Xin pressed his palm against Belial's chest. Ether spilled from him in a faint stream of dust, sinking into torn flesh and broken bone. He guided it with precision, stitching tissue, filling the shredded lung, forcing life back into a body that had almost slipped away. Belial's chest stirred, a fragile rise and fall, but it was enough to keep him anchored. Sweat traced Xin's temples, his breath shallow as he pushed himself to hold the weave together.
It wasn't only the body he was trying to mend. His heart wavered. He didn't know if he was repairing wounds or trying to restore something long fractured between them.
The poison resisted, twisting against his work. It fed on the healing, turning his natural ether into fuel, spreading deeper. Xin realized another current lingered inside Belial, a foreign ether, sharp and intricate, belonging to something higher. It would not fuse with his own, but it slowed the poison, kept it from claiming everything. With it, he could heal only in fragments, sealing what the corruption had not yet consumed.
He had seen too many die here. Too many hopes lost to betrayal and error. Letting Belial fall would feel the same. Worse even...
Belial had a slight grin appear on his face
Oh dear Dumbass, your softheartedness is going to cost you one day, maybe today. but i do thank you for this freebie.
Then a voice cut through the silence.
"Stop."
Toren's hand gripped Xin's wrist, firm and unyielding. His eyes, sharp as blades, pinned Xin where he knelt. His ghostly tattoo Toren's face was a mask of resolve, his jaw set, his gaze unwavering.
Xin frowned, his hand still pressed to Belial's chest. "He needs this. If I stop now, he could die. The wounds are too deep."
"He needs to speak," Toren interrupted, his voice like a hammer striking stone. "Healing his body is one thing. But we need to know where he stands. You said it yourself. He cares only for himself. If that's true, then saving him without a plan is a waste of energy."
Belial stirred, his jaw tightening. He tried to push himself up, his body trembling from the damage that still lingered beneath Xin's touch. His gaze moved between them, gold flecks in his eyes catching the torchlight like embers. Even half-broken, he radiated defiance, a predator caged but not tamed. His breath came in shallow rasps, each one a testament to the pain he endured.
Toren leaned closer, his voice low but firm. "If he helps us, fine. If he turns on us, we die. You know what he's capable of. We can't afford to be naive."
Xin hesitated.
The thought of forcing Belial into anything twisted his gut. It was wrong. It went against every fiber of his belief. He had seen chains, seen what power and contracts did to men who lost their freedom. He had watched souls wither under the grip of control, their spirits crushed by those who wielded it. Xin had sworn he would never become that kind of person, never be the one to bind another's will.
But Toren's voice pulled him back to the present, cold and unyielding.
"We need a contingency. The only way to keep this balance is through an ether contract."
Xin stiffened, his breath catching. "You're asking me to bind him."
"I'm telling you," Toren said, his eyes darkening, "to protect the rest of us. You knew him once. You know what he's capable of...What he knows, An ether contract doesn't bend to will or trickery. It binds to the universe itself. If he betrays us, the contract punishes him. If he tries to escape it, it tears him apart. We survive."
Xin's throat tightened. He glanced at Belial, who had managed to sit upright now, propped against the blood-smeared stone. His breath rattled, but his expression was anything but weak. His eyes burned with defiance, as though he already knew where this conversation was heading. The air around him seemed to hum with his presence, a latent power that even his wounds couldn't dim.
Toren continued, his voice steady but grim, "we can't gamble with wild pieces on the board. You will bind him. For their sake. For ours."
Xin forced himself to breathe. The word bind tasted like ash on his tongue. Forcing people, stripping them of choice, enslaving them to rules they did not accept, it was everything he despised. He had built his life on trust, on the belief that people could rise without chains. He had fought alongside Shun to prove that freedom could be a strength, that loyalty could be earned through faith rather than force. But now, faced with Belial's unyielding gaze and Toren's unrelenting logic, that belief felt fragile, like a flame flickering in a storm.
The silence pressed on him, filled with the faint crackle of distant fire and the metallic tang of blood on the stone floor. Belial's eyes narrowed, as though reading Xin's thoughts. His lips curled into a bitter line, a sneer that carried both pain and contempt.
"I refuse," Belial muttered, his voice low but sharp, cutting through the tension. "I refuse to your pawn." He clenched his teeth, his body trembling, whether from the half-healed wounds or sheer rage, Xin couldn't tell. Each word was a challenge, a spark threatening to ignite the fragile balance in the room.
Toren stepped forward, his presence looming like a wall. "It's survival when the alternative is letting you tear us apart from the inside. I've seen your kind before. Your power comes at the cost of souls. I won't gamble lives on the hope that you'll change."
Belial spat on the ground, his eyes never leaving Toren's. "So it's enslave or die. That's the choice you're giving me?"
The words echoed in the chamber, each one heavy with accusation. Xin's hands trembled, his heart pounding in his chest. He hated this. He hated every part of it. But Toren's voice carried truth, cold and unbending. He really dint know Belial the real him...he doesn't know his past where he came from even if Belial is his actual name...Without control, Belial was a knife in the dark. One mistake, one whim, and he could carve through their fragile chances of survival. The survivors depending on them, their faces haunted Xin, each one fragile, each one expecting him to be the shield that carried them through this cursed Stage.
He clenched his fists, the ether stirring in his veins, pulsing like a storm waiting to break. The air grew heavy, charged with the weight of his decision. He could feel the eyes of both men on him, Toren's unyielding and Belial's defiant, each demanding something he wasn't sure he could give.
"N-nero," Xin said, his voice tight with conflict. "I don't want this. But Toren's right. We can't risk you turning on us."
Belial's laugh was hollow, cruel, stripped of mirth. "I gave you power and my trust and this is what i get? Fine, Risk me. If you believe in choice, then risk me. Or are you no different from the ones you despise?"
The words stabbed deep, piercing the core of Xin's resolve. He wanted to believe in choice, in freedom. He wanted to believe people could stand without chains. Yet He saw death if he hesitated.
His voice shook when he spoke. "I'm sorry."
Belial's body tensed, his teeth gritting as the ether pressed into him. His eyes flared with raw fury, gold flecks burning like stars in a storm. He didn't scream, didn't beg, but his gaze was a blade, cutting into Xin with every ounce of his defiance.
"You'll regret this," he hissed, his voice low and venomous.
Xin's chest felt tight, his heart heavy with the cost of his choice. He had betrayed his own ideals, traded trust for control, and the weight of it threatened to crush him.
"I know..."
Toren finally broke the silence, his voice calm but resolute. "Good. Now we move forward."
Xin looked at him, then back at Belial, then at his own hands. the ether in the air formed a link...now all that was left was to Concretize it the words were already implanted in their heads now all that was left was to agree to the conditions...
There had been no choice.
It was enslave or die.