Varkhuz had been a king once, though the name of his people had long since been erased from history, their cities ground to dust and their culture and ways of life long forgotten. In his time, however, he had ruled with iron certainty and unchallenged dominion. He had razed neighboring lands without hesitation, slaughtering their warriors, binding their children in chains, and taking their women as spoils to adorn his courts and his bed.
His own subjects fared little better, worked to exhaustion beneath his decree, their lives spent feeding his ambitions while his coffers swelled to grotesque excess. He had hoarded his wealth like a dragon, jealously guarding it as proof of his superiority.
And yet, for all his power, death had come for him on ill winds.
Not in battle, not beneath a rival’s blade, but through rot and sickness that hollowed him from within, reducing his once-mighty form to a trembling, decaying husk. It had been a mind-numbingly disgusting end to a once great life: the indignity, the loss of control, the creeping certainty of an end that was beyond his ability to command. Upon one final hour, his soul was sent off the mortal coil and into the clutches of the Lords of the Dead, and he had been found wanting in Chthonic Courts.
But Varkhuz had means in death even as he did when he still drew breath.
During his reign, he had trafficked with powers unseen, bartering with entities that lurked beyond mortal comprehension, and one among them - one he had come to know only as the Dark Master - had shown him the hidden fractures between realms. Through those unseen pathways, his soul had slipped free, treading through the darkness of death and through the veils of existence until it found refuge in Malebolge, a festering abyss on the edge of the Underworld, hidden from the scrutiny of sovereign Devils and Fallen Angels alike.
But his was far from the only damned soul to do so.
Over the millennia, others had come: wretches and vermin drawn by the same promise of escape for eternal servitude in undeath. There was the peddler who poisoned village wells only to magnanimously appear weeks later to sell salvation to the dying; a parasite who profited from suffering he himself had sown. There was also the mad witch, arrogant in her delusion, who butchered hundreds to fuel her rituals of immortality – and she died all the same. And there was the sniveling coward who had slain his own parents to force an early inheritance, only to have it robbed away by the very decietful woman who dripped the venomous betrayal in his ear.
And more, dozens more that had trickled in over the ages.
Dozens like them had gathered over the ages, each bound by pact to the Dark Master, each contributing to the slow construction of the hidden dominion carved into the malevolent depths of Malebolge. And all of them were far beneath his notice, all of them rightfully earned his contempt. Varkhuz alone had vision and drive amongst the rabble who could barely see beyond the next five minutes of their ambition.
Which was why the Dark Master had given him the reign over his fellow Sinner, because, by strength and by cunning, he alone could command effectively, shaping their refuge into something that resembled order.
But now…
Now it was all being undone.
His jaw tightened as he stared across the ruined expanse, where the remnants of the Dark Master’s bred fiends had been annihilated beneath the literal ocean of blood conjured by the crimson-haired Demon. The sheer scale of it gnawed at him, and worse still, there was the other Demon hanging far back in the sky- sitting content to watch its counterpart and their own army of monsters.
He nearly let out a deeper curse. It had taken centuries for him and the other Sinners to cultivate that horde of fiends! Centuries of effort all drowned in a single moment’s deluge!
“Go to the vaults!” he barked at the kin-slaying cur. “Arm the arsenal and set them to detonate!”
The coward flinched. “W-Which ones?”
“All of them, you halfwit! Especially the Ingratus!”
The witch stepped forward, her expression tense. “It will not matter. We cannot hold against both Demons and their army! We should flee!”
“Oh yes, flee!” Varkhuz snapped with sardonic venom. “Pray tell, where would you go that the Demons cannot reach you with their magic!”
“We could go to the Dark Master and his-”
Varkhuz snarled. “The weapons we’ve been given are more than enough to repel this invasion! We need only unleash the Ingratus and these interlopers will find themselves burned to nothing!”
But even as he spoke, the air changed.
Heat crept into the air, a suffocating and smothering brimstone that blasted and whipped a searing wind into his face.
And then came the dread.
It struck him without warning, a crushing weight that clawed into his being and dragged something long buried to the surface. His breath hitched as old sensation returned, and suddenly he was no longer a king, no longer a ruler of damned souls, but a dying man trapped within a rotting body.
He felt it again, the sickness creeping through him, the slow and inexorable decay, the suffocating helplessness that had once stripped him of all power and dignity as death claimed him piece by piece. Terror seized his thoughts and unraveled them, dragging long-buried memories back to the forefront of his mind as his sense of self eroded beneath the crushing weight of his own mortality.
The haunted memories were so vivid he could practically taste the acidic, choking bile of then. Of his own mortal breath rotting and fouling the air about him. No, no, no! That was done! His mortal shell had long been reduced to dust! He had stepped beyond the limitations of flesh and –
He let out a roar and clawed his head, even as the poisonous fear continued to lace his mind. But then, as he shook himself and his wide eyes rattled in his own skull, he suddenly turned his gaze upward, and his breath froze cold.
The crimson clouds that had been left in the Crimson Demon’s blood magic had begun to blacken and wither into choking ash, and the scent of scorched blood and iron spread thickly through the air as the mountains soaked in gore began to writhe and boil, their forms dissolving into a churning sea of molten fire. Reds and scarlets were quickly overcome with fiery oranges and searing yellows.
