Side Story: 6 Months - The Caged God

The tunnels spiraled endlessly. The deeper Vainglory went, the more the void song tightened around his thoughts like a noose.

The first wave had been beasts. Thin, serpent-like things with mouths like grinding stones and poison instead of blood. They’d crawled through the cracks and hissed through overlapping pitch.

He killed the first dozen cleanly.

The second wave had been armored. Chitin-backed horrors with too many legs and plate-shells that refracted light in impossible angles. When he struck them, the sound didn’t echo properly. It folded instead of bounced, inverted across the tunnels with an eerie ring.

His sword cracked the first time blocking one of their claws.

He switched to thrusts. Quick. Minimal effort. Precise kills. Conserving strength.

But then came the third wave, massive, quadrupedal colossi, plated from skull to shin, each with a hole through their chest where their heart should have been. They roared without mouths, moving like siege towers in a cave too narrow.

Vainglory ducked behind a collapsed arch of fleshstone. Blood soaked his arms to the elbow. But his breathing remained even.

His sword was shaking in his hand. Not from fear.

From tension. His blade was splintered down the middle. A few more strikes and it would shatter.

And there were still hundreds more.

They were circling now. The chamber was wide, an arena carved by hunger and time, and every wall pulsed with soundless music. The void song hummed in every rock and breath.

He closed his eyes.

“[Guiding Hand].”

DING

[

[Guiding Hand] is now cooperating with [All-Seeing Eyes].

Tactical prediction is now enabled.

]

Within his vision, golden threads snapped into place, weaving through the chaos like stitched light over madness. Every weakness shimmered. Every incoming strike, each opening in armor, every sliver of timing displayed.

“Corrections only.” He instructed.

DING

[

Non-lethal paths disabled.

Efficiency is now prioritized.

]

The swarm hissed.

Then parted.

The head colossus emerged, larger than the others, bearing spines along its back and crowned with warped, curling antlers of bone. Its faceless head twitched with soundless tremors. The maw in its chest pulsed like an exposed throat.

It charged.

And Vainglory stepped to meet it.

The colossus struck. Massive, deliberate, and unrelenting.

He dodged the first claw. His sword came down in a wide arc—colliding with the monster’s shoulder, right at the seam of two plates.

CRACK

His blade split. Clean from its center.

Vainglory didn’t blink.

He tossed the hilt aside, already stepping into his next motion.

His eyes caught a shattered bone near his feet, likely from a fallen mid-sized Voidspawn. Without breaking stride, he scooped it up and drove it directly into the colossus’s back knee joint.

CRUNCH

The beast staggered, limbs spasming.

Vainglory vaulted forward, planting his foot on the embedded bone like a springboard and launched himself up the side of the creature’s spine.

He moved like gravity was negotiable, a choice even.

He scaled the back armor with minimal touchpoints, guided by the efficiency streams projected by [Guiding Hand]. His glowing eyes locked onto the weak seam at the throat, and his next hand seized the femur jutting from a different corpse embedded in the cave wall he passed mid-climb.

It was slick, heavy, but sharpened enough.

He flipped it in his grip.

Then he brought it down. Once, twice, striking the weak point at the base of the skull.

The third blow connected with a wet crack, tearing muscle and protective sinew. The colossus convulsed.

Vainglory twisted midair and drove the femur down in a wide arc.

The strike severed the head cleanly.

The creature’s body twitched. Shuddered. Fell.

Dust and purplish-black ichor misted in the air.

Vainglory landed beside the twitching mass, boots sliding across bone.

He stood slowly. Then looked down at the decapitated head.

“Obstacle eliminated.”

But the battle was not over.

His eyes lifted.

And saw them.

The rest of the swarm.

Dozens. Hundreds. Small and large. Clinging to the ceiling. Coiled between stone roots. Buried into the walls, eyes gleaming from within muscle and mineral.

Every single one of them still alive.

And every single one watching him.

The air pulsed. The Void Song deepened, rich and full now, no longer discordant. It welcomed him. Encircled him. Like a chant. Like a prayer.

He raised the bone blade again, chest rising with calm breath.

They weren’t coming for him yet.

But they would.

And he would be ready.

His eyes never wavered.

As he stepped forward.

