The air inside the Evil Eye God's inheritance was thick, not with dust or qi, but with mental energy. It pressed against Dimitri's skull like invisible hands, whispering, prying, tugging at the edges of his mind. The chamber stretched into infinity—black marble ground mirrored by a black marble sky, fractured only by towering obelisks carved with weeping eyes.
Each eye bled fire, not liquid but burning thought-essence, streams of crimson flame that floated upward before curving back down like chains. Their glow etched Dimitri's angular face in scarlet, making his black eyes glimmer with the cold flame of his bonded mantalray core.
"So this is it…" Dimitri's voice was steady, though the fire around him licked at his thoughts like predators. "The domain of the First Gaze."
A low hum answered him—felt, not heard. The obelisks' eyes blinked one by one, and with each blink came a spike of psychic pressure. Faces flickered in the flames: enemies he had slain, rivals he had broken, even the empty-eyed forms of his own clanmates. Each one whispered, in voices that were his own.
"You are weak. You cannot endure. The fire will eat you from the inside."
Dimitri's lips twisted into a smile. "You think I don't know the taste of burning?" He opened his palms. From his eyes burst tongues of crimson fire, snaking outward in trails that coiled around him like serpents. The vitality of his own body hissed as it was consumed, fueling the flames—but his aura only grew sharper, heavier, more suffocating.
The ground shuddered. At the center of the infinite marble floor rose a colossal Eye—blood-red, veined with molten cracks, taller than mountains. It rotated slowly, focusing on him with a weight that could crush stars.
The Evil Eye God's Spirit had awakened.
A ripple of thought carved itself across Dimitri's skull, a command that bypassed language:
Show me your mind. Endure my fire, or burn away.
Dimitri tilted his head back, laughing low and harsh. His black-fire aura coiled tighter, his pupils blazing until his sockets seemed like molten craters.
"Then let's see whose fire consumes who."
The trial of the evil Godeye had begun.
The colossal Eye split open, its pupil a vertical abyss of flame. A beam of red-gold thought-fire lanced downward, shattering the black marble floor into a thousand mirrored shards. Each shard reflected Dimitri's face—yet each face accused him.
"You drained me dry."
"You burned my soul for fuel."
"You murdered me in the dark."
The voices clawed at his mind, illusions so sharp they bled truth. The shards swarmed upward, surrounding him like a thousand floating mirrors, closing him inside a cage of guilt and memory.
Dimitri's grin widened, teeth gleaming in the crimson haze. His chest rose and fell in deliberate rhythm as the fire in his eyes flared, consuming the very vitality from his flesh. His veins glowed faintly beneath his skin, burning like conduits of living magma.
"You think I'll break under reflections? All of them—every enemy, every friend, every wasted corpse—belonged to my fire!"
He raised his hands, and from his palms erupted jets of black-crimson flame. They coiled outward, serpentine, each flame carrying not just heat but will. The mirrored shards screamed as the fire struck them—his screams, their screams, all one. One by one they shattered into ash.
The Evil Eye God answered. The great pupil dilated, and suddenly Dimitri's body stiffened as a wave of psychic weight crashed through him. His bones groaned like iron being bent, his thoughts flooded with alien visions—oceans of blood, infinite skies collapsing, a sun that burned so long it became hollow.
His knees buckled. A trickle of blood ran from his nose. The flames around him sputtered, devouring his own strength.
Yield, the Eye commanded. Burn your mind clean, and you may join me in blindness eternal.
For a moment, his grin flickered. His heart thumped slower. His body was being eaten alive by his own fire.
But then—he inhaled sharply, and a low growl vibrated in his chest.
"No. If this is the fire that consumes me… it'll consume everything else first."
The flames in his eyes detonated outward. Dimitri had activated his blood line power!
Two colossal wings of black-crimson fire unfolded from his back!
Searing through the illusions like a predator tearing silk. The very air caught alight, flames with no fuel, no oxygen, just thought and life force burning raw.
The Evil Eye God's gaze faltered—just for a heartbeat.
Dimitri staggered forward, lips curled in a snarl. His hands blazed, his body screaming as vitality poured away with every step. His shadow melted into a pool of fire behind him, dragging toward the great Eye like a starving maw.
"You want my mind? My soul? Take it—" he roared, voice breaking into a hiss of laughter. "—but you'll choke on the fire that is me!"
The clash ended not in silence but in laughter.
It began as a low tremor in the colossal Eye's pupil, then rolled outward like thunder. The marble floor stitched itself back together, the flaming shards retreating into the void. The psychic pressure eased, though the aftershocks rattled Dimitri's bones.
—Good, the Evil Eye God's thought-voice boomed, a chorus of infinite whispers. You resisted not through denial… but through indulgence. You would burn yourself, your enemies, the world itself, before letting me claim you. That is the will of an Eye worthy of fire.
