The pupils of the townsfolk twisted into jagged spirals. Jaws opened into unhinged laughter. All at once, the dancers, the diners, and the servants turned to face the three intruders and froze. The abrupt stillness startled the party.

They spoke together.

———

Lanterns crown the square; beneath a blooming tree, our joy takes flight so bright.

Streamers, drums, and laughing faces run blush with red, through carnival-lit night.

Children whirl on sugared cobbles; the mayor crowns the queen to wild delight.

Confetti rains from balconies; we feast under fireworks set alight.

Bell-towers peal for the small golden city, gilding roofs in borrowed light; contrite.

Trumpets toast the halls; banners salute the river's glassy braid by moonlight.

Hands chain streets in braided rounds; parades sing of harvest's lucky foresight.

Vendors turn their wagons west, a laughing tide careening midflight.

Every door swung open proves our peace is perfect in this gentle twilight.

Kiss the plaza heart, the beating core we praise and pledge to guard outright.

Bring garlands, friends, and circle round the fountain's gleam, ascending height.

———

"Disgusting." Caesar said through his teeth. The madness pressed them like heat. The people's wills slipped like rope through wet hands.

Piety's grip tightened on her bow. "They have no will anymore. Do they… have no choice in their fate?"

A soft chime touched Vainglory's ear.

Ding

[

Your eyes are adjusting…

]

The crowd dropped their attention as if on a cue and returned to their feast and dance, the poem flowing back into their throats like a practiced grace. Piety's blessing began to tremble. Sweat broke along her hairline. Her composure cracking.

Vainglory looked at her. Gold rotated in his gaze, calm and sure. "Fate may not be changeable," he said. "But the way a story ends is never set in stone for those whose will is strong."

Piety stared at him, heart pounding back to pace. The ward steadied once more. "Who told you that?"

"My mother." he said, and turned back to the cavern.

She faltered. "Mother?" Natural devils didn't speak that word. Brother, sister, cousin, uncle… but never mother nor father.

Another chime.

Ding

[

Your [All-Seeing Eyes] have adjusted.

See the rhythm, see the voice.

Reading between the lines only takes a second glance.

]

Tick. Tick. Tick.

His eyes ticked. "I see…"

———

The singers gathered their breath and lifted their voices again.

We spin forever, cheek to cheek; save us, we twirl around the flame.

Dip, lift, sway; if mercy's needed, then kill the tune and still the frame.

But oh we love this endless reel; please let music win the game.

The way grows dark, so our lanterned floor keeps breakers from the bay, and earns acclaim.

Steps in pairs and pairs in rings hold clocks at zero, hours tame.

No teeth may breach our waltzing wall; the monsters watch and sleep the same.

We bow to vows and keep the rites; for the pattern none will claim a blame.

The warded doors, the braided chants we kept so long, we can't reclaim.

Our caller smiles, the faithful shaman marked the path we gladly became.

So end the reel, dim out the lights; free the dancers from this shame.

———

Clarity lit his eyes. He stepped forward, raising his sword. "The twisted core is not here. It's west of the city, under a blood tree."

The ballroom fell silent again. Hundreds of faces turned hearing that. Then, in eerie obedience, they spoke the second poem one more time, every eye pinned to him as if awaiting judgment.

Caesar looked from table to floor, to dancers to holes, then back to Vainglory. "The hell is happening? Why are they acting so strange? None of them are attacking."

"I don't know," Piety whispered. "But I think he's understood something."

Vainglory walked out onto the dance floor, placing his feet between the dark mouths in the floor. He lifted his blade and spoke as if reading a text only he could see.

"The estate shaman crippled the voidspawn's birth with a ritual. The people volunteered to contain the song's spread in this place."

Light gathered along the sword in a clean gold that didn't flicker.

"The nest is below," he said. "Fed with their sacrifices and docile through the ball's madness."

