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Chapter 12
Baltoh and the others were hovering in the sky above the coast of the Isle of the Damned, a continent about the size of England and surrounded by a flat sea of Hellfire, burning for eternity and stretching forth without borders. Above them was a sky filled solely with crimson clouds and black lightning, forever stirring in a windless hurricane. Down below on the barren landscape of the Isle of the Damned lay burning fields, lakes of bubbling magma, forests of undead trees, and millions of people getting raped and tortured by the Gargoyles and Sinners of Hell, all in the most brutal and cruel ways possible. But no matter how much the people suffered, they would not die or even lose consciousness. Their bodies would continue to regenerate instantly so that they could continue to suffer.
Among the people being tortured and used like slaves, there were those who were desperately fighting against the Gargoyles and Sinners. With rusty swords and guns cast from Hellsteel, they fought for their freedom against their tormenters, running across the apocalyptic landscape in fear and terror while desperately trying to escape from pain, if only for a short time.
“Oh my god, this is horrible,” Selene gasped, clutching Baltoh’s hand and trying not to vomit or cry.
“These are the Burning Pastures of the Isle of the Damned, the first zone of Hell. This is where new prisoners appear and where escaped prisoners flee to in the hopes of some form of safety. It is a battlefield, with the deceased souls fighting in and endless and hopeless war in order to escape their torment and punishment. Considering how this is always a battlefield, it’s not surprising that it is also part of the Circle of Wrath. It is here that we shall begin.”
“What are we doing?” Raphael asked.
“We are going to free the unjustly punished. There are far too many prisoners here, innocent souls cursed for all eternity for minor infractions and sins. I may have been born from hatred, but I am still far more merciful and driven by justice than your God.
Celestial Art: Crusading Legions Summoning!” he called with his voice carrying across the Isle of the Damned.
Down on the shores of the Isle of the Damned, hundreds of thousands of suits of armor began to materialize, made of glistening blue metal and indestructible silver that glowed like the stars. Protruding from their backs were large wings that seemed to be made out of mercury while in their hands were bladed weapons that were as long as cars and consisted of a long crescent blade—almost like an arch—with a handle stretching between the two points, parallel to the spine of the blade. The weapon was designed to be held with both hands far apart, for a powerful offense and defense.
“What are those? I’ve never seen a spell like that performed,” Rosemary asked in wonder.
“They are my Crusaders, summoned with a spell that I myself invented from the power of the cosmos. Cinereo is the universe from which Heaven and Hell budded off from and its energy was both the architect and materials from which Archangel and Demon spells were formed. Having acquired the Throne of Cinereo, I now have the power to create new celestial spells.”
Without anyone inside of them, the suits of armor marched across the burning fields in formation. Echoing throughout the Isle of the Damned, their synchronized footfalls shook the ground and echoed through Hell. As they came upon the sadistic Gargoyles, they slew them like machines without mercy, swinging their massive blades and carving through bone and flesh with ease. They trekked through the pastures of fire, slashing and cleaving every Gargoyle in their way. Every time they came upon a human soul, they would scan the soul to identify whatever it was that had banished that person to Hell, and if the person received their sentence through a serious crime like rape, theft, adultery, or unjust murder, then they were left behind. But if they were only guilty of small harmless sins, then the suits of armor would open up like blossoming flowers and envelope the prisoner. Fused with the suit of armor, the condemned soul would be given great strength and power, even beyond Archangels. With this new strength, the prisoners became the new Crusaders.
A great shadow filled the crimson sky as an army of Demons appeared, bringing forth Conjuring Necropolises and Graveyards of the Damned to instantly summon thousands of Gargoyles and Sinners to recapture the prisoners of Hell. With this new challenge, the Crusaders began to pick of speed. Half of them took flight while the rest charged towards the Gargoyles.
A loud roar echoed from deep within the Isle of the Damned as well as across the burning sea as Titans and Bleaks began to arise. They were of all types, creeds, and forms, ranging from black dragons, demonic birds, nightmarish insects, colossal Gargoyles, towering four-legged beasts with monstrous physical characteristics, and countless other animals that were large enough to trample a city and were adorned with horrifyingly demonic appearances.
With a snap of his fingers, Baltoh summoned suits of armor for all of the Archangels, as well as Selene and Molly. Without even knowing what was going on, everyone was swallowed by their suit of armor as it wrapped around them like Venus flytraps. Unlike the freed prisoners below, their helms looked like a mix of a welding mask and a futuristic motorcycle helmet, with their halos burning in the center of a large golden fireball that hovered above their heads, something that the others did not have.
Their armor also had a much sleeker and more form-fitting design, with gold lining every plate and an emblazoned cross on the chest plate. On top of liquid metal chassis, each piece and plate fit together like reptilian scales but with full solid protection like regular armor plating. For the men, their armor had a certain bulkiness, while the women’s armor was more slender and flexible, while still consisting of large solid plates. Hanging sheathed from their belts were their swords, each remade with greater durability and cutting power.
For Molly, Rosemary, and Selene, there armor was even more unique. Instead of being consumed by a golden fireball, their halos had been completely replaced with miniature solar systems, quite similar to the entire miniature galaxy above Baltoh’s, and each with a real egg-sized star and ten planets orbiting around it, five going around in one direction and five going in the other. While retaining their gold lining, the plates of their armor had changed in color, switching from pearly white to a very deep and dark blue and decorated with patterns of small diamonds that looked like stars. Instead of a cross like the others, their chest plates had been adorned with Baltoh’s own personal crest: two infinity symbols overlapping at the center perpendicularly with a sun within each loop. Last but not least, their wings themselves had gained a new form, gaining a mercury membrane in place of their feathers.
Obeying their will, everyone’s helmet opened up and folded back as they looked at their armor in amazement, feeling their power levels skyrocket. Selene, Molly, and Rosemary were the most shocked at their new transformation.
“That armor has just increased your speed, strength, and power up beyond my former level. Consider it a gift, and they appear and disappear whenever you want them to. Selene, Molly, and Rosemary, you three have just been turned over from the realm of Angels to become my Celestial Valkyries. You three now have the ability to harness the powers of the universe and elements as your spells, and knowledge of how to use them will come naturally. With these enhancements, I believe I can leave these Titans to you while I take on the guy approaching our position.”
“Who?” Gabriel asked as he flexed his fingers, more than satisfied with the maneuverability. Before Baltoh answered, a huge flaming mushroom cloud formed deep in land, as if the world’s most powerful atomic bomb had just been detonated. Everyone watched in horror and gagged as they felt a dark and heavy sense of dread as a malicious energy weighed down upon them.
“Satan, the first Hell Prince and caster of judgment upon the new arrivals. Oh look, here he comes now. Don’t worry, I’ll make it quick, just make sure you take tare of those Titans,” Baltoh said calmly, as if bored. As he spoke, the crushing presence of the approaching Hell Prince was swept aside, freeing everyone of their dread and returning their excitement and enthusiasm.
Reassured by Baltoh’s words, everyone nodded and split up, giddy and desperate to try their new strength.
As a building-sized Gargoyle began to charge a Dark Pulse, a Crusader charged towards it. She had been locked in hell for three hundred years and was glad to have the power to fight back. The beast released the blast, tearing apart the infertile ground and barely missing the armored fighter. The Crusader jumped into the air and imbedded one of the two ends of her weapon into the top of its skull and making sure not to lose any momentum or to pull the blade out of its cranium, she pole-vaulted over it, using her blade to cut its head in half down the middle. As she ran down its back, her blade cut down its neck, into the chest, and carved right through its black heart. The beast fell over dead with its brains and blood spilling out onto the arid soil.
A Demon flew towards a Crusader like a striking eagle, skimming just over the ground with a spear in her hand. She reached out to stab the Crusader, but he blocked with his weapon, granted more than enough strength by his armor to face the sentient conglomerate. Using his newly-gained power, the Crusader reached out and grabbed the Demon by the throat and slammed her down into the ground with devastating power, making her cough blood from all the shredded channels and veins in his throat. The Crusader stood up and lifted his bow-shaped sword and swung it down onto the Demon, cutting her in half down the middle.
A Crusader flew through the air around a colossal Gargoyle that was sending down waves of shadow fire into Baltoh’s armies. The creature noticed the freed prisoner, but acted like it was a mere fly. Taking the initiative, the Crusader flew by its wing and cut right through the membrane of leathery flesh that allowed it to keep flight. The Gargoyle roared in pain and began to plummet out of the sky with the soldier standing on its back. The Gargoyle reached up with its tail to try and smash the Crusader, but he dodged with ease before he raised his weapon and slashed the beast across the back of the neck.
The Gargoyle roared in pain but still had control of its body. It struggled to flap its wounded wing, but it could not take flight. Just before it crashed into the ground, the Crusader imbedded his weapon in the gash in the back of the Gargoyle’s neck. The dark behemoth landed in a burning field, tossing soil and stone into the air, and the impact drove the soldier’s weapon into its neck, cutting off its head.
All of Hell began to shake as fissures opened up in the ground. Fire poured out of the gaps in the earth and huge skeletal hands reached out. Slowly, thirteen Bleaks crawled out and stood towering over the army of Crusaders. The Bleaks opened their jaws and released several Dark Pulses into the landscape, destroying the weaker Gargoyles and the Crusaders without any distinction.
“Come on, Molly! Let’s take care of them!” Selene said as she flapped her liquid metal wings and shot towards the giant skeletons.
“Don’t start without me!” Molly laughed as she held out her hand and materialized her own huge cleaver.
With their long hair hanging out of the back of their helmets and whipping around a they flew, the two women zoomed over to the Bleaks, desperate for battle. Molly was the first to reach the group and instinctively attacked the skeleton closest to her. With a roar of determination, she spun around in the air and swung the arch blade with all of her strength, imbedding the edge in the corner of the Bleak’s left eye socket. Instantly, cracks formed across its skull like a spider web and its whole cranium shattered in a bright explosion, as if the blade had been lined with claymore mines.
“You stupid whore!” one of the Bleaks howled as it opened its jaws and began charging a Dark Pulse.
Moving faster than a speeding bullet, Selene shot up along beside the Bleak and delivered a devastating kick right to its spine between its ribcage and its pelvis, crippling it with ease. The gargantuan monster roared in agony as it fell and looked up, inadvertently releasing its Dark Pulse into the sky. But before it could hit the ground, Selene zoomed straight up and shot right through its skull like a living bullet, ending the Bleak’s life.
Hovering in the air, Selene swerved to the side as several Bleaks reached out to grab her, followed by Molly who came along and cut off all their hands with her cleaver. Falling back to plan her next movie, Selene gasped as she felt a ripple of knowledge flow through her mind. Instructions for a spell were entering her subconscious as if it wanted to be cast. Memorizing the instructions, she began to dredge up her energy, feeling it naturally direct and organize itself.
Driven by unstoppable instincts, she pointed her hand and called out, “Celestial Art: Lighting Obliteration!”
Answering her call, a crackling bolt of pure electricity erupted from her palm, as strong if not stronger than a Divinity Ray. Unlike the Blessed Lightning spell used by Archangels, this was true elemental electric power, not an imitation made of holy energy. Moving almost at the speed of light, the massive surge struck a Bleak in the center of its chest, shattering its ribs and severing its spine. As the dying monstrosity began to buckle, she fired again, this time blasting off the top of its skull.
“Celestial Art: Tornado Scythe!” Molly hollered.
Glowing like neon gas, silver wind wrapped around her bow-shaped sword and howled as she raised it above her head. With a roar of confidence, she threw the weapon at cluster of Bleaks and it was instantly wrapped in a flashing tornado. The pillar of glowing wind charged into the trio of skeletons and knocked them back like a charging bull. As they fell to their ground, every bone in their body split into dozens of flawlessly-cut sections, as if they had all been hit with a net of laser beams. The blade returned to Molly like a boomerang and she gained a wide smile underneath the tinted glass visor of her helm. She finally had the true strength to avenge her own death.
Selene smiled as well, sensing Molly beginning to gain a certain competitiveness with her. Not wanting to be outdone, she pointed her palms at two Bleaks that were lumbering towards her. “Celestial Art: Cosmic Crush!”
As the Bleaks opened their jaws to launch a barrage of Dark Pulses, their bodies began to shake violently. In an ear-splitting crash, they were suddenly yanked down as if by a weighted leash and crashed into the ground, shattering on impact. Selene had increased the force of gravity on their bodies, multiplying their own weight by more than ten fold and crushing them with it.
“Celestial Art: Star Birth!” she then called, pointing at one of the Bleaks that Molly had dismembered.
Firing from the tip of her finger, a sphere of red light shot across the open space and hit its mark on the Bleak’s forehead, passing harmlessly through the bone and entering its skull. Selene cracked a smile and the Bleak spontaneously erupted into a flaming mushroom cloud, originating from inside its head. The spell she had just used mimicked the fiery fusion process that takes place in stars, causing a small-scale nuclear explosion inside the beast. It was basically a firecracker compared to the nuclear explosions caused by atomic bombs, being only strong enough to annihilate a city block. She pointed at two more Bleaks and killed them in the same way, obliterating them form the inside out with small nuclear explosions.
“Celestial Art: Meteor Obliteration!” Molly cast, holding out her hands.
From the ground, a volcanic boulder was pulled free and flew up to Molly. She pressed her hands against it and the boulder instantly disappeared, moving at almost 70 km/sec, about the same speed as the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. The boulder hit one of the Bleaks in the center of its chest, creating a sonic boom in the air that instantly reduced its entire body to dust. The meteor shot off across the Isle of the Damned, barely being pulled by the planet’s gravitational pull. By the time it left the continent, it had finally fallen enough to touch the planet, and it would only have one chance before shooting off into the completely empty space. For a split second, it skimmed across the burning sea, but that light touch was more than enough to rocket a tidal wave of fire out of orbit. The flaming cloud was almost as large as the planet itself and Hell shook wildly from the light yet sudden impact.
She called forth another boulder and launched it at another Bleak. The giant managed to sidestep to avoid physical contact, but even without touching the flying boulder, the sonic boom of its momentum created a shockwave in the air that shattered the entire right side of its body in a fraction of a second. As the slain beast crumbled like demolished building, Molly looked over to Selene, who had just killed her sixth Bleak with another bolt of lightning.
The two friends looked at each other and then to the final Bleak, too stubborn to run away. Moving at hyper speed, they both charged towards the skeleton, both wanting to beat the other in Demon-killing and have the higher score. The Bleak was just about to launch a Dark Pulse at the two women when they appeared in front of it, pulled back their arms, and simultaneously punched it in the face with enough power to destroy its head.
With the Bleaks taken care of, the women both gave the mental command to retract their helmets and their armor obeyed, opening up the protective gear like the opening of a puzzle box. With warm smiles on their faces, Selene and Molly leaned forward and kissed.
“Angel Art: Divine Smite!” Michael thundered as he flew towards the millipede Titan that Baltoh had encountered earlier.
The gargantuan creature had its body raised out of the burning sea and was launching a stream of acid from its fanged mouth. With a roar, Michael punched the Titan in the middle of its body with all of his strength, sending a catastrophic shockwave through its body. The mass of Demon spirits howled in pain as every blood vessel in its long body ruptured and its eye popped like a paint balloon. Had Michael tried to do that to a Titan before, even while casting the spell, he would have probably just been laughed at and then devoured.
Blind and in agony but still very much alive, the Titan hissed and launched a Dark Pulse powerful enough to obliterate a mountain range. With golden flames automatically burning along the blade, Michael swung his sword and cut through the blast, protecting himself from its destructive power like Moses parting the Red Sea. Once the blast finally trickled to a stop, Michael raised his sword and gripped it with both hands. With blinding intensity, the golden flames around the blade surged upwards, multiplying in size over a hundred times every second.
Even without its eye and swimming in a sea of fire, the Titan was filled with dread as it sensed the colossal energy within the golden flames. At its pique, the sword was the route of a golden burning tornado, larger than any tornado on Earth. Filled with confidence, Michael swung his sword like an executioner, launching it in a crescent blade at the Demon.
“Angel Art: Burning Moon Slice!” he bellowed as the blast slammed into the Titan, ripping its head and the upper half of its body in half.
“Angel Art: Spear of Destiny,” Gabriel said, holding his hand out to the helmeted eagle launching boat-sized steely feathers at him.
Upon his command, over a hundred rays of light began firing from his hand, each bending and straightening out with the golden voulge blade at the ends leading them. The blades of energy and the giant wings collided with each other like bullets in the air. Such a feat was impossible without the armor that Gabriel had been granted.
“Angel Art: Crusading Canter.”
Moving so fast that his speed was second only to teleportation, he appeared behind the Titan without ending his original spell. The eagle looked back and saw Gabriel a nanosecond before hundreds of massive energy blades bombarded it all at once, knocking out of the sky like a Frisbee hit with ten loads of buckshot. It plummeted towards the burning sea with the endless stream of blades striking it with unstoppable power and literally chopping it to pieces. It was dead long before it landed in the flames.
“Angel Art: Enlightenment Flash!” Raphael called, giving off a radiant flare that was brighter than the sun.
The mountain-sized Gargoyle recoiled at the bright light and shielded its eyes, giving Raphael the perfect opportunity to swing his sword and lop off one of its hands in a single slash. The Titan howled in agony and clutched the bleeding stump as the severed hand fell into the burning sea with a massive splash. Spinning around, the Titan swung his tail in an attempt to knock the pesky fly back so that he could recover, but Raphael stopped the massive attack with one hand as he were swatting aside a moth, proceeding then to slice it off with only one movement of his sword.
“Demon Art: Monster Slash!” the Titan roared, raising its one good hand and then bringing it down with all of its strength, launching five invisible edges that were each powerful enough to cut through a tectonic plate.
“Angel Art: Gates of Heaven,” Raphael calmly hummed, holding out his sword.
Before the slashes could reach him, a golden gate, as large as the front of Mt. Rushmore, materialized before him and blocked the attack. With the holy energy that the gate was radiating with, the invisible blades couldn’t even slip between the bars.
