Hell does not celebrate returns.
It endures them.
The gates did not open when Delta approached. They didn't need to. Hell recognized him the way a wound recognizes the knife that never truly left it. Space bent inward, corridors forming out of memory rather than stone, and the iron skyline of the lower dominions rose to greet him without ceremony.
No trumpets.
No kneeling masses.
Only silence heavy with expectation.
Nyx walked beside him, her presence casting long shadows across the obsidian causeway. The mask remained locked against Delta's chains, muted but awake, its blank surface absorbing the red glow of Hell's sky without reflecting it.
"I can feel it," Nyx said quietly.
Delta nodded. "They know."
Hell was not a unified entity. It was a parliament of predators, ideologies sharpened into architecture. Every tower represented a faction. Every fortress a philosophy on suffering, order, or survival.
And at the center—unchanged, untouched—
The Throne.
Black stone veined with old violence, carved from something that had once been a god but now remembered only obedience. It waited atop a tiered platform surrounded by the remains of treaties that had failed to bind him the first time.
Delta stopped several paces from it.
The throne did not react.
That bothered him.
"You don't want to sit," Nyx observed.
"No," Delta replied. "I want it to mean something if I do."
As if summoned by the hesitation, movement rippled through the great hall. Figures emerged from shadowed alcoves and molten corridors—lords, wardens, generals, things that had never bothered with names because authority made them unnecessary.
Hell's leadership.
They did not kneel.
They measured.
One stepped forward—a tall, horned figure wrapped in layered bone and sigil-etched steel. The Warden of the Seventh Depth. Ancient. Political. Still bitter about the last time Delta had rearranged the hierarchy.
"You return without banner or proclamation," the Warden said. "Is this a visit… or an occupation?"
Delta looked at him calmly.
"It's an audit."
Murmurs rippled through the hall.
Nyx smirked faintly.
Another voice cut in—silken, amused, dangerous.
"And under whose authority do you conduct such a thing?"
The speaker emerged from a throne-adjacent balcony: Lady Ashkel, one of the oldest Residents of Hell, architect of pain economies and master of persuasive despair. Her wings were folded, her posture relaxed.
Delta's gaze shifted to her.
"Mine," he said.
A beat.
Then laughter.
Low. Predatory.
"Ah," Ashkel said. "There it is. The assumption."
Delta didn't rise to it.
"You ruled before," she continued. "You abandoned the throne. Hell adapted. It always does."
"Yes," Delta agreed. "And now I'm here to see how."
The Warden bristled. "You relinquished the title of Guardian of Hell."
Delta nodded. "I killed the one who granted it."
That silenced the room.
"Which means," he continued, "no one here outranks me by inheritance. Only by survival."
The Warden's claws flexed.
Ashkel smiled wider. "So this isn't a coronation."
"No," Delta said. "It's an evaluation."
He turned, gesturing broadly to the hall.
"Hell exists because systems fail," he said calmly. "Because Heaven lies. Because mortals break. I don't need to tell you that."
Several lords shifted uncomfortably.
"But Hell has become stagnant," Delta continued. "Predictable. Profitable. You've turned suffering into bureaucracy."
Ashkel arched a brow. "Efficient suffering scales better."
"So does rot."
The words landed harder than a strike.
Nyx felt it—the shift in momentum. Hell was listening now, not to power, but to judgment.
"You think you're here to reform us?" Ashkel asked lightly. "That you've returned with morality?"
"No," Delta replied. "I've returned with restraint."
That drew attention.
Restraint in Hell was an insult.
The Warden scoffed. "Restraint is weakness."
Delta finally stepped forward.
The floor cracked—not from weight, but recognition.
"Restraint," Delta said evenly, "is deciding when not to end things."
He lifted his chained arms slightly. The runes pulsed faintly, unfamiliar in configuration even to Hell's oldest eyes.
"I could take this throne," Delta continued. "Right now. No contest. No spectacle."
Several lords tensed instinctively.
"But if I do that," he said, "nothing changes. Hell obeys me until it grows bored, then waits for the next tyrant."
Ashkel studied him more closely now. "So what do you want?"
Delta met her gaze.
"I want a Hell that survives when I'm not looking."
Silence followed.
That concept—absence—unnerved them more than domination ever had.
The Warden growled. "You want governance."
"Yes," Delta said. "And accountability."
A murmur of disbelief rippled through the ranks.
Nyx leaned toward him. "You're going to get challenged."
Delta nodded slightly. "Good."
Ashkel laughed again, quieter now. "You've changed."
"Yes," Delta replied. "That's the point."
He turned his back on the throne.
Gasps followed.
"I am not claiming the throne today," Delta said. "I am breaking it."
The throne cracked.
Not physically—not yet—but its authority fractured, ancient bindings loosening as if they had just realized the command structure had changed.
"I will remain in Hell," Delta continued. "Not as king. Not as tyrant."
He glanced back over his shoulder.
"But as consequence."
The word echoed.
Hell understood consequence.
Ashkel's smile faded.
"You're not building a kingdom," she said slowly. "You're building pressure."
Delta nodded. "Exactly."
Somewhere far above—beyond Hell, beyond Heaven, beyond even the Ninth Depth—the story adjusted again.
Because the God Killer had returned home.
And refused to rule the way he was written to.