The gateway spat us out into red.
Not the warm red of sunset or the bright red of fresh blood. This was different. Deeper. Wrong. Like looking at the world through a lens of dried blood and grief.
I hit the ground hard. White bone-dust puffed up around my boots, chalky and fine. The impact sent cracks spider-webbing across the surface—not earth, not stone, but something that looked like dried skin stretched over nothing.
My first breath tasted like copper and ash. Like breathing inside a wound that refused to heal.
I stood slowly, taking in our surroundings while the others materialized behind me.
The sky was the first thing I noticed. Had to be. It dominated everything.
An eclipse hung overhead. Not moving. Not passing. Just suspended there like a frozen moment of cosmic death. The black disc of whatever had swallowed the sun was rimmed with gold—a thin, dying corona that barely illuminated anything. And around that, bleeding outward in all directions, the sky was red.
Not sunset red. Arterial red. The color of the sky when something divine has bled out across the heavens.
"What the hell is this place?" Lucy whispered behind me.
I didn't answer. Couldn't. My Truth-Seer was already active, analyzing everything, and what it showed me was wrong on every level.
The ground wasn't ground. It was bone. Compressed, calcified bone that stretched in every direction, cracked and fractured like the dried bed of some ancient ocean. And in those cracks, faint light pulsed. Not red. Gold. Like something buried beneath was still trying to reach the surface.
My Essence Detection flared. Signatures everywhere. Dozens. Hundreds. But they weren't moving. Just... existing. Scattered across the landscape like silent witnesses.
"Somi," I said quietly. "Analysis."
Her Strategic Omniscience activated. Her eyes glowed with that layered light, processing more data than human consciousness should handle.
"Tier 3 Mirror World confirmed," she stated. Her multiple voices were flat. Clinical. But I heard the undertone—even her enhanced cognition was struggling with what it sensed. "Classification: Divine Collapse. Atmospheric essence density three times higher than Flesh Cradle. Corruption saturation extreme. Recommend: immediate defensive formation. This world is dying."
"Dying how?" Gery asked. His hand was already on his katana hilt—the new one, forged from water-essence after the Azure Fang shattered. Not as powerful as the original, but functional.
"Existentially," Somi replied. "The world's fundamental structure is degrading. Estimate: complete collapse within six months. Probability all inhabitants perish with collapse: ninety-eight percent."
Great. We'd entered a world with an expiration date.
I looked around more carefully. The bone-white wasteland extended to the horizon in every direction, broken only by distant structures that rose like broken teeth against the red sky. Towers. Spires. Something that might have been a cathedral.
And everywhere, absolutely everywhere, reaching toward that eclipsed sun, were hands.
Stone hands. Carved from the bone-ground itself. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Each one frozen mid-reach, fingers splayed toward the dying light above. Some were small—child-sized. Others were massive, ten feet tall, worn smooth by what might have been wind or tears.
They created a forest of frozen supplication. A graveyard of prayers that would never be answered.
"This is a holy place," Lucy said softly. "Or it was."
She was right. My Truth-Seer confirmed it. This entire world resonated with residual divinity. Not the clean, bright holiness from religious texts. This was divinity that had curdled. Gone sour. Rotted from the inside out.
Something divine had died here. Or worse—something divine had fallen here.
I touched the skull at my belt unconsciously. The bone was warm under my fingers. Always warm. A reminder of what I'd consumed to survive the Flesh Cradle.
The demon mask hung at Lucy's belt. She'd insisted on carrying it. Said if I needed it, she'd be the one to put it back on my face. I'd agreed because arguing seemed pointless.
Besides, at fifty percent corruption, I had other options now.
I reached into the essence inside me—that coiled mass of power and transformation that lived in my core—and pulled.
A sword materialized in my right hand.
Hunger. First of Seven.
The blade was six feet of curved black metal, silver corruption veins running through it like my own skin. The edge caught the red light and seemed to drink it, creating a line of absolute darkness where steel met air.
It felt right in my grip. Natural. Like my hand had been shaped specifically to hold this weapon.
"You can summon them without the mask now?" Gery asked. His tone was carefully neutral. Not accusing. Just... noting.
"One at a time," I said. "At fifty percent, I can manifest a single sword. Maintain it indefinitely as long as I have essence to spare."
I didn't mention that choosing which sword was a strategic decision I'd have to make carefully. That switching mid-combat would leave me vulnerable. That each sword had its purpose and picking wrong could be fatal.
They'd figure it out soon enough.
"Movement detected," Somi announced suddenly. "Distance: four hundred meters, bearing northeast. Multiple signatures. Humanoid. Essence patterns indicate... former humans. Corruption level: eighty percent plus."
