I Was Reborn in Another World, But I Awoke Inside a Corpse

Chapter 194: Echoes in the Abyss 

The Abyss did not scream.

It recoiled.

Across the deepest, most ancient layers of reality, where light was devoured and time grew stagnant, a rupture thundered like a second heartbeat. Not of flesh. But of soul. Something powerful and primordial had died—erased itself in a cataclysm that shook the fabric of the underworld.

The Sovereign of Craving… was gone.

And those who reigned over Sin noticed.

—

Beneath a sky of churning flame and rivers of lava, Satan rose from his basalt throne.

His fortress loomed over the volcanic plains of Wrath—a castle of jagged stone and ever-bleeding magma. Firestorms raged around its towers, and rivers of molten hate spilled from its gates like veins torn open. The heat was so intense that even demons had to bow or burn.

He clenched one fist, the flames wreathing his body answering in kind.

A subtle tremor pulsed through the obsidian beneath his feet.

"…It was him," Satan said quietly, voice grinding like molten iron. "That mortal. The one who destroyed my gift."

Flames surged upward from the ground like a dragon roaring from the earth.

"You took what was mine. And now you remove even what remained of me?"

His aura ignited fully, and the inferno around his domain responded.

"I will not be erased."

—

Within a cathedral of mirrored glass and black thorns, Lucifer stood alone.

No walls. No courtiers. Only truth.

He gazed into the many-paneled mirror that surrounded him, each reflecting different possibilities, each now distorted by the same ripple—an echo not from prophecy, but from loss.

"So," he whispered, brushing silver-blonde hair from his brow, "the Sovereign has fallen."

He turned to face a panel now glowing red.

"And not by divine wrath. Not by demonic ascension. But by something… new."

His smile was slow. Calculated.

"Curious."

—

Far below, entombed in golden vaults and chained to endless wealth, Mammon froze mid-count.

A mountain of coins spilled as the tremor rippled through his sanctum, and the gold beneath his claws withered from luster to ash in seconds. His eyes—jewel-like and blood-bright—narrowed.

"That presence… devours value."

He hissed, low and greedy.

"Power without payment. Growth without contract."

His voice tightened into a snarl.

"Unacceptable."

—

In the deepest sea of the Abyss, within a drowned temple where the light of the surface had never touched, Leviathan stirred.

The water darkened.

Spirals of sorrow drifted across the broken murals of gods long forgotten.

She raised her head, dark hair flowing like a living tide, eyes luminous and blue as deepest grief. The pressure of her presence cracked the pillars around her.

And she listened.

Not to the echo.

But to the emptiness it left behind.

"The Sovereign is no more," she said, barely a whisper. "His hunger silenced."

A pause.

Her eyes glinted.

"…And yet someone else fed."

—

Among a field of unmoving clocks—some ticking backward, others not at all—Belphegor opened one eye.

Just one.

He yawned.

Then slowly sat up beneath the gnarled, dead tree in the center of his barren realm. The spiritual quake reached even here, faint and distorted. But it was enough to make him blink.

"Well," he muttered, "someone got up and did something… dramatic."

He scratched his head.

"Hope they don't expect me to do anything about it."

He yawned again.

And went right back to sleep.

—

Across the Abyss, the Five Great Demons stirred.

They did not meet.

They did not speak.

But each understood—

Someone had taken a piece off the board.

And none of them had given permission.