Devourer of Sins

He hadn't said a word since the man in the suit picked him up.

Not out of reluctance—just preference. Silence made it easier to listen. To the hum beneath the car's perfect glide. To the wind brushing glass with the softness of breath. The city blurred past the tinted windows, lights bending into smears of color, and he didn't bother asking where they were headed.

He already knew.

This wasn't a trip. It was a reckoning.

The man beside him scrolled through a glass tablet, face unreadable. Strange symbols flickered on the screen—neither modern nor foreign. They weren't from any known language. They were older. Raw. Etched into the bones of the world itself.

Every time they flashed, something inside him stirred. Not recognition—resonance. Like blood answering an ancient call.

They drove until the skyline vanished and the road dipped into shadow. A tunnel swallowed them—no signs, no traffic. Just old stone, cracked with age and lined with murals so faded they looked like ghosts etched into the walls.

"You've been here before," the man said.

He nodded. "I know."

A glance from behind dark lenses. "Then you know what this place is."

"I have guesses."

"Good," the man murmured. "Keep 'em guesses. Truth hits harder when you ask for it."

The car stopped with a hiss. The locks disengaged with a chime like wind chimes in a graveyard. They stepped out into dim, humming light.

The chamber they entered was vast—vaulted like a cathedral, but colder. Statues without faces lined the walls, towering and silent. The columns told stories in carved brutality—too grotesque for any holy place.

A dozen figures waited inside. Robes. Armor. Scarred faces and ancient eyes. And every one of them stared at him—not as a stranger, but as a returning god.

A memory reborn.

"Welcome," said one robed figure, voice echoing across the stone. "We didn't expect you back so soon."

"I didn't expect it either," he said.

Another voice—older, colder—cut in. "No one ever does. That's how you know it's fate."

He scanned their faces. "What is this, a cult?"

A few chuckles—dry and humorless.

"Not a cult," came the reply. "A remembrance."

And then the word dropped. Spoken like a prayer laced with fear:

"The Devourer."

He felt it—like a tide rising inside him. Something old and vast, dragging power up from beneath his skin. A hunger that had no stomach, only memory.

They knew.

They had always known.

An armored figure stepped forward and knelt. "Three centuries ago, you vanished. We thought you'd been sealed."

"I was," he said flatly.

"In the mortal world?"

He didn't answer. He didn't have to.

The oldest among them stepped forward—his face a crumpled map of time, his eyes lit with reverence and guilt.

"Your soul was never corrupted by evil," the elder said. "It was devoured by hunger. Gluttony. The sin that eats all others. You don't return by birth or by fate… you consume your way back into the world."

"And what do you want from me?" he asked.

Silence.

Then: "Forgiveness."

That threw him.

"For what?"

The elder knelt. "For our betrayal. Three hundred years ago, after the Great Purge weakened you… we turned."

"You were my generals."

"Yes."

"You led the Burning March across the Three Realms."

"Yes."

"And when I fell asleep inside that mortal shell…"

"We tried to end you," the man whispered. "And we failed."

"Obviously."

No one met his eyes. But the memories rushed in now, thick and unrelenting.

Sorak the Crimson—who forged an army from the bones of fallen gods.

Velda the Shroud—whose poisons killed entire dynasties.

Maelor, the Beast of Chains—once his hound. Until he wasn't.

He breathed in slow, steady. "I'm not him anymore."

"You are," the elder said. "You just haven't accepted it yet."

"Maybe I don't want to."

"That won't stop what's coming. Heaven's stirring again. The Upper World is forging a new Hero. And the shadows below are starving. They'll come for you—crown or not."

Visions struck like lightning behind his eyes.

A boy with golden wings.

A blade too bright to behold.

And behind him—a gate. Blacker than night. Pulsing like it was alive.

The elder pressed something into his hand.

A crystal. Cold. Vibrating like it had a heartbeat.

"What is this?"

"A failsafe," the elder said. "If you remember who you are, it'll open the Armory of the Deep."

"And if I don't?"

"Then it'll break in your hand. And we'll know not to kneel again."

He slipped it into his pocket. "We're done here."

"For now," the elder agreed.

He turned and walked out—but felt their eyes on him the whole way.

Aboveground, dusk bruised the sky. The sun bled red behind cracked rooftops. He walked alone, through empty streets and alleys, toward the slums he had clawed his way out of.

Home wasn't far.

Just a weathered apartment. Stained walls. Faded curtains. But it was the only place that had ever made him feel… human.

His mother wasn't there. She worked late. Spoke little. But she still cooked. Still folded his laundry.

Some part of her still hoped.

That night, he sat on the roof and stared at the stars.

They looked closer now. Meaner. Watching.

Then he heard it.

Not from above. Not from within.

From below.

He followed it.

Down the fire escape. Through the rusted gate behind the dumpsters. Into the drain that carved under the city like a buried vein.

He walked for hours.

Until he reached a place that shouldn't exist.

A shrine.

Built in the dark. Lit by soul-flames. Surrounded by bones.

At the center—a mask.

Bone-white. Cracked. Familiar.

The Mask of the Devourer.

He stepped closer. Hovered his hand above it.

A whisper rose in his mind. Take it.

He hesitated.

You won't lose yourself, it said. You'll find yourself.

Fingers trembling, he touched it.

And the world shattered.

His vision stretched. His heartbeat thundered. Memories surged like fire through his veins.

The throne.

The betrayal.

The wars.

The judgment.

They had tried to erase him.

They had failed.

Because he wasn't just a man.

He was the sin gods feared in silence.

The hunger that remembers.

When he placed the mask against his face, it didn't sit—it sank in. Fused. Became part of him.

And for the first time in this life, he smiled.

Not from joy.

But clarity.

He wasn't here to destroy the world.

He was here to judge it.

And judgment always begins in silence.