I felt them too. My Essence Detection painting a picture in my mind's eye. Five signatures. Moving together. Coordinated but not rushing. Approaching with purpose but not hostility.
"Could be survivors," Lucy said. Her Lightning Wand appeared in her hand, electricity already crackling along its length.
"Could be," I agreed. "Or could be what survivors become if they stay here too long."
We didn't have to wait long to find out.
They emerged from behind one of the massive stone hands. Five figures walking in formation. At first glance, they looked human. At second glance, you noticed the way they moved—too smooth, too synchronized, like puppets sharing invisible strings.
As they got closer, the corruption became obvious.
The leader was a woman. Probably mid-thirties, though corruption made age hard to judge. Her skin had taken on a grey pallor, like stone dust had been rubbed into every pore. Corruption veins covered her arms and neck in intricate patterns—not the black-red of the Flesh Cradle, but silver. Like liquid moonlight flowing beneath her skin.
Her eyes were the worst part. The iris of each eye was ringed with gold, creating an eclipse pattern that mirrored the sky above. When she blinked, faint light bled from the corners.
The four behind her were similar. All heavily corrupted. All marked with that silver-and-gold aesthetic. All moving with that disturbing synchronization.
But they were conscious. Aware. I could see intelligence in their eyes. Calculation. Assessment.
"New arrivals," the woman said. Her voice was steady. Calm. Carrying easily across the bone-dust ground. "Four of you. Moderately corrupted. Armed. Wary. Smart."
She stopped about twenty feet away. Close enough to talk. Far enough to react if things went violent.
"My name is Elara," she continued. "I'm what passes for a welcoming committee in the Crimson Sorrow. And before you ask—yes, we're survivors like you. No, we're not going to attack you. And no, you can't leave."
Silence. Heavy. Weighted with implications.
"What do you mean we can't leave?" Gery asked. His hand hadn't moved from his weapon.
Elara's smile was sad. Knowing. The smile of someone who'd had this conversation many times before.
"I mean this world is dying. And it won't let go of what it's already claimed. The moment you stepped through that gateway, the Crimson Sorrow marked you. You're part of it now. Part of the collapse."
She gestured at the eclipse overhead.
"That's not just a celestial phenomenon. That's the heart of what rules this place. The Fallen Angel. The Last Seraph of the Crimson Eclipse. And every three to five days, it descends to walk among us. To judge us. To determine who deserves to be remembered and who should be erased."
My grip tightened on Hunger's handle. "What happens if you're erased?"
"You cease to exist. Not killed. Not consumed. Just... removed. Like you never were. The only reason we know it happens is because the Archive records everyone before they vanish."
"The Archive?" Lucy asked.
"You'll see. Everyone does, eventually." Elara's eclipse-marked eyes locked onto me. Really looked at me. At my silver-white hair. My grey eyes. My faded corruption marks. The sword in my hand that shouldn't exist outside of legend.
"You're interesting," she said slowly. "Fifty percent corruption but conscious. Stable. That shouldn't be possible. Most people at fifty percent are barely holding on. You're holding a manifested weapon. That's Tier 3 capability. But your essence signature reads as..."
She trailed off. Frowned. Tilted her head like she was hearing something I couldn't.
"You're not Tier 3," she concluded. "You're something else. Something that broke the normal progression. What are you?"
I met her eclipse-marked gaze with my grey eyes. Felt Hunger pulse in my hand, eager to cut, to consume, to prove its purpose.
"I'm the Lost One," I said. "And I'm here to kill your Fallen Angel."
Elara stared at me for a long moment. Then she started laughing. Not mockery. Not disbelief. Just... exhausted, desperate laughter. The kind that comes when you've been trapped so long that someone's suicidal declaration sounds refreshing.
"Of course you are," she said when she could breathe again. "Of course. Well, Lost One, let me be the first to tell you: you're the forty-seventh person to say that to me. The previous forty-six are all dead. Or erased. Or worse."
She gestured toward the distant cathedral.
"But you're welcome to try. Everyone does. That's where the Reliquaries are—the Anchor Points of this world. Divine power, freshly corrupted. Bind to them, gain the Angel's stolen strength, and maybe you'll last long enough to see it descend."
She started walking. Her four companions followed in perfect unison.
"Come on," she called back. "I'll show you to the Cathedral of Hands. You'll want to get there before the Choir stops singing. That's when you know it's coming."
"What's coming?" Lucy asked.
Elara's smile vanished. Her eclipse eyes reflected the red sky.
"Judgment."
Above us, the eternal eclipse pulsed once. Twice. The gold rim flickered like a dying ember.
And somewhere in the distance, I heard it.
Singing.
Thousands of voices. Layered. Harmonized. Beautiful and terrible and wrong.
The Choir.
And they were singing a hymn that sounded like mourning.