Gods are exceptionally powerful creatures, usually more powerful than even a Satan-class devil, but what would happen in a world where their powers have been sealed; forced to slip in with humanity and use their much weaker base forms?
The rays of sunlight cracked through the ever-so-slightly open bedroom blinds, piercing the dark, unlit room like daggers carving into flesh. A teen inside said room was formerly sleeping, only to have been woken up by these so called "death rays". The sounds of birds chirping in the distance was a reminder of what fate had brought to him.
The teen, who was now groaning, went by the name Issei Hyoudou - but that wasn't his true name. Rather, it was an alias used by him, for in fact his true identity was "Erebos", a God of Darkness. This was evident with the black chain tattoos permanently scarred into his skin, given to him by the collective might of many Gods working together to seal him.
The reason why, you may ask? It was simple; Issei was dangerous, he abused his power, misused it to spread fear and chaos. He had been sealed so much to the point where he was barely any stronger than a fit human. Every single last bit of magic he had ever had was sealed away into almost unbreakable chains, or "vessels" as he called them. Each one contained the power of an Ultimate-class devil, and he had a total of sixty-eight. Though, as a security measure, the Gods made the seals release a tremendous amount of pain if breached that most creatures would simply pass out from.
Though, they were totally useless to him. Magicians from many cultures had failed to draw any considerable amount of power out of any one of them, even after performing hundreds of rituals. The only thing separating him from any other ordinary human was knowledge; however, the question remains, would that knowledge be useful to him if just about anybody could end his precious little life with their hands tied behind their back?
Perhaps so, he thought. Getting up now, Issei had to suffer from this pesky thing called "school". He never wanted to attend it - in fact, he never needed to go to it in the first place. It was there serving the purpose of teaching humans basic life skills so they could actually apply that in the real world.
The one he attended was Kuoh Academy, an academy with many students; though almost all of them were female, which ended up meaning if you were a handsome guy, you had to deal with hundreds of girls swarming you at almost any time of the day. Luckily, his form was more on the average side rather than a womanizer like another male student known as Kiba Yuuto.
Groaning, the brown-haired teen straightened out his duvet and prepared to wash himself. Twenty minutes and a bit of hand-through-hair combing later, he was at the kitchen table downstairs in his usual attire: a white, striped in black shirt; a red t-shirt underneath; a pair of black, slightly dirty pants; and a watch worn on his wrist so he could distract himself during lessons.
Issei ate his slice of buttered toast, enjoying the scrumptious taste of butter in the morning. It was fattening, he knew that, though he was more than capable of working it off. Once finished, he got up from his chair and retrieved his bag that he'd left in the corner of his kitchen.
In it, he checked to see if he had any homework for that day. None, though he swore there was a task he'd been given to do. Shrugging it off, he put his bag on and exited his house, locking the door behind him.
Little did he know there were several devils watching him. He couldn't detect them, as he was nothing compared to them. He was only a human, after all. He walked down the street humming the tune of a song that had been stuck in his head the past two days.
"Buchou, that song he's humming is pretty good. Hit the top charts last night; shot up faster than an explosion." Kiba noted as he hummed along solemnly.
The red-haired devil looked over at the blonde knight she had recruited, "Kiba, this isn't the time for silly notes. What happens if one of those seals suddenly bursts?!"
"Hmm.. you're right. Sorry, buchou."
Issei continued walking until he tripped over a blunt rock which looked as if it purposely placed there, using his fragile hands to take the full force of the impact, he felt the magical seals shake inside him, giving him a sickening feeling. He looked at his hands, his hands both had several open cuts with dirt and rocks clearly embedded in them.
'Great.. time to deal with infection, as if my day could get any worse!'
He brushed his hands which caused him to wince slightly, the rocks and dirt in them had mostly been removed, though he could tell there was still some in there. Nothing too bad, or so he thought until he felt a searing pain start burning as if the tissue was dying fast.
'HUH? THIS HURTS LIKE A BITCH!', Issei thought. He looked at his hands but was shocked to see a tiny bit of his former black aura seeping out slowly. He knew exactly what had happened. A bit of left over power left from when the magicians tried to break the chains had managed to escape his body. As a result, the pure black aura was eating away at his wounds faster than he could say otherwise.
The only problem was, he had to endure it. Issei was sealed heavily for a reason; True Darkness Magic was designed to be inextinguishable by other forms of magic, and as a result only the aura of dragons and gods could combat it. Thus, merely brushing it off was like trying to hit a ghost, except it was contagious.
