Silence.
Not the ordinary kind—the kind that felt like padded walls and suffocating air, where sound didn't simply fade but was devoured. The Abyss always had its quiet, oppressive dark, but today it felt different.
Today, Simon was quiet too.
He sat against the cold black stone of his chamber, knees drawn up, fingers clasped so tightly they whitened. His breathing was uneven—not from fear, nor from exertion, but from something more confusing:
Confusion.
Disorientation.
And the faint, unfamiliar sting of self-awareness.
He had killed a Abyssal King.
And he didn't know who he was anymore.
His fingers trembled—not from weakness, but from memory. The memory of flame, the feel of power that never belonged to him, the gleeful animal inside him when Vala screamed.
"I laughed," Simon whispered to the empty room.
He didn't speak it like a statement—he confessed it, like a sin.
"I laughed while killing someone."
He swallowed hard. The taste of ash and iron lingered in his mouth, residue of the infernal magic that nearly burned him alive. He shut his eyes. His head leaned back against the stone wall, thumping lightly once, twice, as if asking the universe for an answer.
"Is that who I am now?"
He waited.
No reply.
Of course.
The Abyss did not answer questions. It only sharpened them until they cut you.
His mind split itself into arguments and echoes.
One voice told him he did what he had to do.
Another whispered he had lost something, something fragile and human.
Another laughed, cruel and triumphant, proud of the blood spilled.
His thoughts collided like broken glass swirling in a whirlpool.
He deserved it.
I had no choice.
Lies. You wanted it.
I wanted to live.
You wanted to win.
Simon pressed his palms against his temples, as if he could squeeze the noise out physically.
"When did I start enjoying it?"
That question hurt.
It wasn't that he loved killing. Not once had he sought brutality for entertainment. At least—not at first.
Then again…
He remembered the moment flame ate through Vala's flesh, how his pulse spiked not only in fear, but exhilaration. Not from victory, but from dominance. The existential thrill of proving the universe wrong about him.
Was that joy?
Or survival instinct?
Where did the line even lie?
Perhaps there was never a line. Perhaps he had always been this person—only now stripped of excuses, stripped of society's soft cushions and moral signatures.
"Humans are not gentle by nature," he murmured. "We only pretend because life lets us."
In the Abyss, life didn't let you pretend.
Here, he had peeled.
Layer by layer.
Fear first. Then doubt. Then shame. Then hesitation. Then pride. Then righteousness. Then guilt. Then joy.
What was left now?
He didn't know.
And that terrified him.
His gaze drifted to the dark ceiling—like staring at an endless cosmos without stars. "What comes next?"
He had survived long enough to kill a Demon King. What did that make him?
Was he still prey learning to bite?
Or was he inching toward being a predator—one drop of demon blood at a time?
He thought about the future, and it felt heavy.
Did he still have one?
Could he make one?
Or was he only postponing his inevitable collapse?
He remembered the first day here. Fragile. Terrified. Hopeless. He had no goals then except survival. No dreams, no ambitions.
Now?
Now he wanted to win.
Not against Orba.
Not against other demons.
Against fate itself.
That was dangerous.
Hope was dangerous.
It was the only thing sharper than despair.
He thought of his old world.
He couldn't remember faces anymore. Not clearly. Everything felt like an old painting blurred by water damage—colors smudged, shapes indistinct.
Families. Friends. Strangers. Teachers. People he passed in streets. The warmth of sunlight. The buzz of city life. Laughter. Hunger. Comfort.
All blurry.
But one thing stood out.
He remembered being ordinary.
He remembered hating it, just a little.
No one feared him.
No one respected him.
No one admired him.
He was a quiet shadow in a loud world.
And now… he was someone who killed Demon Kings.
"Is this what it takes to matter?" Simon whispered. "Is this what it costs to be more than nothing?"
His breath trembled.
Maybe that was the truth all along: greatness demanded blood. Power demanded cruelty. History remembered kings, conquerors, tyrants—not gentle souls who lived quietly.
But did he want history?
Or did he want freedom?
He didn't know.
He finally pulled himself to his feet. Pain laced his muscles, but he stood anyway. Standing was a declaration against the world: I am not done.
He walked to the corner of the room where stone scratched from previous nights of delirium and frustration formed crude lines, notes, marks—his planning wall.
None of it made sense. Some marks were from days he couldn't think. Others from moments of clarity.
He forced himself to start rewriting.
His plan had always been basic:
1. Survive.
2. Grow stronger.
3. Don't die.
Too simple now. Too primitive. The Abyss trained him for more than desperation. He needed a future—not a reaction.
He grabbed a charcoal shard and wrote more deliberately on the floor.
1. Understand Orba.
2. Learn demon laws and hierarchy.
3. Identify future threats.
4. Harness real power.
5. Stay unpredictable.
6. Never trust their mercy.
7. Find my limit.
8. Break it.
He stared at the eighth line longest.
Break it.
He didn't know if he could.
But he didn't know how to stop trying anymore either.
He breathed in and out slowly, grounding himself. He wasn't collapsing. He wasn't losing himself. He was changing. Transformation was ugly. It always had been.
He whispered softly to the silent room:
"There is still a part of me that remembers who I was."
A pause.
A fragile truth.
"But there is another part that knows what I must become."
Neither side won. Neither side surrendered. They coexisted now, in a fragile truce inside his skull.
The human who feared losing himself.
The survivor who embraced evolution.
He didn't have a single identity anymore.
He had fragments.
Pieces glued together by willpower.
Maybe that was enough.
Maybe that made him stronger.
A faint knocking sounded at the door. It wasn't urgent. It wasn't hostile. But it carried weight—like someone who didn't knock for permission, but only out of habit or amusement.
"Come," Simon said, voice steadier than he felt.
The door creaked.
A low-ranking demon—not dangerous, but not harmless—stood there, bowing stiffly.
"The Ninth King summons you."
Simon exhaled through his nose. "Of course he does."
He didn't panic.
He didn't flinch.
He simply rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and prepared to face whatever Orba wanted now.
His mind was still a battlefield.
But his steps were steady.
This was who he was now:
A fractured certainty.
A blade still cooling from battle.
A soul reforged through terror and ambition.
Maybe broken.
Maybe reborn.
Too early to tell.
But one truth rang in him like steel in a forge:
If the abyss wanted to consume him, it would choke on the bones.
He turned to the demon guard.
"Lead the way."
And he walked, not as prey dragged to its master, not as a trembling mortal—but as someone who understood what it meant to claw upward through hell.