And around him, the other Sinners broke completely, their voices rising into raw, keening screams as the truth forced itself upon them with merciless clarity.
Hell had found them.
Varkhuz staggered where he stood, his vision swimming as that realization carved itself deep into his core, an alien terror blooming within him that he could neither suppress nor escape.
And then, with an agonizing slowness, he lifted his gaze past the earth of Malebolge which now drowned in liquid fire, to the swirling ash and fire-filled skies… where flew a Baleful Shadow ringed with Hellfire.
“YOUR SOULS ARE MINE.”
========
Tiamat briefly lifted her gaze away from the sky as she felt her beloved's temper spike and the horrors of the Darkness Beyond Death emerge onto the the physical reality. And it was in these moments that she willingly closed off her mind from his. Ancient that she was, even she would be driven to insanity if the Inferno touched her mind. Which spokes volumes of the mental fortitude and iron will her heart of hearts possessed.
"Auntie Tiamat?"
She looked down at the youngling looking concerned at her from across the lawn. Millicas had, once again, left the palace of his parents and joined her in her beloved's fortress for 'training' as he liked to frame it.
Though the mother in her knew that the young boy was merely looking for affirmation and affection in equal doses. Far be from her to lecture Sirzechs' bride, but Tiamat did deem the she-Demon to be a touch to severe with the boy's upbringing. He had centuries to hone himself. And a true parent does not meet a child's mistakes with rigid and stern lectures and discipline. True wisdom is found in encouraging a child to view mistakes from another's perspective, to make them empathize and understand with the consequences of their actions.
A lesson Tiamat had learned far too late in life.
But she pushed back those ancient greivences and gave the young boy a soft smile. So affectionate he was with her that even the briefest of frowns made, when she cut off the unpleasentness of the First Flame ire from her beloved's mind, drew his immediate concern.
She knew not what woman would claim his heart in the future, but she would indeed be a lucky one.
Tiamat gave Millicas a soft and indulgent smile. "It is no matter, return to your excercises."
=======
Varkhuz did not understand what he was witnessing, for the sky itself seemed to rupture as something descended through it, not merely falling but forcing its way into existence as a mass of Hellish flame wrapped around a core of blinding, hateful light. It bore no resemblance to a man or beast, nor any form he could name, and as it tore downward it dragged the heavens with it, warping the very fabric of Malebolge beneath its passage.
When it struck, the impact did not confine itself to a single point, but instead erupted outward in a vast, all-consuming surge of Hellfire that rolled across the realm in a sweeping tide. The ground gave way instantly, the landscape dissolving into molten ruin as waves of searing flame surged in every direction, carrying with them a heat that burned far deeper than flesh, reaching into thought and soul alike until even memory seemed to blister under its presence.
Varkhuz staggered as the world seemed to recoil, and around him the other Sinners collapsed entirely, their minds unraveling beneath the crushing weight of that presence. Some clawed at their own faces as though they could tear the terror free, their screams dissolving into incoherent noise, while others fell to their knees and babbled senselessly, their thoughts breaking apart as they tried and failed to comprehend what bore down upon them. Those who attempted to flee did so without direction or awareness, their movements frantic and blind, driven by instinct alone as their reason abandoned them.
From the heart of that inferno, chains manifested in violent bursts, searing links lashing outward with impossible precision as they pierced through the Sinners without resistance. They did not bind flesh, but struck directly through the essence of their being, and when they connected, the screams that followed deepened into something far more primal, a sound stripped of all language and meaning. One was dragged across the molten ground, his form offering no resistance as he clawed uselessly at the air, while another tried to anchor himself only to have his grip burn away as he was pulled inexorably toward the blaze.
Within the roiling fire, something moved, a vast and shifting presence that refused to settle into form, and from it emerged a blade of burning force that carved through the air with deliberate motion. Each swing tore something fundamental free, not merely ending lives but stripping the Sinners of their very essence as their souls were wrenched apart and drawn into the inferno, their cries cut short as they were consumed.
Varkhuz’s breath came ragged as his thoughts fractured, and instinct seized what remained of his will as he turned and fled, abandoning all pretense of command as terror drove him forward. Behind him, a chain lashed outward and pierced the witch through the skull, her body erupting instantly into Hellfire as her scream was swallowed and dragged into the blaze, her form collapsing into nothing as she was taken.
He did not look back again.
He ran, stumbling across boiling terrain that shifted beneath his feet, his vision swimming as panic consumed him, while the screams behind him were extinguished one by one.
The vaults! He thought to himself in dismay.
If he could reach the vaults, if he could unleash the Ingratus, then perhaps - just perhaps - there was still a way to survive.
Resolving himself, Varkhuz flew at blinding speed toward a distant ruin, where a passage lay hidden beneath the remains of a broken grand hall, descending deep underground. He rushed through the winding tunnels without slowing, his thoughts spiraling into disarray as fear clawed at his mind, and his terror deepened further when he noticed the stone bricks lining the walls begin to discolor, shifting into a sickly yellow-white as they were superheated by the distant yet overwhelming presence of the flaming Demon behind him.
