Helheim's Hunger
Scene 1
Eris POV
"Hastur, if you made the wrong bet, I will be making a direct appeal to your stay here."
Lord Pluto's voice cut through the void like a sentence already carved into the bones of creation.
I stood behind him, fury tightening my hands as I watched him seal Hastur in place.
For a breath, the seal held.
Then the Eldritch walked through it.
Not easily.
Stars fell from his robe as he passed the boundary, scattering into the void like dying sparks. His yellow robe had already darkened into black cloth littered with stars, though several of those stars now went dim under Pluto's sentence.
His right arm was missing.
That should have pleased me.
It did not.
Not enough.
Because I remembered the tattoo I had once seen on Young Lord Tenebris. I remembered the shape of its origin now standing before us, smiling like consequences were merely another form of entertainment.
Lord Pluto stood dressed in Father's primal bone armor, the armor housing his true essence alongside the Death Key. He looked less like a god wearing war gear and more like Death had chosen a skeleton of kingship and decided the void would obey it.
Hastur's gaze shifted lazily toward him.
"If you want to hand over the Key, Hades, then allowing the rest of those Astral brats to realize you conned them is not the answer."
The air tightened.
I hated the way he said it.
Hated how lightly he treated a secret that could unravel too much if spoken in the wrong place.
"I am simply offering the one who dared to stand at our peak and reject it a chance to truly descend," Hastur continued. "Whether he makes it in time is the story I wish to watch unfold."
His smile widened.
"Can he accept your Key, Second Owner? Or will he collapse before the climax and carry the con forward into reality?"
Several dead stars behind him reignited in brief, horrible life.
Pluto waved one hand.
The stars were sentenced back into eternal rest.
No spectacle.
No argument.
The void obeyed.
Hastur laughed softly.
"Quite the dilemma my fellow conceptual brother Death left his heirs. To think that one-eyed freak lost in such a way was interesting enough. Our deal stands. I shield him until he descends. No more."
Pluto's silence grew colder.
I could feel the Death Key turning within the armor. Not physically. Conceptually. Like a locked door remembering every hand that had tried to force it open.
"Go," Pluto said.
Hastur bowed theatrically.
"Of course."
His form thinned into starlight and absence.
Before I could move, Pluto's command settled over me.
"Eris. Watch this place. Do not interfere. Tell me the results."
A castle rose from the void around me.
Dark metal. Black stone. Materials too dense to belong to dead worlds alone. It built itself in silence, forming halls, windows, and a throne-like observation chamber facing the frozen star.
Pluto turned away.
He would monitor Hastur himself.
To make sure the Eldritch stayed out of the game.
I remained where I had been placed, staring toward the frozen realm that had swallowed Young Lord Tenebris and Artemis.
My hands slowly unclenched.
Do not interfere.
Fine.
I would watch.
And if Hastur had lied—
I would remember exactly where his stars had fallen.
Scene 2
Ten POV
"Make yourself small and do not use any Death Laws."
The Kunlun lowered its head as I absorbed the flames coating its bird form.
The massive divine beast shrank until it was small enough to carry only Artemis safely. She remained strapped against its back, more like a moonlit reactor than a sleeping goddess. Her Moon energy had finally started reaching balance after I overloaded her with solar divinity.
The Kunlun did what divine beasts did best.
It filtered what she radiated, refined it, and returned it to her as softer solar-moon balance.
I had sparked the first step.
Now they had to stabilize the cycle without me forcing every breath of it.
I stepped away.
White flame ignited beneath my feet.
The land hissed.
Each step burned a clean path through the cursed ground. Not black flame. Not Death. I did not dare use Death here. The entire realm felt starved for it.
So I walked with purification.
The white flames spread just enough to burn away the corruption trying to cling to the parts of the land untouched by ice.
This place was wrong.
Not merely dead.
Wrong.
Death here had usurped the essence of whatever it could grasp, mutating into a hungry counterfeit of transition. An unhealthy mutation of the Death Domain. Yet somewhere beneath that sickness was a being marked for Emperor potential.
That was what made it worse.
Death Gods were normally culled long before Major God in most pantheons. The moment a Death God gained enough authority to access their pantheon's Record of the Dead, they became dangerous to every ruler above them.
A natural barrier formed between factions. Between pantheons. Between worlds.
Sometimes a world allowed multiple death authorities to exist.
Moments like that were rare.
And often engineered.
This land had neither dead nor living left in the proper sense.
Only shadows.
Most of them did not feel hostile to me at first. Not truly. They recoiled, tested the white flame, then quieted beneath its touch.
Purification was our natural weakness and strength.
Sun and Moon.
Darkness and Light.
Life and Death.
Opposites were not enemies when the cycle remained whole.
They were partners in the celestial order.
Depriving one of the other rarely ended well.
This land had awakened only to fight a seal that restricted its reach from the partner above. A sealed underworld. A frozen sky. A realm of Death cut from proper Life and forced to gnaw on itself until hunger became law.
