CHAPTER SEVEN: The Gate of Screaming Gods

The gate stood taller than any cathedral, etched in screaming faces and sealed with celestial bones.

It was not meant to open.

Not for mortals. Not for demons. Not even for angels.

But Nyra wasn't any of those things anymore.

She stood before it with Lucifer by her side, her eyes dull, hands bandaged in black cloth still soaked in her own blood.

"You will enter alone," Lucifer said.

"If you survive, you'll gain more than power. You'll gain purpose."

Nyra didn't respond.

She stared at the gate.

And it stared back.

Inside the academy, panic spread like plague.

The upper students — even Tier-A elites — had heard of the gate.

A place where primordial spirits were imprisoned.

Where gods went mad and monsters chewed through their own minds to forget what they'd seen.

And now… Nyra was going in?

Alone?

Caelia tried to stop her.

She found Nyra on the stone bridge leading to the sealed courtyard.

"Please don't do this," she whispered. "They say even Lucifer barely survived it once."

Nyra turned.

And for a moment — just a flicker — her expression softened.

"I'm not him," she said. "I'm worse."

---

Lucifer watched from above.

He didn't speak.

He only clenched his hand — and the gate began to unseal.

The air cracked.

Reality bent like wet parchment.

The faces on the gate began to wail.

And then… it opened.

---

The moment Nyra stepped through, the world vanished.

She wasn't walking anymore.

She was falling.

Falling through memories that weren't hers.

A battlefield where gods bled stars.

A woman with silver wings screaming Nyra's name.

A child made of flame reaching out — and then shattering.

Her body twisted.

Her bones glowed.

Her mind screamed.

> "YOU SHOULD NOT EXIST," a voice roared.

She landed in a chamber of inverted light.

No floor. No ceiling. Just madness.

And a creature waiting.

---

It had no face.

No limbs.

Only wings — thousands of them.

Each made of screaming mouths.

The Warden of the Gate.

It spoke in blood and echo.

> "WHAT ARE YOU, CHILD?"

Nyra raised her hand — bleeding, shaking, burning.

"I don't know," she said. "But I came here to kill you."

The warden screamed.

The battle wasn't physical.

It was war on a conceptual level.

Every second, her body changed.

Wings burst from her back, then vanished.

Her voice split into three timelines.

She aged a century and reverted to seventeen in a blink.

The Warden tried to devour her existence.

But Nyra bit back.

She reached into the screaming wings —

grabbed one —

and tore it off.

The chamber erupted.

A new sun was born.

Somewhere far away, Lucifer closed his eyes and whispered:

"She's evolving."

Nyra stood in the silence.

The Warden writhed, dying, its voices fading into static.

She had bled from her soul.

But she had won.

And as the gate behind her reopened, the faces screamed in reverence.

Caelia was there when she returned.

Nyra's eyes were silver now.

Not glowing.

Not burning.

Just... still.

Like a god that had finally stopped dreaming.

Caelia stepped forward — hesitant.

Nyra blinked.

And pulled her into a hug.

For the first time, Nyra held someone without breaking.

And for the first time…

She cried.