Driven by panic, he forced himself to move faster, pushing his speed to its limits until the tunnels opened into a vast subterranean chamber filled with ancient and intricate magical machinery. At the center of the chamber stood a massive stone altar, with stairways rising from all sides to a raised platform, upon which rested a heavy stone table. Suspended above it was a large, rotating orb of bluish energy that pulsed steadily, radiating immense and oppressive power.
This was the Ingratus, a demonic superweapon forged from the combined energies of millions of sacrificed lives, meticulously crafted by the Dark Master over countless centuries. It had once been intended for use in an ancient war, but the Dark Master had abandoned that conflict after deeming it futile, taking the weapon with him and hiding it away.
Varkhuz remembered being told that the Ingratus possessed the power to destroy an entire world, and he resolved to activate it, intending to draw the attention of the two Demons and create an opportunity to flee into the Chthonic realms through the river Cocytus.
He surged up toward the altar and found the kinslayer frantically weaving unstable strands of magic, prompting him to shout, “You still haven’t activated it, you fool!”
“I-It takes time!” the coward stammered in reply.
Even as the words left his mouth, Varkhuz felt the temperature rising further, and when he glanced upward, he saw the ceiling beginning to soften, bubble, and drip molten rock.
With a snarl of impatience, Varkhuz struck without hesitation, decapitating the other Sinner in a single motion before seizing control of the weapon with his own magic. He immediately launched upward, blasting through layers of stone and earth as he tunneled his way back to the surface, all the while forcing the Ingratus into activation and calibrating it to detonate within minutes.
When he finally burst back into the open sky, he was met with a horrifying realization as he saw the flaming Demon waiting above, unmoving, and he understood in that moment that it had never pursued him at all: instead, it had simply been melting the world and the earth below through the sheer force of its presence.
Overcome with terror at the magnitude of its power, Varkhuz desperately wove his magic and primed the superweapon. And when it began to glow brighter and there was an audible crack, the sure telling it was ready to unleash all of its ferocious might and devastation, he hurled it toward the burning figure as he screamed, “Die with Malebolge!”
And without waiting to see the result, he turned and fled.
But even as he flew, there was a flash of searing blue light that seared his eyes and he was quickly overcome with the thunderous roar of a world being unraveled. The immense energies of the Ingratus spiraled out of control and erupted with catastrophic force, threatening to consume the entire plane as a rapidly expanding wave of blue horror devoured everything in its path.
He flew as fast as he could towards the very end of Malebolge, where ran the Chthonic River Cocytus, there he could use its ancient shores to cross the boundaries of life and death and traverse to other planes of the dead.
And Varkhuz laughed maniacally to himself, convinced he had destroyed the Demons, as he raced toward the River of Lamentation. What did he care if Malebolge was destroyed? What did it matter that the entire realm was sundered into the Void? He could find some other realm and rebuild a new kingdom! This time, without having to bend knee to the Dark Master!
As reality began to disintegrate behind him and he prepared to cast himself into the crushed banks of the dead river that led to other planes of existence, the entire realm of Malebolge suddenly flickered, like a light being extinguished and reignited in the same instant. He blinked carefully, the River Cocytus gone from his eyes and suddenly replaced once more with the searing magma covered earth he had fled from. To his utter confusion, Varkhuz found himself once again standing where he had been before, beneath the burning Demon in the sky, though this time the Ingratus was no longer in his grasp.
He looked around wildly, unable to comprehend what had just occurred, knowing that he had been less than a heartbeat away from escape. What happened to the encompassing blue devastation? Where had the world’s worth of magical destruction gone? And then, with dawning horror, he realized that the Ingratus, whole and undetonated, now floated silently behind the flaming Demon.
What…?
What had just happened!?
=======
Power.
Power was the cornerstone and the essence of all things for Devils and Demons. They craved it, they coveted it, they went to the world's end and then past it for it. Power was everything to the Children of Lucifer.
And in a supreme twist of cosmic irony, no power was more sacrosanct than their ineffable bond with Hell. Which is why the current Lord Wrath was such a fascinating enigma to her, such a mystifying attraction. He had power in spades, the kind she had only ever seen in her own grandson and his closest confidant, Ajuka. But they were aberrations, freak accidents of the highest order. They should never have been born, and yet, two such abominations came into being in the same generation and forever more changed the course of history and the entire direction of their species.
And now the third who joined them centuries later. A human psychopomp turned Deadly Sin. He had overwhelming power. And he cared very little for it.
Or rather, he cared little to express it. Ichigo Kurosaki, Satan, the Sin of Wrath, cared very little for the opinions of others. He did not desire adoration, he did not seek worship, he did not revel in invoking fear: quite the opposite, he turned away from the masses. He preferred being left alone to indulge in his wants and whims and those few he deemed worthy of his affections
He was like Ajuka in that regard. But unlike the younger Demon, Ajuka chased after power just as eagerly as the rest of their kind. Even if power was just a means for the Sin of Greed's insatiable desire to possess all knowledge and understanding.
The young Lord Wrath, however, only sought power for one purpose: to keep the peace so that no one would trouble him or his.
