Hell Gates

Much like other habitable worlds that were located in the Centauri Sector, Ergold had its own personal hell.

Quite literally, a fragment of the hell plane had descended onto Ergold and manifested into the hell that people know today.

That isn't to say that it was liked by all.

As there was no shortage of garbage in this world, hell was the place where those sinners would go and be punished before entering the cycle of reincarnation.

Hell itself was split into several circles where Daemons overlooked them, and their cousins, the Devi helped facilitate the workings of hell.

Residing in the Nether, the barrier world of life and death, the Devi would form contracts 

And there then was the problem.

As Devi formed contracts, contracted warriors would appear to punish evil, but in the nether, those strong enough to retain their mind in soul form would also reach out to the mortal realm and form contracts.

They were called the devils.

And their goal was to receive the blessing of life once again by having their contracted to open doorways to the nether and bring them out of there.

Of course, those that made contracts with Devi usually were good people with a taste for vengeance so they snubbed the devils, but just like always.

And that was where the trash came in.

Looking for power and looking for a way out, the human trash and the devils would form contracts with each other.

One for power, the other for freedom.

And by sacrificing lives to open a hell gate that would slowly but surely acclimate to the powers of the devil.

Demons weak enough to pass through would escape through the hell gates.

Which was why, following his master, Deleo was staring blankly at the red eyed creature keeping its distance from them.

"You see that Deleo? That's the weakest Demon of the gluttony circle, a lock jaw"

Listening to his master speak, Deleo quietly observed the beast.

Appearing like incredibly malnourished people, Deleo watched its red skinned body grip onto the trees and swung from them like monkeys.

Mouth covered in a series of stitches, their blood shot white eyes reminiscent of a humans stared at Deleo as if he had murdered his entire family.

As someone born on Ergold, he was of course privy to the knowledge that hell exists and all bad guys go there to repent.

But he wasn't exactly privy to what types of demons resided there.

Which was why he was so interested in looking at a lesser demon from the gluttony circle watch them from the trees.

That was until its head was blown off by a flying stick sent by Miss Erika.

'Ah...'

"What are you looking at boy? Hurry up, we need to close that hell gate before it becomes a problem."

Appearing as if she was the very definition of not hurried at the slightest, one hand was in her pockets as the other was playing with a stick snapped off a nearby tree.

Not that it made a difference in her hands as the wooden stick had the capabilities to explode a lesser demons head.

Lightly hopping over a tree root while guided by some sort of magical sense, Deleo followed her all the while he kept an eye on the stick spinning in her hands.

---

Silently following her, Deleo was swallowed up in thought just as they covered the crest of the hill and looked over at the space beyond it.

In a wide opened clearing set in the middle of a basin, a crown of trees surrounded it standing in stark contrast against several kneeling figures praying towards a large stone altar.

And it was from that stone altar that demons appeared.

Appearing from an intangible gate, a large cage covered in a shroud of black seemed to send the power needed to open the gate.

Staring at them with wide eyes, Deleo stared at the strange demons with various features beyond what was considered normal

Ranging from the gluttony demon with an emancipated look to them and stitches in their mouths.

Others appeared.

"Those guys are rage demons." She pointed at the bound up demons covered in linen only revealing their mouths.

"You saw the Gluttony Demons" She pointed at the emancipated demons.

"That one is a Greed Demon" Erika pointed at a demon surrounded by golden coins floating around it.

"And Wouldn't you know it? There's even a Pride demon right there"

A hunched back demon slowly made their way out of the ghostly doorway, while wearing a crown of thorns, a gnarled wooden sceptre piercing their hands. 

"Hey Deleo?"

"?" Still caught up in watching the demons be summoned from a semi tangible gate getting more and more tangible by the second, Deleo tilted his head.

"Catch"

Throwing something Deleo's way, he only caught mere moments from the unknown item hitting his face.

Unclasping his fist around the sharp item, it revealed from within an insignia of the moon in all its silver glory.

"?"

Tilting his head, Erika explained.

"Wear this for now while I close the gate."

"...Why Sister?"

"Because I said so, now show me what you got."

And without any sort of fanfare, Erika immediately kicked him.

"?????"

Feeling the wind whip across his skin, Deleo blinked confusedly right before catching himself with instincts and rolled against the ground.

Falling into a crouching position, Deleo stared at the group of demons that were also surprised at his sudden appearance.

And before they could even react to the new person that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, Deleo struck first.

Quickly tensing his legs and pushing, Deleo shot head first right into a Gluttony demon.

Pulling a dagger out of his pants, the leather sheath was split open to reveal a silver light that stabbed right into the skull of the Gluttony demon.

Pushing off the now limp body of the Lock Jaw, he turned around and dodged a claw that whiffed past his face from its Lock Jaw brother in hell.

Following that the Rage demons aptly named Screaming Bully screeched loudly, sending out tangible waves in the air.

Twisting his body, a sudden anger overtook him as the Screaming Bully let out a screech containing its fury within.

Feeling a welling anger appear without reason, he locked eyes with the demon.

Immediately locking onto the demon, despite having no eyes the Demon shivered underneath the almost feral gaze.

