As the night wore on, two decisions were made.

Yuuta chose his path. No matter how impossible the road ahead appeared, he would find a way to become stronger.

At the same time, Erza was forced to confront a truth she had spent years avoiding. For the first time, she looked beyond pride and duty and saw the wounds she had left behind. The son she had rejected, the pain she had justified, and the mistakes she could no longer deny.

Neither of them knew what the future would bring.

But while their lives quietly changed beneath the same night sky, another story was already unfolding elsewhere.

Far from the city, far from dragons and gods, a forgotten soul struggled desperately to be free.

And with it, the fate of several orphaned children began to move.

(Location: Libeus country East side)

(Place: Abandoned Warehouse)

The chain was heavy.

It wrapped around her wrists, cutting into her skin, biting deep enough that she had stopped feeling the pain hours ago.

The metal was cold, rusted, stained with something dark she tried not to look at.

Every time she moved, the links clinked together, a small, terrible sound that reminded her she could not run, could not fight, could not do anything except wait.

Mina’s face was pale, drained of color, her cheeks wet with tears that had been falling so long she had forgotten when they started.

Her hands trembled. Her whole body trembled. She had been here for hours, maybe longer, time had lost its meaning.

"Luca," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I am so scared."

The boy beside her did not answer immediately. He was chained too, his small wrists bound in the same heavy iron, his feet caked with mud and filth. His clothes, once white, were stained brown and green, torn where he had tried to struggle.

But his eyes, unlike hers, were not empty. They were searching.

"Where is Father Isaiah?" Mina asked, trying to see through the darkness. "Where are we? How did we get here?"

She did not remember.

One moment she had been in the orphanage, tucked into her bed, listening to Father Isaiah say goodnight to the younger children. The next, darkness. Hands grabbing her. A cloth over her mouth. And then this place.

The prison stretched around them, vast and terrible, its walls lost in shadow. The floor was mud and filth, crawling with insects that skittered over their bare feet. Green fungus clung to the walls, pulsing faintly, casting a sickly glow that made everything look rotten. The air was thick, heavy, difficult to breathe, the stench of decay and old blood and something worse.

Around her, other children huddled in chains. Young, five, six, seven years old, some even younger. Their faces streaked with tears, bodies shaking with sobs that had long since run out of sound. Some had their eyes closed, pretending they were somewhere else.

Some stared at nothing, their minds already broken.

Some still cried, voices hoarse, throats raw.

They had been here for hours.

Maybe days.

No one knew.

The insects crawled over their feet, legs, arms. Cockroaches scuttled across the mud. Spiders lowered themselves from the ceiling on silver threads. Mina flinched every time something touched her skin, but she could not move away, the chains held her in place.

Luca shifted closer, the links of his shackles scraping across the floor.

"Don’t worry, Mina," he said, his voice soft but steady. "God will save us."

Mina looked at him. His face was pale too, his lips cracked from thirst, his body slouched with exhaustion. He had not eaten in hours. Not drunk anything in even longer. And yet his eyes still held hope.

"Really, Luca? Does God really help us from here?"

She did not know what she believed anymore. Father Isaiah had taught her about God, about love, about a man in the sky who watched over children and kept them safe. But if God was real, why was she here? Why were these chains around her wrists? Why was she sitting in mud and filth, waiting for something terrible?

Luca lowered his gaze to the chains around his wrists. For a moment, he said nothing.

Somewhere beyond the walls came distant voices and laughter. The demons sounded happy. The children did not.

Then Luca slowly nodded. "Yes."

"But Sister said God helps His favorite children."

"He does."

Mina bit her lip. "Then why are we here, Luca?"

The question hurt more than the chains.

Luca didn’t know the answer. He didn’t know why they had been taken. Why nobody had come. But he remembered the stories Sister used to tell them before bed, stories about hope, about faith, about believing even when everything looked impossible.

A small smile appeared on his face. "Maybe God is testing us."

Mina blinked. "Testing us?"

"Remember what Sister always said? God gives His favorite children the hardest tests before helping them."

The chains rattled softly as he shifted closer.

"Then... this is a test?"

"I think so."

"A really scary test."

"It is."

Mina lowered her head. "What if we fail?"

Luca shook his head. "We won’t."

"How do you know?"

"Because we’re still believing. And God never forsakes His children."

His answer came without hesitation.

Mina stared at him. Luca looked toward the ceiling as if he could somehow see beyond the dark walls, beyond the ocean, beyond the darkness surrounding them.

