Chapter 181

Hell - 12:20 PM

“You have chosen a painful route, Angel,” the real Pustibule said, sounding disappointed rather than angry. “For the record, I will not kill you, but your time in Hell will not be ple-“

Thankful that the Demon Lord was a talker, I opened my mouth and unleashed my Dragon’s Breath. The beam of holy energy slammed into his chest. Hope spread through me as I saw him get pushed back, but was replaced just as quickly when he put his hammer in front of him to block the attack. When I moved my head so the beam would hit other parts of his body, he simply matched it with the tool, which wasn’t being damaged in the slightest.

My mind went into overdrive as I went through the situation. This first interaction was a telling one, and I gleaned a lot of information from it. Pustibule was too strong to take on head to head, he could shrug off my damage, and I really shouldn’t fight him even with this newfound power boost to my Angelic form.

But I knew what to do. Angelic Ascent had given me a slight boost in power when I killed Pustibule’s vessel. I wasn’t likely to get the boost from the Demon Lord any time soon, but there were others here that could be used as sacrificial lambs. I scanned with my eyes even as my enemy started closing the gap between us, but I didn’t dare move my head.

Demons of all shapes and sizes were surrounding our rocky arena. Their baying howls pierced my ears. My holy presence had called them here like bugs to a zapper. The only thing holding them back was the fact that something more powerful was here.

I recognized every type here, and mentally prioritized them before putting my plan into motion. Turning my head, I went after the weakest of the Demons first.

When I had seen Pustibule’s vessel for the first time in Stanley, I had thought that he was some kind of oversized Imp. These were the least of the Demonic hierarchy. They had power comparable to a first scenario player, but rarely grew stronger. While they could be crafty, they didn’t have much going for them.

They had even less when my Dragon’s Breath cut down a group of them in seconds. Screens popped up in the corner of my vision, but I ignored them. I could feel the Angelic power inside of me growing with each one. The howls stopped, but that was not my concern.

I shifted as I heard Pustibule’s footsteps beside me. He was faster by a fair margin, and I cursed myself for wasting Cheetah Sprint against the corrupted players. Before I could fully move out of the way, his hammer came down on my shoulder. It was a heavy, jarring blow that knocked me off balance. I was certain that, if I wasn’t wearing the Armor of the End, my arm would have been dislocated or removed completely.

The Demon Lord spun and kicked me in the side. I went flying through the air and colliding with a boulder, cracking it before falling to the ground. Pain coursed through my body as my wings were injured by the blow. That was a new feeling as they had been incorporeal before and thus immune to most kinds of damage. I felt as though having ghost wings had been better.

Gritting my teeth, I Lifted myself off of the ground and onto my feet. Two of the more powerful Demons lunged for me. One had the large frame of a buffalo-sized frog, a Huaqt, that could keep its enemies alive in its stomach for years while siphoning off their power. The other was a Culot, a millipede with thousands of legs and just as many arms on top.

Brandishing the scalpel, I threw myself at the Huaqt while I Constructed as many saw blades as I possibly could. They glowed with a bright, holy warmth as if infused with Angelic power. Under normal conditions I could have only made three if I used Break Free.

This time, I summoned five.

Suddenly understanding how substantial my power boost was, I sent three Spinning towards the Culot and two more out into the crowd. The frog Demon opened its mouth and shot its tongue out at me. The sticky appendage was split into four tentacles naturally, and I slashed at it with my sword, adding Distant Slice to it. The beam of light traveled true straight through the tongue before disappearing inside of the enemy’s throat. It roared in pain.

Using Aura Sense, I was able to keep track of my saw blades and my enemies. The Culot attempted to dodge the three Constructs I sent that way, but I kept them on the right path. They met resistance as they spun against its hard carapace, stopping the creature before it could jump and coil around me. It took a few seconds before they cut through and ravaged the inside of its body.

