"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, they shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
—Revelation 21:8
The Blasphemous Revenant cut through the turbulent skies above Tartarus Imperium, its blackened hull streaking through the dense fog, while eerie screams of the damned echoed far below. The crew, hardened Nephilim and otherworldly souls, revelled in their voyage towards the dread capital, Grimmoria.
The ship groaned as it pressed onward, its sails seemingly absorbing the cursed winds of the Nether, hungry for the torment they carried. Eleanor til Ravn, a strikingly beautiful yet vicious Nephilim admiral, stood at the prow, her dark brown hair whipped by the storm, her eyes glowing with malice as she surveyed the path ahead. Her voice, sharp and commanding, rang out over the infernal winds.
"Prepare yourselves, you filthy dogs!" she snarled, her chainsaw Broken Maiden strapped to her back, vibrating with a life of its own. "Grimmoria awaits, and if any of you think you can die before we reach it, I'll carve your soul out myself!"
Her crew responded with cheers and guttural laughter. They had no illusions about what awaited them in Tartarus. They thrived on blood, betrayal, and fear, all hallmarks of Eleanor's reign.
Suddenly, the Revenant shuddered violently, as if struck by a force beyond the material. Above, the skies split open, and a horde of winged zombies and abominations descended upon the ship like locusts. Their grotesque forms, illuminated by flashes of sickly green lightning, swarmed toward the vessel, their hollow eyes seeking only to consume.
Eleanor smirked.
"Time for a little fun," she hissed, unsheathing Broken Maiden. With a haunting scream, the chainsaw buzzed vigorously to life, eager for carnage.
As the first wave of horrors reached the deck, Eleanor moved with inhuman speed, slicing through their ranks. She relished the splatter of blood and ichor on her skin, and with each brutal swing, another monster was felled. Her crew, too, fought like savage beasts, hacking, slashing, and tearing apart their undead foes with primal ferocity.
But the storm of invaders grew ever thicker.
Meanwhile, inside the ship's dimly lit hold, Mammon, Levielle, Alpha-0, and Idea sat around a makeshift table. The flicker of hellfire provided the only light as they engaged in a most mundane activity—playing poker amidst the chaos outside.
Alpha-0, the towering, white-haired cyborg with golden eyes that glowed ominously, manipulated her cards not with her hands but with cables that sprouted from her back. She moved them with superb dexterity and effortlessly, yet there was a constant tension in her form, as though she was on the edge of something destructive. Her white straitjacket, self-imposed and too tight, strained against her frame, as though suppressing the devastating force within her.
"I raise," Alpha-0 growled, her voice low and rough, her golden Eyes of Sacred Havoc never leaving her cards.
Mammon, the blonde, green-eyed Witch of Wealth and Woe, smiled, her hands twirling an eerie red crystal—the Philosopher's Stone itself—as she studied her own hand. "You're cheating with those cables again, Alpha-0. And here I thought you were obsessed with purity."
"I don't cheat," Alpha-0 snapped. "I purify the game."
Levielle, seated beside Mammon, barely paid attention. The black-haired Dragon of Desolation, appearing as a teenage girl with vacant grey eyes, was devoid of emotion. She coldly observed the battle unfolding outside through the grimy window. The continuous exudation of nuclear radiation from her made her presence unbearable for most creatures, though the Nephilim crew had long become numb, shielded by Mammon's artefact.
Her thoughts wandered, far removed from the chaos before her. She pondered her true self—Leviathan of the Fathomless Terror—and the eternal war waged in her name, a war as ceaseless as the Abyss' tide, an endless conflict she neither resisted nor embraced.
"Cards bore me," Levielle said, her voice flat and disinterested. "Everything ends in destruction, whether through me or someone else." She discarded her hand. "Pointless."
Across from her, Idea, the Primordial Psychic, was much more engaged in her own world. Her blue hair shimmered under the dim light, and her blue eyes remained glued to the holographic screen in front of her.
Meanwhile, Rosalind, the AI inhabiting Levielle's battle android, was oblivious to the chaos around them, fully engrossed in a competitive video game, her voice chat echoing throughout the room as she barked insults at her opponents. "No, you imbecile, go left! LEFT!" she screeched into the comms.
Suddenly, a deafening roar shook the ship as the invaders grew bolder, finally breaking into the room. One monstrosity, a twisted amalgamation of rotting flesh and metal, lunged towards the poker table.
Alpha-0's cables reacted instantly, snapping forward like metallic vipers, piercing the creature through its skull. With one fluid motion, she tore it apart, gore splattering across the room.
"Purified," Alpha-0 muttered, her cables retracting back into her body. She stood, towering over the table. "These vermin are in agony. I'm going to fix that."
