2025-01-17 21:32:14
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Bargain Infernal Episode 15: The Abyss Beckons
The aftermath of the battle left the group battered, both physically and emotionally. The chamber’s oppressive silence was broken only by the crackling of residual energy lingering in the air. Alex stood at the center, his hands trembling as the last flickers of hellfire faded from his fingertips.“He’s gone,” Mara whispered, her voice uncertain as she stepped closer to Alex. “But… is it over?”“No,” Alex replied, his voice hollow. He clenched his fists, the burn of the seal pulsing in his chest. “This was just a piece of the puzzle. Darius was working for something much bigger.”Gideon limped forward, using his staff for support. “We need to leave this place. Whatever magic fueled this stronghold won’t stay dormant for long. The Abyss doesn’t let go so easily.”Ella knelt beside the altar, her fingers tracing the runes etched into the stone. Her expression was grim as she spoke. “This altar… it’s part of the gate. Darius was trying to weaken the barrier from here, siphoning energy fr
Bargain Infernal Episode 16: Shadows of the Gate
The group pushed forward through the night, the thick forest around them growing even more twisted and malevolent as they ventured deeper. The air was thick with the weight of unseen forces, and the distant sound of crashing thunder seemed to echo in time with the ominous hum of the seal within Alex's chest. Each step they took felt heavier, the pull of the Abyss becoming more pronounced, more insistent. The gate was alive, and it was calling to him.Alex's thoughts churned as the trees closed in, their gnarled branches like twisted hands reaching for them. His heart thudded painfully in his chest, the whispers in his mind growing louder, more urgent. But every time he heard them, he was reminded of Mara's words, her hand resting on his arm, grounding him. We’re with you. Whatever happens, we’ll face it together. He clenched his fists, knowing the weight of his burden had grown. The Abyss was waiting for him to slip, to falter, and he couldn’t afford to.“We’re close,” Gideon said, hi
Bargain Infernal Episode 17: The Price of Protection
The battle raged on around Alex, a blur of movement and chaos. The guardians, relentless and savage, swarmed them from every side, their shadowy forms almost impossible to track in the darkness. Alex could feel the weight of their gaze, their hunger for the gate’s power pulling at him like a tangible force, yet he fought with everything he had, refusing to let them tear apart the world he was trying to protect.His sword cleaved through one of the shadow creatures, the steel sizzling as it made contact, but the guardian only staggered before reforming, its form shifting and twisting in unnatural ways. The Abyss had twisted these beings into something more than mere demons. They were avatars of destruction, bound to the very fabric of the gate itself.“Mara!” Alex shouted, his voice carrying through the cacophony of battle. He fought side by side with her, their movements in sync, but he could see the strain in her eyes. The guardians were overwhelming, their numbers unrelenting. And y
Bargain Infernal Episode 18: Infernal Pursuit
The air in the clearing crackled with the lingering energy of the battle. The remnants of the guardian’s essence were still dissipating into the wind, a toxic fog that clung to the air like the last traces of death. Alex stood at the center of the chaos, his breath shallow and fast, his body bruised and battered. The seal on his chest throbbed in time with his heartbeat, still pulsing with the power of the Abyss, but he forced the pain down.The Abyss hadn’t been vanquished not yet. The guardian might have fallen, but Alex knew that their victory was but a temporary reprieve. He could feel it in his bones. The gate was still out there, still pulling at him, still waking with every moment they spent near it.“Move,” Alex ordered, his voice hoarse but determined. “We’re not safe here. The Abyss is closing in.”Mara, her daggers still coated in the dark ichor of the shadow creatures, nodded without hesitation. Her face was streaked with dirt and blood, but her eyes burned with a fire tha
Bargain Infernal Episode 19: The Gate’s Awakening
The night was thick with tension as Alex and his companions forged ahead through the suffocating forest. The air was heavy, charged with dark energy that clung to the skin like a curse. Every step felt like an eternity, the trees towering above them like silent sentinels. Their path was unclear, and the deeper they ventured, the more Alex could feel it the pulse of the Abyss. The gate was closed.Mara moved beside him, her hand resting near the hilt of her daggers. Her presence was a constant reminder of what they were fighting for. She was the light in his life, the person who had kept him grounded when the Abyss threatened to consume him. Every time he felt himself slipping, Mara was there to pull him back. He couldn't let her down.Behind them, the others kept pace, but the atmosphere was thick with unease. The guardian they had just defeated had been only a small part of the force that stood between them and the gate. There was more to come, and Alex knew they had to be ready. The
Bargain Infernal Episode 20: The Final Stand
The journey to the gate had taken them through countless battles, each one more brutal than the last. The Abyss was relentless, a force of destruction that cared nothing for the lives it trampled on its path to break free. Alex could feel it pull on him, its whispers in the back of his mind, urging him closer to the inevitable. And with each step, the weight of the deal he had made with Lucifer grew heavier. It wasn’t just about saving the world anymore; it was about saving himself and the people he loved.The group trudged through the dense, twisted forest, each of them battle-worn and weary. The air was thick with malevolent energy, crackling like static, as though the world itself was holding its breath in anticipation of what was to come. Alex’s heart thudded in his chest, his mind swirling with thoughts of the gate. He knew that this was the endgame. If they couldn’t stop what lay ahead, everything they had fought for would be lost.Mara walked at his side, her presence a groundi
