No world exists without sacrifice.

Do we not realize that we call

this hell where ash floats

upon a sea of blood, the world

(42)

We all know the story of the perfect world; the Garden of Eden.

Once upon a time, there was a world which knew no suffering. It knew no pain, and it knew no death. This world was governed by a God, guarded by His children, who shared His blood, and inhabited by His subjects, created by Him out of His own flesh.

However, one day, God was betrayed, stabbed in the back by one of His faithful. In that moment, God saw that His creation was flawed, malicious; however, He refused to give up on it. Instead, He created Hell, an eternal prison, and to protect it, He created Guardians; demonic beings born of His own bones. And He instructed them to take only the most wicked souls of His creation, and to seal them from His world forever; He did this because He refused to execute the traitors, believing in the goodness of His deathless paradise.

In the story that everyone knows, the traitor is banished forever, and God wins. That story is wrong.

It started when one of His children decided he didn't want to live in a world with no death. He believed that, without death, there would never be true progress, and that the world would only stagnate and wither. And so he walked among spirits, and he gathered a group of followers. Together, they forged blades out of their own souls, and they called themselves Gods of Death. And one day, they approached God, and demanded He allow for the existence of death in His world.

God looked into their leader's soul, the soul of one who shared His blood, and He was horrified, for He saw that His child would rather destroy Him than carry on living in a world without death. And so He created a realm in which death was a constant, and He called it Hell. He exiled His child there, but He spared his followers, for they were not of divine blood like Him and His children, and He believed He had nothing to fear from them.

However, He underestimated the craftiness of His rebellious child, for before he was banished to Hell, he shared his powers with his followers; he bestowed upon them a blade,, and told them it was a weapon powerful enough to cripple even his father, who was weakened and vulnerable, the creation of Hell having strained His divine powers.

And so the Gods of Death approached the true God, and told Him they wished to atone for their sins. However, when He lowered His guard, they struck Him down, and they used the traitor's divine blade to split His power into eight. They cut off His arms, and His legs; they even separated His heart from His body.

When God's power was broken, the world itself nearly collapsed; suddenly, spirits of the dead started roaming the earth, and the gates of Hell threatened to unleash their Guardians upon the world, as there was no God to hold them shut. And so the Death Gods used the two remaining parts of God's power to create two great realms; out of His lungs, they fashioned the Dead Spirit World – a heaven to hold the souls of the dead, as well as a kingdom where their word was law. Then, out of His stomach, they created the Hollow World, to draw in spirits with anguish in their hearts, and to use their power to keep the Gates of Hell shut. However, the Gates slowly corrupted the denizens of the Hollow World, and they turned into monsters not unlike the Guardians of Hell; having lost their humanity, they gave up their hearts, and instead donned monstrous masks of bone.

In order to keep the worlds from collapsing into one, as was their natural state, the Death Gods used God's crippled corpse to create a linchpin, forcing the remains of His own power to hold together the shattered remnants of His creation. They named this linchpin the Soul King, and they pretended to worship it, even as they fearfully sealed its power.

To further stabilize the realms, they took God's legs, and used their power to create two smaller realms; His left leg became the Soul King's Palace, a gilded cage to securely hold the mangled remains of God's soul, and His right leg was turned into the Precipice World, a tunnel between the Living World and the Dead Spirit World, which allowed them to travel freely between the two realms.

This fragile order, however, was not to last. For millennia, Hell's influence kept growing stronger, until eventually, it started corrupting not only the souls of the Hollow World, but the souls of the dead in the Living World, as well.

This was the last straw for those few who still had divine blood running in their veins, and so they rallied. Led by a man who took on the name of God, they formed an army of holy soldiers, and they waged war on the Death Gods. They fought not only for revenge; they fought to release the Soul King from its eternal suffering, and to bring back the perfect world that once was.

However, the Death Gods refused to back down. They formed thirteen armies, with thirteen legendary warriors to lead them, and they met their challengers in battle.

Ultimately, the divine children were defeated; their leader was robbed of his power, and he became known to his children as the Sealed King. All hope was not lost, however, for there was a prophesy that spoke of his return. For a thousand years, the King's Hymn was remembered by generation after generation; doubted, mocked, but never forgotten, for though they believed the war was over, their blood remembered their father's promise; one day, he would return, and he would, at last, reclaim the world.

The Sealed King will regain his pulse after nine hundred years.

He will regain his mind after ninety years.

He will regain his strength after nine years,

And the world in nine days.

Author's Notes:

Glossary:

Child of God – Quincy

Guardian of Hell - Kushanāda

Death God – Shinigami/Soul Reaper

Corrupted Soul – Hollow

Sealed King – Yhwach

Dead Spirit World – Soul Society

Hollow World – Hueco Mundo

Precipice World - Dangai

The weapon used to cripple God was the Sacred Eight Mirror Sword of the Ise clan. This sword can divide a divine being's power into eight parts. In God's case, this was as follows:

1. Body – Soul King – Aspect of Mortality

2. Heart – Gerard Valkyrie – Aspect of Empathy

3. Lungs - Dead Spirit World (Soul Society) – Aspect of Samsara

4. Stomach - Hollow World (Hueco Mundo) – Aspect of Hunger

5. Left arm - Pernida Parnkgjas – Aspect of Evolution

6. Right arm – Mimihagi – Aspect of Stagnation

7. Left leg – Soul King's Palace – Aspect of Imprisonment

8. Right leg – Precipice World (Dangai) – Aspect of Movement

Take back what was lost

Blood, flesh, bone, and one more thing

(41)