The bindings were coming undone.
Ruml Abellion could feel them unraveling, thread by thread, the ancient seals that had held it prisoner for millennia finally beginning to break. The ritual had worked perfectly. The human boy had played his part beautifully, speaking the words, drawing the runes, mixing the blood and fungi and water just as instructed.
And now the power was returning.
The blue flas from the fungus-covered floor began to rise, not as heat but as pure essence, streams of luminescent fire that flowed across the chamber toward Ruml Abellion's four-ard form. The flas swirled around its body, drawn inexorably toward the white wooden mask, toward those empty sockets where eyes should have been.
The flas poured in.
Ruml Abellion's soul fire ignited.
For the first ti in centuries beyond counting, it felt whole. Felt real. The hollow emptiness that had defined its existence in this prison began to fill with sothing closer to true consciousness, true awareness.
It had been so long.
So impossibly long.
Ruml Abellion had been a creature of significant power once, before the Binding. Not one of the great Grigori who had taught humanity the forbidden arts, but sothing older. Sothing that predated even their fall. It had watched the Divine Will shape the world, had seen the angels march in perfect formation across the crystalline spheres, had witnessed the war between heaven and the depths.
And it had chosen a side.
The wrong side, as it turned out.
When the Demon Wars ended and the victors began their purges, Ruml Abellion had fled. It had hidden in the cracks between spaces, in the forgotten places where divine light could not reach. And for a ti, it had been safe.
Until the hunters found it.
They had been relentless, those servants of the Divine Will. They had tracked Ruml Abellion across continents, through dinsions, until finally cornering it here, in this pocket realm carved from a wound in reality itself. A place that existed between existence and non-existence, accessible only to those who could perceive the gaps.
The sealing had taken seven of them working in concert. Seven angels of significant rank, their combined power barely enough to contain what Ruml Abellion had beco. They had bound it here, in this chamber, with the great slumbering horror in the pool serving as both prison guard and deterrent.
Nothing that found this place was ant to leave it.
But they had underestimated human desperation. Human foolishness.
The boy had been perfect. Young enough to be manipulated, desperate enough to grasp at any hope, and—most intriguingly—marked by sothing Ruml Abellion couldn't quite identify. There was a wrongness about him, a quality that didn't belong in a normal human. Sothing that had allowed him to find this place when it should have remained hidden forever.
Ruml Abellion didn't understand it fully, and that bothered it more than it cared to admit.
The flas continued to pour into its mask, and with each mont, more of its power returned. Not all of it—the complete release would require more blood, more death, more sacrifice. But enough. Enough to manifest properly. Enough to begin the next phase.
Once fully freed, Ruml Abellion had plans. Grand plans. The world above had changed during its imprisonnt, the Divine Will's grip on reality loosening as corruption spread like rot through the foundations of existence. The angels had retreated to their crystalline spheres, abandoning humanity to face the consequences of the Grigori's teachings.
It was chaos up there now. Beautiful chaos.
And Ruml Abellion intended to add to it.
The nature of demons was hunger. The nature of angels was order. The Grigori had fallen because they'd chosen to teach rather than command, to guide rather than control. They had loved humanity too much, and that love had corrupted them.
But Ruml Abellion had never loved anything.
It simply wanted to be free. To move. To act. To exist without the suffocating weight of divine judgnt pressing down on every thought, every impulse.
The corruption wasn't evil in the way humans understood it. It was simply... liberation from the Divine Will's oppressive architecture. A return to the primordial chaos from which all things had been shaped. So beings handled that liberation better than others.
Ruml Abellion intended to handle it very well indeed.
---
Jacob's axe descended toward Nero's skull.
'Fuck, fuck, fuck!' Nero's mind raced as he threw himself backward, the blade passing close enough to shave hair from his head.
He'd almost been tricked. Almost fallen for the obvious deception.
But he'd trusted his intuition.
Before agreeing to Ruml Abellion's terms, before shaking that clawed hand, Nero had done sothing the creature hadn't anticipated. He'd consulted the Oracle one more ti, using his daily question on sothing crucial.
{Would it be wise to agree to this being's terms without contingencies?}
The Oracle's response had been imdiate and unequivocal.
