Been a while since I put a note at the beginning of the chapter. I'm (not) sorry that I left things on a cliffhanger, but I wanted to build some amount of suspense for this story. I'll admit that I did not intend or even have a clue that this story would progress the way it did, and because of that, the story suffered. Parts were rushed, others slow, and it's as big of a jumbled mess as you can have and still call it a story. It doesn't even really have a true plot. But you know what? I'm happy with where it went, and that I made something all of you found the time to read. In this chapter (and the following ones that will detail the end of hell) I'm doing something I've never done before, so hold onto your butts, drop your socks, grab your cocks, and get ready for a rip-tearing ride through hell.
VEGA roared, stopping everyone dead in their tracks, demon or human. The demons hadn't so much as scratched his hide, and as VEGA began moving they leaped off and began running for their lives. Frisk took the moment to really look at the dragon, admiring the detail the two humans and AI had put into it.
Black scales that allowed flames to spill from his chest, folded wings pressed to his back, bulging muscles rippling beneath tough skin, and deadly claws ready to rip and tear on the front and back paws. His fangs were visible whether or not he closed his mouth, and small spikes dotted his head and face, more noticeable as an almost-beard on his chin. His horns, however, stole the show: Frisk couldn't count how many there were, but they were all unique. Some twisted, others curved, a few were spiraled, and some were antlers, but all of them were glowing blood red. He was also enormous, taking up most of the cavern despite its size, and his wings wouldn't fit in here at all if he spread them.
VEGA took a few deep breaths, snorting smoke and billowing fire from his chest. "This is… different," he rumbled, looking himself over. He lowered his head close to the group, and they climbed on him to his back. "Brace yourselves."
He clawed the ground to get a feel for the traction he had and then barreled towards the wall marked by everyone with a large "X" before they'd been attacked, and broke through the side of the mountain head-first. Everyone took cover from the falling rocks and dust of the breakout but emerged from cover to look over the hellscape. A demon horde bigger than any they'd ever seen stretched across the dusty and rocky landscape, frozen in fear of the dragon freshly born from the mountain.
Nobody in the group could have possibly known it, but the Doom Slayer wasn't the only legend in the bible of hell. As their ruler is described as a dragon, so too was their destroyed, a dragon of shadow and blood that would sweep death across the land and bring about the downfall of Hell. As written in the old texts:
"A beast terrible in strength and ferocity shall be born from the stone, scales black with the smoke of its fire, and it shall deliver unto Hell the destruction it brings unto countless worlds a thousandfold. It shall drink the very life from the soil, and the air, and the water, and the weapons crafted in the forges until everything is turned to rubble. Cursed be the name of this beast…"
"Ejnetsinu," the unholy masses muttered in fear and awe. Power crackled between the plates of his scales and his horns, flowing argent energy that had leaked from his body.
"I cannot hold this energy forever," VEGA said. "Despite my calculations and efforts, I must still expend the energy."
"Then put it to good use, VEGA," Joseph said, leaping from the back of the dragon. The others followed suit.
"Acknowledged." VEGA inhaled deeply and unleashed a roar that outstripped his previous one. It shook the ground and pushed back the nearest demons with visible shockwaves distorting the air in front of VEGA, and the human party covered their ears to defend from the sound. The army of hell turned tail and ran for their lives, climbing over one another to escape the end of hell, and cries of the name Ejnetsinu spread across the ranks like a wildfire of fear. Everyone turned on their headsets that they'd found or repaired, and went over the strategy one last time.
"VEGA will be doing a lot of the work here, but we're on cleanup duty since he can't get underground," Guts said. "They'll all go into any hole they can squeeze into, and we're going to kill them in their own graves. Frisk, Chara, stick together, the rest of us will cover as much ground as we can by splitting up and taking on the tunnels and building we can get to. Ready?" He got a nod from everyone, and they all ran in different directions.
Guts' wolf-shaped helmet swallowed his head with a clang and the jagged eye slits of the armor glowed red. He ran off at an inhuman pace, evidenced by the snapping and cracking heard as he ran. If his armor weren't healing him constantly or numbing his pain he would have been out of the fight the first second of his run.
He quickly encountered a crowd of demons running for a gap in some rocks, but his advance was noticed and they turned to attack him. His bloodlust-addled state had him grinning at them, and his sword left its sheath in an almost gleeful manner. He'd missed fighting for his life among crowds of demons if he was honest with himself, but he promised to make up for lost time on this campaign.