It was... endearing, in a way. She was one of the too few Demons who understood the joys of family, of being surrounded by kin and blood. A trait she had passed down to her children. Oh sure, she was quite aware that her own descendants thought little of her, that they believed she cared more for the idea of House than the sentiments of Home... and they were not entirely wrong. But little Rias and darling Millicas were dear to her in her own fashion.
She wanted what was best for them... even if they disagreed on what that best entailed.
Which is why she was so taken with the new Sin of Wrath. Hell called to her from his dark soul, even stronger now than it did when she first seared the Flame into her being when she made her pact with Lucifer: he who had been her Lord, Father and Lover.
But the call from Lord Ichigo... it was the same, but also different. The delectable promise of eternity in all the wrong ways still rang true, but nevertheless, it was the sheer resolve in his eyes, the unwavering will to reign in even the First Flame for the sake of those around him... it touched a part of her she had long since thought dead. A part she had not known since she last took mortal breath.
How... novel...
And as she floated in the sky and watched Satan himself fall like the Morningstar of Yore, as she beheld him, clad in Rage and Torment, bind the blackened souls of the damned with his chains and cleave their Fates into the Abyss, her eyes widened imperceptibly in understanding.
Oh…
Her breath hitched just a touch, and she raised a lone disbelieving hand and laid it over her breast.
For a second, for a brief second, the Demon Gremory imagined its heart beating once more.
=======
Shemhazai the Whisperer was far from the most scruplous person, in fact, he quite proudly helped spread the concept of whoring amongst ancient mortals so long ago as one of the first of the Fallen. He was right there behind Lucifer and Azazel when they had rebelled against Father and his inflexible dogma.
But that was several thousand years ago now, and in those many millennia, what had essentially been history's most dramatic teenage rebellion, ended up throwing Shamhazai into innumerable atrocities. Most fixate on the Great War, and rightly so - it had been a complete shitshow, a literal apocalypse. But so few now deigned to recall the countless horrors and travesties that happened before and after. The very many battles and losses and scars.
He had long ago lost count of the number of siblings that had died as a consequence of the Rebellion, from the Fall. In fact, he was quite sure that said number exceeded humanity's current population... not that he liked to dwell on such a grim statistic. Which is why, in light of Kokabiel's despair driven madness, when Azazel revealed that this new generation of Satans wished to forge a lasting peace, he had dared to hope for the first time in what felt like ages.
Oh, he was skeptical. Beyond skeptical, actually. Downright disbelieving. He legitimately assumed that this peace would last no more than a few years. But then came calling the greatest of horrors, the Void itself, the Infinite Ouroboros.
Along with its cult of fanatics begging for scraps of its inexhaustible power.
In a rather twisted blessing, for the first time since Ddraig and Albion’s Outrage, their family had a single enemy they could all unify behind.
And though he still carried doubts, nevertheless, here he was along with Baraqiel and their legions of millions hidden away just in case – chaperoning the newly minted Satan and his army of Reavers.
For the record, he did not like Reavers.
He had had his fill of the brutish monsters back during the old days when the original Satan led his private army of berserking beasts across countless planes and worlds, leaving scorched lands in his wake. Worse, the Imperators were all veterans of the Great War and war criminals of the highest order. They were responsible for numerous slaughters. But the Fallen had given their word during the Summit; the young Sin and his army would be given the right to conquer Malebolge so that he could claim the Sinners hidden within.
And while he found the Reavers to be distasteful… he was more than glad to be rid of the fiends and evil spirits which haunted these lands in the Fallen’s territory. The only reason they themselves hadn’t done so was because they couldn’t be bothered to waste the manpower of what was essentially a self-isolated part of the Underworld.
Yes, this much, Shemhazai could tolerate.
But then his mouth twisted sourly as his gaze fell upon Gremory.
Gomory the Crimson Scourge, Gomory the Witch-Bride.
A Demon of the Ancient World, one of the first and most deadly of Lucifer’s original brood.
Even now, all these thousands of years later, he remembered too well the unadulterated dread and revulsion he felt when Creation itself shuddered in the reverberations of Lucifer's madness. Of bringing Hell itself into reality and crafting those mockeries of all life – the original Demons.
And Gremory had been amongst the worst of its kind.
A creature that delighted in every debauchery and atrocity, who had dyed worlds in the blood of countless innocents. And while the Fallen were far from paragons of virtue themselves, most of their wickedness was to be found in leading humanity and the other mortal races astray. But Demons… Demons reveled only in destruction: in the unmaking and breaking of all that existed and twisting it back into a mocking facsimile of their own corruption.
He had seen, with his own eyes, entire worlds pressed onto Oblivion from Gremory’s foul magicks. Otherworldly kingdoms and empires led to desolation with a single touch of her seeping madness.
She was, in a word, evil.
More than once had Shemhazai had the misfortune of battling the ancient Demon, and though he had survived every encounter, he never once managed to truly kill her. Nor had she been able to kill him.
And as he watched her effortlessly drown all of Malebolge in a sea of blood, old wounds that had long since healed began to reemerge into his mind, and they ached with regret and memory.
He frowned heavily. The new Satans, significantly more powerful than their predecessors that they were, were also infinitely more agreeable. It was reasonable to try and have some sort of working relationship with Crimson Lucifer and his new Empire.
