The darkness of the Obsidian Sanctum grew deeper with each passing age.
Where once Enfer's shadows flowed like rivers, they now hung heavy in the air, thick, restless, alive. The walls whispered his thoughts back to him, and sometimes, they answered.
He did not notice when the voices first began.
Perhaps they were born of the void.
Perhaps they were placed there by another hand.
Or perhaps they were his own thoughts, returning twisted and unfamiliar.
"They watch you," a whisper breathed from the dark.
"They pity you."
"They would betray you, if He commanded."
Enfer's hands trembled over the dark sigils he had carved upon the stone. His mind raced with questions that had no end. Was it true? Were his siblings only pretending to care? Had the Great One poisoned them as He did the stars?
And beneath those thoughts, another voice laughed, soft, knowing, patient.
The voice of the Forgotten One.
"They do not understand you, Enfer. But I do. You see what the others refuse to see the chain disguised as light."
The laughter echoed until it was all Enfer could hear.
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In the Celestial Gardens where time did not move, Amina gazed upon the trembling light of the Dark Realm. "He grows unstable," she said softly, her voice tight with sorrow.
Lux nodded, her radiant hair dimmed. "I reached for him, but he no longer hears me. His heart is full of noise , voices that are not his own."
Aeter, the eldest, clenched his fists. "The Great One forbade us to intervene. He said this path is his to walk."
"Then the Great One is wrong," Milleth said sharply. "We cannot stand idle while our brother is devoured by his own creation."
The silence that followed was heavy with guilt and fear.
Amina looked away. "If we go against His will, we will bear His wrath."
Milleth turned to her, eyes fierce. "Then let it be upon me. Enfer would have done the same for us."
For a long while, no one spoke. Then Lux whispered, "We will help him but the Great One must never know."
And so it began: the quiet conspiracy of Heaven.
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In the sanctum, Enfer had stopped sleeping though gods had no need for rest, he once had moments of stillness, of peace. Those moments were gone.
His divine aura, once steady as the tides, now pulsed with erratic rhythm. His shadow bled into the air like ink into water.
He no longer spoke of the Great One by name.
He called Him the Warden.
When his siblings came to him in secret, they found him pacing in circles, muttering to things unseen.
"Brother," Amina said gently, reaching out a hand. "You must stop this. You are unraveling."
Enfer's head turned sharply. His eyes burned not with malice, but with exhaustion.
"Unraveling?" he said. "No, sister. I am awakening. Can you not feel it? The truth beneath His song?"
Lux stepped closer, tears trembling in her eyes. "This is not truth, Enfer. It's corruption. Something is feeding on your mind."
He laughed, a low, bitter sound. "You sound like Him."
The shadows stirred around him, hissing and whispering in languages the others could not bear to hear.
Milleth's voice broke through. "We are your family. Let us help you."
For a fleeting moment, something human flickered in Enfer's gaze, longing, sorrow, love. But then it was gone, swallowed by the darkness.
"Help me?" he murmured. "No. You will only chain me again."
And the walls began to bleed shadow.
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After that day, the siblings did not report back to the Great One. They met in secret, watching from afar as Enfer's mind continued to fracture.
Each of them defied the divine order in small ways, bending prayers meant for the Great One toward Enfer, redirecting divine light into his realm to steady his fading essence.
They lied to the Throne.
They swore obedience by day and disobeyed by night.
They hid their brother's madness beneath layers of divine illusion.
And the Great One said nothing.
For though His eyes saw all, His will did not move.
Lux wept one night beneath the twin stars. "Why does He not stop this? Why does He let Enfer suffer?"
Amina, with trembling voice, answered, "Perhaps He already knows how it ends."
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In the Obsidian Sanctum, Enfer gazed into the Core.
It no longer pulsed with harmony, now it screamed, a thousand whispers layered atop one another.
And within that storm, he saw faces, his siblings' faces, fading, distorted, sneering.
"They pity you."
"They lie."
"They hide their obedience behind false love."
Enfer clutched his head, light bursting from the cracks in his form. "No! They care! they came to me—"
"Because I willed it."
The Forgotten One's voice seeped through the darkness, coiling like smoke around his ears.
"They will turn on you when He commands it. They always do. But you can stop it, if you act first."
Enfer's trembling eased. Slowly, his breath steadied.
And then he smiled.
"Yes," he whispered. "I see now. I was never mad. I was chosen."
The Forgotten One's laughter rippled through the void, silent to all but Enfer.
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In the Palace of Light, Aeter knelt once again before the Great One. His voice trembled as he spoke.
"My Lord… Enfer slips further into darkness. We tried to save him. Forgive us , we disobeyed."
The Great One's voice came softly, like wind before a storm.
"I know."
"Then why do You not stop him?" Aeter cried.
The Great One's gaze turned to the heavens beyond, toward the swirling abyss where Enfer's realm once glowed faintly.
"Because his fall is not his alone."
"What do You mean?"
"Those who defy My will, even for love, share in his shadow."
Aeter froze, horror dawning on his face.
"You knew… and you let us—"
"It is not I who made the choice," said the Great One. "It is the nature of love to rebel."
And His light dimmed, as though even He mourned what must come.
The Dark Realm shuddered. Enfer stood before the Obsidian Core, hand outstretched.
The voices had gone quiet.
Only one remained, his own.
"If the light will not save me," he whispered, "then I shall save myself."
And from the Core, a spark was born- faint, black, alive.
A creation born not of the Great One's will, but of Enfer's madness.
Something new had entered the cosmos.
Something wrong.