“Angel Art: Ultimate Penitence.”
Before the Titan could even realize what has happened to it, a wooden cross that was twice as large as the Empire State Building fell out the sky and struck it in the back, piercing it through with its intense weight and blasting its black heart right through its chest.
“Celestial Art: Crushing Sea!” Rosemary shouted as she dodged the Dark Pulse of a tiger Titan with a mat of quills on its back.
Above her, a building-sized sphere of water appeared in the air and suddenly began to spray out into a thunderous waterfall, as if it were and inter-dimensional drain that lead to the bottom of an ocean. The deluge splashed down onto the Burning Pastures, extinguishing the flames and slamming into the Titan as a powerful tidal wave. Vast clouds of steam rose up into the sky as the water poured across the barren countryside and put out all the flames before reaching the coast of the burning sea. Flapping their wings, the Crusaders all took to the air to dodge the devastating tsunami as it snatched up the Gargoyles and Sinners and pulverized them.
“Demon Art: Debt Retrieval!” the tiger snarled as it tried to hold its footing against the ceaseless flood. The surging surface of the water was further disrupted as dozens of huge skeletal hands reached out like leaping sharks, stretching like rubber to grab Rosemary.
“Celestial Art: Stone Jaws!” she called with her heart burning with confidence and power.
Intercepting the bony hands, great daggers of earth burst from the ground in the midst of the growing arms, crushing them like twigs in the claws of lobsters.
“Celestial Art: Lightning Obliteration!” she called, launching a devastating bolt of electricity down into the water.
The Titan howled and snarled in agony as it was electrocuted with enough energy to power an entire state. Bridges of electricity arched between its quills, its flesh peeled and melted off its body, and smoke wafted from his mouth as its insides burned. It fell to its knees, letting the endless tidal wave wash over it, but Rosemary was not done yet.
“Celestial Art: Crystal Ice Ray!” she shouted, swinging her arm in rotation and drawing a large ring in the air with her own energy.
Once the ring was completed, the air within it glowed brightly with a blue shade and shined like the stars. With a roar, the tiger Titan burst from the surface of her sea, claws barred and black fire burning between its jaws. With a roar of determination, Rosemary slammed her palm against the middle of the ring, launching a blast of sapphire-shaded energy that was six feet in diameter. The blast struck the Titan in the chest, instantly freezing it and the entire forming sea.
With the beast and the flood now a giant ice carving, Rosemary shot towards it with her fist pulled back. Reaching the frozen Titan, she reached out and punched it on the nose with all of her strength. Simultaneously, the entire frozen structure exploded into icy powder, killing all the Demons and Gargoyles trapped inside.
The battle suddenly became silent as a deafening roar shook the Isle of the Damned, forcing everyone but Baltoh to cover their ears to try and block the crippling noise. In the distance, a flaming comet could be seen approaching, flying like a mortar shell before crashing into the ground in front of everyone and burning away all the ice and debris with a wave of fire. Standing in the flames arose a gargantuan creature, large enough to snap up a Titan in its jaws and kick aside a mountain like an exercise ball. It was Satan, the first Hell Prince and the Mascot of Wrath.
The son of Tenebrous had the legs of a goat with huge stomping hooves, red fur that was matted with blood, huge powerful arms lined with blades, serrated claws that were twice as long as his fingers, massive wings that could obscure the sky, curled bull-like horns, and a face that seemed like a mix of a jackal’s and a Gargoyle’s. Everyone stared in horror at the colossal monstrosity, towering over everything they had come to know and fear.
“So the vigilante returns. Normally you would flee to the world of the living at the smallest sign of my approach. It seems that you have gained some new powers, but it does not matter, you always were and always will be nothing compared to me.” Satan laughed.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I have transcended to the level of the gods and gone far past your puny world. You, the Hell Prince of Wrath, is no more of a threat to me than a dying maggot,” Baltoh calmly taunted, with his coat billowing in the arid breeze.
“We’ll see about that! Demon Art: Apocalypse Eruption!” Satan roared as he opened his jaws and began charging a scarlet blast so powerful that only beings of the position of Hell Prince and higher could use it.
Everyone was brought to their knees by the crushing weight of the energy it was giving off, energy so dark and powerful that it could kill a city of people just through its ambient existence. The blast itself was so powerful that if launched from the sun during a full alignment, it would obliterate every planet in the solar system. Even after everything she had seen, Selene was filled with dread and fear for Baltoh as the radiance of the blast made her feel like she was going to die.
“Baltoh, move!” she shrieked before Satan released the beam.
With its launch initiated by a full-on nuclear explosion going off between his jaws, Satan fired the colossal beam of blood-red energy with almost ten times the strength as Baltoh’s old rage blast. The energy washed over the Celestial Avatar like a flood of magma and surged out over the ocean of fire, sending burning tidal waves in all directions that could consume entire countries. Flying out from the planet due to its curvature, the beam shot deep into the empty space, soaring for several seconds before detonating in an explosion that looked like a supernova.
“Funny that you call me a dying maggot, when you’re the one who is dead!” Satan cackled as the smoke cleared.
“I was wrong,” Baltoh’s voice echoed.
Satan’s eyes widened in terror and everyone gasped, unable to believe that someone, even Baltoh, could take a blast like that head-on and survive. The smoke and dust cleared, revealing that he was completely unharmed.
“If that’s the best you can do, then you are even lower than a dying maggot compared to me.”
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?!”
“A god,” Baltoh answered as he snapped his fingers.
Satan suddenly released a bone-chilling screech as his body went from fearfully trembling to violently jerking. Baltoh was allowing his energy to finally release itself like body heat and was focusing it all on Satan. Now, his entire body was being crushed from every angle as Baltoh’s energy closed in on him like a deflating balloon. The Hell Prince gave an excruciating howl as every bone in his body simultaneously snapped and his body began to collapse in on itself. He raised his power levels as high as they could go, but he was basically trying to hold back a tsunami with a rotting fence. Every open space in his body began to collapse under the strain, his broken bones being reduced to powder, his veins and muscles tearing themselves to shreds. As the execution continued, his body began to shrink as the weight of Baltoh’s energy began compacting his atoms themselves, pushing them so close together that the electrons were grinding against the nuclei and could not orbit.
Finally, Baltoh closed his hand into a fist and Satan’s whole body snapped, being instantly crushed in a pitch-black marble, as dense and heavy as a black hole. The marble floated over to Baltoh and he flicked it with his finger, sending it flying up into space where it exploded in a blinding flash, having been converted into raw energy by its own instability.
Baltoh looked down at everyone, staring at him in awe.
“Let’s keep moving. We have a whole interior of a planet to clear out.” He said.
The face of a Gargoyle had been carved into the Isle of the Damned with the jaws open in a furious roar. A colossal pit served as its throat, leading down into the depths of Hell. The pit was the size of a meteor crater, allowing for entities as large as Satan to pass through, while the sides were lined with countless staircases.
With Baltoh, the Archangels, the Valkyries, and the Crusaders all standing at the edge of the pit, one of the freed spirits cautiously approached him. “Please, who are you?”
“I am Baltoh, the Celestial Avatar. I’m here to liberate the unjustly punished and slay Tenebrous once and for all. When I am done, Hell will no longer be the cradle for evil but its punisher. I will exterminate every last Demon and Gargoyle and take away the power from darkness.” Baltoh replied before leaping over the edge and falling out of sight. Selene, Molly, and Rosemary all jumped after him, followed by the Archangels and the Crusaders.
As they fell, Baltoh held out his hand and a sphere of light appeared in his palm, illuminating the way down. The pit was so massive that if he were to try and fully illuminate it from that sphere, anyone who looked directly at him would be instantly blinded. As far as anyone was concerned, they might as well have just jumped off a cliff at night and there was no other side. Selene and Rosemary watched the passing side of the pit as they fell, noticing that the wall was made entirely out of human skeletons. There had to be a billion different remains in the pit alone.
“We have to be careful once we enter the threshold, as there may be some barriers and restrictions that even I won’t be able to break,” Baltoh hollered.
“How is that possible? You’re a god!” Selene responded, via her mind.
“Yes, and so is Tenebrous. The only difference is that this is his world, his universe. Down here, he makes the rules. I will be able to overcome most of his obstacles and rules, but we are on his turf and he has the home field advantage.”
Baltoh and his group finally reached the bottom of the pit and fell out of the sky into a whole new world. In the distance, a city of blood-red sandstone, bones, and undead trees woven into wicker structures stood against the burning background. The buildings ranged from small huts to entire jagged skyscrapers and each shook with the agonizing screams of the people inside being tortured by Sinners. The city itself was larger than New York and held a much larger population.
Just like with the Burning Pastures above, the land around the city was completely barren and lifeless. Even though they were technically underground, a sky of sickly vomit-shaded clouds swirled above their heads. The sky of Hell was different from the sky of Earth; it was… bigger. It was like the clouds were much higher in the sky with a larger atmosphere, providing an overwhelming feeling of exposure, like a mouse caught in the open with a hawk flying overhead.
Baltoh and the others finally landed on the summit of a mountain of reeking brimstone, cracked and burning with a putrid odor as flames streamed out from the fractures. The mountain had a dull tempered summit, almost like the tip of a pyramid, and was set at the very bottom of the pit as a sort of agonizing landing for damned souls dragged across the Burning Pastures and cast down into the pit to fall down to the city. This idea was proven by the thousands of damned souls that blanketed the mountain, naked and moaning in pain from their shattered skeletons and their normally lethal injuries. Scanning their minds with his own, Baltoh analyzed the sins of everyone on the mountain, and for the people he deemed innocent and/or justified, he healed their wounds and bonded them with one of his suits of armor, recruiting them into his armies while the criminals and guilty souls were ignored. As the raining Crusaders organized themselves on the mountainside, it was obvious that the inhabitance of the city were doing the same.
“Behold the City of Wrath, where people who have sworn their allegiance to Tenebrous get their sentence annulled and are employed to torture everyone else. They are the Sinners. However, because they have sworn their allegiance to the Devil, the spell that resurrects them over and over again is broken like a contract, and they become mortal like the rest of the demonic forces. While this is only a fraction of the Sinner population, this city is their largest hive. This and the Burning Pastures were originally Satan’s domain
As he spoke, Selene and Molly were looking up at the writhing sky with curiosity. “I don’t get it, how can there be a sky if we are underground? We didn’t even fall that far,” Molly pondered.
“It’s true, we are in the planet of Hell. However, this is a world that does not obey the natural laws. This is a realm of mysticism and phantasms, not science and reason. The interior of the planet is a whole other world of it’s own, see?”
He pointed his finger up at the exit of the pit they had just fallen through, protruding from the swirling clouds like a towering dagger of stone from a cascading maelstrom. He fired a bolt of lightning from his finger, aiming just outside the lip of the pit. The slithering serpent of electricity dove into the clouds beside the pit, but there was not a crash, an explosion, or falling rubble. It was as if the pit was reaching through a hole in reality itself like a pipe. In the city, the skeletal followers of Tenebrous looked up at the mountain in terror, having watched the bolt of lightning shoot up like a signal flare.
“So are we going to take the city?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes, I want to take away the power from the Sinners once and for all. They were sent here to be punished for their crimes, not become the masters of the dungeon.” He replied with a steely tone as he snapped his fingers. Beside every suit of armor and crusader, a winged stallion appeared, covered in golden armor.
“Now we shall bring down the walls of this city and continue our siege on Hell! Let these Sinners know that their evil ambitions and wretched souls stand no chance against the power of light! Decimate this bastion of darkness and put these monstrous spirits back in their place! Everyone, attack!” Baltoh roared as every Crusader climbed onto one of the horses.
With everyone giving a roar of confidence and dedication, the Crusaders answered the call and began their charge. Half of the winged stallions took to the air while the other half galloped down the side of the mountain with their massive cleavers in hand and their armor shining like mirrors. Every follower of Tenebrous looked up to the side of the mountain and gasped as the Crusaders flew and galloped towards the City of Wrath. Leaving their torture victims behind, the Sinners gathered at the edge of the city in the tens of millions and prepared their defense. As wave after wave of glistening fighters surged down past him, Selene walked over with her helmet retracted and watched Baltoh, noticing a smile on his face.
“What?” he asked, seeing a curious grin on her lips.
“You’re smiling. You seemed so preoccupied and focused ever since you gained the Throne of Cinereo that I was worried that you had lost your emotions.”
“I’m happy, I’m finally able to do what I was born to do. I finally have the power to slay evil once and for all. Back when I was just a hybrid, I would never have dared of going up against the Hell Princes and trying to wage a war like this, but now I finally have the strength and ability to make my dreams come true. And with you by my side, there is no way I can fail.”
Selene smiled and pressed her lips against his, while drawing her blade with her free hand. “Let’s go.”
As the flood of warriors approached, arrows and bullets were launched from the city by the millions as the Sinners fought with weapons from all across time. Projectiles rained down upon Baltoh’s armies, but could do no harm to the horses or their riders, as their armor was far too powerful to be damaged by such puny attacks. Sprinting down the steep mountain, the mystical stallions panted heavily with each step but felt no fatigue or loss of strength. Their powerful muscles shook and warped as their hooves struck the ground, shattering the brimstone like frozen dew.
Holding their car-sized cleavers above their heads like blocks of Styrofoam, the Crusaders shouted out their resolve to slay their tormenters, with their armor going from shining to glowing as their confidence and dedication grew in strength. By the time they were halfway down the mountain, each Crusader was glowing like the moon, joining together into a radiant ray that blinded the Sinners below.
In one great crash, the ground troops slammed into the line of Sinners like a mudslide, knocking them down like dominos. The Crusaders used the size of their arched blades to reach out and stab and cleave the Sinners as their winged steeds galloped over them and trampled them with their hooves, shattering their bones like twigs. Dead or fatally wounded Sinners turned to ash as the last traces of their existence withered away. Even while outnumbered five to one, the Crusaders pierced the horde of Sinners like a tank and drove deep into the city.
Gargoyles and demons filled the sky but were quickly overpowered by the flying warriors. Moving as fast as lightning, the winged horses flew through the air, maneuvering between each Demon as the Crusader would reach out and slash them with their weapon. Gargoyles were knocked out of the sky by beams of light, shot from the wings of the horses like the Feather Arrow spell. The light energy burned their flesh like acid, causing them to plummet down into the streets in smoldering husks.
Baltoh walked through the city streets as his warriors flooded the city, slaughtering any Sinner that approached without even acknowledging their existence. As he remembered, the buildings of the city were make with a wicker-like weave of sticks from undead trees, but they served a purpose other than building material. The walls, floors, and roofs also served as prisons for damned souls with their bodies packed inside past the point of being crushed to death or suffocation. Every body had been pierced dozens of times by steel rods that served as reinforcements for the buildings like the 2x4s of a house. The bodies were pressed against side sides of their wicker cages like nets of piano wire with blood streaming from the cuts that each branch had worn into their skin. They continuously moaned in pain from their suffering and begged Baltoh to help.
He answered their pleas, reading the mind of each soul to identify their sins. To those he deemed innocent or undeserving of such punishment, he freed them with his mind and created a suit of armor for them to bond to so that they could join his ranks. As raining beams of energy brought down the dagger-like skyscrapers, Baltoh peered into the buildings and felt sick to his stomach. The people they were saving were locked in torture devices and undergoing abuse that darkened his mind with painful memories from before his birth as the hybrid. The Sinners had preformed everything from rape to forced cannibalism.
As Baltoh stepped out into the street, a round from a tank shot through the air and detonated five feet from him, unable to come any closer. He turned to the mechanical monstrosity, made from Hellsteel and decorated with human bones. The Sinners inside loaded another round and fired, but just like the first, it exploded before it could touch him and the flames and shrapnel were deflected.
Raising his arm, Baltoh closed his hand into a fist and instantly caused the tank to flip into the air and dematerialize, taking the passengers with it to the realm of nonexistence. A chorus of commotion reached his ears and he turned with a small smile of amusement as a crowd of Sinners came sprinting down the street with several Crusaders on horseback chasing them. The Sinners’ bony feet clacked on the cobblestone ground as they ran desperately, unable to escape the Crusaders. With powerful swings, the men and women hacked away at the Sinners, shattering their skeletons like rotting sticks. As they rode past Baltoh, they all gave loyal bows of their heads.
“Celestial Art: Carving Sandstorm!” Molly shouted as she flew overhead.
Aiming her hands at a group of Demons, she released a powerful jet of sand that seemed to form out of the air itself. The blast was just as large as a Divinity Ray and it washed over the Demons with each grain striking with the power of a high-caliber bullet. The Demons howled in pain as their bodies were pealed away layer-by-layer, sending misty blood and sleety flesh streaming behind them.
She was suddenly knocked down to the clouds by a deafening roar that shook the burning sky. A great Titan lowered itself from the clouds with a body that looked like a mix between a vulture and a dragon, with jagged feathers, a long neck, a fanged beak, and serpent eyes. It released a bone-chilling shriek and a Dark Pulse appeared between its jaws, strong enough to take out the whole city. Before it could release the blast, Baltoh snapped his fingers and chains of light reached out of the sky and ground. They wrapped around the Titan, strangling it until the sphere of energy in its beak disappeared. He snapped his fingers once more and the chains constricted until they ripped the beast apart.
Within minutes, a growing cheer echoed across the city as the last dying screams were extinguished. The city had been taken faster than any city on Earth in all of its history.
The Sea of Envy was in their sights and hearing range. Shrieks, as high as whistles and as low as dying animals’ could be heard, sending shivers crawling up everyone’s spine. Only Baltoh was immune to the psychological affect, due both his experience in Hell and his powers. Standing on the shore of the inky black ocean, they watched as waves crashed on the beach and revealed the people hidden beneath the spray. They were chained to the ocean floor, staring aimlessly with glassy eyes and pale faces. Many were chained to the beachside cliffs, forced to endure wave after frigid wave slamming into them and the demonic birds and crustaceans of Hell picking and feeding on their bodies, with every wound instantly regenerating so that they could continue to feel pain. Even as they looked upon Baltoh and the others and their casted light shined on them, they showed no emotions.