{That would be monuntally stupid. A Contract of Binding would be the minimum appropriate precaution.}
Nero had never heard of such a thing, but he'd learned to trust the Oracle's guidance.
{What's a Contract of Binding?}
{A Contract of Binding is an oath upon the pillars of the true na. It cannot be broken or circumvented. Both parties must agree to specific terms, and violation results in punishnt by the heavens themselves—or allows the offended party to demand recompense regardless of the violator's power. It is activated through a specific chant and the speaking of both parties' true nas.}
True nas.
That had been the gamble. Nero had no idea if "Ruml Abellion" was actually the creature's true na, or just another layer of deception. But he'd decided to risk it, speaking the words of binding while the creature had been distracted by its own theatrical declarations.
The contract had been simple: neither party could directly harm the other or cause the other's death through deliberate action. In exchange for completing the three tasks, Ruml Abellion would wake Arthur and Jacob and provide safe passage out of the chamber.
Nero had spoken his own na—his full na, the one his mother had given him before she died—and gambled that Ruml Abellion's pride would make it use its real designation.
Now he just had to survive long enough to see if the gamble paid off.
---
The final binding snapped.
Ruml Abellion felt the last chain of power that had held it dissolve into nothing. The blue flas surged one final ti, a torrential flood of essence pouring into its form until it blazed with soul fire that cast the entire chamber in brilliant light.
It threw back its head and let out a sound that was half-sigh, half-roar, the release of millennia of pent-up frustration and rage.
"Finally!" The words echoed through the cavernous hall, resonating with power that made the fungus-covered walls tremble. "After millennia... I, Ruml Abellion... I am freed from my chains!"
The words felt glorious on its tongue. Its true na, spoken in freedom rather than captivity.
Victory. Sweet, intoxicating victory.
Then the boy's voice cut through its triumph.
"I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you."
Ruml Abellion's head snapped toward Nero, confusion flooding through it for the first ti in centuries.
Then the ceiling exploded.
An enormous golden chain, as thick as an ancient tree, smashed through the stone above and slamd into Ruml Abellion with the force of divine judgnt. The impact drove it to the ground, pinning it beneath impossible weight. The chain blazed with light that burned worse than any fire, searing into Ruml Abellion's essence with agonizing precision.
"What is this?!" it screeched, its four arms clawing at the chain, trying to pry it loose. "Does the heavens wish to bind as well?!"
"No, you damned bastard," Nero said, walking forward despite his injuries. Blood dripped from multiple wounds, but his voice was steady. "This is what you get for being a slimy prick that goes back on his words. We made a Contract of Binding."
Ruml Abellion froze.
The words sank in slowly, their aning unfurling like poison through its consciousness.
Contract of Binding.
True nas.
The ritual.
It had spoken its na. Its real na. During its mont of triumph, drunk on returning power and freedom, it had declared itself using the na that carried its entire essence.
"How does a re human know about a Contract of Binding?!" it roared, thrashing against the chain. "Impossible!"
But even as it spoke, Ruml Abellion understood. The boy wasn't just marked by sothing strange. He had guidance. Sothing was teaching him, feeding him knowledge that no human should possess.
The Oracle.
Ruml Abellion had heard rumors of such things during its imprisonnt. Fragnts of divine architecture that had broken off during the Demon Wars, entities that existed in the spaces between consciousness and reality, offering knowledge to those who could perceive them.
This boy had one.
And Ruml Abellion, in its arrogance, had never even considered the possibility.
The chain tightened, and Ruml Abellion felt its newly regained power being locked away again. Not completely—the ritual had still worked, the seals had still broken. But the Contract of Binding created new constraints, new limitations that it couldn't circumvent without facing punishnt from forces even it couldn't defy.
It had failed.
After millennia of planning, of waiting, of carefully manipulating the rare humans who found this place, it had finally gotten close to freedom only to be outmaneuvered by a boy with a broken arm.
Ruml Abellion would have laughed if it weren't so enraged.
---
Arthur and Jacob collapsed.
The mont the golden chain struck Ruml Abellion, whatever had been controlling them vanished. They dropped like puppets with cut strings, both unconscious again but breathing, bleeding from multiple wounds but alive.
Nero sagged with relief, his legs nearly giving out.
They were alive. Hurt, but alive.
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