The corridor narrowed into something no longer stone.

Black-veined flesh stretched from floor to ceiling, twitching with each low throb of unseen pulse. It pulsed like a heart too big for its body, slow and deliberate. The veins glistened. Beneath them, something flexed—like muscles remembering how to breathe.

Alyssa stared at it for half a second. Then grit her teeth and stepped forward.

She raised her fist, skin shimmering as density rippled through her arm. Her knuckles cracked. Her whole body went heavy – force compacted into muscle and bone. Then she drove her fist into the wall with a full-body slam.

The impact landed like a gunshot but the wall didn't crack.

It rippled. Like water refusing to break.

Alyssa stumbled back, wrist vibrating from the recoil. "Fuck," she hissed. "It's like hitting tar and steel at the same time. I can't punch through it. Not even a dent."

Chloe stepped beside her, eyes narrowing as she studied the surface. "It's not meant to be broken. It's meant to keep things in."

Alyssa ran a hand down the wall, frustration written across her shoulders. "Then you're going in alone."

There was a pause. Not long. Just long enough to feel it.

Chloe turned to her. "You okay with that?"

"No," Alyssa said. Then softer— "But I trust you."

Chloe nodded. Then paused. "Hey."

Alyssa looked up.

Chloe reached out, their fingers brushing. She took Alyssa's hand – really took it – thumb pressed tight against her knuckles. Alyssa's skin was still warm from the strike. Chloe's hand was colder. Steadier.

"You dragged me out of that room," Chloe said. Her voice wasn't fragile. Just quiet. "When I couldn't stand. You stayed with me. I don't know how the hell you stayed upright, but you did. So I need you to stay upright a little longer. In case I don't come back."

Alyssa shook her head, jaw clenching. "Don't say that."

"I have to," Chloe said. "This is Belphegor. Not Tomas. He's a demon. Probably a Lord. I phase in, I see what's there, and I get out. That's it."

"If anything feels wrong—"

"I run," Chloe finished. "I promise."

Alyssa hesitated. Then pulled her closer.

It wasn't a kiss. Wasn't quite a hug. Just their foreheads touching, breath mingling, hearts pressed close through grime and blood and everything they hadn't said since the red chamber.

"You're my sister," Alyssa whispered. "Not a ghost. Don't make me lose you again."

"You won't," Chloe said. "We're going to finish this. Just not today."

They held that breath for one second more.

Then Chloe turned.

The wall flexed before her – its veined surface parting like lips too wide. Not opening. Inviting.

Chloe stepped forward.

She didn't flinch as her body vanished through the fold – phasing clean through the glistening membrane, every nerve bracing for the trap she knew could be waiting.

Behind her, the wall sealed with a soft, wet hush.

Alyssa stood alone.

Inside – everything changed.

Heat wrapped around Chloe like wet cloth. The scent hit instantly. Rot dressed in flowers. Old perfume steeped in chemicals. Formaldehyde on breath.

And beneath it all – pulse.

Not noise.

Just pressure.

Alive.

Waiting.

…………………

Chloe emerged into the vault like a needle slipping into rot.

The air inside pressed against her lungs – humid, cloying, tainted by the stench of old meat and decaying incense. Her boots touched down on a floor that wasn't floor – more like a membrane, slightly translucent, veined with black nerve tissue and studded with fist-sized nodes that pulsed like cysts. Overhead, a skeletal dome of interlaced cartilage groaned faintly with each slow beat of some deep, untraceable pulse.

And at the centre of it all—

Belphegor.

He wasn't sitting. He wasn't floating. He was suspended – hung in the air by threads of nerve-flesh and slick muscle cords that cradled him like a spider's egg sack.

His form resembled a man, but only in the loosest, most revolting sense.

Lank, skeletal limbs hung limp. His shoulders were narrow, sunken deep as if caving inward. His skin clung tightly to the bone, pale and waxy with the texture of something half-preserved in embalming fluid. Black veins traced across his collarbones like ink dragged through paper. His neck was thin – too long – and his face...

His face was what made Chloe stop breathing.

He had the countenance of a failed imitation of humanity. A parody.

Sunken eyes, their whites yellowed, stared from hollow sockets like glass beads stuck into rotted dough. Wrinkles crimped the sides of his mouth and eyes – not age, but starvation. His lips were pulled into something not quite a smile, not quite a leer. Thin, papery. His hair was oily, thin, combed back as if trying to maintain the illusion of control. A lab coat hung from his frame like it had been tailored for someone human—and he'd never taken it off since.

He looked like a bureaucrat who hadn't slept in decades. Like someone who'd spent too long watching other people scream and had learned nothing but how to enjoy it quietly.

And still – he smiled.

