CHAPTER 72: CHAPTER 72 – “THE HEART THAT DEVOURS”

The world vanished in one gulp. No sky. No Pane. No fire.

Only silence.

Ren opened his eyes and found himself floating in a space too vast to comprehend. There was no ground beneath him—only layers upon layers of memories, translucent and swirling like veils of smoke. Some were dim and whispering; others screamed so loudly that they distorted the air.

It wasn’t just darkness. It was consumption made into a world.

The belly of the Sin-Eater was not flesh but an ocean of guilt, shame, and fractured recollections. It smelled of rusted blood and burned incense, like the remnants of a thousand funerals pressed into one.

Ren’s flame flickered weakly at his fingertips. Even fire seemed to suffocate here, its light snuffed out by the weight of voices pressing down from all sides.

"Ren..." Aelira’s voice came faintly. She hovered nearby, her body trembling as her wings tried to stay alight. Her flame was dimmer too, every feather threatening to collapse into cinders.

But her eyes still glowed, steady as a candle refusing to bow to the wind.

Ren grit his teeth. "It’s trying to choke us. Wants us to drown in what it ate."

He reached out—his hand brushing against one of the floating veils. Immediately, a vision slammed into his skull.

A man kneeling before a broken altar, his voice hoarse: "Forgive me. I didn’t mean to kill her. I didn’t mean to—"

Ren ripped his hand back, gasping. His chest felt heavier, as if the man’s sin had sunk into his ribs.

"This place..." Aelira said, her voice sharp, "is where sins go when they’re devoured. Not erased. Just... stored. Every devoured soul still writhes here."

Ren clenched his fists. "Then it’s a prison. A prison made of guilt."

The moment he spoke, the veils stirred. The whispers sharpened, circling him like vultures.

"Killer."

"Coward."

"Liar."

"You should have died instead."

The words weren’t strangers anymore. They were Ren’s own. His fire guttered, his breath catching as memories from his own life clawed up—his failures, his regrets, the faces of those who had been hurt when he couldn’t protect them.

His knees almost buckled. For the first time since entering the mirror world, the fire in his chest threatened to extinguish completely.

Then warmth wrapped around his hand.

Aelira’s fingers laced with his, her flame flowing into his palm like a second pulse.

Her voice cut through the noise: "Don’t let it turn your sins into chains. Fire isn’t meant to be caged."

Her words steadied him. His breathing slowed, and the embers in his veins began to burn again. The chains of guilt rattled, but they did not hold.

Ren raised his head, eyes fierce. "Fine. If this place is a prison, then I’ll burn every wall until there’s nothing left."

Aelira smiled faintly, her feathers regaining their glow. "Then we start here, inside its belly."

The veils thickened, forming shapes. Human outlines crawled out of the smoke—souls twisted by their sins. Faces peeled and reformed, mouths muttering their confessions on repeat. They stumbled toward Ren and Aelira, arms outstretched, not as enemies but as broken echoes desperate to cling to them.

The Sin-Eater’s voice reverberated all around, deeper now, as if the maw itself spoke:

"You burn for nothing. You cannot free them. To destroy me is to destroy them too. Can you kill the weight you carry?"

Ren’s flames burst brighter, defiant. He pulled Aelira close, his fire sparking against hers until their combined blaze pushed back the wailing souls.

"Guess we’ll find out," he spat into the void. "And if burning you means burning myself, then so be it."

The belly shook, as though the Sin-Eater laughed. But beneath that laugh, something else stirred—something older than the Sin-Eater itself, a core that pulsed with a rhythm like a heart, deep within the prison of sin.

And Ren knew.

That was their target.

The heart of consumption.

The air thickened with sorrow. Every breath tasted like ash soaked in saltwater, as if grief itself had been burned and inhaled. The belly of the Sin-Eater pulsed around Ren and Aelira like a living tomb, walls shifting and reshaping with every heartbeat of the great devourer.

The veils of sins swirled faster now. The whispering voices grew sharper, no longer fragmented, but pointed—deliberate.

"Ren. You left them behind."

"Ren. You never saved her."

"Ren. You wanted this."

