Time's realm had always been quiet.
It existed outside the flow of events, perched on the edge of eternity like a single unblinking eye watching the universe turn. The realm was a place of still clocks, infinite spirals of ticking gears, frozen starlight, and hourglasses whose sands no longer fell. Time alone moved here, a solemn figure tending to the endless march of past, present, and future.
But even this sanctum shivered when two new beings arrived.
Despair entered first, drifting like a torn veil of night, its body woven from shadows of hopelessness. Evil followed close behind sharper, more defined, a figure shaped from hunger and malice. They were children of Night, born in places she feared to look. They had grown alone, wandering realms with no anchor, no throne, no purpose given.
Their voices echoed strangely in Time's domain.
"Lord of Hours," Despair whispered, its voice like a sigh that never ends. "We seek instruction."
Evil stepped forward, eyes burning like black stars. "Teach us. You shaped your realm. We wish to shape ours."
The clocks did not turn. The gears did not grind. The sand did not fall.
Time stood at the far edge of his domain, half cloaked in stillness. Silver hair floated weightlessly. His eyes glowed with the calm of uncountable centuries.
He heard them.
But he did not answer.
Despair drifted closer. "We are the children of Night. You are the brother of Night. Will you reject us too?"
Silence.
Evil stepped forward, voice hardening. "We have seen gods ignite worlds, angels rise, and demons fall. We were born from a wound in the universe. Do not treat us as phantoms."
Still, Time did not speak.
He turned his gaze slightly and stared past them, toward some distant point where futures tangled.
Despair trembled. "He sees something we cannot."
Evil snarled. "He sees nothing. He hides."
Time did not defend itself. He simply lifted one hand toward the boundary of his realm and twisted his fingers. A portal opened not as a door, but as a command. It pushed Despair and Evil gently, firmly back through the veil of Time's reality.
He would not teach them.
He would not shape them.
He would not interfere.
They had to find their path elsewhere.
And they did.
Despair and Evil descend into the Below
The portal dropped them into a realm of fire and shadow.
The Below.
Instantly, the heat hit them, waves of molten air rolling across blackened stone, rivers of lava twisting through jagged cliffs, skies cracked with veins of ember. Demons scurried across ledges and caverns, whispering and bowing in fearful awe.
They recognised the two beings instantly.
"Night-born…""Shadows made flesh…""The twins of terror…"
But Despair and Evil ignored them.
Their eyes, if such things could be called eyes, searched only for one figure.
Ellas.
The new Demon King appeared on a balcony above them, wings aflame with black-gold brilliance. Behind him, an entire realm bowed. His transformation had not only been physical; the Below itself responded to his presence now, shifting around him like a loyal beast.
Evil called up to him.
"King of Demons."
Ellas descended slowly, his feet cracking the obsidian floor when he landed.
"You stand before the throne of the Below," he said, voice deepened by demonic resonance. "Why seek me?"
Despair floated forward. "Time refused to instruct us. He would not teach us his craft."
Ellas's eyes narrowed. "And you believe I can teach what he withholds?"
"No," Evil said. "We believe Scourge can."
Ellas's jaw tightened.
He glanced behind him where chains of celestial law bound Scourge deep inside the sanctuary they had built. The sanctuary was a cavernous temple carved from shadowstone, its walls etched with swirling scripts of ancient corruption. It was as much a prison as a shrine.
Scourge lay at the centre, pinned to a slab of black metal, arms and wings chained in place by radiant coils of Elder's creation. The chains glowed softly with every breath he took.
He could not leave. He could not stand. But his eyes burned with unbroken fury.
Ellas sighed once.
"Come," he said.
Despair floated beside him. Evil walked with deliberate steps.
They entered the sanctuary.
As soon as they did, Scourge's eyes opened.
"You brought guests," he rasped.
"Two who seek to build a realm," Ellas said.
Scourge's grin cracked across his face. "Of course they do."
Evil approached him. "Teach us."
Scourge did not move, but the chains rattled softly at his chuckle.
"Why?" he asked. "Why create a realm? Purpose? Dominion? Protection?"
Despair answered first, voice hollow. "We wish for a space where our natures do not wound creation."
Evil spoke next. "And a place to grow power without interference."
Scourge's grin widened.
"Oh… I like him."
Ellas did not.
He folded his arms. "Teach them, Scourge."
"Very well," Scourge said. "Creation is not a gift. It is rebellion."
His shadowfire flared beneath the chains.
"Realms are made not from energy alone but from will. From defiance. From declaration."
Shadow spiralled from his cracks, twisting into symbols, runes, fragments of possibility.
"To create," he said, "you must name."
A word formed in the air. A law of reality.
"To create," he said again, "you must claim."
Another word. Another law.
"To create," he finished, "you must burn what you were."
Despair trembled. "Burn… ourselves?"
"Yes," Scourge whispered. "To become what you wish to shape."
With that, he lifted his head and thrust his mind outward not physically, but as instruction.
Despair and Evil closed their eyes.
And for a moment, the Below went quiet.
The lava stilled. The shadows leaned. The demons held their breath. Ellas watched closely.
Despair was the first to try.
Its body began to unravel into smoke, shadows curling outward and knotting into threads. A bubble formed like a pocket of sadness, a womb of silence. It grew into a realm of grey fog, dim echoes, and slow, aching winds.
A place made from fear and mourning.
Evil watched, impressed.
Then it was his turn.
He clenched his fists. Black light shot from him sparking, crackling, forming jagged shapes and twisted geometry. A realm began to grow from his aura one of sharp edges, dark towers, red skies, and endless hunger. Its gravity pulled inward violently.
A realm of cruelty and ambition.
When they finished, both realms hovered like twin worlds above the Below newborn planes waiting for their creators' wills.
Despair looked proud.
Evil looked hungry.
Ellas stepped forward.
"You have shaped your realms," he said. "Now shape your loyalties."
Despair drifted back. "We did not come for war."
Ellas smirked. "War will find you regardless."
"No," Despair said. "We walk alone."
Evil, however, stepped forward.
"What of the pact?" he asked. "The Fallen King. The Demon King. The crusade against heaven."
Ellas's wings flared. "And would you join us?"
Evil smiled slowly and feral. "I would."
Despair looked at him, hollowed with disappointment.
"We were born together."
"And we will walk apart," Evil replied.
Despair drifted away, whispering through the Below like a forgotten dream.
Evil kneeled before Ellas and bound Scourge.
"I pledge myself to the Fallen."
Scourge smirked.
Ellas extended his hand.
"Then rise, Evil," he commanded. "Rise as the third of our pact."
Evil rose.
And I, watching silently from the ether, felt the universe inhale sharply.
Three beings now moved toward war:
Scourge bound but unbroken. Ellas, the Demon King, fallen ether. Evil the child of Night, now pledged to ruin.
The realms they created tore open new paths through existence.
The universe trembled.
And the future grew darker still.