Grall
The gates of Hell did not loom—they waited.
Tall, ornate, and older than sin itself, the structure pulsed with a sickly blue glow that crawled across its surface like veins under dying skin. The air hummed with pressure, thick enough to choke.
"This is the Gate to Hell," Tyril said, strangely calm—as if discussing a pleasant detour. "Beyond it wait demons—creatures the gods themselves once feared."
Grall stepped forward without hesitation. His eyes, still holding remnants of divine sight, scanned the threshold.
"No demons lurk nearby," he said. "So let's get this over with."
The moment they crossed, the world changed.
The gentle breeze behind them collapsed into a furnace gale. Fire consumed the ground. Lava rivers oozed beside a narrow path like slow-moving arteries. Bones—human, beast, and unknown—littered the charred soil.
The landscape groaned.
Ahead towered a stone dais where a colossal demon sat like a king on a throne of ruin. Its skin was obsidian stretched too tightly over shifting muscle. Its eyes glowed like dying coals.
As they approached, the demon turned its massive head. When its gaze locked onto Grall, its pupils dilated in terror.
"Wh… why is a God here?" it whispered.
Grall stiffened. "You know me?"
"Though you wear another body… another era… I would know the God of Death in any cycle." The demon's voice gained a strange, reverent steadiness.
"Then you know I don't come without purpose."
"Of course," the demon trembled. "What do you seek, Lord of the End?"
Before Grall could answer, Tyril's voice cut in—far shakier than he intended.
"Demon Lord of the First Layer… we seek the one who unleashed corpse flowers upon our realm."
Only then did the demon acknowledge Tyril. He laughed—a deep, cavernous rumble that rolled across the wasteland.
"I wish I had done that," he said, licking his teeth. "But no. I know nothing of its source."
His eyes slid back to Grall. As they did, the demon's fear evaporated, replaced by something… cruel.
"Why does this mortal speak in your stead, God of Death?" he mocked. "Is it because this vessel is new? Weak? Still adjusting? You feel hollow… diminished."
Grall's hand fell to his sword.
The demon grinned. "Ah. I struck a nerve."
Grall stepped forward—
—And the world vanished beneath him.
The entire party plummeted into blackness.
The air howled. Something screamed. The fall stretched into eternity.
Tyril spun unconscious through the void. Adrian laughed—crazed, exhilarated. Imp hurled spells that fizzled uselessly. Cassandra clutched Sakurako tightly as the girl's wings beat frantically against the fatal drop.
This is it, Grall thought. This is how we die.
Darkness swallowed them whole.
---
Grall woke on cold stone. Pain coiled along his spine, but nothing was broken. Nearby, the others stirred groggily.
"Where are Tyril and Cass?" Grall asked.
"Not here," Imp said flatly.
"Well, thank you, oh wise oracle."
Imp's glare sharpened. "Don't ask stupid questions then."
Grall's fingers brushed Oathkeeper. "You want to die again, little Dasari?"
Imp laughed—a brittle, irritated sound. "You're only brave because I'm powerless now. If Etherious were here—"
"Who?"
"My other half. My true form—a metallic dragon. You wouldn't last a second."
Grall blinked. "I've killed an adult blue dragon. I can kill a shiny lizard with an ego problem."
Imp's eyes narrowed into slits. He turned sharply and walked down a dim corridor. The others followed.
They reached a stone bridge spanning a lake of lava, heat rising like breath from a sleeping titan.
"Who goes first?" Imp asked.
Adrian stepped forward—but Grall caught his arm.
"I'll go. I recover faster than any of you."
The group followed at spaced intervals. Halfway across, Grall froze. Something writhed beneath the molten surface. He crouched—
—and a leech-like creature, glowing molten gold, shot upward.
Grall threw himself back. More shadows stirred… dozens… hundreds.
"We move!" Grall barked.
They ran. Leech-creatures erupted from the lava, snapping at their heels, splashing trails of molten blood that slithered across the bridge like living fire.
The cavern's exit grew near—too slowly.
They sprang outside just as something huge crashed down behind them. The ground shook violently as a massive stone boulder sealed the cavern mouth. A thick chain hung from above like a guillotine's rope.
Grall's head snapped toward the origin of the attack.
A figure stood on a grassy hill—dark armor, a single horned helm, posture relaxed yet dangerous.
Imp smirked. "Hello, Milindar."
Grall drew his sword. Whoever this was—friend or foe—they had the advantage.
