Many millennia ago…
In the years following The Great Flood and the imprisonment of God, many of his angelic children descended onto the earth to offer their aid to Lucifer.
It was inevitable that God would break free of his imprisonment some time in the future, so they knew they had to work tirelessly to preserve their future.
Many of the angels that came to earth chose to live among the gods, and those like Leto and Metis, had even taken some of those gods as lovers and spawned children of immense power.
However, those like Azazel, Gomori, Raum, and Baal chose to serve Lucifer personally and would go on to become the four Demon Princes of Hell.
Azazel, the Demon Prince of War.
Gomori, the Demon Prince of Lust.
Baal, the Demon Prince of Ambition.
And Raum, the Demon Prince of Murder.
The four demon princes, once angels, were transformed by Lucifer into envoys of sin. Beings that traveled the earth with the goal of granting humanity all of their desires in exchange for offering their souls to Hell and becoming his servants.
Before they had become such beings, the idea of Sin did not exist as they knew it. The very concept was foreign as there had been no distinction to make between what was deemed Sin and what was deemed Virtue.
Every action of humanity and divinity alike was deemed uniform, lacking separation to distinguish what was right from what was wrong.
Until Lucifer drew a line in the sand and undertook the burden of representing all that was evil, wicked, and wretched.
He took upon himself the role of the father of Sin.
In response to that, Cassiel became the ruler of the silver city and commanded all the angels whose loyalty remained with their father.
He declared to his brethren and all of humanity that God was the father of Virtue. He ordered Michael to preach to the masses, teaching them about the glory of God and his benevolence. His almighty strength and forgiveness that would allow them to be forgiven for their sins if they hailed him as lord and worshiped no other.
However, all of this was a lie.
Cassiel became the true father of Virtue to combat Lucifer’s efforts to become the dominant force in creation. He took the throne of heaven by force, subjugating all the Seraphim angels that remained in the Silver City with power alone.
Azazel, Raum, Gomori, and Baal all knew that Cassiel was lying but knew not what his motivations were. They could not make sense of his actions, but figured that he was preparing for the long term just as they were.
Yet, they were all conflicted on their roles as Demon Princes.
On one hand, Lucifer was trying to preserve humanity and secure a future in which they were free from the Tyranny of their father.
Yet his methods weighed on them heavily.
Of course, there was no mistake to be made that they were loyal and proud to undertake such a pivotal role if it meant that Lucifer could achieve what he set out to do.
But after hundreds of thousands of years of spreading sin, watching humanity kill, plot, and whore itself out to each other to no end, they began to feel disillusioned with their roles.
As prideful as they were about the importance of what they were doing and how it would impact the future, they took no pleasure in the actions demanded of their roles.
In stark contrast to Lucifer’s methods, Cassiel’s seemed far more in line with what they wanted for humanity.
The demon princes wanted what was best for humanity as, much like Lucifer himself, they were fascinated by them and wanted to see how they would progress and evolve in the future.
Yet the lies of God’s true nature and Cassiel’s mysterious motivations made it clear what side they should remain on.
Even so, it was an immense weight to bear on their minds as time continued to pass by and they knew not when the time would come when their roles would no be longer necessary.
The proof of this weight became clearer than ever to us when Baal betrayed them.
Baal, the Demon Prince of Ambition, strayed from his role and sought to become a ruler of his own kingdom.
The sin of ambition he was tasked with spreading had a poisonous influence on him as he became a victim of it.
He, along with many fallen gods and outcast deities, colluded to create their own sect of power that could rival Lucifer and Cassiel alike.
A sect of Chaos, ruled by Baal himself as their king.
He abandoned Hell as his patron source of power and adopted the Chaos Realm, the dominion of Apophis, into his sect.
True enough, the power of Chaos was impressive and more than enough to become a rival to the two opposing factions of Sin and Virtue. Yet the more they drew from the Chaos Realm and the longer they exposed themselves to its power, the less they understood about its power.
