Darkness devoured the battlefield.After Alex's scream, there was a deafening silence, of the kind before worlds collapse. The abyss throbbed and pulsed: an ancient hunger was awakened. Tendrils slid across the fabric of reality. Ichor burned and flesh smoldered, with something far worse: unnatural.Alex Mercer stood before him, not as a man nor as an abyssal reaper, but as something beyond definition. The power that radiated from Alex was no longer the abyss, no longer infernal, no longer celestial. It was something. other."It cannot be…," Abyssus whispered, his voice barely a breath against the storm of energy crackling around Alex. "This should not be."Alex lifted his head, his eyes no longer the abyssal void they once were. They burned a color no language could describe, an existence no mind could comprehend. His body, once a vessel of darkness, now shifted between forms, flickering between the abyss, flesh, and something neither living nor dead.Abyssus roared, the weight of hi

Alex Mercer stood in the midst of the desolate city, the heavy, acrid stench of burnt flesh hanging in the air. Smoke drifted throughout the crumbled buildings, casting jagged shadows on the blood-soaked streets. The ground beneath his boots was slick with the remains of the vanquished demons, their black ichor steaming as it dissolved into nothingness.Yet despite the carnage, his pulse was steady, his breath measured. The blade in his grasp still flickered with abyssal fire, its energy thrumming like a heartbeat a part of him now, inseparable from the monster he had become.Lucifer’s parting words lingered in his mind, venomous and insidious.You’re still mine.The echo of that declaration gnawed at his resolve, twisting like a dagger lodged deep in his chest. He wanted to believe it was a lie, a desperate ploy from the Prince of Lies to break his spirit. But doubt crept in, whispering questions he wasn't ready to face.What if he's right?A shift in the air jolted Alex from his rev

The air was tense with silence as Alex stood in the burnt battlefield. Shadows moved around him, restless spirits answering his agitation. Blood-stained human and demon painted the cracked earth on which he stepped, weaving an almost macabre tapestry of chaos and carnage. In the burnt ruin, though, a kind of strange stillness settled, a stillness promising a storm.Celeste hung back just behind Alex, her pale skin shining out in the dim red light of an ominous sky. Her eyes, ancient with centuries yet as mysterious as a cloud, seemed to flicker with something dangerously close to affection or was it manipulation? Alex wasn't certain anymore. She had become both his greatest temptation and his most trusted ally in this twisted war.“They’re regrouping,” Celeste said softly, her voice as smooth and dangerous as silk slipping over a blade. “We don’t have much time.”Alex wiped the ichor from his blade, the dark flames wreathing it dissipating into the ether. “Let them come,” he growled,

The oppressive heat of the hellish realm suffocated Alex Mercer, who still stood resolute amidst all that chaos. Scorching soil beneath his feet cracked and hissed, the ground opening like bloody veins under him. Pillars of black flames shot out wildly in the distance. The wind was filled with a burning ash storm churning above everything as if some macabre artist had daubed all that existed under its eerie apocalyptic glow.“Stay close,” Alex commanded, his voice hard and steady despite the weight pressing against his chest. Beside him, Helena’s breath was ragged, but her resolve mirrored his own.“I’m not leaving,” she said, her hand tightening around the hilt of a gleaming silver dagger etched with protective runes. Her defiance was both maddening and admirable.A guttural roar shuddered through the tense silence, echoing off the warped landscape. Demonic forms slithered and crawled from the shadows, their grotesque bodies twisting into shapes that defied nature. Wings of tattered

Darkness crept into Alex's veins like poison, cold and corrosive. The whisper in his mind slid through his thoughts, coiling tighter with each passing second.You are mine now.His fingers dug into the scorched earth as he fought against the force crawling through his soul, but the struggle was futile. A searing heat ignited within him not the warmth of hellfire, but something more insidious, more ancient. Something that did not belong to him.Lucifer was before him, eyes gold glinting in mirth. "Feeling it now, aren't you?" he breathed softly, the words laced with silk, dripping poison. "The power, the hunger… the start of what you're going to become."Helena lurched upright; the streaks of blood across her face glistened as her eyes darted wide in fright. "Alex, fight it!" she yelled at the top of her voice, quivering yet steady. "Don't let him have you!Alex raised his eyes to her, but something in his gaze had shifted. His pupils had become slits, with irises lighting from within