1,030In the first age, in the first battle, when the shadows first lengthened, one stood. Burned by the embers of Armageddon, his soul blistered by the fires of Hell and tainted beyond ascension, he chose the path of perpetual torment. In his ravenous hatred he found no peace; and with boiling blood he scoured the Umbral Plains seeking vengeance against the dark lords who had wronged him.
He witnessed worlds and realms fall to their fetid clutches, and with temper unleashed, he crusaded against the blackened souls of the damned, unbreakable, incorruptible, and unyielding. By the might of his vengeful fists, the beasts of the nine circles fell without end, and the blood of the wicked was splattered against his mind, his body, his soul.
He prevailed through the passage that preys upon the weak, and impenetrable in his onslaught, he travelled between worlds and through time, saving worlds uncounted from unholy extinction. Though his name and influence spread throughout the multiverse as none had ever before, he remained oblivious to his reach, set on banishing all demons left unbroken to the void.
He sought retribution in all quarters, dark and light, fire and ice, in the beginning and the end. But over the birth and death of stars, he saw through the lies and treachery of the Ancient Ones. He struck down all who hid the truth, punished the gods, and crushed the essence of the Father.
Determined to end the eternal war, he stole the essence of the Dark Lord and took it to the False Beginning. He watched, hateful in his gait as the Luminarium resurrected the First, and thus set forth the Beginning of the End. Evil followed the abysmal shadows, and the Dark Lord roused Immora, the Armies of Armageddon standing to challenge all of Creation.
But even as the treacherous shade stretched on indefinitely, he stood among them unfettered.
He leapt between worlds and rallied the armies of Argenta, and thus the Final War began. He charged through the dust and the death, and he tore down the immortal gates of Immora, destruction following his path. He rampaged to the center of the Origin where the Ancient Gods awaited, and he challenged the First; the Final Battle, the End of the End began.
Two Titans met, and the multiverse was shaken as the might of the Primevals was unleashed, destructive power sweeping across time and space. The strength of their opposing wills took them across dimensions, to the past, present, and future, and blow for blow, blood for blood, throughout their battle, the truth of the Ultimate Betrayal was slowly unveiled, and it became known that the Dark Lord was the True Creator, and the Father was none but a usurper.
Still, the blaze of battle remained unextinguished, and the Final Battle between all-powerful equals continued. But soon, the Fate of all of Creation was due; one power overtook the other, and as the quakes of war ceased, and the fires of chaos quenched, he stood at the top, almighty, immovable, invincible.
He ripped and tore, until it was done. And now, it is done.
Atop the Ingmore Sanctum of the once holy Jekkad, he and his adversary faced one another, the air still, the battle over. The essence of life, the blood of Creation itself poured from the Dark Lord like it never had before as he rest his tired, beaten body upon a knee, his chest heaving, his armor in shambles. His primordial fist gripped his sword of multiversal destruction tightly, but with an undeniable air of acceptance.
Across from the First, the Destroyer stood, fists clenched but calm, a vengeful whirlwind in his eyes as he stared hatefully at the source of his torment. The strongest being, the one who had risen from the dust to the cosmos in defiance of death, the Doom Slayer glared through the cold visor of his impenetrable armor, the Praetor Suit, with a calm and righteous fury, the eons worth of torment he had endured flashing through his mind in an instant.
Everything he had lost, everything he had done to get to this point, every last demon he had torn to veritable shreds with his bare hands, every last god he had turned to pools of blood by his will, everything he had sacrificed...everything that he had loved. It all came down to this.
The End was here.
Slowly, gradually, his weary hands reached for his helmet, and for the first time in eons, he showed his scarred visage to another physical being. He took a slow, deep breath, then dropped the accessory by the soles of his boots. He stepped forward.
The Dark Lord breathed heavily, the weight of Fate not lost on him. He raised his weapon, but it was nothing but a deadweight, useless in his hand for what was to come, for what was inevitable.
"Tell me," he spoke, eyes glaring deep into his adversary's. He tossed his weapon to the side. "Have you nothing to say to your creator... before you strike him down?"
The Doom Slayer glared back, a scowl coming to his scarred face, lips warped by hate. The End here, he bared his fangs one last time, the Doomblade singing its song of death as it extended with a harsh screech. Without a moment more of hesitation, the Destroyer plunged the blade deep into the True Creator, blood and energy spilling forth, and for the first time in countless eons, he spoke.
"No."
He ripped his blade free, and the Dark Lord grunted, his body shaking in pain as the limitless power within him swelled. He looked up, and the power of Creation and Destruction raged forth from his orifices, a pillar of infinite energy shooting far into the sky, billowing out as it reached the boundaries of Hell. The Dark Lord fell back, and from his chest rose the First Soul Sphere. It cracked, unstable, then it shattered in an intense eruption that sent waves of power and influence flowing throughout the multiverse.
The ritual was complete.
In an endless number of dimensions that had been infected by the treacherous demons, the denizens of Hell crumbled. On one Sentinel World, man and woman alike cheered the Slayer's banner as the demons that plagued their world turned to ash. On another world, one in which society was ruled by ninjas, the weary chakra users were rendered speechless as the demonic threat of decades untold simply vanished. On another world, spiteful heroes and villains that had been forced to cooperate stumbled in relief and confusion as demons disintegrated around them. On another world, a treaty between humans and a vast race of sexually-sustained female anthropomorphic monsters rejoiced as the enemy fell to dust. On another world where ancient heroes and their masters compete for the power of a Holy Grail, the wars were ended as the Armies of Armageddon were destroyed. Countless other worlds saw the end of their plight as the demons were brought to Doom. It was over.
However...
The Slayer gazed up at the infernal sky, the cold fury in his heart sated for the first time in billions of years. For eons he had wasted away, slaughtering every last demon he could get his hands on, living for the sole purpose of tearing Hell asunder. Today, he had taken rightful vengeance against the Dark Lord himself, the ultimate source of his pain. There was still much left to do, but for the most part, his conquest of Jekkad, his quest for revenge was over. The rage within him settled; he felt nothing but an empty void. What was there left for him now that the True Creator, the Father of All was dead?
It is done.
"..."
The Doom Slayer slowly looked back and forth as a wave of exhaustion suddenly passed over him, nausea and dizziness overwhelming his senses. His brows furrowed in confusion as he fell to his knees, and he gazed down at his tired hands, perplexed. What was happening to him?
Soon, he had his answer.
"By his hand, all things were made," the Maykr Father's omniscient voice reverberated throughout the Holy Ingmore Sanctum. "... Even you."
As he heard those words, the Doom Slayer finally understood the situation at hand. For an eternity, the only thing that had kept him going was his rage. Now, without his anger, his body didn't know how to handle it. He was empty, a husk of a human being. A husk of a god.
In his moment of weakness, he fell over, and the Father's minions approached him. In return for his power, he was being sealed away. The Father had set him up from the start.
For some reason, he couldn't muster the rage to care. What was the point of going on after avenging everything he'd lost? Billions of years of combat, and now he had nothing. There was no point in going on.
The Slayer didn't fight back as the Father's Seraphs and the Ancient Gods cast hex after hex, seal after seal, imprisonment magic after imprisonment magic upon him, further stilling him. His helmet was placed back upon his head, and he was carried into a cursed sarcophagus.
Exhausted, he eyed the Seraphs that stared emotionlessly at him, sealing him as he had been in the past. They said nothing as they entombed him, lowering the sarcophagus at an excruciatingly gradual pace. The sarcophagus hit the ground with a thud, and the Seraph before him raised a metallic hand, curling his fingertips.
And as the lid of the eternal sarcophagus slid over him, the Doom Slayer slept once more—not in peace, but not in suffering either. Only apathy.
"...May the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again..."
