Azazel

by Nameless

  Rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth the worms like a pack of hungry piranha began to tear at the underbelly of the Snagler. Burying themselves deep within the already rotting corpse they began to band together, combining into some kind of hive mind. Moments later the once dead Snagler rose from the sandy grave of Limbo, the worms in full control.

  Clearly smart the young parasite Ramblers realised that the Snagler was so heavy it took it some effort to move so they took a truly grotesque option. They decided to make the Snagler tear off all its fat surrounding its body, and it did, in a bloody spectacle.

  Finally I succeeded in closing elder Azazel’s torn chest and to say I was utterly exhausted was a damn understatement, I was fuckerd. No sooner than I burnt the last few pieces of flesh together I fell back on the sand. Unable to move a muscle or a weapon as they lay at either side of me.

  Breathing had once more become hard. All electricity had vanished from my body. It now felt as though my entire being had pins and needles. What an awful first fucking day. Maybe tomorrow I could mess around in those ruins that looked like so much fun. There might be even more interesting stuff in Limbo too if I looked around. Guess I would have to find out later as my eyes grew heavy. Too darn tired to do anything.

  Slowly but surely I began to drift off until my body began bouncing ever so slightly off the sand and into the air. Something was behind me with the gargantuan strength of a Snagler. Fuck! I couldn’t even move my damn head to see. All I could see was that shithead Az.

  He looked to peaceful as he lay unconscious on the black blood soaked sand. I could smell the stench of foul blood as a gentle breeze passed over me. It had to be the Snagler. The only beast with enough mass to cause a huge gust of wind, but I had shot that fucking thing in the head and blew it apart into meaty chunks. How was it moving?

  Then again it didn’t matter how it was moving, both me and elder Az were down and out. Or so I believed as I witnessed that terrifying bastard sit up, eyes rolled into the back of his head. He literally mimicked a certain wrestler from a certain show. Fuck my eyes might as well have popped out my head from fear alone. It was so fucking freaky, my heart almost gave and my trousers nearly filled as he sort of looked down on me, his eyes rolling forward.

  “Hey young Az. Look we have a matching wound now.” He laughed as I replied.

  “That’s all you can say!”

  “Mind if I borrow your sword? Need to deal with the infected Snagler.” He said like he wasn’t even near deaths door.

  “You scared me to death you prick! Who the fuck wakes up like that and admires their new scar? Shouldn’t you be out cold?” I said with heavy breathing as elder Az hopped to his feet.

  “I feel good as new. Well I’m still a miniscule fraction of my original strength. Wait a moment… You used vulgar language again.”

  Oh son of a bitch, the only words my mind produced as that bastard smashed his fist into my face again. That was the fucking thanks I received for saving his winged ass. Another busted fucking nose that knocked me clean out.

  Chapter ten: Fraction of power

  Whilst younger Azazel lay motionless yet again on the sands of Limbo elder Azazel prepared himself to fight the now grotesque monster that towered above him. Fleshless, the Snagler was a dripping mess of steadily rotting organs and blood. Muscle barely clung to its overwhelming body but the parasitic worms had succeeded in making the monstrosity faster.

  Eyes as white as snow, mouth as dry as the very desert it stood on the Snagler launched at elder Azazel, teeth on show as it tried to snap at him. Not one ounce of fear showed in Azazel’s face as he held out a single finger, to be precise it was his right hand’s index finger.

  As the infected beast launched into the air coming down on Azazel he stood there with one finger resting on the front tooth of the beast. One finger was all it took to hold the behemoth in the air like it was a still picture.

  “Guess I did not need to borrow the sword. Forgive me for I have lost well over ninety nine percent of my power yet still a single finger is overkill. However, you shall make a fine meal for when the boy awakes now burn and be gone from my sight.” Said elder Azazel like he was cool.

  Index finger igniting like a space rocket was launching into outer orbit it roasted the gross Snagler. Completely fried Azazel tossed it to one side as if it weighed nothing.

  “Damn I have lost so much strength and power. Wonder how much time I have left before this Angel string kills me. On my death if need be, I swear I will have your head and spline Raphael.” Said elder Azazel loudly.

  Waltzing over to the young Azazel he booted him awake or tried too. Thinking to himself that he may have hit young Azazel too hard he sat down at the side of him whilst the charred smell of Snagler wafted through the desert air.

  Oh what a delightful smell. What was elder Az cooking? Then again how could I smell with so much dried blood in my nose and with it in such a sorry state? All I knew was that I was starving.

  Waking steadily I looked at that prick Az sat next to me before using my broken nose to sniff the air. It really was a wonderful smell but what it was coming from was repulsive. A crisped fleshy body of a Snagler with worms roasted through it as they had tried to escape.

  Just what did elder Az do whilst I was temporally knocked out for like the millionth fucking time?!

  “Erm… Can I eat that? As gross as it sounds.” I said to winged Az whilst pointing at the fried mountain of hideous food.

