The world went silent when the pod closed.
No clang. No breath. Only the slow contraction of metal becoming heartbeat. The Develdion's walls shimmered once, folding inward until light no longer behaved like light. Every color stretched thin and bled into another, gold into violet, sin into grace.
Qaritas tried to move—he couldn't tell if his body obeyed. Gravity slipped. His pulse echoed outside his chest, as if the air itself were learning his rhythm.
Eon's voice purred inside the static.
"This is the part where they peel you apart to see what kind of god you make."
He tried to answer, but the words broke halfway up his throat. Light folded again. The ground no longer existed.
Then Zcain's voice filled the void—low, measured, and heavy enough to bend everything around it.
"Remember."
The last thing Qaritas felt was the world breathing in—
and swallowing him whole.
He woke to rot.
Not death, not decay—something more deliberate. The air itself had curdled, thick with the smell of iron, damp bark, and something too sweet to be natural.
His eyes opened to darkness that moved. Branches creaked above him, slick with black sap that dripped like blood from old wounds. The soil clung to his hands—warm, pulsing faintly, as though the earth had veins of its own.
When he pushed himself up, his body resisted. Every limb felt wrong, heavy, real. Mortal.
He looked down. No divine glow, no golden light bleeding from the seams of his skin. The familiar hum of power—gone. Even Eon's presence seemed dulled, muffled, like a voice speaking through stone.
"Where—" he began, but the word cracked.
The forest didn't answer. It only shifted, its trees leaning closer, whispering in the language of wood grinding against wood.
He could feel the weight of his own breath. His heart beat once, twice, uncertain. The rhythm sounded foreign—too fragile.
Mud sucked at his knees as he tried to stand. The ground smelled alive, the way meat smells before it spoils. Somewhere distant, something sighed—a sound too long to belong to lungs.
Eon stirred weakly.
"You've lost the shine," he murmured. "You smell like prey."
Qaritas ignored him. He flexed his fingers, expecting sparks of power—none came. Instead, a shiver ran through him, cold and unmistakably human.
The sky above was not sky at all but a canopy of bones and tangled vines, dripping with a slow red rain. Light barely filtered through, and when it did, it looked exhausted.
He caught his reflection in a puddle of black water: eyes dulled, skin pale, no trace of godhood—only the face of someone who could die.
A metallic taste spread across his tongue. Rust. Not aether.
He spat, the sound startlingly loud in the hush of the forest.
Everything here breathed too slowly. Even the silence had weight.
Eon's whisper came again, soft as rot working through wood.
"Tell me, little vessel… do you think this is death, or just what it feels like to be alive?"
Qaritas didn't answer. He only looked at his trembling hands—hands that could bleed now—and realized the truth Zcain had wanted him to face.
He was not divine here.
He was not safe.
He was not even whole.
Somewhere behind the trees, something was breathing—and it was not him.
The forest exhaled once—then spoke with Zcain's voice.
It didn't come from above or below, but from everywhere. From the trembling leaves, from the roots beneath his feet, from the pulse of his own body. It was not sound so much as gravity learning to speak.
"Mortals live without shields."
The words rippled through the trees. Bark split and healed in rhythm with them.
"They wake each day not knowing if breath will still belong to them by nightfall. They have no gods in their ribs. No power to bargain with the dark. Only fear—and the courage to move through it."
Qaritas turned, searching for a form, a face—anything. There was only the forest, endless and watching.
"You Ascendants," Zcain continued, "forget the ground you walk on. You think yourselves eternal because eternity never screams. But power is only perspective. The moment you stand too high, you stop seeing the cost below."
The trees leaned closer. Their branches formed shapes—hands, faces, all half-formed, all weeping sap like tears.
"You ask what separates a god from a monster?" Zcain's voice asked. "The answer has always been simple. The ones who bleed decide. To some, you will be salvation. To others, ruin. That is the law of creation—there is no mercy without consequence."
Qaritas clenched his fists. "Then why show me this?"
The ground shivered. A single root snaked upward, coiling around his ankle like a pulse come alive.
"Because you are not what they think you are," Zcain said. "You are not awakening—you are containing."
Qaritas froze. "Containing?"
The forest stilled. The air thickened until it ached to breathe.
"You are the new prison for Eon."
Eon laughed softly in his chest—a sound like silk tearing.
"He finally says it. Took him long enough."
Qaritas staggered back, shaking his head. "How—how do you know that?"
Zcain's tone darkened, every syllable echoing with centuries of restraint.
"Because I am Sin, and what lives in you isn't yours. I can smell it. It is older than light, hungrier than hell. I have seen corruption before, but nothing like this."
The branches above him twitched, raining black sap that sizzled where it fell.
