Three days later.
Or was it three?
Time was strange here. There was no sun. No moon. No way to mark the passage of hours beyond the rhythm of exhaustion and brief, fitful sleep. Just that swirling, nauseating sky that never changed, never offered any sense of progress or direction.
Elias sat on a slab of dark stone, breathing hard, chest heaving. Blood—his blood—dripped from a gash across his left forearm. His knuckles were raw, split open from constant impact. His shirt—already torn and filthy from Ashwell's alleys—was now shredded beyond recognition, hanging from his frame in ragged strips.
But he was alive.
Twelve demons down. Eighty-eight to go.
He flexed his fingers, wincing as fresh pain shot through his hand. The golden fire responded instantly—flaring to life, dancing across his knuckles like living light, then dimming when he willed it away.
"Getting better at this," he muttered to himself, voice hoarse from screaming, from fighting, from cursing every false god and demon in existence.
The first few fights had been brutal. Clumsy. Desperate.
He'd swung wildly, wasted energy, barely dodged claws that came within a hair's breadth of disemboweling him. The demons fought with savage intelligence—feinting, circling, coordinating their attacks. They knew how to kill. They'd been doing it for centuries.
The second demon had nearly taken his eye. Claws raked across his face, missing by millimeters, leaving burning trails of pain across his cheek. He still had the scars—three thin lines that would never fully heal.
The fifth demon had broken two of his ribs. He'd coughed blood for what felt like hours afterward, convinced he was dying, that this was it, that Sanctus had abandoned him to this nightmare realm.
The eighth demon—a massive thing with six arms and a mouth that split its torso in half—had grabbed him. Lifted him off the ground. Started squeezing. His ribs cracked. His vision darkened. He'd felt death approaching, cold and patient.
But then the fire had exploded from his entire body. The demon shrieked, dropped him, burned to ash in seconds. Elias had lain on the ground for an hour after that, unable to move, barely able to breathe.
But now...
Now he was starting to understand.
The demons weren't just physical threats. They were psychological weapons. Every fight was a battle on two fronts—body and mind, flesh and spirit.
They whispered while they attacked.
Some whispered anger.
"They hurt you. Make them pay. Burn them all. Kill everyone who ever wronged you. They deserve it."
Those demons were fast. Brutal. Their claws struck with fury, aiming for arteries, for eyes, for anything that would cause maximum pain. They wanted him to fight back with rage, to lose control, to become what they were.
Some whispered lust.
"You deserve pleasure. Take it. Use them. No one will know. Why deny yourself? You've suffered enough."
Those demons moved differently. Sinuous. Seductive. Their attacks were calculated to overwhelm, to exhaust, to break down resistance until all that remained was base desire and animal need.
Some whispered failure.
"You'll never finish. You're too weak. Just like always. You failed at everything in life. Why would this be different?"
Those were the worst. They didn't just attack. They waited. Circled. Let the words sink in, let doubt fester and grow until Elias hesitated, until his strikes lost their edge, until he second-guessed every move.
One failure demon had stalked him for hours. Never attacking. Just circling. Whispering. "You're nothing. You've always been nothing. Give up. Die. Make it easy." By the time it finally lunged, Elias was so mentally exhausted he barely raised his hands in defense.
The demon's claws tore through his shoulder. Blood sprayed. Pain exploded white-hot across his vision. He screamed, fell, rolled away as the creature descended for the killing blow.
And then Sanctus had spoken.
"Do not listen to their voices. Listen to Mine. I tell you who you are. Not them."
Something had clicked. The whispers didn't stop, but suddenly Elias could hear another voice—clearer, stronger, cutting through the poison.
He'd ignited his hands. Lunged forward. Grabbed the demon's head.
Golden fire exploded.
The demon burned.
Elias collapsed, bleeding, broken.
But alive.
At first, the words had cut deep. Made him hesitate. Made him doubt.
But he was learning.
He was learning to recognize the lies. To see through the venom. To fight while the whispers screamed in his mind, promising him everything and nothing.
And when he rejected the whispers—when he called on the fire instead, when he trusted Sanctus's voice over the demons' poison—the demons burned.
* * *
On what he guessed was the fifth day—or maybe the seventh, time had lost all meaning—Elias found the food.
He'd woken—if you could call it waking in a place without sleep, where exhaustion was the only marker of time—to find a small bundle beside him.
Wrapped in cloth that glowed faintly golden, like captured sunlight.
He unwrapped it slowly, hands trembling. Hunger gnawed at his stomach—a deep, aching emptiness that had been growing for days.
Bread.
But not like any bread he'd ever seen. It was luminous. Warm to the touch.
And when he bit into it—
It tasted like everything.
Like honey dripping from a comb. Like roasted meat from a festival feast. Like fresh water after days of thirst in the desert. Every flavor he'd ever loved, every meal he'd ever craved, all contained in a single bite.
Strength flooded his limbs. His exhaustion melted away like snow in summer. His wounds—the gash on his arm, the torn shoulder, the broken ribs—healed in seconds. Flesh knit together. Bones realigned. Pain evaporated.
He stared at the remaining bread in his hand, eyes wide, breath caught.
"What... what is this?"
"Provision. You will find it every forty days. It will sustain you. Body and spirit."
Elias looked at the glowing cloth, then at the bread, then at his healed arm.
"You're... feeding me. Literally. Like I'm... like I matter."
"You do matter. You are Mine. And I care for what is Mine."
Elias didn't know what to say. Words failed him. In Ashwell, no one had ever cared if he ate. If he lived. If he died. He'd stolen bread from baker's stalls, fought dogs for scraps, gone days without eating because there was simply nothing.
But here—in this place of endless trials and physical torment—Someone cared.
Someone provided.
So he just nodded. Swallowed past the lump in his throat.
And ate.
* * *
By the time he'd killed his thirtieth demon, Elias had stopped counting days.
Time didn't matter here. Only survival. Only the next fight. Only the whispers and the claws and the golden fire that kept him alive.
He moved differently now. Faster. Sharper. More deliberate.
His street instincts—the ones that had kept him alive in Ashwell's filthy alleys, dodging drunk guards and rival thieves—translated perfectly to this nightmare realm.
He learned to read the demons. To see patterns in their attacks. To anticipate their movements.
Pride demons were slow. Overconfident. They telegraphed their strikes, convinced of their superiority. Easy to bait. Easy to burn.
Anger demons were fast. Brutal. But predictable. They attacked in straight lines, no finesse, no strategy. Just raw fury. Dodge the first strike, counter-attack while they recovered.
Lust demons were the worst. They didn't attack your body first. They attacked your mind. Showed you things. Whispered promises. Made you want things you shouldn't want.
One lust demon had appeared as a very beautiful woman back then in Ashwell. "Elias," it whispered. "I've been waiting for you. Come to me."
He'd frozen. His hand had trembled. The demon smiled, reached for him, claws hidden behind its back.
Then Sanctus spoke.
"That is not her. Strike."
Elias ignited his fist. Struck before the demon could move.
It shrieked. Burned. Dissolved.
He'd stood there afterward, shaking, tears streaming down his face.
But he'd learned.
Learned to shut them out. To focus on the fire. On Sanctus's voice cutting through the noise.
"You're not alone," Sanctus would whisper when the whispers grew too loud, when the lies pressed too close.
And Elias would nod. Grit his teeth. And fight.
Fight with fists wreathed in golden fire.
Fight with a ferocity he didn't know he possessed.
Fight because giving up meant death.
And he'd already died once.
He wasn't eager to do it again.