Hell, for all its horrors, held a silence that gnawed at the soul.
The screams of the damned echoed across its horizons, yes—but deeper still, beneath the rivers of fire and the bones of fallen gods, there was a stillness that suffocated. Morning Star, his radiance dulled, wandered through it like a fallen sun searching for its place in a broken sky.
His armor had melted into his form. His wings—one torn, one blackened—dragged behind him like ruined banners. Every breath burned. Every step sank into the ash.
He was alone.
He followed the pull. It wasn't a voice, nor a feeling, but a gravity—an ancient magnetism that drew him through crimson canyons and obsidian plains. He walked until the sky above him vanished, swallowed by the earth itself.
And there it was.
The Prison.
Not built—grown. Formed of bone and flame and something older than time. A sphere of chains woven from sorrow, suspended in a pit where light could not exist. It beat like a heart.
He stepped forward.
Agony.
It rippled through him like lightning through a dying star. His knees buckled. His wings convulsed. Every memory he held shattered in his mind, replaced by whispers in languages he had never known.
And still, he crawled closer.
The chains began to tremble.
Then—
Crack.
One snapped. Then another. A sound like thunder trapped in a dying god's throat echoed through Hell.
The prison unraveled.
And from the dark rose a figure—not monstrous, not grotesque, but beautiful.
His form was twilight—half light, half shadow. Skin like starlight behind smoke. His hair, long and black, drifted as if underwater. Eyes like galaxies blooming in reverse. And his voice...
His voice was silence made flesh.
"You should not have come," he said.
Morning Star, barely standing, stared up in awe and terror. "What... what are you?"
The figure stepped forward, unbound now, the earth itself recoiling beneath his feet.
"I am the younger twin," he said, "Of the one you call God."
Morning Star's eyes widened. "Impossible. There was only God at the beginning."
"That's what you've been told," the twin whispered. "What you've been allowed to know. But I was there. In the first breath. In the void. In the silence between the words. I made this place—not by choice, but by being. This Hell... it is ancient, yes. But sill mine."
His hand swept across the abyss, and the flames bent away from him.
"Welcome, Morning Star, to my kingdom."
The name stung.
He straightened his back. "I am no king."
"No," the twin smiled. "But you were once more. And you shall be again."
He reached out.
Morning Star flinched, remembering pain.
But this time, there was none. Only fire flowing into his veins, black and gold, divine and wretched.
"You will no longer be known as Morning Star. That name is ash."
"You are Lucifer now—the Bringer of Light in the Land of Shadows."
Lucifer gasped as power erupted through him. Wings stretched wider than ever before—one obsidian, one crimson, burning with unholy grace.
The twin turned, and from the corners of Hell emerged others.
Six figures.
One, twisted and regal, radiating decay—Baal Zebul, now Beelzebub, Lord of Flies.
Another, once resplendent in beauty, now veiled in lust and sin—Jazeriel, reborn as Asmodeus, the Unchained Desire.
From the seas of boiling blood rose a titan—Leviathan Melvillei, now Livyatan, Devourer of Depths.
A pale, skeletal watcher with hollowed eyes—Balfagel, now Belphegor, Lord of Sloth and Secrets.
A radiant being of gold, twisted by greed—once Mamriel, now Mammon, the Hoarder of Souls.
And from nothingness itself, the twin raised his hand... and created a seventh.
A horned beast with the pride of kings and the rage of fallen gods—his body a living scar, his eyes burning with betrayal.
"And you... you are Satan, born not of Heaven or Hell, but of the fracture itself. My wrath incarnate."
He looked to them all and spoke with a thunder that cracked mountains:
"You are the Seven Princes of Hell. Rule this broken kingdom in my name. Gather the scattered fallen. You are stronger together than apart. This realm is ancient—but it is yours now.
He turned, walked to the center of the broken prison, and with a breath, remade it—not as a cage, but a throne of fire and silence, sealing himself once more in the core of his creation.
And with that, he vanished.
Lucifer stood in the ash, now surrounded by his brothers of damnation, a crown of black fire forming over his head.
A kingdom was born.
A new order.
And as the ash rose into the air like feathers from burnt wings, the sin revealed itself.
And thus was committed the Third Sin—when pride met rebellion, and kings were forged in flame.