"Welcome, Chloe," he said, his voice as calm and disarming as a hospice nurse. "One of my twin beauties."

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Chloe said nothing. She took one slow step forward, her phasing hand still half-raised.

"You are not expected here," he continued, suspended like a fetus in the middle of a massive organ. "You're the first to visit me in person. Let's make it a pleasurable moment for both of us."

His gaze travelled lazily over her.

She didn't flinch but something in her chest knotted tight.

"You're Tomas," she said. "All of them. That was you."

"Of course." Belphegor's eyes twitched, but the rest of his body remained limp. "The puppets amuse me. But they're not for me – they're for the people. They need a smiling face while I feed."

"You're feeding on the city," Chloe said. "On fear."

Belphegor's lips parted a little more, teeth yellowed at the gumline. "Not on fear, dear. Flesh. Their bodies. And, of course, their souls."

His laugh didn't echo. It just sank into the room like a parasite.

"They were already afraid. I gave them peace. A pretend leader. A functional system. All I ask for in return is everything they are. Warm flesh to feel. Bodies to violate. And souls to devour."

Chloe's pulse thundered behind her eyes.

But her voice stayed cold.

"And you think you'll get away with this?"

Belphegor blinked. Slowly. Then smiled wider, as if genuinely surprised.

"I already have."

…………………

Chloe didn't blink.

Her gaze tracked the tendrils stretching from Belphegor's cocoon into the vault walls – thick, wet cords, pulsing faintly. They weren't just nerves. They were conduits. Living channels of information, of control, of power.

And she could feel it.

Beneath the skin of the vault, a second city – no, a second system – trembled. Layers of soul-signatures threaded through every wall, every street, every Enforcer's spine. Memories bound in meat. Contracts etched in neural pulses. Power routes that bypassed government and prayer and funnelled straight into him.

She took one step closer. Her voice was low. "What are you feeding on?"

Belphegor didn't answer at first. His head tilted slightly, the way a spider might tilt to study a caught fly.

Then he smiled. "What aren't I feeding on?"

Chloe felt it now – like stepping through water that wasn't water. Every soul taken in the night. Every child who never came home. Every scream that never reached the street. They were here. Not in cages. In circuits.

"I am the reason the people vanish," Belphegor said, almost fondly. "I am the voice behind every tribunal, every guilty whisper in the dark. I taught the Enforcers how to lie. I gave their Contractors a taste of control – and made them beg for more."

His voice twisted.

"I take what I want. I remake what I want."

Then came the fury.

His voice cracked – rage flaring through the stillness like bile through a wound.

"This city is mine!"

He surged forward inside the fluid cocoon, yanking against the membrane.

"Mine! Everything in it is mine! To twist! To taste! To please me!"

His scream bounced off the wet walls, echoing down invisible tunnels.

Then— silence.

He reclined again, like nothing had happened. Breath steady. Eyes oily and half-lidded with mock affection.

"And you," he said softly, "you could have a place in it."

Chloe didn't move.

"A ghost," Belphegor continued, "whispering in the city's ear. One of my eyes. My little shade. No one would ever touch you again. Not you. Not your sister. You'd never suffer. You'd never feel alone."

His voice dropped to a breath.

"You'd only have to do what I ask. Just little things. Wear the collar when I say. Kneel when I'm watching. Spread your legs when I have need of you."

He smiled thinly. "You and your sister both. I could keep you… perfect. Wrapped in silk and silence. No more hiding. No more fighting. Just obedience – and pleasure."

"I'd rather burn," Chloe said.

Then she moved.

Fast.

Her form shimmered into phase – flickering like bad signal – as she stepped forward and into the cocoon. The membrane offered no resistance. Her arm plunged through it, past fluid and muscle, straight into the soft bone of his skull.

Belphegor had just enough time to gasp.

Chloe's fingers closed around both eyes – not flesh, but soul-crystals. Encoded. Thousands of puppets. Thousands of faces.

She ripped them out.

The crystals shattered in her fist.

Belphegor screamed.

Not a human scream. Not a cry of pain. A shriek of collapse – high and wet and unravelling. His cocoon convulsed, muscles spasming, fluid bursting in ribbons of milky plasma and red-threaded bile.

Chloe didn't wait.

The nerves began to snap closed, defensive reflexes jolting the tendrils into lock position but she was already gone.

She phased through the wall like a breath through glass – leaving the king blind, howling in his own cradle.

…………………

Chloe exploded from the fleshy wall in a haze of blood-slick light, boots slipping on wet stone. Her breath tore out of her chest in ragged bursts. Eyes wide. Skin flickering with aftershock.

Alyssa caught her mid-stumble.

"What the hell—"

"Run!" Chloe gasped.

