Months passed like shadows—silent, stretched, and indistinct, blending into one another until time itself felt like a forgotten ritual. Belial no longer counted the days, only the rhythms that defined his existence in the Black Theatre.
Hunt, feed, train. Repeat. The mirror monsters, once grotesque specters that had sparked a flicker of fear or curiosity, were now little more than fuel. Their twisted forms, with shimmering, reflective hides and hollow eyes, no longer haunted him. They were prey, their essence a resource to be harvested, their deaths a means to sharpen his body and mind for the next battle, the next mutation, the next breath.
The training sessions with the General's statue had evolved into a brutal stalemate. The towering construct , its featureless face glowing with white-hot eyes, no longer crushed him in the first ten moves. Sometimes—just sometimes—Belial managed to push it back, his blade finding a fleeting gap in its relentless assault. But victory remained elusive. The General moved with an inhuman precision that made Belial feel like a child wielding a toy sword, his every strike met with a counter that was both calculated and merciless. Each session left him exhausted, his muscles burning, his bones aching with the weight of incremental progress. Improvement came in inches, not leaps, and yet he endured, driven by a stubborn refusal to break.
After one particularly grueling match, Belial wandered through the Lonely Prince's workshop, his boots echoing softly on the stone floor. The workshop was an architectural paradox, a room that defied gravity as if designed by a mind unbound by the laws of the world. It hung upside down, the ceiling serving as the floor, the shelves and worktables suspended above him like stars in a dream someone forgot to wake from. At first, navigating the inverted space had churned his stomach, the disorientation making his head spin. But now, after months of acclimation, it was merely familiar, if never comfortable. The sensation of walking on what should have been the ceiling, with objects "sitting" above him, had woven itself into the fabric of his routine.
The workshop was cluttered, not with chaos but with purpose—a dense tapestry of creation. Shelves lined the walls, brimming with mechanical parts that glinted in the dim light of the crystalline veins. Glowing crystals, some pulsing faintly, others dormant, were stacked haphazardly alongside tiny chisels, their edges worn from meticulous work. Folded notes, scrawled in languages Belial couldn't decipher, were tucked between vials of shimmering liquid and glass spheres that contained flickering lights, like captured fireflies. It was the kind of place a genius or a lunatic might call home, a sanctuary of invention that felt alive with the Lonely Prince's presence.
Belial poked through the items, his fingers brushing over surfaces coated in a fine layer of dust and etheric residue. He wasn't expecting to find anything useful—not in any practical sense, but the act of exploration grounded him, gave him something to do besides fight and bleed. A few objects caught his eye, pulling him from the haze of his thoughts.
A hairpin, delicate and ornate, rested on a small pedestal. It was absurdly large for him to wield, its golden surface shimmering with a faint, otherworldly hue. Traces of old ether clung to it like perfume, a whisper of someone cherished. The Lonely Prince's mother, perhaps—the Queen whose radiant face had haunted the pages of the black notebook. Belial turned the hairpin over in his hands, feeling the weight of its history. He took it, slipping it into his pocket. Out of respect, he told himself. Or maybe just loneliness.
Then there was the orb. A smooth, dark sphere, about the size of an apple, rested silently on a velvet pedestal. It didn't glow, didn't hum, didn't react to his touch, but something about it felt heavy with potential. Dangerous, perhaps. Or important. Or both. Belial pocketed it without hesitation, the weight of it grounding him as he moved on.
Later that night, he flew back to his room, his leathery wings slicing through the stagnant air of the spire. They faded into smoke as he landed on the edge of the bed, letting himself fall back, upside down, his head hanging off the side. The ceiling—or was it the floor?—spun slowly above him, the crystalline veins casting faint, shifting patterns of light. He didn't care anymore. The disorientation was just another part of this place, another thread in the tapestry of his exile.
"Yeah, and imagine how I felt when Xin just came at me outta nowhere spouting some nonsense!" he muttered, scowling at the silence. "Didn't even let me finish what I was saying. Just bam! Accusations." His voice echoed faintly, swallowed by the stone walls.
