Chapter Six

With the aid of the Dimension Belt, Antithesis found himself in front of the gates of Hell. He’d finally made it. The air smelled of brimstone, blood, and smoke and the sky was tinted red-orange. It looked much like Earth, if Earth were to be on fire and be in the process of exploding. As he walked up to the fiery, iron gate, he was stopped by a rumbling. Instead of continuing forward, he decided to wait and see what it was. 

He would get his answer as, just in front of the gate, a large, crimson dragon rose from the ground. The Hell Dragon, guardian of the gates of Hell. As the dragon roared, spewing black hellflames as it did, Antithesis figured there’d be no talking this beast down. 

The Heavenborne drew his sword and prepared for--

The dragon swiped the spirit away, knocking him across the dusty land. He stood again, but began to lose his footing as more rumbling directly beneath him occured. The extremely long body of the Hell Dragon popped up from the ground and shot Antithesis into the air. While airborne, the Heavenborne spotted his blade and shot his chains out at it. He then reeled it back, caught it, then fell through the air, plunging the Dimension Splitter into the dragon’s body.

The beast roared in pain and spewed hellflames at Antithesis. Before the flames could reach him, the wraith dove straight into the ground. While under the ground, he could see the dragon’s body, seeing it had no end. He decided to start from where he was and stuck his blade into the belly of the beast, then using a combination of his teleportation, speed, and plasmic holyflames, drove the blade all the way up to the neck of the dragon back at the gate. The dragon roared in pain the entire time he did, then it stopped roaring when Antithesis dragged his sword through the head of the Hell Dragon, splitting it in two and killing it. 

He landed at the gate again and this time, proceeded to open it without interruption. As he entered the gates of Hell, he took in the sight. There were souls being tortured and demons running amok, but none of them even came close to confronting him. They could tell he was a stranger, but not one they’d want to trouble. 

As Antithesis walked the “street”, a darkness came around him. Something began to create black clouds that obscured his vision. A voice began to utter his real name and taunt him, revealing his past.

“James… James… James…, son of a lawyer and nurse. Your parents never had time for you growing up, did they?” the voice said. “So you want to make sure you were there for your family, isn’t that right?” 

“Show yourself, demon,” Antithesis demanded.

“Oh, child, I am no mere demon,” the voice said. “I… am Nokturn, the Nightmare God.”

“There are no gods in Hell or Heaven,” Antithesis deflected. 

“No, huh? Yet, you’ve never been to either,” Nokturn said. “This is your first time here and you’ve slain a beast you know nothing about and walk through the paths like you own the goddamn place.”

Nokturn briefly revealed himself, then disappeared back into the clouds. Antithesis did not see him.

“Yet here I am, keeping you within my clutches, getting ready to feast on your Heavenly flesh,” the Nightmare God said.

“You will not succeed in your feasting conquest, Nightmare God,” Antithesis said, determined to find out where Nokturn was hiding.

“You know, I love it when my food talks back,” Nokturn said, chuckling. “Shows they’re truly fearful.”
Nokturn revealed himself again behind Antithesis, larger than the spectre and prodded his fingers through the spectre’s back. Antithesis winced in pain as the Nightmare God lifted him and lay him horizontal before attempting to chomp down on the wraith.

Antithesis managed to draw his sword and keep the mouth of the Nightmare God open as he struggled to even teleport out of his clutches. Nokturn tried to break the sword in half by continuing to bite through it, but it began to pierce the inside of his mouth, the thought of what the blade was made out of running though his head. 

Antithesis resorted to set himself ablaze with plasmic holyflame as the whitish-gold flames emitted from his body and began to burn Nokturn’s fingers and hand. The Nightmare God then let Antithesis slide off his fingers as he tried to remove Dimension Splitter from his mouth. Antithesis took a second to heal before turning toward the god, withdrawing a Dagger of Deception, wrapping it around one of his Chains of Sacrifice, and chucking it at Nokturn. 

