The shadows along the throne room walls began to move. They gathered in waves, folding in upon themselves until a figure stepped free, Belmor, once a general of Hell's legions, now a proud echo of something that refused to fade. His armor shimmered like oil over flames, his face carved in the calm arrogance of those who believed they were destined for more.
"My lord," he said, voice smooth and unhurried. "You called."
the god of Hell regarded him from his seat. His expression betrayed nothing, but the air between them grew heavy, like stone about to crack. "Something shifts beneath my dominion. I would know why."
Belmor smiled faintly. "Perhaps Hell grows restless, my lord. Even the dead must grow weary of silence."
"When you lie," the god said, "the fire flickers blue."
Belmor's smirk faltered. He took a step forward, shadows recoiling from his movement. "Then perhaps the fire lies as well."
A single glance form the god silenced the room. The souls hovering in the distance shrank into wisps of light, curling away like frightened birds. When he spoke again, his tone was calm, patient, the voice of eternity explaining itself once more to something temporary.
"Speak your intent, Belmor."
"My intent?" Belmor spread his hands. "To restore meaning to this ruin. Look around, my lord. this place feeds endlessly, but to what end? No one prays. No one remembers. The mortal world fasters without gods, and you sit upon your throne pretending balance still matters."
"Balance always matters," the god said.
"Does it?" Belmor's voice sharpened. "The other gods are gone. You could take their place. Rule the living as well as the dead. Hell is full, earth is dying, there's no order left to protect."
The god's eyes opened fully. "You think conquest will restore divinity?"
"I think power will." Belmor stepped closer, the sound of his boots echoing across the stone. "The mortals need fear again. They have forgotten what shaped them. We could remind them."
The god's expression didn't change, but the air trembled. "You mistake fear for faith. They are not the same."
Belmor tilted his head, almost pitying. "Faith died ages ago. Fear is all that remains."
For a long moment, the chamber held its breath.
Then, softly, the god said, "Return to your duties, Belmor. You will not speak of this again."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you will learn the difference between rebellion and blasphemy."
That silenced even the flames. For the first time, doubt flickered behind Belmor's calm facade. But pride was a hunger not easily starved. He bowed deeply, Mockingly, the gesture sharp as a blade. "As you command... my lord."
He vanished into smoke, leaving only the faint scent of burning metal.
The god of Hell sat in silence for a time that could have been seconds or centuries. Finally, he murmured to himself, "Ambition. Even the damned dream of crowns."
The realm was quiet again, too quiet.
He stood from his throne, gaze sweeping the endless halls. The fire along the rivers burned lower than usual, as though holding its breath. Even the wails of penitent souls faded into whispers. Something in the rhythm of eternity had gone off-beat.
He felt it then, a tremor, a small but deliberate, tugging at the edge of his being. It wasn't rebellion. It was absence. the god closed his eyes and reached outward, his awareness spreading through the layers of his dominion, through the corridors of punishment, the seas of remorse, the towers that watched the border between life and death.
There, a tear.
Small. Faint.
A door opening where no door should ever open.
Through it slipped a presence wrapped in stolen energy, bright and furious and desperate for air.
Belmor.
The god's voice was low, barely a whisper. "So. You choose exile."
He turned toward the great gates at the end of the hall, massive things carved from the first bones of the world. The sigils across them pulsed in time with his thoughts. When he approached, they shuddered, uncertain whether to open or hide.
The guards waiting there, hulking demons plated in black iron, knelt immediately. "My lord," one said. "Shall we bring him back?"
"No." The god's tone was absolute. "Let him run."
He stepped past them to the edge of the abyss. Far above, through the trembling veil of reality, the mortal world glimmered, not as it had once been, full of faith and ritual, but somethin cold and bright and hollow.
He could see light moving across its surface, strange stars that never set, glowing lines that formed vast networks, cities burning with an endless artificial dawn.
"He believes himself free," the god said quietly. "He will learn what freedom costs."
He placed a hand upon the gate. The sigils burned white. From the deepest pits of the underworld came a low rumble, growing until the mountains themselves trembled. When the seal broke, the sound it made was like the cracking of the first sky.
The gate swung open, revealing a corridor of shifting fire and void that led upward, piercing the thin membrane between death and life. Behind him, the empty throne waited, its shadow stretching endlessly across the hall.
The god of Hell stepped forward, and was gone.
the descent into the mortal world was not a fall but a passage. Reality twisted around him, colors bleeding into one another. He felt time time compress, heartbeat upon heartbeat, until the flow of mortality pressed against him like an ocean. The sound of breath, wind, machines, and human thought filled his mind all at once.
He opened his eyes.
Rain fell around him, cold, acidic, alive. He stood in an alleyway between towers of glass and steel that reached higher than the spires of any temple. The night burned with neon light, scarlet, violet, green. Electric veins ran through the streets, and in their glow, people moved. Countless, hurried, unaware of the divine shadow now among them.
The god looked up. Billboards screamed color and motion. Cars roared past like beasts of metal. Somewhere nearby, a siren wailed, the cry of a city choking on its own creation. He could feel it, death everywhere. Behind every heartbeat, a whisper of ending. Each spark of mortality feeding him, just faintly, enough to remind him of what he was.
"Still they die," he said softly. "And still, they forgot."
A man brushed past him without a glance, muttering into a glowing device. The god's gaze followed the stranger. He saw the exhaustion in the man's eyes, the emptiness of purpose, the small, daily despair that mortals carried like invisible chains.
Belmor's corruption would thrive here.
The rain thickened, drumming against the pavement. The god lifted his face to the storm, let the water mix with the faint heat rising from his skin. He felt the pulse of the city beneath him, vast and hollow, alive but godless.
"This is the world you coveted, Belmor," he murmured. "Let us see what you make of it."
With that he began to walk, a solitary figure moving through a city that did not know it had just become part of a war older than time. Behind him, the rain hissed as it touched the faint scorch his footsteps left on the ground. Above, lightning flared, and for an instant, the reflection of Hell's gate shimmered in the clouds, then was gone.
The silence of the underworld had ended. And in the living world, something ancient had begun to stir.