The Lonely Prince's statue stood at the room's end, its delicate features carved from pale crystal. Its eyes were closed, its fingers resting lightly on the half-played shogi board, frozen in a moment of eternal contemplation. Regal and distant, it was a ghost carved from stone, a silent companion that never answered but always listened.
Belial huffed and leaned forward, moving a shogi piece with two fingers. "And don't even get me started on my battle art. I still can't get the third form right. It just slips every time. I've gone through the motions a thousand times—nothing. You'd think with all this ether poisoning crap I'd have some kind of breakthrough." He paused, waiting for a response that would never come. The silence was a weight, pressing against his chest.
He slumped further, arms draped over the side of the bed, legs bent at odd angles. "I miss my videogames, man. Like… really. I'd kill to lose a few hours to anything with a controller. Just… something stupid. Something normal." The words felt hollow, a confession to no one. The room was cold, as it always was, the air heavy with the scent of stone and ether.
He reached for the crystalline journal beside him, its engraved pages glowing faintly under his touch. He flipped through a few entries, some dated, some not, skimming paragraphs that felt like echoes of a life he could only glimpse. Most were dry—observations about the spire's mechanisms, scattered thoughts on the behavior of the mirror monsters, a few surprisingly delicate poems that spoke of stars and solitude. Nothing like the opening pages of the black notebook, which had shaken him with their raw, mirrored truth. These felt distant, like the musings of someone who had already begun to fade.
Eventually, exhaustion pulled him under, and he fell asleep, the journal still open on his chest.
Belial had no idea how long he'd slept when he awoke. The air was thick with the acrid stench of a half-dissolved monster corpse piled near the southern exit, its reflective hide melting into a viscous puddle. A week, at least, judging by the smell. He sat up, groggy, his head spinning from the sudden motion. His back ached, his wings half-formed and twitching involuntarily before folding back into his flesh with a wince that made him grit his teeth.
"Ugh. Gross," he muttered, rubbing his face with both hands. "I'm really starting to regress."
He used to be meticulous, back when he lived under the human disguise, blending into Oasis's rigid 24-hour clock. He'd set multiple alarms, synced his life to the rhythm of a society that demanded order. All to belong, to pass as one of them. But the Black Theatre was different. It was dragging him back to his roots, to the demon realm's endless night where time had no meaning, no sunrise to mark the hours, no urgency to drive him. His body remembered, and the fatigue was building again, a heavy fog that clung to his bones.
He stood, his joints popping with a pained groan, and stretched, trying to shake off the lethargy. He made his way toward the chrysalis chamber, his heart beating faster with each step. The ritual had become routine, but never easy. He could feel it—something inside the chrysalis was stirring, growing, and perhaps dying.
The chamber was a cavern of shadow and stone, the air thicker, heavier, as if the world itself held its breath. The chrysalis hung in its cradle of dark stone and gnarled roots, its translucent shell pulsing faintly. Fissures had begun to appear across its surface—thin, hairline cracks like spiderwebs of light and shadow. It looked both sacred and sickly, a paradox of life and decay.
Belial stepped closer, a strange mix of dread and hope tightening his chest. How long had it been? How long could it last? He was running out of poisoned ether to give it—not because he couldn't produce more, but because he suspected the chrysalis could only take so much. Each dose pushed it closer to the edge, closer to transformation or collapse.
He reached into his chest, summoning a droplet of his ether—half-black, half-clear, a swirling dance of light and shadow. He let it fall into the basin beneath the chrysalis, watching as the shell twitched in response. It was no more than usual, but to Belial, it was enough to send a jolt of anxiety through his bones.
"C'mon," he whispered, his voice barely audible in the heavy air. "How damn strong are you!?"
No answer. Just the soft, slow pulse of something waiting to be born—or die.
Belial backed away and sat on the nearest step, his head in his hands. He wondered how long he had left. How long it had left.
And for the first time in weeks, he wasn't sure which one he was more afraid of.