Months slipped by without either of them fully realizing it.
The Lust Ring continued its usual rhythm pink neon bleeding across the horizon, distant music vibrating through the streets, SIN drifting in the air like heat fumes but something beneath the surface had shifted.
Not the Ring.
Malerion.
The apartment he had once rented as a temporary shelter had slowly transformed into something else entirely.
The living room was cluttered with torn demon manuals, sketches of SIN flow patterns, half-burned scrolls, and broken cursed artifacts.
Even the air felt different lighter, stretched, as if reacting to the energy inside him.
During the past months, they had worked nonstop.
Malerion wandered through districts of the Lust Ring, quietly studying how SIN moved in different places.
Some alleys were thick with it; some rooftops were strangely clean.
Nightclubs pulsed with chaotic bursts, while abandoned factories felt heavy, like the air couldn't breathe.
Alastor watched through him, offering comments and sarcastic warnings, but never certainty.
Every observation led to more questions.
The Echo Ring inside Malerion had grown more stable.
Its pulse no longer felt like a trembling whisper but like a steady tone humming deep in his chest.
It filtered SIN naturally now, even when he wasn't focusing.
Malerion could feel the difference in small ways less exhaustion, quicker reactions, small changes that made him uneasy because they were subtle, not dramatic.
He had also expanded his presence within the Lust Ring without meaning to.
A few hauses around the apartment became noticeably calmer.
The SIN felt thinner and more structured, and demons nearby avoided the area without knowing why.
Some said the building felt "wrong." Others said it was "peaceful," which in Hell was even more suspicious.
Malerion hadn't claimed territory, but territory had formed around him anyway.
Danger had been part of the process too. Three incidents nearly broke the Echo Ring: stepping too close to an demons Overlord's hidden domain, a demon gang drawn to his unusual aura, and a magical accident that created a SIN storm only a street away.
Each event nearly shattered him, but each also gave him insight.
He learned more from fear than from meditation.
Tonight, he sat cross-legged on the balcony floor. SIN drifted around him as usual, but something felt different.
The first Echo Ring pulsed steadily, but beneath it was a second vibration weak, irregular, almost like a heartbeat trying to form from broken pieces.
Alastor's voice echoed inside him.
"It's doing it again."
Malerion didn't open his eyes.
The second pulse?
"Yes," Alastor answered, sounding uncharacteristically cautious. "It's getting stronger. And more unstable."
That's one word for it, Malerion muttered. Feels like something scraping my insides.
The soul-chamber flickered into view still imperfect, still shimmering like melted glass. At its center, the second Ring appeared as a pale, fractured circle.
It spun weakly, glitching in and out of existence.
Alastor approached it slowly, hands behind his back. "It's trying to stabilize. But it's missing… something. A pattern, perhaps."
"A trigger," Malerion suggested.
"Or just a miracle," Alastor said dryly. "This thing doesn't behave like the first Ring at all."
It reacts differently to SIN, Malerion said. When I meditate, it barely moves. But when I'm in danger, it almost ignites.
Alastor nodded. "Mixed conditions. Chaos and discipline. You need both."
"That's going to be hell."
"We are literally in Hell."
Malerion sighed.
In the physical world, lights flickered.
The air grew heavy. The second Ring began trembling violently again, as if something inside it was pushing too hard.
Alastor's tone sharpened.
"Careful. If it collapses"
I know.
The first Ring pulsed suddenly, responding to the instability.
A shock hit Malerion's chest, stealing his breath.
He grabbed the floor to steady himself.
The vibrations grew louder inside his head, echoing like distorted static.
"Hold it steady!" Alastor shouted from inside the mindscape.
I'm trying!
The two Rings clashed, then aligned barely. The pressure in his chest tightened.
Apartment lights flickered twice, then dimmed.
Something invisible seemed to twist in the air.
Then the second Ring snapped into shape
not cleanly, not fully, but enough.
A jagged circle of pale energy solidified.
Unstable.
Incomplete.
Alive.
Malerion exhaled shakily as the glow faded.
Alastor's voice returned, softer than usual.
"Well… congratulations. Or condolences. I'm not sure which."
Malerion stared into the night sky, feeling the second Ring pulse weakly beneath the first.
We'll figure out what it does, he murmured.
"Or it'll figure out what to do with you," Alastor replied.
Neither of them knew the truth.
Neither of them knew what came next.
But the Echo Soul Path had taken another step and the world of Hell hadn't noticed.
Not yet.