Chalice moved silently through the stone arteries of the Crimson Vale's citadel, each step echoing like a forgotten name. The halls were cold, carved from black stone that pulsed faintly beneath the moss and grime, almost as if the citadel itself were alive. His boots clicked softly, his blade sheathed once again, but his hand never strayed far from the hilt.
Though confidence flowed through him, his uncle's warning lingered in his mind like smoke.
A devil of light… impossible to defeat? He scoffed inwardly, but it wasn't bravado this time. It was defiance. Not toward Death—toward fate itself.
Far ahead, through the broken windows and open corridors, he could faintly hear the clash of steel. The roar of battle.
King Raevan and the army had reached the front gates.
Chalice sighed.
"Guess I'm the knife in the back," he muttered to himself. "Should've brought a cloak and a pair of daggers if I'm going to play assassin."
Still, his smile returned.
He stepped forward.
Then stopped.
A throne.
At the end of the long corridor, a grotesque throne sat atop a dais of broken bone and twisted root. The wood around it had fused with metal in unnatural ways, like it had grown out of the ground screaming. Shadows danced strangely around it, flickering despite the absence of torches.
"This place gives me the creeps," Chalice whispered.
He approached, but something in the air shifted.
Suddenly—motion.
His instincts flared.
Seven figures lunged from the shadows all at once. Masked warriors—faster than any human. Their blades caught the glint of blood-red enchantment as they converged like a noose around his body.
But Chalice moved.
He twisted mid-step, body flowing like water as his golden hair followed his spin in a slow-motion sweep. His foot grazed the ground once—and he launched backward into a handspring, just out of reach.
He smirked. "You boys sure know how to say hello."
From the roll, he kicked his sword upward. The blade spun high into the air like a silver star.
As it rose, Chalice blurred forward—Snap Kick—his heel slammed into the gut of the nearest attacker, sending him flying into two others like a living battering ram. They crashed into the wall with a grunt of pain.
Then, with a perfect flip, Chalice jumped—high—and twisted his body downward.
His heel cracked the hilt of the falling sword, driving the blade like a hammer-stake into the skull of the masked ambusher below.
Thunk.
The body hit the ground without a sound.
Chalice landed atop it, gripping the blade with one hand as he pivoted. The two he had thrown were dazed.
He lunged.
Violet Severance—a sweeping horizontal slash that carved through both torsos in a single motion, a faint arc of purple trailing his blade like a phantom echo.
They dropped.
Three left.
They circled him now, more careful.
He could feel their fear.
He didn't wait.
Heaven's Coil—he spun, blade rotating like a spiral saw, deflecting all three blades at once as sparks danced from the impacts.
He stepped forward.
Echo Step—a lightning-fast shift of movement, disappearing from in front of one attacker and reappearing behind him. One smooth draw-cut—neck to shoulder.
Down.
The last two hesitated.
Bad choice.
Chalice flicked his blade.
Golden Fang—a feint slash to the left that curved at the last second, cutting through both at once as their bodies barely realized they'd been sliced.
Silence returned.
Seven bodies.
All fallen.
Chalice rolled his shoulder, not even winded. His blade still gleamed—unstained.
"Too quiet," he muttered, spinning the sword once before resting it on his shoulder. He turned his eyes back toward the grotesque throne.
Then narrowed them.
There was someone sitting there now.
But not just anyone.
They hadn't been there before. And yet—they had always been there.
Chalice narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brows, the sharpness in his gaze cutting through the dim, oppressive air of the citadel's heart. The throne ahead of him shimmered in a strange hue, like it was carved from obsidian but bled light from inside—sickly and radiant. He couldn't quite make out what was sitting on it. No—he couldn't quite understand what was sitting on it.
Still, cocky as ever, Chalice scoffed under his breath, "Must be hard sittin' on a throne that ugly all day. Bet your back's in worse shape than your posture."
But the being stirred.
Its voice was low, grating like rusted iron dragged across marble. And it replied, not with laughter—but with venom.
"Filthy… divine blood."
The words weren't just spoken—they twisted in the air, dripping with disdain, crawling into Chalice's ears like insects.
Chalice blinked, taken aback for a moment. His fingers gripped his blade tighter. He'd assumed it, but now he was sure. This… thing… was a devil.
The Devil of Light.
And for the first time in his life, Chalice was staring into a force his father had only ever whispered about through ancient songs of war. He had never seen a devil. Never touched one. Never felt one's hatred like a cold knife on his spine.
