The Hellborn…
A sensation of agony swelled within its flesh, but was soon overtaken by a feeling of rage so deep, so profound, that no mortal weapon could kill it.
It stared deep into the hollow flaming eyes of the god that had struck him with every weapon it had, fired every bullet, every missile, and every kind of ordinance he could think of, but it mattered not.
Nothing would stop The Hellborn’s advance to victory, but though many eyes looked on, watching the battle play out, many wondered why it did not simply kill him with a single stroke?
Why not wield the blade of death with its full intended might and cut him down with one blow?
Why not end the battle before it could reach its grand crescendo.
Even greater still was the question, why not heal its own wounds? Why not take the time to recover and prevent itself from suffering such a horrible fate when the fighting had finished?
If one were to ask it for an answer, perhaps it would find itself unable to provide it.
Could it have been honor?
Could it have been stubbornness?
Could it have been to entertain itself to prolong the fight?
Who knows.
Emotions, especially in the heat of battle, were unreliable and capricious.
Regardless, it would not have mattered what emotions it felt in the end, for the conclusion would have remained the same.
With it’s daughter’s blade coated in blood and resting against the neck of the god it had felled. With its flesh warped and garish, and its soul absent from its body.
And finally, with the entirety that made up its spirit, buried underneath the weight of trillions of black chains wrapped around him, dragging him below the heavy ashen dunes.
As its body was being buried below the ashes, and an unfamiliar presence pulled the edge of a blade away from its eyes, he felt strangely at peace.
Despite the uncertainty of where he was and what had happened to him, there was no pain, no great threat to disturb him, and no reason to fear its current situation.
Although...it did wonder why it didn’t feel that way. Why couldn’t it feel...anything, couldn’t seem to remember anything?
Why?
As peaceful and still as its current situation appeared, it did not feel satisfied with it.
It could not feel satisfied with the idea of being ignorant of what was happening to it and why it could not muster an emotional response to it.
With this existential confusion that it sought to remedy, it opened its eyes and truly took in the area around it, the sight of endless chains surrounding it.
It reached out its hand to touch the chains but was startled as it looked down and realized that it was nothing but bone.
It looked down at the rest of its body and realized the entirety of it was reduced to a stark white skeleton.
Its arm began to shake as it knew this appearance was not natural. It was not supposed to look like this and it knew it.
It needed to escape from this prison of chains and find its way out and gain the answers it needed to explain why it was the way it was.
Deciding to ignore its unusual appearance, it reached for the chains and tried to push them aside.
They moved aside with shocking ease but there were so many of them and they kept getting tangled on one another that it became frustratingly tedious.
Yet it continued to push past the chains, going at it for such a long time that it felt as if hours were passing by. Those hours turned to days when the first streams of ash started to leak through the chains and fall upon its bones.
It could tell that it was getting close to reaching the surface of the chain prison, but had no way of knowing how much farther it would take to get past the layers of ash.
But as its hand broke past the last chain keeping it confined to that area and pushed through the ashes, he could finally begin to feel something.
What he felt was fear and anger, pain and isolation, and a strange yearning that had an almost magnetic pull to it. It called to him, drawing him to the surface of the ashes.
Frantically, his hands dug through the piles of ash and as he did, he began to feel an uncomfortable heat wash over him.
It was a sensation he was not used to as he had never felt what it was like to be burnt, but he could tell that it would be immensely unpleasant.
As he continued to dig upwards, he felt the ashes become looser around him and the heat increase even further in its intensity until finally…
He broke through, and the full weight of the flames washed over him, carried along by intense winds swirling around him.
As he recoiled from the pain, he tried to pull his arm back to escape the flames but the ash around him collapsed due to the tunnel he had dug to emerge to the surface, exposing his upper body to the swirling flames.
He tried to scream but had no mouth and all his bones could do was shake meaninglessly in pain. As the flames continued to burn him, he called on anything that could help make him strong enough to withstand it, any power that could help him weather the heat.
He did not want to die in this unknown realm, burnt to ashes and screaming silently when no one could hear him.
As if in response to his will to keep on living, red lightning began sparking from his bones like nerves, blood began to swirl and flow around them until it took on the appearance of muscle over the bones, and black stone appeared over it like armor.
As he looked through the cracks of the armor, through the swirling blood and red lightning, his bones no longer looked white, but instead appeared black as midnight.
But as he tried to make sense of this unusual appearance, a large mass falling from the sky caught his eye as it tried to crush him underfoot but had its head ripped from its shoulders in an instant.
