Nox's breath caught in his throat.
The chamber pulsed around them like a living thing, waiting. Demanding.
Only one heart…
The words echoed again, not just in the air but in his bones, reverberating like a drumbeat through his chest. His mind spun with the weight of the choice—him or Lilith. Pain. Past. Truth.
He didn't even know what that meant fully, but he could feel the Pit watching—expecting.
Lilith stepped toward the altar. "I'll do it," she said without hesitation.
"No." Nox's voice was low, but firm. He stepped forward too, facing her. "You've been through this place before. I haven't. If one of us needs to stay strong, it's you."
She narrowed her eyes. "And if this is a trick? If 'bleed' means more than just pain? You think I'd let you throw yourself into it without knowing?"
He smiled faintly. "I think I already did. When I followed you in here."
Lilith flinched—not from hurt, but from something deeper. That quiet kind of fear that comes with caring. She glanced to the altar, then back to him.
The voice spoke again, final and booming, like a tolling bell:
"Choose now, or both shall be forfeit."
The sigils beneath their feet blazed brighter—searing into the floor, into their skin.
Time was up.
Lilith looked him dead in the eyes. "You better not die."
Then she stepped aside.
Nox stepped onto the altar.
Immediately, the air changed. It turned sharp, slicing against his skin like cold wind through broken glass. The altar drank the warmth from his body, and the symbols surged with life, curling up his arms like fire etched in ink.
He didn't scream.
He remembered.
—The cold metal floors of the human facility. The collar. The endless numbers shouted at him.—"112."—The smell of blood in the training pits. The girl who had died next to him. The one who smiled before her neck snapped.—The weight of being nothing more than a weapon.
Pain flared deep in his chest—not physical, but something worse. Something that belonged to him.
Behind him, Lilith called his name, her voice distant, like through water.
He didn't look back.
The altar responded to his offering—his truth. His pain.
The symbols rose, forming a shape—something ancient and coiled and waiting. Then—
The altar cracked open with a sound like thunder being ripped in half.
A staircase spiraled downward into pure darkness.
The voice, now barely more than a whisper, spoke again:
"The heart has been weighed. The Depths shall open."
Lilith ran to his side. "You idiot," she muttered. But her hand grabbed his anyway.
Nox looked at her, his body still shaking.
A sound, deep and low, like grinding stone and cracking bone, echoed through the chamber. The altar split apart, swallowing its own secrets, and the floor shifted beneath them. In its place, a staircase emerged—twisting and descending into blackness, impossibly long. Like it spiraled into the soul of the mountain itself.
Lilith peered over the edge. "is this the Only way forward?"
She looked back at Nox and offered a half-smirk, her voice quiet but steady. "Shall we?"
Nox nodded, tightening his grip on the strap of his pack. "Let's finish this."
They began to descend.
Time lost all meaning.
The air grew colder the deeper they went—damp and metallic, like breathing in blood. The walls bled symbols that pulsed when passed, whispering nonsense in dead tongues. For what felt like hours—or days—they walked. The only sound was the echo of their footsteps and the occasional, far-off shriek of something ancient and angry.
Seraphis's rations were holding, barely. They ate in silence, pausing only when their legs began to shake. Sleep became fragments stolen in the stillness. Nox couldn't tell if he dreamed or simply hallucinated—the deeper they went, the more his thoughts tangled.
Then—light.
Faint at first. A single crack on the stair ahead, like a seam in reality.
"Lilith," he rasped. "I think… we're at the end."
She raised her head, eyes tired but alert. "Finally."
As they stepped off the last stair, the world shifted again.
They emerged from the mountain's base into something vast—something impossible.
A canyon torn straight through the underworld. The sky above was a storm of fire and ash, swirling in unnatural spirals. Below, the land stretched in every direction, jagged and broken—and alive with motion.
Thousands of demonic beasts. All locked in endless battle.
Clawed titans wrestled in the dust, winged serpents screamed across the skies, and spectral creatures danced between shadows, ripping into anything that moved. It was chaos—relentless, primal, and breathtaking in its brutality.
The ground trembled beneath their feet with every roar, every stomp, every clash of fang and steel.
Lilith's voice was barely audible over the madness. "This is it. The Trial of Blood."
Nox scanned the battlefield. "What the hell are we supposed to do here?"
As if in answer, a piercing screech ripped through the sky. A massive creature—part vulture, part spider—descended from the clouds and landed before them. It had no eyes, but it saw them. Its limbs twitched with hunger. Its mouth opened sideways, revealing rows of teeth that clicked in anticipation.
Behind it, more shapes emerged—some crawling, some gliding. All of them turning to face the two intruders.
Lilith's hand shot to her side—nothing. Still no weapon.
But then the Pit answered again.
The ground before them split, and from it rose their weapons—reshaped.
Nox's blade had changed. Its edge was darker now, humming with a low growl, as if forged from the mountain's rage itself. Lilith's gauntlets shimmered with glowing runes, the metal crackling with restrained fury.
Nox stepped forward, raising his sword as the horde began to charge.
"Guess we fight."
Lilith cracked her knuckles, smiling with fire in her eyes.
Lilith extended her hand, drawing in a breath as she reached inward to manipulate her mana—only to feel… nothing.
Her expression twisted in confusion, then panic. "W-what's going on?" she whispered, staring at her trembling fingers as if they belonged to someone else.
Nox furrowed his brow, instinctively turning his focus inward. He'd kept his mana circulating without thought, using it to flush the toxins from his body ever since they stepped into the Demon realm. But now—there was nothing. His mana had vanished like water through a sieve. The pressure in his chest spiked, and his vision doubled. He dropped to one knee, coughing violently—blood splattered across the stone underfoot.
The realization hit him like a blade: The air… it's poison. And without mana…
"We have to run," he gasped.
Lilith didn't hesitate. She grabbed his arm, slinging it over her shoulders with more strength than her lean frame suggested. "Come on!"
Together they sprinted in the first direction look slightly free of creatures, every breath harder than the last. The further they ran, the thicker the air became, clinging to their skin like smoke. Symbols etched along the walls flared to life in twisted hues—sickly green and bloodred—like the Pit itself was feeding off their struggle.
Finally, after what felt like a final, collapsing heartbeat of the mountain, they reached the bottom.
Light—blinding and raw—blasted into their eyes as they emerged onto a wide ledge overlooking a sprawling battlefield.
It was chaos incarnate.
Demonic beasts of every shape and size tore into each other with mindless fury. Some were massive—towering behemoths with bone-plated hides and molten eyes. Others moved in swarms, more shadow than flesh, devouring anything that stumbled. Claws met fangs, wings clashed with spines, and magic burst in raw, uncontrolled surges—too wild and broken to be tamed.
Nox fell to his knees again, breathing raggedly.
Lilith looked down at him, eyes wide with worry—but also with calculation. "Whatever's going on, our mana is sealed. But…" Her gaze scanned the battlefield. "Those things are still using theirs. It's not the environment… it's targeted. The Pit's suppressing us."
Nox clenched his fists. "Then we fight with what we've got."
A horned beast lunged toward them from the field below, its gnarled limbs flailing as it scrambled up the stone ledge—blood-slick and snarling.
Lilith grabbed a jagged shard of stone from the ground, twisting her body low as the beast reached the ledge—and slammed the makeshift weapon into its throat. Black ichor sprayed as the creature tumbled back, vanishing into the war-torn fray below.
She turned to Nox, breath heaving. "Let's go. If this trial wants blood, we'll give it someone else's."