It was entirely unreasonable to assume that Gremory somehow would fit into that relationship.
The Demons of Old were too far gone in their evil, too consumed in their own insanity.
At least… that what he thought.
Because, not a moment after he had the thought, the youngest Satan had somehow managed to turn himself into Hell Embodied.
Stars above, where on earth had Sirzechs found this horror?
Shemhazai had looked to Baraqiel and had given his brother a look of profound bewilderment. He had heard both Baraqiel and Azazel recount the chaotic ending of the Summit, and of the monstrous power unleashed by both of the Sins. They had utterly failed to mention the sheer metaphysical weight that the youngest Satan pressed onto reality.
Time and Space were quite literally ripped away and replaced with his Infernal Will!
The skies had burned away into a raging inferno and the ground below quickly melted and churned in a sea of molten rock! It was like looking at the Earth during the Hadean age, back when the planet was still in its nascent years!
But more than that, it was the literal ease at which the young Demon had unleashed such horrid power. It had taken less than a breath’s notice for him to terraform all of Malebolge and supplant the natural order of the plane with his Will. And deeper still, as he peered into the black frame wreathed in Fire and Shadow, he could perceive that the Demon Lord had become some sort of extension of the First Flame, a walking gate.
And it was with that understating that Shemhazai’s very core trembled.
Did he even realize what he was? Did he even understand the sheer terror he was releasing into the adjacent realities? Hell was not supposed to exist inside of the multiverse, it was a thing beyond all of time and space, beyond all knowings.
There was only one known reality in Hell: pain.
There was no past, present or future. No where of when. It was just endless suffering and torment for all those wretched enough who were judged and found wanting. And that this youngster, this boy who measured his life in decades, and barely two at that, found himself housing the greatest doom of all who existed.
Shemhazai was aghast.
“You knew,” he stared accusingly at Baraqiel.
His brother looked both solemn and grim. “Yes.”
“And you said nothing?” He asked incredulously. “Neither you nor Azazel?”
“What words could we have said that would elucidate what you now observe?”
Shemhazai opened his mouth briefly but then angrily snapped them shut. Baraqiel wasn’t incorrect… what words existed that fully expounded upon the sheer wrongness that was the youngest Satan? Nevertheless, he would have appreciated the foreknowledge that youngest horror was in a league of his own.
And to think, they thought Sirzechs and Ajuka had been problematic existences. But this one? Nearly as powerful as the latter two and possessing an affinity for Hell unheard of? Even his deranged and insane brother Lucifer did not possess such powerful connection to the First Flame.
“You are wrong to fall into that line of thinking, brother.”
Shemhazai turned back to Baraqiel and gave him a questioning gaze.
But Baraqiel merely shook his head. “Do not compare him to Lucifer. Or any of the previous Sins. There is no madness in him, quite the opposite. His heart is surprisingly resolute. Even wise, I would say.”
Shemhazai folded his arms and glared out as the raging Demon of Fire and Shadow made quick work of the Sinners and consumed their souls. “You’ll forgive me if I doubt you.” And then, a few beats later, he said, “How can you sleep knowing he has little Akeno in the palm of his hand?”
Baraqiel gave him a flat look. “No father rests well knowing his daughter is in the clutches of another man. But as I said, he is not like what came before. He is… something other. I do not foresee my daughter coming to great harm under his shadow.”
Shemhazai scoffed. “Well, you always were a better diviner than me.” A few moments passed, and two Cadre continued to watch as Satan burned away an entire plane of existence. “He’s still terrifying.”
“On that, I will not argue.”
Shemhazai let out a hum and then asked, “While we’re on the subject, do you truly intend to keep my niece tied to the Gremory Princess? Say what you will about this new Demon, that old one is not something I thought would emerge out of the shadows again. If Gremory is active once more, there is a not so small chance Akeno will encounter that monster. And it will certainly not fail to note your blood in her veins.”
His brother kept his eyes shut, but the lines around his mouth grew tight and stressed. “That, I did not foresee. I intend to speak with the Dark One once his business in Malebolge is concluded.”
Shemhazai cast a doubtful glance out, partially wondering if there will even be a Malebolge left after this. Certainly, the amount of infernal power he’s pumped into the realm would centuries to naturally dissipate. Malebolge was already a wasteland of vile energies, now it was entirely inhospitable Hellscape.
“You think he would protect Akeno from Gremory?”
Baraqiel tilted his head in consideration. “He is not unnecessarily cruel. And though they have gone silent recently, what eyes I had in the demon realm of Infernity have told me he keeps a close watch on the Akeno and her companions.”
“Well, at least that’s something – wait, do you sense that?”
And both Fallen Lords tuned their senses beyond the Demons and their army to the burning ground far off into the horizon. And suddenly from beneath the fiery earth, the lone surviving Sinner erupted forth, but what truly caught Shemhazai’s eye was the large glowing orb of dark blue power.
“What in Heaven’s name is that!?” he exclaimed.
Baraqiel unfolded his arms and took on a defensive stance.
Shemhazai’s awareness extended outward in a practiced sweep, cutting through the turbulent currents of infernal energy that saturated Malebolge until it touched the core of that construct, and what he felt there caused a cold weight to settle in his chest.