After several days of combat, the Sentinels burned the Capital City of Immora and its unholy citizens to the ground, ripping and tearing through beast after beast before their resources were eventually exhausted. Word had spread that the Dark Lord had been defeated, and as a result, so too had the demons outside of Hell been annihilated; the rest were sealed within the Dark Realm for good. The Sentinels left, loud and victorious, but despite a number of search efforts, the legendary Doom Slayer was never found. Commander Valen was the last to leave; he waited another day for the return of the King, but when the Slayer never returned, Valen could only assume the worst. He left, the victory evidently bitter-sweet. Although the Sentinels no longer had a King, their scattered tribes remained scattered no longer, as the conflict and the demons that surrounded them had been vanquished. They reunited, and the day of the Final War became known as the Holy Crusade, and the victory day, the Eve of the White Star. For generations untold, the Eve of the White Star would be celebrated as the day on which the Sentinels had defeated the demons once and for all, and the day on which the Slayer had made the ultimate sacrifice to Doom the Dark Lord. He would never be forgotten, and Argentians across the stars would cheer his name. Similarly, a countless number of other worlds would name their respective victory days and celebrate them for millennia.
Unbeknownst to all, the Doom Slayer remained alive but in stasis, his powerful continence trapped atop the Ingmore Sanctum's Temple of Souls, surrounded by the soul spheres of a number of Gods. Time moved differently in Hell than it did anywhere else; Hell was the First Realm, one that connected to all others in the Multiverse, and by the Dark Lord's deceased but all-powerful will, the concept of space and time was skewed. Atop the Ingmore Sanctum, it was even more so. What was effectively a million years in the Temple of Souls might only have been a few thousand years in one universe. As such, time passed, gradually and painfully, the Temple still and silent.
The prideful Maykrs could no longer monitor the Dark Lord, for with the elimination of the Father's soul sphere, the transfiguration was upon them. With no power to influence them, they gradually went mad, and thus began the terrible rebirthing of their species. Even had they not undergone the feared transfiguration, they'd still be sure of themselves, for without the Dark Lord's influence, the void was sealed permanently, and there was no chance that anything could escape; not even the Slayer could move, trapped under an uncountable number of ancient and arcane seals as he was...
However, as powerful and nigh-omniscient as the Maykrs had been...they'd miscalculated. For there was one factor they had forgotten to consider when they used the Slayer and sealed him away.
Titan Maligog.
Created by the Dark Lord himself, Maligog's name was feared by all that knew it. A cursed, scarred titan of unrivaled physical power with only a single purpose, Maligog was designed to watch over the Ingmore Sanctum and deny passage to those unworthy. Its purpose was demeaning, but so powerful was Maligog that only the Creator himself could bring it to heel. But now, the Dark Lord was gone, and so his influence on it was no more.
The troubled Maykrs remained oblivious as millennia passed, and gradually, Maligog's astronomical power fought against the Dark Lord's rapidly weakening curse of binding, and its old role was replaced by the gift of free will. After an indeterminate amount of time, a single, slitted eye opened.
Maligog had reawakened.
Slowly, the immortal functions of its slumbering body, which had gone still in its sleep, began to stir. Its hot, Hellish blood, which had settled and cooled, began to flow again, its mountainous organs heaving, its synapses sparking with activity. A low grumble rose in its throat, its echoes sharing a likeness with the groans of a thousand metal ships that were being bent beyond their limits.
Its flesh as ancient as Immora itself, Maligog started to rise from the fetid Blood Swamps, and its stiff bones crackled and popped with such vibrations that the ground began to rumble. The titan lifted its head first, rising like an island from an ocean, the festering liquids of the swamps rushing down the sides of its head like waterfalls, producing heavy, poisonous rains over the terrain. As it began to lift its torso from the swamps, the world beneath it shook, clods of moist dirt and rock the size of hills breaking off from it, falling into the swamps like a barrage of asteroids. When Maligog rose to one knee, still hunched over, its back parted the clouds above the swamp, pushing them away, such was its size.
Demons small and large took notice of Maligog quickly, but though they were incapable of feeling anything other than rage, even they stopped for a moment, just to observe what was happening.
Maligog remained oblivious, and as it finally rose to its full height, its gargantuan body eclipsed the skies. It stood nearly four kilometers tall, its stature similar to that of the mountains. In fact, such was the weight of its form that distant mountain ranges vibrated from no more influence than a simple flex of its claws. Claws that were starting to flex in anger.
Maligog was free.
The titan's head swiveled with a single glaring eye, its other nothing more than a cloudy white. Eons of suffering congealed into hate, and as the image of the Dark Lord appeared in Maligog's consciousness, its mandibles twitched with rage. It looked to the skies, raising its claws, and in pure defiance of its former master, it roared.
The sound waves seemed to tear the very air apart, and they pushed the clouds away like the wind would carry a mist. When the sound vibrations met the lands a dozen seconds later, the ground shattered, rippling like waves in fifty meter tall tsunamis of dirt and rock that carried entire structures of Blackstone and metal with them, the landscape all but quaking for hundreds of miles, as if tectonic plates had shifted.
Any of the demons that had stopped to watch Maligog had their very bones turned to dust, their flesh pulverized to a humid paste that dispersed like a fine red mist. But it wasn't over.
The power of Maligog's call was felt all throughout Hell, and an indefinite number of demons far, far away paused their ever-unending toiling and turned to the source, seething. As conflict was born in Hell, it was inevitable.
Hell-kin of all shapes and sizes, from fodder to Demon Lords—the denizens of Unholy Jekkad came like a plague. Maligog didn't even notice.
It roared again, just as loud as before, and the vibrations were so powerful that they threatened to damage the dimension itself. The mountains seemed to crumble, particles the size of boulders and chunks as large as buildings—nothing more than insignificant grains of sand and small pebbles to Maligog—eroded from them, flying into the atmosphere at high speed. Soon, the ground began to crack with such immensity that the Blood Swamps was no longer composed of swamps—it was now the Blood Canyons, for fissures as wide as titans were tall and as long as rivers were carved from the ground.
So powerful was the beast's call that the Ingmore Sanctum itself began to crack, threatening to release an even greater monster. Its rage unsatisfied, Maligog continued to roar, the demons all but liquified by the mere pressure emitted from the sound of its voice. The Ingmore Sanctum cracked even more.
A pang of something made Maligog pause. Something behind it.
The beast ceased its call and turned around and faced the Ingmore Sanctum, taking two steps to do so, each one causing earthquakes that triggered mountainous landslides on what mountains remained.
Maligog could sense them, the powerful auras of the beings entombed atop the Ingmore Sanctum. It's singular unscarred eye glared at the top; it knew that its creator—its slaver had once rested at the top of the Sanctum. In other words, it was the ultimate resting place of the vile being that had tortured the titan into brutal, bloody submission, the one who'd given it the agonizing, cursed wounds that marred its form, ones that would never heal.
Claws clenched, knuckles popping with force equivalent to bombs going off. Maligog was overcome by anger, and another guttural roar of defiance rose from its throat, one that brought even Demon Lords to heel.
Without hesitation, Maligog swung its fist straight through the Ingmore Sanctum.
The force of the blow was staggering. Like a castle of sand, the Ingmore Sanctum was obliterated, erupting into countless chunks of rock that disappeared into Hell's endless void of a sky, shockwaves derived from Maligog's fist flattening mountain ranges as far as the human eye could see, carving deep trenches into the ground. The Soul Spheres of Gods and Demon Gods toppled from their kingly sanctum, but among them all was something different—a single cursed sarcophagus.
As the sarcophagus reached the apex of its flight and began to descend, Maligog eyed it with curiosity, then rage; the one within the unholy coffin had an aura most similar to Maligog's Creator, and as such, the need to enact revenge was overpowering. Maligog's ability to see reason was lost.
