I turn and look at Caleif, shes even more beautiful than the last time I saw her, "Caleif, you and it. Let's go on a date."
For a moment, she looks surprised, maybe even a little taken aback by my casual tone after everything we've been through. Then her expression softens, those bluish-red eyes flickering with an emotion I can't quite place.
"A date?" she repeats, tucking a strand of ember-red hair behind her ear. "After three thousand years in hell, that's your first priority?"
I shrug, feeling the weight of my transformed armor shift with the movement. "Time gives you perspective. And my perspective says I've spent enough time fighting cosmic entities and navigating interdimensional politics. I want something normal for once."
A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "I'm not sure 'normal' is possible for us anymore. Especially with..." She gestures vaguely at my transformed state.
"I can dial it back," I say, concentrating on the armor. It recedes further, not disappearing completely but becoming more like an elaborate tattoo etched across my skin rather than a full exoskeleton. The horns retract, the spikes smooth away, and while my eyes still hold that crimson glow, I look significantly more human than demonic now.
"Better?" I ask.
She steps closer, studying me with an intensity that makes my pulse quicken despite three millennia of combat conditioning. "Getting there," she murmurs. "Though I'm not sure any restaurant is ready for your new... aesthetic."
"We could always get takeout," I suggest. "Watch the sunset from the sanctuary roof. Just us."
Lucifer makes a theatrical gagging sound behind us. "Please, continue planning your mundane courtship rituals while cosmic authorities dismantle everything you've built. I'll just wait here, shall I?"
I turn to him, not bothering to hide my annoyance. "The cosmic authorities can wait one damn night. They've had three days—I've had three thousand years. I think I've earned a few hours of peace."
To my surprise, Lucifer's perfect face softens slightly. "Perhaps you have," he concedes. "Though I warn you, they'll come looking for you soon enough. News of your... transformation... will spread quickly."
"Let it," I say, turning back to Caleif. "So? Date night? Before the next apocalypse comes knocking?"
Her smile widens, and for a moment, I see past the wariness, past the shock of my transformation, to the connection that even three thousand years couldn't erase. "I'd like that," she says softly. "Though I insist we get food from Giordano's. If I'm going to watch you eat with those new teeth of yours, I at least want decent pizza."
I laugh, the sound still rougher than it used to be but more human than before. "Deal."
As we head toward the sanctuary's exit, I can feel the others watching us—Lucifer with calculated amusement, Elara with practical concern, Valen with academic fascination. They're wondering if this is really me, if the man they knew still exists beneath the hellforged exterior.
I'm wondering the same thing.
But as Caleif's hand finds mine, her fingers intertwining with mine despite the lingering sharpness of my nails, I feel something I haven't felt in three millennia—hope. Not the false hope Hell used to torture me, but the genuine article. The belief that despite everything, despite the transformation and the rage and the cosmic politics, there might still be a chance for something resembling normal.
"You know," Caleif says as we step out into the desert evening, the setting sun painting the sky in shades of crimson and gold that remind me uncomfortably of hellfire, "most couples deal with one person changing after a long absence. Hair gets gray, weight fluctuates, fashion choices evolve. My boyfriend went away and came back with horns and armor."
"Technically, I had the armor before," I point out. "It just... expanded its territory."
She laughs, the sound washing over me like cool water after an eternity of burning. "Always looking on the bright side."
"Three thousand years of combat teaches you to find victories wherever you can," I say. "Even small ones."
We walk in comfortable silence for a while, making our way toward the small town near the sanctuary. I'm acutely aware of how strange I must look, even with the armor mostly retracted. My eyes still glow, my skin has a faint metallic sheen in certain lights, and there's no hiding the way I move now—too fluid, too predatory, too inhuman.
But Caleif doesn't pull away. If anything, she moves closer, her presence a silent declaration that whatever I've become, she's not afraid to be seen with me.
"They're staring," she murmurs as we enter the town proper, passing a group of locals whose eyes widen at the sight of us.
"Let them," I reply, straightening my shoulders. "I spent three millennia fighting for my life. I'm not going to start caring about disapproving looks now."
We pick up our pizza—the teenager behind the counter nearly drops it when he gets a good look at my eyes—and head back toward the sanctuary. But instead of going inside, I lead Caleif around to a hidden path that winds up the mesa behind the main building.
"Since when is this here?" she asks, following me up the narrow trail.
"It's always been here," I say. "I found it the first week after we established the sanctuary. Needed somewhere quiet to think."
The path ends at a flat outcropping that offers a perfect view of the desert stretching to the horizon, the setting sun casting long shadows across the sand. I sit down, patting the rock beside me.
"Best seat in the house," I say.
Caleif settles beside me, opening the pizza box between us. The familiar smell makes my mouth water, reminding me that whatever else has changed, some pleasures remain constant.
"So," she says as I take a slice, "are we going to talk about it?"
I pause, the pizza halfway to my mouth. "About what specifically? The three thousand years of combat? The cosmic transformation? The Guardians' betrayal? We've got options."