Without waiting for a response, Alpha-0 strode toward the exit, her eyes gleaming with a berserker's intent.
On the deck, Eleanor and her crew were locked in combat, the number of the invaders seemingly endless. Eleanor sliced through another abomination when Alpha-0 emerged from below, her straitjacket gleaming in the lightning flashes. With a single gesture, her cables exploded outward, skewering the airborne monsters with terrifying efficiency. The tide of battle shifted immediately.
"I thought you'd never join us," Eleanor shouted over the carnage, her chainsaw revving. She sidestepped a monstrous talon before decapitating its owner. "You're missing all the fun, Althea!"
"Fun is irrelevant," Alpha-0 replied coldly before she let out a frenzied grin, her cables spiralling out, severing limbs and heads with chaotic accuracy. "Only purification matters!"
After what seemed like an eternity of blood and death, the skies cleared. The Revenant had reached the Netherwind Terminal, its mooring station in the heart of Tartarus Imperium. As the ship descended, landing with ghastly creaks that echoed like mournful wails of the damned. The thick scent of sulphur and despair permeated the air, clinging to everything as if the very atmosphere was steeped in sorrow.
Baphomet, the Horned Philosopher, awaited them at the dock, his massive form draped in crimson robes, his eyes gleaming with depraved delight. His tail swished in anticipation, while his hands tapped against his thighs impatiently.
"Ah, my lovely meat!" Baphomet exclaimed as Eleanor's crew began tossing bound slaves and trafficking victims off the ship. "Handle them carefully, Admiral. These souls are too precious for your brutality."
Eleanor let out a wild, mocking laugh as she kicked one of the captives off the ship herself. "Careful? Oh, please, Baphomet! What's the point? You'll be dissecting them soon enough, won't you?"
Baphomet's grin widened. "Naturally, naturally. I do so enjoy examining my wares." His massive hands groped the victims as they fell into his grasp, inspecting them like prized cattle. Some squirmed under his touch, others simply stared in terror, too broken to resist.
He leaned closer to one trembling elf, his hands lingering on her body. "Aroused and pleasant to look at... yes, this one will do nicely." His face twisted in perverse joy.
Eleanor, watching from the side, let out an exaggerated groan. "Ugh, save your sick little fantasies for someone who cares, Baphomet," she snapped, her patience long gone. "Now, cough up the gold or I'll dump the rest of them overboard. I've got places to be."
Baphomet's eyes gleamed as he tossed a bulging sack of coins at her. "As agreed. But I've included a little extra—ugly children. Their faces offend me. Take them with you, they're not fit for my empire."
Eleanor snarled as a group of scarred and disfigured children materialised at Baphomet's command, their small bodies bearing the marks of burns and cruel torment. Among them was a half-elf boy named Thalion, his face marred by burns, but his eyes glowed with a maniacal obsession—death clung to him like a shadow.
"Samson," Eleanor barked, "round up this refuse and make sure every last one of them touches Mammon's artefact before they board. We wouldn't want any... accidents—Levielle's nuclear rot has a way of lingering." She tossed the Skull of Leviathan in his direction.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Samson fumbled the catch, and the skull clattered to the deck, rolling back to Eleanor's boot. "I'm on it, Captain." He scrambled forward, lowering himself to retrieve the artefact.
Eleanor's lip curled in disgust. "Useless fat fuck! Can't you do anything right?" She pressed her boot down on his face with brutal force. "Joshua! Noah! Get the gangplank down—together!"
Joshua exhaled, brushing a hand through his hair. "Aye, Captain, if you insist. Guess I'll ready the gangplank... again." He trudged off, grumbling under his breath but moving to obey.
Noah leaned lazily against the mast, a smirk playing on his lips. "You love it, Josh. Just think of all the fun we had on land."
Joshua shot him a glare, though a reluctant grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, right. Fun until we're locked in the brig—again."
Noah shrugged, unfazed. "Then let's make it worth the trouble next time. I doubt we'll linger here for long, anyway."
Freed from Eleanor's boot, Samson hurried down the gangplank where a trio of towering doom knights herded the children. One knight barked a command: "March."
The children shuffled forward, their eyes dull and lifeless, except for Thalion, who stared defiantly. Samson snarled at him, "Move faster, you little freak," sneering as Thalion met his gaze with silent fury. "Look at me like that again, and I'll carve out your eyes."
"Go ahead," Thalion spat, his voice cold. "I'm blind already."
Without another word, Samson seized him by the arm, forcing his hand onto the Skull of Leviathan before roughly flinging him aboard like a rag doll. Eleanor cast them only a fleeting glance, her thoughts already on the next conquest.
