[The Veil, in the past]
An Authority Regulator was shredding through the Veil after having failed to resist the urge to ride on a rocket board. However that was when he spotted a highly illegal monument on one of the asteroids a ways away.
This thing was so completely illegal. How could this atrocity have been floating out here unnoticed all this time? Infuriated by this blatant disregard for the law, he decided he was going to throw whoever is responsible into the slammer the moment he found them.
Landing inside the illegal monument on his rocket board he went inside in order to investigate, in hopes of finding whomever was responsible. Spotting a large circular elevator platform ahead, he stepped onto it and descended further into the monument.
Below there was a dark cavernous room. Near the platform was a time capsule. It has deployed a seed, and waits for something to be deposited, and for the clock to be set. It was all harmless enough. Still seeing no sign of any perpetrators he began to search the premises.
Deeper into the darkness of the room there was some complicated lab equipment. Again, nothing particularly unusual for this jurisdiction. Deciding to examine the equipment he saw one device with a particularly large monitor. The date in the top right corner of the screen was glitched and displayed only a series of question marks. Displayed on it, however, was a young man in his mid to late teens wearing the armor of what used to be the Night Sentinels most elite warriors, the Marauders, having only just earned the right to wear that armor six days ago after proving himself worthy of it by defeating the leader of the Marauders in a honorary duel in the Arena. He was the youngest individual in the history of the Night Sentinel order to have ever earned his place amongst the Marauders, let alone in such a way as he did, which was a testament to the unusually hellish training the Wraiths themselves put him through every day since he could first wield a blade which he had only barely managed to survive and most certainly not without quite a few very serious scars at that.
He wielded a viscous blue bladed Crucible Sword and was battling a huge armored demon wielding a massive demonic axe in the middle of a gruesome bloody battlefield that could only have existed within the darkest depths of Hell. Everyone else that had taken part in the battle was dead, Night Sentinel and Demon alike. All that were left were him and this demon.
The battle was intense. The demon continuously tried to cleave the young Night Sentinel in half or incinerate him with Hell Fire or blast him to bits or forcibly corrupt him with wave after wave of highly destructive Argent Energy, all of which the young warrior ducked, dodged, or attempted to block with his weapon to varying degrees of success. In return he would rush in and lash out with his vicious glowing blade scoring as many hits as he possibly could before the demon could force him to back off once more.
The battle was currently locked in a brutal stalemate in which neither of them could gain the upper hand over their opponent. Seeming to realize this the young Night Sentinel seemed to back off a bit so as to analyze the situation before raising his left hand to his mouth and letting out a single high pitched whistle. Suddenly an ethereal green wolf appeared next to him and immediately began sprinting towards the demon before jumping and lunging at its throat. The demon raised the axe just in time to intercept the ghostly wolf's teeth with the corrupted wrought iron handle. However as the wolf was rushing in, so too was the young Night Sentinel and the Demon couldn't possibly hope to intercept them both. As such the young Night Sentinel's blade managed to slip past the demon's guard and cleave its head from its shoulders.
As soon as the ethereal green wolf appeared a red tracking indicator popped up on the screen as the appearifier the screen was attached to appeared to lock onto it.
This all seemed pointless to the Authority Regulator and immaterial to the crime that had been committed. Though he did find it odd that the appearifier target had been fixed over that especially scary looking animal. Then he heard the elevator platform being operated. Someone was coming.
It was a high ranking agent from the Authority Regulator's kingdom, Derse. Could he have been the man behind this crime? Could his intent be mutinous? The Authority Regulator knew the agent to be far too dangerous to take into custody. As such he decided to hide behind some equipment and observe.
He appeared to be holding some notebooks. Also what appeared to be a pair of juice-stained envelopes.
Only one of the books is useful to him. The envelopes are useless. And he couldn't make it through more than a paragraph of the other book. Some weird thing about wizards. He discarded them.
The spare notebook landed on the floor. The envelopes landed in the seed of the time capsule.
The time capsule stored the seed, and on account of some default setting, was programmed to bloom several hundred million years from then. The capsule then readied a new seed.
The agent then approached another device near the large monitor, typed something from the book in his hand into the device, pressed a few buttons and appearified a paradox ghost imprint of the ethereal wolf. The paradox sludge was sucked up into a machine and was then used to create an eyeless white semi-ethereal wolf pup-like creature that emanated a massive amount of green energy which absolutely wrecked the lab.