The other two easily tore through the crowds of weaker Demons. I was going for quantity over quality with those, and the saw blades flew around stronger enemies to home in on the ones I knew were weaker. Jumping and using an Air Step, I came down on the Huaqt’s skull as hard as I could, adding Drop to the scalpel. It pierced its slimy head and I slid off, cutting through its skull. The ooze it produced was supposed to be acidic, but my new armor didn’t get hurt at all.

The screens continued to come as power flowed into me. I felt my wings strengthen, and as I hit the ground I swung my shoulder, using my three wings on that side to bludgeon a deer-like Demon that thought I could be caught off guard.

My halo grew brighter with every kill. At the edge of my Aura Sense, I could see Pustibule mixing some kind of concoction between three flasks. A quick glance showed that the color of each of them kept changing, though they stopped when being mixed. Whatever it was, I knew I didn’t want to get hit by it.

So when Pustibule casually tossed one of the flasks towards me, I acted quickly. My halo wasn’t registering it as an attack because it wasn’t going to hit me, but I had control of it. I sent the golden ring towards the ground where the concoction would land and opened up its matching portal around the Demons on the other side of the Lord.

It fell through perfectly without touching the edges and collided with the ground. A huge green cloud erupted from the small container, causing the Demons within to scream. It only lasted for a second, however, before the corrosive attack dissipated, leaving only bones where enemies had just been.

The look on Pustibule’s face as I mostly ignored him took a dark turn. Kicking off of the ground hard enough to leave cracks, he lunged at me. Despite the distance, he arrived in a moment. While fast, I was getting a better grasp of his movements. I put scalpel up to defend as I ejected the Cable Conglomerate, which had merged with my armor.

I only managed to deflect the hammer with my sword, which I thought was his most powerful tool. My arm ached from just that. My free hand had grabbed onto Pustibule’s wrist where I stopped a rotary saw from piercing through my helmet. His other ten hands reigned down blows on me, and I fell to the ground.

My armor was cut as a stream of pressurized water attempted to slice off my arm. The attack failed to do so, though it did manage to slice two of my wings in half, and the cut pieces disappeared in a burst of light only to start reforming through my Heavenly Hero passive. It hurt more than I expected, but I was able to push it aside.

The gear I had was clamped, welded, and dented. Pain became a constant as Demon Lord Pustibule put me through the wringer. The Cable Conglomerate tangled itself between his many arms, but it did very little to slow him down.

While I was sure Shield and Force Field were also heavily buffed, it wasn’t the right time to use it. This much was manageable and it wasn't as much as I feared.

It was only pain, I had to remind myself as he poured from the three flasks onto my legs. They burned and froze at the same time as whatever liquid they were seeped through the joints of my armor. I could feel my legs melting, held together only by the same passive that was healing my wings.

My mind was elsewhere even as the water jet cutter came back, removing more of my wings and digging into the armor, though it wasn’t enough to actually cut my arm. I kicked him with my legs from a poor position and tried to slice off his arms with the scalpel. His one free hand proved capable of stopping the Angelic weapon, and it seemed obvious to me that it had some kind of connection with the tool.

“More,” I wheezed as Pustibule’s hammer struck my chest, breaking some ribs.

That made him pause. “What?” he asked, not striking me for a moment.

“MORE!” I yelled, though not at him specifically.

All around us, the saw blades were still spinning. Demon corpses fell to the ground. My enemy's confusion had started to clear as they realized what was happening. They started fleeing en masse from my attacks even as the Constructs followed them and cut them down. Thanks to the buffs I was receiving, the distance at which I could see was getting larger with each kill.

My actual vision had started growing dark, but I could see Pustibule looking around, trying to understand. The area around us was a disaster zone littered with corpses. 

His eyes narrowed as he looked down at me. “What are you doing,” he asked.

“My Angelic duty, asshole,” I said, coughing up blood into the inside of my helmet. “Getting strong enough to take you on.”