His first swing bisected two demon imps at the hip, their torsos flying away and painting the walls of the small canyon a darker red, and continued around himself as he spun like a top to catch the demon leaping at him from behind. Guts caught a ball of fire with the flat of his sword and quickly slammed his shoulder into the revenant that had thrown it, then turned to fend off another imp as the revenant's head cracked against the stone, killing it. The imp was punched once, twice, and Guts swung once again when he had room, this time cutting down three demons in a single swing. He stabbed through the torso of the next revenant and lifted it above his head, yanking on its arm to drag it even further down his blade. It screamed in pain but was cut off when he pulled it off of his sword sideways, leaving it in two pieces to die slowly.
He soaked himself in demon blood, the tattoos on his back growing warm from the use of magic, and he laughed at a demon that had managed to puncture his left bicep with a claw. He clenched the demon's fingers on the opposite side of his wound, trapping it, and opened up the jaw on his helmet to bite its head off. Guts threw his head back, launching the decapitated head into the air, and sliced it in half as it came down. By then the wound was gone and the hole in his armor had fixed itself. Too late, the demons realized what they were up against, and turned to run.
"I don't think so," Guts said, his toothy smile growing wide and sinister. He leaped after them, flying sideways through the air and breaking his legs with the jump. Two demons were split down the middle, crown to crotch before he landed in front of the group, legs healed. He was drenched in demon gore, same as the sword he raised to point at the group of shivering demons. He laughed at them. "I've faced tougher humans than you worms! Fight me! Fight me! Fight ME!" he screamed at them, bludgeoning another demon in half with his sword for every proclamation. It was not elegant, nor dignified. It was slaughter and butchery.
'I need to be faster,' Guts thought to himself after killing the rest of the demons. He was currently sprinting through the maze of rocks that was hell. He drew his shotgun when a new gathering of hellspawn came into view. 'This time I won't waste any time talking to them.'
Their chaos was predictable. On the battlefield on his homeland Guts had to worry about huge forces moving and fighting as one. In hell, it was easy to guess that the demons would run straight towards him, even if they weren't organized. As a matter of fact, it was easier to deal with a disorganized enemy. All of this ran through the back of his mind as he fought.
The demons were in a panic; any cuts or holes they made on Guts were gone by the time he turned around and despite losing so much blood that there was more of his than the demons' in the puddles in the dirt, he was still as fast and dangerous as he was before the fight. One of them shouted for help, scream echoing through the dilapidated buildings and crumbling temples. Guts smiled beneath his helmet.
The bigger demons had been summoned, barons and knights taking their time in getting to the fight. Guts finished off the small ones and then ran to meet the bigger threat. Despite coming under fire from six different directions, Guts was quick enough to dodge a majority of the energy blasts. Those that scraped him didn't leave much damage behind, and he was quickly rid of those injuries.
"Guts, clear the line of fire, northeast-southwest," VEGA said over the radio. He ran sideways of the line VEGA had claimed and watched as the dragon flew overhead. Flame engulfed the towering demons, and they screamed in agony when they began burning alive.
"I'll take it from here, thanks VEGA," Guts said, sprinting towards the dying demons to finish them off. Sam suddenly came on the radio.
"Guts, I need some help! I'm being overrun in a temple west of your position, hurry!"
"Got it," Guts said, heading off to help. Diced corpses were left in his wake as he traveled. He slowed down when he felt the energy in his tattoo reach a low point. His legs were extraordinarily strong now from all the healing his bones had done, but the speeds he ran at were still too much for his body. Though he was limited by this, he still reached the temple in an impressive time and quickly recharged the magic with more demon blood.
"Nice timing," Sam said, popping another demon skull. "More and more just kept showing up."
"It's a real shame these demons don't go away with sunlight," Guts commented, "it would make things easier if we had some downtime." The wave of hellspawn ended, and they had a chance to get out of the temple. Sam got an idea.
"VEGA, do you think you can collapse the temple Guts and I just got out of?" she asked. Her answer was a giant lizard slamming into the side of said temple with the entirety of his weight, crushing it and every surviving demon in it. "Thanks, VEGA."
"Some of them are crawling away from the rubble, let's get them," Guts said, readying his sword. They separated to different sides of the stone heap and shot or slashed any demon that poked out their head for the next few minutes, then ran in opposite directions to continue fighting.
Only VEGA saw the effect they were all having on hell. Even the demons they weren't killing were beginning to choke on the energy-drained air, and fewer demons were being born from the pits in the earth, drained of argent and becoming pools of death. Slowly, they were killing hell, using its own power against it. However, there was a hiccup.
"Everyone, rendezvous on my position, there's a problem," VEGA said over the radio. He was looking at a large stone door with a huge deposit of argent energy behind it.