Veyan had his reasons for thinking death was inevitable. First off, no re mortal could withstand the raw, unrelenting surge of fire mana pouring from the hell plane. That was a given. Secondly, the drakkari standing before him… felt oddly familiar. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the ink on the red-scaled warrior’s arm confird his suspicions.
He was a Vor’akh.
Which led to the real question—what in the na of all things unholy was he doing in hell? Veyan didn’t have the answer, but what he did have was a bone-deep, gut-churning realization: this guy was powerful. Powerful enough to keep potential Gold-ranked demons at bay, not through force, but through sheer presence alone.
And that, in itself, was a problem.
Because just how powerful was he? Nobody on the continent had ever broken past the Gold rank. Sure, so ancient texts whispered of a realm beyond—Platinum Core—but those were just myths, stories scholars told each other when reality felt too dull. In practice, Gold was the limit. There was nothing beyond it.
Had hell rewritten the rules? Had it found a way to shatter the ceiling, to let soone ascend past the chains of power they all thought unbreakable? And if so… was that why this man was here? So twisted form of enlightennt?
Veyan himself was a low-Gold, yes, but his power was enough to make even high-Golds think twice before picking a fight. And yet, the man before him?
Not impressed. Not even remotely interested. In fact, he was playing with him.
Not attacking. Not countering. Just watching.
It was an insult, a silent slap across the face. A declaration that the gap between them was so vast, so absolute, that he didn’t even consider Veyan worth the effort.
Veyan’s tal mana shredded the battlefield in invisible scythes. Magma frothed and split, searing eruptions clawing at the air as Veyan’s attacks carved the hellscape into sothing barely recognizable. His sword warped under the force of his Weapon Augnt skill, shifting from blade to cannon to bow, each form unleashing destruction with every move. If the weapon was mundane, the skill turned it into a killing machine. If it was enchanted? It beca a dirge given edge.
The drakkari laughed.
Not a scratch. Not a flinch. Just laughter, rich and throaty, as if Veyan were a jester dancing on a pyre’s edge.
Then—the veil behind Veyan trembled, reality’s stitches fraying further.
Click.
This wasn’t a summoning ritual.
They weren’t dragging a demon through the breach.
They were resurrecting a Vor’akh exile from Hell’s forgotten oubliette.
How he’d co to rule this infernal patch? What pacts he’d sealed in hellfire? Irrelevant.
Whatever infernal alchemy had warped him—or he’d wrought upon Hell—had forged sothing beyond monster.
If that scaled abomination clawed his way back to the mortal world—if—not even the Matriarch’s fury would shackle him.
Veyan’s teeth gnashed, jawbone creaking. His sword scread as it twisted—tendons of molten tal snapping into a bow taller than death. Mana coiled, compressed, birthing a crackling arrow that humd with the promise of oblivion. The air around it bled distortion. Then—
Release.
The arrow scread through the air at supersonic speeds, closing the distance in the blink of an eye.
A heartbeat later, the battlefield detonated.
Magma erupted in a blinding inferno, the shockwave splitting stone and sky. The force alone should have been enough to leave nothing behind but molten ruin. Veyan stood firm, his aura alone parting the storm of liquid fire.
And yet—
The drakkari stepped out of the inferno. Unscathed.
Clapping.
"Wow," he mused, grinning wide. "Almost had worried there, little snake. Almost."
Then he stretched, jogging in place like this was all so casual morning exercise. The scorched earth hissed under his clawed feet, red-hot magma evaporating on contact.
"You’ve got, oh…" He glanced over his shoulder at the rift in space, tilting his head. "Three minutes to show what you’ve got!" His smirk deepened. “Three minutes to make sweat.” He winked. “Amp up the spectacle, and I might leash you as my pet. A living trophy. Exclusive offer, mind you—you’ve earned it! You’ve been such a delightful distraction!"
He was insane.
Veyan’s breath sawed through his ribs. The bow trembled in his grip, hungry.
“Shadeling got your fangs?” The drakkari cocked his head. Then his grin sharpened. "Unless…" His eyes glead. "You crave a taste of my claws as well."
The words had barely left his lips before Veyan’s world shattered.
Huh.
That’s all his mangled mind could chew on before agony—red, raw, ravenous—ripped through him.
Blood geysered from his mouth. His body—where was his body?
Gone. From navel down—gone.
His entrails dangled grotesquely as he crashed into the burning trees, fire licking at his ruined form.
When did he—
Impossible.
He hadn’t even seen him move.
When? How?
Veyan’s mana surged on instinct, forcing his body to keep functioning. It staunched the gaping wound, slowed the blood loss. His heart—once erratic—snapped into manual control, his willpower the only thing keeping it beating.
Being torn in half wasn’t a death sentence for a Gold Rank. He wasn’t dying that easily.
He refused to.
Mana surged.
