Chapter 153: The Deceiver
Floating through the eighth layer, a normal-sized Malik felt lost.
Not in the physical sense; he knew where he was going and could feel the pull of Hell beneath him like a string tied around his heart. No, this was something else... deeper.
It had gnawed at him since Safira's eyes widened in recognition.
Was any of this worth it anymore?
His disciple knew who he was. She had looked at him—really looked at him—and seen past the Stranger's Ring, the old man's face, and every layer of deception he had built since his return.
She had seen her Teacher.
What if he returned and everyone knew?
What if she told Huda, and Huda told the palace, and the palace told the world?
What if his secret spread like fire through dry grass, burning away everything he had built?
Or perhaps not.
Perhaps Safira would keep that secret. She had always been loyal—sometimes too loyal.
She had stayed by his side when others fled, healed him at the cost of herself, Malik...
Malik was her teacher.
No, Safira would never.
He was being paranoid.
She wouldn't do anything that would have him harmed.
But even then, she couldn't know.
No one could know but him.
The secret was too dangerous, too fragile, too important.
If the wrong people found out that the Sultan had been sneaking through the Abyss in disguise, that he had left his throne unguarded, and that he was weaker than they thought—
'No.'
Malik couldn't have it all crumble before his eyes.
'...stop.'
He forced the thoughts down, pushed them into a box, locked the box, and threw away the key.
Paranoia would not help him now.
Fear would not help him now.
Only action, always that.
Barely calming himself, he forced his eyes down, focusing on the present.
The eighth layer stretched beneath him, seemingly endless.
He looked through the darkness at the glow far beneath—not one source but many.
Millions of white eyes were staring up at him from the void, unblinking and hungry.
The eyes of Demons.
'Ah.'
They had taken over this layer.
The eighth was theirs, a realm of Corruption, where light came only from those watching eyes.
No Seeker ever came here.
There was no fool who thought they could fight their way through.
Well, there was none beside Malik, the last in the circle of fools.
Only he and they existed in this darkness.
And soon, only he was going to exist here.
'Devil's Footsteps.'
Malik stepped forward.
...
One million miles.
The distance to the bottom of the layer.
One million damned miles, measured in the moments when his foot left the ground and when it touched down again.
It was too unfathomable a number.
His mind couldn't wrap itself around the sheer scale of what he was about to do.
One million miles of darkness.
One million miles of demons.
One million miles of killing.
What was more unfathomable was how many Demons he crushed on his way down.
They came at him in waves, far from organized, just there, filling the darkness, throwing themselves at him with mindless fury.
He didn't bother to even begin to count; it was just far, far too many.
His foot came down on one, crushing it and the thousands behind it to paste.
His knee caught another, snapping its spine and tearing a fiery hole through another thousand.
His elbow shattered a third, clearing out the entire space.
Malik didn't slow.
Without thinking for even a second, he kept moving, a Demon of fire amongst many.
He tore through the Demon ocean like a scythe through wheat.
Malik was an Angel.
This was his power.
Though still incomplete, he had never been stronger than he was now.
There was no more pretending... hiding; all of his power poured out of him, burning away the darkness, burning away the demons, burning away everything that stood in his path.
An Angel's might made the journey near effortless.
It was as if all of his previous efforts were worthless.
Every struggle, wound, and moment of pain—none of it mattered now.
Malik was now beyond it.
An Angel was above it all.
But of course it wasn't worthless.
Everything he had done had led to this point.
The resets in that dream, the many battles, the cursed choices.
Every decision had taught him something and every failure had built him into something stronger.
And yet...
'I can't help it.'
That was what his thoughts echoed while he crushed Demons beneath his feet and burned them with his fire and left nothing but ash in his wake. The ease of it was almost insulting.
He reached the end with at least ten seconds of Goliath's Fall left.
The Demons stood no chance.
Malik's might was unfathomable.
Far more than this 'million' he traveled.
Thus, he exited the eighth layer and fell into the ninth.
Thankfully, the ninth layer had light.
