Beyond the Catacombs

The catacombs stretched ahead like a mouth full of broken teeth. Black stone and bone, demon skulls stacked up like some sick trophy wall. Fresh ones still bleeding, old ones picked clean. Spears stuck through ribcages every which way. Chains dangled from the top, clanking in wind that had no business being here.

Kairo Vale stood at the entrance, his boots squelching in dark puddles. His eyes used to be human, anyway stared into the black. Something in his chest woke up, hungry and mean.

Not scared. Hell had beaten that out of him.

Something uglier. Made his hands want to break things.

"How many people died in this shithole?" he said, words bouncing off stone walls. "How many screamed till their throats gave out?"

The Will of Hell answered only with silence, but he felt it pulsing in his skull like a second heartbeat patient, amused, waiting.

He walked in. The boot hit something that went crunch probably bone. Another step. Every sound bounced around like it was announcing his arrival to whatever lived down here.

Soon as he stepped inside, everything went to shit. Hell's heat the kind that baked your bones just vanished. Now it was cold as a grave. Every breath felt like inhaling needles. The floor was slick with blood, still warm, still fresh.

"Tch..." Kairo's tongue clicked sharp as a blade. Something had been here moments ago. Whatever it was had died badly, judging by the spray patterns on the walls.

His hand drifted to the broken dagger at his side more instinct than thought. The blade was chipped, scarred from battles that felt like another lifetime. His heartbeat stayed steady, controlled, but underneath the calm surface something darker stirred. The part of him that had learned to find music in breaking bones.

As he descended deeper into the tomb's bowels, torchlight guttered and died behind him one by one, as if his presence devoured light itself. The walls pressed closer with each step, carved with symbols that seemed to shift when he wasn't looking directly at them. The silence grew thick, oppressive, broken only by the steady drip of something falling from above.

Then he heard it.

Scratching. Like claws on stone.

Stumbling. Desperate, panicked footsteps.

Running. Something small and terrified bolting toward him through the maze of corridors.

Kairo's muscles coiled. His body remembered violence before his mind caught up. This was what Hell had made him a weapon wrapped in flesh, honed until he could make demons weep just by existing.

The thing rounded the corner in a blur of gray skin and pure terror, and Kairo struck without hesitation. His hand shot out like a viper, fingers wrapping around what felt like a child's skull. He slammed it against the wall with such vicious force that blood exploded across his forearm in a warm spray.

The creature was small—smaller than a human child but wrong in ways that made his skin crawl. Pale gray flesh stretched over hollow bird bones that cracked like eggshells under pressure. Its eyes were too large, too human, staring up at him in absolute terror.

It screamed. Not in rage or defiance.

In fear so pure it made something sick twist in his gut.

"D-D-Don't kill—!" The words came out in broken glass syllables, but somehow he understood. The desperation. The plea.

Didn't matter. In Hell, mercy was just weakness with a prettier name.

"Chanting a spell on me?" Kairo snarled, driving his free fist into its face. He felt something give way cheekbone, maybe jaw. The creature's blood was warm against his knuckles, and part of him the part that scared him most enjoyed it.

THUD. His fist connected again.

CRACK. Something else shattered.

The demon tried fighting back with pathetic swipes of fingernail claws that barely scratched his coat. Its legs kicked uselessly in the air, and its voice cracked as it sobbed—actually sobbed like a broken child.

But Kairo couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop. The violence felt right, familiar, like coming home after years in exile. He slammed its head against stone again. And again. Each impact sent fresh blood spatters across the wall in abstract patterns.

"Demons don't get to plead," he growled through gritted teeth, blood painting his face like war paint. His voice was barely human anymore. "Big or small. You're all the same fucking monsters."

The Will of Hell flared in his skull, sudden and firm. "Enough."

Kairo ignored it, raising his fist again. The creature's blood was under his fingernails now.

"He's not cursing you, fool."

CRACK. Another bone gave way.

CRUNCH. Something wet and vital.

He only stopped when the thing went completely limp in his grip, breathing reduced to shallow gasps. Blood dripped from his knuckles in steady rhythm, each drop echoing like a countdown to death.

The creature wheezed, barely clinging to consciousness.

"P-Please," it whispered through a mouth full of blood. "I was just... curious..."

