The air was heavy in the cavern where they stood, dust still drifting from the collapse of the tomb they had left behind. The siphon’s faint green glow seeped through the seams of the Trickster’s satchel like poison light, humming softly, restless. Dante’s crimson eyes lingered on it, but his mind was elsewhere.
He turned to Zerathis, voice low, but carrying steel.
"We can’t walk the sa road anymore. You’re going to the Southern Supply Channel."
Zerathis arched a brow. "That old myth? Traders whisper about a valley where weapons flow like wine, but I’ve never seen proof."
"You’ll see it," Dante said, stepping closer. His presence was suffocating, more crimson than flesh, more command than suggestion. "If we don’t have their support, this war ends before it begins."
The Trickster hovered, his grin like oil on water. "Support? Oh, you an get on their knees and beg. Zerathis, you’ll be great at it. You already reek of desperation."
Zerathis exhaled through his nose, but there was tension in his jaw. "Fine. I’ll go. When I find nothing but a fairy tale, I’ll make sure you’re the first to hear about it."
He vanished into the distance with a gust of cloak and silence.
The Southern Path – Zerathis
The landscape shifted as he went deeper south. What began as barren stone gave way to hidden fertility—valleys bathed in slanting gold light, orchards where trees bled godblood sap into crystalline jars. The liquid shimred faintly with divine energy, and farrs harvested it with reverent hands. Further on, won washed fruit glowing with inner light, and the air slled of spice and smoke, impossibly rich.
Zerathis slowed, muttering to himself. "Neutral, hidden... yet they hoard miracles like dragons." He clenched his coat tighter, forcing his eyes forward.
Hours passed until he reached what Dante had promised: a circle of black stone, half-buried in vines. In its center, an ancient obsidian compass sat, its needle twitching like a heartbeat, glowing faint red.
Zerathis crouched, hesitating only a mont before slicing his palm. His blood dripped into the runes. The ground trembled, and the compass blazed.
A portal split open like an eye. Heat and wind dragged him in.
He fell forward into brilliance.
The Southern Supply Channel blood before him. A city carved in perfection: towers of marble braided with gold vines, rivers flowing silver through the streets, bridges arched like the ribs of titans. The people glowed with health and divine blood, their movents graceful. Won in flowing silks moved past, beauty edged sharp enough to unmake focus.
Zerathis actually stopped, whispering, "...I could get lost here."
But there was no ti. In a rush of fire, he teleported directly into the throne chamber of the Divine Hall.
And there—on a throne forged from coal-black steel and molten iron—sat the one Dante had spoken of. His presence hit like a furnace door opening.
Hephaestus. Not the god himself, but his heir, blood and fla.
His hair was rivers of fire that never dimd. His skin was charred bronze, ridged with scars, and his eyes glowed like molten ore, staring unblinking. With every breath, fire seeped through the cracks of his body, eternal, unstoppable. The hall itself seed to bow to his fla.
Zerathis froze, throat dry.
"How," the hybrid rumbled, each word a hamr strike, "dare you walk into my hall as though you own it?"
The flas swelled, licking across the chamber walls, hissing against stone.
Zerathis steadied himself, though sweat slicked his temples. "Because the world is about to drown. And even eternal fire will flicker if shadow takes it all."
Hephaestus rose, fire pouring down his arms like rivers. His shadow writhed on the walls, too large, too monstrous to be contained. "You want my aid? Then survive my trial. Fail..." His eyes burned brighter. "...and your flesh will burn forever."
The hall beca an oven. Zerathis stood small against it.
The Northern Path – Dante, Lyra, Trickster
While Zerathis wrestled with fla and pride, Dante, Lyra, and the Trickster pressed into the roots of Neria.
The earth opened into vast caverns, their ceilings miles above, painted with constellations carved by gods long forgotten. Each etching pulsed faintly, stars twinkling in darkness, as though the heavens themselves had been trapped underground.
Lyra’s voice was quiet, hushed. "This place feels... wrong. Like it rembers too much."
The Trickster twirled above her head, grinning. "Oh, it rembers. And it hates guests."
The tunnel narrowed, but the silence didn’t last. A tremor rolled beneath their boots. Then another. Stones cracked.
From the black throat of the cavern erged a troll the size of a keep, its skin jagged like obsidian cliffs. Moss clung to its arms, but its eyes glowed gold and unblinking. Saliva hissed when it struck the floor, each drop burning holes in the stone.
The club it dragged was a fallen pillar, wider than a cottage, etched with scars of battles older than kingdoms.
It bellowed. The cavern quaked.
Lyra spun her spear in her grip, its tip sparking with fire. "Of course it’s guarded."
Dante rolled his shoulders, crimson eyes narrowing, every motion asured like a predator’s. His voice was cold steel. "Then we kill the guard."
The Trickster clapped like an excited child. "Finally, sothing with a face I don’t mind smashing!"
The troll raised its club and swung. The air split, the ground scread, and stone shattered into a thousand knives. Dante vanished in crimson blur, Lyra vaulted high, her spear igniting blue fire, and the Trickster’s laughter echoed through the collapsing cavern.