  “Sure, go ahead, it will not poison you. After all the only way to regain your soul strength in Hell, Limbo or Heaven is to eat and rest. Just like in the real world you exhaust yourself with activities and grow sleepy. Here it is much more dangerous, if you fail to eat or rest properly, even fail to tend to wounds and it all has a massive impact upon your soul. In order to grow in strength, power and speed you need to increase the capacity of your soul to store more energy. Without soul energy you will die. I’d say your nearing that by now so I would eat, it will make you feel better.”

  Ugh! One long ass lecture, I barely heard any of it other than sure go eat. You need to eat. Barely able to stand I was walking like a zombie towards the pile of cooked meat on the bone and it seemed elder Azazel wanted to fill my exhausted mind with more question and information. Fucking kill me now please!

  “Six months is maybe my maximum limit on training you young Azazel. I doubt my body will surpass its time limit. Unfortunately I’ve lost nearly all my power, strength and speed. Barely a shell of my former self, oh if my Warlords could only see me now, they would panic.

  Over the course of the next six months I shall teach you bits about Hell. How to use that sword and the very basics of using your electric demon ability that I bestowed upon you. Are you even listening?... What the actual!”

  Truthfully I wasn’t listening. I had not heard a single word he had said, too busy gorging on the roasted Snagler which I had managed to eat several tons of. No idea how my stomach was holding it but fuck I was still hungry, I had almost stripped the beast clean within moments, energy rapidly returning to me. Elder Azazel stunned by my enormous appetite just coughed it off as unusual. He knew I was vaguely listening at best yet he continued to lecture me, this time I had to listen as he had a clenched fist. My nose couldn’t take any more attacks from that bastard.

  Elder Az explained to me that in Hell there was eleven floor just like Heaven, in Hell they descended whilst in Heaven they ascended. Per level of Hell it was more violent, destructive and deadly. Floor one being somewhat peaceful. According to elder Az no one had reached floor eleven, this piqued my interest. In order to get to floor eleven you would have to defeat the demon Emperor and his mighty Warlords, he was basically the alpha outlaw of all Hell; there was also the demon council. This in turn would create a great disturbance in balance in both Heaven and Hell since the Demon emperor was on side with the Angels using them to gain more power; this made it harder for people to oppose him especially the gods of Hell.

 
Az told me that in floor ten there were grand scale wars between many legions, angels and demon kings all fighting to be the next emperor so that they could take their turn at trying to unlock the eleventh floor. Sounded like heaps of fun to me.

  Still continuing to lecture me Az told me that once I got free of Limbo that I would need my own Warlords, basically powerful and loyal companions. Then I could fight my way down the levels of Hell. Being a demon king or Emperor sounded great but I wanted that elusive floor eleven.

  Chapter eleven: Two years later

  Nearly six months slipped by and true to his word elder Az so called trained me. His training just meant beating the living shit out of me daily for six months. Technically I was on my own for twelve hours of the day. Free to explore Limbo I was to be hunted ruthlessly by winged Azazel every day, not to mention hunted by any of the other monsters that seemed to think I was a fucking meal.

  No matter where I hid, whether it was in the deep recesses of a sandy cave or in the ruins of someone’s home, elder Az would find me ever so easily. If I didn’t know any better I would say he had some kind of tracking device on me.

  With every single beat down, with every single drop of my blood spilt it did feel as if I was getting stronger. Either that or I was becoming a world class punching bag. There were days that I didn’t get my ass kicked by elder Az and instead he desperately tried to teach me about the basics of surviving Hell.

  I once asked him how long it would take for me to get out of Limbo. He laughed his ass off more than usual. Told me that for a normal person it would take eight months but for me it would take just shy of two years. Oh and for the very first time he actually sort of swore.

  “What do you mean a normal person would take eight months, yet I would take two years?” I said carefully making sure none of my words were vulgar. Checking them I sighed relief before glaring across the camp fire that was spit roasting some demonic boar covered in tough spikey skin.

  At that time we were held up in some ruins, a natural occurrence in Limbo. We were in the very centre of what would have been the hamlets market. There was no night time in Limbo, the sky remained a constant fiery whirl of madness. Growing angry as elder Az wiped tears from his eyes he finally replied to me.

  “You are simply too retarded to make it in eight months.”

  “Fuck you asshole! You’re the fucking retard… Wait a moment… Oh fuck I used vulgar words… Son of a bitch!”

  “There was honestly no other word to accurately describe you better within my vocabulary than retard. It has taken you four months to learn the very basics of your demon ability and how demon abilities work. Oh yeah… You did use vulgar words.”

  Yet again he sparked me clean out, nose a blooded mess.

  He wasn’t wrong though, it was meant to take a month to learn the basics. I was a slow learner. Az said I learnt better through combat and life and death fights. Still I had absorbed enough to survive the very first floor, maybe. Elder Az was still quite worried. In another two years at best he told me he was going to die. The Angel string within his body had sapped all he had and was still sapping. Organs were failing quite quickly and training my retarded ass was making him worse, still he beat the shit out of me effortlessly.

  You dragged me down to Limbo, plucked me from the life of Honduras and tortured me to save my new life. In all honesty I could not have been more grateful to him. From a grade A dickhead you had turned into a man I strived to become. I don’t know when it happened but I had begun idolising you.