"We sail for Polaris Megalopunk!" she declared, her voice booming across the deck like a war drum. "Time to visit the future." With a crack of her Carrion Whip, woven from the entrails of Christ himself, a sickly green rift split the air in front of the ship. The Blasphemous Revenant groaned and shuddered, the vessel slipping into the gaping maw of the Void's corridor, swallowed by the unknown.
As the ship traversed the otherworldly corridor, Mammon and Idea retreated to a corner to discuss their latest machinations.
"I've got something in the works," Mammon began with pride as she pulled out a series of holographic blueprints. "Project Sigma. Levielle's body will house the ultimate interface between metaphysical might, omnipotence, and technology, a neutral construct that will enable the manipulation of not just all that is, but rise above the zenith of infinity and transcendence itself. A new kind of consciousness, one that forever surpasses even the comprehension of the gods and primordials. This entity will wield a power greater than that of the Formless Void, finally establishing Her rightful place beneath my authority and my wonderful creation! Ohohoho!"
Idea leaned back, her blue eyes flickering with excitement at the prospect. "And how exactly do you plan on achieving that? Levielle is already a Destroyer of the highest calibre. Adding more power to her could turn her more dangerous than a living apocalypse. I'm intrigued, though, Mammon."
Mammon smirked, leaning forward with a conspiratorial air. "That's where Sigma-1 comes in. We won't just amplify Levielle's abilities; we'll bring them under control. You see, Levielle's lack of emotion, her void of care, makes her the perfect conduit. She won't be tempted to use her power whimsically. Sigma-2 will act as the anchor, providing the stabilisation needed for the system to function without imploding."
Idea's fingers danced over her holographic screen as she processed the implications. "An interface of such unprecedented magnitude, utilising Levielle's body as the vessel... You're playing with the very fabric of existence, Mammon. This is not merely dangerous; it constitutes a direct affront to the most powerful primordial forces that govern the realms."
Mammon shrugged, a smile creeping onto her lips. "Precisely. But isn't that our calling? We push boundaries, we dismantle the natural order. Why stop now?"
Idea laughed, glancing up from her nanomachines. "Stop? No, that would be the antithesis of progress. I have also been labouring on something groundbreaking—Apex Ascendant. It will not just revolutionise travel between worlds; it will obliterate the very concept of boundaries. Realms, dimensions, even omniverses... nothing will be beyond reach."
Levielle stood high in the crow's nest, her silhouette almost invisible against the turbulent backdrop of the Void's shifting, prismatic chaos. The wind here was different—silent, without true motion, and yet it howled through the spaces of her mind, tugging at the deepest parts of her consciousness. Her sharp, draconic eyes gazed into the endless horizon, but her thoughts were far from the ship or its crew.
Her title—The Drake of War—resonated hollowly within her. The name was a symbol of power, destruction, and mastery over violence, but in the grand scheme of things, it felt insignificant. What did it mean to be the Drake of War when the very concept of war will be rendered obsolete? She couldn't shake the feeling, a creeping certainty deep within her, that all of it—war, destruction, creation—would soon be swallowed by something far greater.
Lumi'Nae loomed at the forefront of her mind. Levielle knew, as did many, that the Void Sovereign herself was prophesied to bring forth the Silence Beyond, the final apocalypse that would end everything—time, space, matter, existence. And Levielle couldn't stop thinking about it. When would it come? When would this outer god obliterate all that remained? Was it inevitable? Would her own existence be snuffed out like a mere candle flame when the time came?
As these thoughts churned within her, she found herself thinking of Shiva, the supposed destroyer-god who had sought, in futility, to stop the end of all things. Shiva, with his Third Eye that sought to unmake reality. His efforts had been monumental but ultimately laughable, for no amount of divine fury could ever truly harm the formless Void and Her incarnates. And yet, he had persisted, hunting down the other catalysts—the Six Dragons of the Apocalypse—in a desperate final gambit to alter the inexorable march of destiny.
With her abyssal powers, Levielle summoned a crystalline orb, its surface shimmering with refracted strands of metaphysical might. She gazed into it, and images unfolded before her—Shiva's defeats, one after the other, etched into the magical fabric of the cosmos like stains that could never be washed away.
The first image to fill the crystal was that of the Dragon of Suffering, accompanied by the discordant wail of the Song of Hatred. Satan stood at its centre, her electric guitar a weapon of pure devastation, every note a scream of destruction. Shiva, in all his cosmic fury, had awoken her from her casket, attempting to unleash the overwhelming power of his Third Eye. Yet, the moment its destructive energy surged forth, Satan's Song shattered it effortlessly, the notes dissolving Shiva's attack like a fragile mist.
