Hell. The realm where sinners were cast down as punishment for their offenses against God and all that was moral in the human world. The way living people described the place, it was an unimaginably cruel place where boards of damned souls suffered for all of eternity. However, the reality in this hell was much stranger than fiction. Despite its description from the mortal world as a place of eternal damnation and suffering, many souls who were condemned to be in hell found themselves living in a place not entirely different from the world of the living. For many, this pit of infamous agony was the end of the road. For a select few, Hell was also a place of great opportunity.
Most who found themselves in hell were the scum of the Earth. Many of these mortal souls repeatedly committed heinous crimes or deplorable acts. Mass murderers, rapists, thieves, adulterers, and countless ne'er do wells in between made the bulk of the population. Most inhabitants had no qualms with immorality and deviant behavior. Some even took advantage of their proficiency with various sinful acts to effectively become warlords. As overlords, they ruled over criminal, or at the very least deplorable enterprises with the same authority as a corporate CEO or mob boss.
A scant few were the victims of terrible circumstance. Poor souls who overindulged in alcohol and died in accidents were counted among the depraved masses. Soldiers who fought not for sadistic pleasure but for the sake of their countries often found their way to Hell. Those who committed suicide also took an unfortunate, one-way trip to this bleak land of crimson skies and casual barbarism.
However, even Hell had some rules. First and foremost, none dared to challenge the power and authority of Lucifer Magne. Lucifer was the original fallen angel who had been cast down to hell by his own brother Michael. The de facto most powerful being in a land of untold torture and misery had naturally designated himself as King of Hell. Marrying Lilith, the first succubus to ever exist, he enjoyed a privileged lifestyle, with an enormous castle, numerous properties, hundreds of servants at his beck and call, and unrivaled demonic power. His seat of power was located at a massive metropolis that was greater than the likes of New York City or Tokyo.
Pentagram City was the capital of Hell. Sprawling out as a center of urbane afterlife, it was a cesspool of violence and depravity, located under a crimson pentagram, hence its name. It was a city divided by social status, with rich and powerful overlords enjoying large palaces, condos, and apartment complexes while the average sinner struggled to survive in run down neighborhoods and dilapidated houses. The staggering contradictions, inequality, and Darwinian way of life defined the vocabulary and pace of the average day in Pentagram City.
However, any concerns about business as usual was disrupted on this day. Blood was running through the streets. Violence was quite common even on the quaintest of days. However, this blood was being shed not by fellow sinners over gaining new turf or other self interests. An invading army, with the consent of the King of Hell, was butchering sinners left and right.
Hell was a realm with no shortage of miserable sinners to populate it. However, just as an ecosystem can only support so many organisms, Hell could only support so many sinful souls.
Thus an Extermination, otherwise known as the Cleanse, became a means of curbing overpopulation. Why this was the case, no one knew, but somehow, Lucifer had reached an agreement with Heaven to cull the population of hell once every year with the use of brutal and angelic agents sent from above. These murderous angels, allegedly commanded by the Angel of Death himself, would arrive at the eve of every new year to slay sinners as agreed upon by King Lucifer.
Pentagram City, on this day, was engulfed in more chaos than usual. This, however, was not out of the ordinary. After all, Hell was experiencing another annual Cleanse.
For many, it was to be the last day of existence they would ever experience.
Already, hundreds if not thousands of damned souls had been cut down by Exterminators. These cutthroat angels were tasked with one simple mission: kill as many sinners within a twenty-four hour period when conveniently possible. It wasn't a difficult proposition. Some of their victims were have-nots who had no shelter or protection to rely on. Others were arrogant fools who thought their native power would allow them to contend with the weapons and ferocious natures of the designated hunters from above.
Either way, hunting on this grim morning was rewarding for the select angels who performed the task of eliminating a chunk of the sinful population. When fully engaged in an Extermination, rarely did anything escape the cruel grasp of the Exterminators.
A pack of Exterminators were currently searching the Western side of the Pentagram, stalking the streets and skylines for victims. It was quite uneventful: a helpless imp sliced in half here, a burly sinner who thought he could fight them turned into a pincushion there. It was as ordinary a hunt as they had been tasked with year after year.