"Hey, guys," the armored figure called. The voice echoed strangely familiar. "What are you doing in Hell?"
He removed his helm. A face was revealed—similar to Grodak's, but changed… altered. Hardened. Different bones beneath the skin.
Grall's breath caught.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
The man's expression twisted with hurt. "You really don't recognize me, brother?"
The truth hit Grall like a blow.
"Grodak," Grall whispered.
The Casarn plague didn't just kill—it changed the survivors. Warped them. Rebuilt them. Grodak's travel to another realm had only accelerated the transformation.
Grodak tossed the helm aside and approached. "Looks like fate—or something worse—dragged us all here."
"Great," Adrian muttered. "So what now? Left or right?"
Rock-paper-scissors decided.
---
They walked for days.
Hell's landscape offered no company; only ash, dead trees, and distant growls. They slept in abandoned shacks or caves where even shadows seemed afraid to linger.
"We're lost," Grodak finally admitted.
Grall snorted. "We'd need to know where we are to be lost."
They trudged on until Grall halted suddenly.
"Listen."
The others strained their ears.
"I hear nothing," Grodak snapped.
"Me either," Imp huffed.
Sakurako stepped closer, feathers rustling.
"It's a battle," Grall said.
Everyone whitened.
"Impossible," Grodak spat—until he walked another few steps.
The sound hit him like thunder.
Clashing steel. Roars. Screams.
The group broke into a sprint.
They crested a hill—and froze.
Cassandra stood alone amid a battlefield of slaughtered abominations. Twisted minotaur-like beasts lay around her, limbs torn, throats ripped, heads crushed. Cassandra held one creature by the skull in one hand, forcing it downward while slicing another apart with her blade.
Her movements were mechanical, perfect, horrifying. She danced through carnage with cold elegance.
Blood coated everything. Even her wings dripped.
Three beasts remained.
Cassandra paused only long enough to notice them before a massive blow nearly knocked her off balance. Sakurako gasped and slipped on the blood-slick ground, falling hard.
Cassandra's eyes flickered toward her—just for a heartbeat.
The monster saw it.
It charged.
Its horns speared Cassandra through the abdomen and slammed her into a rotten tree trunk with brutal force. Her scream tore the air apart. Her sword fell from her numb fingers.
The beast dissolved into ash, leaving behind two jagged bone stakes embedded through Cassandra's body—pinning her like an insect in a collector's case.
Blood dripped from her boots, pooling beneath her.
Her wings trembled.
Her breath hitched.
And Hell grew silent.
---
Cassandra
Cassandra reached for the stakes jutting from her abdomen—if she could wrench them out herself, maybe she'd keep some dignity. But the moment her fingertips brushed the bone, two monstrous shapes flashed beside her.
Her wrists were seized and slammed back against the wood.
A guttural chuckle rattled her ears.
One of the creatures—its skin scorched and peeling, its eyes bright with sick joy—leaned in. It pressed a single horn to her left wrist.
The horn liquified, reshaped, and then drove itself through her flesh.
Cassandra's scream didn't escape her throat—it strangled, trapped, a trembling gasp.
Then the other wrist.
Then the creature twisted each horn until they solidified as stakes.
Only once her hands were nailed firmly to the wood did it vanish in a ripple of foul magic, as if satisfied.
---
The Party
None of them moved.
They hadn't had the luxury of reacting. The air itself seemed locked in horror.
Only the last demon remained—half-shattered from its battle wounds, yet unnervingly full of purpose. It turned, its ruined jaw hanging at an angle, and bellowed with a sound that vibrated the marrow of the living.
Then it charged.
Straight for Sakurako.
Grall moved first. Of course he did.
He threw himself in front of her, fingers digging into the creature's horns as its momentum nearly hurled him backwards.
His boots carved trenches in the blood-soaked earth.
Everything in him strained—muscle, bone, divine spark.
"GRALL!" Grodak roared, leaping in and smashing his fists against the monster's skull.
Nothing.
Not a flinch.
Not even curiosity.
"Brother—help me hold him back!" Grall growled, voice raw. "Adrian, Sakurako—Cassandra! Imp—hurt this thing!"
Everyone obeyed—
Except Imp.
The demon twisted, trying to wrench itself free to finish its "sacrifice."
"No!" it snarled, voice bubbling with phlegm and hell. "The offering is for my master. You cannot take her."
