Chapter 2: A beautiful voice calling a name lost in time. Edited*

The only thing the creature ever wanted was its freedom, but that same search led it to this confinement. That is the exact moment that gave rise to this particular story.

"I just want to be free." The being murmured. As its mind slowly slipped back into madness. An interval of clarity and insanity was present. As constant as day and night.

Grunts and screams filled the cave at times. The sound of chains being shaken, flesh being torn. Anger hadn't taken it anywhere, he knew that, but it couldn't help it. Sometimes just filling the eternal silence was enough. When its mind descended back into madness, all that beauty was lost.

Like its eyes, the very form of this being was altered by its mental state. The vision of its figure matched very well with the madness unleashed after so many years of solitude and confinement. Its soft grayish skin seemed to turn to molten rock, it broke and split; as if the same magma came out of it. But you wouldn't see lava gushing out, instead, scales of a serpentine appearance formed around his arms. Its horns grew, curled and twisted. At first glance it seems like a superhuman effort to carry them, but the being barely noticed them.

Bone thorns made their way along his back, coming from the spine, tearing off and toring its skin and flesh. The other parts of his skeleton seemed to follow, asking for a chaotic and grotesque dance from the scales that embrace it. Few things remained unchanged. Its face warped by rage and dementia in an expression more akin to that of a wounded beast. Its vague humanoid form. The pair of black wings that somehow still hold onto his back.

"Azmodiel?" The silence of the cave had been disturbed, but not by his own voice or by the grinding of the chains. It was a slightly fearful voice, tinged with pleading, that manifested seemingly out of nowhere. Interrupting the cycle of dementia to which Azmodiel had already become accustomed.

"Azmodiel." For the second time, a beautiful voice materialized in the empty echo of the prison. The body of the chained entity trembled. It had forgotten many things, but he still remembered his name. The stillness had not been broken by a hallucination of madness. It was a voice that did not belong to this hell, a voice filled with a sweet longing, a sincere request, and a pure need.

The purple returned to his eyes. The mere notion that something or someone was able to enter this place was enough for the spark of hope to ignite in the heart of the being, a spark of which it was certain there was nothing left.

It lifted its face to see around, looking for the source of this voice. This voice that should not exist in this place called it a third time with a stronger urgency.

"Azmodiel, help!"

It was not until the third call that something changed, allowing it to see the origin of the voice, a white page materializing in the middle of the hellish prison, floating a few inches from his face. The nature of the page; so radiant, full of purity and a repressive force towards evil, it put Azmodiel on the defensive, yet it gritted its sharp teeth and strove to look more clearly at that page that, at first glance, seemed empty.

Peculiar indeed that surprise was one of the first emotions it recovered. Even though it had never seen one so closely, it knew exactly what it was that floated in front of its captive being, and it also knew exactly where it came from. After all, it had been there when its mother granted mortals the ability to connect with one of the fundamental magical forces present in the universe; the Akash. Azmodiel witnessed both the birth of the first magician, and the first Grimoire, and with it the emergence of related knowledge, as well as the first spell.

It could still remember the time when its mother was no longer able to witness the suffering of mortals, her face full of grief and pity for them. Remember that it was then that she put a spark in the hearts of all mortals at birth. Seeds of magic full of potential that were granted to them for their survival. It always thought that his mother was too kind to give such a gift to mortals.

However, despite its experience during these events, Azmodiel was not very familiar with the magic of mortals, nor the understanding and study of it, which they called Arkana, an archaic and mundane name in the eyes of this being. Since its gifts were something it was born with, an innate spark, it never cared to understand or inquire about mortals, although it understood that in essence it was different from the one that gave rise to the Grimoires.

Just then, it remembered a peculiarity of every grimoire, something that makes the difference in how each human cultivates its magic. Each grimoire has within it a spell from the moment of birth, a unique spell for each mortal, something they could not share or learn from another. "A gift of destiny," is what his mother called it.

What now floated in the middle of the air was precisely the first page of a grimoire, that first spell. Azmodiel was witnessing a gift of fate, accompanied by a sweet voice that knew of his existence.

Almost as if understanding was the command that activated the spell, chaos erupted inside the cave. The golden chains that bound him were torn from the walls. That which he had dreamed of doing for what seemed like an eternity passed before his eyes, as easy and instantaneous as if it were the will of the chains. But these did not fall to the ground, the feeling of freedom and relaxation lasted barely a sigh.

The tips of the chains entered an unbridled maelstrom in the small rectangle of light, gradually being absorbed by the numerous symbols, diagrams and runes on the white page. Slowly merging with the lines and dragging him into what seemed like a new captivity.

Having no say in his own fate, Azmodiel, who was still fused with the opposite end of those chains, was dragged along. Barely assimilating what was happening, he tried to fight, resist, using every fiber of force within him, but it was all in vain. The chains became more and more resistant as it was absorbed by the white page.

This is how the last prisoner of this prison forgotten by the world disappeared. The cave began to crumble after his departure, as if its function had finally been fulfilled. The remaining golden chains that once chained other entities dissolved into traces of golden light before fading away. And without any other demon in the nine circles of hell being aware, the tenth circle ceased to exist.