This is the sixth chapter of Diabolical Ascension, the saga of Zeraga Baal'khal, the Doomfire. Discretion is advised due to graphic content.
The fifth chapter, Pact of the Simulacrum, can be found here: https://talesofvalorandwoe.wixsite.com/zeragabaalkhal/post/diabolical-ascension-v-pact-of-the-simulacrum
The first chapter, Awakening, can be found here: https://talesofvalorandwoe.wixsite.com/zeragabaalkhal/post/diabolical-ascension-i-awakening
Image credits (in order of appearance): Petr Joura
A morass of ghouls filled the tunnel, a churning, undulating ocean of revivified flesh replete with burning red eyes; gnashing, slavering maws; and long, swiping claws. Zeraga and Zamyyr hacked, slashed, burned, and thundered their way through the undead, leaving shattered corpses, puddles of gore, and thick pillars of smoke and red mist in their wake. Yet, for every ghoul the devils slew, two or three more loped forth.
Zeraga barely noticed. He was reveling in the throes of his blood-rage, his mind mired in the sanguine motes that formed the crimson pall. “Slaughter!” A wet, crunching sound came as Hellscythe’s blade split open the face of a ghoul that had had the misfortune of being right in front of it, releasing a deluge of vital fluids as Zeraga impaled three more foes upon his panoply of seething hellfire blades.
Zamyyr remained ever at his master’s side, unleashing cleave after cleave with his monolithic Axxcrudyr, their runes glowing balefully and their blades ensorcelled with hellfire and crimson lightning. The Crimson Dragon maintained a strange lucidity as he killed, not allowing himself to fall into the berserker rage that had so often claimed him in battles past. It was a dark, sobering feeling born from the ever-gnawing wondering if it would be this cycle, this hour, perhaps this very moment when Zeraga Baal'khal fell irrevocably into Hellscythe's rage, never to know sanity again.
The two devils had been embroiled in their present conflict for hours, and they had received little respite after their last one; the presence of chaos had seemed only to intensify despite the destruction of the corpse-altar. The tunnel before Zeraga and Zamyyr widened into a cavern from which charged the next ragged, inchoate horde of ghouls, guttural cries of hunger upon their moribund lips. Beyond could be seen the outline of a weird stone structure.
Another locus of Ag’graaza. Zamyyr said to Zeraga as they began cutting down their latest foes.
No matter. the Doomfire growled back, following up a cleave of Hellscythe with a roaring gout of hellfire that instantly immolated his next foes, leaving only ashes behind. We will destroy it.
Hellscythe concealed its glee. It was a hard thing to do, especially with Zeraga’s current state and Zamyyr’s relative ineptness in matters of magic and mind, but it was also necessary. The altar ahead was by far more powerful than the last one; Hellscythe could feel that the veil between the Thirteen Hells and the Primordial Chaos-Void was as thin as parchment. There would undoubtedly be more demons, of course, but that, too, was what Hellscythe wanted, and if they were as powerful as the altar… The weapon no longer had any questions about how and why the Swords of Addaduros had fallen. Now, it turned its contemplations toward how it would cause the next events to turn out in its favor.
Zeraga and Zamyyr fought their way into the cavern. The structure at the center was a great henge of stone monoliths upon which were engraved many eldritch runes and stars of chaos that all glowed a lurid shade of vermilion. Within the henge stood a crude pedestal that was little more than a boulder shrouded in red mist. Upon it stood a statue of a screaming demon; its arms were raised in malicious exultation, and its eyes glowed the same color as the henge's runes. A hulking demon, taller and more muscular than Zeraga and Zamyyr, stood on either side of the central pedestal. Their savage faces were a crude array of horns, eyes, and teeth, and their skin was a bright, actinic shade of green broken only by tracts of darker green scales that armored their shoulders, chests, hands, and feet. Leathery, bat-like wings, fully unfurled, extended from their shoulders. Each of the demons had its right hand raised high; it was those hands that gripped stout warhammers of black stone that almost rivaled Zamyyr’s Axxcrudyr in bulk. The heads of the warhammers were carved with runes like those upon the henge, throbbing with sinister power.