Soon, his other hand got enveloped in his own thick black aura as he cried out in agonizing pain. Getting up but being careful not to touch other parts of his body, he ran all the way home to look for the only cure known to man. A very rare herb known only as "God's Blessing". It had a green stem like any other plants, and had petals most of the way up it. They all glowed a bright, illuminating white which was comparable to that of an angel's own light.
As a result of his very wide knowledge and battle experience, he knew of the places to find it and thus had a small stockpile hidden in his basement under many layers of concrete, lead and other physical materials which absorbed the aura of the plant. Had he not kept it in his basement, any supernatural entity would've found it in seconds. It stuck out like a sore thumb compared to other aura signatures.
Rias' peerage had watched this very bizarre scenario and felt a chill run down their spines. They just witnessed the aura of a god leak through an open wound of an otherwise normal human from a rooftop. Koneko was formerly eating her sweets, before she passed out after sensing it. However, even without this surefire way of knowing there was more to Issei than he let off.
Kiba readied two swords and was about to cut Issei down before Rias scolded him for being too "battle hungry". After many arguments, Kiba finally accepted his master's words. Meanwhile, Akeno was tending to Koneko, using her magic to keep her just barely conscious.
Seeing her chance, she ran over to the cat girl who was lying down on the corner of the rooftop, slowly losing her grip on consciousness,
"Koneko! What was that?!" Rias yelled into the young neko's ear. She managed to whisper that she felt pure fear, misery and evil exponentially beyond the scales of what she'd ever felt before, even from the most ominous of creatures she had fought.
The shrine maiden by Koneko's side, Akeno Himejima, had lost her sadistic personality as the side of her which cares deeply for her comrades came out. She was obviously depressed and very concerned about not just Koneko's, but the entire peerages' safety. She looked over to her master, and sighed, "Rias. I'm afraid I felt it too, though not on the scale of what Koneko sensed. It was as powerful as at least an Ultimate Class Devil. Though, it wasn't the power that scared me, rather it was the signature of the aura."
Rias looked back at Akeno, "Hmm...?"
"I felt misery, I heard the cries of many thousands penetrate my soul. It was very evil, as if the true entity it belonged to was the primordial representation of evil itself."
The red-haired devil also sighed, nodding her head in understanding. She glanced over at Koneko who was slowly, but surely, breathing.
Then her gaze was lost once she heard what Akeno had to say.
"Rias, back when I was a shinto maiden, we heard legends of there being a god who misused his powers. Abused them, killed many, spread fear and generally made life a living hell. The legend ended with the abusive god being sealed under many, many enchantments. The god was cast away into this world and made to live an eternal, unaging life as a human, permanently forced to become the very same as the unimaginable amount of people he had killed before." Akeno muttered, skipping over the unimportant parts of the story.
"And his name?" Rias asked.
"Erebos. The Greek God of Primordial Darkness. Legends say his human persona is in dispair, that it is disintered and very, very clever."
Rias understood what Akeno was implying. Perhaps the student they had been observing was Erebos' human identity. Who would've thought a primordial god would be among them? She immediately alerted Sirzechs and the other Satans, even after Akeno advised her otherwise, labelling it an intrusion of her territory.
'AAHHHHH! DAMN THIS HURTS!' Issei thought, his hand still enveloped in his eternal flames. The skin was starting to peel off, and the God's Blessing plant was only containing the fire, or so he thought. On further inspection, it appeared though it was starting to drown the flames out, albeit very slowly.
He honestly thought his hand would melt away, leaving nothing but bone for the flames to burn through. It made him feel sorry for the first time in billions of years as he was reminded of the suffering he made other lifeforms suffer.
Alas, after several minutes of enduring the pain, the plant was destroying the last portions of his flames. The destruction it left behind was not pretty, his hand was almost entirely burnt away, with bits of muscle tissue and bone visible. His other hand was slightly better, because it still resembled the shape of a hand.
Due to this incident, he knew what had happened. The fall had made the already-damaged chain unstable, in fact, the first chain running from his elbow to his lower wrist had turned partially purple, which was a sign his power had been awoken.
It was only a matter of time before it fully broke, and once that happened, there would be a lot more damage caused to him and by him. He wouldn't want to get in a fight with the local devils. He knew of the Gremory's located there, and knew that the current Satan King was Sirzechs Lucifer, a devil able to fight and win against weaker Gods. He'd need at least ten chains to fight and defeat Sirzechs.
Though, of course, he wouldn't dare. He was sick and tired, regretful of the events he used to perform. He did have to admit that he enjoyed the thought of reclaiming his position as a primordial god, however.
