The world drowned in silence.
Not the silence of peace, but of everything being stripped away.
Through Azazel's mind—flashes. Faces. Names. Voices he had never known, yet knew were his.
Fleeting lifetimes spun past him: swords clashing, blood on hands, prayers whispered over corpses, cultivating the land. The taste of iron. The salty smell of sea breeze. The feeling of burning.
Thousands of emotions battered against him—love, loss, anger, duty. They threatened to drown him. The battle, the blood, even his name felt like they were breaking into shards.
And then—one face remained.
Her face.
Soft eyes, hair that brushed against his cheek. A smile before the world fell. His wife.
Maksym.
That was his name once. Maksym Nehayko. A hunter, a man, who had stood side by side with his Companions, against Mara. He had died with blade in hand. A wound far deeper than steel could leave.
Then—
A voice cut through.
[Do not get lost.]
Grandfather's voice. Steady. Stern. Like a hand reaching through the dark.
Azazel gasped.
The ashes, all the shining ash poured into him. Every grain of it seeped into his skin, into his veins, as though his very body was now a vessel.
The prayer that had filled Rome with holy resonance stopped. Silence swallowed the city once more.
Azazel stood.
And though he looked the same, he was not.
The mask of Saint Cyprian still covered his face, yet through the eye slits burned a new light—amber, alive, fierce. His black hair spilled back, no longer dulled by dye, shimmering like smoke at the edges.
On his arms, his thighs, where cloth had torn, black ash tattoos slithered like serpents, writhing under the skin, glowing faintly with embers. They shifted as though alive, as though the fallen hunters whispered through them.
His senses burned—sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. The world was sharp, raw. He could hear the crack of a sword in the far distance. He could taste blood in the air. He could smell the corruption on the wind.
He was no longer the same boy.
He was initiated.
[Prepare,] grandfather's voice warned him, already fading. [Something evil comes.]
The warmth of the voice faltered. Then it dissolved, leaving only echoes.
"Good luck…"
And then he was gone.
There was no time for sorrow. Azazel's chest ached, but his gut knew the truth before his heart admitted it. Something was coming.
He felt them. The auras—dark tides that pressed against his skin.
The air shimmered.
A figure emerged in front of him.
The figure carried nothing—no aura, no presence, nothing Azazel's senses could grasp. That made it worse.
But before he could act—another presence slithered forward.
Kimaris.
The Marquis of the Shadow Tide crawled out of the dark itself, his serpentine body trembling, scales shredded, form collapsing in places. Yet he still bowed, his ruined shadow stretching like oil. Somehow, impossibly, he had escaped death.
From the west, one demon flew low, wings dripping black fire.
From the east, three more came—one on foot, two hovering.
They landed. And like dogs, they kneeled.
In front of the figure.
The voice that answered was not like speech. It was a vibration that crawled through Azazel's bones, a weight that pressed on his skull until it threatened to split.
He had already experienced something similar in his previous life. When Mara spoke in her real voice.
"Kimaris."
Azazel's blood froze.
"Report."