CHAPTER 126: CHAPTER 126: FINALLY BACK.

The gate spat him out like a swallowed stone.

Aiden slammed against the ground with a force that rattled bone. For a moment he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move—just lay sprawled on the cool grass, the world spinning.

Above him stretched a night not his own. The stars here were sharper, colder, their light like shards of ice. And hanging in the sky, impossible, otherworldly, was the dungeon itself.

It loomed overhead like a wound torn open in the heavens: jagged rock and glowing veins, suspended where no mountain should stand. Its silhouette pulsed faintly, alive.

Even now, after all the horror within, it hung above the world like a cruel promise: the dungeon remained, eternal, waiting for the next fool to enter.

Aiden let out a breathless laugh that scraped his throat raw. He felt the cracked metal of his chestplate grind against his ribs. His armor was a ruin—plates split and warped, leather straps half-burned through, holes jagged as teeth.

The right pauldron was gone entirely, torn away in some clash he barely remembered. His gauntlets were blackened at the fingers. He reeked of ash, sweat, and blood.

His first dungeon. Gods damn it all, what an adventure.

He turned his head, cheek pressed to the grass. "If this is what counts as beginner’s luck," he croaked, "I’d hate to see what bad luck looks like."

A shadow fell across him. He blinked, vision clearing—

Arina.

She stood above him, sword still at her hip, cloak torn but her posture unbroken. Her face was grim, but her eyes—those bright, unyielding eyes—softened when they found him.

Without a word, she bent and took his arm. Her grip was strong, calloused, steady. She hauled him up with the ease of someone who had carried comrades out of fire before. He leaned into her instinctively, his battered body grateful for her solidity.

It was then he noticed her throat.

A dark burn mark, angry and red, curling like a brand across her pale skin. Almost identical to his own.

For a moment he forgot his pain. His chest tightened.

"Arina..." His voice cracked, but he forced the words. "Does it—does it hurt?"

Her lips curved. Not quite a smile, but close. She shook her head once, short and dismissive.

"I’m not a baby like you," she said.

It was teasing, yes—but there was a tremor beneath it. She had seen the same hand that had nearly ended him. She had felt it. Yet she stood, unflinching, carrying herself as if the mark were nothing more than a scratch.

Aiden let out a soft laugh, but it died quickly. His throat still ached with phantom fire. He wanted to believe her. He wasn’t sure he did.

He turned his head, searching—

And there.

The elf woman. Ilyana. She stood at the tree line, gown torn but still draped with an almost painful grace. Her hair spilled loose from its braids, glowing faintly even in the cold starlight.

In her arms, the little girl clung tight, face buried against her mother’s chest. The child’s small shoulders trembled, but she was alive.

Alive.

Relief loosened something in Aiden’s chest he hadn’t realized was clenched. For all his failures, for all the ruin he had witnessed, at least these two had made it. The gate had not rejected them. The human world had not closed itself against their blood.

For once, fortune had spared someone.

Aiden closed his eyes, exhaling a shaky breath. Thank the gods. Thank whatever mercy lingered in the cracks of this cruel world.

When he opened them again, Arina was closer. Much closer.

She leaned in, her breath ghosting against his ear. He stiffened, not from fear, but from the intimacy of it—the way her voice dropped low, meant only for him.

"I know now," she whispered.

Aiden blinked, startled. "...Know what?"

Her eyes flickered, searching his face. For a heartbeat she seemed uncertain, as if choosing whether to speak. Then her lips curved again, though this time it was no smile.

"Why the nobles fall."

The words slid into him like a blade, quiet and merciless.

Her gaze held his, unblinking. "Why powerful women, warriors greater than me, bend the knee before you. Why they burn, even as they curse themselves for it. I know your secret now."

His mouth went dry.

Arina leaned closer still. He could smell the faint iron tang of blood on her armor, the smoke still clinging to her hair. Her voice was lower than a growl, but every syllable dripped with certainty.

"Your...incubus nature."

The air between them thickened.

Aiden’s heart thudded hard enough to ache. For a moment he forgot the dungeon, the pain, even the weight of Aros’s burning eyes. All that existed was her whisper, the truth he had buried, now unearthed.

She drew back slightly, but her eyes lingered on him. There was no disgust there. No fear. Instead—something else. A flicker of heat. A dangerous curiosity. And beneath it, faint but undeniable, the same thing she accused others of.

Desire.

Arina exhaled slowly, her composure returning like armor slipping back into place. She straightened, shoulders squaring, face smoothing into her usual mask of calm strength. But Aiden had seen it. The moment of weakness. The spark.

And for the first time since the dungeon had spat him back into the world, he smiled—not crooked, not bitter, but real.

Arina’s eyes lingered on him a moment longer, unreadable. Then she exhaled and shook her head, almost as though dismissing her own thoughts.

"Relax," she said at last, her voice low but steady. "Your secret is safe with me."

The words should have been comforting, but there was steel in them too—a reminder that she now carried a weapon sharper than any blade against him.

She stepped closer, until the faint scent of smoke and blood on her armor mixed with something else, something subtler—his own aura, his own heat. Her gaze narrowed slightly, and when she spoke again, it was not with mockery but with quiet, almost reluctant concern.

"But you can’t keep using it like this," she warned. "Carelessly. Broadly. You leave it everywhere you go, Aiden. That... scent of yours. That pull. It clings to people. To rooms. To the very air."

Her hand hovered briefly at her throat, where the burn still marred her skin. "Even I felt it, back at the viscount’s palace. I didn’t know what it was then, only that something was... wrong. Different. Heavy in the air. But if I could sense it, what do you think a high-ranking priest would feel?"

Her voice dropped lower, a sharp whisper at his ear. "One sniff, and you’d be finished."

The words struck harder than any blow. Aiden’s breath caught in his throat, the weight of her warning sinking into him.

Arina studied him, expression grim. "The Church isn’t blind. They’ve hunted things for far less. A whisper of heresy, a flicker of wrongness—and they burn people alive for it.

If they ever decide you’re more than human, if they name you an abomination..." She let the silence finish for her, the image of fire and stakes speaking louder than words.

Then, softer—though her tone didn’t lose its edge—she added, "So, keep your power close. Tame it. Don’t let it bleed into every corner of the world. Because if you don’t—" Her eyes flicked to the dungeon still hanging in the sky, then back to him. "Not even I will be able to pull you back from what comes."