3rd POV
'Wake up, kiddo.' An ethereal voice echoed through a strange dimension. The dimension seemed as if it was underwater, a strange gravity-less world where the sky was azure-colored while the ground was pitch-black with streaks of lava and fissures snaking around. And right in the middle of it was Aiden, floating downward unconscious in the near zero-gravity dimension.
Nng…
'Wake up…'
Blub… blub…blub…
"Wake up!!"
"Mhmmm!!"
Aiden's eyes snapped open suddenly when the ethereal voice barked inside his brain. Aiden looked here and there, confused at the strange dimension he was in but couldn't make head or tails of it. Without any option left, he did what any logical human would do, face up and swim upwards.
"Its futile to run," rang an archaic voice which boomed across the dimension. Aiden's face instantly became pale white and he tried to swim up harder.
"Hahaha…"
A laugh echoed through the dimension and five iron chains shot from below with lightning speed and wrapped around Aiden's wrists, ankles and neck.
'Cheating!!!' Aiden cried in his heart but in the comparison to the pull of the chains, his upward thrust was nothing more than an infant's poke. Within moment he was pulled kilometers down with a speed which defied any sense. His surrounding became hazy as the same archaic voice continued to bombard his ears with its evil laughter, "Haha! Puny little angel! Worthless infront of the might of the Great Beelzebub!"
Aiden gritted his teeth and tried to shake his hands and legs but all it felt was the stinging pain of hot iron meeting his skin. He turned his head and was shocked to see the initial black iron chains has turned red hot and was burning his skin to the bones.
"Hnnnggg!! Ahhhh!!!" Aiden's pain increased exponentially and soon it rang through the dimension.
"Pain! Pain! I like pain!!" cried the voice in a creepy tone but Aiden was impervious to his devilish talks. His brain was being flooded by different messages bringing in with it a heaven-defying headache but tried his best not to fall unconscious.
…
A large series of messages blasted Aiden's head and he tried to use the pain of his limbs burning to keep himself awake but at the last few messages, Aiden was forcefully put into a semi-unconscious state where he neither felt nor had any control of his body. The only thing he could do is 'see' the world through his familiar yet foreign body. But what he thought of the situation was of little consequence here.
His body all of a sudden slackened and the chains were able to pull him faster and faster towards the deep underworld. The sudden slackness caught Beelzebub off-guard and like any other Prince of Hell he started to conjure more and more of minions here to take precaution but what happened next was completely out of his expectations.
"HANDS OFF MY CHILD, DEVIL!!!!" An arrogant voice rang throughout the dimension, shaking everything to their ground. A face started to materialize out of the pitch-black darkness of the dimension, shock evident over its face. The face looked like a magnified view of a fly's head but was in truth the face of the Prince of Hell, Beelzebub.
"Who are ye?!!!" came Beelzebub's mighty voice, full of pride and his devilish aura. His eyes darted towards the chains that were binding Aiden, hoping that they would do the job which they were meant to do.
But unfortunately for Beelzebub, it seemed like the entity had already seen through him.
"Weak!" a voice said from behind Aiden. Aiden looked at the chains for once before with a jerk and a pull the chains which were binding Aiden were broken like dried twigs.
"GASP" Beelzebub let out a small gasp as he felt the twinge of pain in his heart, if he had one, but then anger flushed in his worm-like face.
"Kill him!!"
No sooner was his order given, hundreds of thousands of shadowy half-insect half-humanoid figures dashed towards Aiden.
By this time though, a warm silvery white halo covered Aiden's body in a soft glow. Aiden's short blonde hair turned a bright golden and grew at an exponential rate until it reached his shoulder height. Even his eyes which closed when he fell asleep snapped open but instead of his usual pale blue color, was the deep golden-red eyes of a different entity.
A smirk appeared on Aiden's face as he raised his hands and pointed it towards the incoming horde of shadows.
"Xenofhrix." Said the ethereal voice in a calm tone from behind Aiden and within seconds a silvery white flame appeared infront of his hand. The flame was small at first but then it expanded and took on the shape of a sword. The flame burned for a while before solidifying into a real sword, an Excalibur-like sword with sharp edge and a masterful craftsmanship.
