A/N: Back where it all started for Oren and Sophia. But what state are the Heavens in after all this time?

  -x-X-x-

  Oren thinks he knows what to expect when he and Sophia enter the Heavens. For one, it's through the exact same portal that Raythe sent him all those months ago, so he anticipates them coming out in the exact same pce as he did previously.

  However, at the same time he knows that what he saw originally that day was just an illusion. What he thought was the entrance hall to the 'Demon King's Castle' was in fact anything but that.

  It could have still been an entrance hall located somewhere in the Heavens, but it wouldn't actually look like what he'd seen that day with the blood and viscera everywhere and chains and hooks dangling from the ceiling. And he certainly knows better than to expect the color palette to rgely be red and bck and not much else.

  Basically, Oren thinks he knows not to expect an edgy horror movie gothic castle vibe when he and Sophia finally arrive in the Heavens… which is why he's caught off guard when reality turns out to lean more in that direction than he's expecting.

  The walls and pilrs are the white marble covered in golden filigree that he'd expected from his brief glimpse at the real throne room of Law, King of the Heavens. However, that all is almost completely hidden… by the blood and viscera that coats it. And the hooks and chains Oren had 'seen' the first time around turn out to be glittering crystal chandeliers… but those very same chandeliers have been repurposed for macabre use, bodies hanging from them, heads stuck on the sharper edges like pikes.

  At his side, Sophia's choked gasp and the way she covers her mouth with her hand lets Oren know that he's not hallucinating. Either that… or it's a shared hallucination. But the more he looks around, the less he believes that to be the case. This… horror show is very real. An awful welcoming committee in the form of grotesque torture and sughter.

  Some of these kills… were his. Pale faces with blue eyes and blond locks remind him too much of Sophia to be anything but Heavenly Deities. Their manner of dress is simir as well, with glistening robes of white and gold. None of them wear armor or carry weapons, that much has been stripped from them… but Oren can identify them as likely to be Gods and Goddesses of the Heavens all the same. Divine Beings that he'd killed, that he'd-

  Sophia's hand is still in his own when he feels her press her weight into his side and realizes she's calling to him. Blinking out of the stupor he'd momentarily found himself in, Oren turns his helmed head in her direction. It's much easier to focus when he's looking into her eyes, alive and warm and filled with concern for him, over the lifeless eyes all around them.

  "Oren… Oren, are you with me? Are you alright?"

  Swallowing thickly, Oren internally kicks himself for being so stupid. This might be the Heavens, but it's also enemy territory now. He's the one with armor and a bde. Sophia has nothing but divine power to rely upon and when their opponent was the God of Tyranny and Conquest, who knew how much help that would be for her?

  Put bluntly, he was Sophia's first and strongest line of defense in this pce. And he'd still let it all get to him. If Tyranos or anyone else had attacked in the st few moments, Oren might not have been able to stop them.

  "I'm sorry, goddess. I… I'm fine now. I promise."

  He has to be fine, because anything less is a failure on his part. And he absolutely refuses to fail Sophia again. The Goddess of Misfortune and Folly frowns at him for a long moment before reaching up and pcing a hand on the side of his helmet, right over his cheek.

  "It's okay to not be fine you know. I'm certainly not fine right now. This is… awful. But we both know who is to bme for this. You certainly didn't waste time arranging your kills in horrifying art dispys that day, even when you thought we were all demons."

  No… she was right, no he hadn't. This, all of this was the work of Tyranos and his Void Gods. The King of the Void was a sick fucking bastard who apparently preferred things to be as dark and twisted as possible.

  "Just more reasons we can't let him win, lest the whole of Creation wind up looking like this pce."

  Oren nods at Sophia's words, his resolve firming up once more. He looks away from her, but this time he takes in the view for what it is… Tyranos' atrocities. They have to stop him. Once and for all. Only… it's rather quiet right now, isn't it? Oren tries to reach out with his senses to get a good idea of who might be lying in wait for them, or maybe even any unaware Void Gods who don't know that they're here yet.

  … He gets nothing. The day he rampaged through the Heavens and sughtered Sophia's kin, one of the ways he was able to track down nearly every st one of them was through his enhanced senses. Hearing them, even smelling their fear… he'd hunted them all down, those that refused to come to him anyways.

  Now though, he doesn't hear anything except for Sophia's heartbeat as well as his own. And while the scent of death is heavy in the air, Oren smells nothing beyond it either. No life exists here... nor has it for quite some time.

  "I'm not sensing anyone nearby, goddess. This part of the Heavens seems to have been deserted."

  Sophia hums for a moment before finally nodding decisively.

  "Right then. We continue on. Find out more, figure out where everyone is. If our enemies aren't here, then we'll just have to find out where they've gone and hunt them down."

  Indeed they would. Still… finally letting go of Sophia's hand, Oren slowly draws his sword from its sheath, holding it at the ready. Just because his senses were telling him they were alone doesn't mean he's going to believe them wholesale. There could very well be a collection of Void Gods lying in wait using some sort of domain to hide their presence from him. They could be lurking around any corner.

  "Stay close, goddess and let's go."

  Nodding wordlessly, Sophia follows him as they make their way through the entrance hall and out into the Heavens proper.

  -x-X-x-

  Sophia understands why Oren is disturbed by the numerous Heavenly Deities they see when they initially arrive in the Heavens. She's happy when he's able to get himself under control and look past the part he'd pyed in all of this though, truth be told.

