None were more miffed by King Justin Gatewood's apparent insanity than the Indian people themselves. After the detonation, a revolt started in New Delhi to make the city independent of the Kingdom of Australia. Almost as if to confirm the notion that he was going insane, King Justin ordered a tactical nuke on the city of New Delhi. As counterproductive as it was to use a nuclear missile against a city revolting to protest the use of atomic bombs, admittedly the survivors of the 60 kiloton blast had no desire to continue the revolt.
As expected, with the defeat by the Caspian Lake, more British Angels and Fanatics arrived to roll back American holdings in central Asia. Near Hami, China, a new force of infantry and heavy tanks engaged a force of Fanatics, but this time they were evenly matched, and the US forces barely won. The survivors were destroyed by an incoming force of seven Angels making its way through Asia. Australian Fanatics had landed at Hong Kong and were working to destroy American defenses there, when in 1989, suddenly King Justin was assassinated. On October 15th, 1989 Justin Gatewood was taking in a Sunday sermon at a megachurch in Canberra, Australia, as he had been doing every Sunday for years. He always sat with the general population, as he didn't like being secluded in his own pew, but sat with two bodyguards. An Indian man, later learned to be named Tarak Kotadia, was scooching by in the pew behind him, excusing himself, and appeared to be headed for the bathroom. Suddenly, he stopped behind Mr. Gatewood, and with speed usually only seen in a Western movie, took out a revolver from his pants pocket and shot King Justin in the back of the head once. He then shot Justin's right hand bodyguard in the face as well, and was about to shoot his left bodyguard, but his left bodyguard had already taken out his automatic pistol by that time and shot Tarak once in the chest. Tarak fell down onto a bystander sitting behind King Justin, bleeding on the poor screaming woman. A woman to the right asked the young Indian "Why? Why have you killed our God-King?" Tarak seemed to not hear her, and addressed his last words to the corpse of King Justin, and said to him "You have become death, destroyer of worlds. May the Gate to Hell swing both ways, and welcome a fellow demon." He then died, and the church was evacuated to carry out the three dead bodies and clean up the blood.
As with King Maksimillian, there was no smooth succession, like there were when American leaders died in office. Instead, his death caused a succession crisis. The new Bible said that King Justin was supposed to eventually die, but not before everyone in the world swore fealty toward him or King John and believed in God and the Devil. Indeed, Diablo was still wandering around South America, seemly aimlessly, but as for swearing fealty, his death could not have come at a worse time. Less than a year before he had unleashed a powerful bomb on India, killing millions, and again bombed protesters. Neither were the actions of a sane, just, perfect King, and few people believed any longer that he was a member of the New Earthly Trinity. King John Redmond made a mass plea for the subjects of Australia to swear fealty toward him, the last surviving member of the New Earthly Trinity. Many wanted to take him up on the offer. However, now was the time for America's own propaganda offensive. Spies in the Middle East had been watching the area for years, and recorded instances of gruesome human sacrifice that were required to summon Greater Demons into the world without the Gate to Hell. Greater Demons were gathering in Iraq, and almost exactly at the same time that King Justin died, they had pictures of a new temple that had been made in Cairo. Through careful human intelligence, it was revealed that the purpose of it was to summon something big and unstoppable, like Diablo himself, into our world. Though such information would normally be hushed, it suited America to broadcast that information far and wide. With radio, television, pamphlets, and printed works, Americans beseeched Australians and previous subjects of Australia not to join with King John, whose rule would lead to Earth's doom, but to join with America and Mexico to stop the creation of the humanoids, be they Angels, demons, or worse. The Australian people at large wanted neither to join with the cruel King that had opened the Gate to Hell at Borborema or join the weak Americans and Mexicans, global refugees who all figured would one way or another meet their total destruction soon. In addition, Mexicans had succeeded in taking over England. King John was so focused on religion that he had Angels and Fanatics and little else in his army, so Britain proper wasn't heavily defended. Angels were just across the English Channel, and would only need a barge to get to the other side and retake Britain. But Mexicans built artillery positions and Tesla towers, so by the time a barge could be prepared, Great Britain was too defended to try. There was a revolt against Mexican rule almost immediately, and rebels even commandeered tanks from a motor pool. But they were put down with the Tesla towers and Mexican helicopters, ensuring Mexico's dominance over Great Britain even as nearly half of the world's population was under the control of the British Empire. With the large and unruly London under Mexican control, the Mexican government finally reorganized, and switched to a confederacy government. Revolts in London subsided and turned to jubilation, as the confederacy guaranteed freedoms that those in London had not enjoyed in decades. So, as Australian Fanatics finished their attacks on Hong Kong and Fairbanks independent of any central instruction to continue, and Balkanization, that bane to global unity since 1945, reared its ugly head once more, and the Kingdom of Australia broke up into one united but independent country on the Australian continent, a second independent country in Southeast Asia, and 16 independent nations or city-states, many of them islands.
