The throne of bones sat empty.
Not shattered. Not burned. Not even abandoned.
Just... empty.
Ash rained from a cracked sky the color of forgotten sorrow. The air was heavy, not with heat or cold, but with absence—the absence of gods, demons, angels, kings. Realms once ruled now kneeled in silence. Towers melted into slag. Oceans of stars ran dry. Kingdoms forged by faith and fear, each ripped from the root like weeds under a storm.
In the heart of it all stood him.
The final tyrant. The last sovereign. The king of nothing.
He stood barefoot at the edge of the broken world, cloak torn and fluttering like smoke. His wild snow-white hair caught the dying light—short, unkempt, celestial in its sheen but wild like a beast. His skin, ashen gray and smooth as obsidian, reflected the glow of the collapsing firmament. His body was unmarred by battle, for none could wound him. Not anymore.
Not since he became something beyond victory.
His golden eyes, slitted like those of a dragon or serpent, pierced the horizon of infinity. They glowed with divine malice—the kind of power that once drove stars to burn and angels to kneel.
And yet… those eyes were tired.
Calm. Detached. Regal.
And irreparably broken.
His name had been feared across every realm, in every tongue.
Rael Azrath.The Demon King.The Devourer of Thrones.The One Who Killed the Heavens.
But all those titles meant nothing now.
Because he had failed.
"She's not here either."
The voice came from behind him, soft as fog over graves.
Rael didn't turn.
"I know," he said. His voice held no emotion. No fury. No despair. Just stillness.
The woman approached slowly, bare feet silent against the cracked bones of fallen titans. Her skin shimmered with stardust, and six broken wings hung at her back. Her halo flickered like a dying sun.
"Hel said she might be in Yomi," the seraph murmured. "That old gods sometimes hide souls there. I thought... perhaps..."
"I burned Yomi to its roots," Rael whispered.
His voice wasn't cruel. Just true.
She nodded. "You tore through the Takamagahara gates. The storm gods still scream your name in the thunder. There's no realm left untouched."
"No," Rael said. "Not one."
He turned slowly, cloak dragging through the ash, his silhouette casting a shadow that made the light tremble.
"I walked the gates of Jannah, shattered the Seven Gardens. The guardians called me blasphemer, and I tore out their tongues. She wasn't there."
He stepped forward, each footstep cracking the ground beneath.
"I drowned Jahannam in black fire, but her voice was not in the screams. I wandered Duat for ten years—Anubis measured my heart and said it weighed more than death. He found nothing."
The seraph lowered her head.
"I humbled Asgard, broke the Bifröst, ripped the runes from Odin's skull. I shattered Helheim, freed the wolves, swallowed the roots of Yggdrasil itself."
He stepped past her, eyes still forward.
"I brought ruin to Elysium, split the Tartarus spire. Hades offered his own soul if I would leave."
Rael's voice grew quieter.
"I walked the edges of Aaru, crossed Naraka, burned through Svarga and Tian. I pulled open the gates of Diyu and shattered the judges' scales. I burned the Pure Lands and cast the Valhalla halls into silence."
He paused.
"Nothing."
The seraph's throat trembled. "You destroyed everything."
Rael didn't reply.
The silence between them was heavier than divine chains.
After a long time, he whispered, "I was her child."
"Rael—"
"She died protecting me," he said. "When I was just a child. When I couldn't even control the mana in my body. When the angels came. When the gods deemed my soul too dangerous to exist."
His voice cracked. Just a little.
"They killed her."
The golden slits in his eyes narrowed, dimmed.
"She wasn't a soldier. Not a mage. Just... a mother. She didn't even know what I would become. She just knew she loved me. And that was enough to die for."
He turned back toward the edge of the world, where the black wind blew.
"She should have gone to heaven," he said softly.
"Any heaven."
———
A flash of memory. A moment trapped in the soul's marrow.
He was small then. His hair hadn't yet turned white. His power hadn't yet awakened.
