The sky had bled itself into dusk. The bruised heavens above swirled in shades of rust and violet, and the air trembled with heat that felt alive — like the pit itself was breathing, restless, ravenous.
The Region of Dusk Souls was far behind them now, but its echoes still clung to their bones — the voices, the whispers, the soft sobs of the forgotten. Gomi walked in silence, the memories of Hoguro's trembling voice still gnawing at him. Hosogiri followed close, his eyes darting between shadows, half expecting another spirit to crawl out of the fog.
Now, the world around them had changed again.
Gone were the fog and ghostly whispers — replaced by dry air that shimmered like warped glass. The ground beneath their boots was not stone or dirt, but layers of hardened crimson. The very earth pulsed faintly, as though veins of molten blood coursed beneath the crust, thudding with the rhythm of something ancient and malignant.
The locals, what few survived near the edges of this wasteland, had called it the Forgotten Deep.
A place where blood did not dry — it simply sank into the soil, becoming part of the world's rot.
Hosogiri exhaled shakily. "Feels like the world's heart stopped beating but forgot to die."
"Don't get poetic now," Gomi muttered, though his own heart ached with an unspoken dread.
Behind them, Hoguro's footsteps were soft, but the faint jingle of the talisman at his belt marked his presence. He'd been quiet since the Dusk Souls. Too quiet. Freed from his loop, he seemed half-awake to the world, as though every breath hurt — as though living after eternal dreaming was too raw, too bright, too heavy.
Gomi noticed. He said nothing.
He understood that kind of silence.
They traveled deeper, past red fissures glowing faintly and air so thick it smelled of iron and smoke. Every few miles, they passed relics of old battles — burned weapons, blackened bone, craters where something massive had once stood. The heat grew unbearable. Hosogiri wiped his forehead and muttered, "Feels like walking into a forge that forgot to stop burning."
And then, they saw him.
A figure standing at the far bend of the canyon.
At first, they thought it was a mirage — a trick of heat. But the figure moved. Graceful. Confident. Almost human, almost divine.
He was draped in crimson robes that shimmered faintly like liquid metal. His hair, long and white, glowed faintly under the dim sky. But it was his eyes — his eyes burned like two dying suns, beautiful and horrifying all at once.
"Travelers," the figure said softly, his voice echoing like molten bells. "You walk into the bones of the underworld itself. Do you know what this place truly is?"
No one answered.
The stranger smiled — a perfect, serene smile, one that didn't belong in this hell.
"I am Yatsumiganami Hoko," he said. "The rightful King of Hell. And you trespass upon my veins."
Hoguro tensed immediately, reaching for his charm. "You're no king," he spat.
Gomi's hand fell to the hilt of his blade. His gaze didn't waver. "If this is your land," he said quietly, "then your people are screaming."
Hoko's expression didn't change — but his eyes flickered, just once. Then the air around them shifted.
The earth throbbed.
A low, grinding groan rolled through the canyon, deep and guttural. The red stone beneath their feet cracked open, and from the fissures rose heat — and voices. Not screams, not cries — but wailing, hundreds of them, all at once.
The veins beneath the world began to glow, their light spreading outward like infection, like fire beneath skin.
Gomi took a step back. "Move!"
But it was too late.
The ground erupted.
A hand of molten rock burst upward, massive and writhing, its surface crawling with the screaming faces of the dead. The smell of sulfur and burning flesh flooded the air as the molten hand slammed down toward them.
Hosogiri dove left. Hoguro right. Gomi didn't move. He charged forward, his blade unsheathed in a blur of black steel. The impact of his strike split the lava hand, scattering molten shards that hissed as they struck the ground — but the fragments didn't die. They crawled. They screamed. They reformed.
And then, there were more.
Dozens. Hundreds.
Hands, arms, torsos — all rising from the ground, each one a vessel of suffering, each one stitched together from the burning souls buried in this cursed land.
Hoko raised his arms high, crimson robes billowing as he laughed softly — not in mockery, but in sorrow. "You call me a parasite," he murmured. "But this is my body. The blood of this land is mine — the rage, the regret, the endless pain. I didn't create it. I inherited it."
"You feed on it!" Gomi snarled, his blade catching flame from the molten air.
"I preserve it," Hoko whispered. "Because someone must remember."
And then he vanished — dissolving into shimmering heat.
A moment later, he was behind Gomi, fingers brushing the Oni's shoulder before Gomi spun, slicing through empty air.
The voice came from everywhere now — the molten walls, the fissures, the fire.
"Tell me, Oni King — how many souls have you cut down in your lifetime? How many begged you before they burned?"
Gomi's breath hitched — the question pierced too close.
Hosogiri shouted, "Ignore him, Gomi!"
