The Below grew restless the moment the abyss sealed.
Even from the ether, I felt the shudder of a realm being claimed.
Elder had cast them down, Scourge and the demons who chose him, but realms are not simply prisons. They are potential, waiting for hands bold enough or desperate enough to shape them.
And Scourge was both.
He fell for what felt like ages plunging through layers of darkness that thickened into shadowed oceans, then thinned into cold wind, then hardened into jagged stone. His scream had long since broken into bitter laughter.
Finally, he struck the ground.
The greeting below greeted him.
It was a realm of twisting caverns and molten rivers, obsidian cliffs rising like fangs, endless storm clouds rumbling overhead. The place smelled of ash and birth shadowfire waiting to become something more.
The demons landed beside him with snarls and growls, some standing, some crawling, all hungry.
Scourge rose slowly.
His wings, once silver, were now torn shadows. His glow, once divine, was a burning ember trapped inside cracked flesh. His eyes, once bright, now blazed red-gold like magma behind smoke.
He spread his broken wings.
And the below listened.
Its mountains bent their peaks toward him. Its skies lowered in reverence. Its molten rivers brightened, as if awaiting command.
Scourge smiled a slow, terrible smile twisted by bitterness.
"This realm," he declared, "belongs to me."
The demons roared.
Shadowfire burst through the caverns, twisting into heralding flame. The ground shook, splitting into trenches that glowed like burning veins. Jagged spires emerged from the earth, forming a throne carved from darkness and infernal light.
Scourge stepped toward it.
He placed his hand upon the obsidian seat
and the entire realm bowed.
The Below had found its king.
And its king had found purpose.
Scourge sat, fire coiling around his throne, and the demons gathered at his feet.
"Rise," he commanded.
They stood.
"Look upon the first fallen," he said, voice echoing through every cavern. "You have followed me into exile. But exile is no end. It is a beginning."
He spread his wings, shadow flame erupting around him.
"We will not rot in darkness. We will rule it."
The Below answered with a deafening roar of volcanoes igniting in unison.
But in that moment of triumph, Scourge froze.
His head lifted.
His eyes narrowed.
He felt something.
Pain.Hatred.Rage struggling against weakness. A spark of dying divinity wrapped in mortal flesh.
Ellas.
Across the universe, on the world of Eroden, the fallen golden ether was suffocating in bitterness soaking the soil beneath his feet with ambition and fury. The bond between their broken lights pulsed.
Scourge stood abruptly.
The demons looked up, startled.
"What is it, my king?" one asked, bowing low.
Scourge's voice deepened, resonant with a darkness older than the Below itself.
"He calls," Scourge said. "Not knowingly. Not willingly. But hatred speaks even when lips are silent."
He raised his hand.
Shadowfire coiled around him.
"I go to him."
Without waiting for permission, without fear of Elder's wrath, Scourge opened a rift in space a tear carved by pure resentment and corrupted angelic nature.
The Below shuddered as he vanished through it.
Across the stars, on Eroden…
Ellas sat inside a small wooden hut he had carved from desperation. His mortal hands ached. His breath came heavy. He was starving, furious, trembling with a fire too weak to burn.
He sensed something forming outside an energy cold as winter and hot as a furnace.
He didn't recoil.
He smiled.
A loud knock, echoing, shook the hut.
He rose, breath unsteady, but mind sharp.
He placed a hand on the door.
Scourge stood on the other side wings of torn darkness unfurled, embers swirling around his feet, eyes blazing like a sun in eclipse.
Ellas opened the door.
Their eyes met one filled with mortal hatred, the other with fallen divinity.
Scourge bowed his head slightly.
"Ellas," he said. "I have come."
Ellas smiled bitterly.
"Welcome, fallen one," he replied. "Enter."
He stepped aside.
Scourge entered the mortal's dwelling.
Two broken beings, one stripped of godhood, one stripped of angelhood, now stood together.
And the universe trembled at the alliance beginning in that small hut on Eroden.