"All of it," she says, her eyes serious despite her light tone. "But maybe start with how you're really doing. Not the brave face you're putting on for everyone else. The truth."
I take a bite of pizza to buy myself time, considering her question. The flavors explode across my tongue—so much more intense than I remember, every note distinct and vibrant after millennia of nothing but demon ichor and hellfire.
"I'm not sure I know the answer," I admit finally. "Part of me is still in that arena, still fighting. Part of me is stuck in the Abyss, trying to remember who I was before all this started. And part of me is right here, eating pizza with you, wondering if I can ever be the person you fell in love with again."
She reaches out, her fingers brushing a strand of hair from my face. The simple gesture nearly undoes me after so long without gentle human contact.
"I didn't fall in love with who you were," she says softly. "I fell in love with who you are. That includes who you become, even if that becoming involves horns and glowing eyes."
I laugh despite myself. "You might be the only person in three realms who sees it that way."
"Maybe," she agrees. "But I'm the one having pizza with you on this rock, so my opinion is the one that counts."
We eat in companionable silence for a while, watching the sun sink lower, the sky shifting from gold to deep purple. Stars begin to appear, impossibly bright and clear in the desert air.
"I saw you," I say suddenly. "In the Abyss. I saw you watching me through some kind of portal, with Lucifer. You were crying."
Caleif stiffens slightly. "You saw that?"
"The Abyss shows you truths you're not ready to face," I explain. "It showed me what I was becoming, how it looked to the people who care about me." I turn to meet her gaze directly. "You were horrified."
She doesn't deny it. "Yes," she says simply. "I was. Watching you tear through those demons, watching you transform with each victory... it was like seeing you slip away one kill at a time."
"I nearly did," I admit. "There were moments when I forgot why I was fighting, when all that mattered was the next opponent, the next challenge. The rage became... everything."
"But not quite everything," she observes. "Or you wouldn't be here now, trying to reclaim some semblance of normalcy."
I look down at my hands—still mine, but different now. Stronger. Deadlier. Capable of tearing through demon armor like paper. "I'm not sure normalcy is an option anymore. Not with what I've become."
"Then we'll find a new normal," she says with a determination that reminds me why I fell in love with her in the first place. "One that accommodates both who you were and who you are now."
I lean over and kiss her, a gesture that feels simultaneously familiar and strange with my transformed features. She doesn't hesitate, her hand coming up to cup my face as she returns the kiss with a fervor that makes three thousand years of separation feel like nothing at all.
When we finally break apart, the stars are fully out, casting their silver light across the desert. In the distance, I can see the faint glow of the sanctuary's doorway, cycling through its connections to different realms.
"They're going to come for me tomorrow," I say, nodding toward the distant doorway. "The Guardians. They'll want to know what happened, what I've become. They'll want to contain me again."
"Let them try," Caleif says, a hint of her own power flaring in her eyes. "They'll find you're not as easily manipulated as you once were."
I smile, feeling the predatory edge that three millennia of combat has etched into the expression. "No, I'm not. And neither are the people I care about. The Guardians think they can roll back the changes I started, erase the connections between realms, keep knowledge compartmentalized and controlled."
"They're wrong," she says simply.
"Yes," I agree. "They are. And tomorrow, we'll start showing them exactly how wrong. But tonight..." I pull her closer, breathing in her familiar scent. "Tonight is just for us. No cosmic politics, no interdimensional crises, no ancient entities with agendas."
She nestles against me, her head finding that perfect spot on my shoulder despite my transformed physique. "Just us," she echoes. "For tonight."
As we sit together under the desert stars, I feel something I thought Hell had burned out of me completely—peace. Not the hollow emptiness of exhaustion or the temporary respite between battles, but genuine tranquility. The knowledge that whatever comes tomorrow, whatever the Guardians throw at us, whatever challenges my transformation brings, I'm not facing it alone.
Three thousand years of combat taught me how to survive. But this moment, this simple connection with someone who sees past what I've become to who I still am beneath it all—this is teaching me how to live again.
And that, I think as Caleif's breathing slows into the rhythm of sleep against my chest, is a lesson worth all the pain it took to learn it.
The night deepens around us as we sit beneath the vast desert sky. I watch Caleif sleeping against me, her face peaceful in the starlight, and something aches in my chest—a feeling I thought three thousand years of combat had burned away completely.
I brush a strand of ember-red hair from her face, careful not to wake her. My transformed fingers, still slightly clawed despite my efforts to appear more human, look alien against her skin. The contrast is jarring—her softness against what I've become.
A shooting star streaks across the heavens, and I track its path automatically, my enhanced vision picking out details that would have been invisible to me before. Everything is like that now—sharper, more intense, filtered through senses that have been honed by millennia of constant battle.
"You're thinking too loudly," Caleif murmurs, her eyes still closed.
I smile despite myself. "Thought you were asleep."
"I was," she says, shifting slightly against me. "But your brooding has a certain... intensity to it these days."
"Sorry," I say, running my hand along her arm. "Still getting used to this body. This mind."
