The winds howled differently today, and it wasn't just a breeze slipping through mountain ridges or the playful rustle of leaves in the Lower Realm forests. This wind carried something else—an ancient breath, a ripple through existence, as though the very fabric of the world braced itself. Even the birds had fallen silent.
He stood at the edge of the forest, just beyond where his small home lay tucked between the hill and the river. From here, he could see his son training with a wooden sword under the eyes of a watching shadow, while his daughter tossed flower petals into the air and laughed as they spiraled down like snow. Everything looked peaceful. But it wasn't. Not anymore.
He felt it the moment the light changed. The sun hadn't dimmed, but something above had begun to shift, like a curtain being drawn or an eye opening.
Then he heard the whisper—a voice in his mind, not from the heavens, not from hell, but from the space between.
"Turn around, Glutton."
He did.
Behind him stood a figure unlike any he'd encountered before. It wasn't wrapped in light or forged from darkness. It was simply there—featureless, shapeless, yet somehow clear as glass, as if reality bent around it.
"A new test," he murmured.
The figure nodded—though it had no head.
"You carry the weight of countless souls. Murderers. Martyrs. Kings. Cowards. Saints. Monsters. Their screams should have broken you long ago."
"They did," he replied softly, "and I rebuilt myself from their echoes."
The figure shifted, a swirling distortion rippling around it.
"Then show me who you are. Not in words. Not in memory. But in truth."
In a blink, the world disappeared. No wind. No scent of trees. No warmth from the sun. He stood in a circular space of nothingness—pitch black, but not cold. It stretched infinitely in all directions, yet he felt enclosed, like standing inside a heartbeat.
Before him stood the Mirror. It wasn't made of silver, glass, or even spirit crystal. It was pure self, a reflection not of how others saw him, or how he saw himself—but of the one truth even the soul feared to acknowledge.
He took a breath and stepped forward.
The image that appeared was not what he expected. Not the boy who slaughtered without guilt. Not the demon king who devoured heroes. Not even the calm father who now taught his children to fold paper birds by moonlight.
The Mirror showed all of them—overlapping, fragmenting, merging into one. But beneath all the layers, behind every face and form, a single, burning core emerged.
Loneliness. The kind that went deeper than abandonment or rejection. A void born not of others' absence, but from never having truly belonged—even to himself.
He stepped closer, the image growing clearer. The boy who cried when his mother first called him a monster. The teenager who smiled as blood dripped from his blade, thinking it made him free. The man who knelt in chains, whispering apologies no one believed. The demon who slept for three centuries beneath a throne of skulls. The father who flinched when his daughter said, "You're the kindest person I know."
All of it—him.
He reached out.
The Mirror rippled.
And then it spoke.
"You seek redemption not because you regret the blood spilled… but because you long for meaning in it."
The voice wasn't scolding. Just understanding.
"You crave family because you never understood it. You love because you fear what you'd become without it."
He nodded slowly. "I know."
"You have power beyond comprehension. And yet you chain yourself in simplicity. Why?"
He hesitated, then answered, "Because this is the only chain I chose."
"And if the world takes them from you?"
"…Then the world will bleed."
The Mirror shimmered, a storm building inside its reflection.
"And that is your truth."
He opened his eyes.
The formless figure stood silently—no judgment, no praise, just acceptance.
"Few can look into themselves and still stand," it said. "Heaven now knows your truth."
He looked down at his hands—hands that had ended thousands of lives, raised a home from nothing, and held his children gently when they cried.
"I'm not the man I used to be," he whispered. "But he still lives in me."
"And that," the figure said, "is why your story is not over."
Then it vanished.
Far above, the Oracle stirred in the Thirteenth Tower. The Twelve Judges remained silent. The Angel of Judgement floated near the edge of the lotus platform, her expression unreadable.
Finally, the Oracle spoke. "Let it be recorded: the Glutton's heart is divided. Not evil. Not good. Simply… broken."
The First Judge leaned forward. "Then what do we do?"
The Oracle didn't answer immediately. Its formless gaze drifted toward the Lower Realm.
"Nothing."
Gasps echoed through the chamber.
"Nothing?" the Third Judge repeated. "After everything—after he devoured one of our own, consumed the Fang, shattered the cycle—you would do nothing?!"
"We wait," the Oracle said. "Because the moment we force his hand… we seal our own fate."
Back in the Lower Realm, he sat beneath the cherry tree with his wife. She was humming softly as she fixed a tear in his cloak. She looked up suddenly, as if sensing something.
"Another trial?"
He nodded. "Passed."
"You okay?"
He smiled. "For now."
His son came running with his wooden sword. "Father! The shadow-soldier said I'm faster than last week!"
He ruffled the boy's hair. "He's right. You're getting strong."
His daughter followed with a crown of wildflowers. "For you!"
He knelt, letting her place it on his head.
And for a moment—a brief, perfect moment—there was no Glutton. No Demon King. No murderer. Just a man. Surrounded by love. Living in the silence between battles.
But in the ruins of the Upper Realm's seventh holy city, an ancient sigil began to glow—one not seen for ten thousand years. A beacon, calling not to Heaven, not to Earth, but to the place beyond both.
The Abyss Gate.
And it had just opened.