Currently, with one chain unstable, he couldn't consciously use it. The power may explode up at totally random times, which meant he had to try and break it fast. He was only one explosion away from revealing his location to every supernatural entity within most realms.
Normally, breaking even a fraction of a chain would be enough to kill multiple humans, since it would be forcing too much power into a body vessel, until it "broke". However, he still had the same magical reserves he had as a god. Although ineffective to him until he broke a chain, it ensured the unstable power wouldn't destroy his fragile human body if it spiked at any time.
Even with the insanely large reserves, he was in no way immune to his own power. His body was the same as that of a fit human's. He had no durability benefit, no speed boost, no strength boost - he was just a human and nothing else.
"Rias, you called us?" a deep voice began, coming from the current King of the Underworld, Sirzechs Lucifer.
"Yes, Lucifer-sama. I apologize for the intrusion, though I believe a very dangerous primordial is present within my territory." she replied to her older brother.
His eyes narrowed, and the faces of the other Four Great Satans changed to that of fear.
"It can't be- no, it's impossible! The seals placed on him would take multiple gods to break!" a distressed Serafall Leviathan said, changing from her usually childish state.
"Erebos must be suspended at once and treated with very high caution! His power, True Darkness Magic had many properties, though the most notable were its power to completely eliminate an object from existence, and its contagious, eternal flames..." Sirzechs commanded.
Everyone's mouth opened in shock after hearing this (excluding the Satans). They knew he was a god, though they didn't think he had destruction magic exceeding that of the Gremory and Bael families.
Before he could issue the command to find and hunt him, Rias interrupted.
"Lucifer-sama, wait.. I know his whereabouts, but I can guarantee he is different! Earlier on, my peerage and I saw the apparent human form of Erebos get his hands swallowed up and mutilated by these so called eternal flames. As a result, we believe his power is unstable. Another thing to note is that one of the black chains looked like it was about to break. More and more portions of it turned purple as the fire progressed."
Ajuka Beelzebub looked straight at Rias with a very stoic expression unlike him, "Rias. If you know his location, tell us. Otherwise you'll be labelled a traitor and exiled from the Underworld, with your territory being given to another High-Class Devil."
Sirzechs' face seemed annoyed at Ajuka's comment, though deep down he knew the other Super Devil was right.
"Rias... I'm afraid to admit it, but what Ajuka is saying is true. Although you're my little sister, we cannot have a possible traitor within our system. Hand over the location and we may treat him better. I am giving a warning though: if more than 5 chains break whilst I know his whereabouts, I will personally kill him." he said with a serious face.
Rias nodded, agreeing the terms. She then told everyone present where he lived, and his school schedule incase they had to retrieve him there.
"Finally... I will be able to get this damned seal under my control. About time." Issei groaned, it took him several hours to find the items to perform the rituals to at least get the chain stable. They would allow him to access a portion of the now stable chain at any one time, drawing any more power would result in a massive surge of destructive power which would not only kill him, but almost everyone within a five square kilometer radius.
He begun the ritual, chanting several hymns and latin phrases. A bright purple magic circle appeared below him, outlining the pentagram he had drawn with salt on the floor. His eyes turned all black as magic surged through the network of chains embedded into his body.
He retrieved a dagger to slice a part of his skin open, carefully putting drops of his blood on each point of the pentagram whilst chanting more latin phrases. After completing the points, he wrapped a bandage around the part of his skin that he cut to soak up the remaining blood.
Finally, the last phase was initiated. Different, external chains shot up from each point of the pentagram and pierced the location of each seal in his body. The seals glowed a royal purple colour as the spell enchanted each seal, making them vastly more stable. After sixty six seconds, the chains retracted into the ground again as Issei's eyes returned to normal. He was happy when he looked at his deformed hand and the chain spanning the length of his lower arm was bright purple in colour.
He was amazed, it had been hundreds of years since he had used his powers. Of course, with only a portion of one seal, he could only fight on par with a high class devil. As a result of him unlocking a sixty-eighth of his power, his body's physical stats greatly improved.
He became more durable, and was able to control his own flames for once. He was also able to generate pyrokinetic wings, similar to those of the Phenex clan. This would give him at least a bit of protection against the squads of devils he could now sense directly outside his house.
Issei knew his house was surrounded. There was no way of escape, so he stepped carefully out of the salt pentagram and walked upstairs with a maniacal smile on his face. He knew exactly what was going to happen and how to play it cool without getting wiped out by the Super Devils.
Opening his front door, he was immediately met with a power of destruction attack from Rias which he had to dodge. He did not return fire, for he knew this action would only provoke his seekers.