Bargain Infernal Episode 21: Love in the Shadows
Standing next to Mara, the cold, menacing energy of the temple weighed on Alex.From the impending threat of Astra and the realization of what lay ahead, his heart raced.Every instinct yelled at him to cover Mara from the chaos, to save her at all costs. She was his anchor, his incentive to fight, and he could not allow the Abyss to claim her.Astra was illuminated in an unnatural light, and in front of the gate her body was displayed. Her malevolence was like nothing Alex had ever experienced.She was something much worse than a mere messenger by now. She glowed, eyes locked onto him, her lips curled in a mocking grin.With the weight of the Abyss in her voice, Astra said, "You are wasting your time." You can't prevent the unavoidable.Alex stood in front of Mara, his ready and rigid body. "Wrong," he growled. "This ends in here."Astra laughed, the sound ripping like shattering glass through the temple."Great words, but bravery won't save her." She pointed at Mara, her smile turn
Bargain Infernal Episode 22: Beyond the Final Gate
Heavy and stifling, the oppressive quiet coated the room. The burning ashes of Alex's dying inferno just barely revealed the aged temple walls. Every glowing rune pulsed menacingly, throwing flickering shadows that appeared to be living and observing.Despite the turmoil they had just gone through, Mara stood close to Alex, her breath calm. Her presence was his mooring, a reminder of what he was struggling for.As though speaking more to himself as much as to her, Alex whispered, his tone mild but resolute, "Stay with me." Mara nodded and brushed his hand.The gentle contact kept him anchored, but it also brought to mind what he stood to lose; they helped him to recall. Regardless of the cost, he had to keep her quiet.The room's heart beats with an unearthly brilliance before them. Towering and hideous, the gate loomed there with a surface a swirling whir of shadows and light. And Astra stood before it. She had changed even more since they last met.Her once-human look had totally ch
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Episode 224: One Final Strike
The world fractured.At the moment the boy lunged towards him, his sword clashing against the Hunter’s blade of shadow-steel, reality shattered like glass.His feet were no longer standing on solid ground.The battlefield the stars, the ruined earth pulsed, tremblied, shifting like an unënded painting.For one terrifying second He felt himself being torn in two.Not by a blade.Not by the Abyss.By time itself.He staggered back, gasping, his vision going double, reality fracturing into two separate lines of incident at once.One he stood here, fighting, existing.In the other he had never been born.Never consumed mermaid flesh.Never imagined, never suffered, never fought.Just gone."This is the correction."The Hunter’s voice remained steady, uemotional."Your existence is an error."Kaiza bared his teeth, pushing forward, screwing his sword back alight."You talk too much."And then he attacked again.The Impossible DuelThis time he moved faster.He could still taste the Abyss
Episode 223: The Last Throne
It was no longer their place of battle.The sunless sky was now a filthy mirror of a world that had perished before history.”Under Ethan and Asha’s feet, the ground shook, not with ruination but with something trying to rewrite existence itself.And the whole thing revolves aroundThe light wasn’t from this world, and now it burned behind their eyes, finally exposed by the broken perishable mask.They weren’t human.They weren’t divine.They’d been something before all of those things.And the closer they got, just their walking warped the air next to them.“You have walked too far, Hollow King.”“You’ve shattered too many chains.“And now you will see what should have been forgotten.”Ethan’s hands made fists.Asha inhaled slowly and deeply.They had no time to think.Because the First King moved.And the final battle began.Before Ethan even had the time to react, he found the First King in front of him.Their move defied space itself—not teleportation, not speed, but the here and
Episode 222: The Ones Who Devour
The sky was breaking.Helena became the epicenter of the battle that should have never been.The Firstborn were no more, their sacred monarchy rent asunder, their celestial kingdom fallen to ruin.But the universe had no love for vacant thrones.And now.It had been supplanted by something else.Reality tore, the sky splitting open like a wound that wouldn’t heal.Out from the void, they came.Not Hollowed.Not firstborn.Something else.Older than war itself, something.They did not have names.They did not have faces.They were churning, writhing aspects of the consummate void, their nacreous flesh contorting into a thousand forms at once—humanoid, monstrous, holy, forgotten.And when they spoke.It wasn’t with voices.It was with thoughts that did not belong to Helena, curling into her thoughts, unwinding her like leaves of an old book."You do not belong here."Helena’s entire body tensed.The Hollow King did not move.The Old One merely watched.Silver fire sizzled along the edge
Episode 221: The Thing That Should Not Wake
