Apparitions of shadow cavorted down the stone corridor, dancing in time with the bobbing of the torch's flame. Its holder once again muttered an incoherent curse at the necessity of using such a primitive light source, at how it made sinister imaginings all too easily conceived down here in the depths.

The Warden of the Lighteater Abyssal Crevice could hardly be blamed. Two centuries of visits to the deepest chamber in his prison had done little to erode his trepidation at being forced to face the Paragon of Sin, that most unwelcome guest whose arrival had disrupted the peace in this place. He would have sooner been at his station at the facility's entrance, perusing the latest deliveries in entertainment media.

One did not defy the commands of the God Emperors casually, though, not even if one dwelled in the one place in the Divine Realms they could not visit in person.

And so the Warden dispelled the cobwebs of fancy, continuing down the cold stone corridor at a quickened pace. The sooner he spoke to the monster, the sooner he could receive no reply and the sooner he could return to his amusements up above.

After what felt like far too long a walk, he reached his destination: an elaborate vault door of silvery metal and runes beyond which was held the darkest of lords. Using his free hand, the Warden pulled out a ring of six keys, stabbing them into their appropriate slots and turning them in the correct sequence, muttering all the while. The presence of magical law was so thin here that he had to use a primitive torch for lighting instead of even the simplest of spells, but no expense was spared in the construction and operation of the devil's door.

The Warden's complaints and actions ceased for a moment after he tucked the keyring away. Bracing himself, he placed his thumb in the center of the six keyholes and winced at the stinging lance that flicked out and extracted a drop of blood, the seventh key for the seventh lock. The vault door's interior whirred and clicked as the blood made its way through the mechanisms, lending them the energy required to do their work.

And then, with a snap, it opened.

The Warden pushed the silvery door inward as the torch's light illuminated the chamber's interior. Suspended in a webwork of black chains and surrounded by metallic runes was the greatest criminal in the universe, the Lord of Evil and Paragon of Sin himself.

Ebon Dirge.

The greatest evil in existence was surprisingly slight of frame, a pale figure draped in tattered black cloth. It was held spreadeagle in the air by chains attached to shackles that bound it and hooks that dug into its flesh. Its head slumped forward, a wealth of black hair shrouding the features underneath.

"Do you not tire of this charade?"

The questioner's voice was calm and casual, the conversational tone of one who had just invited someone inside for a sip of tea and now began the customary chatter between friends. It wasn't the screeching wail of a banshee, nor was the halted, grating mumblings of a man who hadn't spoken once in two hundred years of captivity.

The Warden froze. This was not in the script. Two thousand times he had come, each time reading out the words he was obliged by his masters to say, and each time receiving not a single word or gesture in reply. Each time he had dreaded that he might actually get an answer, that he might have to say more than he ever had before. Never had he imagined that his prisoner would not only speak but preempt the question entirely.

"Ebon Dirge, Paragon of Sin, do you admit to the crimes you have committed against the rulers of the Divine Realms?" Clearing his throat, the gaoler did the only thing that made sense in this unfamiliar territory: try to bring it back into the familiar.

A chuckle escaped the dark figure transfixed in the chamber's center. The head raised ever so slightly, the hair parting to reveal a dark, bloodshot eye. "My sins are beyond counting, my transgressions beyond reckoning, little one. What you're asking is awfully unspecific."

The dreaded scenario had arrived, the feared moment where the old script was well and truly out the window and improvisation would be necessary. The Warden had received no instruction beyond that original question, and so what came next was terra incognito, a frightening place without direction. "What about all those you killed at the Aurora Fields?" he asked, dredging up what was perhaps the most famous of the man's exploits, the very one that had created the opportunity for his capture.

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"That rabble? It wasn't nearly as fun as you'd imagine."

"You slaughtered a thousand of the Northern Light Divine Realm's finest and you want me to believe it was boring?" the Warden retorted incredulously.

The devil chuckled. "I didn't say that, did I? Nevertheless, it wasn't nearly as fun as I might have found it ten thousand or so years ago. When you experience enough, it all begins to look a bit dull and drab. Haven't you gotten a taste of that, coming down here for two hundred years now?"

"I'm the one asking questions here," the Warden replied, drawing what little authority he had around himself as a shield from the devil's influence. "What led you to such a depraved assault on the Northern Light God Emperor?"

