Satan was breathing heavily as he sat in a simple, high-backed chair at a round stone table in the center of the room.

The chamber was dimly lit by sconces set into the walls, their flickering flames casting restless shadows across the cold, dark stone. Shelves lined with ancient tomes and strange artifacts filled the corners, and a faint, metallic scent lingered in the air; it was the smell of thick ether, which couldn't be found anywhere in the world unless one was near an ether well.

Despite its foreboding atmosphere, this was still the Lord Observer's personal domain. Yet, there was no throne here, no raised dais or seat of power, just the table and fourteen chairs, all equal.

The absence of a high seat was deliberate. It meant the Lord Observer himself would not be coming in here.

This was a place that any recorder could come if they wished to, but they couldn't leave the room and go anywhere else within the domain. Not that it had any doors. Satan could leave the studio whenever he wanted to.

He had taken refuge here within the room in the studio, as the domain was called, after sensing a great threat to his life when Eleyn, the god incarnate's mother, uttered 'Oblivio Vitae'.

His instincts told him to get as far away as possible, and he had pretty good instincts after he became a recorder.

With nothing else to do, he decided to return and resume his job. The last thing he wanted was to rest for too long and fail his lord's mission.

———

Meanwhile, the said lord in question was taking his custom sniper on a stroll to take down some targets. Yeah, real stuff to do when you are in a forest that could kill you at any moment is to take down unassuming targets and yell, "I'm here if you haven't seen me!"

Judge exhaled slowly, adjusting the scope on the long-range rifle. He was lying prone atop a jagged ridge, cloaked in ether to blur his presence from prying eyes and keener monsters. It wasn't doing much of a job, but he felt safer.

And this only required him to manipulate ether around him, so there was no expense of ether. But it was a great feat to be able to do that.

The landscape ahead was a shattered valley of bone-white trees and pools of acidic sludge. It smelled like crap and sounded worse — distant hissing, wet clicking, and the occasional echo of something being eaten.

He accidentally stumbled into the place and swore to never go back there again, ever... but he didn't say that out loud because fate always seemed tempted. His finger rested gently on the trigger.

A creature emerged from the treeline: a bulbous quadruped covered in hardened, fungal plates. Its head resembled a shark's jaw forced through a tortoise shell, teeth grinding audibly as it sniffed the air.

Judge whispered, "Three hundred meters. Wind negligible. Heartbeat steady."

Bang.

The creature's skull burst like an overripe fruit.

He shifted. Ejecting the shell.

Bang.

A flying eel-beast dropped mid-swoop.

Bang.

A spider-snake hybrid that had been hiding behind a rock twitched once and collapsed.

"That makes five," he muttered, already pulling back the bolt. "Sniping is just socially distant murder."

He rolled to the side and slid behind a rock outcropping. Then the world screamed.

A deep, churning howl erupted from below. Trees bent as if paying homage to something ancient and wrathful. The valley grew silent.

From a sulfur pit rose it.

A behemoth.

Its shape defied symmetry — all wrong angles and rippling flesh.

Its lower half slithered like a centipede across stone, the upper body resembling a molten horse with obsidian skin that bled steam. Its arms were too long, terminating in glassy claws. Its chest cavity opened with a cracking sound, revealing rotating jaws and a core that glowed like a dying sun.

A fissure ripped all the way to where Judge was laying, an acidic vine erupting from it. Judge rolled again to the side and took a shot at its core, at least it looked like a core. But the bullet did not do as he expected... no it was worse, the creature just absorbed the bullet without letting it touch the core.

Judge stood, face unreadable. He cursed, it seems that fate really liked to play with him.

"Too big for bullets. Alright. Sword it is." Atleast he knew where to slash.

He swiped on his holstered Golden Eagle and drew his blade, the runes along its edge flashing gold as it drank in ether.

He vanished.

In a blur of speed, Judge reappeared atop a distant boulder mid-air, then kicked off again. He flipped over the monster, slicing one of its many shoulders. Black blood hissed through the air.

Why do all monsters have black blood? He thought to himself.

The monster roared and flung a claw. Judge deflected it, but the force shattered a boulder behind him.

He lunged, driving his blade toward the core.

Too slow.

The monster's tail slammed into him. He twisted to deflect, but the tip caught his side. Pain exploded as the strike hit the lingering scar on his ribs.

His vision whitened.

Blood gushed. He hit the ground, bounced, and rolled, coughing.

He touched his side. The scar had split open. Deep.

"Damn it... Should've healed that." He hadn't because it wouldn't be a bother in a battle, "Guess that's how we learn."

The monster charged. It skittered with impossible speed.

Judge forced himself up. Ether flared from his shoulders, forming a shimmering barrier. He screamed an incantation:

"Shield of Light!" It sounded cringy at first, but nothing feels cringe when your life is on the line.

A dome of crystalline light sprang up. The monster crashed into it, the impact blasting waves of wind. The shield cracked.

Judge leapt through the top of the dome and landed on the monster's back. He stabbed downward.

"Lightning Veins"

Electric arcs of ether exploded from the sword, racing across the monster's skin. It convulsed, screeched, and flung him again.

Mid-air, Judge spun, then teleported.

He reappeared beneath the creature.

"Detonate"

He slashed a circle into the air. A spiral of fire consumed the creature's underbelly, detonating like a buried sun.

The monster screamed.

It was not dead.

It split apart.

Two bodies emerged from the molten shell. Twins. Each half the size, twice the speed.

Judge gritted his teeth.

"Of course. Hydra logic."

He threw a vial, it vibrated in the air as if something inside was trying to escape. The label read Shattered Cry.

Just like its name, the bottle shattered a brief second later, emitting a pulse of pure sound. One twin froze, stunned. Judge used the gap.

He vanished, reappeared above, blade reversed.

"Dark incision"

A cut of shadow sliced downward, small, clean, and void. But the danger was real; the twin dissolved into black mist.

The other attacked. It shrieked, opened its core-mouth, and shot a beam of corrupt ether.

Judge threw up his hand.

"Ward of Truth"

A rotating sigil blocked the beam, but the pressure bent his knees.

He jumped through the beam, sword drawn.

"Soulpierce"

No flourish.

Just a single thrust.

It pierced the core.

The twin twitched. Its glow faded.

Then it detonated.

Judge was flung into a tree, coughed blood, and slid down.

Silence.

He lay there, sword embedded in the ground beside him.

He chuckled.

"Sniping was easier."

Solarae appeared, arms crossed.

"You need to heal."

"After a nap." He coughed as he returned to the studio, who thought chasing after his mother was going to be this hard of a challenge.