The bloodshed reached levels that were inconceivable, those engaged in it blind to that fact and yet the one who did see the result was the very one that had opened the floodgates in the first place.

As he watched from the ramparts of Kur as countless souls filed in, he was filled with guilt. He had killed in order to preserve the secret of the true gate, but in the time since he had, he had grown acutely aware that he stopped nothing.

"If all of existence ended due to the release of paradoxical energy, then there would be no reason for anyone to release it. Even if they had, why was I so opposed to a meaningless existence coming to an end?...

...Was this Father's plan? Was I simply a tool he used to bring death into existence? What can I even do to bring an end to this?...

...All I'm good for is playing the fool and bringing despair into existence."

"Kin-slayer!.." The voice thundered through Kur, wringing an exhausted sigh from him. "...Did I hear you ask about bringing an end to this?"

"Ishtar, do you think me blind to your spying? deaf to your cursing? or ignorant of your intent? I know exactly why you have come, to relieve your guilt. I was wrong then, it was never those gods I killed, it was you."

Ishtar fell out of a portal like a hanged corpse cut loose...

"So you know? Hahahaha! Why couldn't you be as enlighted back then?"

"You assumed my threat hollow, concocted a plan to make me think some unknown entity discovered the existence of the true gate, you thought with no identifiable perpetrator I'd give up. You miscalculated from the start."

"Yes, I did. I know now that you would have killed every god until no one in existence could possibly have known. Which begs the question, why didn't you kill me?"

"Trust Ishtar, trust. I saw you would never allow or contemplate the destruction of your creations, but now the events unfolding have placed them in danger and you've come here to ask me to return the favour you done for me.

You want me to go and put an end to the bloodshed."

"Damn you, Nergal. You could have been the best of us."

"Hahaha! We all could have been the best of us, Ishtar. The issue was never ability, but desire. Now, I have a debt to repay, can you watch over Kur for me in my absence?"

"Why? Why make yourself the villain so readily? I'm asking something irredeemable."

"Atonement, we started this, it is our responsibility to end it. I will be the first evil as mine and you must sacrifice your pride and live a lie, doing whatever it takes to preserve the peace I create. A false heroine."

With that, Nergal joined the fray...

Every god consumed by bloodlust came face to face with the first son of Death, to solidify his image as the villain of the story, he fashioned the bones of his first victim into the twin sickles that became synonymous with Death's children.

Able to carve through flesh, bone and divinity channels. Infused with every ounce of his father's essence, which he could no longer stomach being a part of him.

The death rattle of that god acted as a warhorn announcing Nergal's induction into the conflict.

He traversed the infinite expanses of Nothingness and Thingness, carving through any that answered his challenge.

At first the laws created new children and pantheons as fast he slew them, but they were infected, corrupted by the Death-touched existence they were born into.

The endless violence seemed without end and because he found new prey wherever he went, he even stopped paying attention to things as meaningless as direction, travelling with the singular goal of wiping out anything with a desire for violence and that was when he came across that one.

"What a waste..."

Nergal heard the words as he finished with a batch of tainted gods and they alone were enough to make him feel despair far beyond anything he had instilled in any of his countless victims.

"...All that and you freeze all the same.."

Pain racked his entire body and he smiled, happy to suffer after the immortal genocide he enacted.

"...So, seeking attonement?..."

Nergal nodded, his skin blistering and blackening.

"...Pathetic, my parents would be so disappointed to see you like this..."

With that, Nergal was released from whatever effect the stranger was imposing on him.

"I was getting pretty annoyed, but now I'm done."

With those final words the stranger left then and in his wake was a wave of unimaginable power, one which washed over everywhere, everything and everyone, drawing the eyes of every living thing towards Nergal.

Nergal could tell from the way their gazes felt, they didn't know who it was, but they believed Nergal had just killed an entity beyond anything they could have ever hoped to touch and in doing so overwrote the taint of bloodlust with an overwhelming sense of self-preservation.

'Was that so difficult? you give cowards far too much credit.'

The words and effortless end to his mission left him crushed, the weight of his foolhardy effort to end what he lacked the ability to end, solidifying into the chains that would keep him bound to his realm for eons.

Nergal felt that he should say something, but he couldn't, it wasn't even him that brought the carnage to an end. At every point, all he ever was, all he ever would be, was the greatest fool to ever live.

Accepting the truth of his role, he returned to kur, where Ishtar was waiting, shaken to the core. "Who in the laws was that one?..."

"No idea, his presence was so overwhelming I couldn't even analyse it."

"It was reminiscent of ours, as well as... I'm going, if I linger it will have all been for nought."

"Agre-"

"Hey. you two. Have you seen my brother? Could have sworn I felt him just now... Argh! Can't believe that little brat ran away on his own wedding! Anyway, you two look miserable, get a grip already."

"Another stranger with an overwhelming aura? Who are you?"

"Wow, rude. Oh no, I wasn't supposed to be seen. Sis, help!"

The stranger suddenly faded from their perception and Nergal looked to his sister, seemingly brought low by the intruder's mere presence. Her eyes were wide and darting around as though joining invisible dots.

Then without a word she left his realm, as continued atonement, Nergal decided to make the comfort of those who arrived in Kur his highest priority and although she continued to act with animosity towards him in whenever others' eyes were on her, she sent letters to him consistently.

Between that one and the strange entity that had seemingly stumbled upon him in search of him, Ishtar appeared to have been freshly inspired in her capacity as a creator and began work on a second generation of gods.

The development changed the face of existence in a way only the laws had done before, leading to the expansion of pantheons, refinement in the way things were created and even the introduction of entirely new concepts that implemented independent parts of laws into their design.

Nergal could tell from the creatures finding their way into his realm that she was working relentlessly, he even wondered if she herself had gone mad with some of the creatures that he saw.

It wasn't anything he could help with though, so he turned a blind eye and merely held hope in his heart that one day she would come to her senses. Only when a creature with a familiar, albeit almost entirely diluted, aura appeared did he leave Kur once more.

"What the hell are those things sister."

The moment he appeared, she was in the company of several gods and she flew into a hollow wrathful pantomime, but what annoyed Nergal was that it was to dodge the question and not uphold their act.

"Tell me what they are, or I wipe them out."

The unusually emotionless tone wasn't like him, contrary to his nature, purpose and actions, his tone was typically energetic even if a bit nonchalant and detached. The moment she heard it, Ishtar knew he wouldn't be leaving ignorant and letting her creations exist.

"They are dragons, happy? I created them as fonts of power."

"Fonts of power? Those things are echoes of a power you can't hope to control, did you even consider that one might not like being used as the basis for your work?"

"I don't wish to control them, the progenitors of that race are known as Bahamut and Tiamat, they will keep each other in line and creating more of their kind. Besides, I actually started working on them long before then."

"So that explains your reaction, you thought someone else beat you to completion."

"Yes, that other stranger too, she is like another of my designs that I haven't even begun to understand how to make. If only I'd met the sister she mentioned, what were they like? The events of that day have significance we can't even fathom."

"I gathered when beings on par with our parents revealed themselves."

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