The vast pupil narrowed, golden-red veins flickering across its surface like rivers of lightning. Then the flames split, peeling apart the black marble into a stairway of smoldering thought-light. Each step bled heat and memory, forming a path upward into a second chamber.
Dimitri wiped blood from his lips, chuckling low and sharp. His legs trembled, but the grin never faltered. "So the god likes my defiance. Good. Then give me more to kill."
The stair carried him upward, each step feeding on a sliver of his vitality. By the time he reached the landing, his breath steamed and his body thrummed with hollow fire. The chamber above was shaped like an eye socket—a hollow amphitheater, its walls weeping molten runes that dripped upward instead of down.
In the center floated another eye, smaller but far more intense. Its iris was black fire, its pupil a pinprick of void. It radiated judgment.
Phase Two, the God's voice pressed against his skull. You have shown me your fire. Now show me your sin.
Dimitri's grin thinned. His black-red flames coiled tighter around his frame, wrapping him like a funeral shroud. "You want sin? Then burn in my penance."
He raised his head, pupils dilating into endless pits of flame. The aura around him collapsed inward, condensing all that devouring fire into his gaze. Blood streaked down his cheeks, but he didn't blink.
The Penance Stare ignited.
The second chamber warped instantly. The molten runes froze mid-drip, the walls melted into mirrors of screaming faces, every one of them dragged into Dimitri's gaze. The floating eye shuddered as if resisting chains, but the black fire of Dimitri's stare wrapped it, forcing its essence to confront itself.
"Look," Dimitri hissed. His voice was iron, cracking under strain. "Look at your own sins. Your own blindness. Your own flames."
The Evil Eye God's chamber thundered, a hundred million voices wailing in chorus. For the first time, the deity reeled.
Dimitri's lips curled back into a snarl, his black-crimson wings flaring. "This is no trial. This is judgment."
The chamber convulsed. The black marble warped, folding inward like an eyelid trying to slam shut. The colossal floating Eye screamed—not in sound, but in pure psychic resonance that tore through thought and marrow alike. Dimitri's skull rang like a struck bell, blood streaming freely from his nose and ears.
Still, he did not look away. His Penance Stare burned hotter, swallowing his own life force, devouring his mind's edges to fuel its judgment. He locked the Eye in its own reflection, forcing it to drown in its own flame.
For the briefest instant—the god faltered.
The infinite pupil blinked, hesitation cracking its divine focus. And in that gap Dimitri laughed, teeth crimson, voice ragged and vicious.
"Even gods flinch when they're forced to face themselves."
The laughter only enraged the chamber further. Molten runes burst like blood vessels across the ceiling, raining rivers of psychic flame. The walls shattered, revealing a void full of other eyes, infinite, watching, screaming.
But then—suddenly—it stopped.
All the flames receded, all the screams folded inward, until only the central Eye remained. Its vast pupil shivered, a golden fissure forming down its center like a cracked gem.
—Enough.
The voice was ragged, strained, but not defeated.
Your fire… your defiance… your judgment. You would even turn my gaze against me. Very well.
The fissure widened. From its burning depths, something dropped—a single fragment of condensed light, the size of a coin, glowing with black-red flame. It struck the floor before Dimitri with a hiss.
"Take it," the God commanded. A fragment of my own essence—my Unblinking Sigil. With it, your Penance Stare no longer burns only yourself. It will force all who meet it to confront the fire of their soul. Few will survive such truth.
Dimitri bent, fingers trembling as he picked up the fragment. It burned his skin, searing runes into his palm, but he never winced. His grin widened into something feral, eyes blazing as the sigil sank into his flesh and merged with his blood.
For the first time, the God's voice was quiet. Almost… curious.
You are not a supplicant. Not a slave. You are… an inheritor. If you do not burn out before the end, perhaps you will see the true Eye, the core from which all flames are born.
The walls parted, a stairwell spiraling upward into a higher void, dripping with threads of psychic fire. The path to the third floor awaited.
Dimitri rolled his shoulders, black wings of flame twitching in the heat. His grin cut like a knife.
"Good. Then open your eyes wider, God. Because I'll burn the truth out of everything you hide."
And with the Unblinking Eye Sigil seared into his hand, Dimitri ascended.
The stairwell burned away into blackness. Not a chamber this time—just void. A horizonless expanse where the only light came from floating pupils of molten red, each watching him with predatory patience. The air stank of blood and brimstone.
In the center of that endless dark floated the Evil Eye God's core—a great, lidless pupil, cracked from his Penance Stare but far from broken. Its voice coiled through the void like venom.
"You have burned your body. You have judged me. But my true power is not flame, nor sight—it is betrayal. To inherit my soul, you must prove you can sever loyalty without hesitation. To betray is to dominate."
Dimitri's grin flickered. He was ready for pain, fire, madness—but this was… different. The void stirred.
Five figures stepped out of the shadows. Familiar. Intimate.
His clan-brother, who once pulled him from a burning ruin.
His mother, eyes wet, hands outstretched.
