Unyielding glares clashed in the smoke-thick air, defiance and finality unspoken as Malum remained unmoved before the Angel of Death. Though the flames of the burning world licked all around, icy tension locked the pair—Malum's stance unwavering, his fists at his sides, eyes glittering with fire and something unfathomably ancient.
Those mirrored flames burned in his eyes, searing with purpose. Yet his voice cut cold and sharp through the haze.
"Just send me to Moloch. I don't need your opinion. I do what I want to do."
His words, marked by a biting undertone, hung in the brittle air. Ezrael, the Angel of Death, paused. The stillness that followed dripped with judgment, yet the angel remained loftily undisturbed.
"If you're set on returning to hell, then so be it. If you fail to return, it saves me effort."
With a motion of its slender hand, a radiant membrane shimmered into existence, catching the flicker of the fires. Ezrael unfurled the famous Soul List—a spectral scroll tighter than the chains that bound the fallen. Names flowed across its surface, glowing softly, among them Malum's recent victims—the tally ever-growing.
It was begrudging, even for one as jaded as Ezrael, to see Malum's descent from dormant Deity of Calamity to frenzied executioner, spurred by his own agenda and amusement. The memory of their first encounter twisted in Ezrael's mind—a young woman's third eye open, her gift rare enough to see through the world's lies, to see Malum in all his monstrous reality, torment, and hunger alike.
But since that meeting, Malum had become unpredictable—a force of chaos unbound. His actions left ripples, souls lost in the wake of his elation and wrath. Ezrael wondered if it was that very connection—Ene's ability to perceive the veiled divinities—that forged this bond. That allowed her to see, and in seeing, be devoured.
Yet musings on the human soul were not the Angel of Death's concern. Ezrael returned to the task.
"By your record, souls lost to you have sharply increased. Return to Hell, and never emerge again. That is where you belong."
The command was unrelenting as a blade. For the Angel of Death, to confine Malum inside hell was both punishment and convenience—crime and consequence united. With Malum's sins, a place among the damned was only fitting.
A mocking scoff escaped Malum's lips, his displeasure unmasked; a scowl darkened his features, the resolve in his eyes steel-hard as ever.
"Shut up. Just open the damned gate."
With a world-weary sigh, Ezrael traced a circle in the air, and reality began to unravel. The ruined building and its heat-stained walls blackened and dissolved, replaced by a velvet darkness that consumed all light. Dread seeped from every shadow—a silence so profound it pressed on Malum's mind, threatening to suffocate.
The earth below trembled. Twisted vines, blacker than pitch and bristling with razors, erupted, writhing around a shape that forced its way up from the ground. With a groan and an earthquake's fury, a monumental gate crawled into view, dust billowing around it.
Its stones were cracked and ancient, engraved with guttural warnings in languages dead before time, yet their meaning pressed against Malum's skull like a migraine from another life.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.
The vines coiled tighter until the gate shuddered, stone grinding against stone, until the locks split with an agonizing screech.
From the other side of those weathered stones, Hell whispered. Oily heat and the scent of burned souls curled through the growing cracks as lost voices surged—a symphony of agony and despair, pulling at the edges of sanity. Malum inhaled, the smoke and brimstone burning his lungs, but he would not falter.
Ezrael turned, face unreadable but eyes fixed, perhaps for the last time.
"This is but the path to the threshold. Beyond lies Moloch. Are you truly ready?"
Malum's answer was unspoken, carved instead in the line of his jaw and the ice in his gaze. He nodded once, the fury in his heart a weapon he forged anew with every beat. He did not blink, did not flinch.
The gate opened slowly—a maw to an abyss. Malum felt the world drop away as he crossed the threshold. Sweat beaded on his brow—not from fear, but scorching heat that seemed to sear the very soul. Echoes of pain and anger clawed at his mind. The shadows writhed, forming monstrous shapes hungry for his resolve.
Inside, the ground twisted beneath every step, reshaping with a grotesque, living mockery of reality. Rivers of fire snaked through canyons of bone. No sky, only an oppressive ceiling of roiling cinders. Malum pressed forward as hollow eyes and snarls greeted him from prisons of molten rock, the damned watching, wishing—hoping for deliverance or simply another to share in their misery.
And from the horizon, thunder rolled as the air grew impossibly heavy. Each heartbeat hammered as a tolling bell. Suddenly, the darkness exploded with radiance—a sunless, searing light as a vast figure descended.
Moloch, the Gatekeeper, emerged: a giant swathed in armor fused with flame, molten eyes burning with ancient fury. Chains looped across his chest, throbbing with hell's energy. His voice struck like an avalanche.
"KARITA! Only the weighed may pass. Only the damned who dare stand against fate or pride."
He raised his arm, and the world shuddered.
"Face me, Calamity, or return to your depths as slave to your own torment."
Malum met those burning eyes and, summoning every inch of his unbroken will, replied.
"I will carve my path through flame or shadow. I am here for my purpose, and nothing—god or demon—will stand before me."
The guardian's enraged glare pierced like fire. Moloch stood unyielding, embodying the full authority and dread of the Gatekeeper of Hell. Silence hung thick, his very presence asserting command over the infernal domain. No words could sway him; only submission or defiance remained before his relentless gaze.
The ground split as flames soared, the battle cry lost beneath writhing, shrieking winds. The Gate to Hell was open, and the test had begun.