Something our own Cycle had not dared to do yet.
Something I hoped we never needed to do.
Our foundations mattered more than a clean reset.
Even if Earth eventually sided with Fate in oppressing mortals who became immortal through her blessings, we could not afford to throw away the mortal base we had built.
Athena and Adam would fight Earth directly.
I would supply more energy through the Sun and help their mortals rise far enough to endure the break.
Prometheus's plan had worked better than most wanted to admit. Adam embodied the Force Prometheus lacked as the Supreme Titan of Wisdom. Fallen Star Laws and Earth could stabilize each other long enough to hold Earth in check until mortals were ready.
Once the Golden Cycle closed, some gods would have to take their offices directly.
Without pause.
Whether we divided those offices or hoarded our domains, the choices would belong to those of us first to claim Throne Seats.
By the Creation phase of the Silver Cycle, even God-Kings would know whether they had surpassed Fate or resigned themselves to her whims.
Those born in the Silver Age would be restricted from birth.
Mortals would slowly feel the downgrade from First Order toward lower and lower forms.
Athena's early birth had already damaged part of that future. Zeus showing up before Juris with a True Vessel had been a risky move Poseidon chose not to strike.
Gaia, however, could still leave before the others.
Her place here depended on whether this had been a perfect chance or simply one presented when Zeus responded to Ares's capture.
"Truly a disgusting joke someone decided to play."
I cursed Hastur silently as my feet never stopped moving.
Short bursts.
Burning steps.
Enough speed to advance without feeding the land too much of myself.
The white flames kept spreading.
And beneath them—
Helheim watched me walk.
Scene 3
'If you slowed down, you might finally adjust that problem you keep having.'
I took another step as the voice decided to greet me again.
"I'll let you know when that becomes a good idea," I said without stopping. "Do you want me at a standstill, or only slow enough to match you?"
The figure drifted beside me.
Light shaped like a person.
Too bright to be shadow.
Too familiar to be trusted.
'I. You. Me. We.' It laughed softly. 'You will never reach the end by hesitating over pronouns.'
"Then speak plainly and stop sounding like an Eldritch horror living inside me. After that, we can start our hostile relationship properly."
The figure chuckled.
The sound rolled across the frozen land.
"Eldritch?" it asked. "Who would be interested in losing the Self merely to stand beside old cronies rotting above pantheons?"
The shadows nearby recoiled from its voice.
"A question that becomes shackles. A fool's errand. So tell me, Tenebris. Will you surrender yourself to stand among them, or will you wage war through the Stars?"
I glanced toward it.
"Then what are you, if not Eldritch or Astral God?"
The figure's brightness sharpened.
"The thing they use to spread their corruption when no one else will climb the mountain of sacrifices."
It looked at me with something too close to recognition.
"That is who I am."
I jumped back.
A dagger passed where my throat had been.
A second cut off my retreat.
Pluto appeared in my hand before the blade fully cleared its sheath. I caught the dagger against the sword without drawing it completely, the collision ringing through the frozen realm like a bell struck underwater.
A woman stood before me.
No.
A goddess.
She reeked of Death and corrupted Life Laws.
Ice clung to her limbs like armor that had grown from the inside out. Her hair fell pale and jagged around her face, and her eyes were fixed not on me, but on my Grotto Heart.
More precisely—
On the connection to my Dark Sun.
The seal above this land had forced Life to adapt to the absence of a living Earth connection. That adaptation had rotted until it no longer resembled Life properly.
It only knew how to continue by stealing from Death.
The goddess lunged again.
Scene 4
I pushed her back and raised a wall of white fire.
She answered with ice.
The frost gathered over her right-hand dagger, thickening into a blade extension before a wave of frozen death blasted toward me.
It struck the white flames.
Steam erupted between us.
"A hello would have been nice," I said.
She used the steam as cover.
Of course she did.
The only thing that revealed her was the sound of her dagger cutting air.
I turned and parried the next strike with Pluto, then drove my heel into her chest.
She slid backward across the frozen ground, landed low, and blitzed forward again before the steam had fully thinned.
Her eyes remained locked on my Grotto Heart.
I raised a shield of fire.
She lengthened the right dagger by a fraction, just enough to catch the edge of my guard.
Clever.
The Death-laced ice hissed as my flames melted through it.
This had become a one-strike contest.
Whoever landed cleanly first would flood the other with their version of the twin laws.
Her Death and corrupted Life against my Death and white flame.
She possessed qualities worthy of God-King placement in Earth's hierarchy, but the seal had restricted her to Mid Major God. Beyond the Greek Cycle, that was already the highest level many lost gods would ever reach. Our pantheon's Titan Class was part of its very fabric, an abnormal bridge between Major Gods and God-Kings.
Most pantheons had no such mercy.
Or no such danger.
Death Gods stood second only to God-Kings for a reason. Zeus targeted his eldest brother because pantheon heads rarely possessed clean control over Death. A ruler could command sky, sea, earth, war, law, or life. But Death always formed its own door.
