If you Like this story! Check out my other story ! Shadow Monarch in Danmachi!
AND
If you wish to read more or simply support me just because ? than check out my patréon at
"https://www.patréon.com/Riadooo"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want !
/*\
The arena fell silent as Jason raised his hand toward the Hell Council.
Not the silence of peace...the silence of anticipation, of millions of held breaths, of beings who had lived for eons suddenly realizing they were about to witness something that would echo through eternity.
"Demons of Hell." Jason's voice carried across the arena, amplified by cursed energy that poured from him like invisible fire. It rolled over the stands in waves, through the gates, across the endless plains of Hell itself. "Listen to me."
In the cheap seats, imps paused their bickering.
In noble boxes, Demon Lords set down their goblets.
In the shadows beyond the arena, fallen angels turned their ancient faces toward the sound.
Every demon in Hell heard him. Every single one.
"Neron." Jason's voice dripped contempt. "Your so-called Demon God. Is a coward."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Demons glanced at each other, confused. Yes, Neron had cheated but cheating was demon nature. That didn't make him a coward. That made him clever. That made him one of them.
They didn't understand yet.
"He has bargained all your lives in this battle." Jason's words cut through the murmurs like a blade through flesh. "Risking every one of you. So that if he wins he wins you all. If he loses..." His voice dropped, but still carried to every corner of Hell. "You all die."
Confusion shifted to unease.
Jason raised his arm toward the heavens, pointing at nothing and everything. "I am no God. Nor am I a saint. I am a human. Born on Earth. Raised among mortals." His voice softened, just slightly. "I am inherently compassionate. I want to save as many as I can in my endeavor to cleanse the world of evil."
His eyes swept across the crowd.
"But even you beings of evil, creatures of darkness I tried to help. I tried to protect." A pause. "No more."
His hand lowered.
Aimed at the Council.
"Death Cleave."
The slash that left his hand was unlike any they had seen before. Not a physical cut. Not a wound of flesh or bone or even soul. It was a statement an assertion a declaration that something in the universe had reached its end.
It struck Beelzebub.
The Lord of Flies reacted instantly, his form exploding into thousands of individual insects, each one a fragment of his consciousness, each one capable of regenerating the whole. It was his ultimate defense, the technique that had kept him alive through wars and purges and the rise and fall of empires.
It didn't matter.
The Death Cleave found him anyway.
It found him in every fly simultaneously, in the core of his existence that linked them all, in the fundamental truth of his being that said "Beelzebub lives." And it ended that truth.
Every single fly dropped from the air at once.
Thousands of tiny bodies hit the arena floor in a single unified sound a wet, final thump that echoed through the stunned silence. Beelzebub, Lord of Flies, Demon of the Second Hierarchy, survivor of countless apocalyptic battles, was simply... gone.
Jason didn't pause.
"I will speak this once. And only once." His voice rolled across the arena, across Hell itself, touching every demon who heard it. "To all the demons of Hell....submit to me."
He let the words hang.
"Not as your lord. Not as your king. No." His eyes blazed with something ancient and terrible. "As your God."
The word hit them like a physical blow.
"Here and now, I will enslave you all. I will use you all to cleanse evil. I will raise an army of demons to protect my home...Earth, the world that birthed me." His voice hardened. "And you will all serve. Not because you want to. But because I asked. I demanded."
He pointed at the stands, at the millions of faces staring back at him.
"And if you choose not to serve me.....I will be happy to kill you all. Right here. Right now." His smile was cold, absolute, utterly without mercy. "I will send the entirety of Hell's demons into extinction. As a human."
A pause.
"Trust me. I don't mind committing genocide against the source of evil."
The silence that followed was the silence of beings confronting their own mortality.
Belial moved first.
The Infernal Strategist had been calculating since the moment Jason destroyed the Domain, running probabilities, assessing outcomes, searching for any path that led to survival. Now, with Beelzebub's corpse still cooling on the arena floor, he found one.
Not a path to victory.
A path to attack.
His magic culminated in his hands, ancient power gathered from centuries of careful accumulation, and he spoke the words that had ended countless lives.
"Eldritch Blast."
The force that left his hands was not merely destructive—it was conceptual, a strike that unwove reality itself, that erased whatever it touched from existence. He had killed angels with this attack. He had killed gods.
From Jason's right, Azazel struck.