…

…

The mouth of the cave still steamed with black smoke and foul vapor.

The trees at the edge of the glade bent away, warped from root to branch by the hum of something deeper than magic, the void song.

A frequency. A pressure in the soul.

From this cave, a nest of horrors had spilled, monstrous things that twisted space and broke minds with a whisper. 

Voidspawn.

And from that very nest, Vainglory exited, alone.

Sixteen mortal years old, covered in gore, glowing faintly.

His white devil leathers were ruined, his boots soaked in spawn fluids. One of his bracers was missing. His hair was plastered to his face with black blood. In his hand, he dragged a long, sharpened femur still glistening from use.

He stopped at the edge of the glade and dropped it without ceremony.

“My sword broke halfway through.” He said flatly. His golden eyes rotating as he gazed at the individuals in front of him.

Five of his seven party members stood in a loose semicircle ahead. They’d remained outside, waiting.

The beastkin’s ears twitched first. Then the priest took a step back. The elf with red leaf tattoos began drawing mana into her hands without realizing it.

They’d expected him to die in that nest.

And he hadn’t.

Vainglory looked at them without emotion. He knew already. The pattern had made itself clear to his eyes below.

The trap spells that cut him off from the rest of the group. The precise moment they ‘lost contact’. The wards outside, designed to seal devils specifically.

This wasn’t a failed mission. It was an execution attempt.

The beastkin recovered first.

“H-He’s infected!” the silver-furred rogue barked, stepping away from the others, blades drawn. “The Song got to him! Look at his eyes!”

Vainglory’s eyes glowed gold, calm and focused.

They all knew he was still sane.

He didn’t suffer from void infection. Not with the physique he possesses.

“You know I’m immune,” he said coldly.

The priest stepped forward, voice careful. “You’ve been... changed, Vainglory. The exposure must’ve-”

“You mean I survived.”

The elf finally spoke, sharp and bitter. “You’re unstable! Look at yourself! That’s not normal!”

He scoffed.“I killed three hundred and thirty-two Voidspawn alone. Normal doesn’t apply to me.”

The beastkin’s eyes darted between the others. Fear mingled with something else… 

Panic. 

Desperation. 

He thought Vainglory could still be weak. That the Song had dulled him. That maybe, just maybe, he could finish what the cave hadn’t.

So the beastkin moved.

It was fast, lightning fast.

But not fast enough.

A flicker of sacred silver. A gleam of a curved blade.

And then…

POP

Vainglory didn’t turn.

He didn’t even bother to look.

His hand simply shot out, backhanded and glowing, and the beastkin’s head exploded mid-sprint. Bone and fur painted the grass in a wide arc. The body dropped like a ruined sack of meat, twitching once.

The sound rang through the glade.

Sudden. Wet. Final.

The rest of the party froze.

Vainglory stared at the crimson mess on his hand, then wiped it off against his ruined coat. His golden eyes flicked upward, unblinking.

A small smile graced his lips.

“Kekeke, you lower beings were always cowards.”

None of the others moved.

The priest tried to form a ward. The elf opened her mouth, to beg, perhaps. The half-elf began stepping away, slow as snowfall.

But he didn’t strike again.

Because something else arrived first.

The sky cracked.

A soundless tremor rippled through the trees. The grass bent flat. The air thickened like molten gold poured from above.

From the broken space above the battlefield descended a cloaked figure. Tall, elegant, and terrible. His cloak shimmered over his suit marked with etched coins, his hands clasped behind his back, a smile hidden within the hood of black and gold thread.

The Devil Greed.

A Primordial. One of the Seven.

His presence was smothering.

Vainglory felt his breath still. Not from awe, but from something deeper. 

Recognition.

Greed hovered midair, looking down. His eyes glimmered like sealed vaults. Not giving, only taking.

He raised one hand lazily, pointed directly at Vainglory.

And said a single phrase.

