The line to the castle extended to the edges of the river banks. The line to the castle of King Midus was just reaching the chores of the river. Alex recognized a few faces in the group line. He went to one of them and merely looked forward without giving any indication that he noticed Alex. Six fully clad demons came marching to the group of angels.
“What brings the likes of pretentious pompous, overgrown birds to these shores?” the tallest demon who was dressed in gold, the shulders had red enchrested jeweled spikes; his appearance was cat-like in features. The only exception was that the nose had completely decayed. The large gaping hole was showing his yellowish-white bone. The skin around the wound was dried and crusted on the bone. He had a spear about eight feet tall with a sickle-like hook on the end. Flesh and blood could be seen on the weapon. The other demons were much shorter. Only three feet shorter, and all had swords with very little clothing. Alex guesses they were the lowest in their ranks.
“We are here to see King Midus; if you wish to escort us to him, then please do so, but if not, then one should move before they are flaked”. The darkness in the Virgil tone was piercingly dark.
The lead demon grunted and spat on the floor, “I know who you are, poet; your empty threats have no more merit in Hell”. He looked into the eyes of the former occupant. “She still suffers for your transgressions, and the sooner you accept your fate, the sooner Lucifer can conquer everything”.
He turned to the new god and, with a quick look, was not super impressed. He motioned for the group to fall. Three demons marched behind the centurions, one on either side, and their commander was leading the group up to the great grand castle. The castle was black, with over twenty towers with red-tip roofs. The towers were connected to large buildings that used to house several royals. Now they lay empty and abandoned. Going down the castle, the front doors stood twenty-five feet tall, or they appeared to get taller the closer you walked to them. The doors were dark brown wood with a thick coating of dust, making them appear even darker. They were being held up by metal bands bolted to them. Four of these hold the door two on top and two on the bottom; the same was replicated on the opposite door.
As they made their way to the castle, everything else seemed to get smaller while the castle itself stayed the same size, or at times, it seemed to get bigger. He looked over at the others, and they looked to be on edge. He knew the time spent down here could do damage to all their psyches. The major therapy he would have to put a therapist through would probably make her go insane. He just hoped that using a third of the strength would be enough. He tried to remember the conversation he had toward the end. He remembered talking to God and then drinking the wine, and then it just seemed to him that everything changed. It was like his mind had been stripped of that conversation.
After walking for two hours, the line had not moved, and the souls in line looked like they had been waiting for a very long time. He saw people from the revolutionary war. He looked up at the castle, and again, it was bigger than before. And everything else was getting smaller. He was going to ask but didn't; he just remained silent and continued to think about what else he would have to face before peace would be his.
He felt a sharp pain in the middle of his back. The sword was going deeper and then withdrew. A small amount of his blood dripped down his back and dried up. His wound began to seal up from the bottom up.
He turned to the demon behind him and grabbed the sword with his bare hand, leaving blood to drip down to the ground. Flipping the blade free from the demon’s grasp, he plunged his own sword through the demon's soft furry head. Blood shot from the wound and hit Alex in the face. Some managed to go into his mouth, and he spat the black liquid out. The fowl taste left his mouth numb from the toxins in them. With a loud thud, the body dropped, and the group walked over the demon and left it to rot.
The group rested, and Alex and Virgil both looked at each other and shivered at the thought of what would happen if they failed. They both saw the line that still had not moved. And yet the souls never seemed to notice that standing in line to see a king was their one true punishment. The thought quickly escaped his mind because he knew that thoughts like that are deadly in a life-or-death situation such as this.
The guard stood up and, with a heavy sigh, said, “So you truly are strong for a human; that demon you killed was equivalent to strength for one of our generals" “That’s enough. Get up and move, you sanctimonious ass’s moving”. In a booming voice that, for every reason, scared the ever-living shit from Alex,
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He looked up to see the castle, which was now even bigger and looked to be over his head, yet the front door was almost fifteen miles away. He looked at the demon and began to ask.
“I’ve seen you look at the castle and then the surroundings; yes, the castle is that big, and no, it is not”. Grunted by the demon, Alex looked even more confused than he had before. The demon began "The effect of the illusion is the ever-increasing heat”.