The flames slowly died down to give the real look of the sword and it was nothing short of a masterpiece. The sword was almost the full length of Aiden, with a black leather handle, gilded hilt and a golden-black caricature on the pommel. The blade of the sword was shining like the silvery white flames with a glamour unmatched of this world.
At the lowest part of the blade was the rain-guard. Above the rain-guard was a 10cm flat blade where strange runes and markings were engraved. Above that, was the diamond-shaped cross-sectional fuller with sharp edges and at last was the pointy tip or head of the blade. Other than the strange markings, the blade was devoid of any impurity, a masterpiece in all rights.
Aiden clutched the handle of the sword and swung it casually towards the horde of the shadowy creatures and like a dragon's breath, a large swat of silvery white flames rushed out from the sword.
'Oh no!' a silent voice inside Beelzebub cried but before he could do anything for his shadow warriors, they were engulfed by the silver flame, leaving nothing but nano-sized dust particles.
"Hmph! Devil, pay for your sins!!" came the same ethereal voice and thundered towards Beelzebub. He looked flustered for a while before calming down, the thousands of eyes or compound eyes stared at Aiden intently. Instantly, hundreds of greenish-red Mana circles appeared in the pitch-black darkness, rotating with a venomous gleam.
"Fire!" Beelzebub thundered.
The Mana circles glowed for a while before firing large amount of greenish slimy liquid shots toward Aiden.
"Heh!" cried the ethereal voice and then, almost like a butterfly emerging out of its cocoon and displaying its majestic wings, two bright silvery white wings with a tinge of gold appeared on Aiden's back.
"Fly!" the voice cried and with a flap of the wings, Aiden's body traveled hundred of miles from his initial position to a different position, dodging the slimy liquid without a single problem.
"Fire!" thundered Beelzebub again but this time, hundreds more Mana circles appeared and this time they covered the entire dimension. Within moment thousands and thousands of slimy green liquid shots filled the dimension but the smirk on Aiden's face was constant.
He turned back and flew through the dimension in a zig-zag fashion dodging and escaping the slimy liquid effortlessly and beautifully.
"Grrrr!" a bestial growl escaped Beelzebub's fly-head and suddenly like a broadside cannon shot, thousands of Mana circles fired at the same time. Immediately Aiden flew upwards towards the sky to dodge the hail of liquid shot but almost instantly the sky warped in a distorted manner and a different but larger face of Beelzebub appeared with its mouths open. Yes, it had more than one mouth and everyone one of them were filled with millions of jagged teeth.
"Petty tricks!" smirked the ethereal entity as it tilted the sword, Xenofhrix sideways and uttered a new skill. "Wheel of Agaris!!"
Instantly, the single Xenofhrix cloned itself into dozens more of its kind and surrounded Aiden like a vertical wheel and started rotating in a high speed. The moment the new and bigger Beelzebub touched the wheel, it was torn apart like paper but there was a trick.
Right when the bigger Beelzebub face reached a 50% torn state it exploded, blasting him away and staggering him. Beelzebub immediately tried to take advantage of the effect and a large spear like object darted towards Aiden's back.
A sharp glint flashed across Aiden's eyes and right when the spear was about to pierce through, he twisted his body in an unimaginable angel, narrowly avoiding the spear but leaving a great mark on his back. After dodging the spear, Aiden stood majestically like a God infront of Beelzebub and his voice thundered across the realm.
A thrilled look appeared on Aiden's face and the ethereal voice behind him proclaimed in a satisfied voice, "That was a nice fight, junior. Let's meet again if Fate permits!" and the moment when he finished, the sword Xenofhrix came down with a massive downward sweep. A large vertical slash of light was erupted from Xenofhrix which tore the space and dimension around it as it made its way towards Beelzebub.
"Tsk!" Beelzebub clicked his tongue before vanishing into the darkness. As for the slash of light, it tore everything in its path as it evaded into nothingness.
…
Somewhere in the Abyss
"HRAAAA—Puchi!" a rapier-like sword punctured through the body of an armored gorilla. It was aimed at the heart of the monster and surely took the life of the monster and left behind a large gaping hole in its path.