  Sat upon a sandy dune just like you did in the middle of nowhere elder Az was long gone. He had taught me best he could in the time he had. Teachings about abilities and demons and that every mortal had one of seven abilities, each person used them differently and sometimes more productively. Basically I would meet others with the same ability as myself. All mortals could manage one ability, if a mortal was then to transcend into a demon they could use two abilities or have access to special demon species abilities. Then as rare as it was, the mortal could further transcend into a fallen angel and gain a third new ability.

  Elder Az only taught me what my brain could handle, the rest I would learn from experience. To get out of Limbo I needed to board a ship manned by the dead, actual ghosts of the afterlife. Before boarding I would have to pay one Ash coin, a currency known to Hell. Ash was one of the three currencies in Hell and was worth less than the other two. The other two being Token’s and Angel dust, which was better known as an angelic coin.

  Ash was procured from killing someone or anything that had a soul. Depending on how strong the enemy was their soul would compress and crystalize, becoming incredibly dense. The more crystalized the soul became the more it was worth on the market. Tokens were a minted currency made from various well-guarded ore in Hell. Angel dust was almost none existent in Hell and was incredibly valuable. It wasn’t even dust; it was apparently a gleaming gold coin, gold nowhere to be found within Hell.

  Elder Az had left and still he had not told me what the quest was that he wanted me to undertake. His very last words were this.

  “When I die young Azazel my Reaper scythe will be delivered to you. It will be my very last parting gift to you. I shall modify it so that you truly fall in love with it. With the Reaper scythe I will attach a note upon it.”

  These were his last words.

  Actually they were not his last words now that I ponder upon it. As he was vanishing he told me to not start a fight with angels until I felt I was ready. Almost two years had passed now and he was right about it taking me so long to nearly reach the end of Limbo. There were so many exciting things to do and see in Limbo that my mind wondered of task. I had also seen countless others fall down into Limbo but before I could attempt to even save them they melted upon the sand or vanished into dust. No one was accepted into Heaven, even those with a heart of gold, everyone ended up in Hell.

  Now a mess of battle wounds and some scars across my rugged body my clothes were trashed. Well I guess it was time to leave Limbo. Getting to my feet I proceeded to move forward, only to stop a few feet later as five blinding beams of gold light came down from the fiery skies of Limbo. Now that was something I hadn’t seen before.

  Chapter twelve: Message in the sand

  Five blinding golden lights, so attractive to gaze at. They connected the many coloured sands of Limbo to the fiery sky. Where were they coming from I thought. Only one way to find out I guess.

  Walking over the many sand dunes towards the golden beams that were now fading I found myself grabbing my sword from its handmade holder that I had stitched into the back of my jacket. Just don’t ask what I had stitched it with, what it was made from or what I used for thread, you honestly wouldn’t want to know.

  Stood still out in the open the sand was grey beneath my feet, a pebble colour. I began to scan the horizon for enemies but all I could make out were a few Snagler’s in the very far distance. Thinking of doubling back something gleamed and caught my eye, something most peculiar. A fairly large black shiny pole was sticking out of the sand, almost blending in with the grey. It was completely out in the open surrounded by many dunes. If I didn’t know any better I would say it was a trap. Like I cared. Nothing in Limbo gave me cause to worry, this sword combined with my demon ability carved through anything.

  Nevertheless I cautiously began to walk towards the object that became strangely familiar as I grew closer. Surely it couldn’t be? God no! I knew the day would come but please do not let today be that day.

  Stood in front of the metal pole drenched in chains it made the pit of my stomach churn and my body grow numb. This was elder Azazel’s Reaper scythe. Tears began to fill in my eyes as I dropped to my knees, my left hand clasped around the pole.

  “So this is it Azazel? You’re dead?”

  I could barely contain my emotions. Never had I became attached to anything that didn’t fire a bullet.

  Never had I felt like this before in my life, it was strange and I nee
ded to compose myself, if elder Az was here now he would kick my ass and break my nose. Slowly getting to my feet I noticed an envelope attached to the base of the weapon. Attached with an elastic band I ripped it open to read the contents.

  ‘Dear Azazel. The time has indeed come for me to die. I bestow upon you the Reaper. Sadly I cannot give you more. Although vulgar at times you were a joy to be around. Never did you ask for anything or even want to know anything, still unsure whether this is down to you being retarded.

  In this letter I want to ask that you partake in a certain quest on my behalf, so here goes. More than anything I want you to live your new life to the fullest, collect your own group of Warlords and run rampant through Hell. Beat Hell. Become the man I know will make me proud.

  P.S If by some chance this weapon does not land directly in your hands then please be wary. Angels maybe close and if they are do not engage them. Run!’

  Once more he called me a fucking retard, his last dying words and he calls me a retard. This wasn’t a quest you had left me you dumbass, it was a call to live my new life to the fullest and enjoy myself. You honestly think I didn’t know or notice that you were my father? Fuck! I am stupid but it was pretty obvious after a few months. Sure someone smarter may have figured it out sooner. Out of all the people that dropped to Limbo none of them had help like I did.