As Nokturn focused his attention on Antithesis, still trying to remove the sword, his only good eye physically caught the dagger and chain combination, blinding him. Antithesis kept a hold of the chain and set it ablaze, the trail of fire running down each link before reaching the inside of Nokturn’s one eye. Then, the Heavenborne yanked on the chain, causing Nokturn’s body to slam into the ground, head first. 

The spirit ran over to Nokturn, throwing fireballs in his pursuit, then reached the Nightmare God’s mouth. Antithesis forcefully closed it on the blade so the blade reached up into the roof of Nokturn’s mouth. Because his mouth was shut by the blade, he couldn’t even shout in pain, or see how to end it. 

Antithesis then put an end to the god’s misery by tugging at his head’s horns, easily tearing his head off, killing him. 

As he held the head and the black clouds around him dissipated, Antithesis removed Dimension Splitter from the Nokturn’s mouth and sheathed it once more. 

After walking a little further and keeping an eye on his surroundings, Antithesis came to another gate that seemed to descend into the dimension. He phased through the gate and continued his descent. The temperature began to drop below freezing, and the light from above furthered itself from the pit he was entering. At the bottom of the coiled path, he saw three flashes of what he assumed was more demons. 

“I seek the murderer of my family,” Antithesis said, attempting to mediate the situation without having to resort to violence. 

“Simple spirit,” Sygril, the archdemon of secrets, said. “It was not one of us.”

“Then tell me which of your fellow demons it was and spare your own lives,” Antithesis demanded. Sygril revealed her face and showed that her eyes are draped over with a red cloth. 

“Spectre, you don’t really think that a demon--”

Before Sygril could finish, Rajeloth, the archdemon of anger, swung her hammer and chain at the Heavenborne, attempting to smash him. Antithesis luckily caught it.

“Sister!” Intipas, the archdemon of pain, said. “Curve your anger.”

“Nokturn’s presence has disappeared from this dimension,” Rajeloth said. “And he’s made it past the first circle, meaning only one thing.”

Sygril and Intipas exchanged looks. Sygril held out a hand and telepathically went through Antithesis’s mind. Without saying anything, she attempted to stab the wraith with one of her giant knives. In fact, all of the archdemons were larger than him. Video game boss size.

Antithesis held out his hands at the ground and lit the entire second circle of Hell, so he could see the three female archdemons in all their beauty. The spirit’s heart skipped a beat, for like Vitruviana and Astral, they were all sexily dressed, as the archangels, demons, and gods, male and female, really had no use for clothing. 

Sygril was wielding twin, jagged knives. Rajeloth, a lava mallet attached to a chain. And Intipas, a kama, which is essentially a giant scythe attached to a chain. Antithesis raised an eyebrow, wondering why the angels and demons had a thing for chains. 

He shook his head to focus, wondering why his mind was trailing off, not knowing that Sygril was messing with his mind. She gently held out her hand to try and pry what she could reveal about Antithesis’s past.

“Let’s see…” she said. Antithesis held his head and wildly waved it back and forth trying to expunge the archdemon of secrets from his head. Rajeloth and Intipas slowly made their approach toward him to end him. “You were not as pure a husband and father as you let on to your work friends. Turns out you beat your family. Out of anger. You’d start with your children then when your wife stepped in, you’d make her share the pain your children felt. And the pain you felt.”

Antithesis shouted like he did when he broke free of Manipulation’s control, breaking free of Sygril’s control. 

“Lies, witch!” the Heavenborne shouted, truthfully. “You tried to implant lies into my head. I led a good life, and I intend to see my family again. You will pay for your mistakes. YOU ALL WILL!”

With that, Antithesis’s body emitted a wave of plasmic holyflames, causing the three archdemons to reel back and shield themselves. The first to go was Rajeloth as Antithesis wrapped his Chains of Sacrifice around her hammer and yanked on them with the right amount of strength to propel himself forward. As he did, he dodged Sygril and Intipas’s attacks. The wraith landed on Rajeloth’s hammer. The archdemon lifted it and used her other hand to try and smash him against her weapon, but Antithesis phased through her hand and ended up on top of it. Then he lept through the air and withdrew his sword to slice at her neck, but he ended up running his blade through Intipas’s hand. 