[Top of the Celestial Spear, in the present]
John pulled the trigger of the Unmaykr and opened fire upon the demonic version of himself. Crimson bolts of energy began spraying from the barrel of the weapon at an insane pace, tearing into the corrupted flesh of the demon. It roared in a mixture of rage and pain before vanishing in a streak of crimson light, just like a summoner, just before reappearing directly in front of John, out of the line of fire of the Unmaykr. It then delivered a devastating blow to his gut and sent him flying backwards. He nearly went tumbling over the edge of the cliff but he managed to temporarily put away the Unmaykr and plunge his hands into the ground of the large circular arena. His momentum caused him to dig two long thin trenches in the stone and metal that made up the ground but he successfully managed to catch himself before he could fall.
The demon version of himself turned its head to look at Erebus who was now holding the Demonic Crucible in one of his tentacles. " Here, child, a welcoming gift from your father. The true Demonic Crucible. Not like the cheap knock off that worm Carreau destroyed earlier." He gurgled before tossing the demonic weapon over to John's demonic counterpart.
Demon John caught the Demonic Crucible, studied it for a moment, and said, "Your services are no longer required here, Erebus. Leave."
Erebus scowled at the demonic version of John. "Watch your tone, you insolent whelp! You may be the son of the Dark Lord, but I am still an Elder Hell God and you will show me respect I deserve or you shall suffer!"
Demon John activated the demonic crucible and growled, "Fine... If you refuse to leave of your own volition then I'll simply have to make you leave by force!" Swinging the Demonic Crucible he sliced open a massive portal easily two or three times the size of Erebus. He then vanished in a streak of crimson light and appeared directly behind Erebus.
"What are you…? UNHAND ME THIS INSTANT YOU DETESTABLE BRAT!" Erebus roared as the demonic version of John grabbed him with both hands and began lifting him up before physically hurling the massive morbidly obese tentacled Hell God through the gigantic portal at speeds easily on par with a professional pitcher throwing a fastball. As soon as Erebus flew through the portal, the demon version of John pointed the Demonic Crucible at the portal and twisted it like a key. As soon as he did, the portal immediately vanished into thin air as if it had never existed in the first place.
Demon John then turned his head and looked directly at the Wretch and Ira. "Leave, now…" He growled at them.
An immense sea of fear and dread completely overwhelmed both of their senses as Demon John forced these emotions into them, having fully unlocked all of his abilities as a Lord of Rage after having given in and become a Hell-God. Despite this immense fear the Wretch refused to back down. "K-kill me if you must f-for I shall NEVER abandon the Holy Lord!" He shakily declared.
"N-nor shall I!" Ira growled even though she was visibly trembling in mind numbing terror.
Immediately seeing what the demonic version of himself was trying to do by getting rid of everyone else, John shouted, "Wretch, Ira, do as he says and leave!"
The Wretch and Ira both turned and looked at him incredulously. "But, my lord…!" The Wretch exclaimed, only to be cut off with a gesture from John.
"Shut the fuck up! This is just between me and that mother fucking abomination ! You have five seconds to get the hell out of here before I kill both of you myself for insubordination!" John growled.
The Wretch hesitated for a moment before bowing to him. "As you wish, oh Holy Lord. Ira, if you are able, please take us somewhere far from this place."
Ira nodded and grabbed the Wretch by the shoulder before teleporting them both away.
"Good, now that the distractions are gone I can focus all of my attention on killing you!" Demon John chuckled darkly.
"Nice joke. I might have even laughed but I lost my sense of humor a while ago. You're nothing but a pathetic weak willed coward who threw away everything you stood for and gave in like the spineless bitch you are! I don't give a flying fuck if you did become a Hell-God and were adopted by the Dark Lord or not; you didn't even have what it takes to resist the demons so you sure as HELL don't have what it takes to kill me !" John spat venomously, once again drawing the Unmaykr and aiming it directly at his demonic counterpart and immediately opening fire.
A blazing purple aura mixed with crimson streaks of Argent Energy and literal Hell-Fire instantly flared up around the Dark Lord of Hell's son as John's words cut him to his very core. Faster than he could react a slavo of the crimson bolts collided with him, melting parts of his armor and tearing into his body. Springing into action the demon moved out of the way of the crimson bolts of energy and began sprinting towards John with the Demonic Crucible raised. As he ran he tracked the position John was aiming the Unmaykr and used that to preemptively dodge out of the way of his shots and avoid getting hit.
