- "A place not of fire, but a vast, frozen wasteland. The very center of Hell. The lowest, blackest, and farthest place in all of creation from divine light of God and Heaven. Treachery, the ninth circle of the Inferno, the circle of the forsaken, frozen souls of deceivers and traitors."
- —Oracle, about Treachery
Treachery is the ninth, final, and lowest Circle of Hell below not only Fraud, but all the other circles. This last circle is that farthest place in all of creation from the light of God and is dedicated to those people who betrayed their loved ones, friends, bestfriends, countries, cities, guests, and even to their masters. The final circle is literally Hell, "frozen over."
Overview[]
The final circle of The Inferno, Treachery is ringed by classical and biblical giants, who symbolize pride and other spiritual flaws lying behind acts of treachery, and they'll attempt to kill anyone with their freezing breath. Before Lake Cocytus is a crumbling ice bridge, as well as the final chain of Judecca, and leads straight into Lucifer's Cage.
This is the deepest and blackest of all the circles, where the traitors are distinguished from the "merely" fraudulent in that their acts involve betraying family, the community, guest, and even Christ. Alongside the traitors, the giants of old are condemned here as well, including Ephialtes and Typhon. At the very bottom of Treachery lies Lucifer himself, the Emperor of the Underworld, trapped in the frozen Lake Cocytus from the waist downwards. The futile beating of his black wings causes an icy wind, which combined with the tears he sheds only trap him in the ice even further.