The next night came like a slow curtain fall, drawing shadows over the camp as the group stirred from rest. They were alive—bruised, sore, worn—but alive. A small fire crackled in the center of their makeshift shelter, a few embers dancing upward like sparks of fragile hope. Conversations meandered through the space, low chatter rolling between weary survivors.
Shun sat near the edge of the firelight, his expression distant, eyes cast downward as if he could see through the soil itself. No one needed to ask what was on his mind.
He had lost three people—no, four.
Four lives snuffed out under his watch because he couldn't heal fast enough. Couldn't keep up. He wasn't enough. The guilt clung to his shoulders like wet cloth, weighing him down with every breath.
Across from him, Toren leaned against a rock, chin resting on one tatted hand, eyes fixed on the silent armored figure...Raven. There was a glint of wonder in his gaze—part fascination, part childish curiosity.
"I just want to know what's under that armor," Toren mumbled more to himself than anyone else.
Belial, sitting beside him, tilted his head. "You mean like... what he looks like?"
"Yeah," Toren replied. "Or what he is. He moves too quiet. Too... smooth."
Belial smirked. "You sure it's not just a crush?"
Toren chuckled. "Pfft. Shut up— not like that."
Belial chuckled under his breath, but his gaze drifted beyond the firelight. Something had been pulling at him, nagging since the day they fell into this twisted landscape. He rose to his feet, brushing the dirt off his coat, and turned away from the group.
"I'm gonna go check the perimeter," he said, his voice calm.
Xin, who had been healing on of the soldiers, looked up. "Take someone with you. Don't go alone."
"I'm not going far," Belial said over his shoulder. "Just need some air."
Xin didn't press him further. He could tell something was off with Belial—something quiet, private. And if there was one thing Xin understood, it was the need for...space.
Belial walked out, slipping into the cool night under the glassy sky. The heavens above shimmered with a strange aurora, like a frozen ocean of light. Each step crunched against broken stone and brittle grass.
He didn't look back.
About a hundred meters out, he slowed. The sounds of the camp had faded, replaced by silence. A few more steps brought him near a tall boulder, half-covered in lichen and old claw marks. He paused there, then slipped behind it and crouched low.
There was something he needed to know.
Ever since the cliff fall—ever since the incident—he hadn't been able to shake a lingering unease. Something inside him still pulsed with ancient memory, some instinct that had been dormant for a while.
He focused inward, tapping into his core. And there it was.
His racial talent.
Still there. Still his.
The Black Theatre, for all its twisted rules and arcane laws, could not take what was born into the bone.
In most cases, racial talents manifested as physical mutations—retractable claws, horns, enhanced limbs, impenetrable skin. Some people displayed them proudly, others kept them hidden. For Belial, his had always been subtle, elegant in its concealment.
This thought led to a sudden question, What talents does Xin have?
His wings were like folded shadows beneath his skin, a secret only he could call forth. He had always been able to retract them completely, make his back look perfectly ordinary.
No one would guess the truth just by looking.
That was how he'd survived so long without questions.
He exhaled slowly, then took a few steps further out, until he was almost two hundred meters from the camp. Alone, under the alien stars, he turned his back to the wind and rolled his shoulders.
With a soft growl, he summoned them.
There was a rush of sensation—tingling heat across his shoulder blades—and then, with a low hiss, his wings unfurled.
Charred.
Blackened at the edges like burnt parchment, but healing.
They still worked, or at least, they still responded.
He let them stretch out fully, the leathery skin catching the starlight, veins faintly pulsing beneath the surface. He could feel the soreness in the tendons, like a pulled muscle, but they were there. They had survived the fall, just barely.
He could be also hiding them like how he did with oracle...But to each ones own.
He ran a hand over one wing, frowning.
"Could've been worse," he muttered.
Belial's true form was modest by demon standards. He had seen others—older, evolved, grotesquely majestic. Compared to them, he was almost tame.
Two horns curved back from his temples, slightly sharper now, the ridges more pronounced. His skin had grown rougher, darker, a patchwork of scale-like texture—not quite armor, but tougher than before. It wasn't the stone-plated hide of the dragonborn. More like dark, reptilian leather, taut and resilient.
And then there was his tail.
A long, whip-like appendage, now rested behind him, twitching slightly with his thoughts.
His claws had grown longer too. He hadn't taken the time to file or trim them, not in this hellscape. They glinted faintly in the moonlight—ragged but usable, like forgotten knives.
Still, it was manageable.
He wasn't falling apart. Not yet—at least that's what he thought.
Belial flexed his fingers, feeling the calloused texture of his palms. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep this up—pretending to be fully okay. But for now, it was fine.
It had to be.
...
Back in the army camp, the firelight flickered low, casting long shadows that danced between the tents. It was a quiet night, unusually still. The kind of stillness that made soldiers uneasy—not peace, but a breath before the storm.
Ari, barely nineteen, stood just outside the circle of men sharing stories and cigarettes. Her short, sun-bleached hair ruffled slightly in the breeze. Despite the weight of her rifle, she shifted from foot to foot, restless.
She glanced at one of the soldiers, a tall man with tired eyes and a bandage wrapped around his arm.
"Hey," she said quietly.
He looked up.
"I've got… to go."
The soldier blinked, then gave a tired nod. "Don't wander too far."
She offered a faint smile and turned, slipping away into the open stretch of pale grass and cracked earth.
The air was colder out here, and the sky above was a black ocean freckled with stars, too many to count. It had been hours since sunset, and the moon hung like a silent watcher in the heavens.
Ari walked with her head slightly down, hands in her pockets, her boots crunching softly against the dirt. She needed to clear her mind—get away from the smell of sweat and monsters, from the murmur of trauma pretending to be camaraderie.
She spotted a formation up ahead—two boulders, one small and squat in front of a larger, jagged one. They sat like sentinels in the dark, unmoving and half-submerged in shadow. Something about the way the moonlight hit them made the rocks look like they were rising from the earth, clawing upward instead of simply lying still.
She hesitated.
That's when she heard it.
A voice.
Muffled. Low. Not in any language she recognized.
Ari froze, heart jumping in her throat. She strained to listen.
There it was again—a gravelly whisper, too soft to make out, but definitely not the wind.
Curiosity overrode instinct.
She crept forward, eyes wide, steps careful. She crouched low behind the smaller boulder, barely daring to breathe. Slowly, she leaned forward to peek around its edge.
Then she saw it.
A creature.
It stood beneath the moon, facing away from her.
Its wings were massive—batlike and leathery, stretching with a slow, deliberate grace. Twisting horns curved from its head like blackened ivory. Its shoulders were broad, the muscles shifting beneath skin that shimmered like dark metal. Its claws dragged softly along the surface of the boulder, leaving faint scars.
It turned.
And its eyes met hers.
Ary's blood turned to ice.
Those eyes—violet, glowing faintly—were ancient, like bottomless pits of malice and hunger. They looked through her. Into her.
A-A-m
"Monster!"
She screamed—The sound tore from her throat, raw and high, shattering the stillness of the night.
But it was too late.
The creature lunged with unnatural speed, closing the distance between them in a blink.
Claws, long and glinting, punched through her chest with a sickening crack.
She gasped—eyes wide with terror, mouth frozen mid-scream.
Then everything went black.