Dancing on the golden ashes

My body still pulsed with energy, wild and uncontrollable, the last thread holding together my will to fight, the only thing left that made me feel even a little alive, burning like a fire I couldn't put out, no matter how hard I tried. It wasn't fading. If anything, it was growing stronger, rising with every drop of blood that splattered across my skin. The more soaked I became, the more enraged I felt, as if the sin itself was feeding off the violence, multiplying inside me like an inferno with no end. And I knew, if this kept up, if I let it keep rising, I wouldn't just burn the monster.

I'd burn the whole fucking world down. And for the first time... that thought started to worry me. The dual pupils in my eyes danced, flickering with unstable energy, each one moving independently, scanning the battlefield like they were searching for something I hadn't noticed yet, something I wasn't ready to understand.

Then they stopped. Locked onto a single point—the ground, scorched and split, the place where the monster had first emerged. I didn't know why, but something deep in my bones, something ancient and unspoken, screamed at me to go there. A pull. A calling. As if buried beneath that torn earth was something I had to see. Something I had to reach. Because if I didn't—if I turned away now—I would lose something that mattered more than I could afford to admit.

And in the next heartbeat—FWOOOSH—!!—I was gone, a blur vanishing into the earth, sin and flame trailing behind as I descended back into the lair of ice.

My body didn't return to its normal form, the one people called beautiful, divine, angelic. The one that shimmered like light given flesh. No… I still burned. My skin still blazed with the flames of wrath, my limbs still cloaked in sin-forged power, and I looked less like salvation and more like something cast from the deepest pit of hell. A fallen goddess who never asked to rise again.

I didn't hesitate. My claws plunged into the ice below, carving through the frozen layers and compacted ground like a hot blade through butter. Thick cracks split the earth as I descended, each stroke tearing the world open wider, the frost bursting around me in steaming shards that scattered like broken glass. There was something down here. I could feel it—not with my mind, but with whatever part of me still connected to the sins. A call. A whisper. A pulse so ancient and heavy that it didn't need words to command me.

And maybe… maybe the werewolf hadn't come here to hunt.

Maybe it wasn't sealed, or summoned.

Maybe it was guarding something.

Or someone.

I need to control myself, I know that, but I can't… and that's the problem. This is troublesome... because if I'm not careful, one day the sins might start controlling me, twisting my will, tearing my identity apart until I'm nothing but a puppet for the power I once commanded. Shit...

Why do I always end up like this? First it was the other me, that masked thing, that eerie entity in the reflection, and now it's the very sins I carved into my soul over the years, creeping in like shadows I invited too close. No. Not again. This time I won't let anything play with me. This time I'll be the one holding the strings, I'll make damn sure that the sins only fuel me when I want them to. When I need them to.

Hahaha…

Shit. It feels good to laugh again. Hahaha! Come on! Fuck it! Whatever's waiting for me down there—whether it's a foe or a treasure—I'll tear through it all. I'll be fucking victorious.

Yeah... maybe I lost my head for a moment there.

But can you blame me?

I hadn't felt emotions in years. Real, raw, intoxicating feelings. Who the hell wouldn't be happy to feel anything again? If I could, I'd keep these sins burning through my veins forever. But deep down, I knew... if I didn't cancel them later, if I didn't shut it down after all this was over, I'd lose myself completely. No coming back.

The rocks around me began to shift—not subtly, not gently, but violently, the cold ice melting away into waves of suffocating heat, steam hissing around my feet as the ground itself transformed from frozen death to molten breath. I could feel it. The air grew heavy. My golden flame began to react, flickering with an intensity that wasn't my own, as if something down here was calling to it, whispering in a tongue I couldn't understand. For what reason? I had no idea. But something had ignited inside me. A spark. A warning. Or maybe an invitation.

The world around me turned bright red, like I was descending into the heart of a dying star—and then, without warning, a voice crashed into my ear like thunder wrapped in silk.

"Leave... you... are... not... welcome... here..."

It was weak. Soft. Feminine. But familiar in a way that scraped at my memory like dull claws. I'd heard that voice before. Somewhere. But I ignored it. But I didn't stop pressing forward, drawn deeper by the flames, by the pressure, by the sheer gravity of something ancient buried in this place.

And then I crashed into it.

A wall—not of stone or ice or flesh—but fire. Living fire. A roaring, blazing barrier that shouldn't have been solid, and yet stopped me cold. My hand pressed against it, but the flame didn't consume me. It resisted. It pushed back, reinforced by something else—something holy. The energy of divinity wrapped around the flame like chains, sealing it shut, keeping it hidden, contained. And that voice… it came from beyond. From whoever, or whatever, was sealed behind this sacred inferno.

The more it wanted to be free, the more I needed to see it. The more it told me no, the more I burned to know why.

There was power here.

Unimaginable power.

And it was tempting me in the worst possible way.

If I could break this seal… if I could absorb what was locked behind it… I'd be one step closer to the immortal realm. One step closer to tearing down the heavens. And one step closer to killing that fucking piece of shit Creator with my own two hands.