The Silence Before the EndThe battlefield was quiet.Too quiet.Helena found herself in the ruins of a war that had rewritten history. The Firstborn's God-King was vanished, their form crushed into void, their heavenly horde blown away like dust.The Hollowed had won.And yet.The heir was wrong.Heavy. Tainted.Like something was waiting.“Yup,” Cain gasped, running a bloody hand through his hair, his silver eyes showing some signs of uneasiness. “Please tell me it’s not just me that feels this.”Helena gripped her throbbing fingers, the black-fire dagger still buzzing in her hand. "You’re not."The Hollow King hadn’t budged.They froze there, their shape like a void, their head cocked slightly, listening.Helena stepped forward slowly, the ground crackling beneath her boots. The Firstborn were disappearing, their godly light blinking out like red stars in the firmament.They had lost.So why did it seem like something worse had just begun?Then.The world shifted.The Veil Splits O
Episode 220: The Forsaken vs. the Divine
Helena did not kneel.Not to kings.Not to gods.Not to the Firstborn, who had cut history to shape and made it fit.She had stood against death.She had stood against fate.And she would stand now.Even as the God-King of the Firstborn loomed before her, his celestial fire coiling in the air like an executioner’s blade.As the burden of their command bore down upon reality itself, compelling everything to bend.Helena stood tall.Her dagger blazed with black flames, oscillating between the Hollow King’s strength and something more ancient.Something that was hers and hers alone.The battlefield was silent.Even the Hollow hesitated.Because no one had ever disobeyed the Firstborn’s command and survived.Until now.The God-King’s expression did not change.They took a slow step forward, their silver eyes calm and infinite, burning with cold.“Then I will break you.”The world shattered.A void pulled inward, the air itself ripping apart as the God-King began his assault, faster than l
Episode 219: The Forsaken Queen
Helena felt everything.The Hollow King thrummed through her as she surged forward, a scintillation of wicked pleasure that burnt in her blood like a fire that would never run soft. Not only did it fill her, it transformed her.No longer was she Helena, the fighter who had resisted destiny.She was something more.Something that never was meant to exist.And as she stood at the very center of the battlefield, surrounded as she was by another ruin crumbling around her, one of a war older than time itself, she understood.The Firstborn knew it, too.They had expected a rebel.They had expected resistance.But they hadn’t expected this.They had not believed she would survive the Hollow King’s might.And they did not expect her to turn it against them.”His silver eyes, previously flooded with naught but icy apathy, now sparkled with another emotion.Fear.And Helena?Helena smiled.Then she attacked.Her movements were like a storm, her new blade slashing through the Firstborn’s ranks.
Episode 218: The Moment When the World Picked a Side
The battlefield froze.Helena’s voice still rang in the ruins, suspended in the air like a blade poised to fall."I will fight for the truth."And just like that.She had chosen a side.The Hollow King turned its void-like eyes to her, unreadable.Cain gaped, his breath ragged, his silver eyes bouncing between disbelief and something else. Something closer to fear.The Firstborn did not speak.They didn’t scream in rage or throw accusations of betrayal.Instead.They smiled.And Helena learned something a little too late.She had walked into a war older than she could understand.And each side had been waiting for her to make a choice.Now.There was no turning back.The Gods Strike FirstThe Firstborn moved first.Helena didn’t have time to react before the sky itself lit on fire.The clouds parted, hurling javelins of heavenly fire onto the battlefield. The Hollowed howled, their flesh caught alight, their bodies liquidizing beneath the assault.The pallor of the air cracked apart b
Episode 217: The Gods Must Bleed
A Sky That ShattersThe heavens collapsed.The sky literally ripped apart, opening like a wound in reality itself, and Helena hardly had time to scream. The battlefield below was engulfed in golden fire and infinite darkness, as though the universe itself was tearing in two.The Firstborn were the falling stars, their weapons blazing with heavenly fire, their silver eyes lit with righteous fury. The Hollowed howled back, their broken voices rising like a war hymn, thair void-forged blades craving vengeance.This wasn’t a battle.This was annihilation.Helena moved.She ducked, avoiding a sweep of a Firstborn warrior that cut through the air where her head had only seconds before been. The heat of their blade seared against her skin, too near, too quick.But she was faster.She spun, her dagger slicing through their divine armor, and, for the first time, she heard the sound she never thought she’d hear.A firstborn screamed.Helena’s breath hitched.She could kill them.And if she coul
Episode 216: The Ah Which Ends Worlds
A Throne of Lies, A War of TruthHelena’s breath was quick and brittle, her heart pounding against her rib cage.The Hollow King knelt before her.Not as an enemy.Not as a monster.But as a warrior awaiting a response.The gods had walked the earth before her, and the earth had been their altar. They stood behind their King, all soulless eyes on her, waiting for her to make a choice.And in the distance.Something else was coming.Something worse.Cain moaned next her, spitting blood from his mouth. “Well,” he muttered, “this complicated fast.”Helena barely heard him.Because she wasn’t looking at Cain.The throne of the Hollowed, upthrust from the ruins, split reality like a jagged wound.It was waiting for her.And deep inside, she knew.If she did that, if she chose the Hollowed, there could be no undoing it.She would not only be battling the Firstborn.She would be waging war on the very gods themselves.And it was a war no one had ever won.The Hollow King’s voice was gentle,