Systematically, they searched the area with customary thoroughness. Often times they smashed open cars housing sinners, or busted their way into buildings that were barely held together by nails, sheet rock, and wooden boards. Frequently, sinners were skewered and butchered single handedly, with little finesse or coordination, but the angels could work like a pack of wolves to herd especially tough or fast victims into places of their choosing. They would begin the slaughtering after outflanking their prey.
It was early in the morning hours; it was only a short amount of time before the annual event of indiscriminate killing would end. It had begun in the early morning of yesterday, when sinners would have gone to work or had breakfast. Many were caught out in the open when the alarm broke out. Most did not manage to escape the lethal reach of the Exterminators.
Unknown to most on the ground, a most peculiar event happened. The monotonous rhythm of the Cleanse was broken, although not by any immediate loud noise or calamity. Rather, the disruption of the order of things came silently, and from high above the city. In the hateful, crimson skies over the temporary hunting grounds of the Exterminators, a red magic circle appeared. It was a circle large enough to fit a small car through, and was made up of a multitude of unreadable symbols and Roman numerals which flowed with demonic power. This anomaly only appeared for a few seconds. What fell out of that magic circle was something most peculiar.
Countless inhabitants to Hell had been deposited into their sinful afterlife by being dropped out of the sky as if from nowhere. That was not the unusual part. However, few sinners looked as human as this newcomer. Most sinners looked part beast and part man. Others were subhuman abominations with physical forms inspired by the death they suffered and the sins they had committed in their past lives. Many beings who arrived sported extra limbs, several new eyes, strange markings on their flesh, and skin colorations not known in the natural world. A human-looking sinner with mundane and ordinary features was quite uncommon. Regardless, less than a minute passed until the sinner's body smashed into the ground of an alleyway, creating a loud, low pitched sound that deafened the area.
The sound was not lost on a group of Exterminators who were busy disemboweling a helpless ogre of a sinner that tried hiding himself in another alley nearby. They broke off from their gruesome execution and decided to investigate.
The sinner had landed three blocks away from the squad of Executioners. Dust had risen from the small crash site, though not high enough to rise above the three story buildings that flanked the bleak alleyway. Emerging from a shallow crater, a man stood up. Over six feet tall, his skin was pale as moonlight, and his head carried messy hair that was black as pitch. In many ways, he was the most unexceptional-looking sinner to ever appear on Hell's unforgiving soil. His thin arms gripped onto a nearby dumpster to support his unbalanced form. For a few precious seconds, the man tried to get himself out of the painful stupor he was dealing with.
This man had a reputation that none knew about in this Hell. It was a reputation stained with the blood of one whose ambitions cursed him with a life of pain and bondage.
Hundreds of years ago, he was born an ordinary human, at least on the surface. However, the foolish decisions of his mother doomed him to a life of servitude as a monster and a slave. In his past life, he endured unspeakable hardships, and learned the art of hurting and killing others by his master. He was trained in various forms of combat to an exceptional degree in preparation for a coup that never took place. After learning practically everything he needed to know about fighting, he killed the man he was meant to serve for eternity. That action branded him as a young man with no home and a bounty on his head.
In his next life, he was many things. He was a convict on the run, doomed to be forever hunted because of his ultimate act of treachery. For years he struggled to maintain the rationality that many traitorous members of his kind lost in the absence of order. Over the course of over two-hundred and fifty years he further expanded his knowledge and skill set, albeit in more mundane ways. For much of that time, he had a somewhat normal life (aside from terrorizing people in a more monstrous form).
He had built a somewhat comfortable life for himself. Centuries after a legend was made about him, the man standing in a dirty alley in Hell thought he could live out his tremendously long life in peaceful solitude. Now, all of the joy and stability that Benjamin Leeds once had, was gone.
Truly, this was the worst New Year's Day he had ever lived through.
Dressed in torn up jeans, black tennis shoes, and a black t-shirt with slightly frayed and burned sleeves, it was clear that Benjamin had seen battle. Unable to focus on where he had once been, he continued to try to nurse the headache he was enduring. All he could remember was an intense battle between him and the red-headed fool that called himself the 'Satan of Destruction.' He remembered being at Sirzechs Lucifer's mercy before he found himself being sucked into a vortex of some kind. He could not remember whether it was cast by the former heir to the House of Gremory.