Once he was close enough, the demon knocked the Unmaykr out of John's hands and began swinging the Demonic Crucible at him in a relentless rain of blows. John immediately reacted by extending the Doomblade on his arm and using it to block and parry the blows to the best of his abilities given his complete lack of training in this sort of combat while looking for any potential opening he could exploit to launch a counter attack on his demonic counterpart. Each strike he blocked caused the stone and metal ground beneath their feet to crack and crater in an explosion of dust and rock, and every blow he parried sent a shockwave coursing through the entirety of the Celestial Spear they were fighting atop, causing minor earthquakes all across the planet. Every so often a strike would slip past his guard and he would have to move out of the way as fast as possible lest he be cut in half by the demon's blade, though this did not save him from receiving numerous nasty cuts as the Demonic Crucible managed to penetrate his Praetor Suit and carve straight through the flesh underneath.
"At least I didn't betray myself and abandon my friends! At least I still have my love and compassion! At least I still have my heart and soul, admittedly twisted as they may now be! You, however, gave up yours when you decided your "sanity" was worth more than the lives of your friends and family! So tell me, oh great and powerful Lord of Rage , which one of us is the real demon?! I who am driven by my love for my friends, my family, and my people and was willing to sacrifice everything to bring one of my friends back and ensure the survival of the rest, or you who are driven by nothing but your rage and hatred and are too selfish to care about anyone or anything but yourself?!" The demon raged as he swung the demonic crucible in a flurry of lethal crimson arcs each and every one of which was fully intended to kill John.
Enraged by his demonic counterparts' words and seeing that the demon wasn't about to give him any openings whatsoever, John decided to just make an opening himself. He activated the flamebelch on his shoulder and unleashed a stream of fire onto the demon, lighting him on fire and catching him off guard long enough for John to draw his Super Shotgun which was still set to fire buckshot. John then shoved the twin sawed-off four gauge barrels straight into the demon's exposed stomach and unloaded a four or five blasts straight into his gut before punching him in the face as hard as he possibly could, sending the demon flying backwards towards the center of the large circular arena.
"WHO'S THE REAL DEMON?! HOW ABOUT I SEND YOU BACK TO THE DARK LORD IN BLOODY CHUNKS AND LET HIM ANSWER THAT FOR YOU?! NOW SHUT UP AND DIE !" John roared at his demonic counterpart. Lobbing a grenade at the demon with his equipment launcher, John held his Super Shotgun in one hand, switched it to slug rounds, drew his Demon Slayer's chainsword with his free hand and began charging at the demon while simultaneously blasting it while it was down.
[Meanwhile in the Land of Light and Rain]
The Wraith suddenly sensed an extremely dark change in the timeline which it sensed was coming from Argent D'Nur. Reaching out with its senses it looked upon the tip of the cosmic spear which pierced the planet and gave birth to it and its siblings, as it could sense that was the epicenter of this sudden change. There it witnessed something that sent dread coursing through every fiber of its being.
John was fighting a version of himself from an alternate timeline that had fallen under the influence of the demons and had become a major Hell-God, second only to the Dark Lord himself. He was still alive and fighting for the moment, but only because the demonic version of himself was toying with him and Erebus, who the demonic version of John had just thrown through a one way portal to Hell, was still bound by the rules and could not intervene directly unless the Lord deliberately attacked him as he had the demonic version of himself.
If something didn't change John was going to die and not on the quest bed as he needed to if he were to become a god as he should. If that happened, the demons would win and all of paradox space and every single universe within it would be doomed to be corrupted and be consumed by Hell.
The Wraith cursed the name of the Father for ever creating the Dark Realm and decided that this officially called for a very drastic change of plans. If the Hell-gods were already intervening like this, it could no longer sit idle passively guiding the children along their paths from the sidelines. It had to counter their actions with a bit of intervention of its own, though it had to be extremely careful in what it did else it ran the risk of dooming the timeline, which may not have actually been that bad of an idea all things considered since, at least in theory, it would force this horrific timeline to diverge from the Alpha timeline… No, no, that was an absolutely terrible idea! It couldn't believe it had considered such a thing for even a mere moment! Gathering its thoughts it considered what its actual course of action should be before finally coming to a decision.
