~60~ Archdemons: Beelzebub

"Hey!" Came an amused, brusque voice. It was scratchy and sounded sore. "Beelzebub? Did you hear about the shit that is goin on?"

Beelzebub, a tall demon with long black hair that was unkempt and matted. The hair dropped over his face and was past shoulder length. He wore chain mail armor and black chains were wound about his entire body, many more chain links than your average demon. Bone like spikes jutted out of his back and shoulders at odd angles while a crown of small, thin horns grew from his head. His lower arms were covered by thin metal plates and talons grew from each end of his fingers. In one hand, the demon held a black scythe; the God Slayer. Beelzebub was the weapon's original owner. The glow of Beelzebub's ominous green eyes shown through his hair as he turned to face Aamon.

"What..?" Beelzebub asked. His voice was shaky and gurgled, as though he were an old man or he were choking on something.

"Apparently those two demons from the lower city have come to challenge us, the Demon Lords. They want to fight you first." Aamon announced in a tone of amusement. "Can you believe that?"

"A challenge..?" Beelzebub echoed.

"Yeah. You think you can do it?" Aamon joked. "It's a two on one, I bet you are just shivering with fear." Aamon threw his head back in a boisterous laugh.

"Fear is my realm, you fool. I fear nothing.."

"I know. I'm fucking with you." Aamon waved his hand. "Nevermind. Do you plan on accepting their.. challenge? These children honestly think they can beat us. It is hilarious. Not just that, but they actually intend to challenge Void!! Hah! The audacity."

"This is insulting.." Beelzebub hissed. "But it would be even more insulting to decline them."

"So you really accept then?" Aamon asked, clicking his talons against the round table he sat upon.

"I shall play with them."

•

•

•

Tetsuno and Zealous stood outside of a massive set of stone double doors. Depictions of blood, death and conflict were depicted across the doors, describing the history of the demon race.

They waited in the dark, cavernous temple of Xinoll. The temple was just a massive stone building, it held nothing in it. The only importance it had was that it was the entrance to the main city. At least it was the main entrance. There were others, but only the higher up demons knew of those.

'You sure this is a good idea?' Tetsuno asked, growing uneasy. Memories of Aamon flooded his mind, throwing off his confidence.

"Settle yourself." Zealous said. "We are both much more powerful than we were then. This will be nothing."

'You'd really call the Demon Lords nothing?' Tetsuno scoffed. 'You are far too confident in yourself.'

"Not just myself. In you as well. You are stronger than you realize." Zealous spoke.

'If you say so.' Was all Tetsuno could think in response. For a long time, the two of them stood, silent, as they waited for the gates to open. Every second that ticked by was like a painful throb through Tetsuno's mind, as though he had a migraine. He became more and more impatient, anxiousness rising up inside him.

And then a deafening metallic click echoed throughout the temple.

"Here we go." Zealous spoke.

The doors slowly began to shift, grinding stone on stone as they swung inwards, revealing a dark passageway dimly lit by candles of scarlet flames.

Tetsuno stared down the passage way. He had been impatient before, but now he was uncertain. Did he really want to go down this path?

"Come on then." Zealous said. "Let's go."

Zealous began down the path, taking wide strides as he moved forward. After a moment of hesitation, Tetsuno followed. As he moved down the path, he felt something come down on him. When he was a mortal, he thought this sensation, this dreadful feeling of being crushed was just fear. But I'm reality, he now knew it was the energy emitted by aura called pressure. Aura on high levels can cause distortions in the air and increase the density of the air itself, which causes the affect of feeling like you are being crushed. In extreme cases, it can distort gravity. But that was highly rare and would take an extraordinary amount of aura.

Then the ground began to shake.

"What the..?" Zealous spoke, and a second later the stone floor began to fall away beneath them, and as it did they began to fall, descending down and down.

They landed after maybe a minute long descent, both of them landing on their feet, the ground cracking beneath them. Tetsuno stood, observing the area around him. The ground was now laden with Boulder and stone. They seemed to be in some sort of underground chasm. He couldn't even see the walls, it was too dark and the chasm was too expansive for him to see any of the walls off in the distance. For the most part the chasm was empty, but there was still the sense of pressure that seemed to crush him and make the air vibrate.

"Don't you find it funny..?" Came a raspy voice like that of an old man. "How the weak strive for strength.. while the strong sit idly by in endless boredom, toiling in the prisons of their minds.."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Zealous roared. "Are you Beelzebub?"

"Does my name even matter now? Tis not what you should be concerned with." The voice came.

"Come out of the shadows and face us!" Zealous roared once more.