Circled around the demons were creatures that had once been glayruks but now bore extra limbs, eyes, and mouths, some functional, some vestigial, and most covered in red scales, further bastardizing those who were already so far removed from the bloodlines of the Thirteen Hells. They wore scraps and shards of metal that roughly approximated armor, and there was no doubt that their regal feyrferreus weapons, shining like red gold in the eldritch light of the chaos runes, had once belonged to the Swords of Addaduros. From the gaps between the chaos-warped glayruks came more ghouls, materializing from the crimson mists about the pedestal.
Recognition smoldered within Zeraga as he looked upon the malefic shrine before him; he and the Crimson Dragons had encountered similar foul constructs during their last crusade into Ag’graaza. The altars in the demons’ home plane had been much larger, rivaling some of the keeps of the Thirteen Hells in size and scope. Still, the altar before Zeraga now was no spontaneous piling of corpses like the last one had been, and to see such a thing infesting Hell itself… Zeraga’s rage burned hotter as the crimson pall intensified, but not before one last piece of knowledge came up from the psychic abyss where the memories of his past lives lurked:
The hammers. They were the keys to controlling the altar.
“Slaughter!” The Doomfire crashed into the latest wave of ghouls, leaving only charred flesh and red mist as he did his gruesome work, and Zamyyr ensured that his master’s flanks remained clear.
The next ghouls were more muscular and agile, and their skin was as dark red as the gore spilled upon the floor. Close behind were the mutated glayruks. The demons at the altar did not move in the slightest, and the crimson mists around them rose as all of the runes upon both the altar and their hammers began to pulse with greater speed and ardor.
Fire and lightning and blood and death devoured the next moments as vicious wounds were inflicted and endured. Any pain that Zeraga and Zamyyr would have felt was reduced to a dull thud, so ensconced were they in the maelstrom of war. The death cries of their foes formed a wall of sound around them.
The stench of death intensified as the last of the ghouls and the glayruks fell, and the red mists solidified into a great, arch-like portal within the henge, arcing over the pedestal and its demonic attendants. Ever-shifting, unnatural faces spanned the whole of the arch, giving form to an infinity of silent torment. A sickly green light appeared within the portal, for a moment blotting out the sight of the chaos altar and the demons, as a rider and a mount stepped through. Neither being was like anything Zeraga or Zamyyr had seen before.
The mount was a lithe, well-muscled beast, striding in a leisurely, almost serpentine, fashion upon its six legs, and its skin was the mottled purple blue of those who had been claimed by frostbite. Its head was tubular, with six slanted eyes that were a dark and intense shade of pink, and its mouth was lamprey-like; its tongue was a whip of crimson flesh, muscle from which the skin had been stripped. Six tentacles sprouted from the beast’s sides, each ending in an eyeless facsimile of its head. Its tail was long and sinewy, resembling a headless serpent as it coiled and uncoiled.
The rider was a gaunt, pallid humanoid clad in chainmail of darkened iron and a gore-red cloak, robe, and hood. All that could be seen of the blackguard’s face was a pair of blazing sanguine eyes, orbs of malice and hatred and cunning. In his right hand, the demonic cavalier held a gem encrusted iron truncheon crowned by a star of chaos and ensorcelled by sickly green light. He had three left arms that each ended in a distended, clawed hand, like the wing of a bat without the membrane; together they gripped an axe that was similar in make to the truncheon but larger and more opulent still. Gems crusted the upper half of the handle, leading up to a serrated crescent crowned by the savage horned skull of what could only have once been a greater demon, and three large spikes, each the length of a sword blade, jutted out from behind the axe’s head. The blade was engraved with a large star of chaos that commanded a whirlwind of surrounding runes that all glowed red.
