Part 767: Leader of Punishment

January 29th, 2021. 6PM Washington DC, 3AM Egypt.

At the base of Mount Sinai, the temperature was a comfortable 60F, or 15C. It was a warm night, despite being late in January, proof of just how warm the land of Egypt was year-round.

In the pitch-blackness of the pre-dawn hours, demons secretly milled around, with many Rumbler demons rapidly tunneling out and reinforcing a network of underground tunnels to hastily construct an underground fortification at their leaders’ behest.

At this point, only two Demon Emperors had arrived on scene. They were Belial, leader of the Second Hell of Lust, and Diablo, leader of the Fifth Hell of Calamity. The others were scheduled to arrive much later in the day, after the main fortifications had been built.

Diablo paced back and forth atop the surface level of Saint Catherine’s monastery. He grumbled under his breath, while Belial casually leaned against a wall, watching him with a bored expression on her face.

"What’s bothering you now?" Belial asked casually. "You’re always so antsy."

"Of course I’m ‘antsy’." Diablo grumbled, casting her a quick glance. "We’re not ready at all. This offensive wasn’t supposed to happen for several more decades! And now we’re trying to rush a million demons into position to assault Sinai in only a day or two?? Satan must have gone insane."

"He’s not insane." Belial retorted. "We have no choice but to act now. We presumed the humans would never again have access to a Trueborn Hero, but now they have two. The situation is unprecedented."

"Obviously! But attacking Heaven of all places?!" Diablo snapped at her, finally pausing his pacing to meet Belial’s gaze directly. "We haven’t been able to scout them! We don’t know how many Lazarites they have, and the number of Titans is a mystery as well. We don’t know what defenses they’ve erected, we don’t know if they’ve secretly brought any human weapons or vehicles into Heaven… we just don’t know anything at all!"

He continued. "Even getting a single operative into Heaven requires a colossal amount of time and effort, and the few we’ve implanted are not able to easily pass their intel to us. We’ve also lost most of our agents who did manage to get inside due to them getting caught by Camael, the old bitch. This is a disaster waiting to happen!"

"Obviously." Belial said, glancing surreptitiously around, as if worried someone might overhear their conversation. "But we have no choice. We must act. Every day that passes, the humans will grow a little stronger as they consolidate around their two new Heroes."

"Ever since Harold Whittaker died, the humans lost any chance of unifying under a Hero." Belial added. "They became more and more fractured and divided, allowing us to manipulate and deceive them into fighting one another. But if things continue on this new path, we might face a unified humanity, unified angelkind, and even worse, a deepening of an alliance between the two. We have to strike now while the two sides are still disorganized."

Diablo squinted at Belial. "You’re not usually the type to care about this sort of stuff."

"Neither are you." Belial shot back. "Aren’t you usually napping and eating like a slovenly oaf?"

"Can’t nap in peace if the humans get together and kill us all." Diablo grumbled, turning away. "But point taken."

"Yeah, and I only care because Satan does." Belial said. "So, in the meantime, help me whip these grunts into shape. The speed of construction is slowing down, and Satan wants this done by the end of today."

"Yeah, yeah." Diablo said, before stretching, popping his back, and sauntering off to yell at the lowest demon slaves in earshot.

After Diablo left, Belial stood on the spot for a short while, tapping her foot. There was a look of worry on her face.

Our people have low morale and little willpower. Their battle lust is at an all-time low. They have no desire to fight in this war. Surely, Satan has prepared for that?

She chewed on her thumbnail absentmindedly. The demons have grown more and more slovenly as time has passed. They spend more time sneaking into human ‘movies’ and consuming human content than they do thinking about how we will someday defeat the humans. Now Satan wants to launch a sudden assault on Heaven? Diablo’s right. This will be a disaster. Millions, even billions of demons will surely die.

Belial was a relatively compassionate demoness, but even she didn’t have it in her heart to care about a million faceless grunts she’d never seen or met. The Broodmothers would spawn more in the future, and more after them, and even more still far beyond those.

Though she didn’t give much of a damn about a million demon deaths in the abstract, she worried about Satan and his ambitions. She was practically joined at the hip with her husband. He was her entire world, and whatever his worries were, she shared his burdens equally.

Satan had never stopped dreaming of a day when demons could fully control the Earth. The ancient hatred of the angels had sunk into his bones. He would never forgive them, never consider reconciliation, and never give up the fight.

Since Satan was functionally immortal in all ways that mattered, this meant his hatred would always be demonkind’s burden to bear. As such, Belial had to consider him when thinking about the impacts of his future plans and strategies.

"Shit." Belial cursed. "We might need… his help."

Belial rubbed her face, feeling slightly depressed.