The thing was dense with power; no, far beyond density, it was intentionally compressed, as though an impossible volume of energy had been forced into a singular, unstable form. It felt vast, disturbingly so, carrying the unmistakable impression of scale that could not have been forged in peace times.
There was no mistaking it, it was a weapon of the Great War – and given the dark and foul magicks writhing within, it could only be one forged by the Demons of Old. But how had it come here? When the Fallen had first conquered the realm, they had purged it all of Ipos corruption and horrid sorceries. How in the Underworld did the Sinners and Fiends smuggle a superweapon of the Great War under their noses? It was inconceivable!
But he pushed aside his disbelief for now.
Shemhazai’s will moved swift, spreading outward through the hidden formations of Fallen that lay veiled across the region, his command carried with austere authority as it reached millions in an instant. Defensive formations were ordered without hesitation, layers of barriers and protections rising in rapid succession as corrupted holy light and arcane energies were woven together into overlapping shields meant to withstand the worst.
There was a world’s worth of magic within that horrid construct. Not just Malebolge, if that thing managed to detonate, it would sweep past this realm and the volatile eruption would spill into the Underworld proper: namely, the Fallen territory.
Under no circumstances could they let that happen!
=======
Gremory stared down with a cold and lethal gaze.
Nevertheless, she recognized the Ingratus for what it was – one of the Demon Ipos’ inventions from the Great War. As far as she knew, only four were ever made: one given each to Leviathan, Beelzebub, Asmodeus and Lucifer. And all four of the superweapons were accounted for.
With Beelzebub, Leviathan and Lucifer having used theirs during the Great War and sundering entire worlds in the process. As for Asmodeus’ weapon, it had passed down to the Demon Lord’s descendants who thoughtlessly used it in the Devil Civil War. Fortunately for the entirety of the Underworld, the foolish children of Asmodeus had used it against Ajuka, who had effortlessly deactivated the thing and siphoned away its magic for his own purposes.
Which left the burning question: where had this fifth iteration of Ingratus come from? As far as she knew, only Ipos himself could make them, and her sibling fell during the waning years of the War.
But though she had been sealed away within her inner sanctum during the closing years, healing from a host of grievous injuries, she had sensed Ipos’ demise. Felt it even. All of the original Seventy-Two Pillars were invariably bound to one another. Every time one of them had been slain, they had all felt it within the very depths of core existence.
So how?
Her thoughts broke as the Sinner made his move.
Even from across the ruined expanse, Gremory perceived the exact instant the weapon was primed, the tightly roped mass of power within the Ingratus destabilizing as its internal structure began to fracture under forced activation. The sphere brightened unnaturally, its cold blue radiance intensifying until it stood in stark defiance against the infernal sea that now consumed Malebolge, and in that moment she felt the inevitable collapse before it occurred.
The Sinner hurled it skyward with some paltry declaration of death. It was almost cliche to the point where she had to keep herself from rolling her eyes. The desperation of the weak and their useless struggles.
How predictable.
Yet, Gremory’s gaze followed the arc of the weapon as it rose, her senses already mapping the trajectory of its imminent detonation, calculating the breadth of its destruction with quiet precision. There was no doubt as to its capability; the moment it broke, the resulting discharge would tear through the entirety of the plane and strain the boundaries that separated Malebolge from the greater Underworld.
And so she made her move.
With measured intent as her will extended outward, slipping into the ambient weave that still bent so readily beneath her command. The vast ocean of blood she had conjured had long since been consumed in Satan’s fire, yet the residue of her influence remained threaded throughout the land, and she drew upon it without effort, shaping layers of defensive sorcery that coiled into existence around her form. Space folded subtly at her command, reinforcing itself in overlapping dimensions, while dense constructs of arcane force condensed into barriers that shimmered faintly beneath the oppressive heat.
For a moment, she thought to herself, she could weave greater defenses. Stretch beyond her own self and the Reaver army below. And even all of Malebolge itself if she wished. But the Reavers were not her army, and as much as she admired the Lord Wrath, if he could not protect what was his then he did not deserve to have it.
Such were the ways of Demonkind. As for Malebolge and the greater Underworld: as if she would shed a tear over the Fallen and their lands being blown to smithereens.
And then the Ingratus fractured.
A sharp, crystalline rupture echoed across the sky as the containment failed, and the compressed mass of power within erupted outward in a violent bloom of blue-white annihilation. The explosion expanded in a perfect, catastrophic sphere, devouring the sky as it surged outward, consuming flame, stone, and air alike in its wake as reality itself strained beneath the force of its passage.
The advancing wall of destruction reflected in her eyes as her barriers settled into place, each layer tightening and reinforcing the next in anticipation of the impact, her expression unchanged even as the detonation threatened to unmake everything before it.
And through it all, Gremory watched with mild amusement, safe and secure within her weave. It was, in its own crude way, impressive. For all his cowardice and lack of martial prowess, Ipos had always been a gifted engineer and ritualist.
But her attention drifted, away from the expanding sphere of devastation and to the figure suspended within the inferno beyond it, the one presence that remained utterly unmoved as the weapon’s full fury bore down upon him.
There was no uncertainty in her mind.