Cutting through the clouds, the super-titan's claws shot at the stone casket and snatched it out of the air with such speed and force that razor winds swept throughout the Blood Canyons, sweeping up whatever festering swamp water remained. Maligog remained oblivious, and with an enraged roar, it launched the sarcophagus into the ground.
The impact was devastating. The kinetic energy and the friction alone spawned a ferocious explosion that blazed with unbearable heat and force and encompassed the skies, more intense than any nuclear weapon could be, bright enough to permanently blind a human. The following shockwave obliterated any approaching demons, leaving only a crater that was as long as Maligog was tall, the center of which lay the coffin that was smoking.
Maligog was unsatisfied, and with another powerful roar that blew any debris far into Hell's skies, it sent its fist at the coffin, its knuckles cutting through the air at incomprehensible speed, generating heat to such a degree that it liquified rock. Its fist buried itself deep into the now dry dirt, down to its elbow, and once again, the force of a planet-killing meteor tore the Blood Canyons asunder, generating a shockwave so powerful that the Blood Canyons became the singular Blood Crater, spanning a mountain range.
When the shockwaves dissipated, Maligog removed its fist from the cavern it created, and it peered down at the charred, smoking pit of death. At the very bottom of the cavern, the sarcophagus lay, its surface cracked beyond all recognition but still intact, the symbol upon it glowing a crimson red. Unseen to the naked eye, seal after seal was broken under the power of the super-titan, and as the symbol grew brighter, Maligog leaned in close. Tall as the mountains, the titan strained to listen, but what it heard shook it to the core.
Unending hate and rage, loathing and malice met its eyes. But what met its ears was the sound of argent metal.
Abruptly, the coffin lid burst open, and from the cursed confines of the casket rose a being that struck fear throughout all of Hell, his suffocating aura of fury unleashing itself upon the Dimension of the Damned.
The Doom Slayer had risen.
Eyes glowing with repressed rage, fingers curling in hate, the Great Slayer tore himself from the coffin and stood to his full height, fists balling hard enough to crush the cursed stone of the sarcophagus that had imprisoned him—stone that not even Maligog had been able to damage. His gaze was drawn up as his suit's systems rebooted, and through the helmet of the ancient Praetor Suit, he glared up at the one who'd roused him.
Maligog faltered under the Slayer's gaze, but then its anger spilled forth once more, and it raised its titanic fist to strike again, it's elbow breaching the clouds as it pulled back. Eyes narrowing further, the Slayer moved, anger driving his thoughts, impulse driving his movement, and with a heft of fury, he threw himself at the walls of the cavern, smashing his gauntleted fingers into the rock. With speed unmatched, he threw himself upwards and instantly cleared a hundred meters. In less than nanoseconds, he cleared the cavern, whereupon Maligog's meteoric fist came down upon him.
The Slayer dashed out of the way, and the strike missed him by a millimeter. He brought his arms up, blocking the subsequent shockwaves that put WMDs to shame. Angered, the Slayer's own fist balled, and he retaliated. In a billionth of a blink of an eye, his fist of Argent death rocketed forward.
The blow that crashed against Maligog's titanic elbow was immense, emitting a flash of light as bright as a star and temperatures hotter than Absolute Hot, severing bone and flesh easily, the ring-shaped shockwave it produced able to be seen dozens of miles away, reaching the mountains. The ground seemed to shatter like glass in a wave that spanned miles, and the air seemed to split as if it were solid. Maligog, unprepared for such titanic strength, stumbled to the side as its arm ripped through the ground and dug a canyon from it, its steps producing earthquakes. It fell back first atop a mountain, flattening it entirely.
Thus, the Doom Slayer was given several seconds to stop and think. The memories of his fight with the Dark Lord resurfaced, as did his subsequent sealing. Though his mission was complete, and the object of his pain had been destroyed, rage bubbled beneath his skin—it was an inherent quality of his. For once, he didn't immediately act on it.
Why had he been awakened? For once, he had appreciated the Maykrs for sealing him away so that he wouldn't have to deal with anymore bullshit. But now that he was awake, he might as well do something about his situation.
He needed to leave Hell—he didn't care about the dimension too much anymore; the death of the Dark Lord had sealed the demons away, so the only reason he would have to stay is recreation, but that's not something he was feeling at the moment. It was strange: before, he had been nothing but rage. But now? He was a mix of rage and apathy.
The Slayer shook his head. The only functioning slipgate he could think of that was powerful enough to possibly leave a sealed Hell was the one to Ardur, several tens of thousands of kilometers away from the Blood Swamps—Blood Crater, relatively close in his opinion. He would get there soon, but first...
He huffed in anger, rolling his shoulders and popping his knuckles. Fury and loathing defined him, and even if he was more apathetic now, he would not let his thirst for blood go unquenched, his hunger for the destruction of evil unsatisfied. Body and mind brimming with hate, the very essence of rage seeping from his pores, the Slayer looked up at his aggressor.
Maligog was recovering, rising from the mountain with a thunderous groan. Whatever ticked Maligog off, the Slayer didn't give a flying fuck. All he knew was that the urge to RIP & TEAR was stronger than it had ever been in millennia.
There was an earth-shattering roar, and the Slayer saw a landmass flying at him, the Trial of Maligog thundering in his ears. He dashed back at lightning speed, skipping towards the edge of the crater, then the landmass-turned-meteor hit the ground, missing him entirely. Friction produced a fiery explosion that encompassed several kilometers, the shockwave rumbling for dozens of miles.
Standing in a veritable cloud of fiery debris, the Slayer's superior vision allowed him to see the shadow that fell above him. A massive clawed foot came down, parting the dust with such speed that it was set afire once more. The Slayer only glared, and at that last moment, he raised a hand.
Maligog leapt then stomped on him with Argent force, its brows knitted in fury—similar to how a human would step on an ant. The blow was devastating—it produced so much heat and force that the entirety of the landscape—as far as the eye could see—erupted into the skies as superheated magma in an instant, reaching far past the clouds and beyond. In fact, in one blow, the entirety of the battlefield had been fundamentally changed. So much matter had been catapulted into the equivalent of Hell's stratosphere that Maligog had managed to shave away an entire layer of earth, ripping up vast mountain ranges and leaving nothing but one massive field of fire and lava in its wake. It would be hours—days before every last bit of matter rained back down to the ground, and so for that amount of time, an area spanning that of a planet would see a constant rain of destructive meteors that would take the lives of billions of demons.
Such a strike would have been enough to kill even a god. But Maligog was not fighting a mere god. The titan was astonished when it felt its clawed foot slowly being pushed back up.
With one hand, the Slayer had caught the blow. A fiery rage in his eyes, the Slayer pushed, lifting Maligog's foot just until his arm was straight. Then, reaching deep within himself, the Slayer grasped at an ancient, legendary weapon that hadn't seen the light of day in eons. Unrelenting, the Hellbreaker, Argent Sentinel Hammer of legend revealed itself in the Slayer's unoccupied hand. Although Commander Valen had used it well, a weapon is only as competent as its user, and in the Slayer's hand, it was an Immortal-Slaying weapon of Empyreal Judgement.
One hand holding Maligog back, the other grasping the Hellbreaker, the Slayer swung upwards.
Maligog's world was rocked beyond comprehension. All it saw was an immense flash of red light beneath its foot, then it was reeling, the bones in its foot and leg shattering as its leg was forced into the air and its body was lifted off the ground just slightly. It stumbled, its steps displacing tons and tons of magma, equivalent to meteor strikes, then it righted itself, roaring in rage as it glared back down at the Slayer.
The Slayer's fists clenched, the Hellbreaker disappearing from his grasp. It was time to begin.
