The howls of the damned howled endlessly across the molten plains of Hell, but deep beneath even that wretched noise, in a place where even screams dared not echo, seven thrones stood.
Forged of obsidian, bone, and the sorrow of a million lost souls, they faced inward, circling a pit of bottomless void. Here, the Seven Princes of Hell gathered, their forms monstrous yet majestic, dripping with the twisted remnants of their former angelic beauty.
Lucifer sat at the head of the circle, his silver hair falling in tangled waves over armor that shimmered with both light and darkness. His face, though still almost unbearably beautiful, was marred by grief and fury that no eternity could heal.
Beelzebub lounged lazily across his throne, flies buzzing endlessly around his decaying wings. His once-proud banners now rotted, carried on unseen winds. Beside him, Asmodeus licked his lips with serpentine hunger, his crimson eyes gleaming as he whispered vile promises into the stagnant air.
Livyatan coiled his enormous, sea-black body around his throne, his shark-link grin flashing whenever the others bickered. Belphegor slumped lazily over his seat, half-asleep, chains of apathy wrapped around his form like a cocoon.
Mammon, draped in golden robes that shimmered with stolen riches, tapped jeweled fingers against his throne, hungry eyes always calculating, always desiring. And Satan, the youngest yet perhaps the fiercest, burning with a hatred so pure it stained the air around him.
Lucifer rose.
"My brothers," he said, his voice rippling like the first tremor of an earthquake, "the humans multiply. They build. They grow."
He looked to the smoldering ceiling above them, to where glimpses of Earth shimmered like an unreachable dream.
"They scurry and create like their master... but they are weak. Divided. Blind. Their cities rise without the wisdom of the stars of the glory of Heaven. They are fragile... easily bent."
A slow, wicked smile spread across Livyatan's monstrous face. "Bend them, then," he growled, his voice a gurgling flood. "Break them."
Mammon's rings clinked as he leaned forward eagerly. "Fill their hearts with hunger... thirst for power, for wealth beyond reason."
Asmodeus laughed slowly. "Or desire. Make their hearts burn so brightly for pleasures they forget the stars above."
Belphegor yawned. "Let them tire of the toils of living. Let sloth wrap around their hearts like ivy... until they rot from within."
Beelzebub's flies hissed and danced. "Corrupt their leader, their priests, their mothers and fathers. Let them become carrion feeders of their own making."
Satan's golden eyes burned. "And if they resist?"
Lucifer turned his gaze to the pit.
"Then we shall make them wish they had not."
From the dark well, ancient shadows stirred — things even older than memory, older than words. The first seeds of nightmare.
Lucifer spread his arms.
"Let us weave our influence into their cities. Let each heart become a kingdom for us to conquer. Let humanity learn to love its chains."
The princes laughed. It was a sound that cracked mountains.
And across the Earth, strange dreams began to slither into the minds of men. Whispers in the dark. Promises of gold, of pleasure, of power, of rest, of endless indulgence. And men, in their ignorance, listened.
The first great cities were born — gilded on the outside, rotten at the core. And with them, the first empires rose: empires not built to glorify the Creator, but to glorify themselves.
Humans hands built mountains, but it was demon whispers that laid the foundation stones.
And so, without ever lifting a sword, the Seven Princes conquered their first great battlefield: the human soul.