"Satan’s going to make me do it, isn’t he? I’m always the one who has to talk to him. That absolute lunatic. Why did we ever put him in charge of the Hell of Punishment? He’s not right in the head."

The demon she was thinking of was none other than the current head of the Fourth Hell of Punishment. In the future, this leader would come to be Emperor Auger. But at this point in time, it was a different demon entirely, one who had been put in place due to his capabilities, if not his proper capacity for leadership.

In many ways, he was one of the strongest demons alive. But his personality on the other hand… nobody liked him, and everyone found him to be insanely irritating. If he didn’t have the power needed for the position, he’d have been thrown out a long time ago.

Belial’s momentary depression deepened. She felt as if she had aged a year in a minute, thinking of needing to talk to that bastard.

"He’s so annoying." She mumbled. "I just know he’s going to stare at my tits the whole time, too."

Belial glanced in the direction of Mount Sinai. At this moment, it was shrouded in an illusory formation that made it appear completely ordinary to anyone looking upon it from afar, even a modern news helicopter.

But Belial knew. Hidden within that formation were hundreds of Pureblooded Angels and thousands of Lazarites, all flying in the air or hidden in various outcroppings, waiting for the demons to launch a sneak attack at night.

Angels had night vision only slightly worse than demons, but far superior to humans. The Lazarites could summon bows that shot magical arrows capable of piercing through human tanks from a kilometer away.

The demons were going to launch a hastily thrown-together assault on Sinai soon. They would need all the help they could get… even if that meant getting someone like him to help. Belial wanted to die of embarrassment, just imagining talking to him.

But, well, the Fourth Hell of Punishment was situated in Central Europe, near the border of Germany, Poland, and Czechia. Since Belial was ‘nearby’, she might as well go and pay that bastard a visit. If she could secure his help now, she would surely make Satan’s upcoming war proceed much more smoothly.

Belial looked up into the pitch-black night sky. The sun was still a couple hours away from creeping across the horizon. It was a good cover for her next move.

"Might as well be proactive. Than Satan will praise me." Belial muttered, smiling as she thought of her husband.

She spoke to a Warper nearby and transferred to a Warper Relay in Germany, close by her ultimate destination of the Fourth Hell’s base. This saved her nearly 1800 miles of travel distance, and cut down the next part of her trip travel time substantially.

Belial stepped out into the open air on a quiet countryside, still late at night, and gritted her teeth. She tapped into her magical powers, then transformed into her True Succubus form, which covered her body in gray-colored dermal armor, and also caused her to sprout large bat-like wings. Her hands turned into claws, and her eyes became a deep yellow color, with predatory vertical slit-pupils that enhanced her distance vision, allowing her to spot things from even further away than her baseline demonic physiology already allowed.

The entire process took only thirty seconds. After she finished, Belial launched herself into the air and started flying at high speeds, much faster than if she were to run on foot.

Belial’s top running speed was around 100 MPH (160 KPH). This was indeed extremely fast, especially as she could easily jump over obstacles and bypass barriers that would stop a human sportscar from moving that quickly in a straight line.

But even that speed was nothing compared to her flight speed in True Succubus form. If she flew in a straight line and focused entirely on acceleration with no obstacles to slow her down, her top speed ended up breaking past 350 MPH (563 KPH), which was actually not nearly as fast as most human flying machines, but her speed could further increase if she lucked out with a strong tailwind behind her.

And so, like this, Belial traveled a hundred miles in only fifteen minutes, surging across the sky while keeping an eye out for human weapons that might spot and fire at her. It was always risky, traveling out in the open air like this. Humans might not ‘know’ about the existence of demons, but the true rulers of humanity had long put in place tens of thousands of micro-contingencies to keep an eye on demonic movements.

If the battle at Sinai wasn’t the most important thing she’d had to do in the last several hundred years, Belial would never have taken a risk like this. But for now, she didn’t have a choice.

She flew through the skies and arrived at a small forest grove, seemingly ordinary, located at the boundary of three different European countries. One might expect there to be walls or other such clearly outlined borders here, but the local governments didn’t have any worries about illegal aliens crossing here of all places, so they didn’t bother.

As for the location of the Hell of Punishment’s home base, like with all the other Hells, this was a closely guarded secret. Demons rarely traveled here directly, typically moving around the Earth via Warpers and underground tunnels.

Belial dove toward the ground. She de-transformed in midair, reverting to her ordinary succubus form, and fell into the treeline with practiced movements. Instead of crashing into the trees like a cannonball, she stretched out her right arm before her, pierced the tree canopy, and grabbed onto a large branch. She easily slowed her momentum down and gently fell into the underbrush, sliding down the trees and hopping from trunk to trunk until she lightly struck the forest floor.