Rapidly flying over to the temple which the Seer of Light was currently exploring, it used its power to rip the temple up from the earth before tearing a massive chunk from the side, exposing its interior and a very startled Seer of Light. The Wraith flew inside towards the Seer and said, "Forgive me young one, but there has been a very serious change we must now address. It seems the Hell-gods decided to intervene much sooner than I had anticipated. The Lord of Rage, John, is currently in extreme danger and I'm afraid I shall require your assistance in order to save him as I am not able to intervene in this matter directly lest I risk dooming us all."
Rose looked at the Wraith before glancing at the massive stone slab behind her. "Alright... I'll do whatever I can but first, what can you tell me about the Green Sun?" She asked.
The Wraith shook its head in exasperation and said, "I shall explain what I am able along the way but we must hurry. Now come, Young Seer, we are heading to Argent D'Nur to gain assistance as you can not deal with this situation yourself anymore then the Lord can, let alone in your current state. I had originally expected that the Lord would be the one to do this but it seems I was mistaken."
Using her wands to lift herself into the air to follow the Wraith, Rose inquired, "How is it you could be mistaken about anything? I thought you were supposed to be omniscient."
The Wraith turned and began flying away. Rose followed closely behind it. "Two reasons. The first is that I do not have true omniscience. I know quite a bit but there are certain gaps in what I know or am allowed to know at any given time. The second reason is a consequence of my direct participation in this game, I'm afraid. To be able to influence things at all I have to abide by the "rules" of the game, and that means I must have limits on what I am able to do through my own power. Such is the reason I currently require your aid. The Hell-Gods are bound by the same rules as I but they are far more cunning and ruthless than I and they are experts at finding and exploiting every possible loophole which I am not, thus giving them a serious advantage over me especially without my siblings here to assist me." It explained as they flew.
[Top of the Celestial Spear a few minutes later]
The demon had John pinned to the ground with one arm locked behind his back in a position where it could easily be dislocated if not outright broken. His Demon Slayer's Chainsword and Super Shotgun both lay completely out of reach on the other side of the arena. "Pathetic! I can hardly believe I was ever as weak as you! It's almost insulting!" Demon John spat venomously.
"I'LL SHOW YOU WEAK WHEN I RIP YOUR FUCKING GUTS OUT, YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT!" John roared back at it, thrashing violently underneath it as he desperately tried to escape with absolutely zero regard for his arm which was currently in danger of being broken.
Demon John chuckled in amusement. "Hm… Before I kill you, I think I'm going to enjoy breaking down that arrogant attitude of yours."
"THEN YOU HAD BETTER DO YOUR FUCKING WORST BEFORE I GET FREE! BECAUSE I GUARAN-FUCKING-TEE YOU WON'T BREAK ME, SINCE I'M NOT SOME SPINELESS BITCH LIKE YOU!" John shouted in a rabid berserker fury.
"Hmph... You expect me to torture you? Ha! I would very much enjoy rending the flesh from your bone, but no. I think you and I both know physical pain is worthless against you, as a Lord of Rage. No, there are numerous other far more insidious ways for me to break you then through mere torture."
"OH YEAH?! LIKE WHAT?! COME ON BRING IT, MOTHER FUCKER! I TOLD YOU TO DO YOUR FUCKING WORST! I FUCKING DARE YOU!" John shouted before his demonic counterpart grabbed the back of his head with his free hand and smashed his face into the ground hard enough to cause a large chunk of the front of his helmet to break off, leaving the right side of his face exposed.
"You want me to do my worst? Fine, I was planning on it anyways. Let's start with the truth . The truth of who and what we both really are and who our ecto-biological father really is. As I can assure you, he is most certainly not the Doom Slayer as I know you so foolishly believe in all your pathetic delusions." Demon John said with very blatant malice.
For some reason that John couldn't explain a sense of primal dread started to form within him upon hearing that. Perhaps it was because he sensed nothing but honesty in the demon's words, or perhaps it was because some part of him buried deep within actually feared the truth of what he might be if the Slayer truly was not his ecto-biological father/clone as he thought he was, or perhaps it was some mixture of the two. He had no idea, but either way he most certainly didn't like it.