“Damn it, I hated this place the most when I came here,” Rosemary cursed.
“This is the Sea of Envy, the place where those who let jealousy run their lives are damned and punished. Just as Satan, Prince of Wrath, ran the Burning Pastures and the City of Wrath, Leviathan, Prince of Envy, is in control of this ocean. Here, the oily water poisons their bodies like battery acid to symbolize how envy poisons the mind and it weighs down on them with crushing power, just like how their feelings of inadequacy crushed them and made them jealous of others. And that isn’t even counting all the Demons and Gargoyles underneath the surface, torturing them without pause. Now the only things they envy are those that no longer exist. This place is tricky, as it has the greatest number of Titans and it is difficult to tell who exactly is guilty and who deserves to be freed.” He explained.
Baltoh then searched the minds of all the spirits in the immediate area to figure out which ones were guilty, and which ones were innocent. Those that were driven to commit crimes and caused harm because of their envy were left to stew, while those who were only the victims of human nature had their chains broken so that they could rise to the surface. But even though they were still aware and sentient, they floated on their stomachs and did not move.
Baltoh summoned another army of winged suits of armor on flying horses to recruit the freed souls and slay the monstrous inhabitants. They galloped across the shifting water, immune to the affects of gravity as they reached down into the water with their two-handle blades, slaughtering the Gargoyles and creatures of darkness just below the surface. Any suits that weren’t fighting bonded themselves to freed prisoners, granting them their power. The light energy that flowed through the armor healed their ravaged minds and gave them the resolve to fight.
The Gargoyles and Demons swam deeper below the surface to escape the massacre, thinking they would be safe. The evil beasts were filled with terror as the Crusaders and their horses dove below the surface, galloping on the water as if they were running downhill. Swimming with incredible speed, they followed the beasts deeper and deeper into the water, slaughtering the slowest of them as the gap between the groups grew smaller and smaller.
A kilometer from the beach, the ocean floor dropped into a step continental slope, that seemed to delve into the darkest depths of Hell. As the Crusaders chased down the wretched creatures, their weapons and the wings of their steeds glowed brightly, illuminating their way.
Deep in the shadows, a great eye opened.
From the shifting waves of the ocean, a colossal whale burst from the ocean. Its mouth was open and full of jagged teeth, its back was covered in spikes, and it was large enough to snap up an aircraft carrier in its jaws. It dove back into the water, swallowing several hundred Crusaders in the process. Cricking his neck from side to side, Baltoh fired a lightning bolt from the air above him, able to draw forth and release the energy without even using his body or a source. The beam of light expanded as it passed between its jaws and burst out of the back of its head, destroying half of its skull and all of its brains. The dead beast sank below the surface as the bottom-feeder creatures immediately began feeding on its carcass.
Another great splash tore apart the surface as a massive set of pincers reached out and tried to snatch up the flying Crusaders. They managed to avoid the massive claws as the Titan rose to the surface. It was a gargantuan lobster with four sets of pincers and a tail like that of a scorpion. A Dark Pulse began to charge at the end of its stinger and it was aimed for Baltoh. With a twitch of his eye, a spinning disk of energy appeared above his head and shot towards the Titan, expanding to the creature’s size. The disk collided with the Titan’s face and vertically sliced it in half. Once the blade reached its stinger, the charging Dark Pulse exploded and ripped the dead body apart.
Shaking the entire ocean, a vast legion of Titans began to appear from the darkest depths of the sea, each resembling a creature from Earth. There were sharks that just had circular pits of teeth instead of heads and jaws, squid with tentacles lined with blades of bone, crabs that had mountains blanketed with castles on their shells, sword fish with serrated barbs that could fire Dark Pulses from the tip of the blade, and millions of demonic piranhas that were individual cells of a single Titan.
As the legions formed, one final entity rose up from the depths. The creature was as large as Satan with slimy green skin, an apish body, webbed fingers with sharp claws, outstretched wings that looked like the skin of frogs, and a head that looked like an octopus with almost a hundred long swinging tentacles.
“Is that Leviathan?” Selene asked as she clutched my hand.
“Yes, the Prince of Envy. Though he is also known as Cthulhu. I’ll take him on, the rest of you kill those Titans.”
Rosemary stepped forward from behind him with her helmet open and a smile on her face. “Actually Master, how about we face Leviathan and you kill the Titans? I wouldn’t mind testing my strength against a Hell Prince. Besides, there are so many of us here and we can always ask you for help.”
Selene gained the same smile. “I like this idea. What about you, Baltoh? Do you want to try it?”
Baltoh mirrored the smile held by the three of them. “Sure, you girls have fun,” he said before teleporting and reappearing behind Leviathan.
The Hell Prince turned around and was about to swing at him with one of his clawed hands, but an explosion rocked against his head and drew his attention back to the beach.
“Your fight is with us!” Selene hollered with smoke wafting from her palm.
“YOUR SKELETONS WILL LIE AT THE BOTTOM OF MY OCEAN FOR ALL OF ETERNITY!” Leviathan thundered as his tentacles stretched like rubber and shot towards them.
The Valkyries and Archangels split up to dodge the attack and each got read to counter.
“Angel Art: Feather Arrows!” Michael shouted as he pointed his wings at Leviathan and launched a volley of burning javelins.
“Angel Art: Divinity Ray!” Raphael shouted, firing a beam from each hand, both the size of office buildings.
“Angel Art: Spear of Destiny!” Gabriel shouted as he launched a flashing torrent of blades of golden light with each beam bending in the air and honing in on the target.
“Celestial Art: Lightning Obliteration!” Selene called, launching a crackling eruption of electricity from her palm.
“Celestial Art: Crystal Ice Ray!” Rosemary cast, drawing a lens in the air and then launching the sapphire beam.
“Celestial Art: Tongue Of White Flames!” Molly yelled, raising her arms above her head and releasing a bending and twisting geyser of pearly flames and surged towards Leviathan with enough heat to burn diamond.
Combined with the attacks of the other Archangels, the vast cascade of techniques slammed into Leviathan like a dozen riot slugs, knocking him back and drawing forth a howl of pain, but causing no visible damage to his body. Stepping out of the cloud of smoke, he only roared in fury and lunged with the tentacles hanging from his face like a swarm of frog tongues. As they shot forward, fanged mouths opened up at the end of each tentacle, snapping in hunger for their prey.
“It seems this won’t be as easy as we thought,” Raphael said, grinning under his helmet.
“Well it wouldn’t be fun if it was,” Gabriel said, he too with a grin.
“Come on boys, there is no way we’ll beat him from a distance. We’re going to have to get up close and deliver some real damage,” Rosemary said as she materialized her arch blade.
“Let’s hurry up before Baltoh has to save our asses! He’ll never let us live it down!” Selene laughed as she spread her wings and flew towards Leviathan with her blade in hand. Chuckling to themselves, everyone chased after her and dove into the maw of biting tentacles.
“Now allow me to show you the true benefit of being god, the one thing that only someone in my league can achieve. Celestial Art: Animal Kingdom Siege!” Baltoh called as he clapped his hands together.
Up above the sea, a miraculous thing began to take place. Matter was forming from pure energy and rearranging itself into specific compounds and molecules. These molecules bonded together and formed enzymes and amino acids, and they in turn joined together to create cells. Jehovah could make Archangels, Tenebrous could create Demons and Gargoyles, but only Baltoh and Cinereo itself could create life.
Announcing their arrival, eagles, hawks, and falcons, all larger than Titans and each with greater ferocity and strength, swooped down to begin their battle. Every feather on their bodies was glowing faintly, showing the protective energy sealed within. Showing no fear, the birds of prey obeyed the will of their creator and attacked the Titans, snatching them right out of the water with their long talons. The omega Demons desperately attacked the birds with Dark Pulses and other spells, but their techniques had no affect on the birds whatsoever, as their feathers were acting as energy transmitters that cloaked them in a protective aura, and the energy they were receiving came straight from Baltoh himself.
With their claws tearing through flesh and bone with ease, the birds threw their prey into the air and finished the almighty Titans off with their wings, cutting through the Demons’ bodies with their feathers harder and sharper than katanas. Blood and butchered body parts rained down as the Titans were chopped to pieces, completely helpless against the superior creatures.
With his hands still pressed together, Baltoh reactivated the spell, creating more creatures in which to kill the Titans with. Sea serpents, miles long with bodies so large that they approached Leviathan’s size, rose up from the depths with booming roars. Each serpent had glassy black bodies, decorated with patterns of glowing yellow lines. The backs of their heads were guarded with mats of bone spikes their eyes glowed with power. With furious roars, the serpents dove down into sea, gobbling up every Titan that came close to their jaws. With powerful chomps, they crushed the bodies of the Demons like peanut shells and swallowed them whole, carving down their numbers like a natural disaster.
Sensing the amassing danger, dozens of the Titans all turned to Baltoh and released their Dark Pulses at once, trying to take him out in the hope that his creations would die with him. The blasts washed over Baltoh like a flood but were unable to even touch him, being deflected by an invisible egg-shaped shield that stood whether he willed it or not. As the blasts shrank and split into their last flickering beads of darkness, Baltoh once again pressed his hands together, this time with his fingers interlocked. “Celestial Art: Almighty Forest Assault.”
Like the sea serpents only minutes prior, massive wooden tendrils wrapped around the Titans like the tentacles of the squids that filled their ranks. The tendrils grew in size, forking out into leafy branches as they formed towering trees, dwarfing the human-made skyscrapers back on Earth. Trapped in the wood like animals caught in hardened concrete, the Titans snarled and roared as they tried to break free of their wooden prisons, but even with all the strength in their bodies, the wood held strong and carried a deadly ability. Not only were the trees infused with vast amounts of light energy to counteract the toxic presence of the undead creatures in their grip, but they were also draining them of their power. It was as if the trees were digesting them as the ocean floor was colonized.
With town-sized birds attacking from above, sea serpents almost as large as mountain ranges attacking from below, and grabbing trees bursting from the ground like spikes from a booby trap, the Titans had no way to escape their massacre.
Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and the rest of the Archangels sprinted across Leviathan’s shifting tentacles with their flaming swords drawn. With each biting tendril that came close, they would jump into the air and chop them up into sushi with a lightning-fast flurry of slashes. Butchered pieces of flesh were sent flying as the sewer line-sized tentacles were torn to shreds by their swords. They all had confident smiles on their faces, unable to believe that they were actually battling a Hell Prince, and dare they say even winning.
With a shout of determination, Selene spun through the air like a top nearby, delivering a dynamic bombardment of punches and kicks to the snapping jaws of the tentacles, smashing them like a baseball bat to a line of sausages. Even without using any sort of speed-enhancing spell, she was moving faster than the human eye could catch. The tentacles were seemingly exploding without her even touching them due to her speed.
Down below, Molly was launching blades of wind from her cleaver, chopping down the tentacles like trees being hit with the shockwave of an atomic explosion. Without even noticing it, one of the tentacles attacked from behind and grabbed her, swallowing her whole. As she fell down its throat, the tentacle suddenly froze, literally into solid ice. With a smile, Molly released a raw burst of power from every inch of her body, causing the frozen tentacle to shatter into pieces. Having been rescued, Molly looked down at Rosemary, who had a lens of ice energy hovering in front of her. Smiling under her helm, Molly blew a kiss to her lesbian concubine and Rosemary responded by forming a V with her index and middle finger in front of her face.
Their flirting was cut short as another swarm of tentacles lunged towards them both. Pointing her hands at the gnashing teeth, Rosemary cast her spell. “Celestial Art: Nuclear Flash!”
A blinding ray of light flared from her palms, carrying with it both devastating heat and lethal amounts of radiation. The tentacles were all brought to a sudden stop as the outer layers of their flesh were reduced to ash, every cell having been simultaneously incinerated by the atomic burst of energy. Materializing her cleaver, Rosemary threw the weapon with all of her strength, sending it flying through the air like a boomerang and causing the burned tentacles to explode into dust.
Several loud howls echoed from behind her as a group of tentacles tried a surprise attack. Clapping her hands together, Rosemary cast her next spell. “Celestial Art: Bladed Comet!”
With fire streaming from the edge and forming a hypnotic tail, her spinning cleaver returned and shot past her head, carving down the approaching forest of tentacles in a single flaming strike.
“Rosemary, come on!” Selene shouted, having just about reaching Leviathan’s face.
Rosemary caught up to the group as they busied themselves with dodging the Hell Prince’s huge swinging arms. Bleeding profusely with almost all of his tentacles severed, Leviathan sought only their death and was done playing. Raising his octopus head, he revealed a fanged mouth underneath the webbed mat of severed tentacles. “Demon Art: Apocalypse Eruption!” he roared, casting the same spell that Satan had and charging it between his jaws.
“Everyone move!” Michael shouted as Leviathan took aim.
Selene, Molly, Rosemary, and the Archangels desperately tried to escape from the blast but many were caught within it when the beam was finally unleashed. Shaking all of Hell, the crimson beam of energy was launched with an atomic explosion detonating between Leviathan’s jaws as the initial flash and the Archangels caught within the beam were instantly dematerialized as every atom in their bodies was converted to pure energy. The beam shot off across Hell, narrowly avoiding obliterating the taken city of Wrath and shooting up into the stirring sky.
“Damn it, how the Hell can we possibly compete with that?” Raphael cursed as he got to his feet, having been knocked to the ground.
“Celestial Art: Woodland Imprisonment,” they heard Baltoh announce.
Rising up from the sea floor, trees that could knock aside the tallest skyscrapers reached out and grabbed Leviathan. The trees formed a vertical ring around him with massive branches grabbing his limbs, pulling them out and making Leviathan resemble Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man sketch. A horizontal ring then formed from the vertical ring, making it resemble a gyroscope with a wooden bar reaching out from the front of the horizontal ring and wrapping around his waist while a branch from the back grabbed his tail.
“You bastard! No prison can hold me!” Leviathan roared as he began charging another Apocalypse Eruption.
“This isn’t a real prison, consider it more as a cradle for my next creation. Celestial Art: Forest Bloom!” Baltoh called, finally raising his voice as he clapped his hands together.
As the sphere of crimson energy charged between his jaws, a leafy branch burst from the back of Leviathan’s throat and pierced it like a balloon, disrupting it and ending the spell. Gagging on the branch, the Hell Prince screamed in pain as more branches began to burst out of his flesh, forming massive trees in a matter of seconds. Throughout his body, unstoppable branches were shredding his muscles, crushing his veins, and tearing through his organs as they looked for the perfect places to spread out and drain him of his energy. Desperate to avoid his approaching death, Leviathan cast a nameless healing spell and reached out with a fresh flood of biting tentacles, but before they could even come near Baltoh, they stopped dead and were blanketed with flowers.
The forest continued to grow and thrive, devouring Leviathan’s body and stealing his energy. By the time the spell was complete, his wings had been replaced with two hanging lawns of grass, his bones were serving as the handles for countless massive trees, almost every muscle and organ had been torn to pieces and absorbed, and only his skeleton remained intact. The Prince of Envy had been killed, and in his death he had brought forth life.
With a smile, Baltoh turned to his lover and friends. “Sorry, it looks like you needed my help.”
Selene smiled. “Ah damn it, there is no way that he is going to let us live this down…”
After crossing the ocean and recruiting tens of millions of new Crusaders while searching the sea floor, they reached the shoreline on the other side and reached the next area of Hell; a desert of black sands.
“These are the Ash Fields,” Baltoh announced as he and his group stood at the edge of the expansive desert.
Selene’s eyes widened. “This is the place where you were born? Where you first came into existence as a Demon?”
Baltoh nodded. “Yes, I was born under these jet-black dunes, and after I became a hybrid, I spent almost my entire life here slaying Demons upon their birth. This barren landscape is also known as the Desert of the Proud. It is the domain of the Hell Prince Lucifer, the first Demon that was originally a fallen Archangel, having been cast out of Heaven when he staged a coup against Jehovah. Here, the souls guilty of the sin of Pride are subjugated and humiliated. They are used as the slaves of the Demons, serving as a work force for building monuments and also as concubines. This desert serves a very unique purpose beyond just being a circle in Hell for which to punish the damned, as it also serves as the birthplace and nursery for Hell’s Demons. This is where they all come into existence, born from the darkness of human souls that can no longer endure the punishment and cease to exist.”
“So is it the same job as with the others?” Molly asked.
Baltoh cracked a smile. “Free the innocent and slaughter the Demons, the perfect way to spend and afternoon.”
A never-ending army of towers and monuments stood among the black dunes like tombstones in a graveyard, each made from an obsidian-like stone formed from the ashes of crumbled skeletons compacted together. They almost looked like the remains of a forest that endured the strike of a nuclear bomb. In the background, a vast lake of swirling fire stirred in an eternal whirlpool, and every second, Gargoyles were crawling out and shaking themselves off like wet dogs, having been created by the anger and malice humans on Earth.
Underneath the burning sky, huge blocks of this stone were quarried from mountains and under the sands by the slaves of Hell; men, women, and children, all with rags for clothes, emaciated bodies, and iron masks that were clamped around their heads. Moaning in pain as they worked, the slaves moved the van-sized blocks of stone to the monuments being built, all while their Demon masters barked orders in Hellscript and cracked their flaming whips.
Whenever one of the slaves would keel over from exhaustion, the Demons or Gargoyles would gang up on them like vultures on a fresh carcass. Men and boys would be eaten alive, too tired to scream as the flesh was pealed from their bones. Women and girls were raped to death and then their shredded bodies were devoured. After a few minutes, the butchered remains of the slave would regenerate and the damned soul would come back to life, only to be put to work once again. From the millions upon millions of meaningless statues, pyramids, and temples standing in the sands, it was obvious that this had been going on since just about the dawn of man. But now, it was going to change. Having crossed several hundred miles of desert and fought through the creatures of Hell, the followers of Baltoh had come to the final stretch of the Desert of Pride.