He looked at the head held in his right hand and was disturbed by its wolfish features and hollow eyes.
It reminded him of the appearance of Azazel and Gomori, with their eyes being hollow as well save for yellow orbs of light…
But they were...Princes of Hell...
Then he understood.
This place was Hell, and he had been dragged down to it.
Maybe if he were any other normal person, he might have been horrified by the idea of being sent to Hell after death, but instead, he felt that it made perfect sense.
He couldn’t quite understand why it felt that way, but he knew it to be true.
He deserved to be down there, to suffer the pain that came with being in Hell, and to ask for mercy would be ridiculous.
Yet now that he knew where he was and understood why, he still was not satisfied.
He still felt that unusual feeling of yearning that grew even stronger once he broke free from the ashes. That feeling drew his attention to a black castle in the distance; one of such scale that he wondered if it were actually a planet within this realm.
As he stared at the castle, many more demons came running towards him, with claws out ready to slash him to pieces.
All of them fell within seconds as his hands cleaved through their flesh and tore them apart as easily as ripping apart construction paper.
As their bodies fell around him, he looked upon the sight of the castle with a goal in mind.
He would reach those castle’s gates, hunt down the source of that yearning that draws the attention of his soul, and hope the answers it gives him the meaning he needs.
More time passed as he crossed the vast and seemingly endless desert of ash, filled with the souls of sinners and the demons that slay them.
He had been running through the desert as fast as his spirit could allow for so long that it felt like centuries had passed as he counted the seconds in his head.
More demons had arrived to kill him but they all fell before they could have a chance to touch him.
Yet the more he killed, the more he realized that his soul was not regenerating the spiritual energy that it had. The Hellfire was chipping away at his soul little by little as it tried to kill him but his soul was too massive for it to do so. He used more energy to kill the demons and run through the desert than he did to push back against the flames.
If it continued for much longer, he would eventually be worn down enough to the point that he could be killed, and surely there were much stronger demons in this realm.
Which meant that he would need to rip out the souls of these demons and use their strength to prolong his own if he wanted to survive.
And that is what he had continued to do in all that time, running, fighting, killing, and counting the seconds he spent in Hell.
But eventually, the counting came to an end as he found himself at the foot of a black gate that would have scraped against the clouds would they have been seen on the surface of Erebus.
“I can...feel the yearning grow stronger…,” he muttered, with his voice like that of low rumbling thunder.
He reached out his right hand to brush up against the surface of the gate and an unusual sensation that he had not felt in so long began to overwhelm him.
The feeling of coming home.
“This is...home? But how…?” he said, with his voice trailing off and cracking as he could not understand his own emotions.
Gritting his teeth at the confusion he felt, he snapped his fingers and the mechanisms that kept the gate shut shattered as they slowly began to swing open.
The sight of the gates opening would be seen by every demon in the castle and soon they would poor in like a flood to kill him, yet he did not care.
He would kill them all and make his way to the very top of the castle to the source of that yearning before Hell’s flames could snuff his life out for good.
Hestia...
Time was a pointless concept to concern one’s self with in Hell, but even so, after spending so much time in such a realm with so little to do, things would quickly become dull.
This was especially true for the Goddess of Hell as she laid in her bed lazily reading the same book she had read before a dozen times in her collection of millions of others from souls who have entered her realm over the eons. That was not to say she hasn’t tried reading any others, but rather she has read all of her books so many times that the moment something new appears, she continuously makes the mistake of rereading it five times in a row out of excitement until it becomes dull again.
When one becomes a being ruling over a dominion outside of time, it becomes rather boring after the first few million years pass within it.
Yet just as she finished closing the final page on the book she was reading, the door to her room swung open and one of her Hell Knights came rushing in and kneeled before her.
“Armos…how unexpected to see you so suddenly. What brings you here?” she asked him as she sat up in her bed.
“A sinner has forced open the gates and invaded Castle Umbra,” Armos reported.
“A sinner? As in singular? Just one?” she asked, curious and mildly excited by the idea.
“Yes. This sinner is unusually powerful and appears to be manifesting the Authority of Wrath to aid him. He’s slaughtered millions of demons just running here and hasn’t died once since his arrival,” he continued.
“W-what...but that shouldn’t be possible. Perhaps I should see this for myself,” she said as she stood up and focused her mind towards the sinner who had invaded her castle.
Ordinarily it would be impossible for even the strongest of sinners to last so long in her realm as the flames would burn away at their soul and kill them within a matter of years. When they die in Hell, they become a permanent part of Hell and can never escape. Adding onto that, sinners usually emerge in the fields of punishment so far away from Castle Umbra that it would take centuries just to reach the gate.