Sirzechs Lucifer spoke up, "Issei- no, should I say, Erebos? Your cover is blown. We know who you are, and what your state of power is."
Issei was a little surprised they found out his cover already, but quickly came to the conclusion that Rias and her peerage was spying on him the morning his first seal became unstable.
"Ah, Lucifer. What a pleasant surprise. It's almost like I knew you were coming..." he replied, his smile growing even further. Everyone found this a bit creepy, but knew he was a god, and so he was used to this.
"Fortunately for you, I am not here to fight. As you probably already know, I cannot access the power of almost all of my seals. The only creatures I'm concerned about here is you four... the Great Satans."
"Rebellious little shits taking down the old government. I despise you all. Not because I'm a supporter of the Old Satan Faction; they were just as bad, if not worse. I just can't decide who's better: the arrogant, authoritarian Old Satan Faction; or the newer, stuck-up government." he cursed. He really didn't like the new devil government.
Rias narrowed her eyes, whilst the Four Great Satans just sighed. Her peerage readied their weapons, but didn't dare to attack. Even Kiba, a person known for being battle hungry, didn't take the chance.
Issei's smile was practically stretching off his face at this moment, and any observer would think he was insane. Sirzechs had already warned them before that he was a god of darkness, and as a result was the best of the best at scaring the life out of people.
His eyes turned pure, midnight black as purple rings replaced his pupils. Five sets of black, pyrokinetic wings sprouted out of his back, gradually increasing in intensity as he used spells to make it appear he was much stronger than he actually was.
All of his seals turned a bright purple as the spell used an illusion to make the tattoos change colour to all outside observers. However, in reality, only half of one seal was being used. This was fueling his transformation, wings and illusion magic.
"I demand you move back. I feel threatened even though you're all considerably weaker than me." he said arrogantly, again trying to scare everybody present.
Sirzechs angrily clenched his fist as everyone else got into a battle stance. However, Ajuka stayed still. He knew Issei was using an illusion as he was there when the Old Satan Faction tried to use them against him.
Issei gazed at Ajuka. He was starting to feel a little bit worried, he forgot that Ajuka knew how to distinguish between reality and illusions, unlike the others.
Rias fired another blast of destruction magic, to which Issei held out his right hand and transformed it into his own darkness magic. This was a property of his power. All magic that destroys, causes damage to or manipulates an environment can be converted to his power, as they all descend from or use primordial darkness. However, this only works on attacks less than twice as powerful as he is. Otherwise, he cannot convert the majority of it, and it overrides the spell.
He held the newly formed ball of darkness and disintegrated it in his hands, again to show power. Rias was trembling in fear, as was her peerage. He was about to make an escape when he felt a huge impact to the side of his head, knocking him out cold.
The flames on his wings dismissed as the illusion broke. Rias and her peerage were able to regain their composure as they saw Ajuka and Sirzechs team up to make him pass out, hence revealing his true power.
Issei awoke in the middle of a jail cell. He was hazy and barely remembered what had happened. He looked around and saw all of the Four Great Satans surrounding him, one on each side of the cell.
"Nice illusion, Issei." Ajuka noted, starting the conversation up.
"Tch. Beelzebub. You were always good at picking apart illusions from reality." he replied.
"Thank you." Ajuka responded.
"However, these three boneheads must have seaweed for brains. I would've expected the very people that rule the Underworld to know when an illusion takes place."
Sirzechs, Serafall and Falbium narrowed their eyes, before Falbium lazily reminded him they could easily end his life right there and then.
Issei just chuckled slightly.
"I'm assuming you're either here to eliminate me or to keep me captive and use me as either a weapon or a tool for information." he began.
Sirzechs stepped forward slightly, and started talking.
"Well, only partly. We're keeping you captive as we believe your power is too high to be left in your hands. After all, that's why you were sealed, right?"
"You know, Lucifer, you're not as bad as I thought you were. I was expecting you to eliminate me right here on the spot. I can't do anything in this prison."
Sirzechs chuckled too, he could tell Issei had changed a lot since the primordial times.
"I shall only eliminate you if more than five of your sixty eight seals are activated, as a safety measure. I don't want you running around, spreading fear and evil into the hearts of my people."
Issei mentally cursed him and replied, "Lucifer, you're really just trying to get on my nerves, aren't you?"
"I mean, it's not like your people are arrogant enough. I'm the god of primordial darkness, and even I know when to contain my arrogance. Your people literally treat lower-ranking devils like I used to treat my subjects several billion years ago."
