The noise died away suddenly. It was not a reduction in noise, but an extinction.
Just as Hel raised her hand to petrify Hades, and the Greek king's shadows were about to devour the Queen, a wave of absolute darkness swept across the field of ruins. It was not the shadow of Hades, which is an absence of light; it was the Darkness of Beelzebub, a living matter that consumes sound, energy, and hope.
Time itself seemed to freeze, not by Jormund's power, but by sheer terror.
From the center of the chaos, where the Colossus of flies had disintegrated, emerged a figure tiny compared to the Gods, but with an overwhelming presence. A man with alabaster skin, dressed in black silk that seemed woven from beetle wings. His eyes were not pupils, but infinite facets reflecting the decay of the universe.
It was Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, Guardian of the Void.
"You... are... making... too... much... noise," he whispered.
His voice did not travel through the air, it appeared directly in the brains of the three deities. At that moment, Hel's ice evaporated. Hades' flames went out. Pluto's gold fell to dust.
Beelzebub took a step forward. With each blink of his eyelids, billions of invisible flies devoured the particles of magic floating in the air. He was the natural predator of divine power.
"Beelzebub..." Hades growled, his voice tinged with hesitation for the first time. "This conflict is none of your concern. Leave us the Anomaly and we will leave your domain."
The Lord of the Flies slowly turned his head toward Hades. A shrill whistling sound, like millions of legs rubbing against glass, filled the strait.
"Your domain is made of the dead, Hades. Mine is made of what remains when the dead are gone. I am the end of the cycle. I am the hunger that never ends."
With a slow gesture, he raised his hand. Absolute Darkness rose like a tide. Hel tried to throw a spear of frost, but the weapon was devoured in mid-flight by a swarm of darkness before it even reached him.
"Silence," commanded Beelzebub.
An unbearable gravitational pressure descended upon the strait. Hel, Hades, and Pluto were forced to their knees. Their divine auras, so bright a moment ago, were now nothing more than dying candles in a black storm.
Jormund, hidden in the debris, felt his heart slow. Beelzebub was not using magic, he was simply imposing the Law of Decay. Everything that exists must rot, even the Gods.
The Forgotten Strait had become a silent tomb where only the will of the entity of darkness mattered. The three rulers of the dead, the masters of the legions, were now nothing more than intruders punished by the owner of the place.
"Leave," hissed Beelzebub. "Or I will let my swarm feed on your eternity."