The Heavenly Demon of Terror-Chapter 333: Arena of the Forsaken Flame

Samuel's POV

The moment I stepped through the gate, I felt it—an air too thick to breathe, a darkness not of the shadows but of memories long buried and festering. The realm on the other side of the Gate to the Forgotten God was not just desolate—it was decaying. A cathedral of ash and bone stretched high above me, every pillar etched with names long erased from mortal tongues. The sky boiled with bruised clouds, crimson lightning arcing like veins of divine rage.

And then... he appeared.

Aegror.

The Forgotten God of Ruin and Regret.

He emerged from the storm like a living apocalypse, half-corpse, half-storm. His face was a jagged mosaic of sorrow and fury, hollow eyes glowing with the hatred of millennia. His voice cracked like stone torn apart.

"Another mortal. Another fool seeking glory from ruin."

I cracked my neck and stepped forward, unfazed. "Nah. Not here for glory." My fists tightened inside my favorite gauntlets, Abyssfangs, the metal humming with Voidflame. "I'm here for a challenge... and you look like the perfect wall to punch through."

Aegror's form twisted, ribs breaking through skin, wings of bone flaring out like shattered halos. He raised a hand and the entire world trembled.

"Then drown in what you seek."

With a scream that turned the wind to knives, he charged—and so did I.

Our clash shattered the air.

I swung first—Voidstep igniting as I blinked behind him mid-swing, landing a blow across his back. The hit tore chunks of divine rot from him, black ichor spraying across the ruined ground.

But Aegror moved like regret itself—silent, inescapable, and brutal. His arm twisted backward, catching me in the ribs with a bone-crushing strike that launched me into a pillar. The marble cracked like eggshell under my weight.

I coughed blood and laughed. "Damn. You punch like an ex-girlfriend."

Aegror's chest split open, a scream echoing from within him, not from lips but from the regret of a thousand civilizations he'd destroyed.

"You mock despair as if it's beneath you, mortal. Let me show you the depth of your own."

The arena changed. My vision blurred.

Suddenly—I was back. Back in the Imperial City. My hands bloody. Abigail crying in the distance. The betrayal. The humiliation. The despair.

My legs faltered.

"This... again?"

I clenched my fists, refusing the illusion, refusing the script.

"No. I burned this Chapter already!"

I roared and activated Reality Sever, slicing through the hallucination with a blade of crystallized void. The world snapped back into ruin. Aegror reeled, hissing.

I dashed forward, faster now. Stronger.

Unbroken Form triggered, letting me shrug off his next claw strike, which would've gutted a titan. I responded with a flurry of blows, Devourer's Pulse detonating on impact. The god screamed as pieces of his essence were consumed.

"You're not regret," I growled, uppercutting him into the air. "You're just a tantrum that lived too long!"

He fell—only to transform midair into a serpent of writhing bone and memory. He wrapped around me like a constrictor, squeezing, digging into my mind.

"You dare insult what you barely understand. I was worshipped when your kind still crawled in caves! I ended empires by whispering their own sins to them!"

His voice was everywhere, in my ears, in my blood, in the cracks of my thoughts.

I gritted my teeth. "Yeah? And now you're just a bad memory I'm gonna erase."

With a surge of strength, I exploded outward with Astral Rend, tearing through his coils and blasting him back. His body scattered into hundreds of screaming faces—each one of a soul that once begged him for mercy.

I landed, panting. My muscles screamed. My gauntlets dripped ichor.

But I wasn't done.

Aegror reformed, staggering, now missing half of his lower body. His voice trembled but still boomed.

"Why... do you fight so hard? Why cling to strength? You were made to break... like the rest."

I lifted my chin.

"Because I've been broken. Shattered. Humiliated. Betrayed. And I'm still standing. That's why I fight. Not for power..." My aura surged like a wildfire. "But because I promised myself—no one gets to write my story but me!"

With one final roar, I activated Blade Tempest – Chaos Variant, surrounding myself with swirling slashes of time-warped voidsteel. I blinked between spaces, hitting Aegror from every direction in split-second intervals. He screamed, disintegrating piece by piece.

"This... this wasn't... how it ends..."

"No," I growled, landing one last punch through his chest. "This is how you end."

Aegror burst into black starlight, his essence consumed by the void.

Silence fell. freeωebnovēl.c૦m

A system notification blinked.

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[System Notification – Quest Complete]

Objective: Defeat Aegror, Forgotten God of Ruin and Regret

Reward: Forsaken Crown Fragment (2/5), New Skill Unlocked – Soul Echo: Wrathforge

Bonus: Aegror's Spineblade (Mythic Weapon – Corrupted)

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I stood in the ash and blood of the forgotten god, my chest heaving.

"Good fight," I muttered. "But I'm just getting started."

I looked up at the fading sky, where the veil between realms cracked like glass.

"Who's next?"