“This is your final warning, Red King; I will not hold back against you just because you’re human.” Lucifer’s voice echoed across the dimensions, passing through the thresholds of the multiverse. After all, in every conceivable reality, in every alternate and every parallel cosmos, there was only one Devil – only ever one Lucifer, only ever one Arbiter of the Damned, only a single Beast of Demiurge, the Darkness at the Edge of All Creations.
There could only ever be one.
Across him stood the Red King, Joseph the Terrible, the Scourge of the Stars and the Devourer of Pantheons – a tiny mortal that dared challenge him to a fight, an actual fight. The ant might’ve been a powerful sorcerer in his own right, but it was still an ant – larger than all the other ants, perhaps, but still just an ant.
It had been rather surprising, really, to discover that the most notorious Dark Mage had crawled his way into hell, seeking to challenge its ruler to a friendly duel. Lucifer had, admittedly, been bored enough to accept.
And here they were, on an alternate version of Earth that’d suffered a global cataclysm that wiped out most complex life forms, leaving only the barest of bacterium. The land around them was covered in ash and soot and the ossified remnants of tall trees and low grasses.
“I expect nothing less from the devil himself,” the Red King replied, grinning. He wore no armor, for it would do him no good. He carried no weapons, for no instrument could bring harm to the son of the morning. Joseph the Terrible brought with him only his vast magical powers and nothing more. Lucifer had to give credit where credit was due; never before had he encountered such a gifted mortal as the one before him. Truly, the Red King was the largest ant there ever was.
It was time to put that to the test.
“As the challenged, I hold the right to the first strike; do you refute my claim or shall we begin?” Lucifer asked, tilting his head aside. It would’ve been fine if the Red King refuted and, instead, threw the first strike. The Devil would’ve been fine with it, either way.
“I will respect the old ways,” the Red King replied. The Devil raised a brow. What a curious insect Joseph the Red was, truly unlike all the other insects. “The challenged retains the right to throw the first strike; as you may, Lucifer.”
“Very well,” Lucifer raised and pointed a single finger at the Red King, who had donned himself in all manner of magical circles and sigils, each one meant to protect him from danger. “I do hope you survive this; I am in dire need of good entertainment.”
The Devil snapped his fingers and sent the Red King hurling backwards through space and time, across every incarnation of every multiverse until he reached the void before time and space itself, the Realm of Primordial Entropy, where the very idea of existence could not exist. Only the truly divine could survive in such a place without succumbing to the darkness and becoming nothing.
A moment later, the air twisted and shimmered where the Red King had stood. And then, from that shimmer crawled forth Joseph the Red, shivering and coated in the remnants of entropy, but still very much alive. The Devil raised a brow as the man pulled himself out of the darkness and plopped right on the ground. “You survived; that’s good. There are few who can.”
“Yep, I gathered that,” The Red King wheezed, magical circles appearing and disappearing all across his form. And there, Lucifer understood. The Red King was... intelligent. Perhaps the man was not an insect at all.
“You anchored yourself onto a fixed point in time and space, and simply pulled yourself back the way you came.” He stated, now seeing the framework of the numerous spells the Red King had tied together and used in conjunction to even survive the Realm of Primordial Entropy. It was somewhat impressive – a good trick if nothing else. “That’s good; you’re crafty and intelligent. I might just enjoy this. The second strike belongs to you, Red King; show me what you’re capable of.”
Joseph the Red wheezed as he pushed himself onto his bare feet. “Alright... my turn!”
Lucifer waited as the mortal muttered the words to his spell, crimson circles and diagrams floating all around him. The magic that gathered about him was... immense, immersed in darkness and malice, surpassing the magic of petty gods in shear volume and density. No wonder Joseph was able to kill and devour so many of them. The incantation lasted no more than an eighth of a second, before the Red King raised his hand and muttered, “Bashmayaa Lishukapah!”
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Joseph the Red disappeared in a crimson flash.
And then, Lucifer felt the sudden and unnatural twisting of the cosmos around him, time and space screaming out in pain as they were forced to do the Red King’s bidding.