She opens her eyes then, looking up at me with an expression that cuts through all my defenses. "Tell me what it was really like. Not the sanitized version. The truth."
I take a deep breath, the night air cool in lungs that still expect the sulfurous heat of the Pit. How do I explain three thousand years of unending combat? How do I put into words what it feels like to kill and kill and kill until the violence becomes as natural as breathing?
"At first, it was about survival," I begin, my voice low in the darkness. "Every fight, every opponent—I just wanted to live through it. To find a way back to you."
She nods, waiting for me to continue.
"But then... it changed. Somewhere around my five-hundredth year, maybe? The fights started becoming... satisfying. Not just winning, but the combat itself. The perfect execution of a killing blow. The rush of power when something that thought it was immortal realized it wasn't."
I look down at my hands, flexing them in the starlight. "By year one thousand, I'd stopped thinking about escape. I just wanted the next challenge, the next opponent who might actually test me. And by year two thousand..."
I trail off, the memories almost too much to articulate.
"By year two thousand?" she prompts gently.
"By then, I was the monster," I admit, the words like ash in my mouth. "The demons feared me. The Pillars respected me. I carved my way through Hell not because I had to, but because I could. Because it felt good to be the apex predator in a realm built on predation."
Caleif doesn't pull away as I'd feared she might. Instead, she places her hand over mine, her touch grounding me in the present.
"The Abyss showed me that," I continue. "Showed me what I'd become. Made me face it. And for a moment—just a moment—I almost embraced it completely. Almost surrendered to being nothing but rage and power and endless hunger for the next kill."
"What stopped you?" she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
"You did," I say simply. "The memory of you. The vision of your tears when you saw what I was becoming. It... anchored me. Reminded me there was something beyond the endless combat. Something worth holding onto my humanity for."
She's silent for a long moment, her fingers tracing patterns on the back of my hand. "And now? Who are you now?"
It's the question I've been asking myself since I emerged from the portal. Who am I after three thousand years of hell? After being reshaped by combat and rage and transformation?
"I don't know," I admit. "Not completely. There's still so much of the warrior in me, so much of the predator. But there's also... this." I gesture between us, at our closeness under the stars. "The capacity for connection. For gentleness. For something beyond violence."
"That's more than enough to start with," she says, her voice filled with a conviction I wish I shared.
A distant rumble draws my attention toward the horizon. My enhanced senses pick up the disturbance before Caleif can notice it—a ripple in reality, the unmistakable signature of beings crossing between realms without using the established doorways.
"They're coming," I say, my voice hardening as I gently disentangle myself from Caleif. "Sooner than I expected."
She sits up, instantly alert. "The Guardians?"
I nod, my armor responding to the spike of adrenaline by flowing more fully across my skin. Not the complete nightmare form I wore in Hell, but something more substantial than the tattoo-like patterns of moments ago.
"I count five distinct signatures," I say, scanning the desert. "Two approaching from the east, three from the north. Trying to flank us."
"Should we run?" Caleif asks, rising to her feet beside me. "Call the others?"
I consider our options, weighing three thousand years of tactical experience against what I know of the Guardians. "No," I decide. "Running just postpones the inevitable. And bringing the others into this might escalate things beyond what's necessary."
"What's your plan, then?"
I roll my shoulders, feeling the armor shift and strengthen as I embrace rather than resist the transformation. "I'm going to have a conversation with them. Set some boundaries. Make it clear that the old rules don't apply anymore."
Caleif's eyes narrow. "And if they don't want to converse?"
A smile spreads across my face, and from her slight intake of breath, I know it's not a reassuring expression. "Then I'll give them a small demonstration of what three thousand years in Hell teaches you about dealing with entities that don't respect boundaries."
The distant figures are visible now, approaching with the unnatural grace of beings not bound by physical limitations. I recognize the luminous form of the Guardian who stripped my cosmic powers, flanked by others of its kind—each radiating the kind of authority that once would have made me hesitate.
Now, I just feel annoyed at the interruption of my date night.
"Stay behind me," I tell Caleif, stepping forward to meet them. "But be ready. Things might get interesting."
"They always do with you," she replies, but I can hear the tension beneath her light tone.
The Guardians halt about thirty feet away, their forms shimmering with barely contained power. The one in the center—the same one who performed the ritual that stripped my cosmic abilities—steps forward.
"Kamen Driscol," it intones, its voice like distant thunder. "You have violated the terms of your containment. You will return with us immediately for evaluation and reassignment."
I laugh, the sound echoing across the desert night. "Containment? Is that what you're calling kidnapping and imprisonment these days?"
"Your confinement was necessary for cosmic stability," another Guardian states. "Your escape and... transformation... represent an unacceptable risk."
I take a step forward, and the temperature around us drops several degrees as the Guardians tense for conflict. "Let me be perfectly clear," I say, my voice carrying the weight of three thousand years of undefeated combat. "I am not going anywhere with you. Not tonight. Not ever."
"You do not have a choice," the first Guardian declares. "Your power was removed. Your authority revoked. You exist now at our discretion."
