The conversation with Satan had ended, but her words still echoed in Bakuzan's head like invisible chains. He walked for a long time in the dark ground, his steps resonating in the quiet of a half-light world. Finally, he stopped. The sky barely brightened, the first pale dawn tearing the remnants of night.
He slowly raised his head, his gaze fixed on this sky where darkness and light still clashed. Then, in a decisive gesture, he took from his cloak a black stone that seemed to absorb all clarity: the sealed essence of Nihlorgue.
Without hesitation, he shattered it in his hand.
An ancient breath filled the air, both icy and burning at once. From the shadow sprang a colossal dragon, serpentine in form, whose red eyes' glare was like two cursed suns. Its body was not flesh but void, a living shadow that wound around Bakuzan like an eternal protective embrace.
— Master… hissed its ancestral voice, deep as a chasm. You have made a huge offer to Satan. Offering your essence in exchange for mere truths… it is a dangerous gamble.
The dragon lifted its head toward the horizon where day opened up:
— I am sorry that my own sacrifice was not enough.
Bakuzan did not answer immediately. He searched in his cloak, pulling out a strange watch forged of chains. When he opened it, it was not hands he found there, but small frozen images. Fragments of a broken past: Sakolomé, his sister Salomé, Bakuran, his father, his mother… and himself.
The dragon narrowed its fiery eyes toward the pendant, its voice rumbling like softened thunder:
— Your familyMiss you, master?
Bakuzan closed the watch with a slow gesture, his fingers trembling on the cold metal.
— I will not content myself with crying for them. I will change all the rules… so that they rest in peace at last. I will resurrect Father… I will bring Sally back. No matter what it costs me. But before that… I must save Samaël, at the heart of Visnü.
He bowed his head, his words heavier still than his thoughts:
— Yet… reaching Visnü is an impossible dream. How can a being from afterbirth claim to join what preceded origin itself? I am but a shadow of posterity, facing a state that denies all succession…
The dragon, silent for a moment, answered in a calm voice, like the eternal rumble of the abysses:
— Nothing is impossible, master. To transcend is to adopt new essences. If a being older than origins decided to uplift you, then it could offer you a share of its own essence. And thus… you would become like him.
Bakuzan nodded, his eyes clouding with a cold resolve.
— Indeed… but who could offer me such a hand? Samaël… perhaps. Since I seek to free him, he is the only one to whom I could entrust this weight. But… how to contact him, when he is sealed in the roots of Visnü?
His eyes suddenly widened, a thought rising like a blade:
— Unless… it is Lilith. She could—
But his features hardened at once. His gaze drifted into the newborn dawn, heavy with shadows.
— No… her bond with Azazel complicates everything. Each step toward her would be a step toward a trap.
A heavy silence followed, the dragon enveloping him in its immense shadow, as Bakuzan murmured, almost to himself:
— Everything is so… complicated.
Bakuzan, with eyes closed, let his thoughts sink into a depth deeper than the surrounding silence. He knew that to reach what he sought, he must surpass Madhurya itself, cross a threshold no afterborn being should cross. And yet, a burning idea, like a forbidden spark, suddenly flashed through his mind.
— Nihlorgue… I have an idea.
The dragon-serpent of the void bowed its colossal head slowly, its red eyes blazing like two abysses. Its voice, grave and ancestral, vibrated in the dark air.
— Which one, master?
Bakuzan lifted his head, gazing at the paleening sky with the first light. His breath became firm.
— Satan… can you hear me?
The name resounded in the void like a forbidden incantation.
— If you are there, then I would need you to lift me beyond all I know. You said you wanted to observe me, to probe my purpose… So participate, show me you truly want to see me cross the boundaries. Come. Raise me.
— Master, no! cried Nihlorgue, its voice rolling like a cavernous thunder. Do not call her that! You do not know what you risk...
But the air in front of them twisted already. A black and white vapor wound on itself, forming a silhouette. The mists parted, revealing a presence that made the shadows falter.
There stood Satan. Her long white, serpentine hair writhed as if animated by an invisible breath. Her red eyes, shining like fallen suns, fixed on Bakuzan with an almost unbearable intensity.
A smile brushed her lips.