[Debt Collector].

~~~

DING

There it was again. The sound had no echo in the Abyss, but it rang clean through his bones, carried not by air, but law. A notification pressed directly into his soul.

Vainglory opened his eyes.

A thread of light unspooled across the void, and from it, the usual message formed in golden script.

[

New Message from: [Unwavering Believer]

Essence Delivered: 1 Greater, 3 Lesser Glories

Message Content: [Blocked by Order Law]

]

The delivery pulsed through his devil core. Jolting, sharp, but… a little euphoric. His breathing deepened. His core rotated harder, faster. The stakes in his limbs shifted, as if reluctant to hold him now. His chains resisted, then settled. They had learned not to fight this pulse.

He exhaled slowly.

Six months.

He had begun marking time again.

He hadn't realized it at first. In the Abyss, all things blurred. Light bent wrong. Memory spiraled. Hours curled into centuries. But something in the pattern of the deliveries had started to catch.

Same interval. Same cycle. Same weight of mana.

And that was the clue.

"My eyes… they're adjusting."

His voice was calm, low. No emotion in it, only analysis.

Across each of his pupils, the three rings rotated more clearly now. What once spun with random cadence now clicked with subtle rhythm. 

Tick. Tick. Tick. 

Like an internal clock rebuilding itself. His [All-Seeing Eyes] were syncing, not just to the world’s magic now, but to time itself.

That was what she had done. Whoever she was. This [Unwavering Believer.]

Not only had she delivered essence, but she had stitched it with structure.

He sat up straight, moving slowly, letting the essence settle. Black blood slid off the stakes in his arms and pooled on the floor.

Still… he felt stronger. Sharper.

The abyss didn’t dull him as it once had.

“Same time,” he murmured, looking at the golden panel. “Same weight. Same glyph fractures.”

And there it was again. The error.

As always, Order Law attempted to block the message’s content, but recently, a few bits slipped through, leaking glyphs, unstable divine scripting. Fragmented intention.

He glanced at the fragments he recently deciphered.

[…the mirror cracked…]

[…hows the spear? jk lol…]

[…Im not a misandrist, but…]

Vainglory stared at them.

The first was familiar, ominous but logical. The second?

He frowned.

“Jay-kay?”

The final one made no linguistic sense at all. “Mis-an-drist?”

The syllables tasted foreign in his mind, borrowed from a dialect not spoken in Neel, or at least Hellnia.

He didn’t understand them yet.

But he would.

Each message brought clarity. As his core saturated further, the laws hiding her thoughts would loosen. He was learning to read between the rules.

He checked his system.

[Evolution Progress: 52%  ->  55%]

He wasn’t just surviving anymore.

He was ascending.

“You’re waking me up.” he said softly, eyes still fixed on the glyphs.

There was no warmth in the words.

Just fact.

But he failed to notice the corners of his lips rise slightly.

The void around him resisted harder. His chains twitched like nerves under skin. The pressure in the air bent outward from his form now. Not just containment. Containment under strain.

“You’re close.” he murmured.

His fingers tightened slightly.

That’s when the voice returned.

“I see you’re having your quiet moment.” said [Parallel Opinion] smoothly.

Vainglory didn’t flinch, but his eyes narrowed slightly.

“You’re active again?”

“Haha. Only a little. Just enough to keep you from falling in love with the next essence-soaked priestess that blinks your way.”

Vainglory didn’t look up. “She’s not a priestess. Not like the Temple ones.”

“Mm. Then what is she?” Parallel Opinion asked casually. “Not divine. Definitely not mortal. Her mana signature’s laced with esoteric laws and curse scars.”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well, if she’s this dedicated, you could do worse.”

Vainglory glanced sideways, eyes cold.

“You’re joking again.”

“I’m balancing your perspective, Samael. That’s what I’m here for, remember?”

He froze.

The name struck a little wrong this time. Like an echo from a memory that had never been shared.

Samael.

The name Piety had given him the day she slipped that necklace into his hand. A moment of warmth he had dismissed as sentimental. Long buried, now resurfacing through this voice once again.

He said nothing.

“You’ve been lonely lately,” Parallel Opinion added, lighter now. “I was adjusting tone.”

“Don’t.”

The words came out sharper than intended.

There was a pause.

Then Parallel Opinion asked, lightly, “Still thinking about Piety?”

“No.”

“Of course not. Just curious. She had a good heart, that one. Always stood by you, even when the others-”

