***

I never sought your embrace,

You taught, I learned,

And hatred filled the empty space.

A Sultan and his throne,

Never a father in all but name,

Death to your thousand years of reign.

As I take your world away,

As Depravity takes its place, 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

The ones you tried to save...

Will be gone without a trace.

The kingdom you have made,

Usurped with a fallen blade,

By the one whose name you long to hear,

The one whose name they’ve grown to fear.

Say goodbye; now it’s all mine.

Everything from the desert to the great sky,

It belongs to me, and me alone,

All I see, all I own...

A punishment you bestowed.

Call me Highness,

Call me Sultan,

...Silence.

I’m the Fall.

...

...

...

...Your kin won’t find the strength to rise in your name,

Pity.

***

{Inside The Projection}

There was no {Congratulations,} no {Break.}

The title dropped, but the world didn’t stop spinning.

Malik stood there, right where he was before.

He’d reached too high a point in Embodiment.

He could never leave... he had to end it.

{Volume 8: Where All Paths Lead}

So, for the first time, he didn’t see it.

{Volume 9: Beneath The Olive Tree}

Or rather, see them.

His subconscious wasn’t prepared for what was to come.

For the moment, his mind was... somewhere else entirely.

Stuck thinking, calculating, and simmering.

People outside the projection? Oh, they were still losing their damn minds.

Arguing, screaming, pointing fingers, and debating like their lives depended on it.

Debating like anything they said even mattered.

Their voices were irrelevant.

None reached him.

Malik’s golden eyes locked forward.

To his future... to what awaited him.

Killing the Fallen was the easy way out.

His brain whispered it like it was the most obvious thing.

A quick flex of his hand, a breath of that fire, and boom—gone.

No more Fallen, no more death.

But no. No. No.

That wasn’t what he wanted.

Malik always wanted more. Always.

He would not pick and choose... this wasn’t about who dies to save the rest.

No. He was going to save them.

All of them.

With no sacrifice this time.

Yes, he was that greedy, that insane.

...But of course—came the question.

How?

The Fallen.

The Zuqqums.

These twisted, broken things...

They weren’t just monsters.

They were echoes.

Echoes from IT

From Hell.

And Malik knew Hell.

They were good friends.

Some even said that its First Layer was his literal Divine Essence.

Indeed, that realm was never just some fiery pit in a book.

No. It was a Kingdom.

A Divine Kingdom.

The True Sultan’s own dominion.

’His’ Bassorāh.

And as the True Sultan’s control of his Law slipped...

As his knowledge of the Script Corrupted souls...

That Kingdom’s influence bled out.

Bled into this world.

Into Fam Iblis.

Each thread formed Zaqqums connected to the origin.

And these Zaqqums latched onto his people.

Not only the Dune Guardians, but everyone.

Malik exhaled steadily.

"...Then I just have to sever it."

Cut the connection, break the chain.

Sever the leash between Hell and the True Sultan’s children.

Cool. Easy... except not.

His eyes narrowed.

’How?’

How could he sever the tether between his people and these Zaqqums?

He couldn’t exactly go around pushing every Dune Guardian onto a new Path. That was impossible, something beyond even his level of insanity; changing someone’s Path was like rewriting their soul; there was no way it was anywhere close to feasible.

Besides, it’d be too time-consuming, and even if it were possible, that wouldn’t change the ending of the unlucky mortals that were caught in a Zaqqum’s influence.

Changing that wasn’t something even Malāks could do.

So then what? What was left?

Malik’s golden eyes flicked wide—

"Oh."

Oh.

It hit him.

So damn simple.

So, so very obvious.

But so, so, so very insane.

If the problem was the connection to Hell...

Then go to the source.

Go. To. Hell.

"..."

"..."

"..."

The thought sat in his mind for a few moments.

As crazy as it sounded, he saw no other alternatives.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was it.

He had to go.

To Hell.

Rip the leash out from the source itself.

Pull the roots, burn them, and cut them free.

But...

Where even was Hell?

How? How did one just... casually... go there?

He sure as Hell couldn’t just knock on some giant flaming door.

Killing himself? Sure. Easy. Obvious. His Return By Death, his Memento Mori, was really easy to bypass. Yes. So very easy. But then, if by some miracle he could do that, then what? Sit dead for 40,000 years waiting for his Judgement Day? Wait for a Trumpter of Death, a Reaper to finally take him out of the Forgotten Nexus and send him along the Nether’s River?

No. Way too slow.

The Fall was already here.

He needed to move and move fast.

There had to be another way.

A way that wouldn’t ensure the Fall’s takeover.

’...’

’...’

’...Wait.’

Malik’s head turned.

His eyes landed on the northern horizon outside.

It was there. It had been there since the beginning.

Obvious. Laughably obvious.

This planet.

This planet was called Fam Iblis.

The Devil’s Maw.

The Devil’s. MAW.

It wasn’t a metaphor or poetry but literal.

Because at its center...

In Al-Fawra, the Abyss...

The near bottomless pit of Aether...

A well where the Laws of reality frayed...

Where the veil was thinnest, where the layers lowered until something beyond ten...

Until the Zeroth Layer, where finally, there, in its depth, was what connected straight to the Forgotten Nexus.

The Mouth of God.

His chance to go straight into Hell.

Malik’s lips pressed tight.

"...The Zeroth Layer."

He whispered it.

"The bottom of the universe."

It had come full circle once more.

This was the very plane he once called the ’Entrance to Hell.’

He could remember it just like it was yesterday, escaping those Faraja bastards.

Indeed, now he had to go back down and reach a place no sane soul had ever reached.

A place that even the strongest of seekers, the mad, and the Corrupted wouldn’t dare claim to have dived into or even neared.

A place that wasn’t supposed to exist.

But it did.

He knew that it did.

"Hm..."

Malik’s eyes glowed as he glanced at the sleeping Sinbad.

"I’m going to visit your uncle’s home."