Six years had passed since Tenma left his hometown to train in the Sanctuary.

For the most part, things remained stable in the small Italian castle town. Alone continued following his dream of one day becoming a famous painter, giving his all during his lessons and even taking commissions during his free time. As it was to be expected, his skills improved quite substantially, but recently, something strange started to happen to the blonde artist, who at this point was already a young adult.

It all started as what looked like a strange coincidence.

One day, Alone was in the woods making a sketch of some deer. A few minutes after he finished, the creatures all collapsed to the ground, dead. Alone was a bit shocked, but wrote it off as the deaths having been due to some plague or parasite that was spreading among the local fauna.

Eventually, however, that bizarre phenomena became impossible to ignore. After he painted trees, all their leaves would fall down and the trunk dried up. After making drawings of fruit, they all quickly turned rotten. And when making sketches of animals, they all suddenly died.

He'd even heard that some of the people he'd been commissioned to paint portraits of, had mysteriously died a couple hours after the conclusion of the work.

He couldn't think of a logical explanation for all of that, but the fact of the matter was:

Everything that Alone painted, for some reason, perished.

…

That night, the young painter was laying on his bed in the small house where he now lived after graduating from the orphanage. Art was his passion, but how could he justify trying to paint if everything that got painted by him died? Alone wondered if he'd been cursed, what kind of sin he'd committed to be punished that way. How would he finish Tenma's portrait when he finally came back from his training at the Sanctuary?

Because of all this, Alone painted less and less, slowly giving into an immense feeling of guilt and despair, turning into a depressed hermit who hardly ever left his house. Praying constantly so that god would free him from that horrible curse.

And if all of that wasn't enough, Alone felt something sinister stirring inside him, something that just filled him with even more unease. If Tenma or Sasha were with him, perhaps they could've pulled him from the pits of despair, but right now, he had no one to lean on. No one to save him.

This was one of the nights where the young painter did nothing but lay on his bed, defeated. Sobbing and praying desperately. That day, however, his prayers would be heard, but not by who they were meant to.

"My lord, you shouldn't cry. After all, great things are about to happen." A female voice could be heard, making Alone turn his head to look at where it came from.

A woman in black funeral gown was sitting on his window, on her face a mischievous smirk. She looked familiar to the young painter, but he couldn't exactly remember who she was or how he knew her, it was like a gap existed in his memories.

"You are?" Alone asked, sitting down on the bed.

"We've met before, my name is Pandora." She introduced herself once again, hopping into the room. Her black hair flowed with the wind, and now that he could take a better look at her, that woman had a kind of an evil allure, a dark beauty of sorts.

"Did you know that there's a painting of god in the cathedral of the forest that's so beautiful that it can make any sinner truly redeem himself with a single look?" She asked, already knowing the answer to that question.

Alone quickly perked up as he heard that. It's been years since he'd known about that painting, and he always wanted to see it but never could because it was in an area that wasn't open to the public. Why was this Pandora woman bringing it up now?

"I can show it to you right now, if only my lord comes with me. Perhaps that will mend your ailing heart." She concluded, crossing her arms.

A spark of hope was lit up inside Alone's heart. Perhaps, if he'd only look at that painting, he'd redeem himself from whatever sins he committed and that horrible curse would be lifted. That's it, that was the solution for all this suffering.

The blonde painter suddenly got out of bed and walked up to the girl.

"Please, take me there." He begged, wiping his tears with a little handkerchief;

"Your wish is my command."

Alone followed Pandora outside, the sky was dark and cloudy, not too different from the day where the river got diverted and almost flooded the outskirts. A strange horse was waiting for the duo on the outside, it didn't look alive, but it also clearly wasn't dead because he was still moving, but something did feel off about that creature. They both got atop the animal, and then rode it into the forest.

As they made their way into the forest, Alone saw a couple shades moving behind the trees, like ghosts roaming around, but he thought it was probably just his mind playing tricks with him. And right now, he had bigger things to worry about.

Once the duo entered the cathedral, Alone noticed the bespectacled priest he'd met a few years before when he came to the city to see his paintings, the man was there kneeling as Alone and Pandora approached.

"I waited for you for a long time, my lord." He said in a bone chilling tone of voice, his words enveloping Alone with a sense of dread, almost as if that man wasn't exactly human.

Behind him, the door on the cathedral that had always been closed to the public, was open.

Not wanting to waste any more time, Alone rushed through it, desperate to gaze at the painting of god and finally be rid of this terrible curse that afflicted him. All that suffering was about to end, if only he could look at the mysterious painting he'd dreamed of admiring for many years.

But once he finally stood before the wall where that legendary painting had been made, what he saw made his heart sink.

It was a winged man in bloodstained black robes, armed with an obsidian sword and sitting atop an enormous pile of corpses.

His wings were majestic, dark as night, however, those weren't what caught Alone's attention as he looked towards that unholy image.

The face of the man in the painting… was his own.

On the mural, Alone sat upon a pile of dead bodies, but the look on his face wasn't one of sadness or mourning, it was one of pure serenity. And despite the hair of the man being black, his face was indistinguishable from the young painter's.

Alone didn't know what to make of that, and as he instinctively took a step back, someone gently grabbed his shoulders.

"Don't avert your eyes, Lord Hades." Said the bespectacled priest, holding the painter in place.

"That is who you really are, and those people are the ones who you've given your divine blessing. The blessing of eternal sleep." He pointed at the corpses.

The blonde painter did cry as he was met with the sight of that horrific painting, but those weren't tears of regret for his sins, those were tears of pure terror. Alone didn't know what was happening, and he suddenly started feeling as if there was something dark and disturbing inside his own mind trying to crawl out into his consciousness. This wasn't a normal church, what was this place? Who were these people? Was he going mad?

"My Lord Hades, the time has come for you to fully awaken, and take your place as the rightful ruler of the underworld, the earth and the skies." Said the priest, with a malicious grin. "Allow me, Hypnos, to be the first to bear witness to your glorious return."

Alone's blonde hair slowly started to change, darkening until it was dark as the deepest abyss. And his soul, it felt as if it was slowly disintegrating inside him, only to be replaced by something just as ominous as it was divine.

…

The cathedral's bell toiled, announcing the awakening of the Emperor of the Underworld.