If that was the case, why wouldn't the bastard have just ended his life right there and then? Benjamin had foolishly shown a fair deal of restraint in their fierce engagement. He did not like bringing attention to his person. A titanic battle between the Red Satan and himself would have drawn attention not just from humans, but from any other group that sought his utter elimination. Unfortunately, he did not unleash his full power at a time when it would have been most expedient to do so.
Sirzechs could have destroyed him with the infamous Power of Destruction. Yet he did not. Perhaps it was the Red Satan's own sense of restraint that encouraged the choice to cast him to a place unknown. Perhaps it was just luck. Perhaps this was a fate even worse than the finality of death.
He hoped it was not the latter.
Benjamin found himself falling away from the Pine Barrens he called home. Then he momentarily blacked out. Now he was somewhere completely unknown.
Benjamin's sickly green eyes opened up. Instead of being blinded by sunlight, he was surprised to see that the sky above him was almost as red as the hair of the man he was fighting with before he wound up taking an unexpected trip. He could make out a dark planetoid in the sky, a pentagram marking its round, lifeless surface. In the sky, he vaguely saw an even larger pentagram sitting ominously above the region.
"What?" He whispered with an achy tone. "Jeez, where the hell am I?" He was unaware of the irony of his statement.
Now able to stand in a straighter posture, Benjamin realized he was in an urban environment, the polar opposite of the acidic soil and pine forest he was lying in just moments before. Wherever he was, it did not feel like he was transported to another part of the planet. Reaching out his senses to the best of his ability, he sensed a demonic power radiating from every fiber and atom of the world around him. It was a strangely comforting prospect that he had an immediate source of energy to passively draw from. This could help him recover from the fearsome battle he had just survived.
Taking a deep breath, he groaned as his cracked ribs reformed themselves. Burnt skin and fresh bruises gave way to healthy flesh. His badly dislocated left arm went back into place with a sickening series of cracks and groans. Recovering from such a myriad variety of injuries was not pleasant or comfortable, but Benjamin was in better condition than he was when the Red Satan was standing over him.
The sensation of vertigo was beginning to subside, just as he heard the flap of feathery wings behind him.
Benjamin's vision cleared further as he turned around, and he saw the company that had been attracted to his sudden appearance in this world. It was a sight that was vaguely familiar, yet also perturbing. The creatures that were gazing at his ragged form looked like angels, at least from a superficial level. They possessed halos, albeit very ugly, malformed halos. They likewise had wings, and a holy aura that every Devil treated like a blessed form of invisible poison. That was where the similarities differed.
The creatures seemed to have been born from someone's nightmares. The beings looked emaciated, with their bodies colored like weathered asphalt. Their faces were seemingly created by lines of light, an illumination that detailed their terrifying faces like the letters of a neon light. Despite their visible designation as angels, their facial features almost looked demonic. Their teeth were sharp as daggers, and instead of having human-like pupils, the eyes they possessed were simple triangles and open circles. These basic shapes either formed malicious leers or housed X-shapes, like crude eye patches over missing orbits.
The man they were cornering was not one to be scared easily. He had encountered and even killed angels before. However, he was very disconcerted by the monstrous appearance of these particular 'angels.' Benjamin was even more unnerved by the silver-tipped spears they were wielding.
What was inconvenient about this situation was Benjamin's tiredness. He had just been through a marathon battle with one of the most powerful Devils born from a house of the Ars Goetia. Now he had to engage battle with beings who were optimized to kill Devils like him. A tinge of anger and anxiety radiated through Benjamin's mind.
He did not come this far to die like a cornered animal.
"Goddamn it." He swore quietly.
Almost as if the malevolent angels sensed his relative weakness, the grins on their monstrous faces grew. The five Exterminators began slowly stalking forward, their spears ready to either be thrown or thrusted into their quarry. They clearly expected this to be a formality of an execution.
The victim in question did not stop staring at his attackers. Benjamin knew he couldn't run past them. There were five in total, and they made a triangular formation, looking to prevent his escape. He did not trust himself to outrun several aggressors who could take to the skies in short order. Furthermore, it was clear that his magic reserves were in need of recharging. Without his magical powers, he had to rely on physical might.
Luckily for Benjamin, he was more than powerful enough to kill others with brute force alone. He had learned the fine arts of disabling and crippling adversaries with brutal grapple techniques. Combine this with a physique that could outmuscle some of the most powerful animals on the planet, and Benjamin was one dangerous monster at close quarters.
One of his hands was still on the dumpster before him.
