The ground trembled.

First, like a whisper beneath the earth—an almost imperceptible vibration. Then, like a roar that tore through the air.

Hell was reacting to the fury of its Queen.

Kael looked up, feeling the heat around him intensify until the air became a scorching wall. The suspended mountains began to crumble, the chains holding the abysses snapped, releasing torrents of living magma that snaked like colossal serpents across the horizon.

Lilith, now entirely consumed by hatred, hovered above the ground. Her wings spread—black, colossal—blocking part of the infernal light coming from the burning sky. Flames detached from her hands, distorted, alive, screaming.

"You want a fight, mortal? Then come and receive what you asked for."

Kael took a step back, breathless, but his gaze remained firm. The shadow of Umbra still rippled around him like a living cloak, pulsing in sync with his heartbeat.

"I only asked for silence," he replied calmly, his voice hoarse. "But fine, if you need a beating to understand…"

The ground beneath his feet cracked.

Lilith moved her hand, and a blast of demonic energy exploded towards Kael. The force was so great that the air bent; the impact gouged a furrow in the obsidian ground and scattered incandescent fragments.

Kael was thrown backward, his body crashing through a pillar of flaming rock. The impact made him spit blood, but he straightened up. The dark aura around him expanded, and his eyes became two icy, bluish slits amidst the storm.

"So that's what you call power, queen of boredom?"

Lilith roared.

The sound was not human. It wasn't even mortal. It was something that the very air rejected. Flames rained down from the sky—a burning shower of demonic energy that covered miles. The entire Hell seemed to convulse under the weight of the battle.

Kael raised his arm, and Umbra reacted.

Shadows spread across the ground, forming a black circle that swallowed the glow of the flames. From the center, skeletal hands emerged, faceless bodies, spectral soldiers—an army made of pure necromancy, dragging chains and bones, echoing screams that did not belong to this world.

The dead rose before him.

Lilith looked at it with contempt.

"Pathetic imitation."

She extended her hand, and one of her flames collided against the shadows. The resulting explosion illuminated everything in a white flash. Spectral bodies instantly evaporated, and the heat wave melted the ground.

Kael felt the impact, but the shadows at his feet reacted—extending like roots, absorbing part of the energy. He took a deep breath, his jaw clenched.

"Pathetic, perhaps. But enough to distract."

Before Lilith realized it, three of the remaining dead had merged into a single form—a colossus of bones, covered in black flames. It advanced, striking with a sword made of soul fragments.

Lilith intercepted it with one of her wings. The shock caused the ground to crack into craters. The air trembled.

Kael took advantage.

Sliding through the shadow of the colossus itself, he emerged behind her, the blade already in hand.

The icy sword gleamed for an instant—and he struck.

The blade cut through the air and hit the ethereal shield that enveloped Lilith, emitting a sharp, metallic sound, like glass cracking. Sparks of black and crimson mana exploded.

Lilith screamed—a sound of pure fury. She turned, and the next blow was almost invisible. A crack, a pressure, and Kael was thrown like a rag doll, crashing through a wall of solidified magma.

The impact left him dazed. Umbra manifested beside him, her indistinct form flickering.

"You're playing with something you don't understand."

Kael wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. "So is she."

Lilith raised her arm, and a circle of ancient symbols—forbidden runes—opened above her. The energy of hell itself began to condense, spiraling.

"Prayers, curses, memories… everything obeys me here!"

The spell exploded.

A beam of pure destruction, so dense that space distorted around it, descended towards Kael.

Umbra moved before he could react—the shadows rose like walls, forming a cocoon. The impact was devastating. The sound of the spell obliterated everything around them, and the darkness shattered into fragments.

Silence.

Ashes fell like snow.

Lilith hovered over the ruined field, observing the gaping cracks in the infernal ground.

"The game is over, mortal."

But something stirred in the ruins.

A laugh.

Low, drawn-out.

Kael emerged from the darkness, wounded, but standing. The shadow around him was no longer Umbra's—it was something greater. Something ancient.

Even Hell itself hesitated.

Lilith frowned.

"What is this…?"

Kael looked up.

The blue of his eyes was gone. In its place was pure darkness, reflecting the abyss around him.

"Do you want to see what it's like to break a mortal, Lilith?" — his voice was different, distorted, almost double. — "Then look closely."

He opened his hand, and the ground reacted.

From the cracks and ashes, shadows rose again — but now they were not simple dead. They were echoes. Fragments of forgotten demons, memories of ancient infernal lords, deformed by necromancy.

They screamed voiceless, clamoring for liberation.

Lilith recoiled a step, surprised.

"This is impossible."

Kael smiled, and for the first time, that smile wasn't human.

"Welcome to the exception."

The shadows advanced.

Lilith reacted, raising her wings and summoning a sea of fire. Flames collided with the darkness, and the impact shattered the ground into thousands of fragments — the infernal sky cracked, and the very structure of that domain began to unravel.