Pustibule’s eyes widened as I tightened the Cable Conglomerate into a tight knot. The Demon Lord had been ignoring the length of wire rope because it had barely been a hindrance. Damaging me came first in his eyes. Now, it was slowing him down. I could instinctively tell that he could break free if he tried hard enough, but this moment of surprise was going to serve me well.

I reached up with one hand and swung the purified scalpel towards his neck with the other. He jerked backwards, trying to get away, but I grabbed one of his long horns. His movement didn’t stop. I was dragged into the air, and that allowed my blade to strike his neck.

It didn’t behead him like I had hoped, but it did draw blood. An expression of panic crossed his face, and it looked exactly like that of his vessel. The Demon Lord backed up in fear after prying my hand off of his horn, nearly breaking my fingers as I fell to the ground. I cut off the Cable Conglomerate so he could get some distance and give me a reprieve from the beating he had been dishing out.

Not that I took a breather. My arms protested greatly as I started shifting. My legs screamed as I got onto my knees first, and then my feet. I had to Lift my armor to do it, but I could still stand.

The lesser Demons couldn’t run fast enough. With each kill, my Aura Sense expanded, and I continued to catch them. If I had been in almost any other situation, I would have had to stop and stare in pride at my work.

Unfortunately, the problem was that it still wasn’t enough.

“More!” I loudly demanded, telling Hell to bring me more small fries.

“Stop yelling that!” Pustibule screeched. He quickly untangled the Cable Conglomerate and threw it to the ground. I had been hoping it would last longer than that, but the so-called Demon Lord of Invention apparently knew his way around a knot.

He slammed his hammer together with this water jet cutter, and the two items merged into a new contraption. The gun-like invention that emerged was large and unwieldy, but it still looked small in his massive hand. Aiming at me quickly, he fired.

An orb of water the size of my head shot out of it, and I couldn’t dodge. I was regaining hit points faster than I ever had before but it was still not enough. Splitting my concentration again, I sent my halo to intercept them. I could have set the exit portal to strike Pustibule, but this was a blessing in disguise. There had been some big bastards that resisted getting cut down by my saw blades.

At a distance that would have made Jamie proud, I used Pustibule’s panicked shots as precise instruments of death. With each one, the sturdier Demons that were fleeing fell under the powerful projectiles. The Demon Lord was getting more crazed with each pull of the trigger, not even realizing what I was doing.

That clinched it for me. The Demon Lord of Invention was absolutely not a combatant. I had never run into him before because he fled from fights that weren’t overwhelmingly in his favor. During the end game, that would be most of them. I had certainly come across his inventions before, like the Conversion Grinder, but he himself had been absent.

Each shot my halo transferred was heavy, and I quickly felt the strain. It was glowing much brighter now as it began to overheat. With the realization that Pustibule would likely flee if I showed a big display of strength, I let the saw blades dissolve and activated Dragon’s Breath again.

Then, I took an agonizingly painful step towards him.

Pustibule took a step back.

I grinned before opening my mouth. The Demon Lord stopped firing to put all twelve of his arms around his head in an effort to stop my attack. He didn’t need to, but I appreciated him slowing down his assault.

The beam of holy energy passed over his shoulder towards one of the cliffs behind him. My attack sheared through the top, leaving a piece of stone the size of a mansion to start tumbling towards the ground. He spun around, expecting something to strike him, but it was too far way for that. I sliced through it again and again until the stone was in five long slices, and Lifted them all.

My Warmind abilities were putting a huge strain on my mind as I fought with the oversized stones. I felt the migraine coming even though I wasn’t sure if I was still spending Mental Points thanks to the transformation or not. This would need to be enough, otherwise I would have to flee from the fight and fail Sara’s quest.

I Orbited them into position as Pustibule slammed the rotary saw into the gun. His next shots took even more out of my halo than the last as the ammunition took on the form of spinning water drills. These, I returned to him. They pierced his thick skin, doing far more damage than I had when I tried to cut his neck, and caused him to stumble. He yelled something, but I was too busy to listen. 

