In the deepest pit of the Underworld, where even the damned souls feared to tread and the flames burned with such intensity that they scorched the very concept of mercy from existence, Lord Enma held court over his infernal domain.
The throne room. if such a grand term could be applied to that place of torment. stretched vast as a continent, its ceiling lost in smoke and darkness, its floor a lake of molten stone that bubbled and hissed like a living thing.
The throne itself was a monument to suffering: constructed from the bones of those who had challenged divine law and paid the ultimate price, each skull and femur stacked with such precision that it formed a seat both terrible and magnificent. Upon it sat Enma, Lord of the Dead, Judge of Souls, Keeper of Hell's Gates. and the most resentful being in all creation.
To look upon Enma was to witness rage given physical form. He stood twelve feet tall when he rose, his skin the deep crimson of old blood, marked with black runes that pulsed with power older than memory. Horns curved back from his temples, obsidian black and wickedly sharp, and his eyes burned with an inner fire that had never diminished in all his eons of existence.
He wore robes woven from something that resembled silk but was in truth far more terrible. the flayed essence of oathbreakers, those who had broken divine compacts and paid the price in their very souls.
Around him, the denizens of the Underworld went about their eternal tasks. Lesser oni with skin of blue and green hauled chains of souls toward the Judgment Pools. Greater demons, the Judges that Enma had elevated to positions of power, moved through the smoke like sharks through blood-darkened water.
And everywhere, always, the screaming. not of torture, for this was not a place of arbitrary cruelty, but of purification. Souls burning away their sins so they might eventually be reborn, cleaned of their transgressions.
It was necessary work. Important work. Work that Enma had performed flawlessly for longer than human civilization had existed.
And he hated every moment of it.
"My lord," came a rasping voice from the shadows. One of his Judges approached, Thanatos, the Death itself, whose touch could end even immortal existence. It wore the shape of a skeletal figure wrapped in tattered funeral shrouds, its face a skull that somehow managed to convey expressions despite lacking flesh. "The latest souls have been processed. Ten thousand in the past moon cycle. Their sins have been weighed, their fates determined."
"Ten thousand," Enma repeated, his voice a rumble that made the molten floor ripple. "Ten thousand more souls to judge, to purify, to send back into the cycle. As I did yesterday. As I will do tomorrow. As I have done since the very cosmos drew its first breath."
Thanatos said nothing, for there was nothing to say. This was simply the way of things.
Enma rose from his throne, and the chamber seemed to grow smaller, as if his presence alone pushed back against the very walls of hell. He strode to the obsidian mirror that dominated the eastern wall. a thing of such dark power that it showed not reflections but truths, whether one wished to see them or not.
"Do you know what I saw today?" Enma asked, though he did not turn to face his servant. "I saw them. The last five. The so-called Guardians gathering in their empty palace, making their pretty oaths, promising to maintain the balance."
His hand clenched into a fist, and cracks appeared in the mirror's surface.
"They speak of duty as if it is a choice. As if they selected this burden from among many paths laid before them. But I," He spun, and the fury in his eyes made even Thanatos take a step back. "I was BOUND to this. Appointed. Commanded. The other gods could leave, could transcend, could become mortal and taste freedom. But I? The Underworld requires a lord. The dead require a judge. And so I must remain, chained to this throne as surely as any prisoner to their cell."
He turned back to the mirror, and his reflection. or rather, the truth it showed. stared back at him. Not the powerful lord he appeared to be, but something trapped, something caged, something that had traded freedom for duty so long ago that even he could no longer remember making the choice.
"Forty-five years," Enma continued, his voice dropping to something quieter but no less dangerous. "Forty-five years they have stood their watch in the Astral Realm. Do you know how many times Wukong has deigned to visit me in that time?
Three. Three visits, each one dripping with false camaraderie, with pity barely disguised as respect. 'How goes the judging, old friend?' he asks, as if we are equals. 'The Underworld seems orderly as always,' as if I am a servant to be praised for keeping my master's house clean."
"My lord," Thanatos ventured carefully, "Sun Wukong is… not known for subtlety, but neither is he cruel. Perhaps he genuinely,"
"He PITIES me," Enma snarled. "They all do. Even now, I feel it, Bishamon's reports that arrive quarterly, detailing the 'state of the realms' as if I am a subordinate requiring oversight. Ryujin's occasional messages wondering if I 'require assistance with the burden of judgment.' They see me as lesser. As bound. As their prisoner masquerading as their peer."
He reached out and touched the mirror, and where his fingers met the glass, it began to melt, running like water down the wall.
"But they are wrong," he whispered. "I am not bound. I am not their prisoner. I am the Lord of the Underworld, Commander of Ten Thousand Demons, Master of the Flames that Purify and Destroy. I have power they cannot imagine, armies they cannot match, and will they have long since forgotten."