Each word struck like a hook dragging through his ribs.

Ren snarled, pushing flame into the void, but the fire stretched thin, eaten by the smothering weight of guilt. For every soul his blaze touched, another rose in its place, their voices clamoring over one another in a storm of broken truths.

Beside him, Aelira staggered. Her feathers dimmed, the light leaking from her form like a dying lantern. But she still stood, her wings stretched wide, trying to shield Ren from the onslaught.

"Don’t—listen," she rasped, even as her own voice trembled. "This place... is built to unravel you from the inside. It will use your past. Twist it. Drag it out."

The veils darkened, and suddenly the prison shifted.

Ren blinked—then froze.

He was standing in his old room. The same cracked walls. The same broken mirror where it had all begun. And there—sitting on the floor—was someone he had buried deep within memory.

A girl. Young, fragile. Her hair tangled, her eyes hollow but fixed on him.

She whispered, "Why didn’t you come back for me?"

Ren staggered a step backward. His fire flickered violently, as if caught between rage and despair. "No... This isn’t real."

But the girl rose, her body cracking like glass, each step trailing shards that sliced into the floor. Her words grew louder, harsher, accusing:

"You left me! You watched the mirror take me, and you did nothing. You let me die!"

Ren’s fists shook. He remembered. He remembered the night a reflection reached out for someone he cared about—someone who should never have been swallowed. He had been powerless, trapped by the Pane’s rules. And he had hated himself for it.

The voice of the Sin-Eater thundered around him, booming from every direction:

"You carry the chain of guilt. You cannot burn it away. It will bind you until you bow."

Ren fell to his knees, clutching his head as the girl’s cries dug into his skull. His flame guttered, a faint ember at best.

But then—another warmth touched his cheek.

Aelira knelt before him, her wings torn, her face pale, but her eyes locked onto his with stubborn light. She cupped his face with both hands, forcing him to look at her.

"Ren," she whispered, her voice hoarse but unshaken, "listen to me. This is not her. This is sin made into a mask. The real chain isn’t the guilt—it’s your refusal to forgive yourself."

Ren trembled. "But... if I forgive... doesn’t that mean I’m excusing it? Doesn’t that mean... I let her go?"

Aelira’s grip tightened. "No. Forgiveness isn’t letting go of her. It’s refusing to let the Sin-Eater feed on you forever. If you keep your fire chained to regret, you’ll never burn through what’s ahead. And I—" her voice cracked, but she pushed on—"I need your fire."

Ren’s breath caught. For a heartbeat, he saw it—the truth buried beneath the smoke. The girl before him wasn’t her. She was a veil, stitched from memory and sharpened into a blade.

He rose slowly, his hands trembling but steadying with every breath. Fire licked across his arms, brighter now—not wild, not consumed by rage, but sharpened by resolve.

He stepped toward the girl. She shrieked, her form splintering, trying to claw him apart. But Ren reached out—not with flame, but with his bare hand.

"I couldn’t save you," he whispered. "And I’ll carry that. But I won’t let you chain me anymore."

The girl’s body shattered like glass under sunlight, fragments scattering into embers that faded into the void.

The whispers around them wavered, shrinking back. The veils recoiled, their grip loosening.

The Sin-Eater roared, its voice furious now:

"You dare break the chain? You dare defy the weight of sin itself?"

The belly quaked violently, as if walls of guilt were collapsing inward. From the darkness ahead, a colossal silhouette began to stir—a ribcage made of shattered faces, a spine of countless broken confessions. Its heart pulsed faintly within, glowing like a black sun.

Ren’s flames flared, burning steadier than ever. He turned to Aelira, her feathers still glowing faintly beside him, their fires braided together by will.

"We’re getting closer," he said. His voice didn’t tremble this time. "No more illusions. Next time, we strike its heart."

Aelira smirked weakly, her fire sparking brighter as she leaned on him. "That’s the Ren I followed into hell."

And the belly of the Sin-Eater howled in rage as the prison began to shift again, preparing for their final descent.

The world inside the Sin-Eater lurched like a beast awakening to its hunger. The shifting walls of guilt gave way, collapsing into a spiraling corridor of bone and ash that led downward into a single, glowing point.