There have been records of souls entering hell for a brief moment only to return to life in the living world as they teeter between life and death, but for a sinner to emerge from he fields of punishment and still be alive after reaching the gates was nearly unheard of.
Only one other sinner had ever managed such a feat and managed to escape her realm with his raw strength alone.
A man by the name of Dagon, who had so arrogantly waltzed into Hell out of curiosity, slaughtered every demon that came across his path, and arrived in the royal palace demanding an exit.
At the time, she felt she could do nothing but allow him to leave as nothing short of her own strength would be enough to fight him, and even then she was uncertain.
But now that a new challenger has arrived, she was curious to see if it was Dagon once again, or someone else entirely.
She focused her consciousness on the sinner and the image of him appeared in her mind, a warrior clad in black armor, with blood and red lightning serving as muscle and nerves, wielding a twin-blade in the shape of-
The Master Bolt?! He wields Zeus’s Master Bolt?!
She was now more intrigued than ever to see how far this sinner would managed to go.
The Hellborn…
Not too long after making it past the gates he was confronted by demons that were far stronger and different in appearance from those that he had fought before.
Unlike the more basic demons with wolf like features that crushed the souls of sinners, these demons appeared to have more individuality to them.
Many of them still appeared skeletal, but had a deep hole within abdomen that started with their lower ribs and reached their navel. Within that hole, a series of Greek letters floated within it, glowing and vibrating with energy.
As he tried to read those letters, he realized that many of them spelled out the demons’ names while others described the great accomplishments attributed to them, and others still detailed the sins that brought them to Hell.
The first demon that caught sight of him had a skeletal body that looked to be made of metal, with fragments of steel orbiting around him. Within the hole in his abdomen, many letters glowed within it, but the one that shined brightest was the Greek letter Mμ.
Seeing him, the demon charged with both of its arms outstretched, launching hundreds of metal shards flying through the air.
At first, the Hellborn thought that it would be effortless to evade as the shards appeared to be moving so slowly, but as he tried to use his lightning to increase his speed, he found it effected by the magnetism and his movements halted.
With the demon’s power over magnetism, it managed to counter everything that he was capable of.
With no other option, he reached out his left arm, took a hold of the demon’s soul, and clasped it firmly in his grip.
The demon went still as the Hellborn’s will dominated its own and fell to its knees in front of him.
With his right hand, the Hellborn summoned a twin-blade and decapitated the demon, absorbed its soul into himself, and continued on with his advance.
That demon’s soul was far greater than all the torturer demons he had slain on his way to the gates combined. It dwarfed them so completely that trying to fight it normally would be too great a risk.
With this power to conquer their souls, he would continue to advance and slaughter all those who would stand in his way.
Decades seemed to pass in his mind as he continued to climb up the great expanse that was the black castle before him.
So many years of slaughtering demons passed him by as he conquered their souls and vanquished them all without a second thought. So great did his strength become from absorbing them that he began to feel something within him shatter, like a seal that had been placed on him since birth being released.
So clear was this increase in strength that he could not even attempt to hide it as his power poured off of him in waves, like a waterfall crashing onto rocks below it.
After spending so much time fighting, eventually the demons thought better than to face him and knelt before his might as he passed.
The ones that retained their fighting spirit were soon killed by their own out of fear of being killed themselves.
His presence within Hell became a symbol of terror in their eyes as they would not dare stand in his way any longer.
It wasn’t until he found himself at the doors of a palace within the black castle did he feel the presence of demons strong enough to stand against him once more.
This would indeed be the final hurdle before he came face to face with that unusual source of yearning that tugged at his soul.
He need only slaughter all that stood in his way and he would find it.
“Open,” he commanded, with his voice like that of crackling thunder.
As if the realm itself were being subjugated by his will, the doors crumpled and blew inward in an instant.
The demons that awaited him stood firm in the face of his power and aimed their weapons at him.
Unlike the Torturers and the Servant class demons, these appeared to have a greater military significance to them.
A name for these demons called to him in his mind and he recognized them as Hell Knights.
Their weapons and armor were all forged of Black Iron, and unlike the demons before them, they appeared to retain their flesh, though unusual shapes marked their skin with fire and their eyes, though not hollow, were colored yellow much like the Demon Princes.
As he looked upon these Hell Knights, he asked them, “Are you prepared to die, or will you stay your hand and allow me to pass?”