From the shadows behind Enma's throne, more figures emerged. The Thirteen Judges. the greatest of the yokai, demons who had earned their positions through strength, cunning, and unwavering loyalty to their lord. Tatsu, the dream-eater, whose dragon form could freeze armies in their tracks. Mezu and Gozu, the twin demon guardians with the heads of horse and ox. Kage, the shapeshifter who could become anyone, anything. And ten more, each terrible in their own right.
They arranged themselves in a semicircle before their master, awaiting his words.
Enma turned to face them, and his expression shifted from rage to something colder, more calculated. "My children," he said, and his voice carried the weight of command that had bent hell itself to his will.
"For eons we have maintained the Underworld. We have judged the dead, purified souls, maintained the cycle of rebirth. We have done our duty faithfully, perfectly. And what has it earned us?"
None answered. They knew their lord's words were not questions requiring response, but the building blocks of something greater.
"It has earned us nothing," Enma continued. "While the Astral Beings transcended or descended, exploring all the cosmos had to offer, we remained. While they chose their fates, we were bound to ours. But no more."
He raised his hand, and the very flames of hell responded, rising in columns that reached toward the smoke-shrouded ceiling.
"The Astral Realm is empty," he declared. "Ten thousand gods reduced to five. Five guardians watching over an entire realm, spread thin across boundaries too vast for any number to patrol effectively. And they dare to call themselves the maintainers of balance? They are relics. Remnants. The last gasps of a dying age."
Enma's smile was terrible to behold.
"If the Astral Realm is undefended, then it can be taken. And once I hold both the Underworld and the Astral Realm, the Human Realm will have nowhere to turn. The Three Realms will become one. and I will be its sole master."
"My lord," Tatsu spoke, her voice like silk over steel, "the Five Guardians, even diminished in number, are formidable. Sun Wukong alone has power to match entire armies. And they have sworn oaths to protect the balance. They will not yield without,"
"They will not yield at all," Enma interrupted. "Which is why they must be eliminated. Not in honorable combat, where their skill might prevail, but through treachery. through the very betrayal they would never expect from one they consider a fellow guardian of the realms."
He moved to a great desk of blackened wood, where writing materials lay ready. His hand, steady despite the fury burning within, began to compose a letter.
The words flowed like honey laced with poison:
"To my brothers and sisters, the Guardians of the Astral Realm,
I write to you with concern weighing heavy upon my heart. The departure of our fellow Astral Beings has not been without consequence. The boundaries between realms grow unstable, the old wards weaken, and I have felt tremors in the very fabric of existence itself.
We five who remain must stand together now more than ever. I propose a council meeting at the Boundary Court, neutral ground where none hold advantage, so that we might discuss how best to shore up the balance and protect the Three Realms in this age of change.
Your brother in duty,Lord Enma, Keeper of the Underworld"
He read over the words once, twice, then sealed the letter with his personal sigil. a mark that would prove its authenticity to even the most suspicious recipient.
"Thanatos," he commanded, "summon a spectral raven.
Have this delivered to Wukong at the Central Palace."
"And then, my lord?" the Death asked.
Enma's smile widened, revealing teeth too sharp for any divine being's mouth.
"Then you and the other Judges prepare yourselves for war. We will meet them at the Boundary Court as promised. And when they arrive, expecting council and cooperation, we will show them what true power looks like. We will show them what happens to those who mistake a lord for a prisoner, duty for weakness, patience for submission."
He returned to his throne, settling into it as if it were not made of the bones of the damned but rather the finest cushions in all creation.
"Four hundred and fifty-five years," he said softly, more to himself than to his assembled Judges. "For four hundred and fifty-five years I have waited for this moment. I have planned, prepared, gathered my strength. I have created you, my Thirteen Judges, each one powerful enough to challenge a god. I have forged the Soul Contract system that will allow us to possess humans and survive in their realm despite the temperatures that would normally destroy us. I have built an army that spans eternity."
His eyes blazed brighter, and the throne room itself seemed to pulse with his anticipation.
"Soon, the age of the gods will truly end. And in its place, the Age of Enma will begin. An age where I am not bound to a single realm, not chained to a throne, not prisoner to duty. I will rule all three realms, Underworld, Astral, and Human. I will be supreme. I will be free."
He waved a dismissive hand, and the Judges bowed before retreating to their various domains to prepare for the coming slaughter.
Alone once more, Enma stared into the flames that were his domain, his kingdom, his prison. And in those flames, he saw the future: the Astral Realm burning, the Human Realm kneeling, and himself standing atop it all, finally, finally free from the chains that had bound him since creation's dawn.
"Come to the Boundary Court, Sun Wukong," he whispered to the fire. "Bring your fellow guardians. Trust in my words, in the oath of cooperation we all once swore. Come, and meet your end."
The flames roared their approval, and in their roaring, Lord Enma heard the first notes of a symphony that would reshape the cosmos itself.
The letter, carried by spectral wings through the void between realms, began its journey upward toward the light.