As a son of Satan, Hellstorm received somewhat better treatment and more attention than an ordinary demon, but that only meant he revived faster. Recover to his previous condition? He would have to follow the rules and start killing all over again!
A huge head, a huge belly, skinny limbs, two horns on his head, and wings on his back—Hellstorm, now reduced once more to the form of an imp less than one meter (about 3.3 feet) tall, gasped for breath. Being completely broken down by Disintegrate was not a pleasant experience.
"Isabella Swan! I want you dead! I'll rip out your intestines and hang you from a tree!"
"Ow! ...What was that?" The physically fragile Hellstorm was still shouting threats when something suddenly fell from the sky. With a thud, it flattened him on the spot. It took him quite a while to get back to his feet.
His divine halberd had finally escaped the flow of time and followed him all the way back to Hell. Now it dropped from the sky and landed squarely on the head of Hellstorm in his imp form.
It almost knocked him senseless.
Looking at his divine halberd, he nearly burst into tears. You vanished during the fight, but now you come back? What use are you to me now?!
Saying it was useless would be a little melodramatic. Right now, it was still useful. Hellstorm had been reset to level zero, but with a divine halberd in hand, he could easily dominate the hordes of imps covering the surrounding hills. The trouble would come once he advanced a little. High-ranking demons had no morals to speak of. They would absolutely devour his flesh and steal the artifact if they got the chance!
He shrank the divine halberd until it matched his current height and strength. And then? Then he ran! A huge mob of imps was already charging to kill him! If he died in the material plane, Hell's will would revive him, but if he died here in Hell, he would be dead for good. Hell's will had no need for weaklings!
It would not matter even if his father was Satan. If Hellstorm could not prove himself, Satan might very well be the first one who wanted him dead.
Unlike those muddleheaded imps that knew only how to slaughter by instinct, Hellstorm still retained vast combat experience. With an artifact in hand, as long as he was not surrounded by a swarm of imps, he could fight while running.
During his escape, he encountered a female imp holding a short knife. She too had only recently been reborn. Realizing at a glance that she was no match for Hellstorm, she immediately declared her submission. That was perfectly normal in Hell, so Hellstorm saw nothing strange about it. He merely gave the short knife in her hand a second look. At this level, it was rare indeed for anyone to be reborn while still carrying a weapon.
"Judging by your appearance... you were demoted from a higher demon rank too. What's your name? Which demon lord did you serve before?"
"My master is Belasco. My name is Ruby..."
Hellstorm sneered. "Belasco? What is he supposed to be? He calls himself a demon lord? From now on, you're a servant of the son of Satan!"
From human to demon, and from demon to imp, this was now Ruby's third journey through life. Her starting point kept getting lower, but her instinct for attaching herself to someone powerful remained intact. The instant she revived, she picked up the short knife Bella had made for practice—the same knife Bella had used to kill her. Without much effort, she then latched onto Hellstorm, who looked like a comparatively sturdy patron.
The two weapon-bearing imps began slaughtering their way through the lower planes. Recovering their former levels would be extremely difficult. All that could be said was that they had hope.
What happened in Hell was difficult for Bella to observe, and even the chief gods of the various pantheons would have trouble peering into it.
After killing Hellstorm, Bella began collecting her spoils. She had already entered the fight personally, so she saw no reason to care about killing a few more enemies.
Bella led the Brotherhood's elite to a vampire stronghold that John Wick had already breached.
Looking at the milky-white liquid covering the floor, she somehow managed to associate the very serious battle scene with a few indecent images and could not help clicking her tongue.
The place was far too filthy, so she stayed outside the door. The Brotherhood assassins had no such reservations. Precious gemstones, valuable blades, luxury goods, dollars—anything they saw that was worth money was taken away.
Ancient books, however, were left for Bella. She had specifically ordered that beforehand.
Two pages from one family, three pages from another—fragments of the Darkhold scattered among the vampires were slowly gathered into her hands. There were vampire mages as well, but not many. In modern times, as Earth's magic grew increasingly scarce, those vampire mages had chosen to settle in Hell. Very few remained on Earth.
The Darkhold fragments were extremely safe on Earth. At present, only a handful of people on the planet were qualified to read such things: the Ancient One, Bella, the old witch Agatha, and a few others. Even Kaecilius did not qualify.
If those fragments had been kept in Hell? Then things would have gotten lively! The demon lords would never have stopped until they exterminated the vampires. That was why the vampire mages had not taken the fragments with them, and now Bella benefited from all of it.
Even knowing this was hardly the right environment, she still could not resist flipping through the new knowledge on the spot.
"Something's wrong. I think you'd better come take a look," 006 said in a low voice.
Bella put away the many fragments and followed 006 into an underground crypt belonging to the vampires.
Thirteen enormous pillars stood in a ring. A vampire elder stood atop each pillar, their vital blood flowing down the columns into the circular area below to form a blood pool. A male corpse lay flat inside it, his body gulping down the blood at an astonishing rate.
The moment Bella entered the hall, the male corpse abruptly stood and opened its eyes. They showed nothing but white.
"What the hell is this thing? Die!" Bella fired another Finger of Death, but the male corpse raised his right hand, palm outward, and somehow forcibly absorbed and converted the instant-death spell capable of killing a demon in a single strike.
Hm? Bella froze for an instant, then cast again—Flesh to Stone, Disintegrate, Mind Blast. No matter what spell she used, the other party absorbed it as though nothing had happened.
"Hahahaha! Honored lady, please allow me to make a grand introduction. This gentleman was once a leader of the mutants. Back then, his name was Sebastian Shaw. I purchased his corpse from your government. Now he is about to return to life, and he has a brand-new name—the Blood God!"
A withered, scrawny old vampire stood atop one of the pillars and laughed in delight.
"The Blood God can absorb energy in any form, whether magic or mutant power! His resistance to psychic attacks used to be weak, and that was the reason he died. But we have already repaired that flaw. The Blood God is invincible now! He has absorbed our blood, and very soon he will release all of it."
The old vampire looked intoxicated. "How wonderful! In a single instant, every human on Earth will become a vampire. Honored lady, come join us!"