The wind howled around the cliff's edge as he stood alone, cloaked in shadows that clung to him like living mist. The warmth of the Red Angel's presence had faded, but her words lingered—bitter and sharp as frost. She had stirred something ancient in him. Something he had buried beneath years of peace.
Heaven was watching again.
And if they were, then the balance of all three realms hung by a thread. Not because of war. But because he still existed.
He closed his eyes.
In that moment of silence, thousands of souls stirred in the darkness behind him—his shadows. Silent watchers. Undying guardians. They didn't speak. They didn't breathe. But they were awake now, as if the conversation with the Red Angel had pulled a thread too tightly.
And in the farthest edge of that swarm of shadows, one soul pulsed with a different rhythm.
One of the forgotten kings—an ancient tyrant whose soul he had devoured centuries ago—was stirring.
That wasn't supposed to happen.
Far away, in the lower world village he now called home, his wife stirred in her sleep.
She awoke with a gasp, hand clutching her chest, heart racing. Beside her, the children remained asleep, curled up like kittens. The house was quiet.
But outside… something was wrong.
She stepped out into the moonlight, barefoot, wind tugging at her nightgown.
And then she saw it.
A crack in the sky.
Thin. Barely visible. Like the fracture in a mirror. But it shimmered with a light not born of this world—celestial and cold.
She narrowed her eyes.
He had told her once what that meant.
"When Heaven peeks through the veil," he had said, "someone is about to die who shouldn't."
She turned back toward the house.
It was time to prepare.
Back at the cliff, he opened his eyes.
The sky had darkened.
It wasn't natural night. It was the kind of darkness that spilled when too many powerful beings moved at once. The clouds churned unnaturally. Lightning snapped without thunder. The very air seemed to scream in silence.
"A realm has fallen," the hunger whispered.
He looked up.
The Western Edge of the Upper World had just collapsed.
He saw it as if he stood there—a city of gold and marble swallowed by shadow. Not his doing. Not his army. But something else.
Something older.
Something hungry.
His breath hitched as the truth formed in his mind.
"Someone has been feeding," he muttered.
The Red Angel hadn't come to warn him about Heaven.
She had come because something was devouring the realms again, and it wasn't him.
He turned, shadows swirling behind him.
A voice echoed in the wind. One of his generals. Female. Cold. "We found the fracture. It leads to a sealed zone... north of the Heavenly Chasm."
"Open it," he said.
She hesitated. "There's a god chained beneath it."
He didn't blink. "Then bury it deeper. But I need a gate open in three days. I'll go in alone."
"But, my King—"
"I'm not your King anymore."
She bowed her head. "Yes... but your enemies don't believe that."
Three days passed like dying breaths.
In that time, he walked among his people again. Helped fix a merchant's cart. Taught his daughter to read an ancient cultivation script. Sparred gently with his son behind the orchard.
His wife never asked questions. But every night, she would trace the fading scars on his back, lips trembling against them.
He wanted to stay. He truly did.
But that crack in the sky grew wider by the day.
And the whispering... it never stopped.
On the night of his departure, he left a letter.
Folded, placed beside his wife's comb.
He didn't write grand words. No promises.
Just a few lines:
"If I don't return, it means peace was never meant for me.
But I swear to you... I will return what they try to take."
And then, he was gone.
The gate opened in the far north, carved into a frozen wasteland where breath turned to blades and even light moved slowly.
His general stood beside the portal—her form tall and veiled, hands clasped in reverence.
"It's alive," she said. "Whatever lies inside... it's calling."
"To me?"
"No. To itself."
He stepped forward, cloak of shadows folding into his back like wings. The portal shimmered before him, runes ancient and twitching like wounded things.
He took a breath.
And stepped through.
The sealed zone was not what he expected.
It was a world of stone and silence. Towering monoliths stretched into a starless sky. Gravity twisted. Time bent. And at the heart of it all... a throne made of bones.
Thousands of them. Human, demonic, celestial.
And atop it sat a figure.
Shackled. Blindfolded. Bleeding shadow.
A god of old.
One of the first beings ever devoured by sin itself.
And it was weeping.
"So many lives… so many echoes…" it whispered.
He stepped forward. "Who fed you?"
The god didn't move. Didn't breathe.
But the space around it twisted as if reality flinched from its presence.
Then, a voice not belonging to the god answered.
From behind the throne.
Soft. Feminine. Familiar.
"He did."
He turned slowly.
And froze.
A girl stood there.
Maybe twelve.
Golden eyes. Hair black as ink. A smile far too calm for the broken world around her.
She looked like his daughter.
But her presence...
It pulsed like a beast wrapped in silk.
"Hello," she said sweetly. "I've been waiting, Father."
His blood went cold.
Because the hunger inside him recognized her.
"What... are you?"
She tilted her head. "Isn't it obvious?"
She stepped forward, barefoot on shattered stone.
"I'm the part you left behind."