— Well… she said in a voice both soft and relentless, you finally dare. You say you need my help to ascend, do you not?
Bakuzan did not flinch, not even before this incarnation of the abyss. His voice, grave but clear, cut through the air.
— You are a creature beyond the Madhurya. Isn't that so?
Satan inclined her head slightly, her eyes seeming to pierce Bakuzan's soul.
— Exactly. A faintly amused glint crossed her gaze. What do you expect from me?
Nihlorgue, tense, dared not utter a sound. The air vibrated with a presence so dense that it seemed the universe itself held its breath.
Satan took a step, or perhaps an illusion of one: her being did not move, it asserted itself.
— I have crossed the Madhurya. I have walked in the Viraya. I have seen what precedes and what follows. I have drunk from the sources that even gods fear to touch. All of that was the legacy of Lucifer… but I made it a betrayal.
She raised her hand, as if brushing an invisible memory.
— Offering the apple to Eve… That was the price. The absolute sin, not a mistake, but a key. A choice that broke the chains and forged my eternal name.
Her eyes narrowed, fixing Bakuzan.
— So tell me… why would you want my help, you who claim to rewrite the rules? Why would you deserve to be elevated by a hand that plunged humanity into the abyss?
Silence fell again, heavy, vibrant, as if every word of Satan still echoed in the stones, in the air, in the very veins of Bakuzan.
Bakuzan closed his eyes for a moment, letting his mind brush against a chasm no thought could cross. Viraya...
That name alone vibed like a prohibition. It wasn't a place, nor even a state one reached by ascent. Viraya was not "higher" than the Madhurya, it was "other," radically.
He thought: Madhurya seems infinite, its layers shine like sacred mirrors, its laws shake the gods themselves… But before Viraya, all that fades, like a shadow before light.
Viraya welcomed neither concepts, nor laws, nor entities born below origin. Nothing belonging to after-origin could touch its surface. It was the unattainable summit, but not like a distant mountain: rather like an existence that negates any attempted approach by its very nature.
The beings of Viraya do not even perceive what we call "reality." For them, Madhurya is only an incoherent dream, a fiction the dreamer has forgotten.
Bakuzan took a deep breath. This was not domination, not a hierarchy of power. It was a fracture in being. Viraya did not crush inferiors by force — it annulled them by indifference.
He murmured inwardly, almost like a prayer:
Here lies the true supremacy of states... not conquest, but total transcendence. What Viraya is, nothing below is, nor could even pretend to imagine.
Bakuzan reopened his eyes, his pupils bright as if they reflected an invisible abyss. He murmured to himself, his voice almost carried away by the night wind:
— Viraya… an absolute detachment from the second zone of the Dream, where each thing receives its identity… If I cannot reach it, then I will at least dominate the Madhurya. But for that… I must face it.
He clenched his fists, a glint of defiance crossing his gaze.
— Isissis…
At that name, fragments of memory sprang forth, clear as lightning in the dark.
A few years ago, I saw it. It presented itself to me as the very incarnation of the Madhurya's forces. Was it the true absolute? I do not know. But it wore that guise, and that power. It wanted to test me… yet it was diverted by Sakolomé's uncontrollable ascent. So, it told me it would first test her, show her true strength, then come back to crush me.
Bakuzan narrowed his eyes, his breath growing heavy.
But that day, I sensed a bad premonition. As if his path would not reach its end. So, foresighted, I made a pact with him: if things went wrong, he would be reborn through me, as through a portal. And when the time came… I would break this seal and face him myself.
He drew a deep breath, his inner voice hammering the truth:
Isissis, embodiment of the Madhurya's forces, could not defeat Satan. For Satan is detached from meta-concepts, and she manipulates not mere expressions… but essences themselves. That is what places her beyond reach.
Returning to the present, Bakuzan finally raised his head toward her.
— Satan… I want you to lend me your power.
A heavy silence fell, broken by a light breeze. Satan frowned, her face half-shadow, half-flame. Her voice lowered, soft but grave:
— You would not thusly prefer to be elevated to surpass the Madhurya?
Bakuzan fixed his gaze on her, unmoving:
— Of course I would. But if I accept your elevation… you will ask me for more still. So I prefer to evolve by my own hands.