In the blink of an eye, the Slayer sprinted across the landscape of magma, beelining towards Maligog. The titan reacted accordingly, throwing a punch at the Slayer. However, just before impact, the Slayer jumped, dodging the blow, allowing it to carve a trench through the magma. He landed on the back of Maligog's hand as the Ballista appeared in his grasp, still powerful and functional after all these years—as all of his weapons were. He charged the Destroyer Blade, then when Maligog raised its fist through the clouds to eye level in confusion, the Slayer fired.
Maligog's eyes widened, and in microseconds, the Slayer cycled between all of his single-fire conventional weapons multiple times over, firing enough projectiles and payloads to rival a fully functioning military; so many projectiles lit up the air at once that it seemed as if a massive, solid, multi-colored beam of Doom shot at Maligog. But Maligog was more intelligent than lesser demons, and before the Slayer could finish the first cycle, it raised its other hand and blocked the attack. As a consequence, its hand was mutilated beyond all recognition by the sheer volume of Argent-enhanced bullets, rockets, bombs, and beams.
Growling, Maligog swept its mutilated palm across its arm, aiming to throw the Slayer off. The Hellwalker leapt high, dodging the sweeping blow. Instead of landing on Maligog's hand again, he turned and dove, falling through the clouds and out of Maligog's sight.
The magma on the ground kilometers below was boiling, and rocks the size of buildings rained down, displacing the magma with every strike. Argent lightning boomed and cracked as it traveled along paths of dust, from the clouds to the magma and vice versa. A super-storm was approaching, a phenomenon that only occurred in Hell when super beings of immense power clashed.
The Slayer ignored it. He fell a few hundred meters, bits and pieces of dust and rock deflecting harmlessly off his armor. Once he reached a certain elevation, the illustrious Super Shotgun appeared in his gauntlets, and he fired the Meathook, latching onto Maligog's elbow—the one he hadn't punched. From that, he swung himself into the sky and through the clouds again, but not before blasting the elbow to dust, firing weapon after weapon so quickly that the impossible recoil in tandem with a well-timed double jump propelled him much higher—higher than even Maligog stood.
Maligog's voluminous elbow seemed to melt away with each subsequent hit from the Slayer's God-slaying weapons, exposing the cracked skeleton until the joint mirrored its other elbow. With the damage done, Maligog noticed and turned, glowering up at the Slayer who was now four kilometers in the air. With a roar that blew the approaching superstorm away, hindering it for just a few minutes longer, Maligog's planet-cracking fist surged upwards. As if challenging the attack, the Slayer dove for it. He waited for the perfect moment, then, just a dozen meters before impact, he rolled out of the way, dashing a hundred meters to clear Maligog's fist.
Maligog's knuckles barely blew past him when he extended the Doomblade, charging it with enough energy to power the BFG. In a flash, he plunged the blade a meter deep into Maligog's flesh—between its thumb and pointer claw. The speed of his fall dragged him down the length of the titan's fist, then its arm, tearing through flesh with ease. The Doomblade alone was not enough to reach beyond skin, but the Argent Energy did damage on the inside, destroying pockets of flesh within. As the Slayer rode down the beast's arm, he quickly approached one of its metal shackles, each one larger than an arena. With a grunt, the Slayer kicked off of Maligog's arm, the Doomblade retracting with a metallic sound, a river of blood spewing forth from the massive length of flesh he'd mutilated. His fist burned with the might of the stars, and he spun, punching at the wall of metal in his way. The metal cuff burst like a brittle cracker, and the Slayer shot through the shackle like a comet, heading straight for Maligog's eye.
The titan noticed, but it was too late. Its fist was extended, and it had overreached, and though it could pull back at incomprehensible speeds, the Slayer moved faster. Maligog brought its closer, mutilated hand up to swat the Slayer away, but the Slayer easily passed through the large gap between its claws. When the titan realized this, another gurgle of discontent escaped its throat, and as a last ditch effort, it closed its eyes and thrust its head forward.
Although Maligog was nearly as old as time and was powerful enough to bring universes to heel, it was inexperienced in the ways of combat, for it spent the majority of its time sleeping against its will. On the other hand, the Slayer, though far younger, was still more than billions of years old, and he had spent the majority of his time RIPPING & TEARING, honing his skill in all forms of combat. As such, the Slayer took advantage of the opportunity that Maligog had given him.
He dove straight for Maligog's functioning eye.
The BFG-9000 appeared in his hands, its majesty shining like a malicious jewel. Emerald Argent blazed from its barrel, and as the Slayer landed on the beast's eyelid, the BFG flared as the Slayer thrust the weapon forward, plunging it into his adversary's eye.
Maligog's head was engulfed in a cloud of red and green, lightning hotter than the stars striking everywhere, blowing up patches of magma on the ground below. The titan's eyelid gave near nothing in resistance to the BFG, and its single functioning eye vaporized, boiling liquids spilling from its socket. The shockwaves of the explosion parted the incoming super-storm clouds again, cracking a large portion of Maligog's skull, a chunk of its horn vibrating apart. Maligog roared in pain, thrashing about as the Slayer absorbed all of the energy he had thus far sapped from it, replenishing his ammunition.
The titan stumbled, each step on the hot magma causing the equivalent of volcanic eruptions. It's mangled claws came up to its face to rip the perpetrator to shreds, but the Slayer kicked off once more. The BFG was replaced with the Super Shotgun, and the Meathook shot forth like an angry wasp, embedding itself into one of Maligog's horns. The Slayer swung from the horn, the wind rushing up against him, and he unlatched from the bony structure before landing heavily at its base. He peered down at Maligog to observe the beast.
Maligog continued to stumble around, and the Slayer had to make micro-adjustments to stabilize himself as the titan shifted. Suddenly, it tilted its head up, thrashing about violently, and the Slayer no longer had anything to stand on. Before he could even begin to fall, he fired the Meathook into Maligog's flesh and used the weapon as an anchor. After a moment of ceaseless thrashing, the titan began to run blindly, rapidly, and enraged. Each one of its steps shook miles and miles worth of magma, equivalent to meteor strikes upon the mantle of a dying planet; it was as if a snow-capped mountain suddenly got up and ran.
Hurricane winds pushed against the Slayer as the titan took off in a fully-fledged sprint, unleashing unadulterated destruction wherever it went, but the Slayer refused to be blown away. He held on, looking beneath himself at Maligog's massive frame. It took him a moment, but when he saw the titan's swinging arms, he noticed that the mutilated flesh was very slowly beginning to repair itself, reforming destroyed tissue and bone. The Slayer's brows narrowed.
It was damn annoying but it made sense; Maligog supposedly had enough strength within it to destroy a universe with sheer physical ability alone. The only reason it wasn't regenerating faster was because it was under the influence of the Slayer, who had the inherent ability to weaken and kill immortal beings, and to deprive them of their energy. The only way to reliably stop a titan of this caliber would be to exhaust it of its energy and RIP & TEAR until nothing remained, or to seal it with the Crucible—something the Slayer didn't currently have—and seeing that it had such enormous energy... this would take a bit.
The Slayer huffed. He had time.
Maligog was persistent and utterly relentless, but the Doom Slayer was even more so. As the super beings clashed, Maligog was pressed to defend itself from the Slayer's onslaught. For the limitless power it had, it was doing poorly. Every blow that the titan threw was countered, every dodge or evade that it took was cut off, and every mistake that it made was punished thoroughly. Conversely, the Slayer dodged and leapt, spun and weaved, his movements fluid and calculated, his attacks ever-brutal and devastating.
Their battle was lasting and drawn out, and their blows took them all across Hell. With every punch Maligog threw, mountain ranges were turned to dust and magma was brought to the surface, and with every step it took, earthquakes of untold magnitude shook the horizon and flattened the landscape. The Slayer dodged at speeds invisible to even the fastest, and his punches were superior to the might of the Gods. Every blow he dodged, he crossed hundreds of meters at a time, traveling kilometers in moments as he circumvented widespread attacks. As time moved differently in Hell, the Slayer didn't keep track of it, and now, he faced the demons and Maligog at the same time, but neither could keep up with his fury.
