes," he said honestly.
The word felt heavy.
True.
Right.
"But it's not… choking me. Not like before."
Komus snorted.
"Good. Save some of it for the Fragments. And for whoever designed Skaragumo. Sick bastard."
Qaritas's lips twitched.
Silence stretched between them—
comfortable this time.
After a while, Komus spoke again.
"Hey, Q?"
"Yeah?"
Komus looked at him, eyes softer than his voice.
"You're not just Eon's prison," he said. "You're ours too."
Qaritas blinked. "That doesn't sound better."
Komus grinned.
"It is," he said. "He's locked with you. Not the other way around. You're not his cage. You're his warden."
The word slid into Qaritas's bones like a key into a lock.
Warden.
He didn't say anything.
But a small, stubborn warmth unfurled under his ribs—something separate from the fire. Something that felt like the beginning of a new shape for himself.
Knight.
Warden.
Monster.
Friend.
Maybe he could be all four.
Komus sat up with a groan, brushing sand off his armor.
"Come on," he said. "We should probably get out before Sin decides to personally drag us from the pods."
Qaritas hesitated.
The battlefield faded at the edges, simulation already preparing to dissolve.
"Komus."
"Yeah?"
Qaritas swallowed.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For… choosing me. Knowing what I am."
Komus rolled his eyes.
"You're welcome, you dramatic disaster," he said. "Now hurry up. We've got two days until your Awakening finishes and you get tossed into Hellbound like a live grenade. You're not allowed to die before I cash in on this comrade deal."
Qaritas huffed.
"Knight lesson number three?" he asked.
Komus grinned.
"Exactly," he said. "Don't let their games break you. Break their games instead."
The black sand dissolved beneath them.
The Skaragumo corpses turned to ash.
The night crumpled.
________________________________________
Back in the Develdion chamber, two pods hissed open in unison.
Komus sat up first, hair a mess, breathing hard but smiling.
Qaritas followed, purple light fading slowly from his eyes, flames withdrawing under his skin. The six beasts lingered for a heartbeat as faint outlines in the air around him, then folded neatly into his shadow.
Ayla stood a few paces away, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white.
Zcain watched from beside her, arms folded, gaze unreadable.
Komus hopped out of the pod and stretched.
"So," he announced. "Good news: he didn't explode. Bad news: Skaragumo are still ugly."
Qaritas stepped down from his pod.
The rage was still there.
But now it shared space with something else.
Purpose.
Focus.
A vow in someone else's blood.
His Awakening pulsed under his skin—
two days from completion.
Two days until Hellbound.
Two days until everything changed again.
He met Zcain's gaze.
Met Ayla's.
Didn't forgive.
Didn't explode.
Just stood there, sword at his side, shadow steady at his feet, Komus at his shoulder.
Eon smiled inside his bones.
"Oh yes," the First Evil whispered. "Now I'm curious to see what you become."
Qaritas exhaled.
"Me too," he said—and for the first time in a very long time, he meant it.