Pale as it was, it illuminated the darkness enough for him to see.
It spilled up from below, the very direction of his next exit.
Light or not, however, this wasn't a place of rest.
There was no rest in the Abyss.
Malik was upon a monument.
A monument made of bone.
It rose from the darkness like a mountain—no, like a world.
A spire of bleached white bone so tall that he couldn't see its base.
Rather, he couldn't see anything but the endless curve of its surface stretching in every direction.
He fell before its head, barely stopping himself from crashing into it.
His boots skidded across the bone, leaving scorch marks as he came to a halt.
What he stood on was just so damned tall, bigger than the Twelve Moons stacked atop each other.
This was a monument that should have collapsed under its own weight, becoming a damned star.
The fact that it remained whole meant that there was more at play.
It was absolutely ridiculous that their planet was this big.
Actually, now that he thought about it, no. It wasn't.
He had long since stopped being on Devil's Maw.
This didn't feel like another dimension.
It was another dimension.
Though the Abyss never followed the Laws, even in the earlier Layers, this was simply too insane.
The Abyss was a physical impossibility unlike any other, a gate to a place outside the world he knew.
Malik saw no other explanation for its stupid size.
In a state other than this one, he might have felt unequivocal fear.
The monument loomed around him, and something about it made his Soul want to curl up and hide.
But now, with Goliath's Fall still burning in his veins and the echo of Angelic power still humming through his bones...
'Is it an Angel?'
He felt only curiosity.
"Why are you here again, Sultan?"
A curiosity that was sated by the arrival of some... Godly voice.
It wasn't rough like that monster of stone, but it wasn't normal either.
The voice held an almost... compassionate demeanour.
'Hm.'
Malik raised his brows.
He stepped through the air, away from the monument.
It was a single step, but he traveled a moon away.
That enabled him to see its face whole.
A man's weathered face.
Ancient, it was carved from the same bone as the rest of the monument.
Three eyes, two in the usual places and a cyclopean socket on his forehead.
Far above that eye, where his hair curled like hooks, Malik saw something familiar.
Arcane.
"Are you here to kill me for what I did to you?"
Just as Malik was about to answer, the world around them paused.
The darkness stopped shifting, and the distant glow froze in place.
In fact, the very air seemed to solidify, trapping everything in a single moment.
Only Malik and the... Deceiver existed now.
A name he unlocked from deep beneath his memories.
A name that had once given him too great a fear.
The Deceiver.
One of the oldest beings in the Abyss.
Perhaps one of the oldest beings in existence.
An Angel who had fallen so long ago that even the Demons had forgotten his name.
"You're only a young Angel. I advise you not to."
Malik let out a sigh.
He could feel the Deceiver's power pressing against him, preparing to strike.
Despite what he said, the Deceiver saw him as a threat.
The Deceiver didn't know of his weakness.
Thus, like he had gotten used to doing recently, Malik decided to bluff his way forward.
Earlier, he wanted to move quickly, to reach the end before his Soul Glyph ran out.
But now, there was no need.
Its timer had stopped.
The entire world had stopped, even Rukh itself.
Only he and the Deceiver existed now, suspended in a moment that could last forever or end in the next breath.
"Do you truly think so little of me?"
The Deceiver hummed.
"You are here to retrieve your sword, then?"
Malik didn't answer immediately and instead stared at that ancient face.
After some time of enjoying the building tension, he asked:
"This Abyss is your home, is it not?"
"Yes."
"Then send me to its depths."
Malik's voice was far too flat.
"I won't fight you then."
He was going to skip to the bottom.
There was no need to go through more obstacles.
The Deceiver would give him a straight path to Hell.
"You would ask that of me?"
"I would, and I did."
"And what would you give in return?"
Malik met that ancient gaze without flinching.
"I already told you. I won't fight you."
The Deceiver was silent for a long moment.
Then, slowly, it smiled.
The smile was broken.
A planet-long smile.
"Very well, young Sultan."
The world began to move again.
"Let me show you the way."