Ajuka then stepped in and responded to Issei's statement, "At least they don't kill an uncountable amount of lifeforms just to establish dominance. Humans are taught to think of gods as being omnibenevolent, and you clearly aren't that."
Issei turned his head a full one hundred and eighty degrees without moving his body, creeping out Serafall.
"Beelzebub. I am a god of darkness. I promote fear, malice, destruction, sin, and most importantly, evil."
"I am not like other gods who create life just to see their creations grow for hundreds of thousands of years."
"Rather, I destroy it. My purpose... no, my entire existence is to fill in the imbalance. There needs to be evil in the world. Much like there has to be kindness in the world too. Why do you think angels and devils live in the same group of realms?"
Ajuka looked at Issei's turned head and replied, "We are not related, Issei. Angels were made by the God of the Bible, we spawned out of the evil in the universe."
"Aha. And you see, that's an example of devilish arrogance. You're so stuck-up, you don't realize you were also created by a being higher up. Beelzebub, evil stems from primordial darkness. Who's job is it to spread that around the universe?"
The green-haired devil responded, "Are you implying you 'created' us?"
"Of course not. I can create evil, and I am the creator of many everyday aspects devils use. When the universe came into existence, it brung a truly omnipotent, omniscient God with it. We used to call it the Father, or the Master. It has no gender. It has no name. It's more of a force than a being."
"That God created the light the God of the Bible used to create his angels. The very same God created the darkness which I used to create, among other things, disease, poverty, and almost everything evil in existence. That includes you devils to some degree. I didn't directly create you, rather, I left the darkness in the right place at the right time."
"Who would've imagined several billion years later I'd be here being kept captive by the very same beings I'm responsible for? Haha. It's almost funny."
"But then, my own greed corrupted me. I started going too far. All the other gods kept trying to counter my influence in their domains, whilst the Father advised me to stop. But I didn't. I fell. I got sealed by the collective might of all the other gods. Father didn't intervene because it knew it was for the best."
"Some of them recommended killing me, though Father used its almighty power to prevent them from being able to do that. Every god is submissive to it. Even if you excluded its omnipotence, just the scale of its creations is leagues beyond every single thing in the universe."
"In summary: I never created you directly. I just did what I was supposed to do, spreading darkness and evil. Your entire creation is just lumps of the evil I spread forming into something with consciousness."
Every Satan in the room's mouth was left wide open. They never thought their indirect creator was their captive. Of course they weren't going to let him go, but it just brought a lot of awe to them.
Sirzechs was the first to break the silence, "Issei. Just for safety protocols, could you tell us how much power you'd possess if all of those chain seals were broken?"
The head once again returned back to its original position, disturbing Serafall once more. "It's hard to say for sure, Lucifer. The chains each contain sequential amounts of power. Luckily it was only half of my first seal which was unlocked, giving me the power of a High-class Devil."
"However, if it was the 68th seal that broke, I can assure you straight that this conversation we're having would probably be me telling you, my new slave, what to do. I am thankful it was the first seal that broke slightly. Talking with you and Ajuka made me realize I should apologize to Father, and to the gods and still-living subjects I deeply traumatized. Please accept my apology."
Sirzechs glanced at Ajuka, who nodded in return, then he spoke, "Issei. We accept your apology, though we honestly cannot release you yet. It's a matter of universal security. We trust you and your word, but for now we insist that you stay in that cage."
"However, one of us will always be here, usually it would be Ajuka or I, though it may be Serafall or Falbium some days. That should allow you to stay entertained. Every day I shall get my maids to wash your bedding and provide meals at the appropriate times. It may not be a hotel, but it's close enough."
"You shall be released when we need you. Though, even if you do get access to your powers again, I'd like to formally ask for a truce between our faction and you. Breaking it is your choice, but that'll only add to the list of civilizations you've destroyed. Let that sink in so you can think deeply about this. I'll take your answer tomorrow at mid-day. Goodnight."
Aaah! I'm so sorry if that sucked!
It's the first story I've made in many months now, and I deeply apologize for not updating my old stories.
If you liked it, you know what to do (favourite + follow thx) and maybe send a review?
If you didn't like it, send me a review with constructive criticism! I will then send you a message and discuss with you on how to improve my next chapters before the public sees them. This helps me make my content better for those who do like it/are interested.
I haven't had much time recently. I entered college almost a month ago, so I've rushed this a bit after seeing how many people still want me to update my stories. Please forgive me for any grammatical/spelling mistakes!
Thank you all so much for reading, and a new chapter should be up soon. c: