The passage sloped downward at a shallow angle, but with every step Kael took, the weight on his body increased.
It was not gravity.
It was pressure.
The stone beneath his feet darkened as he descended, threaded with dull crimson lines that pulsed slowly, like veins buried beneath flesh. The air grew thicker, denser, pressing against his lungs and limbs with quiet insistence. Each breath required intention. Each movement demanded effort.
This pressure felt nothing like heaven's.
Heaven suppressed.
This judged.
Kael reached the end of the passage and stepped into a chamber so vast that his senses struggled to define its boundaries. The ceiling vanished into darkness far above, supported by colossal pillars that seemed grown rather than carved. Each pillar spiraled upward, etched with layered symbols that shifted subtly, rearranging themselves as if responding to his presence.
At the center of the chamber floated a massive object.
A sphere.
Roughly ten meters across, forged from interlocking plates of black stone and red-veined metal. The surface crawled with countless symbols that never stopped moving, forming and breaking patterns too complex to follow.
The moment Kael entered the chamber, the sphere pulsed.
Pressure slammed into him from all directions.
Kael grunted as his knees bent involuntarily. His bones creaked under the sudden weight, joints screaming in protest. He clenched his teeth and forced himself to remain upright, every muscle trembling.
The warmth inside him surged instinctively, flooding his body with power.
The pressure increased.
Kael's vision blurred. A sharp pain exploded behind his eyes, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
"This thing…" he muttered hoarsely.
The sphere pulsed again, symbols snapping into place.
A voice echoed through the chamber, layered and toneless, neither male nor female.
"Devil candidate detected."
Kael's heart pounded violently.
"Structural analysis initiated."
Pain erupted inside him.
Not in flesh.
Not in blood.
Bone.
Every bone in his body screamed as if gripped by invisible hands and twisted violently. Kael gasped, stumbling forward before collapsing to one knee. His arms shook uncontrollably as fractures spiderwebbed through his skeleton, sealing almost instantly under the frantic surge of the warmth.
The pain did not fade.
It compounded.
Kael clenched his fists and tried to stand, only to feel his left arm buckle slightly, structure failing under pressure that regeneration alone could not immediately correct.
"You are incomplete," the voice stated calmly. "Blood law exceeds skeletal tolerance."
Kael spat onto the stone floor, the dark red stain spreading unnaturally slowly. "Then fix it."
The sphere pulsed.
"Correction requires alignment," it replied. "Misalignment probability high."
Kael laughed weakly, the sound scraping his throat raw. "That has been true since I was born."
The pressure intensified sharply.
Kael screamed as his left arm twisted at an unnatural angle, bones compressing inward with sickening force. He felt something deep inside crack, not a simple fracture but a structural failure that sent agony screaming through his nervous system.
He collapsed fully this time, clutching his arm as pain tore through him.
The warmth surged wildly, flooding the damaged area with power, forcing rapid regeneration.
The sphere reacted instantly.
"Excessive blood compensation detected," the voice said.
The pressure shifted.
Focused.
Kael realized too late what was happening.
The forge was not testing his strength.
It was stripping away his dependence.
It was forcing his bones to stand on their own.
"No," Kael growled, forcing himself upright despite the agony. His legs trembled violently, yet he remained standing. "You do not decide what I discard."
The sphere paused.
For the first time since he entered the chamber, the symbols hesitated.
"Resistance noted," the voice stated. "Proceeding with forced calibration."
The pressure doubled.
Kael's body convulsed as his bones screamed under the sudden load. Fractures formed faster than regeneration could correct them. His vision tunneled, blackness creeping in at the edges.
This was no longer a test.
It was a verdict.
Kael bit down hard enough to taste blood and forced the warmth inward.
Not outward.
Not suppressing it.
Containing it.
The sensation was unbearable.
It felt like holding back a raging flood with his bare hands, power screaming for release while his skeleton bore the full burden of existence alone.
The pressure shifted.
Not weaker.
Different.
The pain changed.
It no longer shattered him.
It reshaped him.
Kael felt his bones grinding against unseen frameworks, microscopic structures forming within them. Not metal. Not stone.
Law.
His skeleton was being rewritten.
Images flooded his mind.
Devils standing within these halls long ago, bodies breaking again and again under identical pressure. Those who collapsed were dragged away without ceremony. Those who endured emerged changed, movements precise and terrifyingly stable.
This was the truth of devils.
Not frenzy.
Endurance.
"You rely too heavily on blood," the voice observed. "Human skeletal blueprint detected."
Kael forced his eyes open. "Then erase it."
Silence filled the chamber.
The pressure descended in a single, crushing wave.
Kael screamed as several ribs collapsed inward, narrowly sparing vital organs as bone reformed thicker and darker. His left arm twisted violently, structure shifting as something alien replaced what had once been human standard.
Blood poured freely from his mouth.
The warmth surged instinctively, desperate to compensate.
Kael dragged it back by sheer will.
"No," he whispered hoarsely. "You stay where I tell you."
The pressure steadied.
The sphere pulsed slowly now, symbols locking one by one.
"Choice acknowledged," the voice stated. "Proceeding with irreversible alignment."
Fear flashed through Kael's mind.
Once begun, this could not be undone.
He thought of the village. Of his mother. Of the boy he had once been.
Then he remembered heaven's pressure crushing everything beneath it.
"Do it," Kael said.
The chamber shook violently.
Pain beyond anything he had known tore through his body as his skeleton rejected its former configuration entirely. Bones liquefied and reformed at a fundamental level, no longer optimized for human balance but for load, compression, and endurance.
Kael screamed until his voice failed.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
When consciousness returned, it did so slowly.
The pressure was gone.
The chamber was silent.
Kael lay unmoving on the stone floor, chest rising shallowly. Every breath felt deliberate, as if his body now required intention to function.
He opened his eyes.
The world felt heavier.
But stable.
He pushed himself upright carefully.
The movement was smooth.
Controlled.
He stood.
The stone beneath his feet cracked.
Kael froze, then exhaled slowly.
His bones felt wrong.
Not painful.
Different.
Unyielding.
The sphere's voice echoed one final time.
"Structural rejection resolved."
"Bone Forging accepted."
"Alignment incomplete but viable."
Kael clenched his fists.
Strength answered.
Not explosive.
Absolute.
He stared at the sphere, chest heaving.
"This is only the beginning," he murmured.
The symbols dimmed in response.
Silence reclaimed the chamber.
And far above, heaven felt something change and did not yet understand what it meant.