Chapter 299: Chapter 298: Join or Die?
The night was long, longer than even the stones of Hell seemed to endure. The others slept—or feigned sleep—in the shattered husk of the palace. Azezal’s mutters had finally stilled, the Elder’s shadow had folded itself into silence, and Atlas, though half aflame even in slumber, had let his head rest against the ruin of a column. Only Aurora kept her vigil.
Her body had returned to its usual form; the monstrous flickers of transformation had faded. The third eye dimmed, its glow receding like a storm beyond the horizon. For a moment, she simply sat in the quiet and listened.
The air was thick, damp, tasting faintly of rust and burnt incense. Each breath scraped against her throat as though the night itself resented being inhaled. The silence was not peace but weight—an anvil pressing down, daring anyone to break it.
She rose. Her movement was noiseless, deliberate.
The meeting hall lay not far, though "hall" was hardly the word for what remained. Shattered pillars lay like corpses across the marble, fractured chandeliers dangled like gallows above, and the air stank of blood still steaming in the cracks of stone.
The place where three demon kings had fallen should have been marked by their wreckage. But when Aurora’s bare feet touched the threshold, she paused.
Empty.
No broken horns. No mangled corpses. No twitching bodies laboring under defeat.
Her heart did not skip, did not stumble. Aurora had learned long ago that fear was useless once the inevitable arrived. Instead, she let the silence fill her, cool and sharp, like water on a blade.
She stepped outside.
The palace gave way to blackened ground that pulsed like oil, like veins of some ancient beast too vast to be seen in whole. The goo clung to the feet of those foolish enough to walk it, dragging them into its sluggish hunger.
Aurora, disdainful of such snares, chose instead to rise. Her body lifted with fluid grace, her third eye flashing faintly as gravity itself seemed to bend away from her. She floated forward, a pale figure against a world painted in red veins and obsidian shadow.
Down the ladder of stone, where the layer twisted and bent toward deeper pits, she saw them.
The three kings.
Not kings now, not truly. They stood in disgrace, bandaged and broken, shamed into grotesque forms of themselves.
Galiath—once the great strategist, master of bodies, soul-hunter—now shuffled in the stolen flesh of a butler. The body was laughable: lean, unmuscular, with long rabbit ears twitching miserably above his head.
His true power could not be contained in such a fragile vessel, and Aurora saw the struggle even before her third eye flared. She saw the hesitation in his movements, the stutter of his thoughts, the cracks in his command. And when her gaze sharpened, when the third eye widened, his brain shuddered and faltered. For an instant, his will was not his own.
That was how downfalls began.
The succubus queen—Jenny—stood nearby. Gone was the voluptuous confidence, the predator’s allure. She looked younger now, disturbingly so, her form shrunken into that of a pale, trembling teenager. The dark magic she had once wielded like silk now devoured her from within, eating years from her body even as it sought to heal. Her lips curled, but the cruelty lacked its usual weight.
And the beast-king, the lion whose roar once shook citadels, stood silent. His mane was matted with dried blood. His body carried itself heavily, pride dragging him down like chains. He still had size, strength, and the posture of something that should inspire fear—but his eyes betrayed him. There was a tear in his confidence so deep it nearly reached bone.
Aurora’s lips curved faintly.
"You lot look nice..."
Her voice was soft, musical, a dagger sheathed in velvet.
Jenny let out a sharp, bitter laugh that broke midway into a cough. "Ha... funny. Do you mock us because you can? Or is it your habit, Aurora, to humiliate your prey after sparing them?"
Aurora tilted her head, as though tasting the word. "Prey? Do you call yourselves prey now? What would you call yourselves if Atlas had finished the work he began?"
Jenny’s mouth tightened. "Why did you tell us to stay? We need to retur—"
"Return and do what?" Aurora cut in, her tone suddenly sharp, snapping through the air like a whip. "Cling to shadows? Pretend you can rebuild thrones already shattered? Believe me, Atlas has not even pummeled you as he pummeled Orcas. Without my interruption—without my interference—you three would be corpses rotting on marble. Dead, I told you. Dead."