The fleeing Demons were heading towards the city in the distance, and I quickly got the stone slabs into position. Taking a breath as I mentally prepared myself for the expenditure, I raised my hand and swung it forward. I Pushed each of them as hard as I could for as long as I could.

Aura Sense dropped as I didn’t need it anymore, and I watched as the stone slabs arched in the air and started their descent. I hadn’t needed this kind of precision yet during this run, but my experiences in the past made me very confident despite my vision still being slightly obscured from the earlier beating.

That confidence did not prove to be unfounded as the five slabs hit the mountainous ground, landing on scores of Demons. They didn’t stop, continuing down the slope to crush several and maim even more.

My armor began shining brighter as my strength surged like an incomparable adrenaline rush. Reaching up, I ripped my helmet off of my head to reveal a mane of soulfire that reached my shoulder blades. Before, I hadn’t had more than stubble. I had grown exponentially throughout this fight thanks to Angelic Ascent.

Turning to Pustibule, who looked horrified, I lifted the scalpel. “I'm strong enough, now,” I said. “So this is the part where you run away.”

Anger marred his face as he took an involuntary step back. “I will not forget this, you Angel bastard,” he spat.

“You’d best not, because you know what will happen when I come back to Hell next,” I responded, grinning. I made note of his exact location. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Pustibule looked like he wanted to say something else, lash out some more, but the fear in him was almost palpable. He had laid into me and I had just taken it, electing to ignore him and focus on the Demons who had come to watch. My behavior had him spooked. That was his downfall.

Like all Demon Lords, he had a teleportation ability, and he used it.

“Like I’m really going to let you get away,” I muttered as I stumbled towards where he had been. “Sara, these new passives on the ring are awesome, but I hope you know how fucking lucky I am.”

There was no response as I stood in front of where Pustibule had been standing. I breathed deeply as if I could make my body heal faster through willpower alone. In my haste to leave, I had neglected to ask Bethany if she had already made some potions when she was practicing before she arrived, and I was regretting it.

I switched the Scalpel of Angelic Healing from my right hand to my left, Demon Slayer was still active thanks to the energy of Hell all around me.

What remained of the Cable Conglomerate was ejected from my wrist and coiled in the air where Pustibule’s neck would have been if he had still been standing there.

Around me at different heights, I Constructed drills made of vibrant, holy light and set them to Orbit around me while Spinning.

Taking one last breath as they reached their top speed, I looked upwards and activated Dragon’s Breath. Despite the migraine I felt that was usually accompanied by low Mental Points, the skill still activated despite the cost, proving that I had essentially unlimited MP.

That was good, because I was about to unload on the Demon Lord, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to be enough.

“Blinkback,” I chanted a second before my Dragon’s Breath activated. It wasn’t necessary to say the name of a spell to cast it, but in this case it felt right.

A very angry Pustibule reappeared in front of me. He didn’t even have the chance to be surprised when I started attacking.

The Cable Conglomerate coiled around his neck, and some of his hands rose to stop it from choking him. My Dragon’s Breath went off, searing into his chest in a small, concentrated line. His body shivered violently as I hit him with Boneshake, and his teeth began exploding with each application of Boneshatter.

He convulsed, lashing out at me through sheet instinct, and I took the blow with Shield and several Force Fields. I had been saving them for when I needed them most, and this was that time. The Force Fields were broken through easily despite their buffs, but Shield was left shimmering, heavily damaged.

My Constructed Drills slammed into his side and began to burrow. Pustibule screamed as his body became an explosion of pain. My Dragon’s Breath, which hadn’t done anything before, was now blowing through the convulsing Demon’s breastbone smack dab in the middle of his chest. I gauged the damage and struck.

“I… will not…” he started to scream, black blood pouring from his mouth where the shattered teeth had ruptured his gums. “You… will… not…!”

