Chapter 18
The Legacy of Ouroboros (II)
The cavern smelled faintly of sulfur, smoke curling from cracks in the stone. Maverick sat in silence, his eyes half-lidded, the taste of iron still fresh in his mouth. His chest rose and fell with steady calm, as though the blood he had coughed out moments ago was nothing more than a trivial inconvenience.
But Voldrack had seen too much to call it trivial.
"You pushed too far." The demon's voice rumbled low, like distant thunder. His dark, battle-scarred face was taut with unease. "Your Sea of Consciousness isn't like the others'. It doesn't expand—it devours. If you keep forcing it, you'll collapse. Or worse… something else will notice."
Maverick's gaze flicked to him, cold and dismissive. "Then let it notice."
"You fool!" Voldrack snapped. "Hell is full of predators older and hungrier than you can imagine. If they sense how unnaturally you're growing, they'll tear you apart before you ever leave this pit."
Maverick said nothing.
From the shadows, Zaratul chuckled softly. The serpent's humanoid form leaned lazily against the cavern wall, golden eyes glinting like molten coins. "Always the cautious one, Voldrack. But tell me—did you see the change in his Sea? Did you feel it?"
Voldrack's glare sharpened. "I felt instability. I felt danger."
"And I," Zaratul countered smoothly, "felt inevitability. His mother left that book for him. Do you think she wasted her final strength on a method that would destroy her son? No. She carved a path. A merciless, brutal path—but one made for him. He is Ouroboros. Fate bends to him, not the other way around."
Maverick closed his eyes, shutting out their bickering. He did not need their voices. The memory of the glowing book still pulsed inside him like a second heartbeat. The fragmented method, though incomplete, had revealed its essence:
Breakthroughs were not ascension. They were annihilation. One did not climb a ladder—one shattered the walls that caged the soul.
Pain and destruction were the price. He would pay it.
Days passed.
Maverick trained relentlessly in the cavern, his body and soul balancing on the knife's edge of collapse. His control over the elements sharpened with unnatural speed. Flames crackled in his palm before vanishing into frost. Lightning arced across his fingertips, grounding itself in shadows of necromantic mist. Even gravity itself bent slightly when he willed it, the stones beneath him cracking under unseen weight.
Demons who passed too close to the cavern felt it. Whispers spread like fire: a new power was rising, and rising fast.
Voldrack's unease grew with each rumor. He remembered the battlefield where he had nearly perished, the endless hunger of greater demons that stalked Hell's depths. He had dragged Maverick into this place for revenge, for utility—but now, he was beginning to wonder if he had unleashed something far worse.
Zaratul, however, only smiled, his forked tongue flicking behind perfect white teeth. "They will whisper, they will fear. That is the natural order."
One evening, as Maverick ended another session of soul-forging, Zaratul approached him. His tone was casual, but his eyes were sharp.
"You've seen it, haven't you? The corpses."
Maverick did not turn. "Yes."
"Then you understand."
"What do you mean?" Voldrack cut in, arms folded, suspicion heavy in his tone.
Zaratul tilted his head toward Maverick, ignoring the older demon. "Our return requires vessels. The flesh must be intact enough to house us. Broken souls cannot reattach to shattered shells. But three young corpses, newly dead, freshly drowned…"
"…they're perfect," Maverick finished flatly.
Voldrack's jaw clenched. "You're suggesting we crawl into the rotting skins of mortals?"
Zaratul's grin widened. "Not suggesting. Stating. It is the only path back. Unless you would prefer to linger in Hell until the angels sniff us out and erase us."
The tension between them snapped like dry twine. Voldrack's hand twitched toward the hilt of the jagged blade at his side. But Maverick raised a hand, silencing them both.
"The corpses are mine," he said, his voice steady and final. "I saw them. They belong to me."
Neither Voldrack nor Zaratul argued.
That night, Maverick sat once more in meditation. His Sea of Consciousness stirred with restless energy, as though it too awaited what was to come. The glowing book's instructions whispered in his memory, their fragments piecing together a truth too vast to ignore.
Shatter the walls.
The surface of his Sea grew unnaturally still. Not a ripple stirred.
Maverick opened his eyes in the real world. His lips curved in the faintest smile. "It's time."
Voldrack's brows furrowed. "Time for what?"
"Breakthrough."
The word sent a chill through the cavern.
Zaratul straightened, his grin feral. "At last."
Voldrack's face darkened. He had seen countless demons attempt breakthroughs—most failed, their Seas collapsing in on themselves, their souls unraveling into nothing. For Maverick to attempt it now, so soon… it was madness.
But Maverick's mind was already elsewhere. Within his Sea of Consciousness, the water had gone utterly calm. A great silence pressed in, suffocating, inevitable. He could feel it—the barrier that penned him, invisible yet immense.
He would not wait decades to scrape at it like the others. He would destroy it now.
In the cavern, his body trembled, faint cracks spreading in the stone beneath him. Power leaked out in waves, a pressure so dense that Voldrack instinctively stepped back.
"He'll kill himself," Voldrack muttered, teeth clenched.
"No," Zaratul whispered, his eyes gleaming gold. "He'll kill the wall."