***
{Outside The Projection}
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
Silence.
Thick. Heavy. Suffocating.
It stretched across the hall.
Not the kind that came with deep thought—no, this was different.
This was the silence of the crushed.
Every single person had fallen to their knees.
Most had collapsed outright, joining those outside, only the stronger ones remained awake.
Yet, even they weren’t doing so good, their bodies trembling, palms pressed against the cold floor, as if the very act of standing had become an offense against reality itself.
Noor’s throne was crushed, forcing her to join the rest on the ground.
Hers was the only object affected, making it seem like she was targeted by IT.
That sounded nonsensical, but considering what they faced… it made perfect sense.
Her breath, as well as the others, came in short, shallow gasps—if they could even breathe at all.
The projection still flickered before them, showing Malik’s last moments.
Moments before his blink… one presumably initiated by IT.
In their eyes, the projection’s glow had dimmed.
Not because of any fault in the Ten Commandement—no, their vision was blurring.
Their minds were struggling to hold onto something, anything, that made sense.
But nothing did.
The weight of the words, of the voice, of the thing they had just witnessed, bore down on them like a great unseen hand, pressing, pressing, pressing, until even the strongest among them, the Goddamn “hero,” could only kneel before it.
And yet… and yet… Malik sat unbothered.
The thought rippled through them, a single shared horror.
Right. Horror.
Malik had remained straight.
He had not collapsed, had not screamed, had not been erased.
He had listened to that… thing, that being, that manifestation of Depravity itself—and he had endured.
“How?”
The whisper was hoarse, barely audible, but it echoed nonetheless.
It came from Zafar—a man who had faced nightmares most would never survive.
Yet, he had fallen before this all the same.
He broke the moment it spoke.
His mind still raced.
He couldn’t even fathom what he had just heard, let alone what it had meant.
But, again, what truly shook him, what truly left him staring at the projection with wide, disbelieving eyes—
‘HOW?’
—was the fact that Malik had survived it.
No, not just survived. Faced it. Endured it. Spoke to it.
As if it were nothing more than another step along his path.
Blood and Fire… Depravity and Time.
Malik was there.
They saw it. They all saw it. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t overwhelmed. That level of—of torture, that weight, that pressure… it was nothing to him.
Nothing.
That kind of torment, the kind that had broken all of them in mere moments… was nothing to him.
It spoke of just how much he endured in all those blinks.
A nervous laugh echoed. A weak, shaky thing.
“That… that’s not human.”
No one corrected him.
‘…He’s quiet.’
Maybe it was because of her once-floating throne.
Maybe it was because she was farther from the projection when IT was revealed.
Either way, Noor’s mind was still working.
Not at full capacity—not even close—but way better than most.
She wasn’t focused on the weight of the words, however. Wasn’t stuck on the lingering echoes of that thing’s voice, slithering through her bones. Wasn’t even thinking about the unbearable pressure that had crushed her into the ground.
No.
What stood out the most?
The silence.
A silence she had never noticed until now.
She couldn’t hear Malik.
At least not like before.
His mind—his thoughts—had always been there, always felt.
Not because he spoke them, not because he let them slip, but because the Ten Commandent had access to the inner workings of his mind, giving them a closer look at his present.
Or so she believed it.
Even when he was quiet, she could hear him.
Even when he was calm, she could hear the storm waiting beneath his skin.
Now?
Now, it was different.
No matter how long she waited, listening, all she found was silence.
Zero stray thoughts, not one passing irritation.
Nothing.
Actually, it wasn’t just silence… Not really. It was distance.
Noor didn’t doubt that she’d eventually catch one of his thoughts, but only when they were strong enough to force their way through.
A roar of rage.
A whisper of despair.
A crackle of something worse.
And, judging by the shown trend, it was only going to get worse.
The stronger he got, the deeper he would go.
The more he cultivated, the more the gap would widen.
One day, they wouldn’t hear anything at all.
Not even the strong ones.
And when that day came…
She swallowed hard.
When that day finally came, they wouldn’t understand him anymore.
Everything he did, everything he was, would be wrapped in Depravity, leaving them with nothing but scraps of meaning. A vague, half-formed guess at his intentions.
This whole damn ordeal might be for nothing.
***
{Inside The Projection}
Light.
Malik felt it.
For a long moment, he just existed in it—whatever it was.
Because for the first time in a long, long while, there was quiet.
No whispers. No weight. No presence looming over him, a beast salivating over a meal.
Just… warmth and wind.
What a dream.
Finally, he fluttered his eyes open.
Sand stretched before him, rippling beneath a Shams that burned high.
These were normal dunes. Not shattered, displaying impossible geometry.
Normal.
He turned around.
In the distance, far beyond where he was, the horizon cracked.
Shattered Dunes loomed, still there, still waiting.
A reminder. A threat. A promise.
And Malik… smiled.
He had done it.
He had succeeded.
He had walked into what wasn’t, into something far worse than death. And he had walked out again. Changed. Reborn. A Pure Demon. No longer tethered to the in-betweens, no longer shackled to what he had been.
Power surged through him, humming beneath his skin, coiling in his bones.
It felt natural, a power he couldn’t wait to explore.
And yet.
His mind wandered.
Back.
To IT.
The thing that had spoken in hunger, in greed, in longing so unfathomably vast.
The thing that had whispered of cycles, of stolen paths, of futures unraveled and devoured.
The thing that had seen him, not just as he was, but as he had been. As he had failed. As he had tried, desperately, foolishly, to be something he never could.
Depravity reincarnate.
Rehan had spoken of Malik’s Corruption.
Of the slow, inevitable erosion of his Soul.
Of a steady descent into something entirely wrong.
But, apparently, Rehan had underestimated what he saw.
Or perhaps…
Had IT seen him, then?
When he was before Layla, before Rehan, begging for death?
When he had thrown himself into the fires for those who would never remember his name?
Perhaps.
Perhaps this was the price.
Perhaps this was the consequence.
Or perhaps this was always meant to happen, and all he had done—all he had fought, all he had suffered—was simply staving off the inevitable.
His smile lingered, distant.
He thought of its words, and he felt no urgency, no horror, no immediate dread.
He considered them the way one might consider a stranger’s tragedy.
Removed. Detached.
IT was watching him. Unseen. Untouched.
IT had walked with him, feeding upon his suffering in ways he had never even noticed.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
The word had echoed, wrapped around him like a chain.
It felt inescapable and yet, here he stood. Not rewritten… not yet.
A Pure Demon, yes. Changed, yes. But still himself.
…Wasn’t he?
‘I don’t know.’
His smile faded.