CHAPTER 248: CHAPTER 249: DIVIDED BY FAITH

Azezal took the head of one of the fallen — not hacked, not crushed, but severed in a way that felt almost surgical. The neck’s edge was so clean it gleamed, like glass cut by a master’s hand. The skin still clung to it, pale under the drying blood that dripped in slow, deliberate beads onto the ash-dusted ground.

The hair was black as the hell-winds, matted but still holding a sheen under the crimson streaks. The eyes — darker still — were locked wide, horrified, as though the final sight they’d known was not death, but something far worse staring back at them.

Azezal sneered as though the trophy was more art than kill.

He stepped forward, talons clicking lightly on the scorched rock, and lowered it toward Atlas.

{For you... Atlas. The one who guides hell,} he said, the guttural resonance of his voice making the air around them feel heavier. He placed the head below Atlas’s floating feet as if it were a king’s tribute.

Atlas landed without ceremony. The weight of his boots crushed through flesh and bone in an instant. The skull caved with a sound like wet stone breaking under a hammer. The "gift" was nothing to him — not worth even a pause in his stride.

He was like this before as well. His devious red eyes seeing in him what he didn’t know. A tinge of worship.

He walked on. No acknowledgment, no thanks. Just the sound of his steps receding into the wasteland.

Behind him, Azezal stayed kneeling in the dust, red steam rising faintly from his skin.

{...It’s gonna take a while,} the crimson demon murmured to himself. His voice was quiet, but it carried the grit of certainty. {...but I will gain his trust.}

They walked. The ground under their feet was cracked like old pottery, the soil so devoid of life it crumbled into powder when touched. A wind that wasn’t wind drifted through — carrying no chill, no warmth, just the metallic tang of a place that had forgotten seasons.

The black outline of what had once been a town finally rose on the horizon.

At its gates, an unnatural raven perched on the remains of a shattered wall. Its feathers were too black — the kind of black that seemed to pull light into it — and each plume twitched like it had a pulse.

The bird’s eyes burned silver, but they didn’t shine; they cut.

{{Leave!! Leave!!}} the raven croaked, but the sound didn’t belong to it. The voice was fractured, as though it were borrowing a throat from someone long dead. {{This is now unholy ground... condemned!!! Condemned!!}}

Aurora stepped down from Atlas’s shoulders without breaking stride. Her boots touched the dust with a soft thud. She walked past the raven as though it wasn’t even there — no hesitation, no glance — and entered the ruined town.

Atlas followed, his gaze lingering briefly on the strange bird. "It’s big... but it kinda looks—"

Before he could finish, Veil’s enormous jaw unhinged. The shadow-creature lunged in a single, smooth motion, swallowing the raven whole. The crunch of bone and the metallic hiss of dissolving feathers echoed for a heartbeat before silence reclaimed the street.

Atlas blinked. "...Veil... why?"

"...Hungry," Veil replied, his voice as casual as someone explaining a yawn.

Azezal laughed — a low, vibrating sound that seemed to crawl along the spine. {Hahahahaha... It’s a first. Someone not just ignoring the Misfortune Raven, but eating it whole. Indeed... a true pet of the GUIDE.}

Veil turned to Atlas, shadowy form shifting like liquid smoke. "Can I eat him too?" he asked, his elongated finger — more claw than flesh — pointing at Azezal.

"...He’s still useful.... And he’s powerful. What more do you want?" Atlas replied, tone flat.

"I want to not be creeped out. That’s what I want."

Aurora’s steps slowed.

Her skin prickled as the mark of her contract began to itch — that subtle pull she had learned to trust, like a whisper just beneath her heartbeat. He was close. Closer than she’d expected.

The streets were silent except for their footsteps crunching over rubble.

The scent of the place shifted; it was no longer just the dust and old smoke, but the cloying rot of things left to fester. The stench of chemicals layered over decay made the air thick, as though it wanted to cling inside the lungs.

She saw it — the mud-built house, or rather, what was left of it. The roof had collapsed inward, and the walls sagged like they’d been gnawed at by time and disease. Flies swarmed in lazy spirals, their buzzing loud in the still air.

"This is it," she said.

Aurora raised her hand. Stones and splintered wood began to stir, lifting into the air as though weight had lost meaning. Her fingers moved, and the debris followed, each piece rising in sequence until the floor was bare — except for a single motionless hand protruding from beneath a massive stone slab.

"...Atlas, come here. Quick. Help me."

He was at her side in seconds. She didn’t even need to explain.

"Come... lift this up..."

Atlas glanced at the stone — and with a single motion of his hand, it flew upward, the force far more than necessary. The slab soared high into the dark sky, vanishing into the clouds with a faint, echoing whistle.

Aurora’s gaze lingered on him for a fraction of a second longer than necessary. That much power, for something so small... even here, it unsettled her.

She knelt beside the figure revealed beneath the rubble — a demon

, or perhaps something that had once been a man. His body was gnarled and pocked, skin mottled with sores that wept faintly. The smell was sharp and wrong, like stagnant water in a wound.

Aurora poured water from her flask over his face. The liquid trickled into the sunken channels of his skin, slipping through the deep cracks like rain into droughted earth.

The water caught on the ridges of dried blood, loosening flakes that slid down his cheeks and fell into the dirt. It carried with it the smell of old wounds — sharp, metallic, and faintly sweet in a way that made the air heavier.

Slowly, a shudder passed through his gaunt frame. His eyelids twitched once, twice, then crept open with visible effort. Underneath, the eyes were not human — reptilian, jaundiced yellow, their slick surface catching the dim light.

The pupils were thin vertical slits, alive with a strange hunger, and looking into them felt like watching something chew through the light between them.

{...Aurora... you came back... welcome...}

The voice rasped up from a throat long unused, a dry, almost serpentine hiss wrapped in weary relief.

"Thank you... but your home, and you..." She glanced briefly at the ruined walls, then back at his fragile frame. A smile tugged at her lips, more pity than joy. "Doesn’t look welcoming enough."

{...Well. Just got condemned ... heresy and all.}

His mouth curled in what might have been an attempt at a smile, though the cracked skin at the corners split slightly, bleeding fresh.

Aurora slid an arm under his to help him sit upright. His bones shifted under her touch like a bundle of dry sticks held together by worn leather. She could feel how light he was — as if the earth had been slowly eating away at him from the inside.

"What happened, really?" she asked, voice low but edged with an insistence that carried across the still air.

{The elders... the elders are divided,} he murmured, coughing between the words. The sound was wet and faintly rattling, but he forced the rest out.

{Creating this... unneedful conflict.}

"...And?" Her tone sharpened — not impatient, but deliberate, cutting through the haze that clung to him.

{Half of them already know... the Messiah, the GUIDE, has come.} His eyes flicked, almost reverently, toward Atlas. {Because of the war at the Dreaming... but—}

"But?"

{...The other half still want to stay in falsehood. Clinging to their power as the elders. Refusing to believe the GUIDE has arrived...} His voice lowered to a rasp, the last two words leaving his lips like a confession —

{...so hell is at its wits. Divided. By a prophet who we don’t know even exists....} The demon voiced.

{....He exists alright...} Azezal voiced.

{And, he’s here.}