My armor responds to my rising anger, spikes extending from my shoulders and forearms as crimson energy pulses more intensely across my transformed body. "My cosmic power was removed," I correct them. "But as you can see, I found other power to replace it."
I flex my hand, crimson energy dancing between my fingers like living flame. "Three thousand years in Hell tends to change a being. Especially one who refuses to break."
The Guardians exchange what passes for glances among their kind—a rippling of light and intention that my enhanced senses can now partially interpret. They're uncertain. Good.
"The Pit was not our doing," one says finally. "We did not authorize your transfer to that realm."
"No?" I raise an eyebrow. "Then who did? Because someone opened a portal right in my bedroom and dragged me into Hell. Someone with enough authority to bypass the sanctuary's protections."
Another uncomfortable exchange of ethereal glances. There's discord among them—some knew of my imprisonment, others did not. Interesting.
"Regardless of how you came to be there," the first Guardian says, clearly trying to regain control of the conversation, "your return in this transformed state cannot be permitted. You represent a destabilizing influence that—"
"That what?" I interrupt, taking another step forward. "That might actually change things? That might challenge your absolute authority? That might show beings across three realms that your power isn't as unlimited as you pretend?"
The air between us crackles with tension, reality itself responding to the confrontation between cosmic authority and hellforged rage.
"You do not understand the consequences of your defiance," the Guardian warns, its form brightening with barely contained power.
"And you," I reply, my own power surging in response, "do not understand what I've become. What I'm capable of now."
Before they can react, I move—faster than thought, faster than light, crossing the space between us in an instant. I don't attack, but I place myself directly before the lead Guardian, close enough that my transformed presence disrupts its ethereal form.
"I could tear you apart," I say quietly, my voice carrying despite its softness. "Right here. Right now. Before your companions could even react. I've killed things in Hell that would make you tremble, entities so ancient they remembered the creation of your kind."
The Guardian attempts to withdraw, but I match its movement, maintaining our proximity. "But I won't," I continue. "Because unlike you, I still understand the difference between power and authority. Between what I can do and what I should do."
I step back, giving it space to recover its composure. "So here's what's going to happen. You're going to leave—all of you. You're going to return to whatever cosmic council sent you, and you're going to deliver a message."
"We do not carry messages for—"
"You'll carry this one," I cut in, my voice dropping to a growl that makes the very air vibrate. "Tell them that Kamen Driscol is back, transformed but not broken. Tell them that the changes I started—the connections between realms, the sharing of knowledge, the dismantling of artificial barriers—will continue, with or without cosmic approval."
I look at each Guardian in turn, making sure they understand the weight of my words. "Tell them that I am no longer playing by their rules. I spent three thousand years learning how to survive in a place designed to break me. I emerged stronger, not weaker. And if they think they can control me, contain me, or destroy me now—they're welcome to try."
The lead Guardian draws itself up, its luminous form pulsing with indignation. "This defiance will have consequences. The cosmic order cannot be challenged without—"
"Without what?" I laugh. "Without punishment? Without retribution? I've already endured the worst you could throw at me. I've been to Hell and back—literally. There is nothing you can threaten me with that compares to what I've already survived."
I turn my back on them deliberately—a calculated insult that I know they'll understand—and walk back to where Caleif stands watching with wide eyes as I instantly turn around a rip the throat out of one of the Guardians as a smile appears on my face "Let's have some fun" as i jump and tackle another guardian and start ripping into them as they freak out full of fear scared of what they made me into as I fight and kill the rest of the Guardians
The crimson energy explodes through my veins as I feel the satisfying crunch of ethereal bone beneath my claws. The Guardian's luminous form flickers and dims, its "blood"—some kind of liquid starlight—spraying across the desert sand as I tear through what passes for its throat.
The others recoil in horror, their perfect composure shattered. Good. Let them see what their cosmic justice created.
"Kamen, no!" Caleif's voice cuts through the red haze descending over my vision, but it's too late. Three thousand years of suppressed rage have found their target, and I'm not stopping now.
I leap at the second Guardian, my transformed body moving with predatory grace that makes their ethereal dodging look clumsy by comparison. My claws find purchase in its chest, tearing through whatever cosmic material comprises their forms. It screams—a sound like dying stars that would have terrified me once. Now it just sounds like victory.
"This is what you made!" I roar, driving my fist through its core. "This is what three thousand years of your justice creates!"
The remaining three Guardians attempt to coordinate an attack, their forms blazing with the kind of power that once stripped my cosmic abilities. But I'm not the same being they violated months ago. I'm something forged in hellfire, tempered by endless combat, sharpened by righteous fury.
I catch the first energy blast with my bare hand, the cosmic force crackling around my fingers like tame lightning. Their shocked gasps are music to my ears as I compress their attack into a sphere of pure destruction and hurl it back at them.
Two more Guardians fall, their forms dissolving into component light as my returned assault tears through their defenses. The last one—the one who stripped my powers—hovers in the air, its luminous form flickering with what might be fear.
