Chapter 301: Chapter 300: Finally arrived
The sky pulsed like a dying heart. It heaved and shuddered, its surface bruised with crimson light, as though trying to push something back, to repel a force clawing at the edges of reality. A sickly rhythm beat overhead—boom, pause, tremor—like the pulse of a god’s vein, resisting intrusion.
The air was poison. Smoke coiled in the ruins, thick enough to sting the lungs, acrid enough to burn the throat. The stench of sulfur and scorched flesh weighed on every breath.
Ash fell in thin veils, clinging to armor, to hair, to the skin like a mockery of snow. The ground itself was a graveyard—blackened corpses of fallen demons scattered, their wings torn, their bodies half-charred, faces frozen in agony.
The silence of the first layer was no silence at all. It was a suffocation. The echo of screams still hung in the smoke, whispers of war that had burned itself out but left scars too deep to heal.
And then the sky broke.
The pulsing heavens cracked like glass. A wound opened above them, bleeding light into Hell’s darkness. Reality did not shatter outward—it pressed inward, hungrily. A portal forced itself into being, a tear not just in space but in order, an act of will hammering against the pulse of Hell itself.
It descended like judgment: a shaft of white-blue brilliance, falling in a beam that tore across the layer, the impact throwing up ripples of energy.
Boom!
The ground convulsed. Black goo surged and sloshed as though in protest, its veins rippling outward from the impact. The corpses of the fallen shifted, some rolling over as if recoiling from the touch of the light.
And from that brilliance stepped figures.
The first was a woman clad in heavy sky-blue armor, plates etched with sigils that hummed faintly against Hell’s corruption. The light clung to her like a second skin, casting her in hues of dawn even in this charnel pit. She lifted her helmet, voice echoing from the metal:
"It’s safe!" Lara’s cry rang, bold and sure, cutting through the choking air.
At her back came knights, armored heavy, shields raised, blades humming with a resonance not born of steel but of vows. They spread outward, boots crunching over ash and bone, eyes darting for threat, bodies tense with the discipline of drilled survival.
The beam flared once more, brighter, and from it emerged a figure bent with age but heavy with authority.
His beard was long and white, his eyes clouded yet piercing. He leaned on no staff, but his presence was staff enough. His robes were layered white, charms stitched across them in ancient spirals, every fold whispering wards. His wide hat was dust-stained, and yet even Hell dared not lay filth upon it.
"Elizabeth..." Merlin’s voice rasped, cracked with years but weighty as mountains.
From the light came two more figures at his summons. Elizabeth and Claire. Their armor was lighter, but no less commanding.
Claire strode with her purple hair spilling free, her armor violet and fitted, exposing the lines of her belly and thighs as though daring Hell itself to strike. There was arrogance in the freedom of her stride, a grace sharpened into blade.
Beside her, Eli walked softer, but the light bent differently around her. White armor hugged her form, her chest and hips accentuated, her thighs bare to the ash, but none of that drew as much attention as what perched upon her shoulder.
A cat.
Its fur was black, sleek as ink, its eyes molten gold—too human, too knowing. It licked its paw leisurely as though Hell was but a garden, its tail flicking with insolent rhythm.
And behind them came two knights unlike the rest. They bore no names, only numbers. One was red, his armor forged from dragon-scale, each plate breathing faint warmth, every edge jagged as though hungry to cut. His number was 1, etched deep in his pauldron, crimson against crimson.
The other was black. His armor gleamed slick, almost liquid, a shadow given form. Gold light burned behind the visor, as if his eyes were twin suns trapped in darkness. His number was 0.
The knights moved without word. Loyal not to empire, but to Elizabeth herself. Blades in waiting.
Merlin turned back toward Eli, his gaze settling on the cat with a look both curious and troubled.
"Are you sure about that cat?" His tone was careful, lined with skepticism. His hand brushed against the charms on his robe, as though unconsciously readying. "We are literally in Hell, girl. And you bring... that?"
The cat met his gaze. Its golden eyes did not blink. A slow purr rumbled in its throat, low and steady, like distant thunder.
Eli only smiled faintly. "He will guide us."
Claire snorted. "Guide us? What, into a nap? Or maybe to a nice patch of brimstone where he can piss?"
Lara gave her a sharp look. "Aunt Claire, enough. If Eli says the creature has purpose, then it has purpose."
Merlin grumbled beneath his beard, "Purpose or curse. Cats rarely come without one or the other."
The cat yawned.
They moved together, their boots crunching bone and ash, their breath fogging faintly in the strange chill that followed Hell’s firestorms.
Lara lifted her blade as they walked, her eyes sweeping over the blackened plain. The corpses of demons lay scattered like broken dolls, their skin blistered, wings shriveled, mouths gaping in frozen howls.
Claire pressed a hand to her nose. "It stinks worse than a thousand battlefields." Her tone was sharp, but beneath it was unease. The silence of Hell was too alive.
"Better get used to it," Lara muttered. "We’re only at the first layer."
"Oh, wonderful," Claire shot back. "I was hoping for a proper tour. Are we sure, we are going the right direction?"
The cat leapt lightly from Eli’s shoulder, landing on the ground with barely a sound. Its tail flicked, and it padded forward, golden eyes gleaming faintly.
Merlin frowned. "We follow Aurora’s trail. Her spell residue still lingers. It is faint, but I can trace it. We do not wander after beasts—"
Eli cut him off, her voice firm in a way that made even the old man pause. "We follow the cat."
Merlin turned, sharp. "You—"
But Eli’s eyes burned pale, her voice unyielding. "He knows the path. I can feel it." She voiced as she placed her arm on her stomach. Like the cat communicated with the child inside her and the child to her.
The cat turned its head, gaze locking with hers. Ash-white light swirled in Eli’s irises for a heartbeat.
Merlin’s jaw tightened. He could not name what he saw, but he felt it—the pull of something older than his own wards, something that whispered in the marrow. His tongue pressed against his teeth, ready to deny her again, but Claire’s voice broke the moment.
"I can’t stop staring at it," she murmured.
Lara turned sharply. "What?"
"The eyes." Claire’s tone was low now, almost reverent. "Golden... like..." She trailed off, but the name was there, unsaid. Atlas.
Lara swallowed, realizing she had been staring too.
"Eli," Lara whispered. "Where did you find it?"
Eli smiled, but the smile was wrong—too soft, too veiled. "It found me," she said.
Claire muttered under her breath, "That’s not reassuring."
The prime, hand brushed the hilt of her sword. "Your emperial majesty. We should move. Bickering here serves no one."
’indeed...’ the cat thought.