Whatever destruction the Ingratus might unleash, whatever devastation it might carve into Malebolge and beyond -
It would not be enough to move Satan.
And soon enough, the expanding sphere of annihilation swallowed him whole, and for a fleeting instant even Gremory’s sharpened perception lost all distinction within the overwhelming surge, as the Ingratus devoured the sky in a blinding cascade of blue-white destruction that pressed against her layered defenses with relentless force. The impact went beyond a singular strike; instead, falling onto her as a sustained collapse of the plane itself, as matter, magic, and the very structure of Malebolge were crushed and unraveled beneath the weapon’s unrestrained discharge.
Her barriers endured, flexible and near untouched under the strain as each successive layer absorbed and redirected the catastrophic force: as testament to her magical prowess and control that had been honed through the millennia of practiced precision, rather than the brute magical force of a certain self-stylized Great King.
But then, amidst that all-consuming devastation, Gremory felt something shift.
It was so faint that it nearly escaped notice, a subtle disturbance that brushed against her awareness. No, not against. Over. Like a wave falling over and consuming the shoreline.
Yet it did not belong to the explosion or to the collapsing plane, but instead arose from a much higher state of existence, one that did not conform to the destruction unfolding before her. The sensation lingered only for a fleeting instant, but it carried with it the unmistakable impression of something being overwritten, not broken or destroyed, but… undone.
Before she could fully grasp it, the world changed.
There was no sound nor visible rupture to mark the transition, only a sudden and absolute absence as the pressure bearing down upon her vanished, and the vast sphere of annihilation that had threatened to consume the realm simply ceased to exist. The layers of defensive sorcery she had woven were gone. Not unraveled and broken, but simply gone, as if she had never cast the magic to begin with. And the sky above returned to its prior state of ash and infernal flame, while the land below churned again with molten ruin shaped by the Dark Lord’s presence that still dominated the plane.
Gremory remained suspended in place, her gaze sweeping across the restored expanse of Malebolge with quiet intensity as she took in the complete absence of the detonation, for there was no lingering distortion, no residual instability, nothing to suggest that such overwhelming destruction had ever occurred.
Only Satan and his immense authority remained.
And as her attention lifted once more to the burning sky, she found that the figure at its center had not moved at all.
And it was with wide eyes she realized what had just happened.
=======
Shemhazai stared baffled, utterly bewildered. Stupefied even.
“Did… did he just rewind time?!” The Cadre yelled in astonishment.
Baraqiel, much quieter though no less amazed, said, “It would appear so...”
He had seen plenty of outlandish things in his very, very long life. Most of them from his ludicrously powerful Father. But the idea, the notion, that a non-divine entity could alter the flow of time, nay, reverse it, for an entire plane of existence was just mind-numbing to him.
“Dear Father,” he let out in a whispered breath. “How powerful is he?”
His brother said nothing, but Shemhazai could feel the disbelief and unevenness flowing from him all too well. He frowned heavily, and he recalled the very recent conversation Azazel and he had in private. About Michael’s worries of the potential of one of the Satan’s apotheosizing and lifting the others into True Immortality. Shemhazai had thought Michael was simply being excessively concerned about the Demon Lords, as was his prerogative. Such a future would be centuries in the making. They probably had more than a thousand years before Sirzechs and the other two abominations could ascend.
But now…?
Now Shemhazai realized that a pantheon of Demons might not be so far off into the future. As he slowly closed his mouth and straightened himself, he understood, absolutely, they could not afford to have this newfound peace fail. Because the newest doubt in his mind whispered to him they would not survive another war with the Demons.
========
Ichigo was annoyed.
No, scratch that, he was fucking pissed. Who the fuck tries to blow up an entire world as an exit strategy! The sheer reckless absurdity of it all! He had lost count of the number of Sinners he had hunted down in the last three years, but this one was arguably the worst of them all.
Luckily his mastery over Time had advanced to the point where he could use those golden strands of divinity within his soul to undo a few minutes of causality for a world. While not exactly impressive – at least by his standards – it was still damn useful given the circumstances.
Ichigo then cast a glance at the giant blue orb of annihilation that floated behind him. He did make one small edit to his time-reversal, and that was to make sure that the floating world-nuke did not reappear in the hands of that lunatic Sinner.
Briefly, he cast his senses over the realm and everything in Malebolge appeared in his mind’s eye. His Reavers looked… well, they looked confused. Aside from Nihil and the Reaver Lords, the rest of them weren’t quite that bright. There was a lot of head scratching going on amongst his army of dumb monsters.
The two Cadre floating miles and miles away at the entrance of the realm were staring at him quite astounded. On one hand, Ichigo appreciated that what he did was probably beyond their expectations, but on the other: surely, they had seen even greater miracles from the Heavenly Father during the Great War?
And then Ichigo observed Gremory with his sixth sense. The ancient Demon stared at him with her red lips parted and green eyes just a touch wide. Her expression was equal parts amazement, deep contemplation and… hunger?
But he quickly dismissed all the distractions as he turned his full attention down at the Sinner staring horrified up at him.
Slowly, Ichigo descended down to the ground, his fiery form disintegrating layers upon layers of Malebolge’s crust as he grew closer to the ground.