The words that left his mouth seemed to have far greater effect than he had intended as many of them stiffened up and could not bring themselves to move.
Seeing this, the Hellborn took several steps forward a he walked past the first few who shook with effort to try and resist his immense strength of will.
Those that stood behind them forced their bodies to stand firm as they pulled back their arms and thrust their weapons against his chest.
Realizing that his words alone could shatter their wills and crush their bodies, he said, “Fall.”
All the Hell Knights who stood in his way fell flat against the ground and their bodies were crushed under the pressure of his will.
He did not bother to harvest their souls as he walked past them and climbed the height of the palace.
Hestia…
She was genuinely shocked to see this sinner make it as far as he did, but soon that shock turned to worry as his very presence failed to invite challenge from her subjects and resulted only in fear and trembling.
This sinner’s words were like that of a god, a concept of rage and violent death, one that crippled the wills of all that gazed upon the sight of his soul or heard his cacophonous voice.
It was not too long before he found himself at the doors of her palace and marched through it without any resistance as none could seem to stand up to him.
Wait...have I been his goal this whole time? Was I drawing him to this place? If that is indeed the truth, then…
“Armos, command the Royal Guard to back up the Hell Knights and put a stop to this sinner before he can amass too much power,” she ordered and he nodded as he left through the doors of her throne room only to stop completely still.
Seeing this, she called out to him once more, “Armos! What is keeping you?”
He did not respond and remained frozen in shock.
Impatient, Hestia rose from her throne and met him outside the throne room and stood behind him.
“What is the meaning of…,” she tried to ask but her voice failed her as her eyes fell upon the sinner that stood firm fifty paces away from her.
It was difficult to see him clearly through the line of Royal Guards that stood between the sinner and herself, but she quickly learned the true nature of this sinner.
“W-What is the God of Wrath doing here, and what could he want with Hell?” Armos managed to say through gritted teeth as he held his weapon firm.
Hestia could not manage any words as she looked upon the form of this Primordial God who had invaded her realm in the form of a sinner and made his way into her palace.
“All hands! Charge and force the God of Wrath from this realm!” Armos ordered and the Royal Guards charged at the Primordial God with their weapons trained on him.
The God of Wrath looked at each one and said, “Your blades will shatter as they strike my form and your flesh will crumple under the weight of my soul.”
As if his word became law, their weapons fractured like glass as they struck him, and as the God of Wrath’s fists connected with their bodies, they were reduced to bloody stains lining the halls of her palace.
So easily did he tear through her forces that she began to feel fearful of his strength, to which Armos took notice of and gripped his blades even tighter.
“Fear not my lady. Though his words are law, and his soul is mighty, they will not break through my determination,” he said as he began marching alongside his subordinates.
His fellow soldiers made way for Armos as he charged at the God of Wrath and actually managed to stand against him as his weapons retained their strength and his body held firm against the Primordial’s blows.
“So you can manage to stand against me? I am impressed,” The God of Wrath said amused.
“I will not let your wrath fall upon Lady Hestia!” Armos roared as he swung his blade through the air.
Yet as she had expected the God of Wrath to retaliate, the mention of her name seemed to give him pause as he stood very still and took the brunt of Armos’s sword against his chest.
His eyes then scanned the hallway until they fell upon her and his soul began to waver.
Why do you look upon me like that? Hestia wondered.
Armos as well seemed shocked by his sudden hesitation and took several steps back, waiting for him to act.
Then, as if he had lost the will to fight, the armor that surrounded the God of Wrath’s body began to fracture from her presence. It fell from his body and shattered upon the floor of the halls.
He then slowly raised his right arm, as if reaching out to her, and tilted his head.
Why are you reaching out to me in such a manner? I am not familiar with you, so why do you walk towards me like that?
More of the god’s armor began to crack and peel away as the concentration of Hell’s presence peeled more and more away from his body and began to tear away at the blood forming his muscles.
“You were here…? All this time, you were in Hell…?” he asked and his voice sounded less and less like the cacophonous thunder and more like that of a person; like that of a young man.
Hearing his voice change from fear inducing wrath to heartfelt desperation, Hestia’s hands began to tremble. Though not out of fear, but out of recognition.
She knew this voice, though she had not heard it for so long, nor heard it at this man’s age, but she had heard it.
The Royal Guard, unsure of what to do, stood still as they watched the God of Wrath continue to walk towards her while his body was torn to pieces by her presence.
However, Armos seemed to impatient to allow this to continue for much longer as he said, “You will not take another step closer! Now fall!”