His first lover, face framed in black fire.
His teacher, scarred and grim.
And finally—his own reflection, smirking with the same crimson eyes.
None spoke. They only waited.
The Evil Eye's laughter split the void. "One must burn. Choose, or be trapped here forever."
The illusions were perfect. He could feel the weight of their presence, the warmth of his mother's hand trembling as if she were alive. His teeth clenched. The mind flame licked along his veins, whispering.
"Tricks," Dimitri spat, but his voice cracked.
The Evil Eye God laughed again, "Tricks? No. This is your loyalty, made flesh. Betrayal is not easy. That is why it is power."
The ground beneath him erupted in fire, forming a burning circle around the six of them. The walls of flame pressed closer, forcing him into confrontation.
Dimitri's hand trembled, mind flame leaking from his palm. His gaze flicked between them—the brother who saved him, the mother who raised him, the lover who betrayed him first, the teacher who shaped his path, and himself.
His grin sharpened, though blood leaked from the corner of his lips.
"Then it's simple. I betray the one I trust most."
He turned. Met his reflection's eyes.
And without hesitation, unleashed the Penance Stare at himself.
The void howled. The reflection screamed as its flesh burned away, revealing a mass of writhing, molten eyes beneath. His clone dissolved in fire and screams, until only ash and light remained.
The Evil Eye God was silent for a long time. Then, its laughter came low, booming, shaking the void.
"You chose to betray yourself?
You betrayed your own survival, your own future, your own certainty. That… that is true betrayal. You are worthy."
From the ashes of the reflection rose a black, lidless orb, its surface etched with runes that bled molten red. It pulsed with both life and malice—the Demonic Eye of Heaven, a relic that seemed to peer directly into the marrow of the world.
It floated into Dimitri's chest, searing itself into his sternum. His body convulsed as new power coursed through him—his mind flame reshaped, sharper, more terrible, a gaze that could unmake not just flesh or spirit, but trust itself.
The Eye God's voice dropped to a whisper, like a serpent coiling behind his ear.
"Carry it well, inheritor. The Demonic Eye does not see truth… it creates it. And those who look into it will betray themselves for you."
Dimitri staggered, clutching his chest, blood and laughter spilling from his mouth.
"Perfect," he rasped. "Now the world itself will burn for me."
The void split, gears of burning light unfolding to reveal a stairway spiraling further up. His trial was not over. But now he bore the Demonic Eye of Heaven, and with it, the authority of betrayal.
The stairs twisted into infinity, lined with flame-eyes that blinked as he passed. Each step made his bones groan as though the weight of the Demonic Eye was dragging him deeper into damnation rather than higher.
At last, the stairway ended—not in a room, but on a jagged cliff of blood red ruby hanging in a void of stars. The air was thick with smoke and whispering voices.
A colossal throne carved from black basalt dominated the cliff, and seated upon it was the Cyclops Master—a giant draped in chains of molten iron, one arm ending in a claw, the other in a staff shaped like a broken spear. His single eye was a blazing abyss, deeper than night, rimmed with crackling red flame.
When it fell on Dimitri, the sheer weight of it forced him to his knees. His ribs screamed. His mind flame flared desperately just to keep his soul from splitting.
"So," the Cyclops rumbled, his voice like a hammer on a tombstone, "the boy who fed himself to fire has come to me."
Dimitri snarled, forcing himself upright, blood dribbling from his nose.
"I don't kneel."
The Cyclops laughed, low and cruel, the sound making the stars in the void flicker.
"You already did. But I will forgive it."
He leaned forward, and Dimitri felt that abyssal eye digging through him, scraping across his marrow. "I am Argyros the One-Eyed Flame, last heir of the Evil Godeye. I burned my tribe, I burned my lovers, I burned my world to see the truth. And the truth is this—loyalty is weakness. Betrayal is ascension."
His chained hand rose, and with a flick, sparks of crimson fire fell from the void above. They hissed as they struck the obsidian floor, forming burning glyphs that coiled like serpents.
"You hold the Demonic Eye of Heaven, child. A relic meant for one who will not simply inherit—but cultivate the evil eye path. I will teach you to make betrayal a weapon sharper than any sword, heavier than any hammer. To burn trust itself, and to feed that flame with the souls of the faithful."
The staff in his claw tapped the floor. The glyphs ignited, winding around Dimitri's legs, crawling up his spine like living fire.
Dimitri's grin stretched wide, even as his flesh blistered.
"Then stop talking, old monster. Teach me how to betray the heavens themselves."
The Cyclops leaned back, his abyssal eye glimmering. "Good. You have the tongue of a serpent already. Now I will make you its fangs."
The void rippled. A gate of burning eyes split open behind the throne, revealing a shadowed coliseum filled with chained spirits—betrayers, betrayeés, oath breakers, all screaming, all aflame.
"Step through, inheritor. Your cultivation of the Evil-Eye Path begins."