"You've never been powerless long enough," Zcain said, "to understand what mercy costs. So the Develdion will teach you. You will face what the powerless face every day."
The air broke.
A low groan rose beneath his feet—deep, wet, wrong. The soil swelled as if something beneath it were trying to breathe.
Qaritas stumbled backward. The ground pulsed once, twice—then split open.
From the crack oozed light, but not the kind that comforted. It was thick and red, like molten blood. It ran over his boots and hissed.
The forest began to convulse. The trees bent inward, their trunks bulging, splitting open in seams that wept smoke and steam.
The smell hit first.
Rot, iron, bile. The scent of graves that still remember their names.
A sound followed—a wet tearing, like meat separating from bone. Then something pulled itself out of the fissure.
At first, he thought it was a man. Then it unfolded again, and again, until it towered over the trees. Its skin looked boiled, stretched too tight over a frame that didn't agree with itself. Black veins crawled across its limbs, pulsing with stolen life.
Its heart wasn't where it should be. It dangled outside its chest, swollen and red, chained to its ribs by cords of flesh. Every slow, uneven beat sprayed blood across the ground, and where it struck, the soil hissed and smoked—feeding the forest like a plague.
Qaritas gagged, covering his mouth. He could hear the heart—slapping wetly against bone with each shuddering step.
The creature's head tilted. Its mouth split too far, almost to the ears, filled with bone-carved teeth that didn't belong to anything that had ever lived. Its eyes—if they were eyes—glowed faintly through a crust of blood, watching him with a hunger that wasn't hunger but recognition.
Eon murmured inside his skull, voice trembling with delight.
"They remember you, even if you don't."
More movement.
The trees around him bulged again—groaning, bending until their roots tore free. One by one, more of the things crawled out from the shadows between trunks. Some dragged their limbs, some shuddered like newborns remembering the shape of pain.
Their exposed hearts beat in sync—an off-tempo rhythm that made the ground shudder.
Qaritas stumbled back until his shoulders hit bark. The trees behind him pulsed as if alive, their sap running upward now instead of down.
He tried to summon light—nothing. Tried to call Eon's strength—silence.
"Zcain," he whispered. "You took everything."
The god's voice drifted back through the rotting leaves, softer now.
"No. I left you one thing. The same thing mortals have."
The first Bzluagh took a step forward. Its heart slapped against its chest with a noise like thunder in a grave.
"What's that?" Qaritas hissed.
"Fear."
The forest answered the word with movement.
The swarm advanced—dozens of them, eyes glowing faintly through the fog, jaws opening with a hiss of pressure that made the trees bow. The sound wasn't sound—it was weight, pressing against his lungs, crushing his voice.
Eon's laughter slithered through the panic.
"Oh, little vessel. Let's see what your mercy costs now."
The first creature lunged.
And Qaritas ran—barefoot, blind, mortal—into a forest that wanted him dead.
Qaritas didn't get time to be afraid.
The first Bzluagh was on him in three strides—long, jerking, too-fast strides for something that looked half-rotted. Its dangling heart swung like a dripping pendulum, flinging hot flecks of blood against his face. The smell hit his throat like a fist.
He threw up his hand on instinct.
Nothing happened.
No gold flare. No violet surge. No gentle stabilizing touch from Ayla through the link.
Just flesh.
The Bzluagh's arm—if it was an arm—came down like a club. Qaritas barely rolled out of the way. The blow smashed through the tree behind him, splitting it in a wet crack. Bark and rot rained down.
"Zcain!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet.
The forest answered with calm.
"Fight as a man."
Another Bzluagh peeled itself from a tree, skin sloughing. A third crawled out of the ground on backward limbs. Their hearts all beat off-tempo, a sick chorus.
"I don't have a weapon," Qaritas hissed.
"Mortals rarely do," Zcain said, voice in the leaves, in the mud, in the breath of the forest. "They fight anyway."
The first Bzluagh lunged again.
Qaritas darted sideways—too slow. The thing's claws raked his ribs. Not divine claws. Not clean cuts. Rips. Like rusted hooks. Pain exploded through his side. Warm blood spread over his shirt.
Eon laughed, breathy and cruel. "This is what they call living? No wonder they beg for gods."
Qaritas ignored him. He dove for the ground, palms digging through the wet soil. His fingers closed over something hard—a rock, slick with rot.
The Bzluagh bent low, mouth splitting wider, breath hot and fungal.
He slammed the rock into its face.
It didn't roar so much as glitch—its head jerking to the side like it had forgotten how to process pain. Black-veined flesh split. Yellow-white sludge dripped out.
The second Bzluagh hit him from behind.
He went flying.
