Chapter 251: Chapter 252: Be a Dog.
The ravens of the elders vanished, each black wingbeat dissolving into ash that fell like slow snow. Their voices were gone—cut from the air, ripped from the marrow of the world.
The silence they left behind was not the quiet of peace but of exile. Their verdict was final. They had renounced their prophet without even knowing it, their faith breaking without a ceremony, without even the dignity of a curse.
No one here knew the truth. No one except Azezal.
Azezal, and the demon now standing beside Aurora.
The last of the ravens faded from the red sky, and with them, the faint glow of the mark on Aurora’s elbow guttered out. It didn’t fade gently—it died like a candle snuffed by fingers that hated it.
Skin that had borne the weight of divine claim was bare again, the symbol’s phantom heat gone, leaving her elbow strangely cold, as if stripped not just of power but of something personal. She stared at the spot for a fraction too long before her jaw tensed.
The demon’s voice slid in, every word coiling slow, heavy with venom and finality as he told her the details. Every ugly truth. Every hidden thing. When he finished, there was nothing between them anymore—no oath, no chain. Their contract was done.
{...So... Aurora, you can go die... like literally just die... I don’t care. But...}
The pause after that word was deliberate, almost hungry.
"...Too many buts... too many... get straight to the fucking point," she snapped, voice sharp enough to cut.
The demon’s gaze shifted—not to her, but to Atlas.
He hadn’t known at first. How could he? But when Azezal spoke, when the crimson demon’s words brushed against his thoughts, something old stirred. A part of him—buried for centuries under cynicism—wanted to believe again. That there was a guide. That maybe the waiting hadn’t been in vain.
He had given up long ago, his mind bending under the years. The cult had twisted faith into shackles, using belief as a yoke, chaining demons like cattle while dressing it up as devotion. They’d done it to him. They’d done it to everyone.
But now—
The Book of the Damned. Its copies still rotted somewhere on the scorched soil of his destroyed home. It had said the guide would not be a demon. That he would come from the outer world, as something else—something the world had never known.
And the dreams. The whispers of the Dreaming still pressed into his skull. They had seen him there: the guide, the halo, the dark hair, the golden eye. The voice that didn’t echo like a god’s but still carried the weight of one below all.
The same voice.
The same echo.
And now—standing here in the ruins of faith—he saw him. The man before him. Human, but not. Like the Book had promised. Like the Dreaming had warned.
{...I want to follow as well.} He voiced, surprising Aurora and everyone.
The crimson demon, Azezal, smiled.
But.
Those words—he should not have said them. Not here. Not to him.
Azezal stepped closer, red eyes bright with a joy that was almost cruel. It was the joy of recognition, the kind a predator feels when another predator spots the same prey. That he, too, saw the truth. That he, too, knew this man was the one.
{I praise your faith...} Azezal’s voice was warm and sharp all at once as he closed the distance. {...Your heart is still forgivable as you still held fsith.....But.... but only the chosen few can follow the prophet. And you...}
His hand rose slow, almost tender, toward the other demon’s neck.
Aurora turned, frowning. "What are you doing?"
No one had time to stop it.
The crack of bone was sharp, echoing off the dead air as blood sprayed hot and bright. It hit Aurora’s cheek, warm against her skin before sliding down, dripping from her jaw. It spattered the ground like wine poured for an altar.
"What the actual fuck!?" she barked, shoving at the blood with the back of her hand.
{...I’m sorry. Your faith was good... but you are NOT one of the chosen few.}
The regret in his voice was real, but so was the judgment. His red eyes lingered on the corpse, unblinking.
Veil’s voice slithered from the side. "Craaazzyyyy..." he whispered, dragging the word out like silk over a blade.
Atlas’s sigh was almost inaudible, but the weight behind it was not. His gaze fixed on Azezal—not the corpse, not the blood—and Aurora knew that look. She knew what he was deciding.
"Atlas... we still need him," she said, her tone more warning than plea. "I only know the way up to the third layer. Beyond that... only he can take us there."
Atlas’s hand twitched, the air around them tightening. The crimson demon floated toward him as if drawn by a hook sunk deep in his chest. Atlas caught his neck in one palm, not squeezing—yet.
"...Are you trying to test my temper?" Atlas’s voice was soft, and somehow that made it worse. It was the softness of frostbite—silent, deadly.
{...No.}
"...Are you trying to sabotage me? Or make my job harder?"
{...Never.}
"...Okay... You are a dog... Remember that. Act like one. Show loyalty not by barking and biting whoever you want... but by staying under my control. Am I being clear?"
{...Understood.} The voice came strained, breath forced through a throat that was no longer his own.
"I said... am I clear?"
{...Yes.}
"Yes what?"
{Yes, I heard you loud and clear.}
Atlas let go. Azezal fell like a stone, coughing, the pain in his eyes now sharper, tempered in something darker. {...Your power... it’s... something I’ve never felt before...}
Veil drifted closer, lazy as smoke. "Wooooww.....Stop sucking his dick so hard, man... it’s so fucking obvious."
"So... where to?" Aurora asked, exhaling slow, her heartbeat uneven from the spike of Atlas’s killing intent.
{...Babylon. The City of Abyss. The closest entry to the second layer is there.}
Aurora’s eyes darkened as she searched her memory, touching the cursed fragments of her last time in hell. The name had weight—old, dirty weight. She nodded once. ".....He’s right. The City of Babylon."
Atlas didn’t nod back. He only looked at Azezal one more time, his gaze like a door closing without sound. And in that silence, the smell of blood still clung—hot metal and old smoke, lingering like a promise