He raised his sword to strike him down, but Hestia called out, “Stay your hand Armos! Do not kill him!”
She knew this sinner, for he was her own flesh and blood, stripped of his birthright that granted him dominion over Hell and left vulnerable to Sin.
Tears fell from her eyes as she cursed herself for not recognizing him sooner as she walked towards him.
Armos, confused by her sudden change of behavior, asked, “Lady Hestia! I must protest that-”
“You will not lay a hand upon him, for he is my son!” she shouted as she rushed towards the god of Wrath and took him in her arms.
Wrapped tightly in her embrace, she spared his soul from the flames of Hell and his appearance began to take on something more closely resembling that of a person as he looked up with sorrow in his eyes.
“Mother…why are you in Hell? You...you don’t belong here,” Marcus said as tears fell down his eyes.
She let out a sound that was half crying, half laughing as she realized that Thalia had asked her the same question.
Both her children did not understand her true nature as the Goddess of Hell, and both thought of her presence within Hell as if it were some kind of punishment.
With Thalia, she had not known her own mother personally and was merely confused to see here here.
However, with Marcus, the look in his eyes from seeing here in this realm was that of heartbreak and disbelief.
He did not seem to understand why the mother he knew ended up in such a place. Perhaps he thought much better of her and did not believe she deserved such a fate.
“My son...I must say the same of you. You cannot be in this realm for much longer, for if you stay, my very presence will kill you and make you an eternal prisoner of Hell. You must leave this place at once,” she said as she stroked his hair.
“W-What…but I can’t-” he tried to force out but she place a finger on his mouth to silence him.
“The flames of Hell burn the souls of all sinners, including you. Though I would love nothing more than to see your beautiful face and speak to you for endless days, I cannot accept you into my realm so long as you are burdened by Sin,” she said to him with a soothing tone.
“I can’t...leave you...here,” he said as he wrapped his left arm around her and tried to hold her tighter to himself.
“But you must. You cannot remain in Hell until you have found absolution from your sins. Only when that day comes, will I accept you back into my arms like this. Now please my beautiful son, leave this place and live,” she said to him as a blinding light appeared within the hall and shined down on them.
Marcus’s eyes slowly rose up to look into the light that shone upon him and an arm reached out for him.
A woman with icy blue eyes and black hair with flames that burned at their ends, and a face that mirrored his own called out to him.
“….ather! Father please! Take my hand!” she shouted and his eyes widened.
“M-Moyako…? You’re...my…?”
“Please!”
Marcus looked back at Hestia, then looked at Moyako’s arm as it reached out for him once more.
“I will...come back for you one day mother,” he said as he took his daughter’s hand and was pulled from Hell’s warm embrace.
“I will be waiting for you, my son.”
Marcus…
His eyes flew open and he lurched forward in the bed as he gasped, “Mother!”
He began breathing heavily as he tried to get his bearings again as he felt dizzy and his head swayed back and forth.
His eyes canned the room as he noticed that several people were inside looking at him with concern on their faces, most of all were Thalia, Moyako, and Selene.
Dean and Artemis were also present along with the blonde woman Camilla, who he hadn’t met yet.
Upon seeing him awake and looked her in the eyes, she bowed her head and knelt down in front of him, much to everyone else’s surprise including his own.
Ignoring her for the moment, he looked up at Moyako, who appeared on the verge of tears, and said, “You...Moya…”
Upon hearing that name, Moyako let out a sharp intake of breath and took a startled step back.
“Are you...really my…?” he asked her as he could hardly process his own thoughts as he stared up at her.
But before he could finish the thought, Selene made her way towards him and said, “Marcus!”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed him tight as she said, “Don’t scare me like that! You died and...and you had made Thalia cry because of it. Don’t fight so recklessly like that again!”
“I...I won’t. I’m sorry,” he said as he held the back of her head with his left hand to console her while Thalia, who appeared very exhausted, looked up at him with grateful eyes as she rested her head against the mattress.
He then looked up at Moyako one more time, as he wanted to finish what he had to say to her but…
Wait...what was he going to say?
For a moment there...he thought…
It was something important, wasn’t it?
Maybe it wasn’t.
Regardless, he knew that she was the one who had pulled him out of Hell as he gave her a grateful look and said, “Thank you for saving me.”
Her expression changed to disbelief as her eyes darted back and forth in but tried to hide her emotions as she said, “Of course. I can’t have you escaping our bet if you’re dead. I’ll…I’ll meet you in the finals Marcus.”
“Count on it.”