Chapter 2434: Open Air

Caelum was beginning to lose control, and Sylas noticed it first in his eyes rather than his Runes. The mechanical pieces still moved with precision, but the flesh surrounding them had gone bloodshot, thin red veins spreading farther with every pulse of Greed that rolled out from the open doors.

His formations were changing with him. What had once been clean, efficient applications of Time and Order were becoming heavier and more aggressive, wasting power to crush anything that approached instead of solving the problem with the smallest possible expenditure.

The Greed was getting to him.

Caelum seemed to understand that much, but understanding did little when the pressure continued growing. His Fragmented Infinite Will resisted better than almost anyone else’s would have, yet every time something slipped beyond his control, that resistance twisted into a stronger need to seize it back, feeding the very influence he was attempting to suppress.

The five Fallen Madness Disciples were experiencing the opposite effect. Their bodies continued strengthening beneath the resonance, their Wills fitting together more cleanly with every passing breath until what had once felt like five incomplete forms of Greed was beginning to approach something disturbingly whole.

Sylas folded Space around one of them and redirected its charge into another, but even that impact only slowed them for a moment. Their strength had already risen enough that his Spacetime Runes required noticeably more force to contain them, and Caelum’s B-tier Heaven Runes were beginning to suffer the same problem.

Sylas’ attention returned to the cyborg behind the doors.

There was still something wrong with the picture. If Legacy’s purpose had always been to replicate Greed, there was no reason to build a prison around the creature that had apparently succeeded in becoming its modern representative.

The doors themselves were too deliberate for that. Technology and Hell Runes had been woven together through every layer of their construction, while the chains piercing the cyborg’s body were clearly designed around the exact Will now spilling across the region.

That meant the structure wasn’t helping create Scurrying Madness. It was restraining it.

The realization shifted everything else into place. The five Fallen Madness Disciples carried incomplete versions of Rat’s Will, while the creature behind the doors carried a perfect match and possessed the heart of the Scorpion that had originally represented Greed.

A prison built around a stolen position.

Sylas’ eyes narrowed as the final gap in his understanding disappeared. Whatever Professor stood behind this had trapped Scurrying Madness beneath a specific expression of Greed, then built the restrictions around recognizing and suppressing that exact form.

That created an obvious problem for the creature inside.

If Scurrying Madness simply became stronger while remaining the same, the prison would grow better at identifying it rather than worse. It could overpower the restraints eventually, perhaps, but whoever designed this place had clearly intended to prevent that path from ever becoming practical.

So Scurrying had searched for another one and the five Fallen Madness Disciples were the answer.

Different people carried different Wills, different histories, and different interpretations of Greed, but every one of them was approaching something close to the same destination. Scurrying Madness had been producing variations of itself, searching for an expression that remained close enough to Greed to matter while differing enough from its own Will to evade the restrictions binding it.

The symmetry wasn’t lost on Sylas. The Professor appeared to be attempting to reproduce Greed from the outside, while Scurrying Madness was doing almost the exact same thing from inside its prison for an entirely different reason.

That also explained why Caelum mattered.

There was no realistic chance he had captured these five Fallen Madness Disciples through force alone. They were already powerful enough to interfere with B-tier Heaven Runes after only a short period of resonance, which meant the black cylinder had likely done most of the work by suppressing and isolating them one at a time.

The Professor had given Caelum the perfect collection tool, while Scurrying Madness had only needed someone to force him into opening it.

The conclusion wasn’t flattering to either of them. Scurrying had likely understood enough about Caelum’s personality to know that he would use every resource available if pushed into a corner, and once Sylas appeared, the outcome became predictable.

Caelum had released the five Fallen Madness Disciples as a last resort, their Wills had begun resonating, encroaching toward perfect and aligning more and more like a true Incarnation of The Rat. Then the prison suddenly found itself sensing versions of Scurrying Madness on both sides of its own doors, both on the inside and outside.

The contradiction had forced it to open, believing its charge had escaped.

A violent laugh rolled through Hell before Sylas could take the thought any further, and the cyborg Rat pulled hard against its restraints. One of the enormous chains snapped with a sound that traveled through the entire region, and Greed flooded outward several times stronger than before.

Caelum staggered beneath it. Both hands rose toward his head while the red in his eyes deepened, and his golden domain shuddered as though it might collapse entirely.

The five Fallen Madness Disciples reacted in the opposite manner, roaring together as their bodies strengthened again and the pressure of their combined Wills pushed deeper dents into both Caelum’s domain and Sylas’ own.

Scurrying Madness pulled a second time and another chain cracked.

This time, Sylas felt something else beneath the Greed, something concentrated enough that there was no need to interpret it through Runeweaver Eyes or Eternal Will.

The hatred rolling out from the creature aimed directly at him.

Sylas had killed an incarnation of Rat that had gone farther than the others, one that had successfully reached the point of representing Greed itself before Sylas shredded that path to pieces. Whatever Scurrying Madness had been attempting through that incarnation, Sylas had ruined it.

The cyborg’s metallic jaws opened wider as its laughter turned into a roar. Its Will crashed across Hell with enough force to make the five Fallen Madness Disciples convulse, and another chain stretched until the links began deforming under the pressure.

Scurrying Madness had used Sylas, but that didn’t mean it forgave him. Sylas had almost ruined his plans and condemned him to hell.

How long had he tried to escape the thumb of that Professor? How much planning had it taken to build his incarnation and sneak it out of here? All for a mere ant to ruin it all just after he managed to grasp the slightest hint of success.

The third chain snapped and the world lurched with it, the snapping echoing with the force of thunderous booms.

**

Far away in another region of Hell, a cloaked figure paused with several thin surgical instruments held between his fingers. Slithering Madness lay motionless beneath him, its body opened from throat to abdomen while carefully separated flesh revealed organs held in place by delicate metallic supports and pulsing Rune formations.

The cloaked figure blinked once as the distant tremor reached him, then slowly raised his head as though sensing something unexpected. After several seconds, his gaze lowered again toward the open cavity before him.

Slithering Madness’ heart beat in the open air.