Pain came first.
His body wasn't supposed to exist anymore. Muscles that hadn't moved in centuries screamed as they reformed. His lungs sucked air in like molten iron.
It wasn't just pain — it was memory.
A blade piercing his ribs. Her eyes — cold. His hand reaching, shaking. Then nothing.
Until now.
His fingers twitched like they didn't belong to him. His spine arched. Every nerve screamed. It felt like being forged — muscle knitting over bone, fire replacing blood.
He gasped awake on his back — throat raw, chest heaving.
The world was wrong.
Above him: a sky of glowing glyphs and floating screens. Blue mana sigils blinked across a fractured skyline. Arcane traffic soared between towers etched with moving spellwork.
Raven blinked. It wasn't just the light. It was the noise.
Screams. Engine roars. The buzz of scanner drones.
A child ran past him. He wore a coat glowing with enchantments and sneakers that hovered slightly off the ground.
The boy didn't even look at him.
Where the fuck…
He sat up slowly, bones creaking like rusted steel. His hand braced against stone — rough, cracked, soaked with what smelled like burnt mana.
His breath caught when he saw it.
His palm glowed faintly with a black sigil that pulsed like a heartbeat. Shadows twitched at his fingertips like living veins.
His power wasn't asleep. It was waiting.
"Easy," a voice said, smooth and honeyed.
Lilith.
She stood at the mouth of the alley, arms folded, black shadow-silk wrapped around her like a lover. Her skin still glowed faintly with divine aftershock. Her eyes — abyssal, knowing — were locked on him like a hungry queen admiring a freshly forged weapon.
"You lasted longer in the void than most do in life," she said. "But you're not done."
Raven forced himself to his feet. The world tilted — too much energy, too little control. He steadied himself against a mana-stained wall.
"Where are we?" His voice was hoarse.
Lilith's lips curved. "Halcyon Verge. It is a surface city. We are at the topside scum sector. Beautiful, isn't it?"
He stepped out beside her — and stared.
The street pulsed like a living wound.
People walked with sigil implants in their necks. Mages rode arcane bikes down levitation rails. Floating billboards advertised dungeon-viewing subscriptions and spell-enhancement drugs. There were vending machines for summoning scrolls. Enchantments etched into streetlamps. Corporate logos burned brighter than moonlight.
Magic wasn't sacred here.
It was bought. Sold. Packaged.
Industrialized.
One tower twisted as they passed, reshaping itself mid-structure in response to some invisible mana signal. Another projected a spell directly into the air, casting shimmering runes that whispered incantations to passersby.
Street vendors screamed deals for bottled familiars. Teens zipped overhead on rune-skates, laughing as they hurled hexes at each other like fireworks.
Raven exhaled slowly. "This… this isn't the world I know."
Lilith didn't respond at first. She just stared at him, her black eyes drinking in his rage like wine.
"No," she said finally. "It's way worse."
They moved through the chaos. People stepped aside instinctively — not because they recognized Raven, but because something primal told them not to block Lilith's path.
He noticed it quickly.
No one looked at her for long. Not even the arrogant ones.
They glanced, flinched, turned away. Some whispered behind their hands.
"Mana anomaly."
"Is that an avatar?"
"Don't get close — her aura's corrupted."
The fear didn't faze her. She smiled through it.
They passed a hovering train station. Raven watched as a man inserted a glowing crystal into a kiosk — and it scanned his soul signature before giving him access.
Raven turned to Lilith. "Would I pass that?"
She laughed once. "You'd break it."
A scanner drone hovered overhead.
[ENTITY SCAN INITIATED]
[MAGICAL AFFINITY: UNDETECTED]
[DIVINE CORRUPTION: HIGH]
[RISK LEVEL: CLASS UNKNOWN]
It buzzed erratically and flew away.
He stared after it. "That thing didn't classify me?"
"It can't," Lilith said. "You're not part of this world's registry. You're divine, yes — but broken. Wild. You're outside the system."
"Then what happens when someone with power sees me?"
She turned slightly, eyes glinting. "They'll either try to kill you. Or cage you."
He didn't respond.
They reached a plaza.
It was beautiful — wide marble steps surrounding a statue framed by a waterfall of floating mana strands. Children played under the lights. Street vendors sold spell-fried snacks. Couples floated above the fountain on enchanted seats.
And in the center stood a monument.
A knight.
Blade raised. Cape billowing. Armor noble and clean.
Raven's heart skipped.
It was him.
Or it had been.
The plaque at the bottom was tarnished but intact. RAVEN KEAL — followed by a list of campaigns. He could barely read the dates. His era had become legend.
But someone had scrawled a single word across the faceplate:
TRAITOR
Painted in blood-colored ink. Long dried.
He remembered that armor.
It wasn't just a statue. It was the same plate he'd worn in the eastern campaign. The same sigils etched into the shoulder — the ones his team had carved there for luck.
The names of the fallen.
All of them were dead now. Or had died long after betraying him.
His fists clenched. The shadows near his feet thickened.
"Do they even know what they did?" he muttered.
Lilith said nothing. Her silence agreed with him.
Children ran past, laughing. One of them paused and spit at the statue's feet.
Raven didn't move. But the shadows around his boots began to crawl.
Lilith finally stepped forward.
"Three hundred years," she said softly. "And this is what you are to them."
"They made me a myth," he whispered. "Then turned it into a joke."
She looked at him. "Are you angry?"
He didn't answer — but rage was all he felt.
Later, when they were beneath the surface — far from the neon and the lies — he finally spoke again.
"Why are we here, Lilith? What's the point of this?"
She smiled, leading him down a staircase that pulsed with cursed runes. Every step took them deeper — away from the clean streets, the fake shrines, the world that had forgotten him.
The stairwell coiled like a serpent. Walls etched with ancient sigils — some pulsed red, others twitched like they were alive.
Blood-stained graffiti covered the stone.
NO GODS HERE
HE SEVEN BELOW WATCH
KILLERS STAY. HEROES DIE.
The air grew colder with every step. Not chill — rot.
Somewhere below, a scream echoed. Wet. Human.
Raven's jaw tensed.
Lilith walked like it was sacred. Like this filth was her cathedral.
"Because the surface isn't for creatures like us," she finally said.
Raven's eyes narrowed.
"And what is?"
She turned at the base of the stairwell.
Behind her: darkness. Glowing doors. Screams in the distance. The smell of blood, mana, and old ruin.
The Coil Market.
A city buried in rot. Lawless. Divine-forbidden. Overrun by warlocks, dungeon lords, black relic traders, divine outcasts.
Lilith stepped into the threshold.
"You want to become what they fear?"
"Then we start here."
"Beneath it all. Where monsters go to rise."