[Meanwhile on the surface of HORAV]
A tortured scream from the very top of the Celestial Spear pierced the air and echoed all the way to the complete opposite end of the planet. The Wraith turned to look towards the back end of the Celestial Spear in immense worry before looking back at the current leader of the Loyalist Night Sentinels, Gor the Relentless, and the other warriors Gor had personally chosen to assist the Seer of Light in her current mission. "It seems we are running out of time. We must hurry else the Lord of Rage shall die before we can free the Slayer. As such, I shall go over the plan only once so all of you must pay close attention." It explained.
The Sentinels all nodded in confirmation and the Seer's gaze never wavered from the Wraith for even a second.
The Wraith used one of its tentacles to gesture behind it towards the massive fortress with a glowing mark of the Slayer burned into the main tower. "As you all know, this is the Crypt of the Doom Slayer. You shall need to go inside and head to the deepest chamber within. There you shall find his cursed sarcophagus. The Seer shall then open it and he shall awaken. Be warned, however, the demons shall do everything within their power to stop you. That is where I come in. I shall draw out and distract the bulk of their forces whilst you all go in. Make no mistake, you shall still meet quite a bit of resistance as they are not foolish enough to leave the interior completely unguarded, however you will have a very good chance of success so long as you always keep your guard up and you remain cautious. Are there any questions?"
Everyone remained completely silent. The only response being a few of the Sentinels gripping their crucible weapons a bit tighter.
The Wraith waited a moment before saying, "Very well. You must all wait here for exactly two minutes after I head down before going in yourselves so I may draw as much of their forces to me as possible. After that you have until four minutes after the ground begins to shake and you start hearing my Wraithcall for that will be when the Champion has arrived to stop us and I cannot limit the devastation our battle shall cause indefinitely. Until then you must keep the Seer alive at all costs, at least until the Slayer is free at which point the demons shall be far too busy with him to worry about trying to kill her."
"Understood! I swear on my honor we shall defend her with our lives, oh mighty Wraith!" Gor declared bowing to the Wraith reverently.
The Wraith accepted this and turned to fly towards the Crypt of the Doom Slayer.
[A few minutes later at the top of the Celestial Spear]
John had torn his own arm completely off in order to escape from being pinned to the ground by his demonic counterpart. The pain of the wound paled in comparison to the agony of what he had just learned. He and the Doom Slayer were both imperfect ecto-biological clones of the Dark Lord of Hell, meaning he was and always had been a demon albeit mutated in such a way as to remove his abilities as a Hell-God and completely invert his ecto-biological father's natural feelings towards Hell and the Demons. This explained why his eyes were lava orange, why he had somewhat of a natural resistance to all things demonic, why he was so abnormally strong for a human his age, and so much more.
" NO, NO, FUCKING NO!" John screamed, clasping at his head with his one remaining hand as every fiber of his being screamed in complete and utter horror and entirely new depths of self loathing at this terrible knowledge. Knowing the truth of who and what he really was, was effectively his own personal level of Nekravol. The worst part of all was the fact that he couldn't even try to deny it and call his demonic counterpart a liar as he could somehow sense that the demon was correct and was telling him nothing but the complete absolute truth. If ever there was a time that he legitimately wanted to die, it was right there and then.
The air rapidly became chilled far below the point of freezing, the screams of the damned echoed from every direction simultaneously in a nearly deafeningly loud cacophony of pure agony, dozens upon dozens of tiny half formed Lost Souls began to appear and fly in rough chaotic circles around John, and a small amount of Argent Energy began crackling around his body. His visibly demonic counterpart was just standing there still holding his severed arm while savouring his suffering. In fact he was actively using his abilities as a Lord of Rage in order to increase John's suffering while John desperately tried to use the few abilities he had been able to fully unlock up until this point in order to kill those emotions within himself. This resulted in a perfect stalemate between the two of them thus leaving John's emotions firmly locked in place neither increasing nor decreasing in the slightest.
Needing something, anything , to take this out on and knowing the perfect target, John sprinted over to the Unmaykr once more, picked it up off the ground, and began firing it at the demon with his one remaining hand. In response the demon dropped his severed arm and vanished in a streak of crimson light only to reappear directly in front of him. It then grabbed the Unmaykr, tore it from John's significantly weakened grasp, and almost casually tossed it off to the side.