The Sinner fell back onto his hands and began to backpedal, even as his skin and flesh began to blister and burn from Ichigo aura. Which he vastly holding back… part of hunting Sinners was instilling a healthy dose of fear and terror into them before harvesting their souls. It was just good form.
“N-n-no-no! Please, no!” The Sinner screamed up at him, and Ichigo held back a sigh. It was always the same with Sinners. The pleading and begging from the damned never ceased. But as Hell came to his eyes and he saw every vile, wretched twisted thing this soul had done in its lifetime, any and all semblance of pity evaporated from Ichigo in an instant.
How many unfortunate and innocent people had pleaded with this tyrant during his lifetime? How often did he dismiss their pleas and mercilessly break lives?
No, Ichigo was in no mood for mercy. And slowly, Zangetsu rose above the Sinner’s head.
“No! NO! MASTER! MASTER PLEASE! HELP ME!”
Ichigo froze for a second. Master? While calling out to some deity for forgiveness wasn’t unusual, the Sinners in Malebolge had been here for centuries, millennia even. What could they possibly have prayed to?
“MASTER, PLEASE!”
As the Sinner’s cries became more desperate, he floundered over burning embers and ash and turned around, crawling frantically away and then coming to a stop as he pulled out a sort of talisman from his robes.
“MASTER, SAVE ME!”
Ichigo frowned as the talisman glowed an odd blue color, not unlike the giant bomb he had sequestered away in the sky. And then, quite suddenly, the air before the Sinner cracked audibly, and quickly it shattered to reveal a dimensional pathway.
Ichigo’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. He did not sense the hidden pocket realm when it was right in front of him? There were very, very few people whose space-time prowess were advanced enough to occlude Ichigo’s senses. Especially in the Underworld.
As the tyrant king stumbled forward and essentially tripped through the dimensional break, Ichigo gave a flick of his wrist, and Zangetsu carved its way through dimensional barriers and tore the hole wider. The effect was immediate; an enormous torrent of cerulean and azure demonic energy surged its way through the tear and washed over Ichigo and into Malebolge.
And in the next instant, Gremory was by his side, her lithe figure pushing through the demonic waves as she looked on with a heavy frown on her full lips. Her emerald eyes moved swiftly, peering into the blue void.
“I know this touch,” she said with quiet certainty.
Ichigo regarded her briefly before giving a careless shrug and stepped on through. He had a soul to claim, after all.
Ichigo stepped through the fractured boundary and found himself within a cavern of impossible scale, its vastness stretching far beyond the limits of any natural underground formation. The entire expanse was steeped in a deep cobalt glow, as though the stone itself had been saturated with condensed demonic energy, casting everything in shifting hues of blue that pulsed faintly with quiet, oppressive power.
Towering formations rose in the distance like mountains carved from granite rock, their jagged peaks disappearing and melding into the azure dyed rock, while scattered stretches of darkened growth spread across the terrain in clustered forests, their forms twisted and unfamiliar beneath the ambient radiance.
At the heart of it all lay a massive lake, its surface unnaturally still, reflecting the cavern’s glow with a depth that suggested something far more than water. Power emanated from it in steady waves, vast and ancient, marking it unmistakably as the source from which the entire realm drew its strength.
Gremory stepped behind him, though Ichigo’s eyes fell into the figure of the lone surviving Sinner who was sprinting towards the unsettling lake.
“Master! Save me!”
Still crying the same spiel, he thought ruefully. But Ichigo stopped as he felt a thrum of power and the entire cavern shake with demonic power.
“Varkhuz, you miserable failure! To think you would bring enemies into my Inner Sanctum!”
A gale of blue wind suddenly descended upon the Sinner who didn’t even have time to scream as he was ripped to shreds.
But the demonic density and miasma within this world rose sharply, and Ichigo’s brows furrowed as he realized the words of the owner of this place. Inner sanctum.
And then his gaze flickered to the center of the lake where he sensed something coming, but the surface of the lake remained unnaturally still, its vast expanse undisturbed even as something began to rise from its depths.
There was no ripple, no displacement of water, only the gradual emergence of a long, elegant neck crowned by the feathered head of a swan, its plumage a deep, luminous blue that seemed to drink in the ambient light. As more of the creature revealed itself, its form resolved into something far more imposing, its body lifting from the lake with a quiet thrum of power.
Where arms should have been, ten magnificent angelic wings unfurled instead, layered and radiant, each feather edged with faint currents of azure power. Beneath them, its torso bore the powerful frame of a bipedal lion, covered in sleek blue fur that shimmered subtly as it moved. A mantle of deep blue draped across its shoulders, its gold-trimmed edges catching the light as it settled against the creature’s regal form.
And with it, a rumbling of demonic brilliance that rivaled that of a Satans.
“Welcome, old and new friends, to the center of my dynasty.”
“Oh crap,” Ichigo mumbled.
And from beside him, Gremory let out a low growl.
“Ipos.”
=======
A/N: And this is the second part of the Malebolge mini arc, which ends next chapter. I don't really have much to say, but's mainly because as I type this I'm coming off of a 34 hour+ shift in the hospital and am exhausted.
Anyways, I hope you have a lovely weekend and I'll see you all next week!