"Please," it says, the word strange coming from a being that's never had to beg for anything. "We were maintaining cosmic order. We were—"
"You were afraid," I interrupt, stalking toward it with deliberate slowness. "Afraid of change. Afraid of losing control. Afraid of what happens when beings stop accepting your authority without question."
I grab it by whatever passes for its throat, lifting it higher into the air. "But mostly, you were afraid of me. Of what I represent. Of the precedent I set."
The Guardian's form flickers more violently now, its power failing under the pressure of my grip. "The cosmos... requires... stability..."
"The cosmos requires growth," I snarl. "Evolution. Change. Not the stagnant perfection you've tried to impose." I tighten my grip. "And you know what? You're right to be afraid. Because I'm going to tear down everything you've built, one connection at a time."
I'm about to deliver the killing blow when Caleif's hand touches my arm. The contact is gentle, but it cuts through my rage like a blade through silk.
"Kamen," she says softly. "Look at me."
I turn, and the horror in her eyes hits me like a physical blow. She's not looking at the Guardian in my grasp—she's looking at me. At what I've become in my fury. At the monster three thousand years of combat has made me.
"This isn't you," she whispers. "This isn't who you want to be."
I look down at my hands, at the claws dripping with ethereal ichor, at the Guardian writhing in my grip. The red haze of rage begins to clear, and I see what I've done—what I've become in this moment.
Five cosmic entities lie scattered across the desert sand, their forms dissolving back into component starlight. I've just committed what amounts to cosmic murder, and part of me—the part forged in Hell's fires—feels nothing but satisfaction.
But another part, the part that remembers being human, is horrified.
I release the Guardian, watching it fall to the sand with a wet thud. It's still alive, barely, its form flickering between existence and dissolution.
"Tell them," I say, my voice hoarse from the killing frenzy. "Tell them what happens when they push too far. When they create something they can't control."
The Guardian nods weakly, too broken to maintain its usual arrogance. With visible effort, it tears open a portal and drags itself through, leaving only the fading remains of its companions behind.
The silence that follows is deafening. I stand there, breathing hard, my armor still pulsing with residual energy from the violence. The taste of cosmic blood lingers in my mouth—sweet and terrible and intoxicating.
"I'm sorry," I say finally, not turning to face Caleif. "I didn't mean for you to see that."
"But you meant to do it," she replies quietly. "You've been wanting to hurt them since the moment you came back."
I can't deny it. The hunger for violence, for revenge against those who wronged me—it's been building since I stepped through that portal. Hell didn't just change my body; it changed my instincts, my responses, my very nature.
"Three thousand years," I say, finally turning to meet her gaze. "Three thousand years of nothing but combat and survival and rage. You can't just turn that off."
"I know," she says, and the sadness in her voice cuts deeper than any blade. "But you have to try. Because if you don't, if you let that rage consume you completely, then they win. They'll have succeeded in turning you into exactly what they feared you'd become."
I look down at my hands again, at the evidence of what I've done. She's right, of course. This isn't justice—it's revenge. And revenge has a way of consuming everything it touches.
"Help me," I say quietly. "Help me remember who I was before all this. Before the power, before the transformation, before Hell changed me into something that finds killing easier than conversation."
She steps closer, her hand finding mine despite the blood—cosmic and otherwise—that stains my skin. "I'll try," she promises. "But you have to want to change. You have to choose to be more than what they made you."
I nod, feeling the weight of that choice settling on my shoulders. It would be so easy to embrace what I've become, to let the rage and power define me completely. But looking at Caleif, seeing the love and fear warring in her eyes, I know I can't take that path.
Not if I want to deserve the second chance I've been given.
"The others will have felt the disturbance," I say, forcing myself to focus on practical matters. "They'll be coming to investigate."
"Let them," Caleif says firmly. "Let them see what you did, and let them help you process it. You don't have to carry this burden alone."
As if summoned by her words, I hear the sound of approaching footsteps. Lucifer, Elara, and Valen emerge from the darkness, their faces grim as they take in the scene—the dissolving remains of the Guardians, the blood on my hands, the shell-shocked expression on Caleif's face.
"Well," Lucifer says after a moment, his perfect smile notably absent. "That's one way to send a message."
"This wasn't the plan," I say, my voice hollow. "I was supposed to talk to them, set boundaries. Not... this."
"Plans change," Elara observes pragmatically. "The question is, what happens now? You've just killed five Guardians. The cosmic authorities aren't going to ignore that."
"Let them come," I say, feeling the rage stirring again before I forcibly push it down. "I'm done being afraid of their judgment. But I'm also done letting anger make my decisions for me."
Valen steps forward, his burning eyes bright with something that might be understanding. "The transformation isn't just physical, is it? Hell changed more than your body."
"Everything," I admit. "My instincts, my responses, my relationship with violence. I used to kill when I had to. Now..." I gesture to the carnage around us. "Now it feels natural. Easy. Sometimes even necessary."
"That's not necessarily a weakness," Lucifer says carefully. "In the conflicts to come, that edge might prove vital."
