「During the period of five hundred years...」
Though his warning had become a mere whisper, he had not forgotten; through torture, Carnage clung to the only promise he had made to the heavens, even as his memories were fading.
To destroy their perfect creation, heaven.
His years of punishment unraveled over five centuries, each era marked by a new form of torment more depraved than the last.
His first century was spent caged within the Ever Tide, an ocean of sentient waters that drowned him again and again. Every time his lungs filled with the suffocating flood, his body died, but death was no release; he remained trapped. It wasn't death that drew him closer to insanity.
It was the waiting that devoured him.
He could feel the seconds crawl toward each drowning, each breath stolen from him. Not the water, not the pain, but the anticipation was what gnawed at the edges of his sanity.
The second century welcomed him into the Maggot Throne, a living, writhing seat of decaying flesh and endless hunger.
He was bound to it, naked and exposed, as thousands of flesh-born maggots slithered beneath his skin, burrowing through muscle, feeding from the divine blood of a fallen god.
His flesh regenerated endlessly, only to be devoured again, a sickening loop of regeneration and consumption. His screams echoed off the charred walls of that throne room, colliding with the many others, but none saved them.
None saved him...
Then came the third century.
The Hunger Maw. Swallowed whole by a beast born from the bones of slain devils, Carnage was digested over and over again in stomachs lined with acid.
His body would break, melt, and reform, only to be torn apart once more by the monster's serrated teeth. He felt every bite. Every slow grind of enamel on bone. And worse... he felt himself slipping.
There were moments he questioned why he carried such hatred for a place he called 'heaven,' then with each death, he remembered and relived those memories over again, and hatred and desire would rise even higher, surpassing the restrictions placed on an unworshipped god.
His revenge became his only motto. 'I must bring down heaven; I must slay my gods; they betrayed me.'
The rest of his endless sentence was spent in the Valley of the Hanged, a cursed expanse where the condemned dangled from invisible nooses. There, he was hung not once, but forever.
Each drop snapped his neck and shattered his spine, and just when darkness took him… it would all begin again. Hung by the weight of sins he can't recall committing, the rope became his closest companion. And even in this bleak silence, he never forgot. He never forgave.
He remembered.
'I must bring down heaven; I must slay the gods; they betrayed me.'
「Five hundred years later...」
The rope tightens around his neck, and he feels the air thinning.
Each attempt at breathing was like cement dragging down his lungs. Pressure builds behind his eyes, his ears ringing with it, but he doesn't struggle. He simply hangs, motionless as he closes his eyes, allowing death to take him again.
Like a broken record, he whispers into the darkness, 'I must... bring down heaven... I must slay the gods... they betrayed me.'
Yet, this time is different.
As he blinks awake, he doesn't hear it, nor does he feel it. The space that was usually filled with the wails of the damned is now quiet; the tightness of the rope around his neck no longer restricted his breathing; rather, it's all still, dark, and empty.
'This isn't the valley...'
He knows this isn't the horrific place of hell where souls are condemned to an infinite amount of suffering, but instead, it's a vast expanse of nothingness; he can't see, hear, or feel anything.
'Where…'
He slowly pivots around, looking for something, anything, that can explain where he is, but it all stays the same, pitch black with no source of light.
'Where am I?'
"Your persistence is admirable."
His eyes widen hearing the voice. "Is—" He begins but stops, his voice straining to make a sound.
'I can't speak.' He holds his throat.
"A century of being hanged and you wish to speak already?" The entity scoffed. "Your mind is an open scroll to me. Speak, or don't. I already know."
'It can read my mind,' Carnage thinks. 'Then, where am I?' He wastes no time, questioning inwardly if it's either a hallucination or a new form of punishment. 'Is it the void?'
"Had this been the true Void, you'd have been devoured for daring to defy the laws of the cosmos." The entity declares. "This is but a pale imitation, a recreation sculpted for your reappearance, not your annihilation."
'My reappearance?'
"Correct."
'Can you elaborate more?'
"I come bearing an offer," the entity says, amusement curling at the edges of their voice like smoke. "One, I doubt a vengeful god such as yourself could refuse."
Carnage's curiosity peaks. 'I'm intrigued; continue.'
Ding!!
'Hmm?'
The sound vibrates through space, and he turns, his sight landing on the red-outlined glow of a holographic panel, its glimmer becoming the only source of light illuminating the space.
「Join the game of Godfall 」
"Godfall," the entity muses, "a game for those deemed unworthy… yet desperate enough to claw their way into the realm of gods, just to spit in the faces of the heavens and all who kneel before them."
Carnage stares at the text, stunned as flashes of his sentence corrupt his mind again. The betrayal he felt mixed with the helplessness against the ones he was once equal to. The suffering he endured in hell for five hundred years all crashes in on him.
He clenches his fist, teeth sinking into his lower lip. "Tell me what I have to do."
"As you may already know, there are many hells." The entity began. "But the one awaiting you is called Purgatos."
Carnage's eyes widen. Though most of his memories were gone, he could vaguely recall most of the things he learned while being a god.
'Purgatory is one of the most dangerous forms of hell, am I right?' He questions.
"Correct." The entity affirms.
'Purgatos, the wasteland of the universes.' He thinks as the information relies in. 'It's an unstable pocket in the universe storing multiple dimensions, eroded with uncharted monsters, magical artifacts, and forbidden magics. Not even the gods were allowed to venture near it.'
"Yes, making it the perfect place to forge god slayers." The entity states calmly. "There, you and countless others will ascend through the ten dimensions of hell. In each realm, you all share a singular main goal to complete and ascend to the next. If you fail, you'll cease to exist."
'And if I don't accept your game?'
"You'll resume the punishment given to you by the gods until your mind breaks and the void finally claims your soul."
「Do you accept the challenge of Godfall?」
「Yes/No」
'This is my only way… I accept'
"Wonderful. Welcome, Carnage, to your final race for revenge."