In the shadow of a half-finished pyramid, a Demon sitting in a onyx throne on a wooden sled ordered for her slaves to pull faster, shouting in Hellscript and cracking her whip. The Demon’s roar jumped in volume as the sled came to a sudden stop and did not move, no matter how hard she whipped them. Looking up, the she-beast grew pale as she laid eyes on Selene, blocking the way. With a roar, the Demon cracked her flaming whip and sent it straight towards Selene, but before the coil could even snap back, the Demon’s arm and head were sliced off by surprise attack by Molly, who delivered the lethal blow with a powerful swing of her arch blade. The monster only had enough time to give a single dying scream before the top of her skull was sliced off.
Hearing the call of their sister, all the Demons and Gargoyles raised their heads in alertness and cursed as the Crusaders came into view, flying through the sky or galloping across the ground. With their whips in one hand and weapons in the other, the Demons leapt into action with a tidal wave of Gargoyles rising behind them. While the Crusaders, Archangels, and Valkyries slaughtered the Demons by the thousands, Baltoh calmly walked in between the statues and monuments, creating more suits of armor and freeing those he deemed innocent or undeserving of torment. So calm that he might as well have been taking a stroll through the part, he annihilated every Demon that came close without the slightest movement or thought.
Above his head, Selene and the others were decimating the forces of darkness with spell after spell, obliterating the Demons and Gargoyles as fast as they arrived. However, the enemy force was continuously getting reinforcements in the form of new Demons and Gargoyles, always being born. The Gargoyles would crawl out of the Lake of Fire, hungry for carnage, and the newborn Demons would claw their way up from underground, already super intelligent and incredibly deadly.
Barely an hour had passed since the battle began when the signaling roars were heard, letting everyone know that Lucifer had arrived. It seemed that the Hell Prince of Pride wasn’t just going to sit around while his kingdom was destroyed… The Demons and Gargoyles quickly retreated at the sound of his approach, laughing in the confidence that victory was about to be theirs. The battlefield became quiet, save for the roar that had not ended. Yet there were more roars radiating from the background, thick with power and malice.
“Baltoh, what’s going on? Is it another Hell Prince?” Selene asked, landing beside him.
“Not only that, but all of the Masters of Torture. It seems that Tenebrous is throwing everything he has at us.”
‘Stay calm; after everything you have seen, you know he can handle it,’ Selene thought to herself, fighting the sudden instinctive flare up of terror as she remembered the power of the Master of Torture that Baltoh had fought and was nearly killed by. Even Baltoh suddenly showed a look of surprise.
“I don’t believe it, there couldn’t be that many. It seems the Masters of Torture are not as rare and few in number as I thought. There are at least a hundred of them approaching with Lucifer, each with their own Titan steed. He must have created them himself or used his powers to forcefully bond the essences of Demons to form them. All together, I must say that their power is quite amazing.” Baltoh pondered, rubbing his chin with the metal plates on the backs of his fingers and hand catching the light.
“How powerful are they?” Selene gasped, barely able to suppress her fear. Baltoh inclined his head as he tried to read their approaching power levels.
“If they all combined their power into a single explosion, it would be the size of a solar system.”
Selene’s panting was heavy as she struggled to comprehend such a colossal amount of energy, but her mind was just unable to fathom the size of such an explosion.
“Tell everyone to fall back to the edge of the desert; you’ll be out of harm’s way but you should be able to watch what is going on,” Baltoh said with a hint of seriousness in his voice. He slowly began to levitate, rising up into the air before Selene stopped him, grasping his hand with her helmet open and a look of great worry and fear on her face.
“Baltoh, is it possible for even someone like you to withstand such and attack? Can you win this battle?” She asked desperately, knowing that the upcoming clash was beyond her comprehension.
With a smile, Baltoh lowered himself down without actually touching the ground. He lifted her chin and kissed her, brushing her fears aside.
“Selene, I made you a Valkyrie because that I know that you have more faith in me than anyone else in existence. What does your faith tell you?”
“That you will win,” she sighed, having regained her confidence.
“Good. Now don’t worry about me, just kick back and watch the show. I think its time I finally got some exercise,” he said, placing one last kiss on her forehead before shooting up into the sky.
“Everyone retreat! Go back to the ocean!” Selene shouted with a smile on her face.
“Selene, what’s going on?” Molly hollered, wiping the Demon blood off her cleaver.
“Baltoh is going to take care of everything. He just wants us out of the way so that he can finally let loose!”
Molly gained a wide smile of excitement, eager to see what power Baltoh would unleash.
“Everyone go back to the ocean! We have to get out of here! Master Baltoh is going to fight!” Rosemary shouted, having overheard them.
While almost everyone wanted to stay and see the clash, Baltoh’s orders were obeyed and a full retreat was set in motion, with everyone fleeing as fast as they could so that the battle would begin soon. With the help of spells from the Valkyries and Archangels, all the Crusaders zipped across almost half of a thousand miles of desert in a second and appeared at the edge of the inky Sea of Envy.
“Angel Art: Heavenly View,” Michael cast, holding up his hands. Like a massive movie screen, a canvas made of pure light appeared in the sky above the crowd of millions with a real-time view of Baltoh at the battlefield. He was hovering in the sky, watching the black clouds stir in the distance.
Everyone covered their ears as a deafening roar rang out, far louder than the one that had been sent out before, even with the distance that had been traveled. Covering their ears, everyone looked up at the screen as the Masters of Torture arrived, riding on the backs of Titans as they escorted the Hell Prince of Pride. Like Satan and Leviathan, Lucifer towered above all else, able to easily kill a Titan with a single swat of his hand and destroy a mountain with a sweep of his tail.
Lucifer was built differently from the other Hell Princes so far encountered, as his body had more of a reptilian-draconic build and form to it, and instead of one head, he had seven. The seven humanoid heads each stood at the end of a long powerful neck, with each head lacking eyes or a nose but instead having pointed ears and shark-like teeth. Six of the heads each had a horn protruding from the top of their head with a crown looped around it like a ring, but the seventh head had four of each. Lucifer’s whole body had a much more revolting appearance the other Hell Princes’, for instead of scales or hair, his flesh consisted entirely of exposed necrotic muscle, grotesque and dark like a burn wound that had completely pealed away the flesh and singed the muscles underneath.
His long bladed tail swishing from side to side with excitement and his wings keeping him aloft without a single flap, Lucifer looked at Baltoh without any eyes and began to laugh.
“So the terrorist returns. You, you have always been a thorn in my side and the hindrance in the growth of my armies. I have been hunting you ever since you were born, but always would you jump to Earth before I could end you once and for all. But now, it seems like you are finally ready to die,” he boomed, grinning with each lipless head.
“It seems that you do not know about Satan and Leviathan,” Baltoh sighed with his arms crossed.
Lucifer just gave another laugh. “Oh, I know alright. You put those weaklings in their place and ended their pathetic lives once and for all. Don’t think that scares me, I could have killed them with all seven heads cut off. I, I am the strongest of the Hell Princes! It is why I am the own who commands the Ash Fields and rules over the Demons and the Masters of Torture! In the rank of Hell, only the almighty Lord Tenebrous has greater power than myself! And even if you kill me, then he will just create more Hell Princes with a snap of his fingers! You’re in our world traitor, there is no way you can win!”
“For someone who is so confident and sure of himself, you sure brought a lot of minions.” Baltoh remarked, looking around as the Masters of Torture and Titans around and behind Lucifer. This only drew another laugh from the Hell Prince.
“After I was cast out of Heaven, I learned to be cautious and became wiser. I won’t make the same obvious mistake that the others made.”
Six of the seven heads then looked in opposite directions, each spitting out a Horror Obelisk like a missile and lodging them at the edges of the battlefield. The seventh head looked straight up and opened its jaws, and six triangular daggers reached out of the back of its throat and opened up like a blossoming flower with a sphere of darkness hovering in the center.
“FORCES OF HELL, LEND ME YOUR STRENGTH!” he bellowed as the six Horror Obelisks all caused the power of Lucifer and his minions to skyrocket.
Raising their swords, all the Masters of Torture began channeling their energy straight towards the sphere of darkness above his seventh head, while channeling the power of their Titan mounts through their own bodies. With the power of a hundred Masters of Torture and Titans pumping through his veins, all with their strength multiplied by the Horror Obelisks, Lucifer’s energy levels more than doubled past what Baltoh had expected. The Celestial Avatar gained a look of surprise as he felt the Hell Prince’s power levels skyrocket without any sign of stopping. If it weren’t for the fact that Tenebrous already possessed it, Lucifer could very well acquire the Throne of Hell through such a powerful combination.
At the beach of the Sea of Envy, everyone struggled to breath and stay on their feet as Lucifer’s power levels weighed down upon them like an entire ocean. Finally, a great eye opened in the center of Lucifer’s chest, jet-black with a bright red ten-pointed star for a pupil. “I see you…” he said, staring at Baltoh.
While Baltoh was surprised, he was far from alarmed. In fact, he was already bored. “Are you going to attack or not, because I don’t want all of that stretching I did to have been for nothing.”
With a roar in reply, Lucifer opened the jaws of one of his heads and launched an Apocalypse Eruption, several times more powerful than Satan and Leviathan’s. This time, the natural force field that stood around Baltoh was not strong enough to keep the blast at bay. Raising it to eye-level, he blocked the ray with the back of his hand, hovering in that same spot with the beam being deflected and washing over him like a vacuum behind a moving vehicle. Lurching forward, Lucifer strengthened the blast, making Baltoh grit his teeth from the sudden shove. This certainly was surprising; not only was the power truly worlds apart from Satan and Leviathan, but the fact that he was able to launch so much power with just one of his heads was a bad omen, as Baltoh originally figured that he would need all seven heads together to form and manipulate the energy.
The blast ended and Baltoh’s eyes widened as Lucifer’s throat met his view, the Hell Prince having pounced while Baltoh was blinded by the blast. Teleporting, Baltoh reappeared at a seemingly safe distance but was forced to teleport again as one of Lucifer’s heads reached out and tried to grab him. Keeping his distance, Baltoh reappeared at the edge of the battlefield and flicked the air with his finger, releasing a concentrated shockwave that was as powerful as a meteor impact. Lucifer was thrown back with ripples traveling through his body but didn’t seem to be suffering from a single popped vein or broken bone.
‘That hit should have ripped off all his heads and splattered him like a paint balloon. It seems that his power isn’t the only thing that has been enhanced…’
“Demon Art: Mutilation Mutation!”
Opening the jaws of one of his heads, Lucifer shot out his tongue like a frog, sending the tendril flying towards Baltoh faster than a high-caliber bullet. Warping in the air, the tongue mutated and changed in shape, covering itself in blades of bone. With a switch of his eye, Baltoh fired an invisible blade of vertical energy, slicing the appendage in half down the middle. Undeterred by the injury, the two halves of the tongue went in opposite directions and then converged on him.
With another twitch of his eye, Baltoh launched a horizontal blade, slicing off the split portions of the tongue. Lucifer showed no signs of feeling any pain, and with a whiplash, four new tendrils grew out of the bleeding tip of the severed tongue. Baltoh teleported as the four bladed tendrils tried to grab him and reappeared to the side, launching another blade and severing the tongue. To the sound of Lucifer’s booming laugh, eight new quivering tentacles burst out the bleeding stump.
“Just as I thought, a Hydra affect. Tch, what a nuisance,” Baltoh scoffed as he raised his hand. “Celestial Art: Star Birth.”
A small sphere of red light shot from the tip of his finger, flying over to Lucifer and entering his bothersome head. In a deafening roar and a blinding flash, the head was ripped apart by a miniature nuclear explosion. Lucifer roared in agony from the destruction of his head, but within seconds, the singed flesh could be seen quivering and regenerated as the head was slowly formed.
“Celestial Art: Woodland Prison,” Baltoh cast, clasping his hands together.
On a scale never before seen in the history of the universe, a colossal tree burst out of the ground beside Lucifer and began growing at a phenomenal rate, forming a ring around the Hell Prince while branches grew out from the interior and grabbed his limbs, wings, and heads. The tree was so large that it had more than three times the flora biomass as the Amazon jungle.
With a roar, Lucifer opened up his next head and vomited up a waterfall of black sludge, pouring from between his jaws slowly like hot tar. The sludge poured down onto his restraints, instantly causing the wood to turn grey with death and deteriorate as if through hastened decomposition. Baltoh sighed in annoyance and Lucifer opened the jaws of his fourth head.
“Demon Art: Extinction Tombstone Summoning!” he bellowed, launching totems from his throat like a machine gun.
These totems were different from the Horror Obelisks and Inferno Abysses, with an Egyptian-style obelisk that towered at thirty feet in height, surrounded on all four sides by human skeletons frozen in a look of desperation as they reached for the top of the spire. Upon their landing, the obelisks all detonated into a vast mushroom cloud of fire, dwarfing the most powerful atomic explosion with their combined power. Baltoh was in the center of the burning hurricane with his arms crossed and a look of boredom on his face. Back at the Sea of Envy, everyone was watching the scene with looks of awe and fear, waiting for their savior to reveal himself.
“Celestial Art: Absolute Zero!”
The explosion came to a complete and utter halt as every atom within its perimeter sank to −459.67° F, the temperature in which matter loses the ability to move. All the expanding gasses and dust in the explosion were literally frozen in time. Baltoh ended the spell and all the matter in the explosion suddenly dissipated or fell back down to the ground like a sandstorm with the sudden loss of the wind, having been drained of all momentum and energy. Everyone on the coast looked at the screen raised his or her hands and cheered as Baltoh was revealed, completely unharmed.
‘Power absorption, transformation, summoning, poisonous acid, and energy blasts. If my theory is correct, the last two heads each have their own unique power.’
“Demon Art: Phantasm Nightmare!” Lucifer bellowed with his fifth head.
Shimmering like a hologram, Lucifer slowly dematerialized, completely disappearing. Even his siphoning of energy from the Masters of Torture and Titans came to an end. Baltoh scowled as the Hell Prince completely disappeared, not just from view, but from all other senses. He couldn’t hear him, smell him, feel his energy, or otherwise find any trace of his energy throughout Hell, Cinereo, or Heaven. Whatever it was, he was somehow masking himself from even Baltoh’s divine-level senses.
“Tenebrous, this ability is definitely his doing. Only another god could create a power to block my senses…”
“Right you are!” Lucifer howled as he reappeared behind Baltoh and snapped him up like a whale catching a fly. Everyone watching the battle gasped in horror, believing the battle to be over, but the Valkyries and Archangels all had confident smiles, knowing that Baltoh wouldn’t be caught dead losing to a pitiful attack.
“Celestial Art: Universal Plague!” Baltoh called out from inside Lucifer’s mouth.
A minute after the announcement of the spell, Lucifer released Baltoh and howled in pain. Everyone watching the screen of light back at the sea squinted to figure out what was going on and gained smiles of relief and joy as it became obvious. Lucifer was swinging his fifth head wildly as his teeth and flesh slowly melted away, being devoured and ripped apart by a green moss-like material. It was a flesh-eating virus Baltoh had created, one that had a particularly strong appetite for Demon flesh and Demon energy. With all the power in Lucifer’s body, he was the ultimate feast for the cellular creatures.
Sliding out from between the jaws of sixth head, Lucifer drew a long dagger-like blade of red and black steel and used it so sever the infected head before the virus could spread. Baltoh analyzed the sword closely, sensing its ability before it was even used.
“A sword that seals spirits with which it cuts, a very handy power when fighting Demons and Archangels. But I should warn you now, that blade will have no more affect on me than any of your other powers. I have transcended far past the point where I need or have a “spirit”.”
With a roar of frustration, Lucifer cast a spell of healing to repair his heads and then brought all seven together. With the heads forming a ring and each looking in the center, a sphere of red and black energy began to form, rumbling with instability. The Masters of Torture and Titans were struggling to breathe as they pumped every drop of energy they had into Lucifer while he charged the sphere. After only a few seconds, it was in a whole other league from the Apocalypse Eruption, great enough to possibly rip a hole between dimensions or cause the collapse of all of Hell.
“I grow tired of your feeble attempts to harm me. It is time that I moved on and got back to work.”
“I WILL ANNIHILATE YOU!” Lucifer screamed as the sphere reached critical mass.
“Please, the most powerful Hell Prince is no more a danger to me than the most powerful bacteria. Allow me to show you the true power of a god. Celestial Art: Galactic Judgment. Celestial Art: Universal Sculptor,” he said with a deep haunting voice as he raised his hand.
Up in the sky, a sphere of pure black matter materialized, as large as a mountain and more ominous than the scout of an approaching army. Everyone watching the battle, be it Crusader or Master of Torture, gazed at the sphere and gasped in disbelief as they realized what it was. Even Lucifer was filled with unparalleled awe and fear. It was a black hole; a literal orb of matter so dense and heavy that the atoms compacted within was done so in a way that went beyond human understanding. It was a beacon, the end of all reason and arguing. It was as absolute as it was foreboding. The only reason why it wasn’t causing the complete and total destruction of the planet from the inside out was that Baltoh was using the Universal Sculptor spell to shape the laws of physics themselves, allowing him to change or deactivate them however he wanted.
“I would hold on if I were you,” Baltoh said as he allowed the black hole’s gravitational pull to spill out in a small controlled release.
In a roar so loud that it was heard throughout all of Hell, every grain of sand within the black desert and every drop of the liquid flames in the Lake of Fire were pulled up towards the quantum singularity. Every grain of sand from every single human spirit that crumbled away within the dunes from all across time was pulled into the darkness and destroyed. Back at the coast, everyone cursed in disappointment as a cloud of surging black sand blocked his or her view like a TV buzzing with static. Reluctantly, Lucifer reabsorbed the power of his spell and distributed it back to himself and his followers, granting them the strength to cast shields strong enough to protect them from the gravitational pull.
After twenty minutes in which nobody moved, the last grains of sand and drops of liquid fire were absorbed, revealing the landscape below. There were massive temples and altars, adorned with bronze statues of Angels and Archangels. Radiating from the temples like ripples in a pond, towns of sandstone had been built, with coliseums, forums, theaters, and rows of houses from mansions to huts. It was an entire web of cities.