His gaze traveled the room. Threads glimmered before his sight, thin gold lines stitching person to person, fraying where black aura gnawed hungrily. Their souls were corrupted, save for the singular point of gold that tied them all. He traced the arcs of blood on the floor and finished the picture. From above, his eyes could see the steps were sigils. A grand array. The dancers moved along a pattern that kept the seal alive. They ate to keep enough strength to move. Even after their minds had fallen, the motion remained.

All volunteered and dressed their best for this eternal dance of death. Madness indeed.

"Stubborn," he gazed at the group. "And admirable."

He understood why there were no small footsteps here. No children. Only adults at their best, holding the pattern for someone else's tomorrow.

He explained none of that to the others.

The gold along his blade flared and washed the cavern walls in daylight. He leveled the edge toward the ground, ready to drive the strike into the nest below and end the clutch before it could wake.

"Sorry," he said. "And thank you."

Caesar heard it. His eyes widened. He had never heard the prideful one speak those words.

The people danced, ate, and sang once more. Faster. Louder. With a strange difference from before.

———

Beneath the earth we waltz in hush; for Hellnia. we yearn to return.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Crystal dust on midnight shoes, the ballroom sings of vows that never adjourn.

Young master, come and weigh our steps, fair Judge, whose eyes can bless or burn.

Take this feast and these borrowed crowns, for all our sins we dance and churn.

Keep watch above our heads of glass, where chandelier constellations burn.

Hail devil Vainglory, lord of poise; your shadow sets the gears to turn.

We set the chairs, we clear the floor, we crown the path your feet must learn.

Our music binds the hollow stones with courage that is our last concern.

Till doors fly wide, return to us; will you come home, Our heart to burn.

———

"...I'll remember…[Pride's Fall]." Vainglory brought the sword down.

Light filled the chamber and left no corner unlit.

…

…

They left the estate by the servants' walk and didn't speak until the city walls fell behind them. The gate hung open like an empty mouth. Wind grazed the road in silence, no songs were heard anymore. Only a quiet that follows hard work.

They walked toward a path that elevated the valley. Vainglory led. Caesar kept a long pace behind him, jaw set. Piety matched the human's stride and watched the devil's back. The silence wasn't comfortable. It made room for what the three of them weren't ready to say.

After a while Piety found her voice, meeker than she wanted. "Was…was there truly no way to save them?"

Caesar glanced over, disdain quick and clean on his face. He didn't explain it. He didn't want nor need to.

Vainglory didn't answer at once. He kept the hill centered in his vision and let the steps do their work. When he spoke, the words were even. His emotions within unreadable.

"I have seen the soul of one infected with the song. When you think of those infected with void song, consider them no different from someone with a fractured soul, simply stitched together with a law that doesn't follow the rules of our world."

He didn't slow as he continued. "There is no way to fix them after so much time."

He paused as if measuring where the second sentence should land. "If I thought it were possible-"

Piety reached a hand forward, a small impulse to place it between his shoulders and tell him she had heard him. But a sharp voice cut through first.

"Who asked for an explanation?" Caesar said, scoffing. "The choice was made. Why speak further?"

He pushed past them and took the lead a dozen strides, even though he didn't know the path. He grunted without turning. "We end this and then we duel again, monster."

Vainglory ignored him, feeling the need to roll his eyes. They continued to climb.

The hilltop held a single tree, bark the color of drying blood. Flesh-like red plates overlapped along the trunk like armor grown from inside out. The branches spread out, low and heavy, each limb ringed with old brands that hadn't come from metal or fire.

Piety's voice dropped to a whisper. "A blood tree. The remnants of the Fourth Judge, Coffin 13th Invidia."

Vainglory nodded. "The graft devil. A stain on Hellnia."

Coffin's name blew through the wind. He had been the first Judge to sour the relation between planes. His philosophy had fit neatly in devil blood, as neatly as a knife under a pillow. It was simple: Devils were strongest, so rule should belong to them.

He had tried to make Neel swallow that line whole when he stepped through the gates with an army. His rapid invasion drew answers from the platforms, not questions. Defenders were raised and ordered in parties for sovereignty, an architecture designed to resist the reign of one will.