The portal's light faded, and the two demons at the altar turned toward Zeraga and Zamyyr, their faces warped into expressions of macabre anticipation.
Nekros Gorethirster. Zeraga did not know how he knew the blackguard’s name, only that they had fought during the Doomfire’s past life, perhaps during the final crusade to Ag’graaza. Had Nekros been expecting Zeraga to come to this place?
Hellscythe knew the answer to be yes; it remembered well the duel with Nekros on Ag’graaza, and it knew also what the blackguard was seeking, the true root of chaos within the mountains. It was a horned helmet named Ôx’xâ that had been created for Zeraga by the Crimson Dragons. Within it were bound nine greater demons, one of which had been Nekros himself, and there could be no doubt that the demon coveted both the Horned Helmet of Desolation and vengeance upon Zeraga. Hellscythe desired Ôx’xâ, too. Having the helmet upon Zeraga’s head would take his power to a harrowing new height and dilute his will in equal measure. The bloodthirsty scythe rapaciously goaded its wielder forward, filling the Doomfire with more vigor and more visions of slaughter.
Zamyyr, ever faithful, followed his master, eager to purge the taint of Ag’graaza from the Thirteen Hells once more. At least for a little while, he could pretend that Zeraga was once again his Legion Master and that the Crimson Dragons, his brothers, were not entirely gone.
“Zeraga Baal’khal and Zamyyr Ôth…” Nekros’s voice was like a chilling, rasping wind. “It has been far too long.” He pointed his truncheon at his foes, and two rays of green light leaped forth, striking the devils’ chests. They were immediately paralyzed as blood poured from their eyes, noses, and mouths, sapping their vigor.
Internally, Zeraga continued to rage, fighting against the sorcerous binding but unable to break it. As Nekros and his mount came closer, Hellscythe fought to keep its composure from being shattered by its ever-growing glee; the chaos energy radiating from the blackguard was truly magnificent. If Nekros were slain and the energy harvested…
“Pathetic,” the blackguard said, “I was hoping for more resistance. Still, I will be glad to add two devil skulls to the spikes upon my axe.”
As Nekros swung the weapon in a wide, sweeping arc, chaos-flame poured from the runes upon its blade. Zamyyr was felled as the onslaught of flame and blade tore through him, cutting through armor and flesh with equal ease, and agony wracked Zeraga as he suffered the same fate a moment later. Unconsciousness beckoned even through the thickness of the crimson pall; his hellfire weapons unraveled. As Nekros raised his axe to swing again, Hellscythe shattered the spell that bound Zeraga and reinvigorated the blood-rage.
As fast as thought, the wounded, bleeding Doomfire was back on his feet, and Nekros’s axe whined a wordless, metallic dirge as it clashed with Hellscythe; the two weapons quivered as their wielders struggled against each other. Nekros’s eyes burned brighter in conjunction with an unseen grin. “So, this will not be so easy after all. Good.” The blackguard’s mount lashed out with its tentacles, the lamprey mouths and crimson tongues hungrily seeking Zeraga’s flesh. The devil leaped back as he conjured a hellfire shield and blocked, and the tentacles' mouths squealed as the flames licked them in a macabre analogy to a lover’s kiss.
Zeraga conjured a hellfire axe next; he was lunging and swinging before the weapon had fully formed. Its blade coalesced right as it slammed into Nekros’s truncheon. Again, the blackguard’s mount attacked, latching on to one of Zeraga’s arms, the mouth of its tentacle foaming with acid as it bit into the Doomfire’s flesh. The devil slammed his hellfire shield into the mount, sending it staggering back toward the altar. As it recovered its footing, Nekros pointed his truncheon forward, and many tendrils of crimson mist coruscated forth, the eldritch skeins weaving into a large, clawed hand that threatened to engulf Zeraga. The Doomfire swung Hellscythe at the sanguine claw, and the blade-like ruby atop the weapon glowed brighter. Strands of red flowed from the claw into Hellscythe, unraveling the conjuration.