As a titanic palm swatted at him, the Slayer dashed through the air, firing the Ballista's twin beams of superheated Argent to propel himself away whilst damaging the appendage. Gravity took hold of him, and as he fell, he evaded a flaming meteor derived from Maligog's earlier stomp, the Rocket Launcher appearing in his grasp. The meteor struck a mountain, turning half of it into molten rock in a fiery explosion that reached the clouds. More meteors continued to fall, but the Slayer ignored them, save for the ones he had to dodge.
Down below, a Doom Hunter and a Baron of Hell glared up at the Slayer hatefully, the Baron bringing it's claws together as a tank-sized ball of Argent flames spun between them, the Hunter shifting as its numerous weapons armed themselves. Revenants and Hell Knights, Mancubi and Arachnotrons accompanied them, along with a plethora of Imps, Gargoyles, and the Possessed of different worlds—Possessed Soldiers and Possessed Ninjas, Possessed Martial Artists and Possessed Sorcerers, Possessed Heroes and Possessed Villains. They all glared up at him, pointing their weapons and baring their fangs as they screeched and growled with ferocity that would make any seasoned veteran go mad.
In moments, thousands of projectiles lit up Hell's skies—Argent plasma and infernal magic, homing missiles and relatavistic rockets, superheated acids and Lost Souls, bullets and bombs, pressure waves and energy blades. The Slayer scrutinized them with superior eyesight, then fell into a dive, accelerating downwards from the clouds. Spinning around projectiles with untouchable finesse, he activated the Lock-On Burst, then he returned fire. His gauntlets blurred so quickly as he cycled through his weapons, it looked as if he held multiple weapons at once.
First, he fired away at the Baron of Hell, and the moment the Lock-On Burst finished, he switched to the Heavy Cannon, whereupon he swapped between it and the Ballista, tearing weapons and armor off of those below him, ripping cannons off of arms and rocket-pods off of shoulders at incomprehensible speeds. As he grew closer, the Combat Shotgun appeared in his hands, and he rained down Sticky Bombs unto the army of demons with impeccable aim, seeking to tear soften the horde by devastating fodder demons.
Nearing the ground, he did away with his weapons just as the Sticky Bombs met their targets and the rockets he'd fired from before slammed into the Hell Baron, faltering it, blowing chunks of its carapace off. Before the demon could recover, he smashed fist-first into it. The moment his iron knuckles met its Blackstone carapace, the Baron was no more, exploding into chunks of fiery gore as the Slayer's boots hit the ground, generating a shockwave that faltered the demons around him. The next moment, the horde was upon him.
Rather, he was upon the demons. They came after him, falling upon him like a tsunami, but he overwhelmed their titanic ferocity.
A hundred Imps swiped at him, but in moments, each and every single one was reduced to piles of mutilated flesh and pools of demonic blood as the Slayer dismembered them, tore swathes of them in half at unthinkable speeds. As the Slayer's fingers found purchase on the spine of a dazed Prowler, a Hell Knight bounded for him, seething as its claws glowed with Hellfire. The Slayer tore the Prowler's spine out, and the Prowler let out a dying gurgle as a Revenant locked-on to him with its last remaining rocket-pod, letting out a skeletal screech of unseeing anger. A turret-less Arachnotron armed its bombs, lowering its head to launch them at the Slayer as he caught a Possessed Ninja by the leg and tore it mercilessly in half. The Doom Hunter from before roared viciously, its weapons clicking as it calculated at light speed, aiming at the Slayer, who decapitated a Gargoyle with its own limbs.
When the Slayer turned and saw these demons, he dashed for them. They didn't last more than milliseconds.
The Hell Knight swung its muscled arms, but the Slayer caught one of the appendages in his gauntlet and crushed it like a berry, squeezing hard enough to expose its bones, then he snapped it like a twig. The Hell beast let out a defiant roar before its head was reduced to literal mush by virtue of the Slayer's fist. As the Revenant screeched, the Slayer kicked the Hell Knight's bloody corpse towards it, blocking the majority of the subsequent rocket barrage. He dodged the rockets that weren't blocked, equipping the Heavy Cannon whilst slaughtering a dozen more Fodder demons. He fired the Precision Bolt, and the Revenant's weapons were no more. The demon staggered, and as the Slayer lunged for it, a Frag Grenade was launched from the Equipment Launcher, landing in front of the Arachnotron before it could launch its bombs. The Frag Grenade detonated, ripping a number of Imps to shreds and faltering the Arachnotron, cluster bombs damaging it further as the Slayer kicked at the Revenant's tibia, snapping it right off. The Doomblade shot out, and the Revenant was decapitated, the Slayer stepping away just as a number of fireballs and bullets annihilated the area he had just stood upon.
Before the Arachnotron could recover, the Slayer held the Combat Shotgun, and he rushed at it, plunging his fist through a Gargoyle's chest as he passed. The Arachnotron rose, but not before the Slayer shoved his weapon deep into its throat, the Full-Auto Mod spinning up. He pulled the trigger, and the demon squealed as it was turned to paste on the inside, a large hole blasting through its back. Sensing a shift in the air, the Slayer whipped around, throwing his fist at a slippery Whiplash, glaring as Argent Energy erupted from him. There was a large explosion, and the Whiplash was thrown back as Fodders were obliterated. The snake-like demon had no time to recover, for the Slayer grabbed it by the horns and tore it straight in half, discarding its maimed body without care.
Far away, a group of Cacodemons and Pain Elementals approached, but the Slayer ignored them—they were taken out by another one of Maligog's island-sized meteors, the subsequent explosion eclipsing the skies and ejecting magma into the air. Instead, the Slayer locked his attention on the Doom Hunter. The Hunter growled, and its weapons revved before it fired a torrent of demonic bullets, cannon shells, and dozens of Argent rockets, the latter of which quickly homed in on the Slayer. The Slayer didn't hesitate, and he moved with such speed that the tracking systems of the Doom Hunter's weapons were thrown into disarray.
He approached the demon with the intent of tearing it limb from limb, and he brutalized a Mancubus and a Dread Knight that tried to get in his way. Before he got close though, he halted himself. There was another, massive shift in the air, and he jumped away just before a titanic fist slammed down on the Doom Hunter, just barely missing the Slayer. The entirety of the mountain that the Slayer had been fighting on erupted like a volcano, the majority of the remaining demons being annihilated in the process.
The Slayer glowered at Maligog as he soared through the air once more, jumping from chunk of debris to chunk of debris. The titan glared back, letting out a literally earth-shattering roar as it struck at him again. This time, the Slayer didn't dodge.
Seeing Maligog's knuckles approach him at super speed, he jumped from the debris he'd stood on with enough force to destroy it, and he pulled back his own fist, the glow of a Primeval shining in his eyes as rage filled him. Then, he punched, and their fists met.
And thus, their battle continued. They traded blows that transformed the lands, moved at speeds incomprehensible to the human eye, but the result would soon be clear; the battle felt endless, but the outcome was never really in doubt. As time passed, Maligog's power grew weaker, and the Slayer's, greater. With every hit sustained, Maligog slowed, and its abilities were hindered like a rusted machine's.
The Doomblade cut lengths of flesh into its stature, whittling it like soft wood. The Combat Shotgun blew chunks from it with every trigger-pull, punching away at it like a chisel. The Heavy Cannon thundered as it spat metal that pierced through it like a brigade of miniature explosive spears. The Plasma Rifle melted the skin and flesh from its body, sending small stars of Argent to disassemble it. The Rocket Launcher brought pain and torment, ejecting the very abstract idea of pain unto its limbs. The Super Shotgun boomed with Argent vitriol, powerful, loud, and unrelenting. The Ballista fired its twin beams of superheated energy, poking holes into it. The Chaingun released a wall of metal upon it, rending muscle and tissue mercilessly. The Hellbreaker rumbled as it clashed with it, sending Argent lightning where it struck. The BFG shook it to the core, boiling its demonic fluids from the inside. The Unmayker vaporized its demented flesh, agonizing it. And the Slayer's fists brought death and destruction wherever they landed.
