Silence.
After the storm of fire and shadow, not even light dared to move. The heavens were broken, their silver spires reduced to drifting dust, their constellations scattered like the remnants of forgotten prayers.
And at the center of it all stood The Great One.
His gaze swept across the ruined sky where once His children had stood. The air itself trembled beneath the weight of His sorrow. The war was over, but peace had not returned. Only emptiness. Only betrayal.
"You defied My word," He spoke, His voice neither thunder nor whisper but something that bent reality itself. "You chose love over law, doubt over faith."
Before Him knelt the four remaining deities, Aeter, Amina, Milleth, and Lux, their armor shattered, their light flickering like dying embers. Around them lay nothing of Enfer, only the lingering trace of his madness, a black scar across eternity.
Amina tried to lift her head, tears streaking her once-radiant face. "Master… we only wished to save him."
"And in doing so," said The Great One, "you became what you sought to save."
He raised His hand, and the air split open with the sound of shattering souls.
"By the decree of Heaven and the Principles of Creation, I strip you of your divinity."
The heavens convulsed. Aeter's sword of eternity disintegrated into dust. Lux's wings burned away into falling feathers of light. Milleth's strength was drained into the soil, turning the mountains to ash. Amina's lifeforce, once warm and bright, dimmed until it was barely a glow.
One by one, their halos broke apart.
"You shall no longer bear the name of god or deity," the Great One continued. "You shall be cast into the Abyss of Remorse, where the condemned drift without form, forever conscious, forever regretful."
He extended His hand again, and the heavens opened beneath them.
Aeter reached for his siblings, their fingers brushing for the last time before they fell, four streaks of fading light swallowed by the infinite dark.
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There is no time in the Abyss.
Only thought.
Only pain.
The Four floated in endless void, their bodies long dissolved, their essence reduced to orbs of dim light, the last remnants of what once were gods. They drifted through the black ocean of nothingness, tethered only by a thin thread of consciousness, enough to remember what they had lost, and enough to feel the weight of regret.
Enfer's orb was there too, dimmer than the rest, pulsing faintly like a dying star. Though he had been destroyed, his essence had not vanished. The war had shattered his body, not his will.
Sometimes, the others thought they heard him, faint whispers echoing through the dark.
"Freedom… not chains…"
But the Abyss swallowed all sound.
And so they remained, five lost lights adrift in eternal silence.
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Beyond the veil of the Great One's dominion, in the cracks between existence, The Forgotten One stirred.
Its laughter had long faded, replaced by curiosity. The war had cost it dearly; even it could not challenge the Great One's power directly. Yet it had learned something from Enfer's fall, that even the strongest light could fracture, and through those fractures, the void could slip through.
Now, as the Great One busied Himself mending the broken Realms, the Forgotten One glided silently toward the depths of the Abyss. Its form was neither shadow nor spirit, it was absence given shape.
And there, it found them: five faint orbs, drifting aimlessly in the sea of nothing.
"Ah…" it whispered, voice soft as dust. "Even broken stars still shine."
It reached out a hand of darkness and plucked Enfer's orb from the void, cradling it like a jewel.
"Rise again, little god. The story is not yet done."
The Forgotten One lifted the orb high and cast it through a tear in space, a rift that opened not to the Heavens, but to a small, fragile world filled with fleeting lives and fragile dreams.
The Mortal Realm.
Earth.
The orb streaked through the darkness like a falling comet, descending toward a new beginning.
But as the rift closed, something unexpected happened.
The other four orbs, sensing the faint pull of their brother's essence, latched onto the Forgotten One's shadow.
Their dim lights flickered, pleading, reaching, unwilling to let him go alone.
The Forgotten One did not notice.
It smiled, whispering to itself, "Perhaps this time, you will see truth."
And so, all five orbs passed through the veil, vanishing into the fabric of a new world.
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In the silence that followed, the Great One looked upon the mended heavens. The wounds of war were sealed, but not forgotten. The stars shone again, though their light seemed a little colder.
He turned His gaze toward the mortal plane where five faint sparks had just entered existence, hidden among humankind.
For a moment, the Great One's light dimmed, almost like a sigh.
"So be it," He murmured. "Even in punishment, there is fate."
The heavens fell silent once more.
And somewhere far below, five cries echoed through the night, newborn voices in a world that had forgotten gods.