The battle for Neria began in fire and thunder.
----
Dante darted forward, eyes burning crimson. One mont the troll raised its pillar-sized club, the next it crashed into nothing but empty air. Dante’s afterimage blurred, his boots slamming the ground with such ferocity that sparks scattered. To Lyra, it looked as though he’d already been there before the troll had even swung.
The Trickster cackled in Dante’s skull. "Oh, you’re cheating now, aren’t you? Faster than fate can blink. Careful, people will talk."
But Dante wasn’t alone. A pulse rippled across the battlefield—an invisible vibration—courtesy of the Sound God within him. Every movent of the troll’s limbs was charted, every breath mapped, turning chaos into a pattern only Dante could hear.
Lyra hurled herself into the fray, her spear igniting with a blaze that turned the shadows blue. The flas touched the troll’s arm—just for a heartbeat—before the flesh crumbled into ash and bone. The troll scread, half its forearm gone, yet the wound sealed almost instantly, golden flesh bubbling back into place.
Lyra spat through clenched teeth. "Even the head won’t hold!"
"Then we burn faster than it can heal," Dante snapped, weaving through the beast’s legs, each strike a blur of Trickster’s chaos and Sound’s vibrations. Blades of warped space carved into the troll’s hide, explosions of sound ruptured its joints, yet still it moved.
The troll swept its club in a wide arc. Lyra vaulted high, her spear trailing fire like a cot. Dante slipped beneath, crimson lightning in his veins, carving through air so fast ti itself stumbled to catch him.
---
Southern Supply Channel.
anwhile, far to the south, the trial began.
Hephaestus lood on his throne of iron and fla, the eternal fire leaking from his body painting the chamber in red. He flicked his wrist, and a coin spun through the air. Zerathis caught it instinctively, its edges burning against his skin.
"Luck decides what you face," Hephaestus said, voice rumbling like a forge. "Flip it."
Zerathis hesitated, then flicked it into the air. It spun, gleaming, before landing in his palm. Heads.
Hephaestus smiled grimly. "A chira."
The hall shook. From a gate of obsidian iron, it erged.
A lion’s head, mane afla, roared loud enough to rattle the heavens. Its body was a patchwork of monstrosity—lion shoulders, serpent tail, a goat’s twisted horn jutting from its back. Wings like shredded bat leather unfurled, dripping acid, every beat filling the air with the stench of rot.
Zerathis stared, his hand trembling as he slid the coin into his pocket. Money was money. But his eyes widened—both sides were heads. Fixed.
The Trickster’s words echoed in mory, cruel and fitting. "Destiny’s rigged, my boy. Might as well laugh."
Zerathis swallowed hard. He was destined to fight the chira.
––—
Back in Neria .
The troll staggered forward, more enraged than wounded. Each regeneration left its body hotter, its blood spilling molten gold across the stones. Lyra panted, hair plastered to her face, her flas dimming under the sheer scale of it.
Dante landed beside her, his chest heaving. The Trickster humd in his skull, not mocking now, but calculating. "You’ve got one card left, Dante. That little trick you swore not to touch."
Dante’s crimson gaze narrowed. "I can only use it once."
"Once a year," the Trickster corrected with glee. "Guess it’s ti."
Lyra’s hand gripped his arm. "Whatever it is—you’ll burn with if it fails."
He only nodded.
Together, they advanced. Dante’s body blurred, a storm of chaos and sound, vibrating space itself until the air rippled. Lyra’s spear ignited brighter than before, blue fire eating the darkness, forcing the cavern to glow like daylight.
Dante raised his hand, crimson lightning bleeding from his palm. With the Trickster’s chaos twisting space, with Sound’s vibration tearing at the marrow of the world, he unleashed it: an ability that repelled all life.
It wasn’t fire. It wasn’t steel. It was absence—an erasure.
The troll scread as its entire form exploded outward, flesh, bone, and regeneration alike scattered into nothing. For a heartbeat, the cavern was silent, as if existence itself recoiled.
When the dust settled, nothing remained but scorched stone and silence.
Dante’s hand trembled. His crimson eyes dimd, exhausted. Lyra stood beside him, spear still glowing faint.
The Trickster broke the silence. "Well, that’s one way to skip paying rent."
Dante exhaled, nearly smiling despite the weight of what he’d just spent.
On the wall behind the troll’s corpse, ancient script shimred into light—a chant carved by gods, pulsing faintly, a key. The Trickster tilted his head. "Well, well... doors to the godlands. All it takes is a song, and a very brave idiot."
The Sound God’s voice rumbled through Dante, calm and resonant. "Your resilience... is comndable."
For the first ti since they’d entered Neria, laughter bubbled up between them. Lyra smiled, Dante chuckled, and even the Trickster howled in mirth.
But far away, in the Divine Halls of the Southern Supply, Zerathis stood alone, facing the chira’s burning gaze.
Its lion jaws snapped, its serpent tail hissed, and its wings spread wide.
The trial had begun.
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