The Night Is Still Young

The battlefield was a graveyard of fallen warriors, the air thick with the scent of iron and burning flesh. Seven hours had bled into the chaos, and Mikael stood before Darius, his divine blade humming with a malevolent aura. The sword—**Oblivion's Maw**—had already shown Darius his death a dozen times over. But this time, something was different. 

Darius staggered back, his armor cracked, his breath ragged. His eyes, once burning with defiance, now flickered with something worse than fear: **recognition**. 

*"Oh,"* he rasped, blood trickling from his lips. *"So you have that sword too... but yours is... different."* 

Mikael's grip tightened. *"What the hell are you talking about?"* 

Darius laughed—a wet, broken sound. *"Don't play dumb. You've been acting this whole time. That blade... it's one of **them**. A weapon that doesn't just kill... it **unmakes**."* 

Mikael's fury spiked. *"You're rambling like a madman."* 

*"Am I?"* Darius coughed, grinning through the pain. *"Then tell me, 'hero'... why do your victims' corpses still scream?"* 

A chill slithered down Mikael's spine. He had heard them too—the whispers in the dark, the echoes of lives trapped in the steel. 

Darius wiped his mouth, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. 

*"You really think this war was an accident? That the hell-gates opened by **chance**? You're dumber than you look."* 

Mikael's sword trembled in his hand. *"Explain. Now."* 

*"Hollow Reverie,"* Darius spat. *"A potion that rewrites memories like a scribe edits parchment. I slipped it into your soldiers' rations weeks ago. They forgot their loyalties, their families... even their own faces. And when the gates opened, they marched **straight into hell**, thinking they were coming home."* 

Mikael's stomach turned. *"You... you monster."* 

*"Monster?"* Darius barked a laugh. *"No. A **disciple**. These potions? The work of **Azrael the Forsaken**—the alchemist the gods tried to erase. And this power?"* He flexed his clawed fingers, dark energy writhing around them. *"A gift from **Lucifero himself**. I sold my soul for it. And when I die? I'll burn so bright, the heavens will **feel it**."* 

Mikael's mind reeled. Azrael. Lucifero. Names from forbidden texts, from the lips of dying prophets. This was no mere war—it was a **ritual**. 

*"Enough talk,"* Mikael growled. *"Your soul is **mine**."* 

He lunged, the sword screaming through the air. But this strike was different—it carried the weight of a **curse unveiled**. 

***"Endless Dirge!"*** 

The blade connected. 

And Darius's world **shattered**. 

**First Death:** A blade through the heart. Agony. Darkness. 

**Then—** 

*"Wha...?"* Darius gasped, stumbling back. His wound was gone. The battlefield was silent. Mikael stood before him, smirking. 

*"Welcome back,"* the warrior murmured. *"Let's try again."* 

**Second Death:** His spine snapped like kindling. 

**Third Death:** His skin peeled itself alive. 

**Fourth. Fifth. Sixth.** 

Each time, Darius **remembered**. Each time, the pain was **worse**. 

*"P-Please!"* he begged, clawing at his face. *"Make it stop!"* 

Mikael crouched beside him, his voice a whisper of winter wind. 

*"Stop? Oh, Darius... we're just **beginning**."* 

Three hours in hell. 

Three **centuries** in Darius's mind. 

The sword's power warped reality itself—**stretching seconds into eons**. 

Darius screamed as his flesh regrew only to be torn apart anew. He prayed to gods who didn't listen. He cursed Lucifero for his hollow promises. 

And through it all, Mikael watched. 

*"You wanted to be remembered?"* he mused. *"Now you will be. As the man who broke **before** he died."* 

As dawn bled across the battlefield, Darius was no longer a man—just a **thing** that wept and twitched and begged. 

Mikael raised his sword one last time. 

*"Any last words?"* 

Darius's reply was a whisper: 

*"...Thank you."* 

A frown. *"For what?"* 

*"For showing me... **true despair**."* 

The blade fell. 

And somewhere, in the void between worlds, **a demon laughed**. 

Mikael walked away, the sword humming hungrily at his side. 

It was satisfied. 

For now. 

But in the shadows, a figure stirred—a man with **potion vials gleaming like cursed stars**. 

*"Interesting,"* Azrael murmured. *"Let's see how he handles **the next one**."* 

The sky was a graveyard of warships.

Thousands of steel leviathans hovered in formation, their cannons silent but promising annihilation. The last escape vessel—a battered civilian ship—trembled in the shadow of their might. Inside, five thousand souls huddled together, their hope thinner than the oxygen left in their lungs.

Then he appeared.

A figure clad in black and crimson, his grey mask etched with a single red flame, landed on the deck with the weight of a falling star. The refugees recoiled. Children whimpered. A mother clutched her baby tighter, her knuckles white.

The man who was not salvation.

Lefu's masked face tilted toward the woman clutching the child. His voice was smooth, almost kind—which made it worse.

"Too bad," he murmured, gloved fingers brushing the infant's cheek. "This one suffered before it even lived."

The woman broke.

"P-Please," she sobbed, falling to her knees. "Take my soul. Eat it, burn it—just let my child go!"

For a heartbeat, the world held its breath.

Then Lefu laughed.

"As you wish."

He snapped his fingers. Soldiers in obsidian armor descended, herding the refugees toward the warships like cattle. The woman stumbled, confused.

"Wait—you're… letting us go?"

Lefu's mask glinted in the dim light as he leaned in, his whisper a razor against her ear:

"My dear, I was the reinforcement King Felix sent."

Her face bloomed with relief. Tears of joy spilled as she babbled gratitude, clutching her child like a sacred relic.

Lefu watched, amused.

Then he turned to his lieutenant and sighed.

"Gods, they're adorable when they hope."

The refugees boarded the warship, laughing, crying, thanking fate.

None noticed the black runes carved into the hull.

As the hatch sealed, Lefu murmured two words:

"Ignite the seals."

The runes erupted in crimson fire.

Screams filled the air—but not from pain.

From realization.

The ship wasn't a rescue.

It was a sacrificial altar.

King Felix never sent reinforcements. Lefu was Azrael's disciple, sent to harvest souls for the next stage of the alchemist's plan.The runes dissolved flesh, transmiting the refugees into living fuel for a hell-gate.

As her skin peeled away, the mother reached for Lefu's mask, her voice a guttural curse:

"You lied—"

"No," Lefu corrected, wiping her ashes from his sleeve. "I simplified."

Freiya vomited, her hands stained with invisible blood.

"OMG left, it is actually such a gross im back to my room fk this shit

Lefu patted her head.

"Oh, Freiya. Take a rest and come back fresh later."

He then gestured to the swirling portal now roaring to life in the ship's belly.

"They'll live forever in hell. Isn't that… merciful?"