The Angel of Destruction had abandoned his beautiful form. What emerged now was his true self—an amalgamation of mouths and hunger, a being made of dark flesh and endless teeth, each mouth screaming for the soul of the human before him. He was incomprehensible, terrifying, the shape of pure consumption given form.
They attacked together. Perfect coordination. One from each side, covering every angle of escape.
Jason didn't move.
His left hand rose casually, almost lazily, and released a Death Cleave toward the Eldritch Blast. The attacks met in mid-air and the Eldritch Blast simply stopped existing. Not deflected. Not dispelled. Killed. Jason had killed an attack.
At the same moment, his right hand extended toward Belial.
"Dimensional Cleave."
The slash that left his fingers didn't travel through space—it traveled through the concept of space itself, ignoring the layers of protection Belial had built over millennia. The Strategist had hidden his true body behind seventeen dimensional barriers, each one capable of stopping any attack. He had decoys, duplicates, souls he could sacrifice in his place.
The Dimensional Cleave ignored all of them.
It found the core demon hiding beneath layers of magic and flesh and contingency, the tiny spark of existence that was truly Belial. And it ended that spark.
Belial's body.....all of his bodies....collapsed at once.
Jason turned to his right.
Azazel had already consumed him.
The Devourer form had lunged forward at the moment of Jason's distraction, countless mouths opening to swallow the human whole. And from the stands, it looked like he had succeeded. Jason simply... vanished into that mass of dark flesh and endless teeth.
But Azazel didn't celebrate.
Because he realized, too late, what he had done.
By consuming Jason, he had invited the King of Curses into the one place no demon should ever allow....inside himself. Into his soul. Into the core of his existence that even Dimensional Cleaves couldn't reach without invitation.
Jason sighed from somewhere deep within Azazel's being.
And released a Soul Cleave.
The Fallen Angel convulsed. His form...that mass of mouths and hunger...writhed as something inside him tore itself free. For a single terrible moment, every demon in the arena saw Azazel's true soul, laid bare and vulnerable.
Then it shattered.
Azazel exploded into millions of pieces of black flesh, each one dying instantly as the connection to their source was severed. The pieces rained across the arena floor, joining Beelzebub's flies and Belial's scattered remains.
Jason stood in the center of it all.
Untouched.
The demons in the stands stared at what remained of the Hell Council.
In a single day, this human had killed Three Demon Lords. And defeated one with mercy...Blaze....And He had killed Satan....the First of the Fallen, the former ruler of Hell before Lucifer himself. And now he stood facing Neron, the current ruler, the one who had claimed Lucifer's throne.
It reminded them of something.
Of someone.
When Lucifer was first cast into Hell, eons ago, he had done the same thing. He had arrived as an outsider, disrespecting the ancient hierarchy, killing the Demon Lords who ruled at that time, forcing them to kneel or die. He had reshaped Hell in his image, broken the old ways, and become their king through pure, brutal conquest.
Jason was mirroring those actions.
Mirroring them perfectly.
Jason looked at Neron.
"Demons of Hell." His voice carried across the arena one last time. "Watch. And decide now. Which of us you will serve."
He raised his hand.
"Dimensional Cleave."
The slash struck Neron's body, splitting it from crown to groin. For a heartbeat, Neron hung suspended in that divided state. Then his flesh knitted back together, regeneration taking hold, the demon contract redirecting death once again.
But the demons in the stands weren't watching Neron.
They were watching each other.
Because when Neron's body split, so did thousands of demons throughout the crowd. Bodies tore in half. Blood sprayed across seats. Lives ended in an instant, victims of a contract they had never chosen to sign.
Jason killed Neron again.
Another Dimensional Cleave. Another split body. Another thousand demons dying in sympathy.
And again.
And again.
Neron tried to escape...truly tried. He twisted, dodged, attempted to flee across the arena. He used every trick, every technique, every carefully hoarded ability. He even succeeded, sometimes, in avoiding the full force of the attack.
But it didn't matter.
Because his power was failing. His will was crumbling. Not from anything Jason was doing externally, but from something far more devastating happening inside him.
'Another failure.'
The words echoed in his mind, cold and dismissive.
'What a shame. However, I learned something new. Something even beyond the Presence's knowledge. The Beyonder Human. Quite interesting.'
A pause that stretched into eternity.
'Goodbye, Neron. You are a failure.'