The cycle of destruction and healing continued for what seemed like years, but in due time, the Super-Titan was defeated. Maligog stood, the flesh stripped from its bones, its eyes gouged out, its blood flooding the magmatic plains of Hell. The corpses of an uncountable number of demons surrounded it—so many, that they had piled faster than most could burn away. Slowly, the Titan staggered about, each one of its steps still as powerful as tectonic quakes. But, it was at its limit.
The Slayer stood several kilometers from the foot of the World Destroyer, not a scratch upon his armor, his eyes filled with hate. He waited, and soon, Maligog, exhausted, agonized, and beaten, fell forward. Its massive body parted the clouds and brought a rush of hurricane winds as it fell. When its form impacted the ground, the realm of Jekkad shook, mountains cracked, and Maligog's chin fell before the Slayer, just shy of hitting the Primeval, generating a shockwave of immense proportions. Maligog went still.
Strangely, for the first time in countless centuries, a small, insignificant facet of Hell was silent. The skies were eclipsed by clouds of ash and smoke through which red light bled through, and flaming meteors rained from them like countless raindrops. In fact, the only sound that could be heard was that of the meteors that collided with the ground and continued to wreak havoc on a planetary scale.
The Slayer's gaze lingered on his titanic foe for a minute longer, then he turned around and stared at his objective: the last functioning slipgate in Hell, or at least, that's what the Praetor Suit signified. During the fight, the Slayer had managed to steer Maligog in the direction of the slipgate. It saved him the time of journeying across Hell in order to leave the realm, and now, he could leave.
The slipgate was a huge, unmissable edifice, large enough to allow an Atlan through. It was a wonder how it managed to survive in the plains of Hell for so long. Calmly, the Slayer walked over to the slipgate, and routinely, he linked the Praetor Suit's systems to it. Three low blips signified that it was out of power. The Slayer huffed, studying the device for a moment. He moved to one side of it and ran a gauntleted hand along the structure, the Praetor Suit scanning it briefly. Soon, he found what he was looking for, and he plunged his fist into a small compartment on one facet of the device. His fingers grasped a battery, and he let the Essence from his Primeval body flow. After a moment, despite its size, the slipgate hummed, full of energy once more.
Satisfied, the Slayer activated it, quickly reprogramming it such that it'd self-destruct at the moment he passed through—he couldn't have any demons escape the void. A relatively unstable hurricane of blue swirled into existence before him. It would have to do.
He stepped forward...
There was a sudden groan and a shift in the air, and the Slayer whipped around, faster than a comet. His eyes widened slightly at what he saw. For the instant his head turned, he saw a wall of bone—a titanic knuckle centimeters from his face. He stepped back, and the world twisted.
The Great Red was a powerful, prideful, and delinquent being, a dragon that was so powerful that only the Ouroboros Dragon could rival his might. He did what he wanted, when he wanted it, and nobody could do a fucking thing about it lest they wanted to be erased from existence.
For thousands upon thousands of years, he wandered the Dimensional Gap, doing flips and tricks, defending it from intruders, spending his time how he saw fit. He was the Dragon of Dreams and Illusions, and by his will, whatever he wanted happened.
He cared not for what anybody else really thought of him, their stupid little theories about how he came to being never really bothering him that much. In truth, his background, while known by little to none, was far more complicated than any other and was tied to that of the Ouroboros Dragon, going back a very, very long time.
See, many, many, many, many, many millennia ago, Red and Ophis had once been siblings serving as war dragons for a long forgotten and extinct people called the Argenta. The Argenta led a powerful, multiverse-wide empire that stretched on for light years, dominating all other forms of life in existence and influencing endless cultures. They were a good, law-abiding species—though they did have a long legacy defined by war.
The dragon siblings knew—for generations they fought alongside the elite soldiers of the Argenta, the Night Sentinels, and in their days of glory they'd conquered warring clans and took down massive, ferocious beasts the likes of which had never been seen. The Night Sentinels had been masters of technology and magic, and although World-Destroying entities and calamity bringers called Ancestrals roamed the planets, transforming the land with their very breaths, the Night Sentinels brought them down.
The siblings held a certain level of respect for the Night Sentinels for their philosophy. The siblings were not pets, not creatures to be ridden, but equals to their Night Sentinel comrades, having free will despite being a part of their army. They held respect for one another and were like brothers and sisters when in battle, in spite of their difference in species. It had been an honor to fight by their side.
Everything changed however, when they invaded. The demons. It wasn't the devils mind you—those pussies were nothing compared to the real Hell's monstrosities. The demons came relentlessly, consuming all in their path with ravenous hatred and hunger for anything living, be it human, Sentinel, animal, or plant. Entire worlds—nay, entire universes were consumed by their terrible and corrupt power, absorbed into Hell's realm as races and species were tainted and transmogrified into powerful demons themselves. Fighting them had been horrifying for both Red and Ophis, especially when they witnessed their kin fall in battle, only for those kin to become demons themselves, far more powerful than they had been before they'd been damned.
Despite their fears, the dragon siblings stood strong and proud alongside the Night Sentinels, and they held back the demonic forces long enough for him to arrive. The champion of the Argenta, the strongest king of the Night Sentinels, the Great Slayer himself. When he graced the battlefield with his presence, the demons fell by the billions to his hands alone. No matter how large or how powerful, whether they be the fodder Imps, the ferocious Barons of Hell, or even the World-Eating Demonic Titans, the champions of Hell all fell to his might. Fighting by his side had been an honor and a privilege. Without him, countless Sentinel worlds would have fallen to the demons.
But then, one day, the treachery was unveiled. Fighting with valor by the Doom Slayer's side, a single legion of Night Sentinels discovered the truth about the demons, and how the worshiped Sentinel Gods, the Maykrs, had betrayed their subjects. The Holy Maykr Angels, beings who had brought prosperity upon the Argentians, ones that brought peace and justice wherever they flew, had been working with the demons!
The dragon siblings shared shock and anger with the Sentinel legion, and with the Doom Slayer in tow, they sought to rectify this unholy treaty. However, their honor was undone by deceit, and the Sentinel legion was betrayed by the Holy Priests of Argenta. As their numbers dwindled under the demonic onslaught that followed the treachery, the dragon siblings froze as fear crept into their hearts.
They didn't want what happened to their kin to happen to them. They saw how the souls were consumed by the darkness—tortured endlessly into submission, toyed with by the forces of Hell. As the last of the Sentinels fell with only the Great Slayer remaining, the siblings escaped via slipgate and closed it behind them, but instead of arriving on another Sentinel world, they found themselves stranded in another universe entirely. That was when they had first arrived in the dimensional gap together, several billions of years ago.
Things had been far from over however. A couple millennia after they arrived in the new universe, Earth became a thing, as did all the life that surrounded it. The Biblical God came into being, along with the Greek, Roman, Norse, and others. Species like devils, angels, vampires, humans and various youkai came to roam the Earth as well, and from the ambient power of the dragon siblings, new dragons were born.
Over time, the duo changed and grew more powerful. Red became the delinquent True Dragon that he was today, as did Ophis become the emotionless Ouroboros Dragon of Infinity. Red and Ophis, of course, were the strongest of all the beings in the universe because they were the only ones that had been infused with Argent Energy, terrible a substance though it was.
Whenever someone came to challenge their might, the duo struck them down without struggle. Unfortunately, because of this, over time the dragon siblings grew cocky with their ever-growing power. It was only when the demons attacked again did they realize how weak they had become in their arrogance.
