The ground changed beneath his feet.
The dirt grew darker.
Thicker.
Tainted.
Berou felt it before he saw it — the hum of cursed machinery buried beneath the rock, still pulsing faintly like a long-dead heart refusing to rot. The further he walked, the colder the wind became, until breath curled like smoke and even silence felt watched.
This was not the outer Abyss.
This was its border.
The place even agents avoided.
The Hollow Vein.
A failed project. A hidden wound.
Somewhere in the dark ahead, the Abyss had once tried to make gods.
It had failed.
Now all that remained was rust, screams, and something locked beneath the soil — something they had tried to erase from record and memory both.
Berou stepped forward anyway.
He passed under the dead gate — a massive structure of bone-welded steel, untouched in years. Around it, forgotten weapons lay half-buried in ash. He walked slowly, breathing shallowly, wings tight against his back.
Then he heard it.
A scream.
No direction.
No language.
Just raw, psychic agony.
He staggered for a moment, head pounding. It wasn't sound. It was mind. Something below was still alive. Not human. Not divine.
Something left behind.
He followed the pull — down a broken stairwell, through a ruined chamber that once held containment tanks now shattered and dry. Strange symbols lined the walls, etched in blood and madness.
And there, in the center of the room, a cage.
Ten feet tall.
Twisted steel, wrapped in black veins of something not-quite-organic. Inside it, curled like a dying animal, was the source of the scream.
Not a creature.
A soul.
It had no body anymore. Only parts — remnants of angels, demons, and machines fused into something that breathed hate with every flicker of its existence.
Its single eye opened.
And Berou felt his own name crumble inside his head.
"Berou…" it spoke. Not aloud. Inside.
He raised a hand, his fingers trembling, the armor already crawling up his skin like a second heartbeat.
"What are you?" he whispered.
"I am the proof.
The price.
The prototype.
I am what they tried before you."
Berou's mind burned with images. They had taken others — angels like him — and tried to force them into gods. It hadn't worked. This one had survived, but not in any way that could ever be called alive.
"They buried me here. Thought I would forget.
But I remember.
I remember the taste of light.
And the scream of wings being torn out."
Berou stepped closer to the cage. His armor now covered half his torso. The Apostate wanted out.
"Why are you still here?" he asked.
"To wait.
For you."
The cage exploded.
Not with metal — with will. The being surged forward, a mess of corrupted limbs and soundless rage, and Berou was slammed backward into the wall, ribs cracking.
He rolled. Cursed. Blood on his tongue.
The room shook. Chains snapped. And the creature crawled free — half-formed, wings like ruined flags dragging behind it.
"Let me in," it begged. "Let me finish what they started."
Berou stood. One eye glowing crimson now. The armor surged — black metal twisting over his shoulders, claws forming on one hand. His voice was no longer just his own.
"Then earn it."
They collided.
Steel. Bone. Hate.
The fight shook the ruins. Berou moved like lightning, like instinct sharpened to a razor. But the creature was stronger — rawer. Every blow Berou landed only made it scream louder, its hate growing hotter, more desperate.
And then — the moment.
Berou's wings flared wide. The two missing wings flashed faintly in the air, ghostlike, for just an instant.
The creature froze.
It saw something in him.
Something worse than itself.
"You… already became it."
Berou's voice cut like a blade.
"No.
I'm what comes after."
And with a roar, the Apostate of Hate emerged — full armor, black and red, his silhouette a broken crown of wrath and fire.
One blow.
That's all it took.
The creature shattered — not killed, not destroyed, but consumed. Its essence burned away in Berou's wake, like ash caught in a hurricane of vengeance.
He stood alone in the smoking ruin.
The armor faded. His breath slowed. His skin steamed with heat and memory.
He wasn't just a failed soldier now.
He was something the Abyss could never unmake.