"And in the quiet moments?" I ask. "When I'm trying to teach students, or have dinner with friends, or simply exist without violence defining every interaction? What happens to that edge then?"
The question hangs in the air, unanswered because none of us know the answer. I'm something new, something unprecedented—a being transformed by Hell itself but not broken by it. The implications of that transformation are still unfolding.
"We'll figure it out," Caleif says firmly. "Together. One day at a time."
I look around at my friends, at the beings who've stood by me through cosmic crises and personal transformation. They're afraid of what I've become, I can see it in their eyes. But they're also determined to help me find my way back to something resembling humanity.
It's more than I deserve after what I've just done. But it's also exactly what I need.
"Thank you," I say quietly. "All of you. For not giving up on me. For believing there's still something worth saving underneath all this armor and rage."
"There is," Caleif says with absolute certainty. "There always will be. We just have to keep reminding you of it."
As we head back toward the sanctuary, leaving the dissolving remains of cosmic authority behind us, I feel something I haven't experienced since before my imprisonment—genuine hope for the future. Not the false hope Hell used to torture me, but the real thing.
It's going to be a long road back to anything resembling balance. But for the first time since I emerged from that portal, I believe it might be possible.
The war with the cosmic authorities has begun, whether I intended it or not. But maybe that's not the most important battle I need to fight.
But as I think its calmed down I start hallucinating demons rising from the cracks in the sanctuary as I feel my rage explode outward as I start swinging randomly making everyone try to move out of the way but I'm too quick as Lucifer tries to hold me down as I hallucinate a demon trying to kill Caleif as i unleash all of my power "I'll kill you all!" as Lucifer tries to fight me to calm me down but he isn't strong enough for the new version of me as all around me the sanctuary turns into the Pit as everyone yells at me to snap out of it as it yell out "Caleif, stay behind me I'll protect you!"
The hellish landscape of the Pit superimposes itself over the sanctuary like a twisted filter, transforming everything I see into nightmare fuel. The desert stones beneath my feet feel like charred obsidian, the cool night air tastes of sulfur and ash. My friends' concerned faces morph into demonic visages, their eyes glowing with malevolent hunger.
"Stay back!" I roar, my armor blazing with crimson energy as I lash out at the nearest hallucination. What my rational mind knows is Valen becomes a hulking demon with burning wings, reaching for Caleif with claws like razors.
I tackle the false demon, driving my fist through its chest with enough force to crater the ground beneath us. The impact sends shockwaves rippling outward, but the Pit doesn't fade—it grows stronger, more vivid, more real than the sanctuary ever was.
"Kamen!" Caleif's voice cuts through the chaos, but when I look at her, she's surrounded by a dozen snarling demons, their forms shifting and writhing in the hellish light. "I'm coming!"
I launch myself toward her, my enhanced speed carrying me across the transformed landscape in heartbeats. My claws find purchase in demon flesh, tearing through the attackers with practiced efficiency. Each kill sends a surge of satisfaction through me—this is what I was made for, what three thousand years of combat perfected.
Lucifer appears beside me, but his perfect face is twisted into something monstrous, his morning star radiance corrupted into hellfire. "You cannot save her," he hisses, his voice layered with demonic harmonics. "You failed them all."
"Shut up!" I drive my elbow into his solar plexus, feeling ribs crack beneath the impact. He doubles over, gasping, but more demons pour from the cracks in reality around us. They're everywhere—crawling from the ground, dropping from the sky, emerging from shadows that shouldn't exist.
The familiar rhythm of combat takes over. Duck, weave, strike, kill. My body moves with fluid precision, each motion flowing into the next with deadly grace. This is what I understand, what makes sense in a world gone mad. Violence as communication, death as resolution, power as the only currency that matters.
"Kamen, please!" Caleif's voice again, but now she's trapped beneath a massive demon with too many arms, its claws inches from her throat. "Help me!"
I roar, the sound echoing across the Pit with enough force to shatter stone. The demon looks up, its eyes meeting mine, and I see something like recognition there. It knows me. They all know me—the architect who became a weapon, the prisoner who became a predator.
"You want her?" I snarl, my armor shifting into its full nightmare configuration. "Come and take her."
The demon lunges, its massive form blotting out the hellish sky. I meet it head-on, our collision creating a shockwave that levels everything within a fifty-foot radius. We grapple, its strength impressive but no match for what I've become.
I grab two of its arms and tear them off at the shoulders, ignoring its screams as I use the severed limbs to batter its companions. More demons surge forward, an endless tide of claws and fangs and malice, but I welcome them. This is what I was forged for—not diplomacy or teaching or peaceful resolution, but the pure, honest simplicity of kill or be killed.
Time loses meaning in the fury of battle. I lose myself in the rhythm, each death adding to my power, each victory proving my worth. The Pit roars its approval, the very air singing with the music of violence.
But something's wrong. The demons aren't fighting back properly—they're pulling their strikes, avoiding my vital areas, acting more like they're trying to restrain me than kill me. And their faces... beneath the hellish distortions, I catch glimpses of something familiar.