Shiva lay crumpled on the ground, his form barely holding together, dissolving into a grotesque pool of black and red eldritch ooze.
Levielle's lips curled into a small, cold smile as the scene transitioned. She could see herself now, standing in the middle of a dark, foreboding forest, Shiva before her, enraged beyond reason. She remembered that moment—how his cosmic dance, the Tandava, had swirled the universe around him into a violent storm of destruction. He had been intent on reducing her to nothing, annihilating her entire being. And yet... Levielle recalled how the Tandava had done nothing but provoked a sneeze from her. That sneeze had shattered all the omniverses, and Shiva... poor Shiva... had been reduced to a heap, barely clinging to life. The look of disbelief on his face had been almost comical.
Shiva had recovered from that encounter, but the images in the crystal showed him next facing Nidhogg, the Harbinger of Twilight. The battle had been a spectacle of destruction, but one-sided, as always. Levielle watched as Nidhogg's monstrous jaws closed around Shiva's legendary Trishula, snapping it like a twig. Nidhogg's deep, rumbling voice echoed within the orb as she mocked him, her words filled with cruelty. "Shall I bathe in your blood, little god? Or perhaps I'll tear you limb from limb? But where should I start, hmm?"
With a wave of her Dreadwind, she stripped him of his hair, leaving him vulnerable and utterly humiliated. Just when it seemed all hope was lost, a white dove appeared, a fleeting symbol of light that momentarily stayed Nidhogg's claws. It granted Shiva a precious moment to escape—but even this was a hollow victory, overshadowed by the weight of his defeat.
Another scene blinked into focus—this time, Tiamat, the Dragon of Ruination, and Apathraxis, the Malevolent Wound, clashed in a cosmic battlefield where reality itself bent and fractured. Shiva, desperate as ever, had made the foolish decision to interfere. Levielle watched with detachment as Tiamat gouged out Shiva's Third Eye with savage ease, consuming it whole. "Tastes like fucking shite," Tiamat had growled, unimpressed by the so-called divine power. Apathraxis had laughed, mocking Shiva's despair as though it were nothing more than a distraction from his own duel with Tiamat.
And then there was the fifth dragon, Searax, the Dragon of Incineration. Shiva hadn't even seen her. The instant he crossed into her blistering domain, he was consumed, reduced to nothing but ashes. His remains had been gathered by the Ashrend Covenant, placed in an urn dedicated to Nae the Almighty, who had slain Yahweh and all his angels in times long past. Vishnu and Brahma had tried to rescue Shiva's ashes, but their attempts had been met with the same fate—Searax's flames had incinerated them both, their divine power proving useless before her fury.
Levielle let the crystal fade, returning her gaze to the voidfire stars. The Sixth Dragon of Apocalypse, Nihilignis, came to mind. He was Searax's younger brother, and unlike the others, he was restless, eager for the end to come. Nihilignis, the Dragon of Oblivion, had always sought destruction with relentless zeal. Following Searax's entrapment in Pandemonium after her fierce battle against the Nine Monarchs of Hell—during which she had slain one of them and shattered Hell into 72 fragments—Nihilignis escalated his efforts, taking it upon himself to unleash chaos wherever he roamed.
Pestilence. War. Famine. Death. Inferno. Nihilism. Was that what their role truly was, she pondered? To serve as instruments of destruction until Lumi'Nae's ultimate annihilation came to pass? Or was there something more? Something even she could not yet understand?
The windless silence of the Void stretched before her as the ship drew ever closer to Polaris Megalopunk, but Levielle's mind was adrift, lost in thoughts of apocalypse, power, and the ultimate futility of it all. All fates would be sealed. And when the Silence Beyond came, what then?
Levielle did not have the answer. But she would watch. She would wait. When the time came, she would take a more active role in the apocalypse foretold long before concepts and primordials themselves were born.
On the main deck, Eleanor and Alpha-0 sparred, but Eleanor found herself at a grave disadvantage. Alpha-0's acrobatic kicks and cable strikes were relentless, and despite her fearsome strength, Eleanor could barely keep pace. Each strike Alpha-0 landed seemed to unravel Eleanor, body and mind. Alpha-0's cables worked their way through her armour, and Eleanor, though resistant, succumbed to humiliating submission, her body betraying her.
Watching this, Samson, a pirate who had always idolised Eleanor, fell to his knees. "Althea'Ra... I beg you, end me. I am nothing without her strength."
Alpha-0 turned her golden eyes on him, and in that moment, he felt his soul laid bare, every sin, every doubt stripped away. "Vermin unworthy of life, I release you from your agony."