British Angels largely turned around and headed for Cairo after King Justin's death, leaving just two Angels to try to control Asia. In Angola, there were reports of attacks by Diablo in 1990. Ever since destroying New York City, he had been doing nothing but what could best be termed as "wandering." Concurrent with the destruction of India, Diablo had gone south enough that he attacked Salta and destroyed a battery of Tesla coils there (which were later rebuilt), and could have probably gone to Tierra del Fuego if he wanted to, as America had 6 second-generation walkers there that would have probably not been effective against Diablo, but instead he turned north and continued wandering. He went up to Borborema, and then, soon after the death of King Justin, waded into the Atlantic Ocean, creating jets of steam as he did. Diablo had waded through streams, walked through lakes, and even gone out to the ocean as far as the continental shelf before. But now, he waded until his feet no longer touched the ground, and to the relief of everyone still alive on the American continent and the horror of everyone else, started swimming. Diablo had always been easy to track, as he looked like a storm system on weather maps. In 1990, at the port city of Luanda in Angola, demons Diablo had summoned in the shallow water off the coast made landfall and attacked the city. Samual Acuna's words rung true even now, as the denizens of Luanda surrendered en masse to the Demons and Imps, and were spared total destruction. Moçâmedes was similarly spared death, but Diablo attacked Kinshasa alone, destroying the city. Thus, the demonic invasion of Africa began. Parties of demons headed south to attack African cities, while Diablo went north to the rainforests in the Congo. King John sent demons south to counter the demons not under his control, but most were killed by Diablo when they passed too close, and the rest were killed by parties of nonaligned demons in Zambia. In central Africa, Diablo met one of the Angels, and engaged it in combat. The Angel sent blasts of energy at Diablo, but it turned out to be repeat of the showdown in Texas years before, and the solitary Angel was killed by Diablo, with Diablo no worse for the wear. Diablo continued north, causing an ecological disaster as he went, as his presence burned the rainforest and left the African rainforest looking similar to the Sahara.
In Cameroon, proper resistance finally met the Devil for the first time in 14 years, and in 1991 he met a full force of Fanatics, Demons, and tanks. The tanks he destroyed, but that allowed the rest of the force to get close enough to engage, and at Lagdo, Cameroon, just west of Lake Lagdo, a climactic battle took place. 12 Angels and 1 Greater Demon began attacking Diablo, and for the first time since he stepped foot on Earth, he had an actual challenge to contend with. They got into a semi-circle and began trading fire with Diablo. It was a long battle, and evenly matched, but it looked like Diablo would come out alive. But after he had killed 8 of the Angels and the one Greater Demon controlled by King John, an additional 12 Angels joined the fight. Diablo could not sustain such blasts, and disappeared in a dazzling blaze of light, leaving no corpse. 14 Angels survived the fight.
Just before Diablo died, in Cairo a new creature appeared, referred to as Pharol the Black. He was a huge creature, slightly taller than Diablo, with a centaur-like body devoid of hair. He had burning eyes, black skin, naturally, and a massive head that was nonetheless disproportionately small compared to the rest of his body, with both a humanoid jaw and two secondary jawbones with tusk-like teeth sticking out of them, giving him a hideous, monstrous appearance. He had two humanoid arms that ended in only three fingers, but walked around on strangely knobby legs which appeared to have two knees per leg, and rather than ending in hooves or feet, they tapered off to the ground, such that he appeared to be walking with daggers for feet. He engaged four Angels immediately and killed all four with balls of fire similar to Diablo's, but burning with a black flame and apparently much more powerful. For what purpose he was summoned, one can only guess, as immediately after his appearance King John Redmond sent nine of the Angels that had fought Diablo to go north, past the new British capital in Zouar, Chad to fight Pharol. They engaged, but after four more Angels were killed, they retreated west to Libya. Four made it, and were then immediately turned back to fight, which of course killed them. Next, a huge force of Fanatics that had gathered near Zouar went north to fight Pharol. Like Diablo, however, he had an aura that damaged everything around him. However, it was not the hellfire that followed Diablo everywhere he went. Rather, all who got close to Pharol became suddenly and violently sick, and if they didn't get as far away from him as possible, would quickly die. Those that got close exhibited symptoms similar to radiation poisoning, but if they could get away fast enough, they could make a full recovery and have no long-term, lasting damage. The Fanatics, however, showed their characteristic drugged-up zealotry, and ran straight towards the evil humanoid. Not a single one got close enough to so much as touch the evil creature, and soon after finished burning Cairo to the ground and started heading north across the Mediterranean towards Greece.