Kael ran, blade in hand, and leaped between the explosions.

Lilith met him in the air. The two forces collided — light and darkness.

The shock reverberated like an endless thunder, destroying everything around them.

For an instant, only the brilliance of the struggling energies existed.

Umbra, even fragmented, whispered within him:

"Be careful… if you continue, she will drag you down with her."

Kael replied through gritted teeth, pushing the blade against Lilith's demonic barrier:

"She… let her try."

The energy exploded.

When the light dissipated, both were kneeling — Lilith breathless, her body enveloped in luminous cracks, and Kael, bleeding, supporting the sword plunged into the ground. The flames subsided.

Lilith stared at him, her eyes trembling between anger and something… more human.

"You… are not a mere mortal."

Kael took a deep breath, too weak to smile.

"I never said I was."

The infernal wind blew—ashes and smoke covering the field.

And, deep within, among the burning ruins, the seal began to rewrite itself.

A new portal.

Lilith noticed.

"You won't escape!"

Kael raised his face, exhausted, but determined.

"No… I will leave. Because, unlike you, I still have a reason to continue."

Lilith advanced—but before she could touch him, Umbra rose completely, enveloping Kael in a sphere of darkness.

The portal opened, sucking everything around it—and, for an instant, Lilith's eyes met his one last time.

There was fury. But also fear.

And then, he disappeared.

Hell fell silent.

Lilith remained motionless for long seconds.

Her face contorted.

Not from anger—but from something deeper.

"Kael…" she whispered, her voice trembling. "Do you really believe you can defy me and continue to exist?"

The flames around her reignited.

The entire Hell responded.

The air of Hell crackled like glass being forced to recompose itself.

Lilith was alone—but the heat around her still seethed, trapped between hatred and… confusion.

The cracked ground trembled beneath her feet. The flames tried to reach the void that Kael had left behind, as if the world itself could not accept his absence.

The portal seal had dissipated, but the energy trace… had not.

A faint trace of mana—cold, dense, abnormal—permeated the air.

Lilith walked to the point where he had disappeared. The gray dust still danced around, the echoes of battle lingering in the air.

She extended her hand.

Space rippled.

Her touch made the world bleed light.

Hell wasn't just fire—it was memory, it was essence, it was will.

And now, it obeyed her with fear.

The ground revealed what remained of the seal: a crystalline fragment, black as obsidian and pulsing with shades of blue.

Kael's blood had touched the ground, and that touch had left a mark—a signature.

Lilith narrowed her eyes.

"This isn't human mana…"

The crystal vibrated. Inside it, echoes of shadow moved like trapped smoke.

Umbra.

"A living entity bound to it…" Lilith whispered, almost in admiration. "But it's not a demon. Not an infernal spirit. So what…?"

She knelt and ran her fingers over the fragment.

The energy reacted.

Instantly, a wave of cold swept through the air—something impossible in that burning plane.

And, for a fraction of a second, Lilith saw through the fissure.

A glimpse.

An echo of the material world.

Kael, unconscious, fallen on a devastated plain—a scar in space, where the portal had spat him back out.

Umbra, partially visible, hovered over him, fragmented, but alive.

Lilith recoiled, surprised by the clarity of the vision.

And, for the first time in ages, something in her chest constricted.

It wasn't anger.

Nor a thirst for revenge.

It was… curiosity.

"What are you?" she murmured, staring at the fragment that was slowly disintegrating between her fingers.

Hell whispered in response—voices of lost souls, distorted by the fury of their queen.

But Lilith didn't hear them.

She raised her gaze to the broken horizon, where the scarlet skies trembled beneath columns of fire.

Kael's shadows still echoed there—not the body, not the magic, but the presence.

Something that had marked her domain.

And Hell… did not forget.

The flames before her bowed, shaping a throne from solid fire.

Lilith sat down, her wings closing around her body.

Her eyes burned with a golden and crimson glow, reflecting a thousand thoughts.

"A mortal who crosses planes, ignores my influence, and still leaves wounds in my domain…" she sighed. "You are not an exception, Kael. You are a threat."

A crackling sound came from behind her.

From the ground, a figure emerged—tall, shrouded in chains and smoke, with white eyes burning like coals.

It was one of her guardians.

"Majesty," he knelt, his voice reverberating like stone scraping against iron. "The domain is still recovering. Do you wish us to eliminate the intruder's trail?"

Lilith looked at him, thoughtfully.

For an instant, her eyes softened—almost human.

"...No."

The demon raised his face, confused. "No?"

"Do not touch him."

She rose slowly, the flames of her throne dissipating. "If you try to hunt him now, you will only announce what happened. And I want to… observe."

The guardian hesitated. "Observe, my lady?" Lilith walked to the edge of the abyss, the fire reflecting on her skin like molten gold.

"He invaded and tore through the underworld and came back alive. That's no coincidence. Not luck either. That's destiny bending – and I want to know who's holding the ends of that thread."