“Damn it, I can’t move,” Lucifer cursed, barely able to speak. He wasn’t the only one cursed; every Master of Torture and Titan was paralyzed by Baltoh’s spell.
“I didn’t want you moving around and interrupting my finale. Now, learn the true difference between our strengths and let regret be the final emotion that you experience as you die.” Baltoh said with a deep authoritative voice as he clapped his hands together.
Up above the desert devoid of sand, the black hole shattered into tens of billions of marbles, all made from the super-dense material. While altering their gravitational effects and nature, Baltoh spread out the marbles across the sky, holding them above the battlefield with each weighing as much as a whole star. With the laws of physics altered, Baltoh released the cloud of marbles down onto Lucifer and his minions. Falling like indestructible meteorites, the super-dense super-heavy marbles rained down without mercy, piercing the Hell Prince and each Demon uncountable times, each experiencing an execution like twenty loads of birdshot being fired simultaneously at pointblank range.
Lucifer, the Masters of Torture, and the Titans didn’t even have time to scream as their bodies were pierced tens of millions of times, each filled with more holes than a dish sponge. From the speed and power of the falling marbles, aerosolized Demon blood filled the air and flesh, muscle, and bone were shredded as if in a blender. Upon contact with the ground, a vast dust cloud was thrown up as the marbles drilled through the soil, bedrock, and endless layers of stone, using only their weight and momentum. The smoke eventually cleared, and not a single trace of Baltoh’s enemies could be found. In place of the battlefield, a massive pit had been carved into Hell, deepening every second as the blanket of black hole marbles basically burned through the land.
Baltoh was greeted with thunderous applause upon the return of his followers, all cheering and clapping from his legendary defeat of the Hell Prince and a small army of Titan-level Demons. The Crusaders were all jumping up and down like kids on a trampoline, the Archangels were clapping as loudly as possible (even Michael was clapping), and Selene, Molly, and Rosemary pounced on him as if desperate to fuck.
“Baltoh, that was amazing!” Molly exclaimed, truly beginning to see just how powerful Baltoh really was.
“Thank you, that means a lot. But the true challenge was staving off boredom,” he joked before pulling her close and giving her a long, passionate kiss.
“Baltoh, what is this place?” Selene asked, looking around at the network of Rome-like cities scattered across the city. Baltoh smile gained a sad tinge.
“These cities are remnants from the age before Tenebrous, when Hell was under the jurisdiction and control of Jehovah and Heaven. The Angels and Archangels lived here while they worked, punishing the sinners that were cast into this realm for their crimes. Originally, there were hundreds of these cities scattered across Hell, like the forts that dotted the Roman border walls that served as small towns for soldiers. These settlements were all inhabited before Tenebrous gained the Throne of Hell and took it over, turning it into a realm of Demons.”
“Well Master, with the Ash Fields and the Lake of Fire destroyed, at least you won’t see too many Demons and Gargoyles,” Rosemary mused, relighting Baltoh’s smile before he turned to his Crusaders.
“Crusaders! Soldiers! Listen to me!” he called, using his powers to increase the power of his voice so that everyone would hear him. The armored followers all became silent, eagerly awaiting the next order from their commander.
“I am proud of all of you, you have all helped me reclaim Hell in the name of light and justice. However, you cannot follow me past this point, as my next destination is the Dunes of Sloth. You are all to return to the Sea of Envy, the City of Wrath, the Burning Pastures and the rest of the Ash Fields, and continue freeing innocent souls. I know the next circle very well, and believe me when I say that it is better if I bring as few people as possible.” He commanded, drawing hushed muttering and frustration from his followers.
“This is not a lot to ask. While we have already moved through three circles of Hell, the area we’ve actually covered and the number of innocent souls is miniscule compared to the entirety of this planet. There is still a lot of work to be done in the areas we’ve crossed. If you truly wish to assist me in my journey, you will do as I say.”
Cursing in disappointment and frustration, the loyal Crusaders obeyed Baltoh’s orders and turned around, going back to do a second sweep of the crossed land. Baltoh then turned to Selene and the others. “How about we go exploring?”
Baltoh walked down the streets of the abandoned city, peering into the homes and buildings as he sampled the lost culture. Selene, Molly, Rosemary, Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel were the only ones with him, the rest of the Archangels having left with the Crusaders to help fight any Titans of Masters of Torture that might be encountered. They were closely following him, trying to figure out his true reasoning for sending away the abandoned armies. Stepping into an abandoned home, Baltoh picked up an Angel statue made of Hellsilver, several times older than he was. Everyone was watching him, wondering how he could be so carefree.
“Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, you should all be paying more attention to your surroundings. After all, contrary to what you’ve been told in Heaven, you are in the former habitation of your predecessors. Humanity is far older than you know, and the Archangels that came before you are the ones who were born because of them.”
“Couldn’t we just skip the next desert and keep going through Hell?” Molly asked.
“Unfortunately, no. Remember those laws that I said even I couldn’t break? One of them controls movement through Hell; you can only move from one circle by crossing through the others between you and your destination. Basically, as far as crossing over through the dimensions with Angel powers go, you can only jump back and forth between different areas of the circle that you left from. It’s why we had to actually enter Hell and why I didn’t just go straight to Tenebrous. And even worse, the Dunes of Sloth have even more rules; no teleportation at all, no flying or even jumping long distances, and no super-speed. The only way to cross the desert is on foot. As long as Tenebrous exists, so will those rules; they simply cannot be broken as long as we are on his turf,” Baltoh said as he placed the statue back down.
“So you’re saying that we have to walk across the entire circle?” Gabriel asked, already feeling his feet hurt.
“But that still doesn’t explain why we can’t take the Crusaders with us. If we are traveling on foot, why can’t they follow?” Selene inquired.
“Rosemary, I believe you can explain this,” Baltoh said as he read a sign placed on the side of the building, taking a second to decipher the strange dialect of Enochian.
“The Dunes of Sloth have another name, they are known as the Desert of the Lost. It’s a shifting sea of sand that can hide and reveal anything at any time. It also causes hallucinations. If we took our army in there, we would be lucky to come out with ten percent.”
“The Desert of the Lost is of a very unique classification of levels of Hell, in that the Hell Prince is the land itself. Belphegor, the Hell Prince of Sloth, is no longer a physical being. Instead, his spirit is fused with the Desert of the Lost, meaning that entering the area basically means entering his mind. He is no longer sentient, his mind moves far to slowly to form thoughts, but his energy and oppressive existence are still rich and powerful. The Demon and Gargoyle population in the desert is impossible to measure, as they can be swallowed by the sands and buried for centuries before finally resurfacing. Though there should be little to no chance of being attacked.”
Baltoh stood in a small cavern chamber, gazing with almost a sad look on his face. The walls were decorated with trinkets and artifacts, ranging from bronze goblets, daggers, and flint-lock pistols, to rings, flasks and watches, all ranging across time on Earth and each tens of thousands of Hell years old. They were resting in shelves hand-carved into the stone. Hanging from the ceiling like stalactites were strips of clothing, chainmail, and even armor. A hammock was strung up across the chamber, made from trees from the Isle of the Damned. The cave entrance looked out over the Desert of the Lost from a towering mountain spire in the very outskirts of the wasteland.
Her wings fluttering loudly, Selene landed by the cave entrance and stepped inside, looking around in amazement. “Is this your home?”
“Yes, whenever I grew weary of battle, I would come here to sleep. I picked this cave because the Dunes of Sloth are the last place anyone would dare look for me. Even Masters of Torture and Titans are afraid of forever becoming lost in the sands. But luckily, it’s just close enough to the Desert of Pride so that I can find it and leave it easily. Though that’s not to say to say I didn’t get lost occasionally,” he chuckled as he ran his fingers through the strips of fabric hanging from the ceiling.
Selene picked up an old pocket watch from one of the shelves carved into the wall. It looked so fragile ancient that she held it and touched it as if were made of sand. She gently and carefully opened it, gazing upon a picture of beautiful woman. The glass face of the watch was so cloudy and scratched that the hands and numbers were invisible and the picture was faded to such extent that Selene couldn’t even figure out the woman’s hair color. The woman looked more like a half-completed sketch.
“Are these really—“
“Yes, these my personal belongings. Or to be more accurate, they are the belongings of the people that I am made of. When people come to Hell, they bring everything they had on them at the time of their death. Knights, soldiers, cops, executioners, fathers, sons, brothers… Their combined spirits and wills created me. Ever since I was born, I’ve been searching every corner of Hell for their belongings, trying to understand who I am and who I was. I guess that my quest has prevented my nonstop Demon massacre from driving me insane.” Baltoh sighed as he sat down on the hammock, making it creek.
“Damn, it feels like it’s been years since I’ve been here. But considering the flow of time in Hell, I guess it has. It always surprises me when I come back from the human world and find this place still standing and undisturbed,” he said as he looked at the woven branches of the hammock, remembering the time and skill it took to make and flashing back to each individual part.
Selene had a warm smile on her face, getting a unique satisfaction at seeing Baltoh finally experiencing something as human as nostalgia. Walking over, she leaned down and kissed him.
“Come on baby, everyone’s waiting down below. We still have a job to do.”
With chains linking them together, the group of seven marched through the desert. Baltoh didn’t take any chances, he refused to risk losing anyone to the sands. The going was far slower than anyone had expected. Marching across sandy dunes is difficult, but unlike the dunes back on Earth, the towering hills of sand did not stay still. Rolling slowly but ceaselessly, the dunes rose and fell like waves on the choppy ocean, meaning that walking a straight line and staying balanced was impossible. Everyone gave the mental order for their armor to disappear, greatly lightening their weight and making the arduous trek easier, but it was still a cursed challenge.
It wasn’t long before Raphael became fed up with the impossible march and tried to fly. Ignoring what Baltoh had said earlier, he jumped into the air and began flapping his wings, but after rising five off he ground, he completely flipped over in the air and fell back into the sand. He came up sputtering in shock, wishing he had been wearing his airtight helm as he spat out a mouthful of sand.
“What the Hell happened?” he asked, getting back to his feet with his whole body shaking.
“As I explained earlier, flying is not permitted. Once you take off, you immediately flip over so that the ground becomes the sky. This desert is thick with reality-bending rules that not even I may break. I can’t even cast a spell because it will immediately disappear and reappear in the space around the planet. If I were to try and remove the desert with a black hole like I did before, it would appear in space above the Isle of the Damned and most likely devour the planet.” Baltoh said, demonstrating by creating a sphere of water in his hand, only for it to disappear in a lightless flash.
“So how are we supposed to get through this?” Molly asked.
“We must persevere. Be patient and don’t let your resolve to keep moving waver. If we keep walking, we will pass through this desert without any trouble. Don’t worry, I may not be able to cast any spells, but I am more than capable of guiding us across and out. Don’t worry, in this desert, time bends in ways that can never be predicted,” Baltoh reassured before continuing on, climbing up the back of a sand dune that was moving away from them like a slow-moving wave from a huge cargo ship.
The chain connecting them all suddenly jerked as Selene jumped back in fear and shock. Like a tsunami pulling back and exposing the ocean floor, the receding dune had lowered the sand level and exposed what was underneath it. There was a group of people, plastered with sandstone into unmoving statues with looks of miserable agony on their faces and their arms outstretched, as if desperate for help. Before they could be more closely studied, everyone was lifted up and the statues were buried as a new sand dune rolled in beneath their feet.
“Sorry, that just scared the crap out me.”
“What were they?” Rosemary asked.
“Damned souls, just like all the other people in Hell. The Desert of the Lost serves as the prison for four kinds of sinners; suicide victims that denied themselves life itself and wallowed in their pain, lazy worthless parasites that helped no one, cowards that allowed crimes and tragedies occur because they couldn’t overcome their own desire for self-preservation, and obsessive shut-ins that devoted their lives to one thing and shut out everyone and anything else. Their crime is simple: they denied themselves the world and chose to live in darkness. Now they are trapped in this desert, forever experiencing their pain from life in an endless cycle while their minds are forever bombarded by the mind-poisoning power of Belphegor.
Suicide victims and people who brought forth their own misery and sadness into their minds are played their lives over and over again beneath the sands, sloths and cowards are turned into statues while they suffer because they moved so rarely when they were alive or stood by and allowed tragedies to take place to protect themselves, and those who were obsessed in life and turned away from the world lose all their senses. They all suffer for their half-lived lives, all the while, Belphegor floods their minds and souls with misery, self-loathing, and hopelessness, like the opposite of an antidepressant. It is a terrible fate, one that truly stings my heart when I think about it. But we will not be able to help any of them until we defeat Tenebrous and remove him from power, so we must continue onward.
Everyone be careful, as your minds may very well become your worst enemies out here,” Baltoh explained as the statues revealed themselves once more before again being swallowed by the sandy sea.
For a completely immeasurable amount of time, the group marched onward through the desert, but the going never got easier. More time was spent waiting for a dune to pass beneath their feet than actually spent walking. As they delved deeper and deeper into desert, everyone but Baltoh began feeling the affects of Belphegor’s power seeping into their minds, causing each of them to experience nearly-crippling despair, ranging from mind-numbing fear to nauseating anxiety and traumatic flashbacks.
In the back, Michael was staring at Baltoh with contempt, filled with shame, anger, and jealousy. Baltoh had always been his sworn enemy, even when they fought together against the Demons. He thought he had finally let go of his hatred when he came to Hell, but now it was returning. He always believed he would surpass Baltoh and be the one to kill him, but the bastard was always stronger than him, wiping the floor with the Archangel in every fight, and now he was a god, spitting in the face of everything Michael stood for and believed in. The only thing greater than his hatred was his shame, shame that he allowed himself to fall so far and Baltoh tor rise so high. As his focus on Baltoh grew and grew, his sight began to blur and his hearing became muffled.
Next in line was Raphael, he too experiencing mental turmoil as he mulled over everything he had seen Baltoh do and heard him say. He had been right every time, shaking Raphael’s belief to its core. The fact that he had transcended to the Throne of Cinereo and could control both light and darkness as well as the power of the cosmos proved that there was a level of divine power that could be achieved, one in which the God he worshipped and obeyed had won instead of being born with. Then there were the cities that stood in the former Ash Fields, formerly inhabited by his predecessors when Hell was different. He had always been told that Jehovah created Heaven, Hell, and Earth and brought forth life. But now, here was Baltoh saying that Tenebrous, a deity of equal power to Jehovah, came later and managed to steal Hell from the Angels themselves. And Baltoh, not only could he create spirits like Jehovah and Tenebrous could create Archangels and Demons, but he could create actual life, giving entities two life times in existence. Was this why Angels and Archangels fell and became Gargoyles and Demons? Did they lose their faith in Jehovah because they new the truth that not even he had been told? Could he ever face Jehovah and live after everything he knew had been broken? As he pondered these questions, sand began to cling to his skin and clothes, slowly hardening like plaster.
Everyone fell as the sand dune beneath them gave way, revealing a crowd of people, entombed in stone with looks of misery on their faces as they reached upwards. With the ground lowering, everyone was basically dropped onto the rough jagged statues. Everyone but Baltoh winced as they landed on the sharp protruding statues, almost impaled by something which would normally not even be enough to cause harm. As another dune picked them up, everyone got back onto their feet and continued marching.
Ahead in the chain was Gabriel, shaking his head from side to side while he walked, feeling like his numerous piercings weighed ten pounds. In his mind, he began to ponder the possibility that he would not survive this journey through Hell, or even through this desert. He had seen Baltoh slaughter the Hell Princes like flies, he had seen armies of Crusaders rise up and free the innocent souls of Hell, and he had seen the impossible become common. But now a mere desert was making Baltoh, a real god in the flesh, practically powerless. They had made it so far through Hell, but now the true power of its darkness was being viewed. Here, they were in the belly of the beast, trying to face the god of darkness while literally walking through his greatest advantage.
‘It has to be a trap; Tenebrous must be luring us. There is no way it could be this easy. All he has to do is snap his fingers and create an army of Hell Princes to kill us while he and Baltoh fight in an unavoidable stalemate. Even now, we’re completely helpless against him! There is no way we can win, we never should have come here! We have to get out!’ he thought to himself, beginning the panic and completely unaware of the hard sandstone slowly forming on his clothes.
Next in line was Molly, who felt so sick that she almost expected to throw up. While she walked, her mind had begun to wander, and against her will, it strayed into a zone that she had forbidden herself to look into. Memories of her torture and death at the hands of the Demons back in New York were seeping into her subconscious like ink on white fabric. She had shed her mortal body and had one that held no scars of her torment, she had come to terms with what had happened to her as something that had no affect on her Angel body, and she had even been intimate and found love, yet she could not shake away a sickening feeling like it had just happened.
‘What the Hell is wrong with me? Why do I feel this way? I’m supposed to have moved on, but it all feels so fresh and recent. Maybe something really is wrong with me. I allowed myself to be used as a sex toy by Selene and Baltoh, I was turned into a fuck-slave by those monsters, and right after I die, the first thing I do to deal with getting raped is I go have sex again. Oh god, what the fuck is wrong with me?! I’m nothing but a desperate whore, getting used by everyone and doing nothing about it! I’m pathetic!’ she thought to herself, suddenly filled with self-loathing and depression as her mind began replaying her torment in vivid detail over and over again, all while her body moved like a puppet on strings.
Nearby, the rolling sand dune passed and revealed the skull of a Bleak, fully buried and still alive. Its red eyes glowing, the conglomerate of Sinners roared and managed to free his arm, desperately reaching out to try and grab them, only for it to be pulled back under the sandy tides. No one paid any attention to it, as it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
Connected to the chain and walking in front of Molly was Rosemary, struggling to move through the dunes while she kept her eyes fixated on Selene and Baltoh before her. Her heart felt like a cold stone in her chest, yet doubt and despair was pumping through her veins. Not too long ago, she had been intimate with the man she had always adored, but it was not how she had always expected it. Instead of a romantic bond of love, she gave into her deep, dark, shameful desires and he took advantage of her, fucking her like a desperate crack-whore or a kidnap victim with her so submissive and degenerative that she would have allowed a group of strangers to gang bang her on his slightest whim. Then, after that bond was made, he reduced her to one of his concubines, using her as just an ingredient in an orgy, where she threw herself and obeyed the women she envied and lusted for. She had given up everything she was for a man who would use her as one of his sexual playthings, and she would forever be too eager and willing to change it. She wasn’t his lover; she was his property.
