2025-05-31 23:56:41
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Chapter 145. The Boy Who Waited.
Kirin had learned how to listen better than he ever spoke. When you’ve been caged in silence for long enough, your ears grow hungry for meaning. They chase after patterns in footsteps, tremors in the stone, and flickers in torches like they’re gospel. So when the silence in his cell shifted, only slightly, he noticed.The air wasn’t buzzing. Not like before. It used to feel like a string pulled taut between his neck and spine, ever since the day the demon jailers branded him. That same day they locked the black collar around his neck, a cursed loop of seared steel meant to keep him docile, broken, and forgotten.But now?Now it felt different.He sat still on the edge of his stone bed, the rough fabric of his prison tunic hanging loosely on his gaunt frame. The cold hadn’t left, but it felt… quieter. Less sharp.He reached a hand behind him, pressing his fingers to the base of his neck, right where the branding should’ve been. The skin was smooth.No burn.No scar.He froze. That was
Chapter 144. When the Flame Returns.
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
Chapter 143. From Whispers to War.
The prison was changing.It was initially subtle, hard to notice if you weren’t paying attention. But Kirin paid attention. Always.The guards were different now. They didn’t walk the halls like they used to. There was no joking between them anymore, no lazy pacing or mocking laughter. They were stiff, alert, always watching. Even when they didn’t say anything, you could feel it in the air, thick and tight, like the air before a storm.The watchers at night had grown harsher too. Those tall, hunched demons with stone faces and flickering eyes didn’t just pace anymore. They dragged chains across the metal bars like waiting for someone to flinch. And when someone did, gods help them. Screams didn’t even echo the same way anymore. They got swallowed up in the silence, eaten by the walls.Something was happening. Kirin felt it deep in his bones.And that terrified him.He sat in his cell, back against the wall, twirling the blade the demon had given him between his fingers. He hadn’t used
Chapter 142. The Blood Beneath.
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
Chapter 141. The Culling.
It started without warning.No announcements, no sounds, no shadows crawling under the door to whisper of what was coming. Just death. Raw, bloody, unannounced death.At first, Kirin thought the screaming was part of someone’s nightmare. Until the sound didn’t stop. Until it grew louder and closer. Until he heard the crack of bone. The splatter of something wet against metal. The sound of someone choking on their own blood.Then he knew.Something was wrong.He pressed his back against the wall and held his breath. Just silence now, heavy silence. Then...Boom!A door somewhere far off slammed open, followed by running footsteps and that same horrible gurgle again. Kirin closed his eyes, listening, counting the steps. They were working cell by cell. Efficient and mechanical.He looked at the floor where he’d hidden the blade.Just a sliver of obsidian, no markings. Nothing special looking. Just sharp. Sharper than anything he’d ever touched.He hadn’t expected to use it so soon. Maybe
Chapter 140. The Signal.
Time was an illusion in the prison. There were no windows, no clocks, no sunrises or sunsets, only the occasional shuffle of demon footsteps and the scraping sound of metal trays against stone when food was dropped off. Days bled into nights, and nights into nothing. For Kirin, existence had become a loop of boredom and silent madness.But lately, something had shifted.The heat that had flooded his cell days ago had left a strange warmth in the air, like a memory that refused to leave. The message he carved. I AM STILL HERE remained etched in the stone, blackened at the edges as if something had scorched the words after he finished them. The blade the demon gave him now sat wrapped in cloth under the slab that passed for a bed.And the old man was gone, dead. His voice silenced.That silence was beginning to eat at Kirin.He laid on the floor, staring at the ceiling. The rock under his bed, the one that didn’t belong to this world pulsed faintly every now and then. He didn’t know wha
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