In a mere four months, Earth had been totally consumed by the demons. Despite all of the powerful reality-defying magics and powers that all of the species wielded, gods included, none of them aside from Red and Ophis had harnessed the power called Argent Energy, the only known magic to effectively combat the demons, said demons using it themselves. None of them could command the power of the Wraiths. They were fucked.
Men, women, and children died by the millions, and the magics that they wielded became corrupted by Hell's influence before they were turned against those who were left. Corrupted flesh and bone borne from the slaughter of the innocent covered the Earth like a plague.
Throughout the invasion, Red and Ophis were able to redeem themselves by using their power to save others. But they were not all powerful. Soon, the mastermind of the invasion, the dreaded Icon of Sin arrived, warping reality with its mere presence. Simply by existing in Earth's domain, the Hell titan caused the fabric of the universe to tear. Back then, Red and Ophis, despite their immeasurable power, only managed to barely hold off the World-Eater. Earth would have been doomed... if not for his arrival yet again.
Despite the utter hopelessness of the situation, the Slayer had appeared from seemingly nowhere and single-handedly stopped the Hell invasion with his arsenal of retribution. Where Red and Ophis could only barely hold back the Icon of Sin, he had utterly and completely annihilated it without breaking a sweat. It was like a fucking cakewalk for him.
Without a word to the goddamn world, he left as soon as the invasion was over. He didn't even realize that Red and Ophis had been there. All of that had happened a mere five-thousand years ago. Most if not all of the species remembered him as a vengeful god stronger than any other, but with time, his memory began to fade, and when the Great War happened a couple thousand years later, he was forgotten amongst the chaos. The only images of him left in this universe were the...Relics of Doom.
All of that being said, when the Great Red suddenly felt that commanding, powerful, ever-angry divine presence grace him yet again, even if only for a millisecond, Red nearly shat himself in reverence. For once in his life, he paused in his flips and tricks, and turned frantically towards the source, his eyes wide.
"The...The Great Slayer...is here!?"
It took him a moment to confirm that no, he was not imagining things and that yes, the Slayer was here in the Dimensional Gap. He pinched himself anyways, just to be sure that he wasn't asleep, and sure enough, he wasn't. So enthralled was he by the Slayer's presence that he didn't even register Ophis appearing by his side, the dragon-loli looking just as shocked as him despite her usual emotionless demeanor.
"I-Idiot-Red? Is Master Slayer...here?"
He didn't register the question either. Instead, a dilemma was currently working its way through his draconic cognizance. The Great Slayer himself was here in the Dimensional Gap! But why? It's only been five-thousand years! There wasn't a demon invasion going on back on Earth, was there? No, surely not—he would have noticed by now. But if there wasn't a demon invasion going on, and the Slayer wasn't off holding back the demonic hordes like he was normally wont to do, then what was he here for? The only reason he would ever leave Hell was if a planet was in danger, but if nothing was in danger then that meant...
"No way..."
Ophis quite uncharacteristically pouted at Red, miffed at his ignorance of her.
"What is it, Idiot-Red?"
"..."
"...Idiot-Red?"
"...It is done."
The dragon-loli's jaw slackened when she heard this. Then, with further shock filling her body, she felt it as well. The ambient evil that Hell leaked out in all corners of the multiverse—it was no longer there. Hell was sealed.
As if a switch had been flipped, her expression immediately brightened. "Then...that means...Master Slayer is here to stay? If Hell is sealed, he won't leave again. Right, Idiot-Red?"
Red turned towards Ophis in alarm, but paused when he saw the heavy blush on her face. She stared at nothingness in a daze, drool dripping from the corner of her mouth as her lips tugged into a small smile. "Oh. Shit."
Despite technically being genderless, Ophis kinda had a crush on the Slayer. Red wasn't sure why and he wasn't really one to judge. Especially since he could see the Slayer's magnificence for himself. Just feeling that irresistible power beckoned him to either submit or fight back, and, having seen what the Slayer could do first hand, he was more than willing to go with the former. It wasn't like Red was a big fan of the guy as well though. Heh, totally not.
Before anything more could be said or done however, the Slayer's signature disappeared into one of the many realms of the universe...
...
...
...
"M-Master...Slayer?" Almost instantly, tears coalesced at the corners of the dragon-loli's eyes. Red paled in realization.
For millennia, Ophis had longed for the day her precious Master Slayer would return to this universe. She waited for years and years, patient as could be. For him to return would make her elated! But for him to return only to be immediately stripped away again?
That can't be good.
In the next moment, the infinite emptiness of the Dimensional Gap was filled with the ferociously terrifying sound of a powerful dragon-loli crying anime tears, the other powerful dragon unsure of what to do, unable to take any action other than pat the sad girl on the back as she crushed his bones in a needy hug.
"O-Oi, Ophis! I can't breath!"
"Waaaah! Master Slayer!"
Welp, one thing was for sure. Anything that gets in the Slayer's way is fucked.
When the Doom Slayer's eyes finally snapped open from the stasis he had been subjected to, eons worth of hate and anger flooded his body, filling it to the brim. In that instant, the only thing he knew was the loathing held within and the suffering he had been forced to endure for eons. In that instant, beings across dimensions were subjected to his wrathful aura, and every last entity that could sense his immense emotions went insane.
Gods went wild as the impending feeling of DOOM itself washed over them, and they were thrown into fits of uncontrollable rage and terror as their arrogance and pride told them to strike down the source of their distress. Devils and angels shook in their shoes as indefinite amounts of unadulterated malice tore at their very souls. Dragons and yokai shivered as a powerful, dominating presence settled itself upon them, and those who weren't strong-willed enough to handle it were forced to submit, seemingly bowing their heads at nothing.
Fortunately, in the next instant, the raging storm calmed as memories of what had just occurred flashed through the Slayer's mind, the boiling blood within his iron veins cooling to a simmer. Maligog was alive...
The Slayer's fists balled. In his billions of years as the Doom Slayer, never once had he failed to kill something. Slowly, he exhaled and relaxed his balled fists. It was no longer important.
Hell was sealed, the Dark Lord was dead, the Slayer's war was over, and now, he could rest his weary fists. For the first time in an eternity, the Slayer let out a satisfied huff, the rage that had blinded him for so long receding a bit...
It was over...all of the pain he had carried, the burden of perpetual torment he shouldered, the sacrifices he had made, the love that he lost—it wasn't in vain. It had finally all been avenged. He could finally rest. He could be at peace.
...
…
Who was he fucking kidding. He would never be at peace. He had been fighting with hate for so long that his rage was an innate part of his being. In fact, the only reason that the Slayer allowed the Maykrs to seal him away after he defeated the Dark Lord was because he was just so tired of everything, so tired of being angry all the time that he just wanted it all to stop.
The idea of just taking a nice, long nap so he didn't have to deal with anymore bullshit had been actually appealing—the demons had taken everything from him, and although slaughtering them had brought him limited solace, nothing was going to bring them back. Nothing was going to bring her back.
The Slayer scowled silently as the anger he had just extinguished rose once more. There was no point in thinking about it now. He had eons to get over it, but even now he was still brooding. If he was going to be stuck with this curse forever, then so be it, but he wasn't going to sit there and mope about it. At the very least, the demons wouldn't be hurting anyone else and that's all that really mattered.
The Slayer shook his head. None of that was important right now—right now, he needed to figure out where he had been teleported to.
The Slayer rose to his feet, and looked around. It quickly became apparent that he was not in the city of Ardur. He thought back to the moment he had entered the slipgate, when Maligog had thrown its final punch at him. Had the slipgate been damaged?
It had already been highly unstable when he was prepared to use it. There was no way it would've transported him correctly if that was the case.