As dark as it was at night, it was even darker inside the forest. Luckily, Belial’s eyes were at the level of a Demon Emperor, so it was as easy to see for her as it would be for a human when the sun was dipping below the horizon. She wasn’t able to see perfectly, but she could easily make out her surroundings.

Belial glanced around to get her bearings. She headed east, then stopped at one particular tree which had a unique look to it. It seemed as if a giant Elm had slowly bent over from the weight of its canopy over the years and eventually rested its ‘head’ against the ground, forming an arch one could walk through.

Belial strode under the arched tree, crossed her arms, and stood in place.

After five minutes, a female voice spoke. "Belial? What are you doing here?"

Belial turned to the side. She saw a beautiful demoness with long green hair approaching her, a woman who wore clothing made of leaves and vines, seductive, yet innocent in an untouched sort of way. She wore a crown of flowers, ones she re-grew daily with her abilities, always changing her fashion along with her whims. A cute little tail swung around behind her, flicking from side to side with catlike movements.

"Nymph." Belial said cordially. "I’m here to see… him."

"You are?" Demon Emperor Nymph asked. "But I thought you hated the big man?"

"My distaste has nothing to do with it." Belial said blandly. "There’s a war coming, and soon. We need all the strength we can get, and your boss has been notably absent from Satan’s summons."

"Well, you know us. We don’t like to involve ourselves unless it’s important…" Nymph said hesitantly.

"Tell it to someone who cares." Belial snarked. "Take me to him. I don’t have time to waste."

"Aaalrighty then…" Nymph said, dragging out her words as if to allow Belial a chance to change her mind.

Sadly for Nymph, Belial did not. Nymph sighed.

"Oh, he’s going to be so grumpy now." Nymph pouted.

Nymph waved her hand. A random patch of grass nearby split apart, revealing that the underbrush had been hiding a stairway down into the depths of the Earth. She led the way, striding down those stairs, while Belial followed behind.

"I can’t believe you choose to stay here." Belial grumbled, as she walked behind Nymph, staring at the green-haired Demon Emperor’s back. "Your boss is such a creep."

"He’s a little ostentatious, but not such a bad guy once you get to know him. You simply have to watch out for his ‘bad’ days." Nymph explained.

"Sounds like something an abuse victim would say." Belial spat.

"He’s not abusive at all, you just never let yourself get to know him." Nymph shot back, turning her head to glare at Belial.

The two women fell silent. Nymph led her hundreds of feet into the bowels of the Earth, where they arrived inside a gigantic underground space absolutely teeming with life. Demons were not the overwhelming majority of creatures living in the Fourth Hell of Punishment, but were matched head-for-head by goblins and minotaurs. The goblins had one primary job, and that was to dig out the bowels of the Earth, constantly enlarging the underground space. The minotaurs were the guards, always on the lookout for intruders.

There were demons present. Many of them, millions, all spread out in luxurious underground areas with high temperatures that would kill a human if they stayed down here for an hour or so. The sweltering heat didn’t affect the demons, goblins, or minotaurs much. They were all quite fine with the heat, and most of them barely even felt it.

What made the Hell of Punishment stand out from the other Hells, architecturally, was its usage of flowers, plants, leaves, and other greenery. Emperor Nymph loved plants, and her handiwork could be seen everywhere. Vines coated the ceiling, supporting it and preventing cave-ins while also forming wooden candelabras that provided constant illumination.

There were pillars that were clearly trees growing underground, supporting the roof in addition to the vines. These tree-pillars were often carved and etched with various drawings by demon artisans.

The Hell of Punishment had an ominous name, but it was actually quite a free-spirited Hell, one filled with demons and monsters who spent most of their time engaging in raucous acts of sex and violence.

If there was one thing that the Hell of Punishment did that made it incompatible with modern human life, it was that it had a frightening number of sadistic demons who loved to inflict torture on other life-forms. Capturing humans from the world above, dragging them into the depths of the Fourth Hell, and tying them up while performing all manner of barbarous acts was by far the thing that most made them a pariah. If the humans ever uncovered the Fourth Hell’s exact location, Judgment Day was sure to follow.

In terms of actual villainy, their only competition was the Seventh Hell of Corruption, ruled by Emperor Yama. And nobody wanted to interact with that sadistic rapist…

Belial looked around as Nymph led her down toward the heart of the Fourth Hell. Wherever they walked, eyes fell on their bodies. Demons and monsters alike crowed with excitement.

"Yooo, Nymph! Nymph, we’re having an orgy in a little bit! Are you in??"

Nymph batted her eyes. "Not right now! Maybe later!"

