Giving him a quick nod, I follow the others out of the arena, through the halls and into the armory.
Stepping through the threshold, I’m blown away by the variety of weapons and armor from every century and country throughout history.
Grabbing my hand, Frida pulls me toward a section with silver armor lined with gold trim and with a wolf sigil on the chest piece.
“Here put this on. It will protect you and when you transform it will contour to your body. We don’t wear boots or greaves, unless they are a special kind, like what Lucius is putting on,” Frida informs me.
I look over to Lucius as he puts on his armor and what looks like greaves, but modified, so his hands are covered except his fingertips. She continues to explain. “It is so when he shifts his claws are exposed and that set also is imbued to strengthen them to make the nails stronger than any metal.”
“These unique greaves not only allow me to use my claws, but fortify and lengthen them to be a more effective weapon in my half-shifted form,”Lucius shouts in our direction. He must be tired of hearing us talking about him.
After suiting up, all of us leave the armory, we continue down the hall and we reach what looks like a portal. Without hesitation the others jump in with Achilles leading the way.
“Let’s go together,” Frida says with the confidence coming back in her voice, as she grabs my hand.
We step through the portal and the only way I can describe the feeling is its like being microwaved. My skin feels like it’s on fire, but I’m freezing on theinside too. Weird.
Immediately I recognize where I’m at. That wasteland littered with all those deformed skeletons.
Purgatory.
Stepping into the field, I’m surrounded by tens of thousands of armor clad angels all staring stoically toward the jagged obsidian mountains and the gate to Hell. A blood curdling cry comes from the gate and what seems like an endless horde of monstrous, fanged, winged, and grotesque creatures pour out.
Amidst the horde emerges a monstrous three headed dog looking thing that seems to stand about twenty feet tall. Its thick ashy white fur is all matted with the blood and entrails of the damned. With eyes burning a deep red that seems to pierce the soul and is spewing what looks like black ooze from all three of its maws.
Astride the creature is a demon with dragon-like wings and talons wearing heavy hellish battle armor, covered in spikes and spines which have human skulls impaled on them.
As soon as I made eye contact I knew that I had to do everything in my power to completely and utterly destroy this thing.
“Evander, let me out, we need to kill all of them. We need to kill them now,”Fenrir shouts, scratching for control.
Calm down, Fenrir, we will do this, but we will do it together.
As Fenrir settles down a little, behind me a familiar voice mutters, “That’s Mammon, one of Lucifer’s generals and I see he brought a Cerberus with him.”
Looking back I notice Uriel stepped onto the battlefield. My first instinct is to hit him for what he did to Frida, but then reality smacks me in the face as he draws his sword from itsgleaming hilt and it bursts into a blue flame as he commands the angels to advance.
With that command the garrison marches toward Hell’s gate and the endless horde of demons.
Mammon lets out a deafening battle cry and the demonic army floods toward us. Anxiety builds rapidly in me and as I step forward Achilles stops me.
“Don’t rush in just yet. We aren’t here for the lesser demons or even the soldier demons. Our fight is with Mammon and his pet,” he says.
Understanding this, I hold back as the angels clash with the demons. Screams ring out in all directions as swords cling, spears shatter, axes cleave, and arrows fly, leveling thousands of demons in an instant.
Following that first volley the demons push forward violently, ripping angels limb from limb.
Shredding them with claws, fangs, axes, swords, and bludgeoning them with maces. Neither side is giving an inch as hundreds are beheaded, disemboweled, and left crawling on the ground crying in pain.
I avert my gaze to Achilles. “I can’t just stand here and do nothing while they are getting slaughtered,” I shout.
As if on cue the ground starts to tremble. Quickly looking back, the Cerberus is bounding through the horde with devastating force. I watch as it cuts a line straight through our ranks with ease and nothing the angels do seem to phase it at all.
Mammon draws his ax and with a single swing completely cuts multiple angels clean in half.
The difference here is that unlike the other angels that are killed, these ones shrivel up into husks, almost as if they were instantlymummified.
“That’s why I told you to wait. What you just saw from Mammon’s weapon is the reason we didn’t rush in. If you get killed by his ax you don’t just die. Your soul gets absorbed and fed to Mammon, making him stronger. I understand your frustration with waiting, but you need to be aware of what exactly you are going up against,” he replies.