If Nekros was frustrated, he didn’t show it, instead spurring his mount forward. Zeraga let out a bloodcurdling howl and threw himself at his foe, sending Hellscythe careening down upon Nekros. The blackguard blocked with his truncheon, and a swing of his axe followed, mangling Zeraga’s breastplate in a cacophony of screeching metal as the devil was sent staggering back. The Doomfire tore away the now-useless piece of armor as he recovered his footing. A torrent of chaos-flame was already screaming from Nekros’s truncheon; it crashed through Zeraga in a tide of excruciation that he was able to endure only because of his blood-rage. The Doomfire darted forward, and though the tentacles of Nekros’s mount lashed out to block his advance, he easily batted them aside with his hellfire weapons. A swing of Hellscythe followed. Hellfire howled into existence around its blade as it scraped across Nekros’s chest, causing his chainmail to sweat droplets of liquid metal as his robes were set ablaze. The blackguard’s left arms snapped forward, and a sickly tearing sound came as his axe carved a gaping laceration upon Zeraga’s chest that vomited gore, ropes of blood clinging to Nekros's axe as he pulled it away.
Zeraga shuddered for a moment as he roared in pain. Still, he stood his ground; the edges of the wound were already knitting shut. A bombardment of tentacles followed. Zeraga beat the strikes back with his hellfire weapons as he swung Hellscythe again. “Slaughter!”
Slaughter! the weapon screamed back.
Nekros beat back Hellscythe with his truncheon, and the weapon continued upon its course, slamming into Zeraga’s side and leaving another savage wound upon his flesh. That wound, too, was already starting to heal.
The next moments passed in more such brutal exchanges, and neither Zeraga nor Nekros were able to gain an advantage over the other. Nekros’s mount tried to aid its master only to be blocked at every turn as Zeraga conjured more hellfire weapons until, finally, the Doomfire decapitated the demonic beast with a decisive strike of a hellfire axe. Nekros slid off his mount with surprising grace as it crumpled to the ground, elegantly flowing into another swing of his axe; more chaos-flame poured forth from the runes upon its blade. Zeraga sidestepped, gritting his teeth as the heat of Nekros’s demonic flames assaulted him, and lashed out at his foe’s exposed side. He was rewarded with Hellscythe’s blade punching through Nekros’s chainmail to bite into whatever was underneath. The Doomfire then felt his ever-thirsting weapon drink ravenously, as though it were one who had been wandering across the wastes of Addaduros for too long and had finally found water. Yet, rather than turning into red mist, Nekros disintegrated into nothingness, his axe and truncheon clattering to the ground.
Hellscythe, glutted on chaos sorcery, unleashed the full extent of its will upon Zeraga, surging to overtake a mind that had already been so thoroughly addled by rage and bloodthirst. The next wave of the crimson pall came, and it was blocked by a mental barrier that was already in place. Hellscythe snarled in frustration.
Zeraga laughed sardonically. You did not honestly think that I was going to give my whole self over to you after what happened last time, did you?
Hellscythe gave no reply. How had it not picked up on something so inane, so jejune? It was supposed to be the master, not Zeraga. No matter. There would be another time…
Zeraga dismissed the crimson pall, and, strangely, the two green-skinned demons were still standing at the now-dormant chaos altar, making no motion to attack. The Doomfire glanced behind him and saw that Zamyyr was already rising.
I am sorry that I was not able to aid you more. the Crimson Dragon said as he rejoined his master.
It is fine. Zeraga replied. The threat has passed. At least, I think it has. He turned his gaze back upon the two demons and stepped closer. “Give me a good reason as to why I should not open your throats and feed your souls to my scythe.” The Doomfire hefted Hellscythe menacingly.
“You have proven yourself stronger than the one we summoned,” replied the demon on the left, “and so we shall serve you now, if you will have us. I am X'kharr; my brother is X'ghorr.”