But Gomi couldn't. His sword trembled. His heart burned.
The molten ground rippled, and faces began to surface — faces he recognized. Soldiers he'd slain. People who'd cursed his name entirely. Children who'd screamed before the flames took them.
They spoke his name.
Over and over.
"Gomi."
"Gomi."
"Why?"
He fell to one knee.
The heat pressed down on him, the memories flooding like acid through his veins.
Hoguro stumbled to his side, shaking him. "Gomi! Listen to me — it's an illusion. He's pulling your past from your aura. You have to—"
"I can see them," Gomi muttered, voice hollow. "All of them."
The faces began to melt, forming one enormous shape — a creature of molten sorrow, its torso rising high into the smoke-filled air. It had no eyes, only a mouth stretching endlessly, weeping red fire.
Hoko's voice trembled with awe. "Behold, Oni King. The sum of your sins."
Hosogiri screamed, "Gomi, MOVE!"
But instead of retreating, Gomi charged forward.
Every strike split open memory. Every cut shattered a scream. The creature wailed — a thousand voices, breaking, begging, loving, dying.
And through it all, Gomi screamed back. Not words. Just sound — a sound born of unbearable guilt and fury.
He swung until his arms bled, until his horns glowed white-hot, until his knees buckled and his body trembled.
And when he could no longer stand — when the molten creature loomed over him, ready to devour — it was Hoguro who leapt forward.
"Enough!"
The freed gem on his palm flared, glowing with blinding silver light. The air shattered as he drove it into the molten creature's gut, his body trembling violently under the pressure. The gem screamed as if alive — and then, in an instant, the creature imploded, collapsing into a pillar of red mist.
Hoko staggered back, eyes wide. "You— you broke the seal—!"
Hoguro's voice cracked. "You think pain makes you king? Then rule over your own ashes!"
The blast that followed shook the canyon to its core. Crystals shattered, lava burst skyward, and for a moment, the world was nothing but light.
When it faded, the molten hands were gone. The canyon was cracked and still.
Hoko lay on his knees, robes scorched, his once-perfect face fractured like glass. Blood — black, thick — trickled from the corner of his mouth.
"You… you pity me?" he croaked. "You think I didn't try to stop this? The blood won't stop burning. The land won't stop screaming. This is what we are — Oni, human, spirit, all the same. Flesh, rage, regret!"
Gomi limped forward, breathing hard. "Then you carry it differently."
Hoko's gaze flicked up — something soft in it now. "You're not like the others."
"I'm just tired of graves."
Silence stretched.
The heat began to fade. The glow beneath the earth dimmed. Hoko looked down at his trembling hands, the blood still dripping from his split knuckles.
"Maybe…" he whispered. "Maybe I was never king."
He slumped forward, unconscious — but alive.
Hosogiri stared at the cracked ground around them, at the faint pulse of red still glowing in the fissures. "It's still beating," he murmured.
"Then the world's not dead yet," Gomi said.
Hoguro knelt beside Hoko, inspecting him with wary compassion. "He's not our enemy anymore. Just another part of the wound."
"Then let the wound heal," Gomi muttered. "Or burn it clean."
The wind rose again — soft, almost cool. The crimson veins glowed faintly, but now it was gentler, slower, like a dying ember rather than an inferno.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the pit was quiet.
Aftermath
They rested in the shadow of the fractured canyon wall. The light of the molten veins reflected in their tired eyes, each of them lost in thought.
Hosogiri finally broke the silence. "He said he inherited this. The rage. The pain. Do you think… we're the same?"
Gomi didn't answer. He stared at his reflection in the crimson pool beside him — his face warped by ripples, his horns faintly aglow. "We all are," he said at last. "The only difference is whether we carry it or let it carry us."
Hoguro watched him quietly, then turned his gaze toward the horizon. "If this is what the pit does to those who rule it… maybe there's no king here at all."
Gomi looked up. "Then we make one."
Hosogiri frowned. "What do you mean?"
"One who remembers. But doesn't feed on it. One who carries the dead forward instead of digging them up."
Hosogiri stared at him — eyes soft, almost fearful. "That sounds like a curse."
"Maybe it is," Gomi said, closing his eyes. "But someone has to hold it."
The fire beneath the earth dimmed further, fading into faint, pulsing embers.
Night fell.
They sat in silence beneath the bruised sky — three souls haunted by what they had seen, each carrying ghosts that would never fully fade.
Far beyond the canyon, where the lava veins bled into the horizon, a faint light glimmered — pale blue, gentle, almost like dawn trying to rise through the pit's endless night.
It wasn't hope. It wasn't salvation.
It was simply proof that something still lived.
And for now, that was enough.
TO BE CONTINUED...