Chapter 89: Something That Should Not Be
In the deepest strata of the Abyss—a plane where molten stone flowed like blood and every heartbeat resounded like war drums—Satan, the Great Demon of Wrath, opened his eyes.
Flames surged from his skin like solar flares bursting through the crust of an angry star. His throne, carved from the skulls of annihilated demigods, groaned beneath his rising fury. His wings, vast and plated in obsidian glass, unfolded with a crack that shattered the pillars of his sanctum. And he smiled—a smile that made hell itself recoil.
"At last," he growled, his voice deeper than earthquakes and layered with infernal resonance. "One has survived."
A mortal.
One had endured the impossible.
They had torn through the endless horde, slaughtered the berserk beasts, and even felled the wrath-fragment itself. And when offered the sacred seal—the ultimate flame of judgment—they had not hesitated.
"They accepted my gift," he said, nearly giddy with anticipation. "They wear my flame. They bear my name. They are mine."
His claws curled, and within them formed a chain of red glyphs—a tether of soul and contract, burning with demonic authority. It was the seal of Sin of Wrath, the EX-rank blessing that marked its bearer as his vessel. A piece of his being. A tool of his will.
He reached toward the soul-bond to examine it, expecting to taste the triumph. Expecting to see the path toward a world scorched in his image.
But the chain turned to ash in his hand.
The glyphs crumbled.
And then—
Nothing.
No trace. No anchor. No contract.
Satan froze.
A silence fell over the Abyss, more absolute than the darkest void. The rivers of lava stilled. The screaming pits hushed. The very plane held its breath.
Then came the hollow feeling. Like something had been carved from his chest.
He reached inward, into his domain. Counted the echoes of his own power.
And he felt it.
One-tenth of himself. Gone.
Stolen.
Unmade.
His throne cracked. His wings flared open in disbelief. His form swelled with smoke and hellfire, and the air around him warped, bent, and split under the weight of his rage.
"WHERE… IS… MY… WRATH!?"
The cry tore through the Abyss like a hurricane of raw, ancient violence. Mountains exploded. Demons miles away spontaneously combusted. The very foundation of the hell-realm fractured beneath the force of his fury.
"NO ONE ESCAPES. NO ONE DESTROYS WHAT I GAVE. IT IS ME."
He clawed at the void, summoned every trace of the contract—but there was nothing. No burnt residue. No soul-string. Not even a whisper of rebellion.
It hadn't been defied.
It had been deleted.
And that made it worse.
Because it wasn't just a mark.
The Sin of Wrath was not a symbolic gift—it was a living fragment of himself, encoded with his essence, bound into a skill that only he could grant. Its destruction meant a true loss of power. A scar. A wound. Something he had never known.
Since the first day Wrath was born, he had been fire, fury, destruction. He had devoured gods and cast down realms.
But now?
He felt it.
For the first time—
Satan felt powerless.
And beneath the roiling surface of that anger, deeper than rage could reach—
He felt something new.
A flicker of uncertainty.
A whisper of fear.
Far above, beyond the mortal plane, where thought and light were woven into reality, Archangel Michael stood on a spire of golden eternity.
His armor shimmered with truths unspoken. His wings stretched across the horizon of creation. In his hand was a blade not of metal, but of judgment—etched with the names of every sealed catastrophe, every bound sin, every fallen tyrant.
He felt the tremor.
A presence had flickered into existence.
The Sin of Wrath.
Michael did not breathe.
The flare had pierced the layers of dimensional shielding like a divine beacon being shattered. He felt it pulse through the balances of fate, like a drumbeat signaling catastrophe.
"It has awakened…"
His voice was barely a whisper, but the stars dimmed in response.
He turned toward the celestial mirror chamber—a vault of reflective soul-glass that displayed all great threats as mirrored echoes—and focused on the source.
And there it was.
A flare of unparalleled intensity. A soul had accepted it. The Sin of Wrath.
This cannot be allowed.
If not eliminated quickly, the bearer would become a walking apocalypse. A mortal armed with the wrath of an ancient demon, capable of reducing nations to rubble with a thought. He would become a nexus of chaos—a storm without anchor.
Michael raised his blade.
Trace the target. Lock the anomaly. Prepare for judgment.
He reached for the echo.
And it disappeared.
Not hidden.
Erased.
No soulprint. No aura. No signature.
Just... nothing.
Michael's brows drew together. He tried again.
The reflection gave no result.
No trace in time. No residue in causality. As if the flare had blinked into the cosmos, and then ceased to have ever existed.
Was it destroyed? Killed by a greater force? Consumed?
Or had the contract itself… been severed?
He lowered the sword.
And frowned.
There were very few things in the universe that could confuse an archangel.
But this?
This was impossible.
And the worst part?
He didn't know if that was good news… or the beginning of something far worse.