Four-man for mortals fighting demon lords, six-man for highers fighting dominators, and eight-man for branched souls to hold off Judges long enough to retreat. The rules were passed and grand contracts facilitated, but right in the middle of his campaign, Coffin vanished. No witness saw, no record written. Rumors multiplied like mold. And strangely, the full memory of his tyranny did not.

That is why the planes kept parties and Hellnia kept a single chair. The Amendment Years had been named for him and ended without him. The War Game Era soon followed…

They came up among the roots. The red trunk pulsed. A slow throb pushed through the flesh plates and made the bark shine wet with bloody sap for a heartbeat. The smell carried iron, brine, and something oddly sweet.

And a woman was part of that tree. From the waist up she still looked like the city shaman. Dark hair braided with copper threads. Old ritual tattoos along the throat and arms. Eyes closed the way a priest closes them to listen for prayers. Below that, her body had already turned. Pale growths sprouted and opened into slick limbs that coiled and flexed as if tasting the air. Tendrils pried into bark and drank the sap within. One thicker tentacle punched from her side and rooted in the dirt like a second trunk, translucent sacs beating along its length, poisoning the surrounding dirt.

The twisted core sat in her chest, half-sunk between bone and flesh. It turned on itself with dull light, shining a purplish-red not born from blood. Each turn sent a ripple across the bark and across the tentacles in a patient wave. The growing creature was feeding. But what it didn't know was that it was feeding mostly on itself. The shaman had allowed the tree to take her for a reason.

Piety stopped at the edge of the root circle and placed a hand to her mouth. The blessing on her shoulders stirred and settled as she looked. Caesar's hand found his sword without thought, heat lifting off his skin as he watched the half formed creature.

Vainglory took one step closer and let his All-Seeing eyes do their work. Lines and lights appeared where the world had been hiding them. Old graft sigils, a ward that kept the core from flowering into a new chorus, a trail in the soil where offerings had been dragged when the townsfolk still had saner days.

He lifted the blade as the rhythm under the bark didn't bother to change.

"Shaman Quel." he said.

The shaman's eyes opened. The spirals spun and caught, then steadied as clarity returned for a moment.

"Young master," she said, smiling with gentle greeting. "We knew it, we all knew it. We knew you would come for us."

The spirals then quickened. Her will slipped. She caught it again and tried to hold it in her voice. "We held them. Kept them from spreading. Waiting for you to finish them."

The next words came faster, fervent and loud. Laughter leaked through the seams. "F-f-finally. Finally! By yOur wiLl aNd glorY, young master. ENd it. EnD us. And t-t-taKe Your pLace aS JudGe of HeLlniA. HahAhA! Kill them! Kill us! Kill everyone! HaAhaHa!"

Vainglory watched without a word. Caesar gritted his teeth. Even heroics soured when wrapped in this much madness. Piety turned her face aside, unable to watch.

"And the rest?" Vainglory asked, eyes ticking as he measured the rhythm in her chest.

"D-d-do not woRry," she said, laughing again. A new tentacle opened along her ribs as the core in her sternum throbbed. "I s-S-sent thEm AwAy. I senT a S-s-suMmon to protect them. To save them! ProTect tHem! HAhaHa!"

He stared and the world slowed to the pace of his sight.

"No," he said quietly. "No you did not."

She laughed harder. Transformation raced along her limbs. "You saved them! Saved us! We are so grateful! HAhahA!"

His eyes turned, clicked, and finished their rotation. "No," he said. "You were not."

He looked back at his companions. Gold filled his irises.

Ding

[

Your eyes have adjusted.

Memory reflected in your eyes show truth and only truth.

See the past with no bends or turns.

]

Tick. Tick. Tick.

"I see…" he said.

Piety and Caesar waited for an explanation. He didn't give one. He faced the shaman as she climbed into a new shape and raised his sword.

"I remember as clear as day," he said, voice flat. "Don't lie to me."

The words were not meant for her. They were meant for the presence that had been arranging this memory to be more kind.

Light gathered along the blade. "I thank you for trying. But the reality is this...."