No hesitation. Alyssa moved. She twisted, took three steps forward, and drove her shoulder through the nearest bulkhead. The wall crumpled with a wet crack. Chloe followed, phasing through the jagged edges like a ghost in a firestorm.

The Palace reacted.

Red veins flared beneath the skin of the floor, pulsing hot. Alarm threads ignited in twitching spirals. The air thickened. Moist. Alive. Somewhere deep behind them, a roar rose – not mechanical. Not human. Something older. Wounded.

"He's awake," Chloe said. Her voice was thin. Stretched.

"I hope so," Alyssa growled. She smashed through the next barrier – an archway that had begun closing, muscle knitting together mid-frame. Her fists tore it apart. Chloe slipped through just behind her, barely ahead of the closing maw.

The corridors bent. Flexed. Began swallowing themselves.

Chloe winced mid-step – an arc of static jolted through her skull. Her fingers curled involuntarily. Her vision flickered like a faulty lightbulb.

Alyssa noticed. "You bleeding?"

"No. Just… everything's screaming."

They reached a cross-corridor – already sealing. Alyssa didn't slow. She lunged, fists crackling, and drove both hands into the twitching seam. Bone shattered behind the wall. The whole barrier blew outward in a fleshy geyser. They ducked through.

Behind them, the cocoon screamed again. A psychic shriek, flaying every nerve with its pressure.

"What did you do?" Alyssa barked as they ran.

"I blinded him," Chloe said, voice rasping. "Ripped his eyes out. They weren't just for sight. They were people."

Alyssa grinned. It didn't reach her eyes. "Good. Now run faster."

They tore down the last hallway. Doors sealed ahead – organics fusing. Alyssa punched through one. Chloe phased through another. The walls convulsed around them.

At the final juncture, they hit a reinforced pane – part wall, part view-screen. Beyond it – the night. Cold air. Freedom.

Alyssa slammed her fists into the wall. Once. Twice.

On the third hit, the outer layer cracked. Chloe drove her phased hand through it, flickering with static, and forced it wider from the inside.

They burst out into the cold.

The Palace screamed behind them.

And the wall collapsed into a gaping wound.

…………………

The wind howled at the top of the old tower – cold, sharp, unfiltered. Broken glass clinked in rusted frames. The antenna's spine tilted slightly westward, bent by time and neglect. But the relay still pulsed faintly with power – low, steady, buried under layers of shielding.

Ying had marked it as fallback. Chloe had remembered.

They climbed in silence. Alyssa limped, blood dried at her collar. Chloe didn't limp but the static still hummed in her bones. Every step felt like threading a needle through her spine. But they moved anyway.

No guards. No lockdown. Not yet.

They reached the relay.

Alyssa leaned against a bank of dead screens, panting. "You sure this works?"

Chloe didn't answer.

She stepped forward and pressed both hands against the control column. The metal was cold. But beneath it, she felt the echo – old circuitry. A trace of connection still alive.

She closed her eyes.

And phased in.

Not her body – her voice.

Her presence flooded the wiring, the tower, the relay. It spread down the signal lines like water through cracks in glass. Outward – into audio channels, psychic bands, suppressed frequencies once used to sedate.

And then – her voice.

Calm. Measured. Clear.

"My name is Chloe Blackthorn."

No preamble. No theatrics.

"King Tomas is a lie. You are not ruled by a man. You are ruled by a monster. His name is Belphegor. He is not human. He is a Demon Lord."

A pause.

"Tomas is a puppet of this creature. Every smile you saw. Every promise of order. Every selection. Every disappearance. Every voice that went quiet in the night – fed to him."

"You've been his meat. His silence. His feast."

The words landed like cold iron.

No anger. No crying. Just truth, hollow and whole.

"The ones who were taken. Their souls were eaten. Their bodies used. But he's not watching you now. Not fully. I blinded him. He's screaming in the dark."

Chloe continued. "He can be hurt. Even killed."

Alyssa stood still beside her. One hand clenched around a steel beam, eyes watching the city lights below flicker – like they'd heard something. Like they were holding their breath.

Chloe's voice burned one final time:

"You don't need to be afraid anymore. We're here. We're fighting. And we're not the only ones. If you want to be free— Then help us burn him down."

The signal cracked.

Then fell silent.

Then—

Somewhere in the southern quarter, a light went out.

Another blinked on – twice.

In the east, a building door opened. A man stepped outside and looked up at the sky, as if waiting for a sound to come again.

In a buried tram station, someone dropped their Enforcer badge.

In a slum tower, a child whispered to her mother, "She's real."

The tower creaked around them. The wind didn't howl now. It listened.

Alyssa didn't speak.

Chloe opened her eyes.

And said:

"Now they know."

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