And she'd held him. Rocked him. Sung lullabies no god would ever remember.
Her smile had been soft.
Her hands warm.
And when the angels came down like silver blades and the sky split open, she'd thrown herself over him.
Shielded him with her body.
And died without a sound.
———
"I searched them all," Rael said.
"I searched every god, every judge, every archive of souls. I commanded them. Tore open the gates. Threatened the order of the world."
He clenched his fist.
"Not a trace. Not a whisper. Not even a grain of her spirit."
His eyes dimmed.
"She's gone."
The seraph finally spoke. "If her soul was destroyed—"
"It wasn't," Rael said.
"How can you know?"
He looked up, toward the shattered sky.
"Because I still remember her smile."
And something deep in the broken remains of the cosmos remembered too.
Then—movement.
A tremble.
A presence emerged behind him, like oil boiling over a flame.
Not divine. Not demonic.
Not even cosmic.
Older.
Colder.
"Found you," said a dry voice.
Rael didn't turn. He already knew who it was.
The Old One, born before even the first names were written in the stars. The architect of the first judgment. The god of gods before gods existed.
He was draped in the skin of dead timelines. His eyes were pits of infinity.
"I told them," the Old One said, stepping forward, "that one day your grief would end everything. That you would burn even me to find a woman who was already lost to oblivion."
Rael's voice was calm.
"You lied."
The Old One paused.
"You never believed she was destroyed," Rael continued. "You knew where she was. Or... what she became."
Silence.
Then the Old One laughed. "So you finally figured it out."
Rael turned slowly.
His expression did not change.
But the wind died.
The stars stopped burning.
And the sky... lowered its head.
"She gave her soul to me," the Old One said. "The cost for your protection. She didn't die. She traded herself."
Rael's fists trembled at his sides.
"You used her."
"I did," the Old One said. "She sits in the core of my throne now. A heartbeat that fuels judgment. A mother's love burning for eternity to preserve balance."
Rael closed his eyes.
And the world began to bleed.
The seraph gasped, staggering backward. "Rael—!"
The air ignited, not with fire, but with truth. With authority.
The kind that unwrote laws of reality.
The kind that shattered divinity.
His golden eyes snapped open—no longer serpent-like, but radiant spheres of judgment, twin stars of vengeance.
"I gave you mercy," Rael whispered.
The Old One raised a hand—but it was already too late.
With a flick of Rael's wrist, causality inverted.
Time shattered.
Existence cracked.
The Old One's body began unraveling, threads of godhood tearing from him like smoke in the wind.
"No—no, wait—!"
Rael stepped forward, hand outstretched.
"You are not worthy," he said.
The Old One screamed, but his voice could not reach anyone. The concept of sound refused to obey him.
"Give her back," Rael whispered.
And then...
Silence.
When the stars realigned and the scream faded, only ash remained.
The Old One was gone.
Not slain.
Erased.
Only one thing remained in the hollowed void—a tiny, fragile orb of golden light, pulsing gently in Rael's palm.
He looked down at it.
It trembled.
Flickered.
And hummed... with the memory of a lullaby.
Rael sank to his knees, clutching the light to his chest.
Eyes closed.
And for the first time in eternity...
He wept.
The seraph knelt beside him.
"Is it her?"
Rael nodded slowly.
"She's… here. Faint. Like a candle under an ocean."
"You can bring her back?"
"No," he whispered. "Not yet. She needs to rest."
The seraph gently touched his shoulder. "Then rest with her."
Rael said nothing.
But something in him, something ancient and broken...
Healed.
Later—when the last ash had fallen and silence claimed the ruins of the heavens, Rael stood again.
He looked to the horizon.
The throne of bones no longer called to him.
There was a cottage. A field of cabbages. A name unspoken.
And a peace he had long forgotten how to want.
———
Thus ended the age of gods.
And thus began... the retirement of the Demon King.