Cain didn't sleep that night.
He sat on the edge of his mattress, staring at the cracks in the ceiling while the city hummed outside his window, that constant, mechanical lullaby of traffic, neon buzz, and distant sirens. His body ached in all the usual ways: ribs throbbing, knuckles burning, jaw tight from clenched teeth. But his mind refused to rest.
The angel's words replayed in his head, over and over.
A Domain raid.
The phrase felt heavy. Foreign. Like it didn't belong in his world, the world of bloodstained rings, cheap whiskey, and dinners that tasted like rot. And yet… for the first time in years, there was something else inside him besides exhaustion.
Hope.
A dangerous thing to feel. A weakness.
He looked down at his hands, wrapped in rust-colored bandages stiff with dried blood, and whispered into the empty room,
"What's the worst that could happen?"
When daylight finally broke, he was already dressed. The bandages were tighter than usual, every knot deliberate. He moved through the streets as the city yawned awake, grey sky, flickering streetlights, faces half-asleep.
People going to work. People coming from work. Normal people.
Cain wanted that. He wanted to be one of them, invisible, unremarkable, safe. But he knew better. Normal meant weak, and weak meant all you had was takeable.
If you wanted peace, you had to be strong enough to protect it. If you wanted rest, you had to earn it by force. Only the strong got to keep what was theirs.
The Domain was impossible to miss.
A massive, swirling mass of green energy loomed ahead, pulsing, breathing, twisting like a storm frozen in midair. The ground around it cracked with faint arcs of light, the air thick with a low hum that crawled into his bones.
Thirty people stood gathered before it, murmuring, checking gear, pretending not to be afraid. Cain joined them quietly, his eyes scanning the crowd, and then he saw it.
White hair.
Not one this time, but three.
Michael stood at the center, calm and composed as ever, flanked by two younger angels who couldn't have been older than nineteen. One was a broad-shouldered man clad in layered leather armor reinforced with metal plates only along his arms. The other, a woman, had long hair that spilled almost to her knees and eyes like polished steel. She spoke softly, worriedly, to the man, who kept brushing her concern away with a half-smile.
Cain watched them for a moment, unable to look away. They looked untouchable, beings born from order and power, standing effortlessly above the rest of humanity. Then Michael stepped forward, and all noise faded.
"Alright everyone," he called, his voice calm but commanding, "may I have your attention?"
The crowd fell silent.
Michael waited a few seconds, eyes sweeping the group, and continued:
"For those with poor memory, let me remind you why we're here. I'll be choosing one of you as my apprentice. You will earn that place today, inside this Domain. Impress me, and the position is yours."
He rested his hands on the shoulders of the two younger angels beside him.
"These are my children, Mark and Charlotte. They'll be joining us in case of emergency, and to observe you."
A faint smile touched his lips.
"Now then… who's ready to exterminate some dimensional beasts?"
The group erupted in cheers and laughter, weapons raised, adrenaline masking fear.
Cain didn't join them.
He just stood there, silent, the hum of the Domain vibrating in his chest, turning to glance around at his competitors. That's when he felt it, a gaze, sharp and deliberate, burning into the side of his neck. He turned slightly and found Charlotte staring straight at him from far away.
Arms crossed. Eyes narrowed. Unblinking.
She didn't bother to hide it, that scrutiny, that silent judgment. For a long moment, neither of them looked away. Then, without a word, she turned and walked toward the front beside her brother. Michael took his place at the back. And together, thirty humans and three angels stepped toward the swirling gate of light. Into the unknown.
Crossing the threshold felt like walking through ice and fire at once.
Cain took a sudden breath as the world folded inside out, colors bleeding and reshaping until solid ground returned beneath his feet. He stumbled, vision swimming. The air was thick, but not like fog, alive, vibrating with pressure that made his skin crawl.
The Domain stretched out before them like a forest carved from emerald glass. Massive trees with translucent bark towered overhead, their roots pulsing faintly with green light. The sky was cracked, fractured into shards of amber and teal that shifted like liquid. Everything hummed.
And underneath that hum… growls.
Michael raised a hand, and the entire group froze. The angels' presence alone steadied the air, the raw energy bending slightly around them like water avoiding a stone.