His gaze smoothed into acceptance. "The people were not relieved to see me, they were filled with resentment and anger. They died in agony. The shaman, housing the core, sent a voidspawn to hunt the youths in hiding instead of a summon to protect them. Madness had already taken her back then. The difference was lost to her."

The sky cracked, a thin strip across a clear blue.

"I didn't free anyone. I saved no one. All were claimed by the void."

The crack widened.

"All died a pitiful death. Don't hide the truth from me."

He lifted the sword toward the sky. "As much as I would like this to be real, a bit of truth disguising the lie, I failed completely on this day. None survived."

The sky shattered.

The shaman's voice came from too many places at once. "I-i-iteration of pride's chaos. Why fight a better dream? The slave of Gabriel's Order and the s-s-son of the failure Adam are witnessing your achievements in collapse. Why not d-d-dream more this way?"

Vainglory chuckled. "Kekeke." His eyes sharpened and spun. "Now you play to my vanity? Show yourself."

The tree fell away. The hill dissolved. Darkness folded the world.

Vainglory opened his eyes.

Deep Pocket received him back without welcome. The bindings held him in place. A woman stood before him. Black hair. Black robe. A blur where her face should have been, as if a censor had been set over her features. In her hand, a beating, golden heart. The unique law pulsed through it and returned, steady as a tide.

She sighed, regretful. "I'm sorry. I thought a vision of a better outcome for a desperate situation would be better."

"Better?" He spoke. "I failed all the same, a dreamscape with happier deaths only desecrates the memory."

"Not a dreamscape," She corrected. "A [Narrative Bend]. A spell most find soothing, despite the same ending."

He said nothing. He looked at his heart in her hand, then at the blur that wouldn't allow a gaze on her face, his eyes turning with the gray-gold he reserved in his core.

"You are anchored, young devil," she said. "And the rope to that anchor has already reached its end."

"..."

He waited, staying silent.

"But your heart," she went on. "Your heart could shift anchors that were meant to be buried in the future. Give them better outcomes, better places to land… If offered to one that holds a branch."

The voice was measured, almost gentle. But the guilt underneath was not.

"I promise you," she said, taking a single step closer. "With the Hegemon's Heart, your heart, this sacrifice offered to the right vessel can-"

"Don't rationalize your selfishness," he said. "I never do."

She trembled at the words. "This… this is for the greater good. I'm sorry."

His eyes began to glow as he fed more clean strands of essence from his core into sight. The blur fought to stay blurred.

Parallel Opinion then stirred and spoke.

'Samael, you need the essence. You can always recover the heart when you're free from this place. Don't waste it just to see this human witch.' He advised.

'Do not speak again.' he answered, rage tucked under the calm. He turned his eyes faster. The spell thinned. Shapes in the blur threatened to become features.

The woman finally sensed the change. She raised her hand. His ocular rotation stalled, not stopped, but slowed to a drag. "I can't let you do that." she said, a sigil on her palm.

Vainglory's eyes widened ever so slightly at his eyes disobeying him. It was not the first, but hardly an occurrence he'd expect to happen again.

She snapped her fingers. A sigil sparked and the blur deepened. A spatial seam opened like a mouth to the side. She placed his beating heart inside and sealed the cut with two careful motions.

She turned to leave and paused. "I really am sorry. But this is the right thing to do. You are allowed to hate me for it until the end."

"Kekeke," he laughed softly. "End? We'll see how this story ends."

His gaze hardened. "Don't think for a moment my eyes won't reach you. When they do…" he grinned the way devils do when promises were guaranteed. "This one will come to collect, human."

Her fists clenched as she stood there for a moment, but in the end, she said nothing and stepped through the newly opened seam. The room was empty again.

Vainglory looked down at the surgical wound in his chest closing at a snail's pace beneath his broken armor. It was clean and obscene all at once. He breathed once to smooth down the anger. Anger was best used for resolve, not action.

"The way a story ends is never set in stone for those whose will is strong." he said, so quietly the chains had to lean in to hear him. He closed his eyes and set the silhouette of a thief in the book he kept inside his head. He would wait. He would add names as needed.

And he would collect.

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