Chaos was untamable by anyone other than Apophis herself. She gladly offered them access to her power and put no restriction on what they could take from her, but offered no warnings of what they would become victim to.
In time, all of the Chaos sect mutated into abominations of what they were before. Even Baal himself was not spared as he fell victim to its warped nature.
Lucifer and Cassiel both had decided on a truce to wipe Baal and his followers from existence as they threatened everything that they had built.
Yet despite their agreement to take action, neither of them would be the ones to carry out this responsibility.
That would fall to Raum, Azazel, and Gomori alone as they descended upon Baal’s followers and slaughtered them all.
No man, woman, or child was spared as any taint of chaos was wiped out.
The three of them alone took upon themselves, the responsibility of slaying Baal and destroying the kingdom he had built.
They felt responsible that he had fallen so far to take this route and had not helped to keep him faithful to his role.
Yet underneath this facade of responsibility, the three of them knew that it could have been any one of them who had done. Any one of them could have fallen so far to look for a third option, but seeing Baal’s wretched form, they stayed even more faithful to the cause regardless of the burden.
In one such point in time, Raum and his legion of servants under him had been asked by a pleading woman, carrying her deceased infant in her arms, to wipe out a cabal of barbarians that did nothing but pillage, slaughter, and rape everyone they came in contact with for their own selfish desires.
It was revenge for torturing her husband, starving her child, and viciously molesting her for years.
This time, they were lucky to be asked to carry out the deaths of humans for a justifiable cause, but many times they did so under the most despicable circumstances.
Before the night was over, Raum and his legion of demons had snuffed the lives of over a hundred men and women alike that the woman had spoken of.
Her words were true that their actions were vile and horrible. Yet as he tried to take pride for killing them as he had been asked to, as he tried to feel some form of honor from cleansing the world of evil, he knew that it was only a small bit of good he was allowed to carry out among all the evil.
His face, one of a nameless soldier in a long fallen kingdom, was slick with their blood as he stared up at the sky solemnly as he hoped the day would come where his role would come to an end.
Raum, now…
Today would be his most important match of the tournament as he needed to win this to ensure that Camilla would advance and face Moyako.
As loyal and faithful to Moyako as he knew himself to be, in this one instance, he needed serve another if only to see his master reach her true potential.
In this fight, he would confront the biggest obstacle to their goals.
Artemis, the Goddess of Moon and the great slaughterer of the gods of the old world.
There was no other person in Terra’s history with a greater amount of divine blood on their hands as this singular woman.
Entire pantheons had been wiped from existence by this woman, so much so that no trace of them had reached the eyes of humans in the Second Age of Man.
For a once Demon Prince of Murder, even Raum was still impressed by the sheer level of carnage that she had inflicted upon the world.
The two met on the floor of the arena and eyed each other warily.
“I must say, its been a while since I’ve seen you Raum,” she greeted him in Ancient Greek.
“How long was it for you when you came to this world?” he asked in the same language.
“It must have been eighty years or so. Soon after Yeshua’s death and the battle that ensued after, I found myself here. What about you?”
“Azazel, Gomori, and myself all appeared in this world during King Dagon’s rule ten thousand years ago,” he answered.
She then looked him over, examining the body he inhabited, and asked, “That far back then? In that case, why have you chosen to stick with Jeanne D’Arc’s body? For a male angel, to keep her body as your vessel seems a bit...perverse.”
“It is not my choice to remain in this body. I, like Azazel and Gomori, are trapped within the bodies we inhabited in Terra the day of the Exodus. They were lucky to have a body they can feel comfortable with. This one is...strong, but being a woman is an unusual experience and hasn’t gotten any easier in all this time.”
Hearing that, Artemis grinned in amusement before looking up at the audience and said, “I’m sure they are growing impatient with us for speaking. Maybe we can continue conversation some other time.”
He nodded as he pulled his sword free and said, “Agreed. Let us fight and see who is indeed stronger.”
Artemis drew her sword and the announcer called for the start of the fourth match as the battlefield enveloped them.