In the silence beneath the world, there is no time.
Only fire. Stone. Chains.
And laughter.
For centuries, Asmodai has slept beneath the seven seals, imprisoned in the pit the Saints carved from the bones of the world. His flesh has rotted. His magic has dimmed. His body—nothing but dust and wrath.
But not his mind.
Not his will.
He waits, buried beneath forgotten prayers and holy lies, watching the world through cracks in the veil.
Listening for the sound of his blood.
And then—
A ripple.
Faint. Childish. Clumsy.
But his.
The heat in his veins stirs like coals kissed by wind. The mark of his magic—buried, sealed, silenced—surfaces for a heartbeat.
He sees the boy.
Hair like coal. Eyes like smoke. Skin untouched by fire.
Asmodai grins. A mouth with no body, a soul with no chains.
"So... you lived."
The Saints had tried to erase him.
Tried to break the cycle.
But fate cannot be rewritten—it can only be postponed.
And now, the fruit they feared has bloomed in secret.
He does not send armies. Not yet. That would be crude. Loud. Mortal.
No—Asmodai plays with strings.
From the cracks of the Pit, he whispers to old bones and broken men. He stirs forgotten relics and lost souls. He finds puppets—humans, demons, angels, the desperate, the hollow.
And he begins to pull.
"Find him," he whispers.
"Twist him. Break him. Love him. Hate him. Bring him to me."
The boy is a key—and keys do not choose what they unlock.
One by one, the players begin to move.
Some wear smiles.
Some wear armor.
Some wear the faces of those Reika loves.
But all dance to the same tune.
And far beneath the world, Asmodai waits—
—laughing.