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Bargain Infernal Episode 96: Sanctuary
The scorched earth still shook beneath Alex Mercer's boots as he gazed across the horizon. Thick clouds churned overhead, streaked with crimson and obsidian, as if the sky itself had been rent apart by the mayhem below. The air smelled of ash and something far older a lingering malice that scratched at the peripheries of his senses.Helena stood beside him, her sword sheathed but her hand never far from the hilt. Her face was taut with worry, the faint light of the horizon casting shadows beneath her eyes.Lucifer, never bothered, straightened his spotless coat and let out a long, bored sigh. "Such theatrics," he murmured, eyeing the smoldering embers of the cavern they'd barely escaped. "Malakar certainly knows how to make an impression.""He's not done," Alex said, his voice low but determined. "None of them are."Helena's sharp eyes jumped to him. "What do you mean?"Alex's fists clenched as shadows curled around his fingertips. "When I was in the abyss, I felt. more than just Mala
Bargain Infernal Episode 97: "The Siege of Shadows"
The fight broke out in a swirling storm of light and darkness.Alex Mercer stood head-on to the first warden's onslaught. His shadows clashed with the hole's abyssal energy with a deafening crack. The warden shrieked, a sound that cut through the air like jagged glass. Tendrils of black energy lashed toward him from its skeletal form.He twisted, avoiding by mere inches the scorching caress of the void. The earth cracked and splintered as he hurled hellfire, ripping apart the creature's defense. It shrieked in pain before disintegrating into a cloud of ash.Helena moved in a blur beside him, the shining blade cutting through two wardens with deadly arcs she made inside of a few seconds. Her face showed fierce determination, sweat on her brow."They'll never end!" she shouted above the mayhem.Lucifer laughed over the noise. "Ah, but that's the reason it is exciting, darling!"He moved with elegant precision, his hands flickering with golden fire. Every step he took left a trail of sco
Bargain Infernal Episode 98: "The Abyss Strikes Back"
The great warden roared, the guttural cry of its voice shaking down rocks from the cliffsides. The air seemed to tremble under the weight of its fury.Alex Mercer stood firm, shadows curling around him like living serpents. His chest heaved, every breath filled with acrid ash and void energy. The abyss inside him pulsed, ready to be let free.The warden charged, its massive claws tearing through the scorched earth. Each step sent shockwaves rippling through the ground, cracks spiderwebbing in its wake.Alex clenched his fists, hellfire igniting along his arms. "Come on," he growled. "Let's finish this."The creature lunged, claws as long as swords swiping through the air. Alex ducked, feeling the air above him slice through with lethal force. He countered with a blast of shadowfire that struck the warden's chest, searing through its abyssal flesh.The warden let out a howl, but it didn't stop. It brought back its hand in a wide, arcing swipe that Alex didn't see coming. It sent him fl
Bargain Infernal Episode 99: "The Sanctuary Fractures"
The golden light of the Sanctuary loomed ahead, flickering like a beacon of salvation against the charred and ruined wasteland. With each step, Alex Mercer took, his body seemed to weigh more than it had the step before, almost as if he were teetering on the edge of collapse. Blood streaked down his arms, and the dark tendrils from his encounter with the abyss still lingered beneath his skin, pulsating faintly.Helena's voice echoed out of the entrance, sharp with urgency. "Alex, hurry!"He clenched his teeth, pushing forward. Every instinct told him that the abyss wasn't done with him, its shadow lingering in the cracks of reality, waiting for a moment of weakness.Lucifer stood beside Helena, his usual smirk nowhere to be found. His golden eyes flickered with something rare concern. As Alex stumbled closer, Lucifer stepped forward, his coat billowing in the wind."You're cutting it close, Mercer," Lucifer said, his tone trying to regain its usual arrogance. "Even for you."Alex coll
Bargain Infernal Episode 100: Judgment’s Reckoning
The light was blinding, filling the room so that everything was swallowed in it. The air became heavy and suffocating, as if existence itself were bending under the sheer authority of the presence before them. Alex shielded his eyes, ragged breath pumping through his lips. The pressure alone made his muscles scream in protest. Whatever this entity was, it was unlike anything he had faced before. Helena gripped her blade tightly and tried to regain her footing. For the first time, Lucifer looked actually unsettled. His smirk was gone, replaced by the taut line of his lip. The figure stepped forward, golden light crackling around its form like divine lightning. Its features were humanoid, but barely its body was sculpted from pure energy, its face a shifting mass of shifting sigils, ever-changing, unreadable. But its eyes two burning orbs of judgment were locked onto Alex. "You have trod where mortals do not belong," the entity said, its voice echoing through the chamber, through the
Bargain Infernal Episode 101: “Ashes of a Love Lost”
The air was heavy around them, as if the world itself held its breath. Alex slumped against the remnants of the Sanctuary's broken walls, his body battered, his soul weary.The fire of the battle had long since died, leaving only the faintest glow from the wreckage, the aftermath of a war fought in the shadows between heaven, hell, and everything in between.He felt cold gravel beneath him; it was nothing, however, compared to the ice clogging his heart. He won. They won. But at what price?Helena sat beside him, her face worn but determined, the holy light of her sword dimmed in the aftermath. She didn't say a word at first, only placed a hand on his shoulder, offering him the only comfort she could in this broken world.She knew, like he did, that victory sometimes came at a price far greater than what you could ever expect.Lucifer stood a little ways off, his posture relaxed but his gaze distant.For the first time, Alex saw him as something other than a devil, other than a liar o
Bargain Infernal Episode 101: "Shadows of Ruin"
The golden light of the Sanctuary was trembling with a quivering mass as the Archon of Judgment stood in its midst, shining bright and replete with a potent aura of divine wrath. Alex Mercer only had a nanosecond in which to perceive the full power of the entity's presence as his knees betrayed him. His very essence seemed to howl in revolt at the celestial force flooding the room.Helena tightened her grip on her sword, the holy glow flickering in the wake of the entity's arrival. "We need to move. Now."Lucifer, for once, wasn't smirking. His golden eyes flickered between caution and something that almost resembled fear. "Oh, this is going to be a problem."The Archon stepped forward, its voice like a celestial bell tolling a death knell. "You have disrupted the balance for the final time. The corruption of the abyss, the defilement of the Sanctuary this ends now.A pulse of light burst forth from its form, sending shockwaves through the crumbling chamber. The force sent Alex crashi
Bargain Infernal Episode 102: Tendrils of Darkness
The air inside Sanctuary was heavy with unease, every breath laced with apprehension. Above the cracked ground, there hovered the luminous figure of the Archon of Judgment, its radiant form crackling with divine energy.Sanctuary quivered before it as if the very walls realized that the celestial authority now stands within them.Lucifer, for once, had lost his smirk. He stood rigid, golden eyes narrowed. "Of all the problems I expected tonight, you weren't one of them."The Archon's voice echoed through the chamber, layered with echoes of ancient power. "You have meddled with forces beyond your right, fallen one. The balance has been disrupted."Helena gripped her sword harder, the holy light flickering along its blade. "If you're here to render judgment, you should start with the abyss. That thing nearly destroyed everything."The Archon only slightly turned its radiant look toward her. "The abyss is a result of disobedience. Your meddling merely puts off the inevitable."Alex, stil
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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,