Closing my mouth so I wouldn’t hurt my own gear, I ended Dragon’s Breath and slid the scalpel into the Demon Lord’s chest. It pierced through easily now that the skin was a smoking crater, and it went straight into his heart.

Pustibule stopped moving as he stared down at me, and I watched as the light of life left his eyes. In one smooth motion, I snapped open my inventory and tossed his whole body into it, tools and all, before stumbling forward. I collapsed to the ground, but only because the rush of power I received from killing a Demon Lord was enough to knock me off my feet.

[[Victory!]]

You have defeated x196 Imps in Hell; +0 points.

You have defeated x57 Alpha Imps in Hell; +0 points.

You have defeated x14 Huaqt in Hell; +0 points.

You have defeated x7 Culot in Hell; +0 points.

You have defeated x1 Babarl in Hell; +0 points.

You have defeated the Roaming Boss [Shastern] in Hell; +0 points.

You have defeated the Demon Lord of Invention [Pustibule] in Hell; +0 points.

[[Notice]]

You have permanently killed several Demons, offering 56,940 points to Angelic Ascent. The fire of your soul has been fed.

[[Notice]]

You are the first player to permanently kill a Demon Lord.  +2,000 points.

This reward has been reduced due to scenario limits. Points will be given to you at the beginning of each scenario until you have received them all.

[[Patron Quest Complete!]]

I knew you could do it! I’m so proud of you, Anthony!

My boyfriend just defeated a Demon Lord in less than a month! In Hell! Granted, he was the weakest of them all, but the fact that it was even possible is mind boggling! I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you what Pustibule was earlier, it was all Patron stuff holding me back.

I’ve been trying to get around it with quests and ambiguous remarks, but it’s tough. I’m glad you realized that I was guiding you towards fighting, though. I… hope you don’t mind if I guide you some more. There’s more to my plans, but I can’t say any more than that.

I’m so proud of you!

You do need to get out of there now, though. Zalzarog is approaching and he won’t be nearly as easy to kill as Pustibule was. Just a warning, but your Angelic form - which is incredibly handsome now that your soulfire is bursting, by the way - won’t last after you leave Hell. The passive only activates when you’re in that realm.

Be careful of the Shadows.

Reward: 15,000 points, Raphael’s Staff.

I breathed deeply as I read through the different screens. Killing a random Roaming Boss was a nice surprise even though I hadn’t recognized it anywhere in the fight. The staff was going to be an excellent addition to my arsenal, and the amount of points I gained was more than I expected. This had become a very lucrative trip for me, even if I thought it had been too risky when things started going sideways. Although, now…

My head turned towards the city, and I thought about staying. If I got stronger with every Demon killed, then there was a good chance that I could stay here long enough to destroy Zalzarog now. I stood up straighter as I ran a risk analysis in my head.

[[Patron Message]]

Anthony, I can practically read the thoughts you’re having.

Please, leave Hell. Go back to Pittsburgh and celebrate with your friends. I get that you’re the man with the plan, but I have one, too, and getting killed here because you don’t know what I know and I can’t tell you what I know.

Save going on a rampage until after the Patron’s Ball. Please. For me.

Sincerely,

Sara

Slowly, I looked up. “The Patron’s Ball isn’t for almost three months from now,” I said to the red sky. There was no response, but I already know what she would say.

Please. Just go.

“Okay, but I’m going to want an explanation on what the Armor of the End and Angelic Ascent does,” I said as I stretched and flapped my wings. “A full explanation or, barring that, as much as you can give me. Something tells me they’re more than what I already think they are.”

Taking off on physical wings, I flew several circles around the portal to Earth before passing through it. Just as I was warned, my Angelic form and armor disappeared the moment I was fully out of Hell. My momentum let me sail through the air over the Shadow’s heads before I landed and rolled between the sixth and fifth gate, safe from their evil intentions.

I staggered to my feet, the pain suddenly almost too much to bear, but began walking anyway. My body would heal itself up soon, and I had a long, long way to go to get back to Pittsburgh.