Zeraga gave a skeptical grin. “You both would willingly place yourselves in service to a devil, and not just any devil, but the Doomfire himself, a sworn foe of Ahriman?”
It can only be a trap, master. Zamyyr said. Let us slay them and be done with it.
Not so fast. Zeraga replied. Since they have acknowledged my superior might and have shown no further hostility, I will give them a fair hearing.
You remember the horrors of Ag’graaza. Demons deserve no honor!
Were we not looking for allies to aid us in our fight against Asmodeus?
Zamyyr gave no reply, knowing that any further diatribes would be lost upon his master.
“Not all demons are slavishly loyal to the First,” X'kharr said, “just as not all devils are loyal to their own lords.”
“My brother and I know well of how you faced off against Ahriman,” X'ghorr continued, “and we believe that if you were to duel him again, you would emerge the victor.”
“The only reason you would have for making such a claim is if you had a desire to see the progenitor of your race, of chaos itself, dead.” Zeraga’s gaze hardened as it drifted between the X'kharr and X'ghorr. “Why?”
“For the same reason that devils turn against their own masters," X'kharr replied, “Power.”
X'ghorr nodded. "As proof of our good faith, we offer Nekros’s weapons to you. The axe is called Suffering, and the truncheon is known as Affliction. Both are truly mighty artifacts of chaos, imbued with power beyond what many devils can ever hope to wield.”
“I see.” Zeraga’s gaze turned upon the weapons. They seemed so tantalizing now, the scintillating of their gems beckoning to him, and there was no denying that they would indeed be helpful to his cause…
Zamyyr could hardly believe his eyes as he watched Zeraga take up the artifacts of chaos, and yet the Crimson Dragon had no choice but to believe it. He remembered all too well how the greatest forge-masters and sorcerers among his legion had gathered to create Ôx’xâ despite his vehement opposition; he was the reason why the demonic helmet had not been taken on the final crusade to Ag’graaza. Still, the helmet had at least been created in the Thirteen Hells, but to see Zeraga so easily tempted by weapons that had come straight from the bowels of the Chaos-Void itself… Truly, the Legion Master of the Crimson Dragons was no more.
Suffering and Affliction were stout in Zeraga’s grasp, but he could wield each of them easily enough in one hand, and he could feel the sorcery churning and pulsing and writhing within the weapons, waiting to be unleashed. The Doomfire grinned as he saw the solution for his dependency on Hellscythe and imagined what horrible fate he would be able to inflict upon Asmodeus and anyone else who opposed him.
“Let us have a demonstration of what these weapons can do,” Zeraga said, "Move away from the altar."
X'kharr and X'ghorr obeyed as Zeraga stalked toward the chaos altar, telepathically reaching out to Suffering and Affliction as he did so. Both of them erupted in chaos-flame like loyal hounds answering the call of their master.
A din of shattering and seething shredded the air as Zeraga razed the chaos altar in a series of brutal swings and gouts of fire, leaving behind only a mound of smoking rubble. He then turned his gaze back on X'kharr and X'ghorr. “Very well then. You have given me weapons and promised to serve me. Tell me this now: do you know where the River Styx is from here?”
“No,” X'kharr said, “My brother and I manifested only recently.”
“But,” continued X'ghorr, “we can show you to the settlement from which we took these glayruks.” The demon gestured toward the barely recognizable corpses. “Perhaps they will know.”
“They will attack us on sight,” Zamyyr said grimly.
“Perhaps at first,” Zeraga conceded, “but I am sure that we will be able to teach them that talking is better than fighting. Now, let us be off. We have much to do.”
A dark joy that was like a black flame filled Zeraga as he, Zamyyr, and the demons left the cavern. Already, the Doomfire knew that he would have to slay X'kharr and X'ghorr at some point, but, for now, he was content with the fact that the forging of his new army had begun.
The End
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Next Chapter: Skûn's Gambit
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