Her third eye flared as she spoke the last word. Jenny flinched, hand darting instinctively to her stomach as if the very syllables had wounded her.
The lion moved then. Slow, deliberate, each step a statement. His paws pressed deep into the black goo, which hissed around his weight. He stood before her, chest broad, golden eyes lit with fury.
"Aurora," he growled. "I despise you more than the man who broke me. Atlas, at least, fights as a warrior fights. You—" his lip curled, exposing fangs, "—you are venom. You are whispers and knives behind the eyes. I despise you more, so tell me why you want us to stay. If you tell me to serve under that monster, then hear me now: my pride is still too high to bow. I will not serve him. Not Atlas. Not anyone."
The silence that followed was heavy, oppressive. The goo hissed faintly. Somewhere far below, a stone groaned as if the layer itself leaned closer to listen.
Aurora floated a fraction higher, her body angled like a star untouchable. She looked down at him, and though her face remained placid, her mind churned. She remembered the lion’s first roar, echoing over the battlefield like thunder. She remembered his claws tearing through legions. She remembered, too, the way Atlas’s fist had met his jaw and shattered both bone and pride in a single instant.
What arrogance, she thought, to call himself too proud to bow when he had already been forced to his knees.
She spoke with calm finality. "You speak of pride as though it is a crown. But pride is only a leash. And right now, it is strangling you."
The lion snarled, but the sound was weaker than he wished.
Jenny’s teenage voice cut through, harsher than her fragile body seemed capable of. "Aurora, if you mean to bind us, then say so. If you mean to mock us, do it quickly. But do not speak as though you are our savior. You let Atlas destroy us. You let him strip us of everything."
Aurora’s third eye pulsed again, and Jenny winced. "You speak as though you had anything worth stripping. Kings of nothing, queens of ash. You had empires of sand, and Atlas’s tide swept them away. I told you to stay because survival is not the same as defeat. You think me cruel? Perhaps I am. But I see further than you. Atlas is not your end—he is your beginning. If you cannot grasp that, then you are already dead."
Jenny snapped back, voice shrill: "Better dead than chained!"
Aurora smiled faintly, cruelly. "So says the girl who clings to life even while her own magic gnaws her bones."
Jenny bit her lip, but said nothing more.
Galiath stirred at last, his rabbit ears twitching miserably. His voice was thin, unsteady in the stolen body. "And if... if we refuse? If we go, find another way?"
Aurora descended slightly, enough for her feet to nearly graze the black goo. The third eye widened, and Galiath froze, body seizing as though strings pulled him taut. His stolen hands trembled.
"Then," Aurora whispered, her voice curling into his skull, "your mind will no longer be your own. I can break you from within. Do not test me."
Galiath stammered, eyes wide. "You— you wouldn’t. You need us."
Aurora’s smile widened. "Need is not the same as want. And want is not the same as mercy."
The lion bared his teeth again, stepping closer, but Jenny touched his arm lightly. Her eyes, wide with something more than defiance—fear, perhaps, or recognition—met his.
"She’s right," Jenny said, bitterness coating every word. "We lost. And survival... survival is all that remains."
The lion shook her off, growling low, but he did not move forward again.
Aurora studied them in silence for a moment longer. Three kings—reduced, humiliated, desperate. Yet in them she saw the seed of something else.
Not loyalty. Not trust. But utility. Atlas thought only of the path ahead, the battles, the demi-gods, the wars of flame and shadow. Aurora thought of webs. Of pieces on the board. And these three broken figures, whether they knew it or not, were already caught in hers.
She let her voice soften, a blade sheathed. "You will stay. You will heal. You will watch. Perhaps you will even learn. Hell has changed, and Atlas is at its heart. Align yourselves, or be crushed by the tides. Those are your choices. Nothing else."
Jenny lowered her eyes. Galiath trembled. The lion’s chest heaved, but his silence was answer enough.
Aurora exhaled slowly. The air tasted of iron and inevitability.
"You three," she murmured, more to herself than to them, "are not kings. Not anymore. But perhaps I thought... you may yet be useful."
So...Choose wisely. Pride kills faster than Atlas ever could."