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[Weapon Augntation]
A tallic storm engulfed him, tal mana raging like a hurricane, bending to his command. Liquid steel poured from his shattered form, hardening, reshaping—
A helt locked over his face, blinding him to all but instinct. Armor spiraled over his flesh, jagged protrusions clawing out from his back. rcury-like tal stretched downward, forming new legs—stronger, deadlier.
From a disemboweled corpse to a towering steel warrior, Veyan rose, now standing twelve feet tall.
The man clicked his tongue. "And here I thought I was holding back. Have they all grown this weak back ho?" He scoffed, shaking his head. "I suppose it was inevitable the mont you all chose unity over hunger. Over strength."
His gaze darkened, laced with barely contained disgust. "Not a single punch? And you’re already at death’s door?" He spat onto the scorched ground, the molten rock sizzling at the impact. "Weaklings. And I have to watch more of this diocrity through this veil?" His lip curled. "Ancestors must have truly abandoned us."
He exhaled, long and slow, as if forcing himself to tolerate the sight before him. "I’d be done with you already, but I gave you three minutes. And I am a man of my word, no matter how much it disgusts to entertain this." His fingers flexed, claws twitching. "Waste my ti no longer. Co at ."
Maybe it was sothing about Veyan’s state— still standing, yet half-dead—that had soured his amusent into sheer contempt.
Fine.
Let him choke on it.
Veyan's fingers clenched, steel grinding against steel. His tal heels tapped against lava, then—boom.
He moved.
Supersonic speed.
The distance between them vanished in an instant. Gauntleted hands twisted, morphing into claws the size of short swords, hidden toxins lacing their edges, their venom ready to sink deep—
He struck.
And still—
The man did not move.
He rely sighed, catching the blow effortlessly in one hand. His expression twisted into sheer disdain.
"Pathetic."
Then—
Veyan’s world spun.
A sickening lurch, a crushing force—his body shattered against sothing unseen.
And yet—he never saw it.
Never sensed anything.
Nothing had moved.
Armor shredded like brittle paper.
A single blow—one he never even saw—and every limb bent at impossible angles.
The force of it sent Veyan flying, agony flaring anew as sothing deep within him cracked—not just bones, but sothing fundantal.
He almost laughed.
Because this was absurd.
After everything—after clawing his way to the top, after being nad the youngest to ever ascend to Gold Core—this was how it ended?
They had called him a prodigy. A once-in-a-century talent. The only one who might surpass him was Master’s own daughter, Vernia.
And yet, in this mont, his thoughts drifted to soone else entirely.
That silver-haired Drakkari...
Sothing about her. The shape of her face. The cut of her features.
Eerily similar to the princess.
Why am I thinking about this now?
Perhaps it was a coping chanism. A way to cling to sothing other than the overwhelming certainty of death breathing down his neck.
His mana reserves—gone.
His body—broken.
And still, he fought. Not to win. He had long abandoned that delusion.
He fought to stall.
If nothing else, he could buy ti. Ti for Master to save soone. Anyone.
But had she even gotten his ssage?
The psychic tether had been severed long ago.
The veil between realms cracked further, and through it—he saw the ballroom hall.
Guests lay collapsed across the floor. The traitors rummaged through the wreckage, gazes fixed eagerly on the torn fabric of reality reflected in the ceiling mirror.
But Master—
She wasn’t there.
A bitter exhale.
Was this it?
A bitter laugh bubbled in his throat—then died as his left arm exploded. Bones powdered, flesh unraveling like rotten silk. The right followed, then his legs—each limb collapsing inward, pulped at and splintered marrow.
And then—
Fire. Not fla, but an invisible thing coiled around his throat, scalding and serpentine. It squeezed, molten iron branding his windpipe. The drakkari’s face filled his vision, scaled features twisted with disgust.
Pure, unfiltered disgust.
"Well—" the man mused, almost lazily, "playti’s over."
Then his gaze flicked past Veyan, through the veil, and a wicked grin spread across his face.
"Ahh… what a beautiful nagerie of guests you’ve gathered." A low, delighted chuckle. "I’ll make sure to savor their screams."
Veyan's pulse slamd against his ribs.
The Drakkari exhaled a satisfied sigh. "Part of wants you to witness it all." His fingers flexed, the unseen grip on Veyan’s throat tightening—then suddenly releasing.
"But the hellbeasts and demons would devour this little space the mont I step through. And they’d eat you alive before you got to see a single thing."
A mockingly sympathetic tilt of the head.
"A pity."
Veyan’s glare sharpened—a final, venomous spark.
CRACK.
The blow ca like a teor strike. His jaw vanished, teeth and bone reduced to crimson mist. Blood cascaded down his chest, a grotesque waterfall, as the drakkari’s snarl vibrated through the molten air:
“EYES. DOWN. WOR—”
The drakkari’s snarl stuttered.
Ti buckled.
It happened the mont the veil ripped apart, the gateway ho yawning wide.
