Deep within the shifting, fractured rift high above the burning mortal realm, an ominous, obsidian throne rested amid swirling currents of violet ether.
Lord Ghost Demon sat languidly upon his seat, leaning his cheek against the knuckles of one shadowy hand. His crimson gaze pierced through the dimensional fog, watching the mortal valley below turn into a silent graveyard of burning timber and pale ash.
A low, resonant chuckle reverberated from his chest—a dark soliloquy spoken only to the hollow void around him.
"Mortals are such fragile, predictable vessels," Lord Ghost Demon murmured, his voice layered with ancient mockery. "They pride themselves on their virtues, yet their very souls are woven from the seven primordial curses of existence."
He raised a single, clawed finger, tracing seven invisible glyphs in the cold air as he mused to himself.
"Pride—the delusion that their fragile lives hold significance above the cosmos. Envy—the bitter poison that makes them resent the light in another's eyes. Wrath—the blind fury that consumes reason and leaves only ruin. Greed—the bottomless thirst to claim what does not belong to them. Gluttony—the mindless hunger that devours until nothing remains. Sloth—the apathy that allows cruelty to thrive in silence. And Lust—the selfish desire that tears down sacred vows for fleeting pleasure."
Lord Ghost Demon's fangs gleamed under the sickly violet light.
"Every tragedy in their history is born of these sins. And when those very sins are planted within a broken, grieving heart that wields the unyielding power of a Death God... the harvest is truly magnificent."
Far below the throne, the massacre had already reached its absolute, horrific conclusion.
The village of Oakhaven no longer existed. The wooden homes, the apothecary where dried chamomile once hung from the rafters, the stone archways of the harvest festival—all of it had been leveled into a barren wasteland of scorched earth and black frost.
Driven by the fabricated horrors etched into his mind by the demon's illusion, Morath had unleashed the full, unbridled fury of the black-iron Death Scythe. Believing the villagers were the corrupted monsters who had murdered Sarya, his blade had severed every thread of life within the valley with merciless, mechanical precision.
Not a single cry remained. Not a single breath stirred beneath the smoke.
From the burning ruins, Morath stepped into the void.
His once-gentle stride was gone. He walked with a heavy, rhythmic weight, surrounded by a suffocating miasma of pitch-black and necrotic green ether. The black-iron scythe dragged along the floating debris behind him, leaving a trail of decaying frost in its wake.
Morath approached the obsidian throne.
Without a word of defiance, without a shred of his former hesitation, he lowered himself to one knee before Lord Ghost Demon. He bowed his head deeply, holding the flat of the scythe across his palms in a posture of absolute fealty.
"It is done, my Lord," Morath spoke, his voice hollow, stripped of all warmth and humanity. "The sinners who stole her light... have been harvested to the very last soul."
Lord Ghost Demon looked down from his throne, his crimson eyes gleaming with triumphant satisfaction.
"You have purged the rot that plagued your heart, child of ash," Lord Ghost Demon said smoothly, descending from the throne with soundless grace. "Yet, to truly transcend mortality—to ensure no human weakness ever binds you again—the pact must be sealed in essence and blood."
Morath did not flinch. He raised his left wrist and drew the razor edge of his scythe across the pale skin.
A stream of thick, dark blood—infused with the distilled, crystallized malice of the Seven Deadly Sins and the raw necrotic authority of the Death God—surged forth.
Lord Ghost Demon extended his shadowy claw, slicing his own wrist to release a stream of ancient, violet-black sovereign blood.
As the two currents of blood met in mid-air, a violent, unholy resonance detonated through the rift.
The dark sins, grief, and soul-reaping malice from Morath's core flowed directly into Lord Ghost Demon, empowering the primordial demon monarch with the ancient weight of the Seven Sins. Simultaneously, the dark, monstrous sovereign blood of the Nether invaded Morath's veins, fundamentally rewriting every cell of his mortal frame.
CRACK—KABOOM!
Morath's body convulsed violently as the transformation tore through his soul.
His human spine extended, hardening into demonic bone. Two massive, curved obsidian horns pierced through his skull, crackling with spatial lightning. His eyes burned away into bottomless, pitch-black spheres of void energy, devoid of all mortal light. A majestic, tattered green-black phantom mantle burst from his shoulders, billowing in the silent gale of the abyss.
The gentle mortal boy who had once woven white silk for his bride was completely erased.
Rising from the pool of blood and ash, towering, terrifying, and merciless, stood the newly born Lord of Decay and Time.
Morgath.