"Remember," Michael said calmly, "you're being watched. And I don't mean just by me."
Then he smiled faintly.
"Good luck."
He stepped back. The crowd hesitated for a heartbeat too long — and that's when the forest moved.
The first wave came fast.
A blur of black shapes darted through the glowing mist: quadrupeds, their limbs twisted wrong, bones showing through stretched skin. Their eyes glowed a deep red, like embers in a dying fire.
The first man didn't even launch an attack. One second he was there, the next he was gone, dragged screaming into the trees. The group erupted into chaos. Weapons unsheathed, energy bursts flared, orders shouted, all drowned beneath the shrieks of the beasts.
Cain ducked low as a claw sliced past his face, air cracking from the force. He rolled forward, driving an elbow into the creature's jaw and slamming a fist into its chest. The thing staggered but didn't fall, it had no lungs to knock the air out of, no flimsy bones to break.
He grabbed a fallen spear, jammed it upward through its mouth, and twisted. The creature screeched and dissolved into a haze of dark vapor.
"They don't die unless the core breaks!" someone shouted.
Cain looked down. A small, glass-like shard pulsed faintly where the creature fell. He crushed it beneath his heel and the mist vanished.
Alright, he thought, that's one.
He turned, scanning the chaos, Charlotte and Mark were floating above, looking over everyone and Michael watched from a distance, arms crossed. Observing.
The first wave ended as suddenly as it began. The survivors regrouped, panting, trembling, blood-soaked and wide-eyed. Maybe twenty of them left.
"That was a scout pack," Mark shouted from above."Which means they're gathering."
Isn't that just great?
A deep rumble rolled through the ground. The trees swayed though there was no wind. Cain could feel it, something huge moving beneath the surface, like a heartbeat inside the earth. Then, the ground broke.
From below, a creature burst forth, a massive centipede-like beast, its body made of crystalline segments, hundreds of legs scraping against the glowing soil. Its head was crowned with horns of black stone, its mouth opening into rows of spinning teeth.
The group scattered.
The creature slammed its body down, crushing two people instantly. A woman fired a bolt of energy into its side, it cracked one plate, but that was all. The monster shrieked, and the air distorted from the sound, knocking everyone backward.
Cain's head rang. His vision doubled, then refocused. The monster lunged at him.
He dove aside, grabbed a jagged piece of broken crystal from the ground, and drove it into one of the beast's legs. It roared, flailing, tail swinging like a whip. Cain rolled under the strike and leapt onto its back, climbing toward its head.
His arms burned. His hands slipped on the slick surface. Below, the others fired bolts of energy, shattering pieces of its armor. The creature's eyes turned toward him, glowing brighter, then the heat hit.
A beam of searing energy erupted from its mouth, cutting through the forest like lightning.
Cain didn't think. He ripped another shard from its shell and plunged it into its eye. The light flickered, then burst. The creature convulsed, and Cain jumped clear as it collapsed with a thunderous crack, splintering the glowing trees around it.
Silence. Then cheers.
Cain panted, kneeling on the ground, his skin singed, blood dripping from a gash across his arm. He looked up, Michael was still watching. And smiling. They kept moving deeper. Each wave worse than the last.
Winged beasts that rained acid.Wolf-like creatures that split into two when killed.A humanoid figure made entirely of shadow that whispered every fighter's name before striking.
By the time they reached the heart of the Domain, only ten remained.
Cain could barely stand, his arms numb, his knuckles raw to the bone. Every breath scraped his throat. But when they broke through the final layer of trees, the exhaustion vanished, replaced by awe.
The clearing ahead pulsed with energy so dense the air shimmered like heat. In the center stood a creature unlike anything they had faced.
It was massive, twenty feet tall, its body a fusion of muscle, crystal, and dark flame. Six eyes glowed along its skull, each a different color. Chains of broken metal hung from its limbs, clinking softly with every move.
Michael stopped walking. His expression full of awe.
"The Domain Lord."
Charlotte's hand went to her blade.Mark's jaw tightened.
Cain just stared. The creature's gaze swept across them, and stopped on him.
And in that instant, Cain felt it, the same feeling as before his fight with Andrew. That quiet, suffocating pressure. Only now it was worse. Deeper. Like staring into the face of a god that had forgotten mercy.