"God will save us through someone. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But He will save us from this monster."

For a few seconds, Mina said nothing.

Then a small smile appeared on her face, weak, fragile, barely there, but real.

"I’m not scared anymore, Luca."

Luca smiled back. "See? That’s why we’re going to pass the test."

Mina nodded. "God will surely save us."

Behind them, the other children had stopped crying. They had heard Luca’s words. They looked at him and found something they had lost.

"Does God save us too?" a small voice asked from the shadows, a girl younger than Mina, her face hidden behind matted hair. "Does God remember us?"

Luca turned toward the voice. He could not see her face clearly, but he did not need to. He spoke to all of them, to the darkness, to the children huddled in chains who had given up hope.

"Yes. God will save us. Father Isaiah said God loves children. He would not abandon us here."

The silence that followed was different. Not the heavy silence of despair, but the silence of listening. Of waiting. Of believing.

"We will be saved?" another child asked, his voice trembling.

"Yes," Luca said. "God will save us."

The children began to murmur among themselves, voices soft but alive. Some began to hum, hymns Father Isaiah had taught them, songs about God’s love and mercy and promise to protect the innocent. The sound filled the prison, pushing back the darkness.

Mina felt her heart lighten. The chains were still heavy, the mud still cold, the darkness still pressing. But hope was there now, fragile but growing, and she held onto it with both hands.

She did not see the demon emerge from the shadows.

He stepped out slowly, deliberately, savoring the moment. His suit was black, perfectly pressed. His tie was red, the color of dried blood, the color of the wine he drank while watching humans suffer. His shoes were polished to a mirror shine, reflecting the faint green glow of the fungus.

His face was the worst part. Almost human, the same shape, same features, same arrangement of eyes and nose and mouth.

But the smile was wrong. Too wide. Too white. Too still. It did not move when he spoke, did not change when he laughed, did not falter when the children screamed. His eyes were black. Completely black. No iris, no pupil, no white. Just voids in a face trying very hard to be human and failing in ways that made Mina’s stomach turn.

He had been listening to their prayers. Watching them find hope, sing, forget where they were and what was going to happen. Their joy had killed his amusement, and he had come to remind them of the truth.

"Well, now," he said, his voice smooth as oil, pleasant as poison. "This is really interesting."

The children froze.

The singing stopped.

The murmuring stopped. The hope that had been growing withered and died, replaced by cold, familiar terror. Some screamed. Others cried. A few simply stared, mouths open, eyes wide, minds unable to process what they were seeing.

Mina’s blood turned to ice. Her hands went still. Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it in her ears, feel it in her throat, taste it on her tongue.

Luca did not move. His face was pale as death, but he did not run. He could not run. The chains held him in place.

The demon approached slowly, footsteps silent on the muddy floor. He stopped before Luca, looking down at the small, chained boy with something that might have been curiosity.

"Relax little human. I am simply interested in this thing you call ’God... which gives you so much hope.’"

Luca glared at him. His body shook, every part from hands to knees to voice, but he did not look away.

"Stay away, demon. God will punish you."

The demon’s black eyes narrowed. His smile did not change, but something flickered behind the void, amusement, perhaps, or the anticipation of cruelty.

He laughed. Not a human laugh. Too deep, too loud, too long. It echoed off the walls, filling the prison, drowning out the children’s sobs. The laugh of something that had never known love or mercy, only hunger and its satisfaction.

"You humans are such strange creatures," he said, shaking his head slowly, mockingly. "Even when standing before death itself, even when you can feel it breathing on your neck, waiting to drag you down, you still cling to your God. You still believe he will save you."

He crouched down, bringing his face level with Luca’s.

The boy could see his own reflection in the demon’s black eyes, small, scared, crying.

The demon’s breath smelled of rot and old blood.

Luca swallowed. His throat was dry, his lips cracked. But he did not look away.

"Yes," he said, his voice trembling but clear. "God will save us. He will send someone to save us."

Behind him, the other children shifted. Some lifted their heads. Some stopped crying, just for a moment, to listen. Mina’s hollow eyes flickered toward Luca, and something stirred in them not hope, not yet, but the memory of it.

The demon laughed a full, open laugh, his mouth stretching wider than should have been possible, revealing rows of teeth too sharp, too many. The sound filled the chamber, pressed against the walls.

"Oh my," he said, wiping a tear from his eye, though there had never been a tear. "You orphanage children are so innocent. So precious. So utterly, hopelessly delusional."