"If such a person actually existed, it would be to free him, of course. To free all of the God Emperors from their prison."

"Bold words for a man in your current condition."

"And yet I remain freer than those shackled by the false promise of rulership. Have you never considered how, in the entire history of the Divine Realms, there are successive generations of God Emperors, yet the Paragons seemingly last for all eternity?"

The devil's words struck a curiosity the Warden admitted lay buried deep in his own mind. The taboos surrounding the rulers of heaven quashed any open inquiry into the matter. Still, it was undoubtedly a question everybody asked themselves at least once. "It isn't our place to question such matters," he replied weakly.

The prisoner's dark hair fluttered under the force of the snort that followed. "And that's why I'm the Paragon here and you aren't, little one."

Paragon. A title representing the pinnacle of cultivation, the state of absolute mastery over a segment of the laws of reality. The word meant eternity, invincibility. Dirge's imprisonment here was itself testament to that: if an execution were in the realm of possibility, he would have undoubtedly been the recipient of one.

"You want me to believe you want their... freedom? That you do anything for anybody else's sake, devil?" the Warden asked, uncertain himself of the conversation's direction, fearing its continuation but also its end.

"Of course not. Everything I do is for my own sake alone. Is that not the way of all cultivators? Do you not put up with this farce so that you can eke out your own little pleasures once it's over? Am I not just an interruption of those things you are here to enjoy?"

"I fulfill my duty—"

"So that you can make room for what you really want. Simple pleasures, really. The kind that can be enjoyed while contained to the most miserable corner of the Divine Realms, a place where the laws are so broken that even basic lighting is a luxury. A prison that itself hamstrings the prisoners, so all you have to do is bar the exit while indulging in your own pursuits."

The Warden spotted what seemed to be a momentary glint of fervor in the visible eye of his prisoner. "What are you getting at, devil?"

The chains binding Dirge rattled as the man chuckled. "Note that I speak no lies, lackey. Truth is often far, far more damning, you see. What if I were to tell you that at least one of your masters supported my little jaunt to the Northern Light Divine Palace? What if I told you the name?"

"Whether or not you spoke truth before, I would call it a lie," the Warden replied, wishing he could seal his senses shut.

"Ah, yes, we're touching on things that could get you killed if you knew them, aren't we?" The devil's head rose a bit further, the hair parting that much more, revealing a vicious rictus grin. "The burden of having to dutifully report every bit of this encounter, no? And yet they call me the prisoner here. Perhaps we should instead discuss what fills your time here? This can't be the only cell you visit, can it?"

Dread gripped the Warden's heart as a thousand pinpricks danced along his spine. "That's enough!"

"The cells of the Crevice are filled with those who have offended the God Emperors and are banished here for it. Surely a least a few of these inmates are fair, hm? Mayhap they are even here for refusing the attention of their betters, no? Given the disparities here, couldn't you have them for yourself? Haven't you?"

"Silence!"

"Or do you only imagine it?" the devil mused as though to himself. "I guess when they dredge your mind to confirm the contents of this conversation, they could then check the rest of it to be sure."

The torch clattered to the stone floor as the Warden discarded it with a bellow of sheer rage. The world turned red as he struck forth at the root of all evil, a frenzied and futile gesture to erase what profanities the Paragon of Sin would spew next before they happened.

And as palm struck flesh, the Warden recoiled in terror, wishing for all the universe that he could take back the attack. A sound like the shattering of glass filled the chamber as the weak walls of reality broke under the force. He scrambled backward in an instant as the primordial void between worlds greedily supped on the flesh of the prisoner.

Though a vortex was tearing himself apart, the devil's grin only widened. "I'd say I'll see ya around, kid, but I imagine you won't be around when next I walk the heavens. Enjoy what's left, I guess."

With a thunderclap, the Paragon of Sin was devoured entirely by the void, and the rift closed. Unanchored chains clattered to the floor around the small pool of blood that was all that remained in this world of its worst devil.

The Warden could only look on in horror, hands shaking. A Paragon couldn't truly die, especially not so easily, and so Dirge would eventually emerge somewhere else. It probably wouldn't even take that long for the God Emperors to realize things had gone wrong here, with their inscrutable means and methods. When they realized the truth, he would be the one they came to for an explanation.

Terrified, trembling, he did the only logical thing. Turning on the chamber, on the discarded torch flickering near a pool of blood, he started running.