Alex heard a loud tree branch break in the distance of the woods. A hellish beast about seven feet tall leaped out of the trees. The beast was dark blue, covered in twenty-five tentacles. Each tentacle had a needle-like poison tip. The tentacles all came out of the beast's head like dreadlocks; every tentacle appeared deep, vibrant green. The beast used a set of large lizard-like legs that were large enough to hold up its blobby shape. Its muscles were showing no skin covering its body; a light shimmer of its own poison seemed to protect the muscles. The creature was usually found in the depths of the Ninth Circle, close to Lucifer.
caught wind of the angel’s presence, it instantly charged at the group. Alex began to run to the beast, popped out the blade, summersaulted up, and over the blade spun in mid-air and landed in his right hand. While his inverted body made a swift slicing motion that sliced the air and moved the hot condensed molecules to slice the creature in half, his blade reacted to a splatter of venom hitting the blade, activating its second ability. The absorbed venom began to secrete the poison from the steel itself.
The large fragments began to reform, but due to the first ability of the sword, they were trapped inside the blade. Curious, he looked at the blade, just like before an image began to appear. The creature was brilliantly painted to the blade, along with Alex jumping over and beginning to slash the creature. The two new images on the blade seem to flow with one another perfectly. He saw that the second half began to form into a smaller version with ten tentacles.
The new creation launched all ten tentacles at Alex; he used the sword to defend against four; two found their target; one went after Arella; two Alex managed to cut before they could move anywhere; and the last went after Alex’s right leg, implanting the tentacles through this thigh and wrapping itself around his leg.
Falling to the ground, pain was radiating in his right leg, and all feeling was gone. The poison began to burn and blur his vision. The tentacles retracted, except for the one wrapped around the leg. The two tentacles on the ground dried up and vanished. The thing sent the remaining seven tentacles at Alex this time. Alex managed to fend off five and cut the rest.
Alex’s vision was gone. His hearing was dull; he still hears faint whips of the tentacles, but that was it. He swung the katana wildly, and the creature managed to sink the last two tentacles. Alex felt the thing and cut all the tentacles. A wild shrike came from the thing and fell over. The thing wasn’t exactly alive; it was just a reaction to its death previously.
Alex fell with this, making the ground saturated with blood and poison. Arella ran to Alex and began to heal him. His body lay there, but the wounds on his body began to seal them up.
“If Alex cannot keep his body from taking so much damage, he would be a half-decent god." Virgil said to Arella
They were almost a third of the way there. Everyone saw that the human souls were now subservient to their demands, but they still carried that little twinkle of defiance. He looked over at Virgil, and Virgil looked back at him and shook his head. Alex understood that they were not meant to completely destroy their souls; they were in fact meant to make them think that their souls were broken. He shook his head and began to convulse. He would have seen his food a second time, but his new form prevented him from doing so.
Virgil, let him be. When Alex was done, he handed him a handkerchief. Alex took it, wiped his mouth, and handed it back to Virgil. “It must be the venom; you might have to give it some time for your body to completely eradicate it”.
As Alex began to regain his composure, he felt the weight of the world around his head and felt his body fall flat on the ground.
……
In the darkness around him, he felt that he was being watched. He tried so many times to move himself that he gave up and just fell back in defeat, or he would have if he knew where up and down was, and as he thought the action, gravity took effect. He quickly felt the sensation of falling, then felt what seemed like ground. He dusted himself off and still had the sensation of being watched. He felt his body charge up, and in an instant, the complete darkness around him lit up. In front of his eyes stood a titan.
This Gargantuan titan was well bigger than the planet he once lived on. The titan looked like Bahamut; the only exception was that this one was well over as big as UY Scuti. One of the biggest known stars in his old universe. He felt his blood pumping with excitement; the feeling was intoxicating, and he knew he could feel a high coming on. His eyes began to focus on the monstrosity. He jumped and unleashed his katana, but before he could strike the creature, he felt his body disappear, and his consciousness shot through his body and forced him through the air. Alex’s body shot up, gasping for air. He slowed his breathing and looked at Virgil. There was a blank stare. Alex thought he had seen Lucifer. He was about to tell Virgil but didn’t.
Alex pulled himself up with his katana. He managed to stand on his own two feet. He used an inner ability to instantly heal himself. He saw that they were at the portcullis. He inspected the gates and found the same black metal from the gates on these.
As he thought to himself, he knew that this was going to be a hard one to solve and get past. So he settled right in front of the gates and thought and thought until he stood up, unsheathed the katana, and placed it on the gate. He used katana to help lift the gate and managed to lift the gate up and over his head. The shear weight of the portcullis was straining the centurion, and as two others marched in, he dropped the gate, which slammed down, leaving creaks and bends along with a loud humming noise from the bent bars. This was going to be a very long journey, he thought.