A man hovers in the skies of a sunless land, holding a woman in his arms.

The orange clouds in the sky surrounding them are toxic and sulfurous while the lands below are filled with frozen wastelands and lakes of everlasting fire. It is only at the boundaries between the two inhospitable regions where the man can see cities paved with bone and flesh.

Except those cities themselves are crumbling away. The frozen wastelands are dissolving and the fiery lakes are being snuffed out. The poison sky is falling. 

Hell is being unmade.

(Laila…)

The man closes his eyes to the world and a sphere of black slowly forms around him. As the barrier turns more and more opaque, the world around the man slows down. Once the barrier surrounds the man completely blocking out the outside world, the world freezes. Outside of the event horizon, the world doesn’t move forward.

The man who constructed the barrier with his thoughts, Orion, is a mortal who became a god. His brilliant white hair falls down his broad shoulders and his eyes glow an ethereal gold. The woman in his arms, Laila, however is not like he is. Her eyes are black, her body is frail and weak, her skin deformed and unsightly. 

Unlike Orion, she is a true resident of the lands of Hell, one of the damned.

His eyes tremble as he feels her sweat diluted with blood on his palms. She is pale and the tears flowing down her cheeks are dark crimson, almost black.

“What is happening to you, Laila…”

“I don’t know… What did you do, Orion?”

Hell. It is a place of eternal damnation. Those who are reborn in hell live in frail bodies that are unable to die, Orion being the sole exception. Though fire may burn, though frost may freeze, all of the damned regenerate to their original state of deformed frailty. Yet right now, Laila isn’t. Her immortality isn’t activating. She cries in pain as Orion holds her fragile self gently. 

"It's ok. It's ok, Laila. I’m here, I’m here…"

“Orion… Orion, this cataclysm… You…”

Laila raises her hand to touch the god’s face as tears of joy stream down her cheeks. In her presence, he heavily restrains himself so that she doesn’t suffocate in his presence. It is why he is able to softly touch her hand and hold it firmly without crushing it. She can feel his trembling.

“Laila, listen to me. I did it. After all this time since I came here over 1500 years ago, I took the first step for all of us. I finally found her palace, Laila… I did it.”

“Y-You–”

“I killed her. I killed the goddess of hell, Laila.”

“Amazing… Hell’s avenger… Perdition’s hero…” Laila’s eyes sparkle as she looks up at him. 

After all that she had taught him, he did what no one else could. Though she can take no credit for his innate ability that allowed him to slay one of the Omniplane’s core pantheon, he was and always will be her greatest student. Her love, Orion. Yet…

"Hell is being destroyed all around us… It all started with her death. This apocalypse was instant, literally the moment she crumbled away. How? How is this happening? How…"

As blood flows from her lips, Laila speaks with a quiet resignation. This was always a possibility, one that seemed too far-fetched until this very moment.

"Orion… If just by killing the goddess this apocalypse commenced, then that must mean that her very existence, the existence of the pantheon’s core, is the literal foundation of the Omniplane’s stability… Somehow, they made themselves the lynchpin.”

“But, h-her memories I consumed! There was no indication at all that this could happen!” 

“She’s the lowest position in the pantheon’s core. I doubt they’d trust someone as incompetent as her with this information. Or… maybe they were so secure in their immortality that they didn’t even need to. Your strength is unprecedented.”

“No… Then…”

“Exactly… They'll know the cracks in the Omniplane are originating from the infernal plane. They’ll know that only the death of one of their own would result in this outcome. Those bastards are aware of you now. Their natural enemy, a godslayer. They’ll… fight with everything they have.”

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Hell is already being destroyed, and Orion, the first and only godslayer in the Omniplane's history, will have no choice but to face the wrath of the armies of heaven right here, right now. Even those worthless deities, when faced with an existential threat, would respond accordingly. 

(Then, it’s… over.)

“Even if I can face their entirety right now, even if I can kill them all… once they’re cornered, they’ll destroy everything, even the world, to kill me. They’ll take all those in the mortal plane as their hostages. Th-They’ll… I can’t protect you.”

