The Devil's Son and His Fated Bride
Chapter 206: The Gods’ prison.

Chapter 206: The Gods’ prison.

Location: The Gods’ Prison – a hell designed to punish demons.

The pain he’d been suppressing clawed its way up, and had his jaw tight with each ragged breath. His clothes were worn away. A searing heat wrapped around his body like a curse, blistering his skin, while sweat and blood slicked every inch of him.

Kai opened his eyes. His arms were stretched wide, shackled to twin obsidian pillars etched with runes so old they pulsed with a cruel, foreign power. He couldn’t read the script, perhaps it was the language of gods, a dialect forged to bring demons to their knees.

His wrists burned where golden dust leaked from the chains, the same divine residue he had seen around the Spike–The immortal weapon– they stole from Deagara’s castle. His lips were cracked and bleeding. His limbs were numb. The sheer weight of exhaustion tinted his vision blue.

He stood upon a circular stone platform, suspended in a land that was no land at all, an endless desert scorched by rivers of fire, hemmed in by groaning volcanoes that bled ash into a molten sky.

"Reneira!" he cried out, hoarse, broken, her name the last light clutched in the abyss of his memory before the void gate swallowed him whole.

The heat bled from the sands in the distance, warping the horizon like a fever dream. The sky churned with dark clouds, and the entire world seemed reduced to just four colors, deep orange, blood red, ashen black, and a lifeless grey.

The air was thick, too heavy to breathe without choking. Kai tried to summon Shadow, desperate for even a flicker of the presence that had once shared his soul. But there was nothing. It was as if a wall had been raised between them, severing the bond.

He wanted his demon side to rise, the very part of himself he had tried to cast out for decades. He had fought it, buried it, cursed it. And now, in this pit of divine torment, he pathetically craved its return. But there was no trace. Not even a whisper.

Then, through the haze, a figure began to take shape. A woman, gliding forward with slow, deliberate grace. Her long, wavy white hair caught what little light there was, glowing like moonlight on black marble. She wore a thin black silk garment that trailed behind her, brushing over the sand as she approached.

Her eyes were a pale, luminous silver, unblinking, serene. Not a trace of pain touched her expression, as though this place had never known the power to harm her. She ascended to the platform without hesitation.

As she drew closer and her once-blurred features came into focus, Kai’s eyes widened.

"Wife?" he whispered, breathless.

The woman’s crimson lips curled into a smile.

"Hmm... So that’s how you see me? I look like your wife?"

Kai frowned, confusion cutting through the haze of pain. What did she mean? He knew what he saw, he couldn’t be mistaken.

"Who are you?" he asked.

She bent down, her delicate pale fingers curling under his chin as she examined his face like a curious god inspecting a broken toy.

"I am the Lord of this Realm," she said softly. "I should kill you, demon."

Kai let out a dry, humorless chuckle. "Then why don’t you?"

She pursed her lips, straightened, and turned her back to him, her black silk trailing in her wake like a shadow.

"You’re interesting," she said, almost to herself. "I’ve been here for... who knows how long? Time doesn’t matter here. But never—not once—have I seen a demon shed tears for love."

She stared out at the horizon, her silver eyes distant, as if searching the molten sky for memories. She recalled standing on a cliff, high above this punishment realm, when a portal had opened among the storm-choked clouds, an anomaly in a world ruled by fire and silence.

Then, for the first time in an eternity, something cold touched her cheek. A single drop of salty water. She flinched. This sky had never wept, not in all her years of watching it. Yet as the portal took shape, one tear had fallen onto her cheek, another on the back of her hand, and a third landed with a soft hiss on the scorched ground.

A storm of emotions churned within her, confusing, foreign, and vast. How could a devil feel love so deep it bled into the sky? How could a creature born of shadow weep so purely? She questioned.

"How is it," he murmured, "that you look so much like my wife?"

Kai, still bound in chains, managed a strained breath.

The woman looked over her shoulder, her expression unreadable. "Because you see me that way. She must be the one your heart aches for most. Everyone who comes here sees someone different. Your brother... he saw me as Axaxeal. And your father..." she paused, her voice softening, "Hmm, he saw me as himself."

"My brother... is he still alive?" Kai panted, his lungs straining. The air in this realm felt poisoned, or maybe it was the god-forged chains slowly crushing him, it was impossible to tell.

"Yes, he is," she replied, her voice smooth, almost amused. "The gods are lashing him with the Heaven’s Whip. He won’t last long. But you..." she turned to glance at him, lips curling into a sly smirk, "you are exceptional."

She sauntered toward a massive rift carved into the ground, as though the very world had split open. "First had come your tears... then you had fallen like a stone from the sky. I bound you. But then..." she pointed to the jagged chasm, "I sensed it. Three shades of heaven’s magic struck this very place. They left that gash on my ground."

She tilted her head, playful now. "Tell me, demon, who tried to exchange their life for yours? Was it anyone... interesting?"

Reneira? Gods, no. That reckless little storm of a woman. His wife. He lowered his head, shaking it slowly, unwilling to voice her name here. When he looked up again, the woman’s face had changed. She was still striking, but no longer the mirror of Ren.

"What is your name? Minding not to answer the question," he asked, a flicker of curiosity shining through the pain. He had never imagined this prison had a Lord.

Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m

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