The Devil Grinned as the Milky Way, this version of it, at least, collapsed around him. Stars, black holes, planets, and all manner of cosmic bodies came crashing and crunching, bending and rending apart the very fabric of reality as the most intense gravitational forces exploded in a symphony of destruction – molecules shredded into atoms, and atoms into sub-atomic particles, before they themselves were further shredded into quarks and gluons. In a matter of seconds, the Red King had condensed an entire galaxy into a ball of twisted and distorted matter the size of a house, with Lucifer right in the middle of it.
There were very few beings, not even gods and dragons, that could survive such an onslaught. Impressive. If it had been anyone lesser than he was, then they would’ve been shredded into the primordial building blocks of reality. But Lucifer was not a mortal or a god or a dragon; he was an angel. And he was above such petty things. With the barest exertion of his will, Lucifer tore open a hole through the singularity and simply walked out of it, finding himself amidst a sea of darkness, where there had once been stars and celestial bodies. In the distance were flickering galaxies.
“That was a nice trick,” the Devil said, chuckling as he wiped away the burning slag of dead stars and black holes from his shoulders. “I can scarcely imagine any lesser being surviving it; not even Olympians and Norsemen would live through such destruction. Well done, Red King; you’ve amused me.”
“I had hoped against hope that my spell would’ve at least done a modicum of damage,” Joseph the Red hovered towards him. The Dark Mage’s magical reserves had barely taken a dip after such a spell. Lucifer wondered for a moment just how much more this insect was capable of. Begrudgingly, the Devil admitted that this might just be fun. The Red King sighed and shrugged. “But, then again, battling the Prince of Darkness isn’t going to be just another battle against an Eldritch Spawn.”
They stood in the darkness between the galaxies, in the near-endless void that dotted the cosmos.
Lucifer chuckled. “Indeed; there are many cosmic beings, Red King, and I – and my brethren – stand above them, above all of them.”
“It is my turn now, yes?” The Devil continued, smiling. Reality buckled beneath the weight of his presence. “I believe I shall take a page from your book, mortal.”
The Red King gulped, but otherwise nodded. More and more crimson magical circles appeared over his body, spells of protection and talismans of preservation. Lucifer recognized more than a few of them, but Joseph – crafty and creative as he was – was making up entirely new ones, seal and runic arrays of genius that no one else will ever see. In a way, it was an honor to witness such an event. “Take your best shot, Lucifer.”
The Devil nodded and snapped his fingers.
The local universe screamed in pain as everything that existed within it, from the lowest mote of dust to the largest supermassive stars and black holes, was pulled inwards against their natural places, against the natural order. The Red King’s eyes widened as the whole of creation collapsed around him, entire galaxies spiraling out of shape and form and control, careening towards him like great discs of light and burning debris. The flames of an uncountable number of stars merged into one. And an even greater number of lives were snuffed out in an instant.
Lucifer could almost describe it as... beautiful – destruction, death, creation, and entropy. Tortured stars wheeled overhead, howling in agony as their forms were twisted and bent. Galaxies roared in defiance as they were pulled into the maelstrom of carnage, of destruction beyond measure. The gravitic forces expelled by the gathered mass of everything that existed within the local universe was... unthinkable. Even atoms were ripped apart and stripped down to their basest components, before those components themselves were stripped down even further – a perfect symphony of chaos.
And then, everything crashed into everything else, with the Red King right in the middle.
Not even the most powerful of eldritch abominations could survive such a thing as the collapse of an entire universe.
Then again, insects always had a way of surprising him.
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Lucifer chuckled at the fond, but distant memory. His little spar with the Red King had resulted in the destruction of several universes. But it was fun. They both had fun, even if the victor was already decided before the challenge was given.
For a moment, the Devil gazed across the full breadth of creation and found his eyes fixed upon the young man who knew not of his destiny. He was... so tiny and so weak, not even deserving to be called an insect, smaller than the smallest bacteria. And yet, the boy held promise. The Devil grinned. “Uriel Alvarez... let’s see if you truly possess the potential to become the next Red King.”