“She was a friend,” Vainglory said flatly. “And not involved.”

“Well said,” the voice agreed, instantly. “She was the best of them. Never forget that.”

Why did he keep bringing her up? Almost desperately so.

He closed his fingers again and muttered, “Pause Parallel Opinion.”

“Ah, but we were just-”

DING

[

[Parallel Opinion] has been paused.

]

Stillness again.

But not emptiness.

His thoughts now moved in rhythm. The essence had stabilized his perception. The messages were anchoring his awareness of reality.

And all the changes happening around him.

All of them…

He looked back to his panel, one phrase in particular hovered still on his vision.

[…hows the spear?…]

He didn’t know what it meant.

But soon…

The glyphs still shimmered in his vision, fragments of a thought he hadn’t asked for, delivered across forbidden channels by a person he had never met.

Vainglory stared at them, unblinking.

They just didn’t fit.

Not the way divine messages did. Not the way any temple or devil cult encoded transmissions. The syntax, tone, and even emotion were… off. As if they’d been meant for a world that operated on different logic entirely.

And that, more than anything, unsettled him.

Because it meant she was thinking differently than others in Neel or Hellnia. 

And he’d seen this type of chaotic speech before.

But he wouldn’t come to conclusions just yet.

He raised his head toward the golden panel, and his [All-Seeing Eyes] began to glow.

“Expand output window.” he whispered.

DING

[

Warning! Security Breach Detected. Order Law Block Engaged!

[All-Seeing Eyes] Attempting Overread…

]

Runes shimmered across his field of vision. His vision refracted, the message expanding into a thousand-thread lattice, glowing, pulsing, packed with locked words.

And as he focused, his devil core flared.

Heat bloomed in his ribs. Essence bled outward.

He grit his teeth.

The system didn’t warn him again. But It didn’t have to, because the toll was immediate, visceral. Every second he held the overread open, the glory he’d received began to evaporate, feeding the process instead of his evolution.

He was burning power to learn her thoughts.

The glyphs wavered. One blinked into partial clarity.

[…srsly tho, ur core is like hella insane…]

Then it blurred again, disintegrating before his eyes.

He narrowed his gaze. “Translate it.” he ordered.

DING

[

Translation Failed! Cultural context missing!

Evolution required!

]

Vainglory’s fist clenched.

So close.

He forced the lattice wider.

Three more glyphs leaked through, untranslated, unstable, but there.

[…parasocial, probably…]

[…whomegalol the pantheon…]

[…not projecting i swear…]

Human temple information? Magic theory?… or just more nonsense?

But the frequency. The timing. Her messages weren’t just prayers or chants. They were conversations. Attempts to speak plainly it seemed, like someone trying to chat across a battlefield.

Still...

Each second of overread drained him. He could feel the glory essence in his core diminishing, bleeding out into his eyes’ hunger.

He blinked and checked his progress.

[

Evolution Progress: 55%  ->  54%

Essence Lost: 1 Greater Glory, 2 Lesser Glories

]

His jaw tightened.

So that was the trade.

He had thought the process safe, incremental. But forcing through the veil came with a cost. Too much of it, and he wouldn’t ascend. He’d stall, vulnerable at the halfway point, neither sealed nor sovereign.

He let the message window collapse.

The light snapped shut. The message evaporated. His mind cleared just enough to feel the weight of the silence again.

He stayed still.

“She's trying to talk to me.” he said aloud, more to the dark than himself.

The stakes pulsed in response. The abyss resisted.

He breathed slowly through his nose.

‘Was it worth it?’

To learn who she was, what she knew, why her words made less and less sense the more he read.

Or should he wait? Let the messages keep coming. Let them build him up until nothing could block her words.

Wait, and rise.

Or push, and risk everything.

His golden eyes stared into the dark space above him, where the message used to be.

He understood hardly anything.

But… he felt her. Distant, but reaching. Not begging, but daring, as if she already knew he’d break through eventually. As if she was waiting to be understood.

For a moment, he nearly smiled again.

Then he looked again at his evolution screen.

[

Evolution Progress: 54%

]

Too much loss.

He closed his hand. “Not yet.”

His voice was calm, cold.

“Let the mystery speak first.”

He leaned back against the stakes. Felt the shifting pressure ease.

The next message would come. It always did.

And when it did, he would listen, not just for what she said.

But for what it cost her to say it.