  Obviously, a part of her grieves their passing. She recognizes far too many faces, all of them twisted and corrupted by death and decay. These were her kin, gods and goddesses that she'd known all her life. Deities she'd lived side by side with for hundreds of years.

  … Part of her did wonder how many of them knew the truth, however. Maybe it was just Law and Ferro. Maybe there was nobody else quite so old as those two were so only they knew about the negative concepts and what Law did to any divinity born with 'dark' domains.

  Sophia didn't fully believe that though because… nobody had ever told her that she had an uncle. Nobody had ever told her that her father had a brother he'd banished just after her birth. They had to have known. Before Sophia came along, Law and Ferro's blood retions had to have been common knowledge. And then one day, Sophia was there and Ferro was gone, not allowed to see her on pain of death.

  The rest of the Heavens had gone along with it, likely because her father's will was absolute. But if they knew enough to know about Ferro, how many of them knew everything? Did those who taught her history know the true histories of the cosmos? Did those who showed her how to exercise her divine power and utilize her false domains know that she was only as weak as she was because her true nature was being suppressed?

  Sophia didn't know the answer to any of those questions… and she never would. In the end, she had to make her own sort of peace with that fact, as well as the realization that the Heavens had never been a home… they'd been a prison. One she was frankly lucky to escape from down to the Mortal Pnes as many times as she did over the centuries.

  All of this had been a gilded cage of sorts and she hadn't even realized it until long after achieving her freedom. So in the end, the problem wasn't the dead gods and goddesses that Sophia recognized.

  The problem… are the ones she doesn't recognize. There aren't just Heavenly Deities up here. Hanging from the chandeliers, crucified to marble pilrs, and set up in all other sorts of macabre poses and postures, are gods and goddesses that are most definitely not of the Heavens. Some of them remind Sophia of the River God Aureo. Some of them remind her of Raythe.

  Gods of the Mortal Pnes. Gods of the Void, even. It takes her far too long to realize what she and Oren are really looking at. Trophies, one and all. Someone celebrating their kills, exulting in their murders.

  Lopov's words come back to her then. About Void Gods dying when they went on hunts with Tyranos for Ancient Gods of the Mortal Pnes. Or going missing when they were called into private loyalty meetings with the King of the Void.

  She'd thought at the time that perhaps her curses had done more than she ever could have hoped, twisting Tyranos' mind into a paranoid mess of contradictions and perceived threats that weren't really there. Maybe they had… but also, maybe they'd found purchase in something that was already there.

  "… Not all of these are of the Heavens, Oren. In fact… many of them are not."

  Oren grunts as he leads the way, before slowing to a stop.

  "I figured as much when I saw him."

  Sophia's eyes follow where the Otherworlder points and she gasps, covering her hand with her mouth. It's not… one for one, but the familiarity is too much to ignore. There, crucified on the wall and long dead… can only be Aureo's father, the Ancient God Oceanus.

  His eyes are sightless and his beard is massive, but even in death the family resembnce is striking. There's no doubt in Sophia's mind that this is Aureo's father. After tricking them into retrieving the God Killer's armaments for him, Tyranos had hunted down Oceanus and all of the other Ancient Gods of the Mortal Pnes like dogs.

  And yet… while Sophia can tell which corpses are from the Mortal Pnes by distinct signs that reveal them to be divinities with physical domains, there are plenty more without those distinctions.

  "I don't think they're all from the Mortal Pnes either, Oren. Many… many appear to be from the Void."

  Oren stiffens but doesn't seem too surprised even as he studies those adorning the walls around them for a long moment before nodding.

  "I think you might be right. Tyranos turned on them. Perhaps because of you… or perhaps because he was never going to share his power with any other divinities. In the end, it's possible he always intended to be the st god standing."

  Yes. Yes it was, Sophia lets out an explosive breath before the two of them continue on. She wasn't sure what coming back to the Heavens would really be like, but this… this was worse than even her greatest nightmares. Sure, they haven't been attacked yet, but that's little comfort in the face of this much death.

  And could every other god besides Tyranos really be dead? If so, where was the God of Tyranny himself? Where was her uncle after all this time?

  Just as the thought is passing through Sophia's mind, Oren stops, holding up a gauntleted hand.

  "… I've found someone. Someone powerful. They're in your father's old throne room. I think they're waiting for us."

  Sophia's lips thin out at that. Tyranos, it had to be.

  "Then let's go, Oren. Let's finish this, once and for all."

  Oren looks at her for a long moment.

  "It could be a trap."

  Grinning crookedly, Sophia just shrugs.

  "Then we spring the trap."

  Snorting in amusement, Oren nods and the two of them begin making their way towards Law's throne room. The closer they get; Sophia starts feeling it too. It's unmistakably her uncle's presence. She can feel the suppressive effects already starting to try to weigh down on her, as if the whole area is bnketed with his power.

  Standing close to Oren though, Sophia has no issues shrugging it off. It's almost like her lover is a beacon of light in a rising tide of darkness, pushing back against the God of Tyranny and Conquest's aura and asserting his own will in the process.

  Finally though, they find themselves both standing before the doors that once led to her father's throne room. Oren hesitates, giving her one st look… but Sophia just nods. They've come too far to turn back now.

  Nodding right back at her, the Otherworlder steps forward and pushes the rge doors open. Sophia moves in behind him as they both step into the room beyond to confront her uncle at long st.

  -x-X-x-

  Dun dun DUUUUN~

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