Grall nearly lost his grip—rage flaring hotter than the creature's breath.
He snapped his head toward Imp.
"KILL this thing already!"
Imp tilted his head, eyes glinting with that infuriating, lazy amusement.
"Why should I?" he asked softly. "Is it not a living creature? Does it not deserve life like you or I?"
For the first time since they arrived in Hell, Grall sincerely considered murder.
"Then get us out of here," Grall snarled.
"How?" Imp asked, lifting a brow. "By what miracle?"
"You have the Tower. You can move it anywhere."
"I would," Imp said, irritation creeping in, "if magic wasn't being choked to death here. My link to the Source is blocked."
"Then do something," Grall hissed. "You useless, smug—"
Sparks skittered across Imp's fingertips.
His anger gave him a thread—thin, dangerous—of magic.
He seized it.
Raised his hand.
Spoke the words.
And his magic detonated.
Imp screamed as his entire arm tore apart at the shoulder in a spray of blood and Ether. He collapsed to his knees, vision swimming, bile rising.
It was almost enough to make him pass out.
Almost.
The demon shoved Grall and Grodak backward, pinning them against a jagged cliff wall and slamming its weight into them.
Imp rose on shaking legs. He raised his golem arm, letting agony sharpen his focus, and whispered the invocation again.
A tear in reality ripped open.
A portal to the material plane.
"I DID IT!" Imp shouted, clutching his ruined shoulder. Blood pooled beneath him. "We have to go! I can't hold it long!"
---
Adrian
Adrian didn't wait. He never did.
Cassandra was dying—bleeding out, pinned, her soul being drained thread by thread. Sakurako pulled at the stakes with shaking hands but nothing budged.
"Stop…" Cassandra rasped. "It's useless… leave me…"
Her eyes glazed—lost, searching, terrified. When they flicked toward Grall and Grodak being beaten into the wall, she released a faint gasp.
"Stop… them…" she whispered. "They… can't win… not against… these demons…"
Adrian scoffed. "We have the God of Death. I think we—"
And in that moment, Grall and Grodak were rag-dolled against the stone, blood spraying.
Cassandra gave a bitter little laugh that broke into a sob.
"Grall… is a young God…" Her voice cracked into a scream as the stakes drank deeper from her. "He hasn't learned to control—His power—He can't—"
Adrian didn't hesitate. He drew his sword.
Sakurako panicked, stepping between them, tears streaking her cheeks.
"I'm not going to hurt her," Adrian said gently. "I'm cutting the wood."
He drove the blade between the stakes. The enchanted metal sliced through them like rotten rope.
Cassandra's hands fell free. The remaining pieces of horn withered into ash.
"Help me…" she whispered.
Sakurako took her hands, fingers trembling, and together they wrenched the abdominal stakes out. Cassandra's scream was ragged, wet, soul-deep—the sound of someone being ripped from death's jaws by force.
She collapsed forward—and Adrian caught her, lifting her bridal-style despite the blood.
Relief washed over them all as they hurried toward the portal.
---
Grall
Grall held the monster back with fury and sheer desperation. Its strength defied logic—wounded as it was, it still hammered him and Grodak like a living siege engine.
As the last of the group vanished through the portal, Grall inhaled sharply and pulled hard on his godly essence.
He called for Wreag.
He expected thunder. He expected a titan.
He got something else.
A pulse of black energy rippled outward—and a figure materialized.
Not Wreag.
Malik.
The Mad King.
The strongest mortal killer to ever live.
His presence felt like a blade pressed against the world.
He didn't ask questions.
He didn't hesitate.
One swing.
The demon's head rolled across the ground.
Before Grall could breathe, the tip of Malik's sword kissed his throat.
"Who are you," Malik asked quietly, calmly, "and why did you summon me?"
"I am Grall," he answered quickly. "God of Death. I summoned you to kill that creature."
Malik's expression didn't move. "A god," he repeated, flatly. "Very well. Send me back. Damnation awaits."
"Not yet," Grall said, stepping forward.
The sword broke his skin.
A warm line of blood slid down his throat.
"I need you to find someone."
"And if I refuse?" Malik asked.
"Then I will never release you," Grall replied. "Kill me, and you remain trapped here forever."
Silence.
Then Malik laughed. A raw, unhinged sound.
He lowered his blade.
"Who do you seek?"
"Tyril," Grall said.
And Malik smiled the smile of a man who has finally been given something interesting.