The Slayer huffed as the Praetor Suit did an omnidirectional scan, searching for anything noteworthy. He looked around with a keen eye, noting that he was in a large cave of some sort. The ceiling was several meters above the ground with stalactites hanging from it. There must've been water running from somewhere—possibly ground water leaking through the numerous cracks lining the roof of the cave if such cave structures had come to grow so large. Perhaps a river or a pond? If that is the case, then it's most likely that he is in an underground cave rather than a mountain cave—unless the mountain had a river running through it.
The Slayer turned his gaze to the cave walls which were marred with large claw marks—something at least the size of a Baron of Hell, which meant something big had lived or fought here. The scratches weren't very old either, so whatever happened here, happened recently. It was probably still nearby...
Three consecutive blips notified him that the Praetor Suit had finished its scans. He turned to see a waypoint on his HUD that led to the cave's exit. It wasn't too far away. With that, he started walking. He didn't get too far before he was stopped.
The cave suddenly shook as something from deep within roared aggressively, the sound waves bouncing off the walls and cracking the already damaged ceiling further, stalactites breaking off and shattering on the ground.
The Slayer looked over and stared at the perpetrator, his wrathful eyes sending waves of his apathy towards whatever beast had dared to hinder his progress. He was somewhat surprised to see a very Sentinel-esque blue-scaled dragon glaring back at him. It made him stop for a moment.
Had he arrived on a Sentinel world? The probability of that happening was incredibly low. The Slayer turned and faced the dragon as it roared again.
No, it couldn't be a Sentinel world since there were no Sentinel dragons that would oppose a general of the Night Sentinels.
The Slayer gave the dragon a cold stare. Whatever—the Slayer wasn't one to start fights for no reason unless demons were involved, but he wouldn't hesitate to defend himself—read, RIP & TEAR.
Without warning, the dragon charged forward, its wings ripping chunks of rock out of the sides of the cave, each one of its heavy footsteps cratering the ground. The Slayer stood his ground, giving it one last chance to leave him be. When it didn't, he made his move. Matching its speed, he dashed forward, raising a fist. The dragon gave another roar as he threw the first punch...
Something changed.
The very moment before his fist met flesh, the Slayer stopped. Where the blue-scaled dragon once stood, a beautiful, naked, blue-haired woman took its place.
...
With lightning quick-reflexes, the Slayer caught the voluptuous woman in his arms to keep her from tumbling to the ground. The moment he caught her however, she wrapped her arms and legs around him like a snake coiling around its prey. She squeezed him tightly, pressing her large breasts against the chestplate of his armor. When he looked, he noticed that there was a relieved smile on her face, and her eyes were closed as she hugged him.
"Master! You're back!" she said in a delighted, mature voice.
At that moment, a myriad of questions went through the Slayer's mind.
Master? This woman thought that he was her master? Why was there even a woman here? Where did the dragon...? Wait, she was the dragon. One of those rare shape-shifting dragons from long ago, back on Sentinel Prime. But...no, none of the Sentinels owned any dragons—neither did he. They had fought alongside dragons, not as their masters. But apparently, this one had a master?
Eyes narrowed, the Slayer placed a hand atop the woman's head and pushed her away. She fell back before managing to steady herself. When she realized what had happened, she stared up at the Slayer apologetically, but with an inherent sadness in her eyes. Her sad expression made the Slayer furrow his eyebrows further, but he didn't do anything other than give her a questioning look that burned through her soul.
Though she was unable to see his face, she seemed to understand the unasked question, getting to her feet, though the sad expression never left her face.
"Sorry about that. I got a bit carried away. It's just, it's been so long since I've last seen you. I missed you." She looked at him longingly.
The Slayer continued to stare unflinchingly.
"You don't remember me? Tiamat?"
"..."
"Of course you don't…" The woman sighed. She gestured to the Slayer. "Try to remember. You saved me from the...the Icon of Sin."
Hearing that name made him bristle, and he raised his head in recognition—an action that did not go unnoticed.
"So, you remember?" the identified Tiamat asked hopefully.
She had misunderstood. He had only reacted because she had mentioned the Icon of Sin... The name made him scowl inwardly. That piece of shit had been a repeat offender during many Hell invasions—a real pain in the ass to deal with every time it consumed or tried to consume a world. The Slayer was glad he wouldn't have to deal with that again.
That being said, Tiamat mentioned being saved from the wrath of the Icon of Sin by him. If that was the case, then that meant this was one of the worlds he had saved before...
Now that he thought about it, he had never actually visited any of the worlds he had saved before unless it was one of Sentinel origin.
Still, he shook his head in response to Tiamat's question. He never cared to remember any of the worlds he saved anyways either. The only thing he had cared about was RIPPING & TEARING.
"I see…" A dejected look crossed her beautiful face. He raised a brow when she shook her head, then stood straighter. "That's alright. It's been a few thousand years after all. I'm sure there are plenty of things that you need to catch up on, Master. Would you like to?"
"..."
He took a moment to think and analyze his situation. A thought provoking question came to mind.
What was his objective now?
For eons, getting revenge and stopping the demons had been his only objective. Never once had he thought about what he would do if his eternal mission ever came to an end. It was yet another reason why he allowed himself to be sealed.
Now, there was no objective, and because of that, he didn't know what he'd do.
Should he return to the Sentinels? Were they even existent any longer?
...
Did he even care to return to them?
Even if he wanted to, his ship was gone, and he didn't have that old tether-system either, so he was effectively stuck on this planet.
He supposed he was...free now. He could do whatever he wanted. But what did he want to do?
Well, first things first, if he was going to be stuck here, then he might as well get some information about this world. From there, he could figure things out.
The Slayer scrutinized the nude dragon-woman before him once again, then he nodded.
Tiamat smiled slightly. "Great. Why don't you follow me, Master?"
She went deeper into the cave, and the Slayer followed silently, interest piqued.
On a large, nondescript airbus headed for Japan, a certain blonde-haired nun jolted in her seat as a wave of something passed over her. Despite never before having felt such a thing, there was a certain amount of familiarity within it that she couldn't quite shake off. For a moment, she was tempted to let it go...
But then everything came back. All of the memories of a past life she never knew she'd lived rammed into her like a truck, a life in which she had not been a human, but rather, a bunny. Memories of the loving and caring man who had raised her came flooding back, and with the realization of what was happening, she gazed out the window as tears came to her eyes.
'Father... You've come home.'
Asia "Daisy" Argento smiled wistfully as she closed her eyes.
CODEX ENTRY - Return Of The King:
As it is written in the Tome Of The Wraiths, the great Beasts of Argent D'Nur, the draconic Wintherins and their kin are a long-lived species that predate even the Night Sentinels. What makes them interesting, though, is not the length of their history—rather, it is their lack of it, and the lack of explanation behind their anomalous nature. Generation after generation of Sentinel scholars have attempted to unveil the fog that shrouds these beasts in mystery, but even now, there is no explanation to the mind boggling physiology of the Wintherins.
Though nobody knows why, all dragons across Argent D'Nur are born with the mark of the Slayer. This strange phenomenon has held true since the inception of their kind, far before the Outsider had even arrived on their world. However, during the peak of the Sentinels, when the Great Slayer of Argenta legend was born by virtue of the Crucible's divine blade, the Wintherin species had unanimously come to recognize him as the one true king.
It is theorized that the physiology of the Wintherins is inherently tied to the sentience of the Crucible, and that as a species, the Wintherins are fated to defer themselves to he who is worthy of wielding the divine blade. Consequently, any meeting between the Slayer and a draconic derivation of the Wintherin will result in one of two outcomes. Either the dragon will defer to the Slayer's will, or the dragon will try to challenge the Slayer and usurp his position as the one true king.
For the Slayer, who has arrived in the universe of designation DxD, this consequence will prove either helpful… or annoying.