Kairo froze. The word hit him like a physical blow, and for a moment he saw himself through its eyes. A monster. A thing that destroyed innocence because it was easier than preserving it.

The voice in his mind wasn't from the creature's lips it was the Will, translating.

"He says he got lost," each word careful and deliberate. "Never seen anything like you. Said you smelled of Heaven... and hate."

A chill ran down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold air. He looked down at the broken thing in his hands really looked and saw the curve of its spine, the way its joints bent wrong. Not human, but not evil either.

Just different. Young. Afraid.

He dropped the little demon. It hit the floor with a wet thud, immediately curling into a defensive ball. Blood pooled beneath its head, dark and viscous. It trembled—not just from pain, but from the kind of terror that broke minds and scarred souls permanently.

The kind Kairo had learned to inflict without thinking.

"Talk," he ordered, voice colder than the catacomb air. "Tell me why you're here. Or I'll break every bone in your body one by fricking one."

The demon flinched like he'd struck it again. "M-My name is Nezzor..." Blood bubbled at its mouth. "I wandered in... chasing a voice... a song from the deep places..."

Kairo raised an eyebrow. A song? Here?

"I'm 146," it coughed, spitting blood that steamed. "A child. By our standards. I didn't mean to see you... was just exploring..."

"He's telling the truth," the Will said, something almost gentle in its tone. "A lost soul. Weak. Useless in battle." A pause. "Unless you count knowledge as a weapon."

Kairo's gaze sharpened. "Unless what?"

Nezzor looked up with those too-large eyes, and despite the blood and terror, there was something else now. Awe. The kind reserved for gods or monsters.

"They say there's a door down here..." The demon's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "Deeper than Hell's roots. Past places where shadows fear to go. Locked by the old gods when the world was young."

The temperature plummeted another ten degrees.

"They called it the Thirteenth Seal."

"A prison?" Kairo's blood turned to ice water.

"W-Worse..." Nezzor's voice shook. "They say that's where they buried the original sin. The first betrayal. The one who fell... even lower than the rest of us."

Every torch in the corridor flickered simultaneously, as if reality itself shuddered.

Kairo turned to the Will, voice barely controlled fury. "You knew."

Silence stretched between them like a blade ready to fall.

Then, grimmer than death itself:

"Satan."

The name hit the air like a curse made flesh. Somewhere in the distance, stone cracked.

"He defied not just Heaven, but the Immortal Beings themselves. Declared war on existence." The Will's voice carried the weight of eons. "They didn't kill him—death would have been mercy. They buried him here, wrapped in chains forged from screams, locked behind a door even gods feared."

The catacombs trembled like something vast was stirring in the depths. A deep, resonant sound echoed—not quite stone on stone, more like the earth groaning under impossible pressure.

"I sealed it myself," the Will continued. "With power that cost me everything."

Kairo's throat tightened. The weight of the catacombs pressed down harder, colder."W-What do you mean?" he asked, voice quieter than he intended. "You sealed… what?"

A beat of silence. Then the Will spoke again, lower now—more grave than ever.

"Had I not sealed it… Heaven and Hell alike would lie in ruin. I wasn't saving the realms. I was saving them from me."

"I bound my power in chains of silence… to silence the madness. And in my weakness, the very disciples I raised turned their blades against me."

Far ahead, past corridors stretching into infinity, the passage took a sharp turn. Beyond that—carved into reality like a scar—was a massive black door.

It was wrong in ways that hurt to look at. Twenty feet tall, half as wide, its surface wasn't just dark—it was absence itself, drinking light and hope. Red veins pulsed across it like arteries, and the entire thing was covered in glyphs that writhed and shifted, telling stories in languages that predated human speech.

Kairo stared, jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. His hands were shaking—when had they started shaking?

"Why?" His voice came out as a rasp. "Why bring me here?"

The Will's answer pressed against his soul like a physical weight:

"Because some doors are meant to be opened."

From beyond the Thirteenth Seal came something that might have been laughter, echoing through dimensions without names.

Kairo took a step forward.

Then another.

Behind him, little Nezzor whimpered and crawled deeper into shadows, trying to hide from what was coming.

But there was no hiding from destiny.

Not even in Hell.