The world had changed.
Micafer stood atop a jagged summit—likely the highest point in this forsaken realm. From there, he could see everything.
This was no planet in the conventional sense. There was no curvature, no horizon. Instead, it stretched like a colossal square platform—vast, symmetrical, and unnervingly precise—spanning evenly in all directions.
The terrain below resembled tectonic plates frozen mid-collision. Jagged rock jutted from ruptured stone, glowing fissures snaked through scorched ground, and patches of slow-boiling magma pulsed beneath the surface. No trees. No shrubs. No life. Only a shattered lithosphere—a graveyard of stone.
His breath quickened. Dread coiled in his gut. But when he looked more closely, something worse emerged.
The realm was divided—three massive rectangular sectors embedded like slabs in a stone altar. No walls, no trenches. Just subtle shifts in the shade of gray—one dark, one pale, one in between.
Distant figures moved within them—some crawling, some writhing, others lurching upright. From this height, they looked like broken chess pieces scattered mid-game. Yet even at a distance, he could feel their wrongness.
Malformed.
Monstrous.
Purgators.
The realization hit harder than the wind clawing at his back. His lungs seized. Every breath grew sharp.
He turned his eyes skyward—and froze.
Above loomed the sun, dim and unmoving. Its light barely touched the land, blocked by a celestial body—a translucent moon hung like a lid over a coffin. It wasn't solid, but spectral, as though it revealed another dimension behind its veil. The light that filtered through bathed the realm in ghostly hues—ash and bone.
There was no day. No night.
No cycle.
Only stillness.
Only silence.
Only time—frozen in twilight.
"If this is purgatory," Micafer thought grimly, "then hell would've ended my suffering. Whatever this is… it won't."
A shriek shattered the silence.
He spun.
Something came hurtling from the sky—a monstrous eagle, wings wide enough to blot the dim sun. Its feathers shimmered with shadow, and its hooked beak gleamed like a blade. The very air around it rippled with menace.
Terror rooted him in place. Muscles refused to move.
Talons closed around him.
He didn't struggle. It didn't speak. It didn't even kill. It simply carried him—an effortless lift across the burning wastes.
Then, like fate had decided, it released him.
He plummeted into the darkest quadrant of the realm.
He hit hard. Tumbled through ash and stone, limbs scraping against jagged rock. Dust caked his throat. Blood dotted his skin.
No cries. No echoes. Just eerie quiet.
The landscape here was still, the air thin and dry. Spearlike formations of molten rock jutted from the earth—but there were no wandering souls. No movement.
He wasn't alone for long.
Footsteps approached.
He rose slowly, chest tight.
Two figures emerged from behind a ridge. Both humanoid—one older, bald and gaunt, the other lean and younger, smirking like a jackal. Their eyes were hollow.
The old man barked, "Don't you know how to be quiet?"
The younger chuckled. "He probably wants to get eaten."
Micafer met them with a glare. "Didn't mean to attract anything."
"Intentions won't save you," the elder muttered. "You're new."
He nodded.
"Then follow us."
They led him beneath a molten arch into a low cave. Heat pressed against his skin like a furnace, but it was shelter.
"What brought you to the Furnace of Woe?" the old one asked.
Micafer's eyes narrowed. "An eagle."
Both men froze.
"You mean… you killed one?" the younger asked.
Micafer didn't answer.
Instead: "What did you mean—'getting eaten'? And why call this place that?"
The elder exhaled slowly. "The Veil is split into three layers. The brightest is the Atoned Camp—where the repentant wait for release. Sometimes, the Blessed Mother grants reprieve."
The younger handed Micafer an obsidian chalice. The liquid inside shimmered gold, faintly glowing.
He accepted it—without drinking. His trust was thin.
The elder continued, "The middle ground is the Ashen Fields, home to purgators of a higher caste. The Disvirgined. The Wicked. The Evil."
His eyes darkened.
"And here," he said grimly, "is the Furnace of Woe. Where the Infernal and the Satanic burn."
While they spoke, Micafer discreetly used a shard of obsidian to pierce the bottom of his chalice.
The golden liquid began to drip.
It hit the stone—and hissed.
Smoke rose. Acidic.
A trap.
They weren't allies. They were predators.
The younger one drew a blade, slipping behind Micafer's blind spot.
He lunged.
Micafer twisted just in time. The blade sliced his cheek. Blood spilled—
And then evaporated.
A thick smoke poured from the wound—unnatural, choking, sentient. It spread across the ground like mist from the underworld.
The earth rumbled.
Then came the monsters.
Dozens. Hundreds. Crawling. Soaring. Writhing. Purgators of all classes—Unclean, Legion, Disvirgined, Infernal.
They descended on the two attackers.
Tore them apart.
Micafer stood untouched.
The creatures circled him—silent. Still. Like a guard awaiting orders.
Then the worst of them stepped forward.
A giant, towering, two-headed, with four arms. Two swords—one etched Justice, the other Vengeance. Its aura seethed with divine brilliance and infernal wrath in perfect harmony.
It didn't glow.
It bled power.
"I am Beelzebub," it said, voice cracking like thunder across eternity.
Every purgator dropped to its knees.
Beelzebub studied Micafer, expression unreadable.
"Pray you last long enough to be worthy of hearing that name again."
Micafer didn't flinch. His eyes burned—not with fear, but defiance.
"Does he think I'm elite? Or is he fattening me for slaughter?"
Either way, it didn't matter.
This was the trial.
And fear would not steal his second chance.