Humanity remained unaware of these cosmic political machinations. The embers of hope that had been carefully nurtured began to grow, transforming into a fragile flame of reconstruction. But beneath this veneer of recovery, something darker was stirring, a transformation that would go unnoticed until it was far too late. The universe had changed, its balance shattered by the creator's absence. And the true consequences of that momentary, eternal conflict were only beginning to unfold.
Time passed, and the once harmless phantoms that wandered the devastated Earth began to undergo a sinister metamorphosis. The change was gradual at first, like watching frost spread across a window pane, but its progression was inexorable. These spirits, these echoes of humanity that had been denied their final rest, transformed into beings of pure malevolence. The cause of their corruption remained a matter of desperate speculation among the survivors. Some theorized it was the crushing weight of eternal consciousness, the maddening burden of watching life continue while being forever separated from it. Others suggested it was the cosmic trauma of being rejected by both heaven and hell, leaving them trapped in a liminal state that slowly eroded their remaining humanity. Many believed it was simpler: the isolation, the endless silence of being never truly alive nor properly dead, had driven them to a kind of spiritual insanity.
What made them truly terrifying was not just their growing hostility, but the corruption of their divine essence. Each spirit carried a fragment of the original creation, a spark of life gifted by the now-absent creator, meant to make each soul unique and irreplaceable. But as their fury grew, this divine spark twisted into something profane. Their transformation manifested in increasingly horrific ways. Peaceful meadows where children once played became killing fields, the grass writhing with malevolent intent. Ancient forests, which had survived even the cosmic battle, turned grotesque, their trees weeping blood-red sap and their branches reaching like grasping hands to snare the living. The air itself grew thick with fleeting manifestation, shapes glimpsed only from the corner of the eye, vanishing when directly observed but leaving behind impressions of nightmarish geometries seared into the mind. The world itself seemed to twist in response to their corruption, as if reality itself recoiled from their presence.
These corrupted spirits possessed abilities that defied natural law. They could alter the fundamental properties of matter itself, turning solid ground into quicksand that pulled victims down into lightless depths or reshaping the environment into traps of unimaginable cruelty. Some phantoms learned to possess the living, twisting minds and turning parents against children, friends against friends, in displays of violence that would haunt survivors for generations. The few remaining settlements, painfully rebuilt from the ashes of civilization, found themselves under constant siege. The phantoms' attacks showed no pattern, no rhythm that could be predicted or prepared for. Sometimes they came as storms of wailing shadows that stripped flesh from bone with impossible winds. Other times, they manifested as beautiful mirages of loved ones, luring the desperate into fatal embraces that froze the blood in their victims' veins. Each encounter left survivors questioning their sanity, as the line between reality and nightmare blurred beyond recognition.
Humanity, already reduced to a fraction of its former numbers, began to dwindle further. Every defensive measure proved futile. Physical barriers were useless against beings that could pass through solid matter. Traditional weapons passed harmlessly through their ethereal forms. Even the most fortified shelters provided no protection against entities that could alter the very reality around them. The survivors, desperate for salvation, turned their faces toward heaven. They prayed with the fervour of the truly desperate, offering anything and everything for divine intervention. Their prayers, carried on voices hoarse from screaming and broken by sobs, rose into the empty sky. But the celestial realm, once a source of hope and protection, remained silent. The gates of heaven, sealed against the chaos that had followed the cosmic battle, stood as impenetrable as they had since the day they had been shut.
Whether their prayers never reached the divine beings or were simply ignored became irrelevant—the result was the same. Humanity was alone, truly and completely alone, in its fight for survival. As their numbers dwindled, those who remained faced the very real possibility of extinction. With their backs against the wall, watching their children die in horrific ways and their elders fade into shadows of their former selves, a small group made a decision that would alter the course of human history.
They turned their prayers downward. In a world where hope became a scarce commodity, it was the only choice they had left.
