Kael stood at the edge of the ruined world.
Black spires jutted from cracked earth. The sky above was not sky at all, but a swirling abyss of violet and gray. This was Nivareth—once the proud realm of the ancient demons, now a graveyard swallowed by silence.
He had come here for one reason:
To find the truth Azrion refused to speak.
To uncover what had been sealed away when the gods struck.
Azrion's voice echoed softly in his soul now—not with rage, not with power. But with something Kael had never heard before.
Grief.
> "This was once… my home."
Kael walked, each step crushing ash that was once demon blood, demon bone, demon dreams.
He reached a ruined palace of obsidian. At its heart, shattered thrones and statues lay half-buried in dust.
And in the center…
A broken altar.
Upon it…
A crown. Jet-black, cracked down the center, with a violet gem in the middle pulsing faintly like a dying heartbeat.
Kael stepped forward, but Azrion's voice halted him.
> "That was my father's."
"He wore it the day the gods erased my world."
"I was a child, hiding beneath that altar… when he fell."
Kael froze.
> "They told me not to cry.
Not to scream.
But when my mother's blood painted the altar… I screamed until the world cracked.
And when I stopped…
I was the last demon left."
Kael dropped to his knees. He couldn't speak.
The pain in Azrion's voice wasn't just old…
It was still alive.
Kael reached out and touched the crown.
The moment his fingers brushed it—
FLASH.
A vision—raw and violent—slammed into his mind.
He saw Azrion as a child, eyes wide, standing amidst fire. His parents — warriors of unimaginable beauty and strength — fought dozens of gods, bloodied but unbent.
They didn't scream.
They didn't run.
They stood to their last breath.
Azrion's mother looked back one last time—and smiled.
She whispered something Kael couldn't hear…
Then the sky shattered.
Everything went black.
Kael screamed, falling backward. His hands trembled.
But this time, Azrion didn't speak.
He appeared.
Not as a shadow. Not as a voice.
But as a figure made of smoke and flame, standing beside Kael, gazing at the crown.
> "I remember now… her last words."
Kael looked up, eyes wide. "What did she say?"
Azrion's voice cracked for the first time.
> "She said… 'Live. Even if you must become a monster to do it.'"
"And I did, Kael. I became the nightmare of gods.
But the boy who cried beneath that altar… never left."
Kael stood beside him, silent.
Two souls—one broken by weakness, one broken by loss—now bound by something more than power.
Kael placed a hand on Azrion's shoulder.
> "Then let's show them… that monsters can feel pain too."
"But when they make monsters suffer…
Monsters remember."
Azrion smiled.
> "Then let us make them remember."
Far away, in the divine sky… the gods trembled.
Because for the first time in eons…
Azrion cried.
And the last time he cried—an entire pantheon died.
END OF CHAPTER 10