Devourer of Sins

The stone had been placed on the table for less than an hour, and already, the air inside the house had shifted.

The children were the first to notice.

The boy, who had come to control the seething Rage that once consumed him, felt the flickering of his flames stir at the edges of his calm. Even when his heart was still, the fire inside him trembled, uncertain. His sister, whose Guilt had become a silent shadow, began hearing whispers—faint and distant, as though voices were recounting moments she had never experienced, memories that didn't belong to her.

Their mother touched the stone only once.

It sent her into a whirl of confusion.

A memory that wasn't hers, a stranger's agony, someone else's death, surged through her like a bolt of lightning. For a long while, she stood by the window, her body stiff, her arms folded tightly around herself. Her eyes were distant, focused on the wind rustling the grass outside. It was as though the earth beneath them was breathing, stirring from a long slumber.

That night, no one slept.

Except for the demon.

He had made his decision.

At first light, he stood in the center of their courtyard, his ancient sword resting against his back—not the graceful weapon he used in playful sparring with his children, but the one that had never seen the light of day since the day he shattered the Fifth Heaven.

The one that devoured memory.

The boy and girl emerged at the same time, drawn by the shift in the air.

"Are we leaving?" the boy asked, his voice carrying the weight of something unspoken between them.

Their father nodded, the weight of his decision etched on his face. "We're heading east. To the edge of the Lower World."

The girl, always the more curious, furrowed her brow. "What's there?"

He turned to her, his gaze full of something older, something regretful.

"Something that should have stayed forgotten."

The journey began beneath skies that seemed to break apart in quiet surrender. The sun broke through only in thin, guilty rays, as though trying to hide from the world. The day was a quiet one, a heavy one.

They did not take horses. The shadows that followed them moved faster.

Each of them had a shadow assigned to guard them, though the children hardly noticed. The guardians were silent, invisible, and perfect in their execution.

But the boy could feel his.

It stayed close, not as a mere shadow, but like an older sibling, always watching over his every step. Once, when he stumbled on a jagged ridge, the shadow caught him before his foot even had a chance to slip.

"You don't have to catch me," he muttered, his voice betraying his discomfort.

The shadow said nothing, but the boy understood, in some unspoken way:

"I do. It's what I was made for."

Three days into their journey, they reached the Nameless Gorge.

It stretched like a wound across the world, deep and endless, its bottom concealed beneath layers of illusions. There were no maps, no paths—just empty space and the echoes of forgotten souls.

The demon king stepped forward and placed the stone at the edge.

It pulsed once—and then the gorge began to stir.

A bridge began to unfold, woven from the threads of forgotten names, half-remembered sins.

With each step they took across it, their minds were pressed by flashes—fragments of lives that were not their own.

A child crying in a burning home.

A knight kneeling beside a poisoned king.

A girl, burying her heart in a jar before going to war.

The children remained silent, but their father could feel their awareness shifting, the weight of these memories beginning to take root within them. He could already feel it, that pressure building—the Third Truth was awakening.

On the sixth day, the city began to rise from beneath the sands.

Not through excavation.

But through remembrance.

As they neared the basin, towers began to emerge silently from the dunes. Walls reformed themselves, shifting between glass and bone. A gate swung open, and a wind that smelled of ink and decay rushed out to meet them.

"What is this place?" the boy asked, his voice a mix of awe and unease.

His father did not answer, for he could not. The truth was, he had already begun to remember things he wished to forget.

The girl stepped forward, her eyes distant, almost haunted.

"I've been here before," she whispered, as though to herself.

"You haven't," her mother said gently, the words soft but firm.

But the girl shook her head, her voice barely above a breath.

"No. Not me. But… a part of me."

Without another word, she stepped inside.

The city was not dead.

It was dreaming.

And now, with them within its walls, it began to wake.

The streets shifted behind them, rearranging themselves as they walked. Buildings bled from their shutters, not with rain, but with blood. Statues turned, their eyes tracking every movement. The further they went, the more the air shimmered with echoes—hundreds, thousands of them.

Memories.

Not just personal ones, but the weight of collective guilt, forgotten crimes, regrets too vast for any one soul to bear.

At the center of the city stood the Tower of Recollection.

It loomed higher than the clouds, its spire broken at the top, as though it had once reached for something beyond its grasp.

The demon king stood at the base of the tower, staring up at it, his eyes narrowed in quiet recognition.

"That's where the truth sleeps," he murmured.

The boy stepped forward, his curiosity clear in his gaze. "How do we wake it?"

"We don't," the father replied, his voice heavy, his grip on his blade tightening. "We stop it from waking."

But it was too late.

The tower began to tremble.

High in the Upper World, at the edge of the Celestial Frontier, a crystal shuddered in the hands of a seer.

"The Third Truth rises," she whispered, a hint of dread in her voice.

Around her, the twelve elders stirred from their meditation, their faces drawn with concern.

"We must warn the Hero."

"The Hero is dead," one of them replied.

"Then we must prepare for a world without him."

Back in the tower, the walls cracked, the air thickening with an ancient power.

The demon turned to his children, his voice unyielding.

"You need to leave. Now."

"I'm not leaving you," the boy said, fire flashing in his eyes, defiance on his lips.

His father turned his gaze on him, cold but filled with regret. "This isn't your fight yet. There are truths here that will burn you from the inside."

The girl clutched his sleeve, her voice pleading. "But you'll burn too."

He looked at them, torn between his love for his family and the world that was awakening around them.

Then, with a resigned sigh, he said, "If I fall, your shadows will take you home."

"No," the boy said, stepping forward. "If you fall, we fight."

Their mother joined them, her presence solid and unwavering.

"And if you fight, you don't fight alone."

The demon king looked around, taking in the faces of the family he had tried to protect from the horrors of this world. He turned to face the awakening city, the truth of the past uncoiling before him.

He sighed again, this time with acceptance.

"So be it."

As the final bell tolled inside the Tower of Recollection, the past cracked open.

The ground split.

From its heart rose a being made of mirrors, cloaked in script, its face constantly shifting.

The embodiment of Memory.

It spoke with a thousand voices:

"Who dares deny what was?"

The demon raised his sword.

"Someone who remembers enough to regret."