'How's about a game of catch?' He thought viciously.
Gripping a corner tightly, he suddenly tossed the heavy container towards his attackers. Benjamin didn't get to see the looks of surprise on the Exterminators' faces, but aside from one who leapt into the air, the rest were knocked violently out of the alleyway, their bodies soaked in dirty fluids and garbage.
He looked to see the one angel who dodged his initial distraction diving towards him, its spear aimed for his heart. It was too slow. Although Benjamin had little magic to draw on, his reflexes and strength were still in peak condition. He sidestepped the spear as it pierced the concrete beneath him. The angel swiftly looked towards him before a haymaker smashed it into a brick wall.
Benjamin quickly closed the distance, falling upon the isolated killer. The angel's face shifted as if it was a computer screen, transforming from a sadistic grin into a hateful frown. Static periodically covered its visage as it was grabbed by the throat and viciously punched several times in the head.
Benjamin had no intention of dying now, so every strike to the angel's face was meant to do great damage. Shrieks could be heard to his right as he saw four, now dirty angels flying forward to help their comrade. Stopping his beat down, he threw the bruised angel towards his attackers. They were prepared for this move, and swiftly flew above their bruised compatriot as it was tossed onto the street. Benjamin immediately shifted himself to evade whatever came his way.
What happened next was a lethal dance of silver spear points, shifting bodies, and an orchestra of physical strikes landing on four angels. For now, Benjamin focused on dodging attacks and countering with swift, accurate strikes rather than hitting them as hard as he could. He dodged and sidestepped stabs and slashes that aimed for his chest and head. Whenever possible, he backhanded his assailants or tripped them up with his legs. One Executioner who attempted an overhead swipe was interrupted when Benjamin grabbed the angel's arms. He quickly landed a kick which sent the angel reeling.
Immediately, another Exterminator tried to impale him from behind, but he jumped to the side to dodge the attack and lunged at his aggressor, head-butting the angel. The force of the two craniums colliding made a dull crack that preceded the angel falling with a slump onto the ground. Now Benjamin's struggle had effectively been cut in half.
Only two angels remained able-bodied enough to continue assaulting him. With his work-load now reduced, Benjamin tapped into what magic he still possessed and snapped his fingers. In a dark flash, he teleported behind the spear wielding slayers just as they would have turned his head into a proverbial vegetable on a shish-kebab. Grabbing the heads of the murderous angels, Benjamin smacked them against each other before smashing them into the brick wall they had lodged their weapons into. Their bodies became limp as they were knocked out.
For a moment, everything seemed to go quiet. Benjamin ached as his testosterone appeared to be giving out to neurological apathy. His lack of sleep was beginning to aggravate him again.
He breathed heavily as he took the time to rest, thinking the battle was over. It was clear he would need a rest after this brawl. If only Benjamin could find the luxury of finding a spare bed somewhere, he would find this rude welcoming to be another annoying memory.
A shriek jolted Benjamin from his stupor and something immediately latched onto his back. The first angel he landed blows on was trying to strangle him, its lanky form hunched over his body as it wrapped its arms around his neck.
A feral growl emitted from Benjamin's mouth. His eyes suddenly burned a hateful bright orange as he focused his meager magic reserves into the digits of his right hand. Shadow magic began to coat the front of his right hand. Black talons, as long as kitchen knives, enveloped the fingers and shaped themselves into wicked curves. Benjamin dug his shadow claws into the exposed shoulder of the angel trying to asphyxiate him. It cried out in pain as the projections of shadow-turned solid claws pierced its holy flesh. With some effort, Benjamin tossed it off of his back and onto the ground in front of him.
Any hope that the angel might have had of retaliating were quashed when its body was harshly kicked in the side. The angel was flipped onto its stomach as Benjamin stepped over his assailant, sat on its winged back and grabbed the angel's horns with both hands. With a feral huff, Benjamin began to pull on its head.
The Exterminator hissed in protest, but despite trying to grab Benjamin's hands, he held firm. Growling like a bear, Benjamin sought to end this scuffle once and for all. The muscles in his arms tensed and bulged with bone crushing strength as a dull tearing sound could be heard. Seconds later, with a stomach churning rip, the angel's head was torn clean off its shoulders.