Then the voice came again, this time much closer. A shiver ran down Tetsuno's spine as he turned to see a large, haunting figure standing behind Zealous, it's shrouded head bent low to Zealous's ear, and it's green eyes gave off an ominous light as the demon hissed into his ear.

"You are annoyingly loud."

Zealous attempted to spin and send a wave of black aura at Beelzebub, but a sudden shockwave of aura blasted him away, sending him flying yards away before skidding to a stop.

The demon then stood straight, the spikes and horns upon his body shifting and crackling as he moved.

"I am indeed Beelzebub. And you are my prey." The demon held out a hand. "Now come."

Glowing chains of green aura suddenly shot out of Beelzebub's hands and flew at Tetsuno and Zealous. Tetsuno attempted to move away, but the chains followed him immediately. They were too fast for him to dance away now, and they then made contact with his Soul Chains. Tetsuno felt a jolt of pain through his body, something he isn't used to, seeing as he was unable to physically feel anything. That meant it wasn't really affecting his body, it was affecting his shattered soul.

Beelzebub was using aura to try and consume them!

Tetsuno became limp. He shut out any emotion. He shut off his own feeling. He removed any sense of fear or pain. All he could think of was blood.

His body hunched over, his arms hanging limply and his legs bent in while his head hung at an unnatural angle. Beelzebub turned to face Tetsuno.

"What's this?"

"That's it, Tetsuno! Lose yourself in the thrill of conflict! Make this bastard bleed!" Zealous roared.

Tetsuno placed his hands on the green chains, and as he did his arms and hands began to give off a faint light as though flames were beginning to spark and light writhing his body. Then an explosion of scarlet flames shot from his hands and he tore the chains apart, shattering them before the ground below him shattered and a shockwave was left as he left a crater in the earth, his figure vanishing out of sight. He then flashed into existence, face to face with Beelzebub. His hand was placed upon his mask, and he slowly lifted it, revealing his what remained of his face, a dreadful flaming skull. A stream of flames erupted from Tetsuno's face, the flames engulfing Beelzebub completely, swallowing the demon's figure in dancing fire.

But no cries of agony came from the demon, instead a hand burst out from the flames, talons raking across Tetsuno's body and throwing him into the air. Beelzebub emerged from the flames, God Slayer in hand, as he swung it in an upward arc, the blade piercing through Tetsuno's back and out his chest before continuing the swing, bringing the weapon over his head as Beelzebub then slammed Tetsuno to the earth beneath the scythe's blade, the ground shattering and erupting from the impact.

"Did you really think your flames would work on me?" Beelzebub hissed.

Suddenly a wave of black blades rained down on Beelzebub as Zealous held out his hands, a cloak of black aura engulfing his body as he sent attacks at Beelzebub from a distance.

"It's pointless!" Beelzebub screeched, violently swinging the God Slayer through the air and throwing Tetsuno directly at Zealous, daggers of shadow piercing through Tetsuno's body before he crashed into Zealous, knocking both of them to the ground.

Beelzebub slowly crept towards the two as they got back to their feet, their wounds healing over.

"The weak strive for power.. why? Why do you even try? I don't understand, it's pointless." Beelzebub growled. "You'll never defeat me, you are nothing, so why do you stand?"

"Damn you.." zealous growled, "FUCKING COCKY BASTARD!!" A shockwave shot out from Zealous as his Aura Cloak became chaotic. A massive black sword of aura extended from his arm, the blade serrated and jagged. He waved the weapon through the air, sending hundreds of black daggers at Beelzebub, who simply knocked them aside. Zealous then leapt forward, swinging the sword downwards on the demon.

Beelzebub raised his arm, blocking the attack as the ground below them shook and cracked, Beelzebub's knees bending in.

"Impressive." The demon growled. "But not enough." Green chains flew through the air and wrapped about Zealous's body like hungry snakes coiling around their prey. Then an image of condensed aura formed behind Zealous, the green light illuminating almost the whole chasm as a phantom like skeleton formed, it's ribcage opened like the jaws of a shark.

"Now, fade to nothing!" Beelzebub hissed, and then clenched his fist, and as he did the ribcage of the skeleton closed, the pointed ends of each bone impaling Zealous from all sides, crushing and brutalizing his body completely. The massive skeleton seemed to glow even brighter as it held Zealous within it. Tetsuno can realize it was absorbing Zealous's aura. Suddenly a massive black cloak appeared, enshrouding the skeleton, which then turned to Tetsuno, facing him as its aura and power grew exponentially. The ghastly figure reminded Tetsuno of what humans believed the depiction of the grim reaper to be.

"You are not even worth my time." Beelzebub hissed. "You can play with my puppet."