"When one has touched the Divine, to become mortal again is to fight against the wind."
Azareal's glass eyes were fixed on the temple ground.
All around him, slaves knelt in silence—it was the hour of sacrifice.
Their faces were hollow, their chains glinting faintly under the cold torchlight.
Every gaze turned to Azareal—some in contempt, others in fear.
The priests watched him the most, eager for him to make one mistake, one foolish move,
so they could paint the temple floor with his blood again.
But Azareal didn't see them.
He couldn't.
Whispers echoed through his mind—foreign, guttural, divine.
They grew louder, like claws scraping at the walls of his soul.
He tried to resist, but the voices were endless.
They didn't come from him.
They came for him.
Then she walked in—the sacrifice.
A young woman, barely seventeen, trembling in her white cloth.
The priest in charge looked her over with eyes drenched in sin.
A servant whispered something into his ear; his face twisted in disgust.
"You whore," he spat. "You are not even fit for the gods' table."
The hall went silent.
Then he sneered, raising his curved, gold-edged blade.
"Still... we shall offer a part of you. The gods must feed."
He tore through her arm slowly. Her scream shattered the air—
a sound too human for a temple this unholy.
The nobles and priests laughed, their robes fluttering in cruel delight.
And through it all, Azareal did not move.
He sat blank, eyes unfocused,
as if staring into something beyond them all.
Then everything froze.
Time itself held its breath.
In the dark void within his soul, Azareal opened his eyes.
The air shimmered with black runes and the whispers became words.
He whispered weakly, "What… what is this place? And how am I in here?