Now, in November 16, 1991 King John Redmond of Britain took his own life. He was found almost immediately after he did it in his bedroom in Zouar, with a pistol in his hand, a bullet in his brain, and a note with two words on it: "Doomed Earth". At the time, the Kingdom of Britain controlled 45% of the world's population, the United States of America had 11% of the world's population, and Mexico still controlled 5% of the world's population, which really meant just the cities that the USA was protecting in South America, a few settlements in the Queen Elizabeth Islands, Great Britain and Ireland, and Scandinavia, which it had recently snatched up. As with Australia before, rather than join with any of the few world powers left, the previous subjects of the British Empire Balkanized, splitting up into separate nations and city-states. America sent envoys to all of them, and though the new states couldn't agree on many things, they could all agree on two things. First, they didn't want to join America. They thought it was in general weak and oblivious, and British subjects had been told all their lives not to give any information to a foreigner. So, no new state would join with the USA willingly. Second, however, none of the new states expressed any malice towards the United States of America. The general consensus of the British subjects everywhere was that they were sorry for America at large, and horrified that at the time everywhere north of Paraguay and south of Texas was now swarming with demons, with isolated pockets of them roaming as far north as the ruins of Fort Smith. So, by 1992 America was not at war with any humans in the world, for what that was worth, meaning it could finally, for the first time in 20 years finally put its full resources and attention towards the supernatural threats to the world.
Chuck closed the book and there was silence for a moment. Finally, Josephina spoke.
"If Diablo is well and truly dead, then why is there still evil in the world?"
Chuck was about to respond "Because Diablo is not the cause of evil in the world," but he too remembered the company he was keeping, and closed his mouth and shrugged.
"I can't believe it," said Josephina. "El Diablo. The Devil himself no longer walks the earth, and yet evil and sin persists. Perhaps he not dead in the sense that he will no longer trouble the living. Perhaps he is dead now in that he no longer has a physical body on Earth, and his black soul has returned to Hell to continue his eternal rule."
Chuck listened to the ad hoc explanation, blinking but silent. He was astounded by the unfailing capacity of Josephina and mankind in general to believe what they preferred to be true rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible. However, with metaphysical forces operating in the world beyond his understanding, he couldn't entirely discount the possibility the explanation Josephina had come up with was actually correct. So, he shrugged again.
"I'm not sure. I'm a soldier, not a priest," he said.
Josephina frowned. "Our priest was one of the first people killed. I was only about 10 at the time, but I remember him. He was a nice man. Very kind, especially to the elderly. I haven't seen a priest since then."
Chuck Horner went silent for a time, as did most of the table, and when conversation resumed the topics were just chitchat among people at the table.
Chuck Horner passed five days in Barreiras, resting his feet and enjoying the comfort of sleeping in a real bed rather than a tent and sleeping bag. On August 16th, when it was time to leave, he gave Deicide to Josephina, since he was finished with the book and she had been cut off from the larger world for so long. She thanked him and waved goodbye.
The day after his squad moved out, he learned there had been a skirmish north of Barreiras with another Greater Demon, and there were around 2,000 wounded and 500 killed in the attack. Noteworthy was that he heard some of the soldiers were hiding in houses, hoping that it would give them some protection, but the opposite turned out to be true. While Greater Demon void blasts were powerful enough as it was in the open air, when they crashed into a house and exploded within, the entire house would be blown to smithereens, killing anyone within and injuring anyone close enough to get hit by a piece of the house.