With each step she took, these twisted lies were repeated in her mind. The desert was making her delusional and filling her with self-loathing and sorrow, and just like Molly, she was buying into it.
Between her and Baltoh, Selene was struggling with her own emotions. No matter how hard she tried to shake it off, she could not rid herself of her fear, fear of the future. She was only a few feet from Baltoh, yet she had never felt farther or more isolated. What would their relationship be like after this was all over? How long could it possibly last? Were their feelings for each other, strong as they were, as fleeting and fragile as her old human life? Had the openness she felt for orgies and letting him fuck other women been her subconscious trying to tell her that the way she felt wasn’t real? That their love was nothing more than sex wrapped in a thin veil of false emotions? Even if their love was strong, was it possible to go back to the way it had been before?
She had used to think that God loved humans and loved his Archangels, but after listening to Baltoh and hearing that God couldn’t care less and didn’t bother to get involved, she couldn’t help but wonder if that was the same fate she and Baltoh would share. Baltoh was now divine; he was an almighty deity. What hope did she have of being able to keep the interest of someone who could shape the universe itself? How could she keep the attention of someone who could create life and change reality? With such a vast difference between them, was there even a chance of maintaining their love, or would this be like a teenage girl trying to maintain a relationship with a boy who had just become the ruler of another country that she could never go to?
As she pondered these questions over and over, her body was flooded with desperation. She was so terrified of the prospect of the end of their relationship that her whole body was trembling and she could not keep tears from running down her cheeks. With her senses beginning to fade, she reached out to touch him, as if to figure out if he was really there or was just a mirage.
‘Baltoh, I don’t want to be without you. I can’t live without you in my life. You’re the only man I’ve ever loved; you’ve shown me more and made me happier than I ever dreamed. My entire world has been completely reshaped all because of you and my love for you. If we drift apart, then nothing will ever make me happy again. If we drift apart, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from taking my own—’ she was interrupted by Baltoh coming to a sudden stop. Everyone halted, wondering what was going on.
Without turning to them, he began to speak. “Michael, while our powers may not have been equal, you were my rival and I always respected you and what you stood for. I only wanted you to know the truth and I’m glad we can finally be friends, because your dedication was so much like mine that we could have been like brothers. I have always regretted that he had to be enemies instead of allies.
Raphael, even if your faith is lost, don’t lose yourself. Don’t give up because what you learn about the world, shape your own world around what you learn. Even if what you once believed is false, your mission, your duty, and your identity are as true as they’ve always been.
Gabriel, I swear to you that we will all get out of here. I will never leave anyone behind and I refuse to ever let anyone die again under my watch. If we are powerless, it is not because of this desert, but because we lost faith in ourselves. That is where true strength comes from; resolve and confidence.
Molly, you are far stronger than you give yourself credit. It is unheard of for an Angel to recover from scars in life as quickly as you did, meaning you truly have a spirit that always burns brightly. Do not be ashamed because you sought comfort in the form of intimacy, as that only means you were too strong to let your death slow you down and ruin your future. You truly are strong and it’s why I love you.
Rosemary, a day won’t go by where I won’t cherish you and be happy for the bond we share. I’m sorry that I couldn’t give you exactly what you wanted, but everything I did when we were together, I did because I thought it would satisfy you. You are important to me, and I will always keep you in my heart and love you. I love you, Rosemary. I know you’ve always wanted to hear me say those words, and I’m sorry I didn’t say them sooner.
And Selene…” he said before finally turning around with a warm smile. “Even with my godly powers, there is no way for me to properly express how much I love you and how I always will. I could take every star in the universe and write a poem in the sky, describing my devotion to you, but I would still consider it a failure to show you depth of my love. I could create a planet with life, solely for the purpose of allowing a species to evolve until it is able to make a sound so beautiful that I would use it to make a symphony to try and let you know how happy you make me, but it would never be good enough. Selene, I love you with all my heart, the heart that I have only because of you.”
The power of his words instantly took affect, eliminating all mental poison of the Desert of the Lost. The three Archangels all smiled and shook as they experienced a euphoric sense of a weight being lifted off their shoulders so great that they couldn’t remember the last time ever feeling anything to enlightening. Michael’s senses returned to their original sharpness and the slow-forming membranes of stone appearing on Gabriel and Raphael crumbled into sand. All three Valkyries were weeping with joy with Molly falling to her knees, Rosemary kneeling beside Baltoh and holding his hand against her forehead, and Selene hugging Baltoh as tightly as possible. With the weight of his speech, he had purged them all of the toxic influence of the Dunes of Sloth and rescued them from despair and madness.
“You were reading our minds the whole time?” She whispered in his ear with her face buried in his hood like an animal in its den.
“No, but I know you all well enough to tell when you are hurting. I figured saying the words you all needed to hear would be more helpful than any spell.” He said, wrapping one arm around her and holding her tightly with Rosemary below, nuzzling his hand like an affectionate cat.
With their spirits revitalized and protected by Baltoh’s words, everyone followed him with renewed vigor. They were going to get out of the desert, they were going to defeat Tenebrous, and everything would be fine. With Baltoh leading them, they could not fail. As they walked through the desert, they encountered more and more hidden dangers and secrets beneath the sands. Dunes would roll aside to reveal cocooned spirits with expressions of agony, Demons and Bleaks that would surface for only a second and try to attack before just being swallowed back up by the sands. On their journey, they even encountered wanderers of the desert.
The damned souls were few and far between, but they all had similar rags for clothes that covered their bodies and almost all carried some kind of walking stick. They paid absolutely no attention to Baltoh and the others, even as they were called out to.
“They are known as the Lost Ones. These are the souls who wasted their lives in selfish and fruitless obsession, shutting themselves off from the world. For their sin, they lose all senses, and because of it, they are often the first ones to go insane. I’m not sure if they can even be saved at this point, as they aren’t too far away from just crumbling into dust. Don’t bother trying to communicate with them, as we are naught but ghosts in their world,” Baltoh said as a man wrapped head to toe in rags to protect himself from the sand walked past them, completely unaware of their existence.
“Baltoh, look ahead, I think we have trouble,” Raphael said, pointing to the horizon where a cloud of sand and dust was moving towards them and growing in size and elevation.
“Damn it, that is really going to slow us down.”
Forsaking easy movement for protection, the Archangels and Valkyries returned to their armored forms, using the suits to keep the wind and sand from blasting them. While the going was slow before, everyone now ducking in the wind as they tried to walk through the splashing waves of sand had now brought it to a crawl. Even Baltoh had to shield his eyes and face from the sand, unable to do anything to stop it in the desert. He had to play by Tenebrous’ rules while in Hell, and that meant enduring through the Dunes of Sloth. Visibility was almost nonexistent and keeping steady footing was next to impossible. In just a few minutes, everyone was basically walking in their own sandy world, only with the chain between them letting them know that they were not alone.
“Everyone hang on!” Baltoh shouted from deep in the cloud of sand.
Everyone looked around wildly, trying to figure out where the voice had come from and what he was talking about. Suddenly, the wind died down and everyone looked up, gasping in horror. A sand dune, as large as a hospital, was rolling towards them like a tidal wave and blocking the wind.
“Everyone hang on!” Baltoh shouted again, moments before the dune fell and enveloped them.
Being tossed through the tides like a surfer in a hurricane, everyone held onto the chain for dear life. Baltoh had made it so that only he could break it, but in this storm, there was no telling what could happen. Wrapped in a membrane of air that kept the sand at bay, Baltoh’s blood ran cold as he sensed a very dark presence nearby. Something was there with them, something with a power darker than anything else he had ever sensed. For the first time since becoming a god, Baltoh felt fear in his heart, as the chain around his waist suddenly became slack. The chain had been broken!
“Selene!” he shouted as he reached blinding through the sand, grasping her hand.
She held on desperately with terror radiating from them both, but even against all of Baltoh’s strength, her hand slipped out of his and they were pulled apart. With the laws of Tenebrous siphoning whatever power he built up, Baltoh could do nothing as he sank deeper and deeper into the desert but worry about Selene and his friends.
Without warning, the sand around him disappeared and he fell into open space, as if he had been swimming in the ocean and was suddenly jettisoned into the air. Baltoh looked down and his eyes widened as he gazed across a completely full-sized galaxy, red as blood with everything from stars to planets, all inhabited solely by Demons, Gargoyles, Titans, and Masters of Torture. Compared to this galaxy, the population in Hell was little more than a tiny spit of the population, like comparing a small bacteria culture to all the life on Earth. Even though it was an actual galaxy, the space around Baltoh contained air, allowing for breathing and sound to be carried.
Moving so fast that he made light particles look like half-dead snails, he flew towards the center of the galaxy, knowing who was waiting for him. Sailing across the cosmos in seconds, he came to the absolute heart of the galaxy; a fiery whirlpool as wide in diameter as an entire solar system, and hovering over the center was a black throne, made from human and Demon bones. Sitting in it was a monstrous being, the King of Hell, Tenebrous.
The god of darkness had a somewhat similar build to all Demons, but was mostly unique. Instead of grayish black, his skin was a deep bloody red and he was far more muscular than any Demon or Gargoyle, with black spikes running up his legs and forearms. He had three sets of horns, two like a goat’s that curled around his ears and pointed forward past his lower jaw, two like a bull’s that extended from his temples, and two that curved back over his cranium almost aerodynamically like Baltoh’s old horns, and above them hovered a crown of Hellfire. Instead of wings, he had a cape that grew out of his lower back and reached upwards past his head with five bony ridges keeping it rigid. It almost looked like he was sitting in the palm of a huge webbed hand. His eyes were jet-black with fiery irises, he had slit-like nostrils instead of a humanoid nose, and his abnormally large lower jaw had three spike-like tusks protruding from his chin. He stood at about eight feet in height, practically a rodent or insect when compared to the Titans or Hell Princes, but his power was truly incomprehensible to anyone who wasn’t on the same level.
“I’ve been waiting for this day longer than you could possibly imagine, the day in which I would finally battle someone as powerful as I. Welcome, Baltoh, welcome to your doom.” His words literally carried so much weight that anyone of Archangel level or lower would be killed upon hearing them. Tenebrous stood up, holding his arms out to his sides. “Behold! The armies of Hell, hand crafted by yours truly! Once I defeat you and claim your powers, I will disembark from Hell and use this galaxy of followers to conquer all of Cinereo, and then, Heaven itself!”
“What did you do with my friends?” Baltoh growled.
“Oh, I grew tired of letting you run around my domain and destroy everything I have worked to build. I decided to just bring to me so that we could fight this battle once and for all. Your friends are being taken care of by minions, and if you want them to survive, I suggest you try and beat me as quickly as you can,” Tenebrous taunted as he held out his hand and materialized a six-foot claymore sword of red and black metal, the same kind of metal that Lucifer’s sealing blade was made of. “Now let the ultimate battle begin!” he laughed as the pounced on Baltoh for a diagonal chop to the neck.
Baltoh quickly drew his own sword and raised it to defend.
“Ha! You’re a major disappointment if you think you can fight me with a sword of Hellsteel!” the Demon laughed as he swung his sword.
There was a bright flash as their swords met, shining for a few seconds before fading. As the light receded, Tenebrous and Baltoh were revealed, standing with their backs to each other and thirty feet of space between them. Almost the entire blade of Tenebrous’ sword was gone and the Demon King had a huge cut going through his chest, carving through the left side of his ribcage and tearing through his lung, almost nicking his heart.
Baltoh swung his sword with the air and light bending around the jet-black blade. “And you’re a major disappointment if you think I would fight you with a sword of Hellsteel. This sword is made from the matter of a black hole and has the same density and weight of one. Whenever something touches the blade, its gravitational pull is briefly activated, ripping apart whatever touched at the subatomic level. For the transient moment, it is able to absorb light itself, meaning that it is more than capable of breaking through and devouring any defense weaker than itself. Now, draw your real sword and fight me!” Baltoh roared as he turned to the true Demon King, still sitting in his black throne.
The Tenebrous he had just fought was merely an illusion, disappearing as the real Tenebrous revealed himself, applauding mockingly. “Very good, Baltoh, very good. It seems that you truly are worthy of fighting me. Very well, I shall answer your request and face you; no illusions, no laws, just raw power.” Appearing in his hand, another claymore appeared, this one with a blade of condensed Hellfire, almost like the compacted flames of a star. “Now let the battle of the gods truly commence!” he laughed as he and Baltoh leapt towards each other and locked swords.
Selene’s bright green eyes opened and she groaned in soreness, feeling like a shoe that had been tossed in a dryer. Without moving, she looked around through the visor of her helm, but could not discern any of her surroundings, as the glass was covered with some sort of gooey substance. While her whole body ached, she managed to lift her hand and wipe off most of the slime. Blinking to clear her vision, she looked around at her surroundings and gagged in revulsion. She was inside some sort of carven with the walls, floor, and ceiling made of slimy flesh. She looked down both directions of the corridor, barely able to see in the darkness.
Wincing in pain, she slowly got to her feet, glad she was wearing her airtight armor as she realized that her whole body was covered in the mucus-like slime of the fleshy cave. However, her hair was hanging out of the back of her helm and it had turned to rope from the slime. Trying to stay on her feet, she raised her energy levels, burning away the slime and returning her armor to its original shine.
“Baltoh!” she shouted, hoping that she was not alone. Her voice echoed through the cavern but tauntingly bounced back. “Where the fuck am I?” She asked, if only to get some balance through the sound of her own voice.
“You are in the belly of Baal,” a wispy voice murmured, making her jump. She turned around, looking at the fleshy inflated walls for the source of the voice.
“In here…” the voice whispered as a small tremor shook of the folds of the wall.
Cringing in disgust, Selene slowly walked over and spread two of the folds, revealing a frail emaciated man, covered in insect-like Gargoyles that were busy peeling off his skin with their pincer-like jaws. He stared at her with a gaunt look on his face and blood oozing from his wounds that the Gargoyles were causing through their feast.
“You are in the Circle of Gluttony, where those who lived to eat instead of eating to live suffer until the end of time inside the Hell Prince himself. You have been devoured.”
“Oh my god, you poor man,” Selene worriedly exclaimed as she brushed off the parasites and tried to pull him out. She wrapped her arms around the frail main and tried to pull him free of the fleshy prison, but his limbs almost appeared to have fused with the walls. She gave another pull, but quickly stopped at the sound of his arm breaking like a twig. “Oh shit, I am so sorry,” she stammered, even though the man didn’t seem to notice.
“It doesn’t matter, I’ve been here for what has felt like five thousand years, endlessly getting digested and healed over and over again, forced to feel my body get peeled away by those tiny bugs and the strength pulled from my body by Baal. There is nothing that can hurt me after what I’ve experienced.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be free soon. My boyfriend is going to kill Tenebrous and release all the innocent souls. But I need to know, have you seen anyone in here with armor like mine?”
“A man wandered by, but his armor was white. He went that way just a few minutes ago before you landed.”
“One of the Archangels. Ok, thank you,” Selene said before running off.
Sprinting down the fleshy hallway to the sound of her clinking armor, Selene had her power levels raised to illuminate her path, knowing that there could be danger around every corner. She felt like the camera of a colonoscopy. The walls around her were filled with former gluttons, all locked within the wet folds and in different stages of their umpteenth digestion.
“Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, are any of you down here?! Can any of you hear me?!” she shouted, knowing that one of them had to be nearby.
Leaping over a pit in the floor, she heard a scratching-clicking sound and looked down. Swarming up from the darkness like a geyser was a swarm of the parasitic Gargoyles, ravenous and eager.
“Celestial Art: Tongue Of White Flames!” she shouted before pointing her hands down into the pit and launching a deluge of fire almost as hot as the surface of the sun. “Let’s see how Baal likes a little heartburn!” she said to herself with a smile as she listened the screams and pops of the bug-sized Gargoyles.
Certain that they were all dead, she ended the spell and looked down into the pit to see the damage she had caused. While not even ash remained from the parasites, the interior of the fleshy tunnel didn’t even have a single burn mark.
“No, that’s not possible!”
An echoing roar and sudden closing of the walls countered her disbelief. Moving towards her like a collapsing mine shaft, the corridor ahead began to close in on itself, threatening to grab her once it reached her position. All the people trapped in the folds of the wall moaned in pain from the sudden movement. Hoping for different results, Selene aimed her hand at the tightening tunnel. “Celestial Art: Lightning Obliteration!”
Momentarily shielding her eyes from the light, she fired a massive beam of electricity, hoping to blow the tunnel back open. The closing tunnel merely devoured the lightning, swallowing it whole like starving man stuffing his face. No damage had been done; her attack was a failure. Cursing the situation, she jumped down into the pit she had just filled with fire, sliding down it like a child in a slide. After falling a hundred feet, she was tossed out into a new chamber and on a bank along the side of a pool of gastric acid, as large as a pond. With the sound of movement echoing from the shaft behind her, Selene cursed and leapt across the green bubbling pool.
Hissing as they shot forward, pulsating tendrils reached out and grabbed her in midair, melting her armor with the wet membrane of acid that covered them. With whiplashing speed, they pulled Selene down into the pool and the gastric acid consumed her. Beneath the surface, Selene once again mentally thanked Baltoh for making the suit airtight, but she could already feel the disgusting liquid burning through and melting the outer layers and her hair had already been disintegrated.
Drawing forth her blade into materialization, she reached around and severed the tentacles and gave a large flap of her wings, propelling herself out of the pool. Having landed on the other side with her armor now looking like a melting wax sculpture, she quickly clapped her hands together and cast a healing spell. “Celestial Art: Time Replenish!”