He straightened, spreading his arms wide. "Think about it. You pray every night, do you not? You cry for help. You beg to be saved." He paced slowly in front of them. "Every night, you close your eyes and whisper prayers to a God you have never seen."

His smile twisted.

"And yet, you are still here."

He spread his arms wider, gesturing to the chamber, to the chains, to the mud and the fungus and the insects crawling over their feet.

"Still in chains. Still hungry and Still afraid."

His black eyes swept across the room, meeting each child’s gaze in turn. Some looked away. Some stared back, their faces pale, their lips trembling.

"If your God sees everything," the demon continued, his voice dropping, becoming softer, more intimate, "then he knows exactly where you are. He knows you are here. He knows you are suffering. He knows you are crying for him."

He paused.

"So tell me, little humans, why has he not come yet?"

The silence that followed was absolute. The children could not answer. They had been taught to believe, taught to pray, taught that God loved them and would protect them. But they had not been taught how to defend that belief against something like this.

The demon’s smile widened.

"Why has he not sent someone to save you?"

The children remained silent.

Luca opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. His mind raced, searching for words, for arguments, for anything that would push back against the darkness pressing in on them. But he was seven years old. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He was terrified.

The demon leaned closer.

"You want to know why he has not come?" His voice was barely a whisper now, soft and terrible. "Because he abandoned you. Just like your parents did."

The words struck the children like stones.

Some began to cry not the desperate sobs of before, but something worse. Quiet tears. Broken tears.

The tears of children who had been told that the only thing they had left to believe in had abandoned them.

Mina felt her hope shatter. She had held onto it because Luca had given it to her, because Luca believed. But now she did not know what to believe.

She looked at Luca. His eyes were wet, tears tracing paths through the grime on his cheeks. He was trying to be strong, trying to find words that would push back the darkness. But some questions had no good answers.

The demon did not care. He stood before them, savoring their despair. The other demons began to laugh, their voices joining the salesman’s, becoming a chorus of mockery.

"Look at them," one said.

"Weeping like the worthless runts they are," said another.

"Did they really think their God would save them?"

The salesman demon watched them with obvious enjoyment, his black eyes gleaming in the sickly green light that pulsed from the fungus on the walls. He tilted his head, feigning concern, his too-wide smile never faltering.

"Oh my," he said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy, smooth as oil and just as foul. "There, there. Why are you crying?"

He spread his arms wide, as if inviting them to embrace him, to find comfort in his blood-stained suit and his too-white smile.

"You humans are always so pitiful. The moment someone challenges your faith, you crumble. You weep. You lose your minds."

He chuckled softly, the sound deep and terrible.

"You really do not know how the real world works, do you?"

The children cried harder. Their sobs rose and fell like a terrible symphony, their grief the only music he needed.

Luca’s hands clenched into fists. His nails bit into his palms. His whole body shook—not with fear anymore, but with something hotter, something fiercer. He did not know the word for it. But he felt it burning in his chest.

"You are lying," he said, his voice shaking but growing stronger with each word. "You are lying. God did not abandon us. He will send someone. Someone who will save us."

The demon’s black eyes widened.

"Hmm," he said, rubbing his chin with one clawed hand. "So God can save you?"

He looked at the other demons gathered in the shadows, his smile widening.

"Just as the Demon King said," he continued, his voice dripping with mock admiration. "These children are so pure. So faithful. They will not change their hearts or their morals like stupid adult humans. They cling to their God even when death is breathing down their necks."

The other demons nodded, their red eyes gleaming in the green light.

"Yes, Boss," one said. "It is hard for them to change. Their faith is like iron. It does not bend."

"Oh my." The salesman demon turned back to the children, his smile never wavering. "You are right. It is hard for them to change." He paused, tilting his head. "But why?"

He looked at the low-rank demon who had spoken, then back at the children.

"Why is it so hard for them to bend?"

The low-rank demon opened its mouth to answer, but the salesman demon cut him off with a raised hand.

"I will tell you why," he said.

"Because they have not seen the dark side of the world. They have been sheltered, protected, kept innocent. They do not know what lurks in the shadows. They do not know what humans are capable of. They do not know that their God, true nature." He paused, letting the words hang in the air.

"Has never been there."

The other demons began to laugh. They understood what was coming next. They had played this game before, many times, and the thought of it made them giddy with anticipation.