A few rare pantheon kings seized Death themselves and dictated the flow of souls.
Those were the worst.
This goddess had suffered beneath that kind of logic.
Her Domain felt like it had never been allowed to shut down.
Never allowed rest.
Never allowed transition.
Only open.
Only hungry.
Only used.
The longer we fought, the more War Laws surfaced around her.
Her origin had been corrupted to the highest level, giving her an edge capable of striking down gods and Death Gods alike.
I stepped in.
Forced her to miss by a hair.
Grabbed her arm.
Then tossed her over my hip.
She slammed into the ground hard enough to crack the frozen surface.
Before she could roll away, I formed a sword of white flame and drove it through her stomach, pinning her to the land.
The corruption inside her screamed.
It fought back violently.
It stood no chance.
Not against a True Death God capable of using Life and Death together.
White flames swallowed her body.
Not as punishment.
As correction.
I burned away the corrupted Life Laws first, forcing her body to accept the flame as balance against her ice-covered Death.
The shadows around us went dormant.
No longer hostile.
No longer lunging at every god who stepped into this realm.
Especially not a Darkness God.
Darkness was a rarely used Domain now, at least in its purest function. Most treated it as concealment or fear. For me, it maintained the natural bridge to my True Domain.
And if used properly—
It was just as deadly as Death.
My name meant Lord of Shadows.
But my Domain remained tied to Endings.
All Domains shared an end point eventually.
Just as Juris's connection to the End came through recording the endings I completed.
Lately, I had begun to suspect I was closing events left behind by the brother who only watched us both.
'Truly a tragic fate for those shackled to Fate.'
The figure of light materialized beside the pinned goddess.
It stared down at her quietly.
I called the Kunlun closer.
"Fate or Destiny," I said, "every god in the Greek Pantheon is currently fighting to escape. If this is the result of being shackled to her, then I understand why Uranus kept the opportunity open for someone to take his seat."
I remembered Gaia's words.
Who Uranus was waiting on.
And yet Uranus remained hypocritical enough to seed disasters like the Four Horsemen as True Vessels for himself.
I had only agreed to the arrangement because it resembled Dionysus's situation: Uranus watching through Xer's eyes rather than taking full control. Even then, I only allowed him to restore his mark on Xer during his aid in Ares's birth.
That single act caused three of the four Horsemen to be born.
The light figure looked toward the frozen horizon.
'The name does not matter. Fate. Destiny. Story. The results are the only things that can be judged.'
Its voice sharpened.
'He failed in yet another attempt to surpass the ending of his story. Yet he still took the same actions as every other useless one-eyed fool.'
The frozen ground trembled beneath us.
'Casting his daughter into Hell because he gave up his spine. The story of every child who gained power from a Golden Generation.'
The figure looked at me.
'They devour their young to sustain themselves.'
I finally understood its anger.
The only logical reason for her sealing was an attempt to usurp his own child's Death Domain.
Isolate her.
Seal her.
Become the de facto Death God himself, with no other god capable of surpassing a God-King standing near Emperor rank.
"These memories," I said slowly, "this general knowledge… you witnessed this personally."
The figure did not answer.
"Hastur would never understand the morality of such acts."
It glanced at me.
Then sighed.
And vanished.
The Kunlun arrived soon after.
I placed the goddess on its back after sealing her inside a cocoon of white flame to protect both her and Pluto.
Then I summoned the palace.
The seal.
The door to Earth in this realm.
It rose quietly from the ground, black and frozen stone unfolding into a structure that radiated old joy from the realm-node itself.
It tried to imprint on me immediately.
I rejected it.
Then passed the connection back to the goddess while she stabilized.
The process would be brutal.
Necessary.
If she was going to leave this place, she needed to reclaim enough of herself not to become Helheim's open wound again.
We had found something important.
The executioner of the NetherRealms.
If Father could train her properly, she could replace him in that function instead of diverting Juris or me from our own paths.
Then I grew.
My body expanded until I towered beyond the highest point of the palace.
The entire realm panicked.
It had finally entered a period of rest.
It wanted to rebuild its cycle.
It wanted a new vessel.
It wanted her.
My hands plunged beneath the palace foundation, coated in Force Laws.
Helheim screamed.
I lifted.
The palace tore free from the world.
The realm's panic became uproar.
I launched the entire structure into my Grotto Heart and commanded the door to Earth to open.
A portal of black flame appeared.
The Kunlun's survival instincts activated faster than mine.
It dove through first, carrying Artemis and the sealed goddess.
I followed.
Behind me, Helheim wailed.
Not with grief.
With hunger.
It destroyed itself in fury over losing the perfect vessel it intended to use to take over this world's dying Gaia.
A Primal trying to devour another Primal to escape.
So Gaia's methods were tame by comparison.
Dangerous.
Manipulative.
Cruel when she wanted to be.
But she still gave up half of Zeus's lightning fragment for Apollo.
This place gave up nothing.
It froze its future.
Devoured its child.
And called that survival.