The user of the sword was a large man, almost 180 cm in height and had bulky muscle and structure. Looking at his figure one would associate a greatsword or a great hammer as his weapon but looking at his paper-thin rapier was weird in a whole different way.
A little away from him sat a little girl in a tight-fit leather armor. The leather armor was violet-red and was thus eye-catchy, garnering a lot of attention from the nearby monsters but before they could reach her, her skinny hands would flash around in the speed of light. And along with that, the monsters would be chopped into pieces. Why? Because her weapon was a whip, a barbed whip.
"Too slow, Richard! You can't follow the team if you're this slow at killing these small pigs."
"I-I'm not as high leveled as you all are, Seventh Sister." Richard said as he dodged an attack from another Armored Gorilla and not a mini-second later, his hands flashed leaving behind another gaping hole in the face of the gorilla. It dropped dead in a matter of seconds.
"Now, don't be hard on the newbie, Stella. He still has a lot to learn." Said a young man who came behind Stella without even her noticing.
Realizing the person behind her, Stella simply grunted her teeth and said, hardly hiding her anger, "Fuck off Krueger or else I will skin you alive."
"Ooh! I like bdsm—"
Whip!
Stella's whip came down crashing on him but before it could reach him, he had vanished completely. And this only helped to fester her anger more and more. As for Richard, he looked at the angry expression of Stella and quietly excused himself to a more distant hunting ground.
…
A little distance away from all this commotion stood a lady in a majestic red armor. The lady had long-flowing hair and looked no older than twenty-five but right now, she was looking into the black skies of the Abyss with intent.
Slowly an older man, almost in his fifties and armed with a mighty double axe over his shoulder appeared behind her.
"Is it another prophecy from our Lord, Third Sister?" he asked in a solemn tone.
The lady, named Third Sister, shook her head slowly. "Not a prophecy. It is a warning, Tenth Brother."
"A warning?" he said, inquiringly.
She nodded and replied solemnly, "The Fifth Angel has awakened."
"What?!" he cried shocked, "But that means the doom—"
"I know what it means, brother." Said she in a stern tone. "Fifth Brother is the Harbinger of Doom but even then, we must protect him at all cost."
"What? Why would we do that? Anyway, leave that talk. Tell me where he is and I will go immediately with Ninth Brother and secure him at once." He proposed but Third Sister scoffed at his suggestion. She looked back at him with her strange golden-red eyes and said.
"Do you think you have the power to detain The Fifth. Heh! Have you ever read the scriptures left by our ancestors?"
"T-that…" Tenth Brother looked awkward for a moment before sighing and shook his head. "Unfortunately, I don't have the time to devote to literatures, Third Sister. I'm needed everywhere, you know." He said not with arrogance but with tiredness and fatigue.
Third Sister scoffed at him again before turning back and replying in her usual solemn tone, "Go back and read the scriptures. And have the other siblings read them too. Thoroughly. Know why messing with The Fifth is troubling in a whole different way."
"But Third Sister, with your help and maybe if we could get Fourth Sister's help, we might be able to capture him."
"Haha!" she gave a rough laugh, "Do you know why he is called the Harbinger of Doom?"
"No, sister." He replied honestly.
"It is because of two reasons. First is his primary weapon, Xenofhrix. Made from our Lord's own Flames of Chaos but it is a minor reason. The most important reason is, Fifth Brother is born with a Spark."
"A spark?"
"No, not a simple spark, my brother. The Spark of the Primordial Flame, Eternal Chaos. You must've seen it, haven't you?"
"Gulp." Tenth Brother gulped down hard and nodded his head. "I understand sister."
"Good. Now go to the library and read the scripture. Learn about yourself and your brothers and sisters. As for Fifth Brother, I would take care when the time comes."
He nodded and turned to leave when Third Sister stopped him once again. "Oh! About where he is… it seems like he is in the Surface."
"Oh!" Tenth Brother cried surprised before shrugging his shoulder in defeat, "That would be hard."
"Don't worry," Third Sister smiled consolingly at him. "Like I said, I will take care of it when time comes."
…