The heart.

It throbbed in the abyss, a monstrous organ made of obsidian glass and veins of molten shadow. Each beat rattled their bones, sending shockwaves of sorrow through the marrow of their souls. Faces pressed against its surface—hundreds, thousands—all screaming without sound.

Ren stared at it, his fists clenching until blood mixed with flame. "That’s where it keeps them... every soul it’s eaten."

Aelira nodded, though her breathing was ragged. Her feathers had dulled, many scorched away by the veils’ assault, but her eyes still burned sharp. "If we don’t burn it out... it will keep feeding. On everyone. On you."

The Sin-Eater’s voice thundered, no longer whispering, no longer coy. It was fury given form.

"You would touch my heart? You would strike the truth of sorrow itself? Then feel it—feel what I feast upon!"

The ground convulsed.

Chains erupted from the black marrow beneath their feet, serpentine and jagged, lashing toward them. Each chain was forged from screams, links etched with memories of those consumed. They weren’t just weapons—they were lives.

Ren’s flame clashed against them, but each time he burned one, he saw fragments of memory—a mother reaching for her child, a soldier dying nameless in mud, a girl swallowed by mirrors. The fire flickered, his strikes faltering as grief threatened to drown his will.

"Ren!" Aelira’s voice cut through like a blade. She spread her wings, wrapping her fire around him, burning some of the chains to ash. But even she staggered, sweat dripping, her flames sputtering.

"You can’t fight the chains one by one," she rasped. "They’ll never end. You need to go straight for its heart."

Ren’s eyes locked onto the pulsing black sun at the abyss’s center. He could feel it calling to him—not just with hatred, but with temptation.

"Give in, and you will never feel pain again. No guilt. No fire. Just silence."

Ren’s chest tightened. For a moment, he wanted it. The thought of laying down his fire, his fight, and simply sinking into silence clawed at him.

But then—he felt Aelira’s hand grip his wrist. She was trembling, nearly collapsing, yet her fire still flickered along her feathers.

"You carry more than your own sin," she whispered, voice fraying, "but you’re not meant to carry it alone."

Ren’s heart jolted.

The chains struck again, dozens at once, aiming to crush them. Ren roared, his fire bursting outward—not wild rage, but a concentrated inferno that wrapped around both him and Aelira. For the first time, his flame didn’t consume—it sheltered.

The chains recoiled, shrieking as they were burned by fire laced not with hate, but defiance.

Ren’s gaze locked onto the heart again. "I don’t need silence. I don’t need escape. What I need—" his voice thundered, as his flame surged brighter, spiraling into a blazing storm "—is to burn a path forward. No matter what stands in the way!"

The Sin-Eater shrieked, a sound that cracked the marrow of the world.

Ren and Aelira launched forward together. Chains shattered in their wake, fire and light carving through the abyss as they hurled themselves toward the massive heart.

As they closed in, the heart split open like a jagged mouth. Inside, they glimpsed not shadow, but something worse—an echo of themselves, twisted and hollow, reaching outward as if begging to drag them inside.

Ren tightened his grip on Aelira’s hand. His fire coiled around them both, forging a spear of living flame.

"Together," he growled.

Aelira smiled faintly, her last strength pouring into the blaze. "Together."

And with a roar that defied the Sin-Eater’s endless hunger, they struck.

The spear of flame plunged into the heart.

For a moment, silence.

Then—

The Sin-Eater convulsed violently, its roar shaking every vein of the prison. The faces pressed into the heart shattered, bursting into fragments of light that scattered like stars in the abyss. The ground beneath them cracked, collapsing into an endless void.

Ren clung to Aelira, both of them consumed in the blaze as the Sin-Eater’s belly began to fall apart around them.

But just before the world split open entirely, Ren heard it—the Sin-Eater’s final whisper, low and venomous, dripping into his ears like poison.

"Burn me once... but sins always return. You cannot kill hunger. You can only inherit it."

The prison collapsed.

Flame swallowed everything.

And Ren, holding Aelira in the blaze, plunged into the unknown.