Catching his breath, Benjamin shakily stood on his feet, and looked dispassionately at the severed head of the angel foolish enough to attack him. The disconcerting, inhuman face of the creature had formed a haunting grimace of death, its eye-like projections looking glassy. The angel's head was tossed aside as Benjamin tried to ease the burning feeling of his lungs. The previous battle with Sirzechs was obviously more intense than he realized.
"Why can't I just be left alone for a day?" He queried tiredly.
As he tried to ease the demand of his lungs for more oxygen, he was made aware of chilling growls and hisses coming from his right. Turning his head, he saw two of the angels he had previously knocked down were on their feet and rearmed with their spears. They were soon joined by their last surviving comrades, who looked worse for wear due to the fact that they had been forced to proverbially kiss the wall next to them.
Drawing up what rage he could, Benjamin made a combat stance, his shadow claws bared and ready to gut the rest of the angelic executioners in front of him. As the angels responded with the raising of their weapons, a sound stopped the prospect of combat in its tracks. It was a dark, metallic sound. It was a sound Benjamin could recall. It had been decades ago when ringing church bells were still common in New Jersey.
It sounded like a more unnatural equivalent to the bells of Big Ben. The bells tolled slowly and purposefully for all to hear the arrival of a new hour. One angel launched itself up into the air, and looked over one building, presumably in the direction of the clock tower that housed the bells. After a few moments, it turned down to its comrades, a very bitter frown projected on its face.
"Over..." It rasped with an inhuman tone. It sent a mild chill down Benjamin's spine.
The three angels still on the ground turned their gazes towards the quarry that dared to slay their brother in arms. Hesitantly lowering their spears, they made faces mirroring the comrade who issued the magic word that ceased their attack.
Two of the angels furthest away from Benjamin took off into the skies, flying off with heavy, powerful flaps of their wings. The one angel that stayed behind pointed at Benjamin before drawing a finger across its throat in a cutting motion. No words were spoken.
Benjamin, despite his circumstances, took the silent threat as an invitation to try to finish off the halo-wearing miscreants who dared start a fight with him. He accepted the challenge with a glare. Although he dismissed the shadowy energy around his fingers, he let out a quiet growl of warning, his eyes still burning like hot coals.
The angel, having made its point, lifted off into the air and followed the rest of its squadron, letting out a shriek that almost induced nausea in Benjamin. He dared not move until he was sure he was alone. Perhaps they were trying to gather reinforcements? Either way, Benjamin needed to find shelter until he could properly gather the rest of his bearings.
Once alone, Benjamin fell to his knees. Gasping yet again, he almost had the need to dry heave. He was hot, dirty, exhausted, and miserable. It was a blessing that the battle was over, even if the relief was brief.
For ten minutes, Benjamin almost looked to be in a meditative state. His senses were still poised for a potential sneak attack. However, whatever holy energy he sensed from the Exterminators had dissipated, with the exception of the dull gray corpse lying on the ground mere feet away from him.
Having gotten a short recess, Benjamin took the time to better observe his surroundings.
A pair of brown, leathery wings sprouted from his back. Thanks to magic, they could be summoned without the risk of damaging his clothing, although such a concern wouldn't matter considering his clothes were already in a rough state. Benjamin quickly flew just high enough to peer his eyes over the roof of the building next to him. He was looking in the direction that the angel looked at before deciding that any further attempts at trying to kill him would take too much time or effort.
He was looking down a large urban strip analogous to Time Square in New York City. The streets were filled with ruined cars and the bloody bodies of creatures that were clearly not human. Many looked like anthropomorphic beasts who had either been sliced to ribbons, impaled, disemboweled, decapitated, and all other forms of gruesome and lethal injuries. The deafening tolls did indeed come from a massive clock tower, which looked demonically imposing in appearance, with dark red coloration and a spiky housing for the clock in question. Below the clock itself was what looked like the number digits on a roulette with three wheels. The wheels were placed between the works 'NEXT CLEANSE' and 'DAYS.' The wheels were set at 000. As the final toll of the bells concluded, Benjamin noted that it was 5:00 in the morning.
Letting out a sigh, Benjamin dropped down to ground level on unsteady feet. Looking at the corpse of the angel he slew with contempt, he walked away to leave the scene of the fight. Carefully, he looked about the area outside of the alleyway. No living thing could be seen. Benjamin tentatively stepped out into Pentagram City, a stranger to this hellish world.