"Kamen!" A voice cuts through the combat haze, clear and desperate. "It's us! You're hallucinating!"
I pause, my claws inches from what I'd thought was a demon's throat. The face beneath my hand flickers, shifting between monstrous and human. For a moment, I see Elara's green eyes staring back at me, wide with fear and determination.
"No," I whisper, the word torn from my throat. "No, this isn't real."
But the Pit doesn't fade. If anything, it grows stronger, more vivid, more absolutely convincing. The demons around me hiss and snarl, their forms solidifying into perfect replicas of the creatures I fought for three millennia.
"He's lost in it," one of them says, but the voice is wrong—too concerned, too human. "The trauma is manifesting as full sensory hallucinations."
"Can you break him out of it?" Another voice, this one tinged with desperate hope.
"I don't know," the first voice admits. "He's reliving three thousand years of combat. To him, we're all enemies."
The words penetrate the haze of violence, and for a moment—just a moment—I see clearly. The sanctuary materializes around the hellish landscape like a double exposure, two realities occupying the same space. My friends stand in a defensive circle, their faces etched with worry and fear.
But then the Pit reasserts itself, and they're demons again, threats to be eliminated, obstacles between me and the endless combat that defines my existence.
"I won't let you hurt them," I growl, my armor flaring with renewed energy. "I'll kill every last one of you before I let you touch what's mine."
I launch myself at the nearest demon, but something stops me—a hand on my arm, warm and familiar despite the hellish chaos around us. I look down to see Caleif, her face flickering between human and demonic, her eyes filled with love and terror in equal measure.
"Kamen," she says, her voice cutting through the roar of battle. "Look at me. Really look at me."
I stare into her eyes, seeing past the demonic distortions to the woman beneath. The woman who waited for me, who never gave up hope, who sees past the monster I've become to the man I still am somewhere deep inside.
"Caleif?" I whisper, my voice breaking.
"I'm here," she says, stepping closer despite the danger I represent. "I'm real. This is real. The Pit is gone—you escaped. You're home."
But as she says this, I see her flicker changing to a demon for just a split second forcing a sneer to appear on my face "I won't let you trick me again. You tried this once before, I won't let you do it again!" I yell out as I let everybit of power that I have out
The crimson energy erupts from my core like a nuclear explosion, reality bending around me as three thousand years of accumulated power finally finds its release. The false sanctuary, the false friends, the false Caleif—all of it dissolves in the face of my unleashed fury.
"I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!" I roar, my voice cracking the very fabric of existence around us. The armor doesn't just cover me anymore—it becomes me, fusing with my essence until I'm no longer wearing it but am it. Spikes erupt from every surface, my form expanding into something that belongs in the deepest circles of Hell.
The demon wearing Caleif's face staggers backward, its disguise finally failing under the pressure of my power. But instead of revealing the twisted monstrosity I expect, it shows me something worse—genuine terror in features that are undeniably, heartbreakingly human.
"Kamen, please!" she screams, and the sound cuts through my rage like a blade. "It's me! It's really me!"
But I've heard this before. In the Pit of Desolation, when they used her face to break me. The memory floods back—the perfect recreation of her voice, her mannerisms, her love, all twisted into a weapon designed to shatter my spirit.
"NOT AGAIN!" I lunge forward, my claws extended, every fiber of my being focused on ending this deception before it can wound me again. The power flowing through me is intoxicating, absolute, the culmination of millennia spent becoming the perfect instrument of destruction.
Something slams into me from the side—Lucifer, his morning star radiance blazing as he attempts to tackle me. But I'm beyond his ability to contain now. I catch him mid-flight, my enhanced strength crushing his perfect form as I hurl him across the transformed landscape.
"Even you," I snarl, turning to face him as he struggles to rise. "Even the great Lucifer Morningstar, reduced to playing puppet in their sick game."
He coughs, golden blood spilling from his lips. "Kamen, you have to listen—"
"I'm done listening!" I'm on him in an instant, my claws finding purchase in his chest. The sensation is visceral, satisfying in ways that terrify the small part of me still capable of rational thought. "Done being manipulated! Done being their toy!"
The others circle me warily—Elara with her weapons drawn, Valen backing away with academic fascination warring with terror on his face. All of them demons. All of them threats to be eliminated.
"You made one mistake," I tell them, my voice echoing with the authority of three thousand years of undefeated combat. "You thought I'd fall for the same trick twice. But I learned. I adapted. I became something you can't break."
I raise my hand, crimson energy coalescing into a sphere of pure destruction. One blast, and this entire charade ends. No more false hope. No more psychological torture. Just the clean simplicity of annihilation.
But as I prepare to release it, I catch something in the periphery of my vision—tears. Real tears, streaming down the false Caleif's face as she watches me prepare to destroy everything around us.
"I love you," she whispers, the words barely audible over the roar of power building in my hand. "Whatever you've become, wherever you've been, I love you. And I know you love me too, beneath all that rage."