He slammed shoulder-first into a tree. Mortal bones didn't like that. Pain lit through his arm, bright and nauseating. He tasted mud, blood, rust—no trace of aether to smooth it over.
"Get up," Zcain said. No pity. No anger. Just command.
Qaritas spat dirt and rolled as the second one tried to stomp him. Its foot came down where his skull had been a heartbeat ago, cracking the earth.
He looked around, wild. No sword. No staff. No divine construct. Just forest: branches, stones, rot, bones of smaller creatures half-buried.
"Use it," Zcain said, as if reading him. "Use what the powerless use."
The first Bzluagh was coming again, head still caved in on one side, heart slapping against its chest, spraying steam.
Fine.
Qaritas grabbed a handful of the wet, stinking dirt and flung it at the creature's eyes.
It didn't have eyelids—but the blood crusting over them was thin, living. The mud stuck, sizzling. The Bzluagh reared back, swinging blindly, shrieking in that pressure-sound that made the trees bend.
"That's it," Zcain said. "No glory. No style. Survival."
The third one lunged from the left.
Qaritas snatched a broken branch from the ground—long, jagged, thicker at one end. He drove it forward with everything he had.
The wood punched through the Bzluagh's shoulder.
Hot blood sprayed, burning where it landed on his wrist. Qaritas screamed, staggered, nearly dropped the branch. It wasn't like fire. It was like sin, liquid, searing straight through skin into bone.
Eon purred. "Do you feel that? That's what they smell on you. Not power. Him."
The Bzluagh didn't even stop. It screeched and swung its other arm. Qaritas ducked. Not divine reflex—just panic. The arm tore a chunk of bark off a tree behind him.
He had to end one of them.
Three at once, mortal—he'd be shredded.
He scanned them fast. One had its eyes mud-caked—slower. One had wood in its shoulder—angrier. The first one, the biggest, the one with the worst smell—that was the leader. Or whatever passed for it.
Its heart swung the lowest.
Qaritas went for it.
He ran straight at the Bzluagh.
It didn't expect that. Prey ran away. Not at. It blinked—more a full body twitch than a real blink.
He dropped to his knees in the muck and slid.
The heart swung over him—wet, heavy, pulsing like a second sun.
As he slid under, he reached up with both hands and grabbed it.
He almost passed out.
The flesh was hot—boiling-hot, slick, beating hard enough to bruise his palms. It tried to tear out of his grip, thick veins straining.
The Bzluagh shrieked.
The other two shrieked with it—connected, hive-like.
"Rip it!" Zcain roared through the forest. "Like a man pulling his child from a burning house. Rip it free."
Qaritas planted his heels in the mud, teeth bared, every muscle in his back screaming. He pulled.
The veins stretched. One snapped—spraying a sheet of red steam that scalded his cheek. He screamed but didn't let go.
The Bzluagh thrashed, claws carving trenches in the dirt beside him.
The second Bzluagh barreled in to help.
No time.
Qaritas twisted his body, using the creature's own momentum. He rolled to the side, dragged the heart with him, and yanked.
It tore free.
He fell backward, heart in his hands, landing hard on his spine. The ground knocked the breath out of him. The forest spun.
The Bzluagh collapsed in on itself—like a tent whose pole had been yanked. Its limbs spasmed. Blood ran upward for a heartbeat, then sprayed outward, drenching the trees.
The second Bzluagh screeched and swiped at him.
Qaritas threw the heart.
Not away—at it.
The dripping organ smacked into the second creature's face and burst like rotten fruit, scalding blood splattering across its eyes and mouth. The thing recoiled, clawing at itself.
Qaritas scrambled to his feet, chest heaving, vision dimming at the edges.
The first Bzluagh tried to stand.
It got one knee under it.
Then it spasmed once, twice—shuddered—and went still.
The forest quieted.
Not fully—never fully—but the immediate press of death eased. The other two fell back, hissing, circling, as if suddenly unsure of this prey that had no power and yet killed one of them.
Qaritas staggered.
He looked down.
The blood from the Bzluagh's heart had splashed across his chest. It didn't drip. It crawled. Lines of red light moved across his skin, burning in a pattern. A sigil. Not his. Not Eon's. Older. Rooted in sin.
Eon went very still.
"Oh," he whispered. "He marked you."
Zcain's voice came softer, almost proud. "That is the cost. You wanted to defend Ascendants , first you need to understand mortals? Then carry what they suffer."
Qaritas dropped to his knees in the ash and rot, hands braced on the damp earth, gasping like he'd never breathed right before. The dead monster's heart lay beside him, still twitching, still trying to beat—
—and in the fading light of the Develdion's hell, it pulsed in time with his own.