"Let us give them a faith game," the salesman demon said, spreading his arms wide. "Children love games, do they not?"

He snapped his fingers.

The heavy iron door behind him groaned open.

Its hinges screamed, rust flaking from the metal, and the sound echoed through the chamber like a wounded animal’s cry. The noise went on and on, scraping against the children’s ears, making some of them whimper and cover their heads.

Two smaller demons emerged from the darkness beyond twisted creatures with gray skin stretched too tight over too many bones, joints bending in ways that should not have been possible. Their eyes were small, red, hungry. Their claws long, yellow, stained with something dark.

Between them, they dragged a trembling man. His feet scraped against the stone floor, leaving trails in the mud. His clothes were torn, revealing skin covered in bruises and old scars. His face was wet with tears and streaked with dirt and dried blood.

"Please," he sobbed, his voice hoarse, cracked, barely human. "Please spare me. Please, I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything. Just don’t."

The salesman demon grabbed him by the hair, forcing him to his knees in the mud. The man’s pleas turned into whimpers, then silence. His whole body shook, trembling like a leaf in a storm, his eyes wide with a terror that had no bottom.

"Listen carefully, little humans," the salesman demon said, his voice filled with amusement. "This is the game we are going to play."

He crouched down beside the trembling man, one hand still twisted in his hair, the other gesturing toward the children. Behind him, the other demons smiled, their red eyes gleaming with anticipation.

"This game," the salesman demon continued, "has changed many children. It has made them abandon their God. It has made them lose the will to live." He looked at Luca, at Mina, at the other thirty-four children chained against the wall. "And now it is your turn."

He yanked the man’s head back, forcing him to look at the children.

"So look at this pitiful man," he said. "He has committed many crimes. His soul is black, his hands are stained, his heart is rotten. And now, his life is in my hands."

The man trembled, tears streaming down his face. His lips moved, forming words that no one could hear.

"Now," the salesman demon said, his voice dripping with mockery, "as believers, as players, all you have to do is pray. Pray to your God so that this man can be saved from my brutal execution." He smiled, his teeth glinting in the green light. "Pray to any god you believe in. Save him before I rip open his head in front of you."

He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"And you will witness his filthy blood. His brain. His eyes." His smile widened. "And God knows what else is inside him."

The demons behind him began to laugh. The sound was terrible, deep and cruel and hungry, the laughter of creatures who had done this many times before and never grown tired of it.

The children were terrified. The words were too heavy for them brain, eyes, blood. Some cried harder. Others pressed their faces against the wall. A few simply stared, minds frozen.

The man on his knees looked at the children. His eyes were filled with pity, with desperation, with the desperate hope that someone would save him.

Luca’s hands shook. His heart pounded. His throat was dry.

He looked at the man. At the demon. At the other children.

He looked at the man. He looked at the demon. He looked at the other children, at their tear-streaked faces, at their hollow eyes.

Luca closed his eyes.

He folded his hands together as best he could despite the chains cutting into his wrists.

The other children joined him.

Mina joined him.

One by one, the frightened children lowered their heads.

Even the trembling man closed his eyes.

The demons watched.

Their red eyes gleamed within the darkness.

Their smiles widened.

And Luca prayed.

God...

Please save this man.

Please save us.

Please don’t let the demon win.

Please send someone.

Anyone.

Please.

The chamber fell silent.

The salesman demon stared at the praying children.

Then he laughed.

A slow, disappointed laugh.

"So the game has started."

He reached down and grabbed the prisoner by the top of his head.

The man screamed.

Not from pain.

From terror.

The demon’s fingers slowly tightened ready to open in half.

The children watched in horror as his claws dug into the man’s scalp.

Blood began to trickle between the demon’s fingers.

The prisoner shook violently.

"Please!" he screamed. "Please don’t!"

The salesman ignored him.

Behind him, the other demons began counting in excitement to see the body being open in half.

"Ten."

The warehouse fell silent.

"Nine."

The man’s desperate sobs echoed through the chamber.

"Eight."

Several children began crying.

"Seven."

Mina buried her face against her knees.

"Six."

The demon slowly spread his fingers.

The sound of tearing flesh filled the room.

"Five."

The prisoner’s screams became louder.

"Four."

Luca prayed harder.

Please...

"Three."

The demons laughed.

"Two."

The children squeezed their eyes shut.

Nobody wanted to see what was about to happen.

"One."

The salesman demon smiled.

His hand tightened.

The prisoner screamed.

And then.

To be continued.