Across the chamber, the demon watched him with that single, gleaming eye. When Zen finally lifted his head, something in the creature shifted, an acknowledgment, or maybe approval.
"You see that magical circle over there?" the demon rasped, voice dragging like rusted chains. "Go. Sit in the middle."
Zen followed the demon's gaze.
And this time, without a word, he walked.
Etched into the stone floor was a ritual circle, grotesque and unnatural. The outer ring shimmered faintly, not with light, but with the suggestion of absence—like a rim of shadow condensed into form. Inside, a five-pointed star writhed with twisting inscriptions that never stayed still, like veins in a giant eye. Each point ended in a cruel barb. Beyond them, thorn-like spires rose from the floor, twitching like things alive.
Zen froze.
Every instinct in his body screamed.
Zen clenched his fists. Slowly, he stepped forward and crossed the threshold.
The moment he did, the air thickened pressing against his skin like unseen hands. He sat at the center of the star, surrounded by a silence that whispered, and whispered, and whispered.
The demon turned. From a nearby pedestal, it retrieved four grotesque objects.
At first, they resembled seed pods or leathery fruit, twisted and unnatural. Their husks were dark violet and bruised grey, veined and pulsing. Root-like tendrils dangled from their base, slick and twitching. Tiny, glassy eyes dotted the surface, blinking independently.
"These are the Resonators," the demon murmured, reverent. "They echo the soul."
It raised both hands, fingers weaving through the air. Arcane seals formed, each gesture slicing through reality with practiced weight. Strands of green phosphorescence coiled from its palms like smoke.
The energy split, four trails slithering along the star's carved lines, pulsing as they reached the outer arms. The Resonators floated from its grip and anchored themselves at the star's barbed tips, lodged like cursed teeth in a divine maw.
Then the circle roared to life.
The spires convulsed. Energy burst from them in arcs, encircling the perimeter. The carvings bled light. The shadows inside writhed like worms beneath skin. A hum began to rise—not sound, but sensation. Zen felt it in his bones, in his blood, in memories he had buried.
The outer circle cracked open at four points. Black mist poured out in long ribbons, pulled toward the Resonators like breath to fire.
The star blazed.
A heartbeat.
Then another.
Zen gasped—no, he was torn open.
Something struck him. Not his body, but his soul. Like an ocean crashing down. His essence was hurled, battered, and shattered in unseen currents.
The circle groaned with demonic energy.
His body convulsed. His mouth opened in a scream no sound could carry.
It wasn't pain—it was obliteration. A destruction meant not for the mind, or flesh, but for the very concept of self.
He was dying.
He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't even pray. His thoughts drowned in agony.
A face suddenly appeared on his mind.
His sister.
Zen snapped back.
What would happen to her, if he vanished now?
Not yet, Zen thought. Not like this.
He tried to endure it.
But it was no use. The Resonator was beyond him. What happening now is not something anyone can endure.
As his very being was about to be erased, something shifted.
A tremor.
A flicker.
Something inside him woke up.
It tore through him like a parasite uncoiling inside his soul.
A surge of power burst outward—cold, demonic, ancient. It didn't just spread. It erupted.
The Resonator faltered.
Cracked.
Zen's eyes snapped open. But they weren't his anymore.
Something ancient looked through them.
*****
Ekrid hovered in the air, watching.
He had seen it before—souls unraveling, breaking apart. The Resonator was absolute. It crushed the spirit until it adapted… or shattered.
He had already prepared to log Zen as a failure.
He remembered his conversation with the queen:
"Your majesty want to test the Resonator on a mortal? He's more valuable than that. We must learn how he survived Nitya."
"Your Majesty, he won't last. Nitya and the Tower—they are not the same."
"Call it a hunch," she had said, with a smile. "If he can survive this… we can unravel the mystery of summoning. With that knowledge, we could dominate the world."
It was the only reason he agreed.
Now, he watched Zen torn apart just like others.
Then—something exploded from within.
Zen convulsed. The runes cracked. The entire lab trembled. Lights dimmed. Glass screamed.
And then, the Resonator cracked.
Zen screamed.
The scream turned to a roar.
Inhuman and Primeval.
"Demonic energy—what's happening?" Ekrid muttered, eyes wide.
The ritual circle cracked beneath him as waves of demonic force surged outward obliterating everything in its path.
His apprentice vanished—gone in a flicker of unbeing.
Walls collapsed. Centuries of research destroyed in a breath. The Ekrid flung through space, until he struck the side of a black mountain.
Half-dead. Half-mad.
Then… silence.
The air quivered.
And something even older began to descend.
It was not energy. Not magic.
It was something beyond.
It was law.
Reality objected.
The sky turned black—not with night, but with pure nothingness. Clouds that had never been born gathered above, darker than the abyss. Lightning brewed within them, coiling and folding like serpents in a storm cage. And then—they struck.
Bolts of power crashed down upon the ruins with the fury of judgment, splitting the earth and shattering the sky. This was no retribution for a crime. It was a correction. A rejection.
Where the lightning touched, space didn't burn—it cracked. Like glass under a hammer. Entire fragments of reality ruptured open, revealing rifts of blinding void. The demonic energy that had roared so defiantly moments ago didn't even resist. It couldn't. And even if it could—it wouldn't have mattered.
The rifts swallowed the remains of the Resonator, the circle, the castle walls.
And then—
Stillness.
The silence after something vast has ended.
Smoke. Dust. Ash.
Where the lab once stood, there was only void now.
Ekrid stirred, broken and bleeding.
Somehow, he had survived.
His vision blurred, chest heaving with each ragged breath, he forced himself upright. All around him, ruin. Smoke drifted in lazy spirals, ash clung to the jagged remains of stone. The scent of scorched magic lingered in the air like a curse.
Then—movement.
He wasn't the only one.
A few demons had survived, scattered far enough when the first wave of demonic energy tore loose. They crawled from the wreckage, dazed and wounded. The annihilation had focused its wrath on the heart of the ritual—the lab. It hadn't spread beyond that epicenter.
And then he saw her.
The Queen.
She stood amid the devastation. Her face was unreadable. Her cloak billowed in the windless dark.
She met his gaze.
Not with rage.
Not with sorrow.
Only cold, silent calculation.