Laila is dying in Orion’s arms as hell is disintegrating. Her broken vessel wasn’t meant to survive in any environment outside of hell’s immortality field. Not only her but all of the friends and comrades he’s made while spending a millennium and a half in hell, all of them too will face the same fate…

"...What do I do?" Orion pleads with her. "What can I do to protect you? What can I do to protect everything, everyone? Please tell me, Laila… I-I didn’t want… I didn’t want this…"

"It’s ok, Orion. It’s ok." She holds his shoulders firmly to pick herself up while breathing roughly. 

“It’s over for me. But… not for you. Even though I won’t be able to see it… Even though I won’t be able to come with you… Win.”

Laila’s words drip with venom at her enemies, the gods who placed her in this pit of everlasting torment. Her eyes are shaking, madness filling them. The sight of her lack of care about her own life makes Orion feel fear.

(Laila, you… were prepared for this… Did you know this would happen? That you would die even if I succeeded? All you cared about is vengeance. Not the world. Not hell. Not even yourself. You’re… like me.)

“Orion… I’m sorry, Orion. I know this is our last moment together. Just… Just keep going. Eventually you will see the end of everything. You are the answer to their cruelty and injustice. You are the answer to all cruelty and injustice in this world. You.”

Her melodious laugh echoes within Orion’s barrier.

“I didn’t know I could feel so happy… I can’t believe I can experience such happiness in this disgusting world…”

Then, she said the words that Orion wished he could hear from her mouth forever. For the last time.

“I love you, Orion. I always will.”

Then, the body of Laila stops moving. Within minutes, her body no longer maintains its integrity, dissolving into ash. He holds her as she completely disappears, all thought ceasing.

Outside the event horizon barrier, time is frozen. Yet, for a barrier with the power to paralyze all of creation, he cannot keep it up very long.

Eventually, he dismisses it, his eyes empty. The sound of the combined rumbling of thunder, earthquakes and tornadoes fill reality. Yet he hears none of it.

The ashes of Laila in his hands dissolve into the sulfurous air. She is gone. Everyone in the cities of hell below are disappearing as well. All of the few friends he made on his way to achieve his vengeance against heaven. Everyone he has ever befriended, trained under and loved… 

All those who gave him the drive to raise his fist against heaven. All of them are gone.

(It’s… It’s too much. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live… like this. I can’t live in this place any longer.)

With his power now, Orion might be able to do it. He could annihilate heaven. 

The mortal realm might be lost. Hell was certainly lost. But, all the gods and monsters of heaven would harm nothing else. The greater universe would be without their presence until time came to an end.

He would have his final vengeance. 

He would be the last one to die.

(No… Not like this…)

But, Orion didn’t want such a future. He never wanted this. He wanted to administer judgment to them for creating hell but he was not willing to pay this price. 

(This is now a world where Laila no longer exists. Where all those I care for are gone. All paths forward end in my solitude. I am just entering a new hell… A worse hell.)

“I don’t want this world, Laila…”

With no other options left, Orion activates his failsafe. He raises his right hand and rips in reality spread from his palm. Orion’s eyes close.

“I don’t want this world…”

The destruction of hell accelerates as the destruction of the Omniplane commences. With Orion as the nexus, tears spread out to areas of the universe where Orion wouldn’t be able to see even if he had billions of years of time to travel there.

“I’ll give up my strength, my body, my revenge. It was all meaningless in the end… I’ll start over, in a world that I might still want to live in… Even if I destroy this meaningless future… it doesn’t matter.”

The fabric of existence dissolves into nothing. The mortal plane dies. Heaven dies. The entire world dies.

Everything falls apart.

Orion is the first to vanish.

—-

Two women were sitting with two children. One of them is holding a sleeping four year old girl in her arms. The little boy, her twin, is looking at a red dotted insect on a white rose while the other woman watches over him.

Neither of the two women are the parents of the twins, they are their personal maids. The two children are playing under their supervision in this opulent garden. This beautiful place is a small portion of the grounds of Viscount Edom Ironhill, their father.

Suddenly, the young boy falls backwards as the tiny insect flies up towards the sky. He is picked up by his personal maid and held lovingly in her arms.

“Oh? Young master, don’t cry, don’t cry…”

The maid looks closely at the crying boy. However, at the moment, he isn’t crying like a child would normally cry. Tears were streaming down his cheeks but his expression was odd. His tears start turning red and blood starts flowing from his nose. The maid turns pale as he opens his mouth to speak.

“Laila…”

With only those words spoken, the boy falls unconscious.