Moving his legs, they kicked against the ground as a fist planted itself right into the face of a Lock Jaw.

Threads threatening to split, he grabbed the blade out of the skull of the other Lock jaw.

Sliding underneath the other Lock Jaw, the dagger sliced at its crotch all the while the Golden ring of the greed demon suddenly sped up.

Turning into a ring of incredibly sharp coins, they sliced through the earth right before it ran towards Deleo.

Seeing that, the golden ring sliced the earth apart as the Greed Demon disregarded its fellow demon kind around it and turned them into scratched up pieces of meat.

Moving past the screaming bully the Gold ring roared loudly as a body of a Lock Jaw fell into its ring of death.

Following that, it subtly paused for a moment before ripping off an arm and stuffing it into its own mouth.

Noting that the demons caused those affected by them to feel the same emotions that they were punished by, Deleo felt a hunger rumble in his stomach that wasn't there before.

Feeling the sudden hunger, he instinctively knew that the Gluttony demon was the one that interfered with his judgement.

So following that logic, if the Greed demon even so much as scratched him wouldn't he suddenly be attracted to the golden ring of death?

Then he would scratch himself and get even more attracted to the golden ring of death forming a rather vicious circle of death.

Shivering slightly, Deleo instantly made a conscious note in his mind to escape the range of influence from the demons and make sure he was very far from them.

Following it the Screaming bullies unleashed a chorus of screeches that made it all the anger all the more noticeable.

Feeling a pit form in his stomach, Deleo swung his arm and caused the Lock jawed demons to keel over on the ground where a well placed kicked to the head snapped their necks and ended their lives.

Stomping forwards he swept up the legs of another lock jaw leaving it tumbling to the ground.

Bringing up his legs a screech filled his ears once again as he stomped onto the Lock Jaws head turning it into broken and fragmented mush.

Grabbing the body, he tossed it upwards where the Gold ring demon cast its hungry gaze onto it.

Moving towards the flying corpse, Deleo didn't stick around to see the demons actions as he continued running to the Wrath Demon.

---

As Deleo was forcefully dealing with the demons, Erika was dealing with the cultists summoning the hell gate with the help of the demons.

Lightly swinging her stick, the stick manifested gale force winds with incredible sharpness.

Forming both visible and invisible blades in the air, the cultists were rendered absolutely helpless underneath the barrage of buts.

It wasn't exactly a problem of power as the individual power between each cut was rather weak, the invisible cuts even more so only leaving a light cut on the skin.

The problem was the absolute number of them.

As air was everywhere, the number of air cuts scaled proportionally.

And there was a lot of air.

Lightly smiling, her green eyes stared at the cultists desperate ones as their gaunt faces hidden underneath the shade of theirs hoods eyed her.

Bringing out various twisted looking armaments mostly meant for drawing the most blood, the serrated and twisted knives were absolutely helpless against the air.

Lightly twisting her hand, the air was stirred up and turned into an innumerable number of invisible knives that sliced and diced at the cultists who desperately defended.

It could go on to show how desperate they were since they were even using their own blood to form barriers against the air.

Ballooning into large proportions, the red globes of blood morphed into various shapes, a good majority of them becoming shields.

But for the minority, spears of blood formed as the javelins whistled through the air to stab right into Erika.

But in the end, it was all for naught.

Lightly swinging her stick again, the air was stirred up as a gust of wind sent the blood spears flying off course.

Of course their masters tried to bring them back, but what could they do but helplessly watch their bloody spears turn into the tiny droplets of blood they once were?

Silently doing all of this, Erika's eyes stayed fixated on a singular figure that stood unmoving despite the constant felling of the cultists worshipping the devils.

Wearing distinctly different robes to the bland black and green clothes of the cultists, this person also had a large serrated sword in their hands that was implanted into the earth.

And as she made her way to the man, she noticed something that caused her face to harden.

A distinct iron smell that could never be mistaken for anything else.

It was the smell of blood.

Something only possible by braving incredibly dangerous battlefields.

And to have such a heavy scent of blood on their body that usually dissipated over time in a place far from any sorts of civilization it meant two things.

One, either the person spent an extended time in the forests and hunted several beasts to create the scent of blood or...

Blood sacrifices.

And seeing as they were worshipping a devil and trying to get them to summon a hell gate it was most likely the second option.

Face hardening Erika opened her mouth with a voice containing her barely concealed anger. 

"Who are you?"

Hands continuously moving the figure removed their hood revealing a pale, gaunt face with deep black eyes underneath as they wore a crown of thorns.

Bringing the sword out of the ground, Erika could also now see that the blade had thorns attached to its hilt causing the mans hands to be split apart.

Blood now being drawn, the blade seemed to come alive as the serrated blade came alive with red.

Opening their mouth to reveal a mouth full of black teeth he spoke with a manic gaze.

"All for the Gold Fisted Emperor"

And just like that, the Cultist ran forwards blade in hand.

Hearing that, Erika let out a long sigh before she swung her stick at the charging cultist knowing full aware of the gaze looking at her.

Glancing at the black cage, the winds surged.

+++

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