✦ Chapter 43 — Welcome to the Second Realm
The moment their bodies passed through the shimmering Portal of Life, a sudden weight pressed against their senses.
The light behind them faded. The cold voice of the ink sea disappeared.
When they looked around, Laei and Puff were gone.
Not a trace of the small girl or the massive beast remained—just a soft breeze that carried a final whisper:
"Good luck."
The wind disappeared like breath snuffed out.
What remained was a world unworthy of the word "world."
They had stepped into what could only be described as hell.
Fire scorched the earth in every direction. The ground cracked and bled molten rock; towers of sharpened bone twisted toward the sky, eternally burning. Screams echoed far and near, layering upon each other like an orchestra of torment.
The sky was smoke. Thick, dark, ever-churning. It rolled in tides, consuming all light. The only illumination came from infernos tearing across the land and flashes of red lightning that cracked open the heavens with soundless booms—each bolt followed by laughter.
Not laughter from joy.
But from death.
Vexi instinctively raised her sleeve to cover her mouth and coughed once. "The air—!" she started.
Havella moved fast. She reached upward, plucking a strand from the gray void like pulling a thread from a veil. Magic sparked from her fingertips. The smoke bent unnaturally, and she stole from it.
It wasn't oxygen. It wasn't even clean air. But whatever essence she drew from the smoke, she spun it into something breathable, forming a bubble around them.
"…You stole air?" Jio asked quietly.
"Yes," Havella said, frowning slightly. "It wasn't easy. The smoke here fights back."
Vexi nodded with a sharp glance, but neither she nor Jio asked further.
Because all of them were staring ahead now.
And what they saw was worse than fire.
Across the charred horizon were people. Not burning or fleeing.
But fighting.
Biting, stabbing, goring, ripping. Over scraps. Over weapons. Over nothing at all.
Some did it out of desperation. Others out of amusement.
Young, old, tall, small. There were no rules—just violence. And more portals continued to open behind them, spilling in newcomers who looked just as savage.
Humans with devilish smiles.
Beasts with wings stitched from hands.
Women cloaked in gold and blood, laughing as they walked over corpses that still twitched.
The new arrivals joined without hesitation. As if drawn to the chaos. As if they had been waiting.
No one looked at Havella, Jio, or Vexi. They were just another speck in the burning empire.
Above, the sky ripped—a thundercrack so loud it shook the bones in their bodies. Red lightning bled through smoke like veins, and distant, inhuman laughter boomed like a god pleased by the carnage.
The sky itself was laughing.
"...This is the empire of devils?" Vexi asked, her voice hollow.
Jio didn't answer.
Havella's hands clenched at her sides, the stolen air twisting around her fingers like a ghost trying to flee.
This was not a place for stories.
This was not a place for reason.
And it was only the beginning.
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End of Chapter 43
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