Darkness did not come all at once.
It folded in gently, like a closing hand, wrapping Sevrin in something warmer than the stone cavern should have allowed. The ground no longer felt cold beneath him. The ache in his muscles dulled, not healed, but… acknowledged.
He realized he was no longer standing.
Nor lying.
He was within something.
A vast, endless void stretched in every direction, streaked with slow-moving embers of red and black light. Chains floated there too—countless, overlapping, some broken, some intact—each inscribed with runes that hummed with old authority.
Sevrin thought aloud,
"Am... I dead?"
A primordial presence stirred twitching every fiber from within Sevrin's soul,
"If you were," the voice replied,"you would not be asking questions?"
The sound was deeper now. It carried the weight of millennia and ruin.
"You said you were a fragment," Sevrin said carefully. "A fragment of a king."
A low, mirthless chuckle rippled through the void.
"That is a title of old young child,"
The embers flared, drawing together, shaping a towering silhouette seated upon a throne of broken crowns. Horns curved back from a shadowed head. Eyes like dying stars opened, fixing on Sevrin.
"I was called many things... Tyrant... Calamity... Impurity..."
Then the name struck like a brand burned into the soul.
"But you can refer to me as Asmodeus"
Sevrin's breath caught. Every scripture he had ever been forced to memorize screamed warning in his mind. The Clans taught that even speaking the Demon King's name invited corruption.
Yet nothing happened.
No pain. No madness.
Only clarity.
"You lost," Sevrin said.
Asmodeus's eyes narrowed—not in anger, but in something colder.
"I was betrayed."
Images surged around the inescapable void and Sevrin was now in the times of old. Sevrin saw the Seven Heroes, not as shining paragons or statues, but as desperate men and women. He could feel their fear, their envy, but most importantly their lust for a world they alone could shape.
"They sealed me using the very sin they outlawed," Asmodeus said.
"Desire—for control, for dominion, for eternity. And when my body was destroyed, they scattered my essence across Yuira."
The chains in the void rattled.
"You touched one such fragment."
Sevrin clenched his fists.
"Why me?"
For the first time, the Demon King hesitated.
"Because you too have faced the unjust rule brought upon by the Seven heroes"
The words settled heavily in Sevrin's chest.
"My family is enslaved," he said.
"My life was taken before I could choose anything... What power do I even have to change this world?"
Remaining silent Asmodeus starred at the enslaved child, then the throne shifted. A massive clawed hand extended, palm open. A sigil formed above it—complex, angular, incomplete.
"A pact," Asmodeus said.
"I grant you power, knowledge, and a path to rule over Yuira and shatter the Seven Clans,"
Sevrin's heart pounded.
"And... the cost?" he asked.
The embers dimmed.
"You will never know lust."
The words echoed unnaturally.
No desire for flesh. No craving for pleasure. No warmth of passion. Even love will become distant, muted—like a memory seen through glass.
Sevrin stared.
"In a world that already forbids lust," he said slowly, "that sounds like nothing at all."
Asmodeus's gaze sharpened.
"You misunderstand, child."
The chains tightened.
"The Clans suppress lust externally. I will sever it internally. You will not struggle against their laws—you will become something beyond them."
Sevrin thought of his mother's smile, already fading in his memory. Of his father's steady hands.
He felt no fear at the thought of losing desire.
Only resolve.
"If I refuse," he asked, "what happens?"
"You return to your current life as a slave"
Sevrin stepped forward.
"I accept."
The sigil burned.
Pain unlike anything he had known tore through him—not physical, but conceptual, as though something fundamental was being carved away. He screamed, though no sound escaped the void.
When it ended, the sigil embedded itself into his chest, glowing faintly beneath his skin.
The contract was sealed.
Asmodeus leaned back upon his throne, watching.
"Do not misunderstand the scale of what you have gained," the Demon King said.
"I am broken. So too will be your power—for now."
A single ember drifted toward Sevrin, settling into his palm.
"Your first authority", Asmodeus continued.
"Pathetic by my former standards."
The ember flickered weakly.
"—Dominion of Chains."
Sevrin frowned. "That's it?"
A low chuckle echoed.
"You are a slave, are you not?"
The ember sank into his hand. The air around Sevrin shimmered, and faint spectral chains manifested—thin, brittle, barely holding shape.
"You may bind those who are already bound," Asmodeus explained. "Those broken by law, debt, or decree. For now, you may command only one at a time."
The void began to unravel.
"Grow stronger," the Demon King said as Sevrin felt himself pulled back.
"Find my fragments. Break the world that broke you."
The cavern returned in a rush of cold air and stone.
Sevrin collapsed to his knees, gasping.
The shard of obsidian lay inert in his hand, now dull and cracked. But something had changed. He could feel the chains buried into the world around him—threads of bondage woven into flesh and fate alike.
Footsteps echoed in the distance.
Overseers.
Sevrin raised his trembling hand.
The faintest chain snapped into existence, stretching toward the approaching presence.
Weak.
Fragile.
But real.
And for the first time since his enslavement, Sevrin smiled—not with joy, not with desire, but with certainty.
The world had taken everything from him.
Now, it would begin to repay its debt.