Perpetua was gone.
The being who had puppeted him, who had guided his hand and shaped his plans, who had promised him salvation for his kind—she had abandoned him the moment he started losing. Just as she always did. Just as she always would.
Neron fell to his knees.
Not from physical damage. From the weight of absolute, utter rejection.
Satan, however, was not leaving.
The being sharing Neron's body...the ancient will of demons, the remnant of the First of the Fallen..watched the proceedings with growing delight. While Neron crumbled, Satan laughed.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" His voice erupted from Neron's mouth, maniacal and free. "So a human shall become the Demon God! HAHAHAHA! Beings made of mere fucking clay! AHAHAHAHAHA!"
Jason paused, mid-strike, and looked at the entity emerging from Neron's form.
"What do you want?"
Satan's face...the half that was still Satan, crimson and horned...grinned with absolute madness. "What do I want?" He laughed again, the sound echoing across the arena. "What I want is to serve, my Master."
He knelt.
Actually knelt, there on the arena floor, while Neron's body twitched beside him in despair. The former Demon God's soul, the being who had defied the Presence itself....kneeling to a human.
Jason's eyes narrowed. "What if I don't want you? I don't need you. What then? Will you beg like a dog? Weren't you praying for my death minutes ago?"
"Of course!" Satan's grin widened. "But didn't you just explain it yourself? We have two choices. Submit to our new owner and god...Jason....or die."
"That offer was for demons. Not for you."
Satan laughed again, genuinely amused. "But what am I if not a demon? Have you not understood yet, my lord?" He spread his arms wide. "I am not some manipulating evil that serves to destroy and own you from the inside....although I did try that the first time we met, when you killed dear Azrael." Another laugh. "I am Satan. The source of all demons. Their will. Their soul. By me submitting to you, all demons submit. Because I am them."
Jason studied him for a long moment. "Aren't you just the aspect of Satan? The Demon God of the past?"
"Well, yeah. Was." Satan shrugged, utterly unconcerned with the distinction. "Satan is dead. Has been for a while. What remains is me....the will of demons. They die, I die. They live, I live." His eyes met Jason's. "Own me. Means you own them."
"So you choose to submit."
"Why of course!" Satan knelt further, pressing his forehead to the ground. "This humble one shall serve his master Jason Anderson. King of Curses. Demon God of Hell. Master of Demons. The New Satan"
Jason looked at the kneeling form of the most ancient evil in existence. At the millions of demons watching from the stands. At Neron, broken and defeated beside them both.
"I accept you as my servant."
The moment the words left his mouth, Jason felt it.
A crack.
Something fundamental in the structure of Hell shifted. The contract that bound every demon to Neron that ancient web of souls and promises shattered into pieces. It didn't break slowly. It exploded, the fragments scattering across the fabric of reality like glass from a broken window.
Neron felt it too.
He collapsed fully, falling from his knees to his hands, then to his side, curled on the arena floor like a wounded animal. His eyes stared at nothing. His mouth moved silently.
"All I wanted..." His voice was barely a whisper. "Was to bring salvation to my kind. To save them. To spare them from..." A shuddering breath. "Yet even they chose to abandon me."
Jason floated down from his Ankh, landing softly on the arena floor. He walked to Neron slowly, deliberately and looked down at the broken demon before him.
"You were born loyal to a race of traitors." His voice was quiet, almost gentle. "You adapted their forms and their skills. You became treacherous and sly because of them. But deep down..." A pause. "You harbored the soul of a human. Free will and all."
Neron looked up at him, eyes wet with something that might have been tears.
"This is my mercy to you, Neron." Jason raised his hand. "You were a magnificent opponent."
Neron closed his eyes.
"Soul Cleave."
The slash that left Jason's hand was the gentlest he had ever released. It found Neron's soul that core of existence that had been twisted and used and abused for so long and ended it. Not painfully. Not violently. Simply... peacefully.
For the first time in eons, Neron was no longer connected to the souls of other demons. No longer a vessel for their lives. No longer a shield for their existence.
He was just himself.
And then he was nothing.
Neron's body went still. His eyes remained closed, his expression peaceful, his suffering finally, mercifully over.
/*\
If you Like this story! Check out my other story ! Shadow Monarch in Danmachi!
AND
If you wish to read more or simply support me just because ? than check out my patréon at
"https://www.patréon.com/Riadooo"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want !