Ti did not freeze—it fractured, suspended in a mont stretched thin. A cobalt light vomited from the rift, drenching Hell in a gelatinous, spectral sheen. The molten plains, the clawed mountains, even the drakkari’s snarl—all turned translucent, drowned in a haze of blue. Through the veil, Veyan saw… numbers.
Endless. Relentless.
A blizzard of 0 and 1, churning in fractal tides, devouring the hellscape in a flood of binary code. They slithered like serpents, faster than thought, faster than breath—a million calculations per heartbeat, etching equations into the air itself.
At the rift’s maw, a die materialized—a geotric abomination, edges sharp, surfaces etched with glyphs that writhed. Lightning crackled around it, not true electricity but sothing older, jagged and alive, snapping at the air.
The drakkari’s eyes bulged, veins straining against scales. His claws twitched, muscles corded—but his body refused him. Even this monster was shackled.
The die spun. Faster. Faster.
A sound like grinding teeth crawled into Veyan’s skull. His ribs thrashed—not fear, but primal recognition. The sa instinct that howls when the moon vanishes. When the forest falls silent.
Sothing was here.
The die shrieked, its edges birthing fractures in the air—not cracks, but equations, geotric wounds bleeding streams of flickering nurals. From its core, a figure coalesced: a woman wrought from starlight and static, her form shifting as if a thousand overlapping tapestries fought to define her. Symbols cascaded down her skin—not tattoos, but living glyphs that squird, rearranging themselves with each breath. When she spoke, her voice was the grind of tectonic plates, the whisper of leaves in a dead forest:
[ENTITY_IDENTIFIED: DRAZHAN_PEPELAR]
[RANK_DETECTED: LOW_PLATINUM_CORE]
[JURISDICTION: CONTINENT_7A3F9B]
[RULE_VIOLATION: CONTINENT_SUPPRESSION_PROTOCOL (MAX_RANK=GOLD)]
[ADDITIONAL_CHARGES: UNAUTHORIZED_VEIL_BREACH (SEVERITY: APOCALYPTIC)]
[SENTENCING: IMDIATE_CONTAINNT]
The drakkari’s snarl twisted into sothing raw—fear. His scales rippled, hellfire mana boiling around him, but the woman raised a hand. Symbols flared in the air:
[FUNCTION: NULLIFY_ESCAPE_ATTEMPTS]
[EXECUTE]
Tendrils of light erupted from the void—not flesh, but code, braided from those sa endless 0s and 1s. They coiled around Drazhan’s limbs, his throat, his jaws, silencing his roar. He thrashed, but the nurals seared into his scales, branding him with glowing chains.
[ERROR: RESISTANCE_FUTILE]
[REDIRECTING_TO_HOLDING_CELL: REALM_DELTA-9]
The tendrils yanked.
Drazhan vanished, his final glare etched into the air like smoke.
The woman’s hexagonal gaze slid to the veil. Beyond it, the traitors froze, their faces drenched in sudden, sweating terror.
[SUBSIDIARY_TARGETS: RITUAL_ORCHESTRATORS (n=17)]
[CHARGE: COMPLICITY_IN_APOCALYPTIC_BREACH]
[SENTENCING: TERMINATE]
One by one, their bodies unmade—not disintegrated, but erased, flesh peeling back into strings of ghostly nurals that dissolved like salt in rain.
Then her gaze fell on Veyan.
[ENTITY_SCAN: VEYAN_SABLETHORN]
[RANK_DETECTED: LOW_GOLD_CORE]
[AFFILIATION: VICTIM]
[ROLE: PASSERBY (CONFIRD)]
[STATUS: CRITICAL_DAMAGE (REVERSIBLE)]
Her fingers flicked.
[FUNCTION: ROLLBACK_LOCAL_TI (DURATION: 247_SECONDS)]
[EXECUTE]
The world lurched.
Veyan’s shattered jaw rewound, bone shards flying backward into place. Blood siphoned from the ground into his veins. Muscles knitted; armor lted, reforged itself. It wasn’t healing—it was undoing, as if ti itself spat out the injustice of his ruin.
The woman tilted her head, hexagons whirring.
[WARNING: REALM_INTEGRITY_AT_7%]
[DIRECTIVE: SEAL_VEIL (PRIORITY: OGA)]
She raised both hands. The rift shuddered, edges stitching closed like a wound under a healer’s hand.
[ADVICE: FLEE_THIS_PIT, MORTAL_STRING]
[YOUR_CODE_IS_NOT_WORTHY_OF_SCRUTINY]
A tendril snapped around Veyan’s waist—not cruel, but inexorable—and hurled him backward through the closing veil.
He glimpsed her one final ti, already dissolving into that storm of 0 and 1, her voice echoing as the rift sealed with a snap:
[REALM_SEAL: 7C-ALPHA]
[VEIL_INTEGRITY: RESTORED]
[DIRECTIVE_STATUS: COMPLETE]
[DISENGAGING]
[ERROR_LOG: PRUNE_AFTER_READING]
Then—silence.
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