Not deterred by this in the slightest, John immediately activated his Doomblade and began slashing furiously at his visibly demonic counterpart, while the demon blocked each strike with the Demonic Crucible with an almost casual ease. His attacks were completely wild, lacking any sort of skill or finesse whatsoever and each strike hit with all the strength of an absolutely rabid demigod, causing the planet piercingly strong ground beneath them to crack and crater and the extremely thin air to boom with all the devastating fury of nuclear bombs as the demon easily blocked or deflected each mountain breaking swing.
It went on like this for several minutes with the demon thoroughly enjoying every last bit of John's suffering all the while John's attacks continued to increase in power the longer it went on as his "Rage" continued to grow at a truly terrifying pace. John rapidly plunged down into the deepest darkest depths of his own aspect so fast it was starting to completely overwhelm his actual personality in its entirety until he all but became Rage itself given physical form. Visible through the missing chunk of his helmet both the iris and whites of John's eyes turned solid red and his skin became a dark shade of grey. He had officially gone Grimdark.
Matter began to break down and vanish around the two of them as John instinctually began slowly erasing everything around him from existence through his sheer refusal to believe any of this was truly real born of his inability to accept what his demonic counterpart had told him as reality. Devastating visions of unimaginable horror began to fill the demon's mind as John began forcing images of all of its worst nightmares into its head. John and his demonic counterpart's wills violently clashed against each other as John instinctively tried and failed to cripple the demon by driving it completely and irrevocably insane with planet cracking levels of pain and fear, just as he had now already done to the other demons that had up until this point been constantly trying to invade his mind.
"What's wrong, John? Do you find the truth hard to stomach?" The demon mocked. "Good! To be a Lord of Rage is to embrace the truth above all else, no matter how torturous that truth may be to you or anyone else! In fact it is to embody all forms of pain and negativity, physical and emotional! So go ahead and suffer, oh great Lord of Rage! Suffer and die like the insect you are!" Finally the demon stopped blocking and deflecting John's relentless attacks and instead swung the Demonic Crucible and severed John's left leg at the knee, sending him tumbling to the ground.
Not caring that he was now missing a leg as well as an arm, John used his remaining arm and leg to launch himself off the ground towards his visibly demonic counterpart and continue his attack. The demon responded by stepping to the side and punching him out of the air and into the ground. The demon then impaled John through his lower back with the Demonic Crucible, severing his spine and leaving him paralyzed and unable to feel anything except artificially induced agony from the waist down. John tried stabbing the demon in the leg with his Doomblade, but the demon just kicked him in the side and forced him to roll over onto his back before stepping on his arm, trapping it firmly in place.
John glared up at the demon in complete and utter hatred. "Hmph… You still have that defiant look in your eye, I see… " The demon grumbled in dissatisfaction. With a single swipe of the Demonic Crucible the demon cut out the eye that was exposed by the missing chunk of John's helmet, leaving him half blind. " There. That's much better. Now the only question is, should I kill you now, or should we continue our little talk until you are well and truly broken?"
Remembering the equipment launcher on his shoulder, John activated the flamebelch and bathed his visibly demonic counterpart in chemical fire hot enough to burn even a Baron of Hell. The demon just responded by cutting the equipment launcher off of his shoulder with the Demonic Crucible.
"Fine, if you're so eager to die then I'll gladly grant your wish. Good bye, Lord of Rage." Raising the Demonic Crucible the demon prepared to decapitate John. However, just as the dark red blade started its descent towards John's neck, an immense source of Rage almost seemed to have just appeared as if from thin air directly next to them. Then in the next instant a green armored fist collided with the side of the demon's face so hard it sent him flying across the now horribly cracked and cratered tip of the Celestial Spear. The demon disappeared in a streak of crimson light mid flight and re-appeared on its feet a distance away, almost radiating sheer terror.
"No… NO! HOW!? HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY BE FREE!?" It shouted at the large green armored warrior that proved to be the source of the immense Rage John had sensed appear as if from nowhere. In his current state, it took John a moment to recognize this warrior as the Doom Slayer.
The Slayer said nothing in response to the demon's question and just began sprinting towards him faster than John could see, especially since he was currently missing one of his eyes. Almost seeming to appear in front of the demon, the Doom Slayer grabbed his right arm, which was holding the Demonic Crucible, and snapped it in half before ripping it off at the elbow. He then drove his knee into the demon's gut so hard that it was forced to puke up blood. What followed was an extremely brutal one sided beatdown in favor of the Doom Slayer. That wasn't to say the demon couldn't hold his own or didn't get plenty of good hits in, but other than damaging his armor, nothing the demon did seemed to be able to hurt the Slayer himself in the slightest.
