It was hard to tell how many days had passed since The Culling. Time didn’t exist properly down here. There were no clocks, no sunrise, no voices anymore. Just the whispers of pipes, the clang of metal chains from cells far away, and sometimes, screams that didn’t last long enough.Kirin sat on the cold stone floor, back against the wall, fingers curled tightly around the hilt of the blade hidden beneath his prison-worn shirt. His hands were still stained faintly red. No matter how much he wiped them off on the stone, that blood had soaked into him.But the demons hadn’t returned. Not yet. And no one spoke about the dead.Nobody ever did.Kirin's eyes wandered to the corner of his cell. The same spot where, days ago, he had carved “I AM STILL HERE.” The words stared back at him like an accusation. As if the stone was asking him to prove it.And so, he moved.He pressed his palm flat against the walls, trying to feel for any weakness, any inconsistency. Any sign that this tomb of a cel

Even in a place like this,where hope was as extinct as mercy, where the air tasted like ash and rotted breath Kirin knew how to notice a shift in the atmosphere. And today, everything felt wrong. Or maybe, finally, it was starting to feel right.It began with the smallest flicker. A scent, sharp and acrid, slicing through the damp staleness of the underground cells. Kirin knew that scent better than anything. Smoke. Real fire. Real chaos.Then came the screaming.It echoed from somewhere far maybe five blocks over, maybe twenty but it was impossible to tell in this labyrinth. But it was real, and it wasn't human. Demons don’t scream like men. Their howls clawed through the stone halls like broken violins scraped across bone.Kirin sat up instantly, still hunched under the dim light in his cell. His hand reached beneath his prison rags, brushing the hilt of the blade given to him nights ago by the nameless demon. Cold, steady. Still there. Still waiting.He didn’t do this. That much he

The sound of iron snapping echoed like a gunshot through the dead, suffocating silence of the cell block.It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even dramatic. But it was final.Kirin stood in the dim light of his cell, staring at the crumpled lock he had just broken. The chains that had bound his door for what felt like a lifetime now hung limp, useless, irrelevant. He didn’t move at first. Just stood there, breathing in the freedom like it was air after drowning.Then, he stepped out.One foot into the corridor, and the world shifted. Not just for him, but for everyone who saw him.Around him, silence.Cells on both sides. Dozens of faces, some gaunt and ghostly, others already half gone in madness. Prisoners stared at him like he was a hallucination. A myth walking. No one said anything. No one even dared breathe. They had watched this boy for months, maybe years, it was hard to tell down here. He was the quiet one. The one who didn’t scream. The one who tapped. The one who survived.And now… t

The landing still rang in Kirin’s bones, the way his feet slammed against solid rock, the way the air bent with colours his eyes weren’t built to see. That this wasn’t the underworld.It was... too alive.Above him stretched a sky split in half, which held an odd harmony that felt like the sky itself was subject to the will of humans. The horizon curved unnaturally, like the entire world was built atop a ring. Islands floated freely in the distance, some chained together with glowing roots, others suspended by sheer will. Creatures soared between them, birds made of cloud stuff, serpents longer than buildings wrapped around buildings, with glowing eyes like stars. The very air shimmered with power.The man from the mist was waiting for them, unbothered by the chaos around him. His dark robes fluttered slightly, despite the lack of wind. His hands were clasped behind his back. His voice, when he spoke, came smooth and practised, like this wasn’t the first time he’d delivered this speec

The morning came slow, as if the sun itself hesitated to rise. Kirin stirred in his bed, but something didn’t feel right. His body was heavy, his limbs slightly numb, and his head buzzed with the weight of a thousand unspoken thoughts. The soft humming energy of Malakar buzzed faintly outside the sanctuary walls, but inside him, something darker was waking up.He sat up, rubbing his eyes, groggy and confused. A dull ache pulsed down his spine. It wasn't sharp, just insistent, like an echo of something old returning. He pulled off the robe they had given him and walked over to the polished mirror across the room.His breath caught.There, across his back, was a brand and not just any brand, but that brand.The one from the underworld.He had thought it had burned away, destroyed, forgotten with his escape. But now it was back, reshaped. Where once it had been a burn mark and jagged lines of pain, now it had reformed into a symbol far more intricate, like a sigil etched by purpose, not c