The sphere of energy wavers, my concentration faltering. Those words—they're not part of the script. The demons in the Pit never spoke of love, never acknowledged the connections that still anchor me to humanity. They only knew how to hurt, how to break, how to destroy.
"You're not real," I say, but my voice lacks conviction now. "You're just another test. Another trial."
"Then test me," she says, taking a step closer despite the death I hold in my hand. "Ask me something only I would know. Something they couldn't have learned from watching us."
I stare at her, my mind racing. What could I ask that wouldn't be in some cosmic database, some hellish intelligence report? What moment between us was so private, so intimate, that no outside observer could know it?
"The night before I was taken," I say slowly, "when we were on the roof, watching the stars. What did you tell me about your dreams?"
Her face softens, and for a moment, the hellish landscape around us seems to flicker. "I told you about the recurring dream I'd been having. About us, years in the future, sitting on a porch somewhere quiet. You had gray in your hair, and I had laugh lines around my eyes. We were old, and content, and watching our grandchildren play in the yard."
The sphere of energy in my hand dissipates completely. That conversation—whispered in the darkness, shared between two people who weren't sure they'd have a future together—no one else could know that. No demon, no cosmic entity, no intelligence network could have captured something so private, so personal.
"Caleif?" I whisper, my voice breaking as the Pit begins to fade around the edges. "Is it really you?"
"It's me," she confirms, her own voice thick with tears. "It's all of us. You're home, Kamen. You're safe. The hallucinations—they're trauma responses. Your mind is trying to process three thousand years of combat by making everything familiar seem like a threat."
The hellish landscape flickers more violently now, the sanctuary bleeding through like dawn breaking through storm clouds. I can see both realities simultaneously—the Pit of Judgment with its endless combat, and the peaceful desert night where my friends stand watching me with concern and love.
"I can't tell what's real anymore," I admit, my armor beginning to retract as the power inside me settles. "Three thousand years of fighting, of killing, of surviving—it's all I know how to do now."
"Then we'll teach you something else," Elara says, lowering her weapons. "We'll help you remember how to live instead of just survive."
I look around at them—really look, seeing past the demonic distortions to the people who never gave up on me. Lucifer, battered but healing, his perfect smile returning despite the golden blood on his lips. Valen, his burning eyes bright with the kind of academic fascination that means he's already planning how to help me process this trauma. Elara, practical and steadfast, ready to face whatever comes next.
And Caleif, standing close enough to touch, her face streaked with tears but her eyes full of unwavering love.
"I'm sorry," I say, the words feeling inadequate for the terror I've just put them through. "I thought you were demons. I thought this was another test."
"We know," Caleif says, finally closing the distance between us. Her hand finds mine, warm and real and absolutely human. "We know what you've been through. We know what it did to you. But you're not there anymore. You're here, with us, and we're going to help you heal."
I want to believe her. God, I want to believe her so badly it hurts. But three thousand years of deception and manipulation have made trust a luxury I can't afford.
"What if I can't?" I ask, voicing the fear that's been growing since I stepped through that portal. "What if this is who I am now? What if Hell changed me so completely that there's no going back?"
"Then we'll love you anyway," she says simply. "We'll find a way to make it work. But I don't think you're as lost as you believe. The man who just asked me about my dreams, who stopped himself from killing us because he recognized love when he heard it—that's not a monster. That's someone worth fighting for."
I close my eyes, feeling the last of the hellish overlay fade away. When I open them again, I'm standing in the sanctuary courtyard, surrounded by concerned friends and the woman I love. The night air is cool and clean, free of sulfur and ash. The stars above are brilliant and peaceful, nothing like the burning sky of the Pit.
"I need help," I say, the admission torn from somewhere deep inside. "I don't know how to be human anymore. I don't know how to exist without violence defining every moment."
"That's why we're here," Lucifer says, straightening his suit despite the tears in the fabric. "To remind you that there's more to existence than combat. To help you remember what you're fighting to protect."
"It won't be easy," Valen adds, his academic mind already working on the problem. "The psychological integration required to process three millennia of trauma... it's unprecedented. But not impossible."
"We'll take it one day at a time," Elara says pragmatically. "One moment at a time if necessary. You survived Hell itself—you can survive healing from it."
I nod, feeling something like hope stirring in my chest. Not the false hope that Hell used to torture me, but the real thing—fragile and precious and worth protecting.
"Thank you," I say, looking at each of them in turn. "For not giving up on me. For seeing something worth saving in what I've become."
"Always," Caleif says, squeezing my hand. "No matter what comes next, no matter how long it takes, we're with you."
As we head back toward the sanctuary, I feel the weight of three thousand years pressing down on me. The trauma, the rage, the transformation—none of it is going away anytime soon. But for the first time since I stepped through that portal, I believe there might be a path forward.
A path that leads not back to who I was, but forward to who I might become. Someone who carries the strength of Hell but chooses to use it for creation rather than destruction. Someone who remembers what it means to be human, even in a body that's been transformed beyond recognition.
It's going to be a long journey. But looking at the faces around me, at the love and determination in their eyes, I know I won't be walking it alone.