Belial rolled her eyes. The truth was, Nymph might reside with the Fourth Hell, but she actually originated from the Hell of Lust. She was a succubus, like Belial, but she hated competing for the same pool of ‘lovers’ as the other succubi, so when she became a Duke, she transferred to the Fourth Hell to better monopolize a bigger pool of people. She had less competition here, and her innocent appearance was simply a facade to make herself more attractive to potential copulation partners.

"Great, see you then! And bring your friend, she’s HOT!" The male demon cackled.

"You idiot, that’s Belial!" Another demon shouted, slapping his friend over the head. "She’ll beat your ass!"

"Great! Hey Belial, pin me down and beat me to a pulp, babyyy!!"

Belial remained stone-faced. In this life, she only loved Satan. No other demon held any place in her heart. She was completely and utterly loyal to him and him alone. She would have sex with other men and women, sure, but only if he ordered her to do so, usually for political reasons.

Belial had zero interest in anyone but her husband. In this regard, she was a weird succubus. She didn’t have interest in multiple partners, and even though she’d been with the same man for thousands of years, she was still head over heels crazy for him. She’d do anything he asked, assume any position…

The moment the idiot male demons were out of sight, Belial forgot about them. If she hadn’t heard a billion men shout lustful lines at her just like those, she’d certainly heard a million. At this point, they were like drops of rain sliding off a raincoat. They had zero impact on her whatsoever.

Ten minutes later, they arrived at the entrance to an underground garden. Belial rolled her eyes again when she heard the giggles of multiple women mixed with the grunts and groans of just as many men.

Nymph paused after they stepped inside the garden. Whatever was going on up ahead, it was hidden by a giant tree growing in the lightly-illuminated underground space. The tree itself had bioluminescent leaves that glowed with a gentle blue light.

"Do you want to wait?" Nymph asked.

"I’m in a rush. So no." Belial growled.

She stormed forward and rounded the corner to see a pile of male and female demons all intertwined together, moaning sexually while sucking, licking, and fucking each other, performing all sorts of raunchy acts. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen a million times.

"Alright! Fuck time’s over!" Belial shouted, projecting her voice loudly enough to startle the pile of writhing red flesh. "I’m here with a message from Satan!"

A single male head turned to look at her. He was a handsome demon with shoulder-length black hair, slanted eyes, and pearly white teeth. He was also completely naked and currently deep inside a demoness Belial didn’t recognize.

"Hey hey, I hear you, Beli!" The Male Demon Emperor said. "Gimme thirty minutes and I’ll be done! Maybe sooner, if you wanna ‘help’ me out, eh?"

Belial’s fingers suddenly transformed into knives. "How about I cut it off?"

"Ahhh, ahaha! I was just kidding, girl!" The boss of the Fourth Hell said, quickly pulling out and jumping up. He was a sorry sight, messy and unkempt, covered in all sorts of unmentionable juices and smells. "Let’s not act hastily!"

Belial maintained her knife hands. "You ignored Satan’s summons. Seems you’ve been getting a bit big for your britches."

"I was just waiting for him to ask me nicely, that’s all!" The Emperor said, his two vampire fangs poking out of his mouth as he grinned sheepishly. "Now that you’re here, that’s good enough for me!"

The Demon Emperor was a thin man, lean and muscled, and he stood seven feet tell, half a foot taller than Belial herself. Even so, she felt a lot more fearsome, especially given that in terms of physical strength, she vastly outclassed him.

But what made the leader of the Fourth Hell so fearsome wasn’t his physical body. Rather, it was his particular set of powers.

"Clean yourself up." Belial said. "You smell disgusting."

"Can’t just interrupt a fella mid-boink and expect him to smell like roses." The Fourth Hell’s leader retorted.

Belial sighed. She found his voice painfully annoying, but that was because of her deep devotion to Satan. It just so happened that his voice had a hypnotic effect on other women, making some of them fall deeply in love with him, and others became at least a little enamored, seeing him as extremely cute, sexy, or otherwise. The power of his voice was truly fearsome.

"Right. Well, whatever." Belial said, finally lowering her fingers and reverting them back to normal. "Satan moved up the schedule. We’re going to be attacking Mount Sinai, and we need your help."

"Little old me?" He asked, touching his lip innocently.

"That’s right. And you don’t have the right to refuse, Emperor Morbius." Belial spat. "Don’t think just because you rule one of the Seven Hells that you don’t need to follow Satan’s commands."

"Yes, yes, I know." Morbius said, as he strode over to a towel rack and started wiping his nude body clean. "Satan wants to swing his demonhood around and start a war, and I have to go out there and fight on the frontlines of his battlefield."

Morbius sighed as he looked up at the ceiling.

"Took the bastard long enough to finally make a move…"