Seeing this, John desperately wanted to join in and most assuredly would have done so in a heartbeat were it not for his present condition. He even tried to use his arm to drag himself towards the battle but only got a few feet before he was forced to accept the reality that in his current state he couldn't possibly keep up with them even if he wanted to. Recalling why he was here in the first place he looked towards the stone bed in the middle of the arena and began the process of slowly dragging his broken body towards it. It took him awhile but he eventually managed to reach the stone bed, grab the edge and start dragging himself on top of it.
In the midst of his fight with the Slayer, John's visibly demonic counterpart saw what he was doing and broke away from the fight by vanishing in a streak of crimson light and reappearing next to the stone bed in a desperate attempt to stop him. However he had failed to notice the Unmaykr that was laying on the ground next to the Doom Slayer as he broke away from the fight, and he had been just a second too slow. As a result two things happened at once. John stabbed himself in the heart with his Doomblade on top of the stone bed and an extremely powerful beam of crimson energy shot forth from the barrel of the Unmaykr and pierced the demon through the chest, causing it to fall over on top of the stone bed directly next to John.
The last thing John and his demonic counterpart saw before everything went dark was Rose and the Wraith floating in the air above the Celestial Spear a fair distance away, both of whom they sensed were radiating absolute shock and horror at the fact John and the demon were both dying on the bed simultaneously.
Thousands upon thousands of tiny purple Lost Souls suddenly appeared surrounding the tip of the Celestial Spear. The tops of the four pillars surrounding the corners of the Quest Bed lit up like small beacons. Finally a nightmarish purple light began to emanate from both versions of John that lay dead atop the quest bed and a massive symbol of Rage appeared above the Celestial Spear.
[Skaia]
John's dream self was teleported to his quest bed upon the surface of Skaia. Slowly a massive bloody wound began forming in the center of his chest. Then his body began to glow and started hovering up off of the stone bed. Then it began to morph. His fingernails grew into knife-like claws, his teeth turned into razor sharp fangs, his already fairly prominent muscles grew even bulkier than they already were, his skin took on a sickly hue, his face morphed to look like some sort of twisted mixture of both the demonic and normal versions of himself, and finally two large demonic horns like those belonging to the demonic version of himself sprouted from the sides of his head. Next the golden attire his dream self wore began to change. It turned purple, gained a hood and an exceptionally long cape, and the symbol on the front changed to a symbol of Rage. Finally John opened his still solid crimson eyes.
End Notes: Hey guys! Alright, there are a few things I'd like to explain. First, I fully intended to add that part at the beginning of this chapter at some point earlier in the story but I kept forgetting so I just added it here. Sorry about that... Second, for those that may not have caught it and don't understand what was happening near the end of the chapter, I changed some stuff in some previous chapters to better match the lore revealed in the new DLC for Doom Eternal. So now the Doom Slayer and John are both imperfect paradox clones of Davoth, the Dark Lord of Hell, due to the ending of the Ancient Gods Part 1 DLC, and I might change all of this again depending on what happens in the Ancient Gods Part 2. Look up the Doom Eternal Codex if you want to learn more about Doom's version of the Devil.Third, the reason John is erasing stuff from existence during the fight is due to my interpretation of the abilities of a Lord of Rage. Personally, I think if either a Lord or Muse of Hope can make imaginary things exist, then either a Lord or Muse of Rage should be able to do the exact opposite and thus erase things from existence in their entirety. This ability isn't going to be very powerful at first, it's going to start out extremely slow and inefficient and will get faster and more powerful as John becomes stronger. Also the more powerful the target in question is the harder it will be to erase. So he's not going to be able to erase Calliborn, Bec Noir, or any of the Hell-gods form existence and will actually have to fight them through more traditional means.
Anyways, I hope you guys liked this chapter! If not, I am more then willing to scrap it and rewrite the entire thing or at the very least change what happens at the end of the chapter, depending on what you guys want though the end is semi-important to developing a major obstacle John must overcome in order to be able to enter the Divinity Machine and gain his invincibility much later on in the story. Constructive criticism is more than welcome, in fact it is encouraged!
Stay safe out there everyone!