Through a small form of time alteration, she began to mend her armor, returning it to its original state, and even regrow her onyx hair. It was very similar to the repairing barrier that the Angels used in times of exorcism.
A loud scuttling sound drew her attention and she raised her head with a curse. Crawling out of the folds of the fleshy walls were billions of the worms and spidery parasites that Selene had seen before, all ravenous and bold.
“Angel Art: Holy Burn!”
Shining brighter than a stage light, a deluge of golden flames surged down from the next corridor, forcing Selene to cover her eyes and shield herself with her wings. The holy flames filled the chamber like a flood, incinerating the parasites but leaving Selene unharmed. As the smoke cleared, Selene opened her wings and looked at the caster. It was Michael, having finally arrived.
“Damn, am I glad to see you,” Selene said as he helped her to her feet.
“I’ve been wandering around looking for any familiar faces, trust me, I’m glad I found you.”
“We need to get out of here and regroup with the others, if not to find Baltoh then to at least avoid digestion.”
“It won’t be easy. Baal’s body is basically one giant network of stomachs and the interiors are almost completely immune to damage. My spells and sword just slide off like oil on water.”
“Well if we can’t blast our way out, then we’ll just have to find a real exit, as unpleasant as that will be.”
A colossal volcano stood in the background, larger than Mt. Everest and continuously spewing forth smoke and pure molten gold instead of magma. Castles and dungeons had been built into the side of the volcano with damned souls streaming in and out, either going in to receive their punishment or coming out with gold bricks tied to their bodies with barbed wire, weighing them down to the point where they could barely move and lacerating their flesh. For over a hundred miles, the land surrounding the volcano was overflowing with mountains of personal possessions, taken from those condemned to the Circle of Greed.
Much like those found in Baltoh’s old home, the artifacts stretched from across time, including objects such as Persian coins, silver jewelry, and bricks of dollar bills. Forming a ring around the junkyard was a chain of pits, leading to the veins of molten gold beneath the land. There, the damned souls would toss their glossy weights back into the fire and march back to the mountain to retrieve it in a solid form so that the process could be repeated. Beyond the ring of fiery pits was a barrier of mountains, literally making it a circle of Hell.
In this world, there were four kinds of punishments: you either carried the gold to the pits where they would be melted back down and flow back to the volcano while barbed wire cut through your muscles like a hot knife through butter, you would labor in the volcano to make the gold bricks where the air was hot enough for flesh to melt off the bones, you were thrown down into the pits where you were boiled in molten gold with your body always regenerating, or you were in the junkyard, buried beneath the piles of trinkets or precious metals, forever feeling your bones shatter and your organs collapse as you were crushed over and over again without reprieve.
Molly and Gabriel were hiding in the junkyards, knowing that getting caught now would mean certain death if it drew the Hell Prince to them. There was little chance for survival against Mammon, Prince of Greed.
“So where do we go?” Molly asked, looking around to make sure that they weren’t being watched. But with how many Demons and Gargoyles there were swarming around and tormenting the damned souls, that was a lot to ask for.
“I figure we just make for the border and hope we can leave unnoticed. From there, it’s all a matter of trying to find our bearings. But I know nothing for sure, as I have never been to Hell. I’ve only studied it. For all we know, this might be the very outskirts of the true circle.”
“Intruders!” a Demon howled pointing down at them from atop of hill of ripped clothes.
With a roar, Molly pointed her hand at the Demon and launched a blast of lightning, but the creature dodged the blast and returned with a Dark Pulse, all the while alerting every demonic entity in the area of their presence. Spinning around, Gabriel kicked the blast, causing it to bend and change direction midstream.
“Demon Art: Debt Retrieval!”
Bursting from the ground, a skeletal hand reached up and grabbed Gabriel, but Molly wasn’t around to be grabbed. The Demon looked around, trying to figure out where she had gone. Before he could even realize he was in her shadow, she decapitated it from behind with a swing of her arm. As his tar-like blood splashed the ground, the roars of his comrades could be heard as they approached. Filling the sky, Demons and Gargoyles swarmed around Molly and Gabriel.
“Come on, we have to make for the border!” Molly said as he flapped her wings.
Flying low to the ground, the two fighters swerved between the mountains of junk with the forces of Hell firing beams of energy down to try and hit them. Each missed beam would cause a dynamic explosion, throwing artifacts and trapped souls into the air like specks of dirt. As they glided at top speed, a skeletal hand burst from the ground and grabbed Molly’s ankle. The Sinner was not nearly strong enough to overcome her strength and his arm popped right off, but the sudden jerk was enough to destabilize Molly and send her rolling across the ground.
“Molly!” Gabriel shouted as he slowed down, having shot past her.
Molly looked up and her eyes widened as a building-sized pile of gold bricks was directly hit with a Dark Pulse, sending them flying like shrapnel and causing the pile to lean over and form an avalanche of crushing metal. Normal gold could never hurt Molly in her normal form, but this being Hellgold, it was heavier, it could break bones, and she could not become intangible and pass through it.
“Celestial Art: Tornado Scythe!” she called, creating her cleaver.
Swinging it like a giant fan, she created a powerful gale force wind, more powerful than any Earth storm. The powerful wind and the blades of energy it carried repelled the bricks of gold, hurling them back at the monsters in the air. The beasts were knocked out of the sky, many due to broken bones and a few from getting melon-sized holes blasted in their chests. With another flap of her wings, she launched herself forward, gliding above the ground and catching up with Gabriel.
A thunderous roar pushed aside Molly’s acquired self-confidence as a literal mountain of old possessions erupted like a landmine, revealing a creature underneath. She was a Titan in the form of a colossal turtle with armored legs, neck, and face and fortress on her back, brimming with cannons. Glaring at them through the junkyard with her red glowing eyes, the turtle swiveled her cannons in their direction and began firing Dark Pulses, tossing the fighters through the air with the explosions alone.
“We have to outrun it. If we can get out of its range, then it can’t hurt us,” Gabriel winced, having been thrown through the air by an explosion and landed roughly on a pile of old watches.
“Fine, but we have to stay low to the ground. If we go up above the piles, that thing will shoot us out of the sky,” Molly said as she picked up a purple rubber strap-on, having obviously been worn by a woman in a tragic sex-related death. ‘I need to get one of these when I get back to Earth. I bet Selene and Rosemary would get a kick out of this thing,’ she thought with a lecherous smile.
Once again flying low to the ground, Molly and Gabriel zoomed through the junkyard like rats through a maze, with the turtle quickly losing sight of them and firing randomly in all directions.
“It worked!” Molly laughed.
“Demon Art: Shade Shimmer!” the turtle bellowed. Instantly leaving a path of destruction through the junkyard, she caught up to Molly and Gabriel with the speed of a bullet.
“Oh shit! Celestial Art: Sonic Sprint!” Molly swore.
“Angel Art: Crusading Canter!” Gabriel shouted in turn.
Moving so fast that they were invisible, Molly and Gabriel shot past the turtle. Turning around, the turtle reactivated the spell and chased after them, leaving another path of destruction in her wake. Moving through the junkyard at hyper speed, the turtle took aim with her cannons and hit them both with a direct barrage of Dark Pulses, nearly knocking them unconscious as they crashed into the ground with smoking armor like a pair of racecars.
“I have an idea, split up! I need you to distract it while I attack her underside!” Molly panted, struggling to stay awake as she used a spell to repair her broken visor.
“I’m on it!” Michael countered, shooting up into the air and flying around the turtle like a fly, blasting her with Divinity Rays.
The beams of light caused massive amounts of devastation to the fortress on the turtle’s back, each impact equal to the crash and explosion of a propane truck. But regardless of the damage inflicted, the fortress would repair itself like flesh through a healing spell, insuring that the cannons were always operational. While Gabriel distracted the beast, Molly went to work on the less-armored underbelly.
“Celestial Art: Star Birth! Celestial Art: Null Gravity!”
She fired the small sphere of red light as the second spell took affect, making the turtle weightless. In a fiery flash, a miniature fusion reaction erupted underneath the turtle, throwing her into the air, snarling in pain. “You bitch!” She howled as she flipped through the air.
“Gabriel, finish her!”
“Angel Art: Divine Smite!” Gabriel called out, plunging down towards the flipped turtle with his sword in hand.
Stabbing the turtle in the very center of his under-armor, he forced her down into the ground with more power than a plane crash and instantly shattered every bone and plate in her body. Blood and guts sprayed in all directions as the turtle was ripped open like a bloated carcass, sending blades of bone through the air that were as strong and sharp as metal.
“Damn, she was tough,” Molly muttered as she walked over to Gabriel.
“Yes, but not tough enough. Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said, sheathing his sword.
No sooner had the flaming sword been sealed before Molly and Gabriel were both brought to their knees by a dark energy on the air, making their limbs feel like dumbbells. The aura was partnered with a loud monstrous roar, signaling one thing; they were now at the mercy of Mammon, Hell Prince of Greed.
Rosemary’s eyes slowly opened as she was brought back to consciousness. She looked around, trying to figure out where she was. She was suspended on the wall of a medium-sized dungeon, though it looked more like a Medieval queen’s bedroom. A bed with hanging curtains sat in the corner, with a hot tub bubbling on the other side of the room. The floor had lush carpeting and the walls were decorated with paintings and statues of naked figures, many in the middle of intimacy. There were no doors or windows in the room and no visible source of light other than the hot tub, which was casting swirling hues of illumination across the dim room.
She didn’t know if it was the kiss of the air or the bite of the metal shackles, but Rosemary quickly realized that she was completely naked. She tried to draw on her powers to recover her armor or break her binds, but she could not muster up the strength. She was not tired or sleepy, but her body was just devoid of energy.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in my domain,” a woman purred, suddenly appearing in front of Rosemary when she blinked. Aside from her black hair and grayish skin tone, the woman looked exactly like Rosemary; same body, same height, same face, same everything. She too was completely naked, standing two feet below Rosemary.
“Where am I? What circle am I in?” Rosemary mumbled, wincing from the line that was being worn into her neck by her metal collar.
“The Circle of Lust,” the woman answered as she leaned forward and blew on Rosemary’s tits, tickling her nipples to full points with her breath. Rosemary shivered at the suddenly spark of arousal at the teasing of her exposed body. She tried to sharpen her mind, needing to regain control and figure out a way to free herself.
“Are you the Hell Prince? Are you Asmodeus?”
“Yes, I am the ruler of this land, but “Prince” is just a silly moniker. I have no gender or body other than the one I want, and I decided that I like your body; this sweet innocent body,” she said coyly before running her tongue up Rosemary’s flat belly, working the tip in her naval before come up and planting a kiss on the center of her chest.
Rosemary’s breathing became quick and shallow as she tried to suppress the powerful rush of arousal and horniness that swept through her. The sensual touch of this stranger’s tongue against her vulnerable naked body… it was mind-jarring.
“Tenebrous asked me to take extra special care of you, so I decided that since you are an extra special guest, I would show that Hell isn’t only about pain and torture. You can also bask in endless pleasure,” she said seductively as she kissed the side of Rosemary’s adolescent breast.
Rosemary turned away, trying to fight her own desires. “No, let me go. I have to get back to Master Baltoh. I have to—” she whined before being cut off and giving a soft moan.
Asmodeus had inserted her finger into Rosemary’s pussy, swirling it between the soft lips. Rosemary could feel something different from this touch, like the woman’s finger carried an electric charge. It was as if she were working a novelty shock toy in her pussy, making it next to impossible to suppress her pleasure.
“This is Lust Lightning, the power which I use to electrocute the damned souls here. But this is a special gift for you, you’ll experience pleasure that will mock your wildest fantasies,” Asmodeus whispered as she moved between Rosemary’s perky breasts, sucking playfully on her nipples and scrubbing the peach flesh with her tongue.
Rosemary’s whole body was blushing red and every breath carried the softest moan as she desperately tried to suppress her arousal and keep her dignity, but as she had learned with Baltoh, she cast aside all her dignity once her clothes were gone. With her limbs secured to the cold stone wall and the metal shackles biting her flesh and keeping her from being able to resist Asmodeus, Rosemary’s original defiance was being replaced with her sexually submissive alter-ego. In just a few minutes, her thighs were damp with the wetness from her moistening pussy and she was crying in shame, having given her body and mind to Baltoh and now being used by this ruler of Demons… and loving it. On the other end, Asmodeus had worked three fingers into Rosemary’s cunt and was fucking her furiously while licking off the tears that the Valkyrie dripped onto her breasts.
“Don’t worry, baby, you’re my property now. Once you have your orgasm, your soul will belong to me,” Asmodeus whispered before kneeling down.
“No, please… I can’t take it,” Rosemary whimpered as she tried to keep her smooth legs pressed together, but unable to overpower her restraints.
Ignoring her whimpers, Asmodeus spread her legs and blew on the wet lips of Rosemary’s pussy. Stretching like Baltoh’s, Asmodeus extended her long serpent-like tongue, gently prodding Rosemary’s snatch with the quivering tendrils. Rosemary struggled not to react to the burning pleasure between her legs, but small cracks of violet light were popping around Asmodeus’ tongue as she used low shocks of Lust Lightning to tease and excite her.
Kissing it as if it were the mouth of her lover, Asmodeus locked her lips with the lips of Rosemary’s dripping pussy, hungrily drinking in her juices. Stimulating her clit with her lips and flexing her long wet tongue inside the velvet interior, Asmodeus pleasured her with the skill of a master, making it next to impossible to deny her. What Rosemary didn’t know was that Raphael was outside Asmodeus’ castle, fighting through hordes of Demons.
The Archangel had seen the “Prince” of Lust snatch the unconscious Valkyrie and take her to the highest tower of her castle, but while he knew where she was, she was far from rescued. He was standing at the gates of her mountain-sized black castle, deep in the rocky crags of Hell. The castle was split into three towers that pierced the black roaring clouds and made the skyscrapers on Earth look like two-story huts. It was made from the petrified bodies of naked men and women and along with being formed and placed to provide structure for the castle, they were also arranged in complicated positions like frozen dancers, reenacting scenes of intercourse, ranging from lovemaking to rape.
The two lower towers where phallic shaped, and between the trio of spires, ear-splitting cracks of violet electricity would arch across the stormy sky like the machines of the Frankenstein story. Lust Lightning surged through the towers in repetition, crawling up through the corridors and causing the windows to glow like lights. The constant shock brought forth screams of agony from all the people used like bricks to make the statue, experiencing a lethal electrocution several times each minute.
Unlike the rest of Hell, the gender distribution of the Demons was equal, with both male and female beasts coming out to fight him. The rest were in the castle dungeons, raping the spirits that had not been used to make the structure. Women were raped to the point where humans would die, forced to experience the pain and humiliation of endless Demons all taking turns on them, tearing them to pieces from the inside out with their barbed cocks and feeling the acid sting as jets of cum were sprayed into their bleeding mangle bodies and onto their naked flesh. Often, their breasts or ass cheeks were devoured or the woman would be forced to eat the butchered pieces of her own body.
Men suffered a similarly cruel fate, being secured in Iron Maiden-style cages that had tails piercing their limbs and torsos, as well as a length of barbed wire holding out their tongues. The only parts of their bodies that weren’t covered by the cage bars were their laps, where their penises had been forced to take full erections by the power of a rigidity spell. Unable to move or protect themselves, they were helpless as the female Demons used them as pleasure slaves. However, like their male counterparts, the genitalia of the female Demons were more harmful than any human or animals’. Their pussies were like meat grinders, with the interior walls lined with ridges and blades as hard and sharp as glass. Insertion was agonizing, but pulling out was enough to carve away the flesh of a man’s member like a dowel on a lathe, but with a lot more blood and mutilation, only for their wounds to be healed. As the she-beasts forced them to mate like breeding bulls, the men would howl as their cages shocked them almost endlessly with Lust Lightning.
Firing Spears of Destiny from his hands to slay the Demons as he fought his way to the gate, Raphael kept his eyes fixed on the top of the highest tower, knowing that Rosemary was in extreme danger.
“Hang on Rosemary, I’m coming!” He shouted as he swung his sword and beheaded a she-beast.
Up in Asmodeus’ bedchamber, Rosemary too was coming. Against her will and determination, her body had given in to Asmodeus’ skills and achieved an orgasm. The shape-shifter smiled and opened her mouth, drinking in the juices that sprayed from Rosemary’s pussy like a hose. As Rosemary achieved her orgasm, her eyes began to fade in color as she entered a trance-like state. The ritual was taking affect, her soul was being absorbed by Asmodeus.
“Now, let’s see what pleasure lie deep within the shadows of your mind,” Asmodeus said with a smile as she kissed the comatose Rosemary on the lips.
Rosemary slowly opened her eyes, unsure of the first sensation that greeted her. Was it the soreness in her back and joints from her hunched-over position on all fours, the dripping of her saliva off the rubber gag in her mouth, or the feeling of the cold floor and shackles against her wrists and ankles and the metal collar around her neck? Her mind was a fuzzy blank and her body felt like it was covered in a hot wet carpet. She wasn’t sure what the last thing she remembered was and her senses were fluctuating randomly as her grogginess slowly faded.
As her eyes and muscles began to regain their sharpness, she tried to push herself up but could not move her hands or feet away from the floor. She was shackled in place on all fours. Seeing how far she could stretch, she pushed herself and looked around. She was in a pool of light on a cold tile floor. Sitting in the darkness was a crowd of people, forming a ring around her with their faces hidden, all staring at her. Rosemary tried to draw forth her wings or armor, but neither appeared, regardless of how hard she focused. Becoming frustrated, she pulled fruitlessly on her shackles, knowing that she couldn’t break them but knowing she had to at least try. Her efforts brought chuckles of amusement from the men and women watching her, making Rosemary blush in humiliation at the way they mocked her and stared at her naked body.