He raised his chin, tone sharp. "Who are you?"
But the devil didn't answer straight. It tilted its head—no, its shape tilted, like light itself was folding wrong around it.
"Who am I?" the being rasped, and then—mockingly, theatrically—"Oh! Wouldn't I love to know…"
A wheezing, awful laugh followed, echoing off the twisted walls.
"I was born from the blood of the Forgotten God… cast out, drowned in radiance, forged in silence. But aren't we all just relics of what the heavens didn't want?"
It leaned forward, shadows warping around it in blinding halos of reversed light.
"Call me what they call me when they cry…
The Glare Beneath the Veil.
The Lantern That Devours.
The False Sun."
Its grin widened—though Chalice couldn't see a mouth.
"But today, for you, little godling… just call me the End of Inheritance."
Chalice didn't blink. He stared.
And then—he laughed. A loud, full laugh that echoed off the ancient stone.
Blood dripped steadily from the edge of his sword, thick and fresh. His golden hair shimmered in the dimness like it defied the dark on instinct. His silhouette was torn, radiant, unyielding. If anyone were to witness this scene from afar—Chalice laughing before the devil on the throne—they wouldn't know what to think. Madness? Glory?
Insanity and divinity blurred.
He whispered under his breath, almost affectionately:
"…Man. Father really left me the worst kind of gifts."
And with that, he took one slow step forward.
But before Chalice's foot could touch the stone floor, before the echo of his defiance could fade into the vaulted dark—
the devil appeared.
A flash. A flicker.
And suddenly he was there—before him, inches away, blade drawn from nothing, striking forward with a savage elegance. Chalice barely tilted his wrist before raising his own sword, deflecting the blow in a ringing clash that vibrated up his arm. His boots dug slightly into the stone, but he held his ground.
It wasn't the strike that surprised him.
It was the form.
Humanoid.
The devil had black, tousled hair that fell just above his shoulders, jagged and uneven as if cut by a blade in the dark. His eyes were gold—not just golden, but burning with the sort of ancient heat that came from suns long dead. Beneath their glow were dark shadows, making them look almost sorrowful.
His skin was pale. Not sickly pale—but pale like untouched moonlight.
He wore a black haori, loose and tattered at the sleeves, and beneath it a white kimono, pristine, unblemished. Every part of him radiated contradiction: grace and cruelty, silence and madness.
He looked like he could've been a prince himself.
But one from a cursed kingdom.
Chalice said nothing at first. He only smirked slightly, surprised. And then—
"Didn't expect you to be shorter than me," he said with a cocked eyebrow. "A devil of light, huh? You look like a ghost who got lost on the way to a funeral."
The devil didn't flinch. His expression remained oddly calm, almost melancholic. Then, without a word—
He vanished.
Chalice's blade arced in an uppercut slash, tracing a radiant trail of motion—
but he cut through only air.
The devil didn't teleport.
He moved.
He glided in a straight blur, a streak of pale white and black against the gloom, like a shard of refracted sunlight skipping through dimensions.
He appeared behind Chalice, almost lazily, flicking his blade downward.
Chalice turned just in time, parrying the strike with a spinning deflection, and twisted low to swipe at the devil's legs. But again—
Light. Motion. Gone.
This time he reappeared above, descending like a star falling from orbit, blade pointed down.
Chalice threw his sword up in a reverse grip, clanging steel against steel—
sparks erupted like fireflies, dancing madly in the unnatural dark.
They clashed.
Once.
Twice.
Over and over.
Their battle was like a duet of chaos and control, each blow composed with the rhythm of gods.
Chalice launched a horizontal sweep—"Skycleave Arc."
The devil ducked with no wasted motion, spinning on a heel and countering with a thrust—"Pierce of Providence."
Chalice bent back at an impossible angle, using the momentum to leap into a full twist—"Fang of the Howling East."
The devil slid to the left, not stepping, but letting the light carry him sideways in a shimmer—"Sun's Mirror Shift."
Their blades clashed in the center.
And for a moment—just a moment—both stood still, locked. Face to face.
Breathing lightly.
Chalice's grin widened.
"You're fast," he said, eyes alight. "But I've danced with wind gods before."
The devil's expression didn't change. He simply whispered, almost too softly to hear:
"I'm not dancing. I'm devouring."
Then the light cracked—and the real battle began.