At first, their blasphemous supplications seemed to echo into the void as uselessly as their heavenly prayers had. Until, in one blasphemous ritual, a young woman who had lost her entire family to the phantom plague took the final step. In a ritual of her own devising, she offered not just her prayers, but her very life essence to whatever power might have been listening in the infernal depths. Her sacrifice was raw, desperate, and unflinching, an act of pure defiance against a world that had stripped her of everything.
Her plea did not go unanswered. It caught the attention of Mammon, the Prince of Greed, one of the seven who had risen to power in hell's new hierarchy. His interest was piqued by the sheer audacity of her desperation. Perhaps it was tedium that moved him to respond, for hell had grown stagnant without the influx of new souls. Perhaps it was a calculated move to extend hell's influence in the absence of both the divine judge and the beast. Or perhaps, though this seems least likely, it was something approaching pity for these remnants of humanity, clinging to survival in a world that had long since abandoned them.
Whatever the reason, Mammon answered. Through dreams and whispered revelations, he granted his new supplicants the power they so desperately sought. It was a dark gift—the ability to banish spirits not to peaceful rest, but to hell's infinite torments. This power came with a price, of course; it always did with beings like Mammon. The cost would mark those who wielded it in ways that would become apparent only later, subtle changes that crept into their souls like a slow-acting poison.
The chosen few, armed with their infernal capabilities, began the systematic purging of the phantom plague. They learned to transform their own divine essence into weapons, forging tools and techniques that could affect the spiritual realm. They developed rituals that could trap phantoms within circles of eldritch symbols drawn in blood, their lines glowing with an unnatural light. Incantations, spoken in guttural tongues that twisted the air, were crafted to tear the corrupted divine essence from even the most powerful spirits.
The phantoms, for all their terrible power, found themselves facing an enemy they couldn't simply pass through or drive mad. These new warriors, marked by hell itself, could grasp their ethereal forms and drag them screaming into infernal depths. Some phantoms, in their desperation, even dared to plead for mercy. But there was none left to give. The battles were terrible to behold—ghostly light clashing against infernal flame, divine essence warped by hatred meeting divine essence corrupted by hellfire, war cries mingling with terrified wails.
Slowly, methodically, humanity began to push back against the spiritual tide. Each victory, each phantom banished to hell's depths, made the survivors stronger and more confident in their dark arts. They established new orders dedicated to protecting humanity through these infernal means, creating hierarchies and systems for teaching their skills to those who showed aptitude. These orders became bastions of hope and fear in equal measure, their members revered as saviours and reviled as harbingers of a darker age. They trained rigorously, honing their abilities to trap, banish, and destroy the corrupted spirits that plagued the world.
But with each spirit they banished, with each use of their hellish powers, these protectors felt themselves changing. The marks of their infernal patron grew more pronounced, manifesting in ways both subtle and profound. Their eyes began to reflect hellfire in moments of strong emotion, glowing like embers in the dark. Their shadows sometimes moved independently of their bodies, twisting into shapes that hinted at something lurking just beyond the veil. Their dreams became windows into hell's infinite circles, filled with visions of torment and whispers of promises yet to be fulfilled. Yet they continued their work, driven by the grim understanding that the alternative was extinction. They told themselves that the price was worth paying, that survival justified any cost. And perhaps they were right—humanity did survive, did begin to thrive again in this changed world.
But as their numbers grew and their powers expanded, a question began to haunt them, lingering in the quiet moments between battles and rituals: in saving humanity from the phantom plague, had they set it on a path toward an even darker destiny? The infernal marks they bore were not just symbols of their power; they were chains, binding them to a force far older, stronger and more malevolent than the phantoms they fought. Each victory brought them closer to the edge of a precipice, where the line between savior and destroyer blurred. And as they looked into the eyes of the next generation, trained in the same dark arts, they wondered what kind of world they were truly building.
The answer to that question would only become clear with passage of time, as the consequences of their desperate bargain began to manifest in ways none of them could have predicted. The world had changed once again, and humanity with it. Whether this change would prove to be salvation or damnation was yet to be seen.