The descent wasn't quiet.
Every step down into the Coil Market echoed like a warning. The stairs pulsed with dim crimson runes — ancient, cursed, thrumming with latent hate. The deeper they went, the more the air thickened. Sulfur. Blood. Mana rot.
Raven said nothing.
Lilith walked ahead, barefoot, her hips swaying with cruel confidence. The shadow-silk dress hugged her every curve, trailing mist like spilled night. Her presence made the air colder. The runes on the walls flickered when she passed — like they remembered her.
They reached the gate.
A monstrous arch of fused bone and rusted metal — carved with sigils in languages long banned. Two guards stood at the threshold. Not human. Warped, tusked creatures with blades growing from their forearms and eyes that glowed white-blue.
One stepped forward. "No divine aura past the gate."
Lilith didn't break stride. She touched his cheek — a single fingertip.
The guard screamed.
He didn't burn. He was unmade. His body crumbled into black ash, devoured by shadows that hissed like caged vipers.
The other dropped to one knee instantly. "Welcome!"
Lilith smiled like a queen. "Good dog."
Raven followed her through.
The Coil Market swallowed them whole.
It wasn't a city.
It was a graveyard wired to a power grid. A sinkhole of glass towers, arcane slums, monster cages, and floating shards of land suspended by mana chains. The entire place felt alive — twitching, breathing, snarling in its sleep.
Market stalls sold horrors. Bleeding eyes in jars. Leech-silk. Soulbound rings. Monster hearts still beating in vats of enchanted oil.
A child no older than ten sat behind a booth labeled: Cursed Wombs – One Use Only.
A blood duel raged in an alley — two women with wings and spellbrands carving each other apart while gamblers screamed odds.
A man walked by with no head. Just a swirling void above his shoulders, speaking in weird tongues.
And above it all — towering through the mist — stood The Spine.
A skyscraper-sized ruin of black stone and divine bone. Dead gods' ribs formed its upper levels. Chains thicker than trains held it to the ground. Its surface crawled with shadow vines and mana roots. At its base, cults gathered. Higher up, the lights were colder. Hungrier.
Raven's eyes narrowed. "What is this place."
Lilith's voice was soft. "Home."
They walked the winding path through the central sector. People stared. Not openly. Not long. Just enough to feel the wrongness rolling off them both.
One man spat near Raven's boots.
The shadows responded before he did — twitching, curling, hissing like a warning.
Lilith chuckled. "Even your instincts want blood."
He didn't laugh. He didn't smile. He kept walking.
A group of mercenaries blocked a bridge up ahead. Six of them. Bulky. Heavily armed. Faces scarred. One of them wore a coat stitched from monster hide, and a horned helm that glowed with active enchantments.
Their leader stepped forward. Black tattoos crawled over his jaw like sentient vines.
He grinned at Raven. "This ain't your lane, ghost-boy."
Raven didn't stop. "Move."
The man laughed. "Or what? You'll stare at me?"
Lilith said nothing. She watched like a cat watching a trapped mouse.
The man put a hand on Raven's chest. "I said—"
Raven snapped.
His fist moved faster than thought. The man's chest caved in — ribs shattered like wet wood. He flew back ten meters, hit a stone wall, and slumped. Not moving.
The other five reacted instantly — blades drawn, enchantments flaring.
The first rushed with a flame-axe. Raven raised a hand.
Black flame exploded from his palm — not fire, but hunger. It swallowed the axe mid-swing. Then it swallowed the man. His scream didn't last long.
The second fired a curse shot — a mana round engraved to kill.
The shadows responded. Raven didn't even look. A tendril erupted from the ground and snatched the bullet mid-air, crumpling it like paper.
He moved through the remaining three like a ghost wrapped in hate.
One tried to teleport. Raven's shadow surged up and caught her ankle mid-cast. She screamed as the shadows dragged her down into the ground, warping her body through the floor — when she emerged again, half of her was bone.
The others ran.
They didn't get far. A single black flame orb left Raven's fingertips. It hovered — then detonated silently.
Both bodies dropped. No fire. Just collapse. As if they'd never been alive to begin with.
Raven stood in the ash and ruin of six people.
Not panting. Not bleeding.
Alive.
And awake.
The street fell silent.
Vendors paused. Spectators whispered. Somewhere, a drone blinked and flew off — likely streaming to a black channel.
Lilith walked up beside him. She leaned in, licking his jaw. "That was beautiful my little heretic."
He didn't speak. Just stared at his hand. The flame still flickered along his palm.
"Do you feel it?" she asked.
He nodded once. "It's not magic is it?"
"No." Her voice dropped to a purr. "It's you now."
A low hum echoed through the air. Then footsteps.
Someone approached through the dust — a boy, maybe seventeen. Red hair, pale eyes, jacket covered in twitching glyphs.
He bowed low. "You're being summoned."
Raven tilted his head. "By who."
The boy didn't rise. "A representative of the Seven Below."
Lilith's smile widened.
Raven's jaw clenched. "Why?"
The boy swallowed. "You broke six mercs. One was under the Ash Spine cartel. Another was bonded to a cursed guild. And one was… well. Licensed."
Raven said nothing.
"They saw your scan," the boy added. "You don't register. You burn divine. But not like anything this market allows. They want to know who and what you are."
Lilith stepped forward. "Tell your masters they can wait."
The boy flinched.
She leaned closer. "Or… we'll come to them. And they won't like how."
He nodded fast and vanished.
They kept walking.
The street opened into a lower ring of the Spine. The floor here was carved obsidian. Runes moved across it like worms under skin. Every pillar was shaped from divine femurs. The lights hung from chains that twitched when no one touched them.
A woman knelt in the center — covered in piercings, with blindfolded eyes and spell-tattoos across her chest. She hummed as she sold bottled screams.
A vendor offered Raven a blade made from the soul of a crying child.
He didn't take it. He kept walking.
Lilith led him into a lift sealed by shadowscript. It opened when she touched it.
The ride up was silent.
The lift stopped halfway up the Spine.
The Silent Floor.
It was quiet. Divinely so.
Sound didn't carry here. The air felt muffled. Suppressed. Wards rippled along the walls — illusions, silencing fields, divine suppression sigils.
Lilith sighed. "Finally. Privacy."
The room opened into a balcony — glass-walled, overlooking the Coil Market's madness. The lights below pulsed like veins. The chaos, from here, looked beautiful.
Raven stood at the edge.
"This is ours now," Lilith whispered behind him. "You and I. No shrines. No rules. No gods watching."
He didn't turn. "So this is where it begins."
She stepped close. Her arms wrapped around his waist, chin on his shoulder. "Say it just like i told you."
He stared down.
"I am Raven Keal," he said.
A pause.
Then—
"I am the Black Flame Heretic."
She kissed his neck.
"And soon," she whispered, "the world will remember what it tried to bury."