Normally she wouldn’t feel pain, but because of Dimension Splitter’s composition, she screamed. 

“Sister!” Rajeloth said. She then frowned and turned her sister’s hand over. The blade was still there, but the spectre was not. He teleported behind Rajeloth’s neck and wrapped his chains around it, and began to choke her out. Struggling to remove the chains, she fell face first into the ground, Antithesis standing on the side of her head. He began to multitask, continuing to choke Rajeloth and also shoot plasmic holyflames at Sygril. This angered the archdemon of secrets to the point of using her knives to try and stab Antithesis.

This was his plan as the Heavenborne teleported away and let Sygril drive her knives into the skull of her sister, killing Rajeloth. She realized what she did and immediately regretted her decision.

“No! Sister!” she shouts. And while the archdemon of secret weeps over her sister’s body, Antithesis moves on to Intipas, who’s trying to remove the relatively small Dimension Splitter blade from her hands. As she saw Antithesis sprinting at her, she switched focus and wound up her kama, slicing the ground of the second circle of Hell. Antithesis successfully dodged a few of the swings from the kama, but Intipas catches him and slams the kama onto the ground, with him in between, as she has impaled him. 

Antithesis tried to teleport away, but he noticed an energy flowing from Intipas’s hand that was most likely the cause of this. He tried to infuse her weapon with plasmic holyflames, but this failed as well. 

“Reduced to nothing,” Intipas taunted. “You will know pain.”

He wasn’t regenerating as long as this blade stayed in him. And to add to his problem, Sygril began to make her way over, dragging her knives along the ground. Antithesis decided that he needed to get out of this and as Sygril raised her knives above his head, visions of his family waiting for him in Heaven flashed in his head.

Suddenly, the pain disappeared and he clasped the underside of the kama, cutting his palms as he pushed against the blade. The blade did begin to lift, but Intipas easily pressed down, putting the blade back through his body. 

Sygril came down with her knives and Antithesis quickly punched through the kama, breaking the blade and rolling out of the way of Sygril’s knives. He struggled to stand, still unable to regenerate as the end of Intipas’s broken blade was still inside his chest. He would not get a chance to remove it immediately either as the two archdemon sisters rushed at him. As they did, he eyed Dimension Splitter still in Intipas’s hand. 

As they slammed their weapons into the ground, the Heavenborne evaded, noticing the only powers still intact was his supernatural strength and anything else that was included in his angelic physiology. Intipas’s blade was negating all of his abilities except for those. As he attempted to remove the blade, the sisters continued their assault. 

Intipas lunged forward and attempted to stab the broken blade into Antithesis, but he punched it away as it approached him. This threw the archdemon of pain off as Sygril attempted to stab him. He ever so slightly dodged her attack as well and seized the opportunity of her knives being stuck. He kicked one of them and broke the tip off. Then he removed it from the ground and tossed it at Intipas. The blade chunk hit her in the throat and she began to choke on her blood. 

Still weakened, Antithesis managed to dodge a few more attacks before finally removing the kama piece from his chest at tossing this at Sygril. It clipped her neck, but did not leave her bleeding like her sister. As Sygril checked her own neck, she turned to see Antithesis in her face leading with his plasmic holyflame fist. He connected his punch and the impact caused Sygril to toss her non-broken knife in the air. The Heavenborne teleported to it, caught it, and then drove the knife through Sygril’s throat, killing her.

As Antithesis stepped off her dead body, he turned to see Intipas swing a hammerfist down at him to smash him, her neck still bleeding. He caught it and the pressure from the swing caused his body to sink into the ground a little. He tossed her hand to the side and when she tried to swing at him again, he dove through it, setting his entire self on fire when he did, leaving a hole in her hand. 

Intipas screamed in pain as Antithesis shot out his chains around her neck and pulled her face close to him. He lept into the air and hit her with a knee, then spun upside down and hit her with an axe kick before setting himself ablaze and diving through her head. While inside her head, and released a wave and exploded the archdemon’s skull and emerged covered in her blood. 

The Heavenborne walked over to the dead archdemon’s hand, snatched out his sword and continued his journey toward the third circle of Hell.