The clacking of high heels drew her attention and a woman came into view from behind her. She looked up at Selene, who was dressed up almost like a lawyer or secretary with a black skirt, a gray suit jacket, and a pair of glasses resting on her nose with her hair in a bun. Her face showed a mix of seriousness and boredom on her face as she flexed a riding crop in her hands. Rosemary tried to speak to her, to call out Selene’s name, but her gag muffled every word.
At the sound of her mumbling, Selene solidly tapped her on the cheek with the end of the crop. “Silence,” she said before walking behind Rosemary.
‘What is going on? How did I get here? Why is my memory a complete blank?’ Rosemary pondered, having no idea what had happened.
She then shivered as the leather flap at the end of the riding crop was dragged across her back to the sound of Selene’s high heels clicking on the floor. Rosemary looked around, trying to see her or at least the people watching the spectacle.
“Spread your legs,” Selene ordered.
Rosemary disobeyed, still confused as to what exactly was going on. Her defiance brought her a hard smack on the ass with the whip, sending the glorious sound echoing through the room. Rosemary yelped as a stinging welt appeared on her left ass cheek, but the pain sent a euphoric rush through her body.
“Spread your legs,” Selene repeated.
Rosemary did as she was told, spreading her knees as far as she could and putting her pussy on display. She shivered in arousal as she felt the leather whip slide across her inner thighs and brush against the lips of her pussy. Selene then smacked her again on the ass, drawing another yelp from Rosemary and sending her excitement skyrocketing.
“You’ve been a bad girl, and now everyone gets to watch as you get put in her place,” Selene murmured as she gave another gentle but loud smack, causing the smooth skin on her peachy ass cheeks to gain a slight swell.
Hearing her words and feeling the strangers’ eyes boring on her exposed body filled Rosemary with both embarrassment and arousal as her submissive side began to reveal itself, wanting to be sexually humiliated and degraded. Selene began smacking Rosemary’s ass with soft yet stinging strikes, making her shiver in pleasure as she was disciplined for an offense she had no knowledge of. By the time Selene was done, Rosemary’s ass was red with transient welts and she was shaking like a leaf, desperate for more punishment.
Selene walked back into Rosemary’s view, making her eyes as wide as dinner plates. The light was shining off Selene’s chocolate-shade skin and her full breasts jiggled with each movement, almost begging to be sucked. She was wearing nothing but her high heels and a strap-on harness, with a dildo attached that was two inches in diameter and almost a foot long. In Selene’s hands were the riding crop and the handle of a leash, the other end being attached to the metal collar around Rosemary’s neck. With a crack of the short whip, the metal shackles holding Rosemary to the floor opened up like handcuffs.
“Come on, walk like a little bitch,” Selene ordered, jerking the leash and pulling Rosemary.
Moving on all fours, Rosemary followed Selene like a dog with her pussy already soaking wet from this dominative and degrading treatment. Her eyes were fixed on Selene’s round ass, shifting from side to side with each pendulous swing of her hips. She desperately wished she could be the strap-on harness that Selene was wearing, especially the G-string strap nestled between her ass cheeks. With her strap-on dildo bouncing, Selene led Rosemary around the room, past the shadowy onlookers. The hidden strangers laughed at Rosemary and smacked her on the ass as she passed by, but their taunts and harassments only excited her even further, and when she fell behind and became too slow, Selene would give a rough yank on the leash.
Selene finally brought Rosemary back to the middle of the room and pushed her face down against the floor, unfastening her gag. Rosemary gasped as the toy was finally removed, glistening with saliva. Selene raised her foot, holding it just above Rosemary’s face. “Lick it.”
Rosemary eagerly obliged, running her tongue across the black shoe, wrapping it around the pencil-like heel, and kissing Selene’s foot and ankle. Selene then pulled on the leash, forcing Rosemary up onto her knees. Wrapping her fingers around her strap-on, she hefted the toy in front of Rosemary, who was like a deer caught in the headlights. “Suck it, suck it like a good little slut,” she growled, holding the leash tight.
Rosemary eagerly opened her mouth and wrapped her lips around the rubber phallus, bobbing her head back and forth and wishing it were real. The size and shaped she loved, but the touch and heat she missed. A hard smack to her right breast told Rosemary that she was meant to go deeper, as well as making her cry out in joyous pain. Obeying her Mistress, she began to deep-throat the toy, slowly taking it in and working it down her throat. Grabbing Rosemary by the hair, Selene forced the whole toy into her mouth. She coughed and gagged as she choked on it, unable to breath and feeling like she was about to vomit. With tears streaming down her face, she held still, trying to find some way to get air to her lungs as the dildo occupied her throat and Selene held her hair. Finally, when she almost thought she would black out, Selene let go of her and Rosemary fell back, desperately gasping for air with her chin and chest wet with dripping saliva.
Pulling her back with the leash, Selene waited until Rosemary’s breath was steady before forcing her to come back and continue sucking it. Holding her parted lips a centimeter from the head, Rosemary took her last deep breath as the layer of spit on the toy dripped onto her breasts. She didn’t take the whole thing in her mouth, but she diligently sucked it, cleaning off the saliva and applying fresh layers. While she sucked it, Selene smacked her breasts with the riding crop, making the sensitive flesh turn red with faint welts.
Selene suddenly pulled the toy out of Rosemary’s mouth and smacked her across the face, knocking her to the ground. Pulling on her leash, she forced Rosemary onto her hands and knees and crouched down behind her. “Bad girls need to be punished, are you ready to be fucked with this big cock?” Selene growled as she pulled Rosemary’s hair and pinched her nipples brutally hard.
“Yes Mistress, please punish me with that big cock!” Rosemary begged, wanting to be fucked so badly that her whole body was shaking.
Spreading the lips of her pussy, Selene forced the toy into Rosemary’s dripping pussy, entering her without any pause or mercy. Working her fingers into Rosemary’s mouth, Selene leaned over as she began fucking her with the dildo, trying to move as much of it in and out of her as possible. She was moving with a speed that showed no inexperience; in fact, to Rosemary it felt more like Baltoh was fucking her. Selene’s speed just continued to grow, with her large firm breasts bouncing and swinging as she violated Rosemary’s pussy with the strap-on.
Her mouth held open by Selene’s fingers, Rosemary looked around the room at the people watching them. While their faces were still hidden, she could see the glint of their teeth as they smiled in amusement and excitement and watched as they shifted their legs from their energetic arousal. The pounding of her pussy with the dildo was absolutely euphoric, it was so big and hard; it was like getting fucked by a cold machine. Just as beautiful as the feeling were the dominative growls of Selene as she violated and used her like a sex slave. With how fast Selene was moving, Rosemary wished she could look back and see her bouncing titties.
Selene suddenly pulled out of Rosemary and tugged on her leash, pulling her up and forcing her to clean off the dildo with her tongue and cheeks. Rosemary purred and hummed as she sucked her delicious pussy juice off the dildo, wishing she were flexible enough to lick her own pussy. Once it was clean and glistening, Selene rolled her over onto her back and then sat down on her heels. Holding onto Rosemary’s thighs, Selene pushed the dildo back into her and began fucking her with miraculous skill, swinging her lower body and pulverizing Rosemary’s snatch with the toy.
Rosemary was whimpering and giving soft cries of happiness as the hard rubber toy was driven into her. Her face was blushing red from the joyous feeling of her body being stuffed and brutalized and she was squeezing and pinching her nipples, trying to get as much stimulation as possible. Rocking back and forth on the cold floor, she looked up at Selene, hypnotized by the sight of her bouncing breasts and wishing she could feel them and lick them.
Feeling the approach of her first orgasm, Rosemary licked her hands and rubbed her breasts, bathing in the kinky feeling and the unrelenting pounding of Selene ramming her with the strap-on. She closed her eyes for only a second when she felt someone grab her hands. It was not Selene, as she had not let go of Rosemary’s thighs. As her hands were pinned to the ground above her head, Rosemary opened her eyes and looked up at Molly’s face and her bowling ball breasts. Rosemary was desperate, longing to reach up and wrap her lips around the blond beauty’s erect nipples.
“Do you want to suck my tits?” Molly coyly asked.
“Yes Mistress, please let me taste them!”
Deciding to be merciful and indulge her little sex slave, Molly lowered herself down, laying her firm breasts across Rosemary’s face. The former Archangel immediately went to town on them, trying to slather every millimeter of soft flesh with her wet tongue and suck on her nipples like a water bottle after running a marathon. Without slowing down her powerful thrusts, Selene retrieved her riding crop and began smacking Rosemary’s breasts especially hard, coming just short of causing bruises. From the masochistic feel of her hands being restrained and her breasts being whipped and the pleasurable combination of the huge dildo pumping in and out of her snatch and Molly’s bountiful tits smothering her face, Rosemary was sent to the breaking point.
She gave a shrill moan as she had her first orgasm, but unlike all of the other ones, there was no jet of climactic juices spraying from between the lips of her pussy. Instead, the juices from the orgasm suddenly flooded her mouth and throat as if they had been poured between her lips. She coughed and gagged on the unexpected drink, as she could not find the source and the addition of Molly’s breasts on her face made her feel like she was being water-boarded. She tried to sit up to breathe, but Molly kept her pinned down and forced her to drink it all. While Rosemary was filled with fear and struggling to get air, the force of the two women and the terror of drowning or suffocating enthralled her, as well as the combination of the orgasm.
As the orgasm itself finally ended, the mysterious flood of pussy juices stopped running down her throat and Rosemary was able to breathe without problems. As her pulse slowed back down, she ran her tongue across her lips and throughout her mouth, gluttonously savoring the taste of her juices as she realized what had happened. Once she calmed down, Selene pulled out of her and Molly shifted position. With her knees on either side of Rosemary’s head, Molly set herself down on the former Archangel, smothering her face with her pussy and forcing her to lick it.
Reaching out, Molly grasped Rosemary’s ankles and pulled them back, completely putting her pussy and anus on display. As she worked her tongue in and around the velvet sleeve of Molly’s snatch, Rosemary shivered as she felt hands tentatively brushing against her smooth rear end and her pussy, and they weren’t the hands of Selene and she was sure they weren’t Baltoh. As the stranger rubbed her pussy, he/she wet their finger with her juices and began rubbing her asshole, teasing her as they pressed down on the ring. Rosemary was so horny that she was desperate to feel the finger penetrate her anus, but she also wanted to know whom it was.
Rosemary gave a sudden and shrill hum of pleasure as she felt a soft mouth going to work on her wet pussy, the stranger working their lips on the entrance and flexing their tongue inside, stimulating her clit with expert skill. As her pussy was orally stimulated, Rosemary felt the stranger insert their finger into her asshole, working it back and forth in the tight wet wring, using her pussy juice as lubricant. As she tried to figure out who it was, she felt another pair of hands squeezing her breasts and pulling up on her nipples, and the length of the nails and softness of the hands told her it was Selene. The sensation was so mind-numbingly euphoric that Rosemary was struggling to breathe with Molly’s delectably soft wet pussy smothering her face.
As the stranger worked their second finger into her asshole, Rosemary noticed something that she had not felt before. There was something unusual about the fingers, a cold hardness on the back of her fingers. It felt… metallic.
“Master,” Rosemary lovingly whispered as she momentarily retracted her tongue from Molly’s pussy.
Due to Baltoh’s claws, he had never really used his hands very often during sex, so she never really got to know them, but after he had become a god, his claws had been replaced with the small metal plates on the backs of his hands and fingers, and even though he had lost his long forked Demon tongue, his powers of pleasure went well beyond simple physical contact.
After several minutes of licking her pussy and fingering her asshole, Baltoh pulled away from her. Rosemary looked up from under Molly’s pussy and graciously sucked his fingers clean with a look of adoration on her face as she gazed at him. Once she did her job, Rosemary laid her head back and Molly changed her position, getting in a crab-walk and burying Rosemary’s face with her firm ass cheeks while she licked her anus. In this position, Molly was unable to hold Rosemary’s legs back, so Selene did it for her. With Rosemary’s legs spread, Baltoh hefted his cock and guided it into her open pussy, desperate to feel a large mass within it.
Rosemary moaned as she felt him enter her, stretching her pussy with his head and shaft. The sensation was much sharper than ever before, his cock feeling so huge and hot in her slender body. The muscular missile was so warm inside her, it was like getting penetrated by a rolled up heating pad. After pulling out for the first time, Baltoh forced his cock back into her like a hammered wedge. Moving his whole body fast that he would kill a mortal woman or even an Angel, he began fucking her with deep powerful shoves. Rosemary couldn’t help but scream in happiness as he fucked her into levels of pleasure that surpassed her wildest fantasies. He was slamming her cunt with his cock with the same speed that a humming bird used with its wings to hover.
It was less than ten seconds before he gave another screaming orgasm, but this time, she was ready for the flood of her pussy juices to fill her mouth and throat. Knowing how to breathe, she gluttonously drank her pussy juices, even while she continued to lick Molly’s anus. Once her orgasm came to an end, Rosemary took a deep breath of relief as Baltoh pulled out of her and Molly moved off her face. She was allowed a minute’s reprieve before she was forced to continue, this time with Selene straddling her face, no longer wearing the strap-on. While working her tongue between the glass-smooth lips of Selene’s pussy, Rosemary groaned as Baltoh entered her asshole. However, it felt much different than it had ever before. It felt like there was much more lubricant other than just bodily fluids. It was as if her anus or his cock had been slathered with KY jelly, removing the dryness and uncomfortable friction.
Baltoh took his original pace, moving like the firing pin of a mini gun as he pulverized the deepest corners of her anus. Without the mysterious lubrication, such brutal pounding would be impossible to achieve without injury. Rosemary was giving an unending shrill scream, brought from not only Baltoh’s thrusts and the kinky eroticism of Selene sitting on her face, but Molly working her fingers in Rosemary’s gaping pussy almost furiously. While it took longer than the first two times, Rosemary was quickly brought to her third orgasm.
Not sure how long she was out, Rosemary briefly lost consciousness from her exhaustion, the toll of her orgasms, and the sore numbness in her lower body. While it only felt like a second, when she woke back up, she found herself on her hands and knees with Selene beneath her. Once again she was wearing a strap-on, with the huge rubber toy lying mostly in her pussy. Rosemary suddenly gave a loud shriek as another huge dildo was forced into her loosened anus, worn as a strap-on by Molly. This was the first time since she had sex with Baltoh in the church that she had been double-penetrated, and while it was a wonderfully kinky feeling, it did bring tears to her eyes and make her wince.
As she raised her head, she felt a hand roughly grab her chin and squeeze her cheeks. She looked up at Baltoh, who had a stony expression on his face as he held his cock up, glistening with her bodily fluids from before. Without even needing to be told, she obediently opened her mouth to suck it clean and appease him. As she began bobbing her head back and forth and blowing him, Selene and Molly both began moving in unison, Selene bucking her hips and forcing her strap-on into Rosemary’s pussy and Molly humping her doggy-style and fucking her asshole.
As they reached the perfect machine-like rhythm, Baltoh fully satisfied Rosemary’s masochistic desired and grabbed her head, forcing his entire cock into her mouth. Rosemary choked and gagged and his pulsating penis, and even threw up a little. Tears were streaming down her face from her agitated gag reflex and she was desperately trying to breathe, but she was on Cloud 9 in terms of sexual ecstasy, being punished and violated while onlookers watched like the viewers of ancient Roman gladiator battles.
As time went on, Rosemary slowly began to drift towards unconsciousness, and she could swear her senses were being distorted. The dildos being used inside her were seemingly becoming warner and softer to the touch and she could no longer feel Molly’s breasts against her back or Selene’s against her own. Opening her eyes, she looked around and realized that was getting fucked all three ways by Baltoh… or copies of Baltoh. One of the doppelgangers was slamming her from behind with his meaty cock, one was beneath her, bucking his hips and pulverizing her bruised snatch, and the original was still skull-fucking her. For some reason, she did not feel alarmed by this strange occurrence, she actually felt comforted, like she could literally feel him all around her.
Grabbing her shoulders, Rosemary felt the clone behind her hold her up, so that two pairs of hands could grab her own. Looking around in the corners of her eyes, she saw two clones, one on either side of her. They were holding her hands and wrapping her fingers around their erect cocks. Taking the message, she began stroking them both, sparing all the attention she could to give them proper hand jobs. With a huge cock in each hand, one in her throat, one in her asshole, and the final in her pussy, her mind was completely overwhelmed by the pleasure she was feeling. She could not even describe the unfathomable sensations rushing through her whole body.
Just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, she was forced to open her eyes as a rush of pleasure rushed through almost every square inch of skin. As well as being gang-banged by Baltoh and his doppelgangers, Selene and Molly had returned with clones and were all grinding against any exposed spot they could find. They were doing everything from rubbing their pussies against her legs, kissing her feet, running their tongues across the sides of her chest and face, and giving her outstretched arms tit-fucks.
With 95% of her body rubbing against the body of someone else, Rosemary had the greatest orgasm of her life. Her eyes rolled back into her head and her whole body began to vibrate. As her body was flooded with euphoric warmth, Baltoh and all of his doppelgangers all shot their loads, seemingly with the pressure of fire hoses. Seed overflowed and sprayed from her asshole and pussy, mixed with the juices of her orgasm, as well as ran down her throat and filled her stomach. She was even blinded by thick white streams coating her face.
Completely exhausted, she collapsed as they all pulled out of her, continuing to ejaculate. She was too tired to move, so she just lay there as layer after layer of semen coated her body. Before long, she felt like she was being submerged in a bath the thick white sperm. It was like she was a gold statue being lowered into a smelting vat.
Rosemary was hovering in the air over Asmodeus’ bed, trapped in her illusion with the ruler of the Circle of Lust lying below her. Both of their naked bodies were glowing with a blue aura as she slowly stole Rosemary’s soul. The illusion created a sexual fantasy that brought forth every desire she wanted and fulfilled them beyond her wildest imagination. The spell was powered by her sexual reaction to the illusion, with her arousal accelerating the process.
As she drank in Rosemary’s soul and watched her in the illusion, she was fingering herself and licking her lips. “Damn, this is one seriously kinky bitch.”
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