Rise in Hell [Maou]

Chapter 14

Gabriel was alone in the pitch-black darkness—the darkness of solitude, fear, and madness.

The chapter began with Gabriel awakening from that hallucination in which he saw Isaac Shvishenkov. His face was filled with terror, and he was bewildered, for this was the first hallucination where he had seen a human.

Gabriel sat on the damp floor in a shadowy corner of the witches' house, consumed by his despair. The wooden walls emitted sounds akin to scratching, as if something moved behind them, silently watching him.

His ears had grown overly sensitive, making every sound more terrifying, as though whispers were speaking directly into his skull.

Cold winds crept through the cracks in the witches' house, like unseen breaths slipping through the fissures, carrying with them voices that did not belong to this world.

This house had existed since the dawn of humanity; it was not created by Arkantha herself before her arrival years ago. Here, witches had hidden from the king's men in the dark ages of this island, and here, their legacy remained etched into every wooden plank and every shadow stretching across the floor.

The pale, blood-red moonlight seeped through a broken window, yet it was insufficient to dispel the darkness that engulfed the place. On the contrary, it seemed to deepen it, as if the very light bore an inexplicable curse.

His eyes were wide, scanning every corner, every spot, searching for something unknown to him. Fear slithered in his chest like a starving serpent, and the whispers in his mind did not cease, repeating like a sickly echo:

"Is this place real? I mean... if everything is real, how could it withstand the explosion of the universe, possessing such cosmic might?"

He began to scream, striking his head against the ground in madness, as though physical pain might free him from his insanity.

"How is this? How is this? How is this? How is this?"

Then he howled as he tore at his hair, his hands drenched in blood—blood mingled with curses from which escape was impossible.

"How can this be real?!"

He wept as he pounded the ground, his voice ragged with anguish:

"How can I live with all this pain?!"

He had seen too much, far more than any human should, yet now he was utterly alone—a mere exhausted body within the witches' house he was never meant to enter, on a cursed island where everything indicated that his very presence was a mistake.

Even the The powerful alien known in the galaxy by the nickname Alien X Edward, when he attempted to approach the old Witches house , met his end in madness despite all his power.

Then, as if the void had devoured everything for a moment, the sounds ceased. The air stopped. Time itself halted.

And then Zulish entered.

But he did not enter quietly... rather, he forced his way into existence as though the very fabric of the dimension could not contain him.

His form was spectral, ghostly—his head immense, piercing through the roof of the house.

That ghastly green phantom resembled the Flying Dutchman, yet Zulish was more terrifying than anything the universe could conceive.

Even in his former state, he was a monstrosity that defied human comprehension, but now? Now, he was something words could not even begin to describe.

His voice thundered like a storm, shaking the entire island:

"Did you ask me whether there is a god?"

He loomed closer, his ghastly visage exuding a noxious, greenish substance—but it was not mere liquid… I was like the green acid when the liquid fell on the ground, it made the floor of this demonic house that was not affected by anything completely melt.

Dark creatures also fell from Zulish's body as if they were his followers. Those were the creatures of the night.

Scorpions, serpents, rats, tiny skulls, bats, ravens, and even an owl poured from his spectral body, twisting in the air—some of them spectral red phantoms Blood dripping from it , The other half were green ghosts. as if tormented souls seeking an escape.

Gabriel did not immediately lift his head. He did not want to see. He did not want to know.

He shielded his face with his hands, trembling, as though his hands could somehow ward off the horror embodied before him But she certainly wasn't able to do that, but they were the brave attempts of a human being with an echo of power that his brain was unable to comprehend. .

Panting, he screamed:

"What... what?! What do you want?!"

His body quaked violently, his breath ragged, but he mustered what remained of his voice to scream in madness:

"Did you not say we were allies?!"

Zulish laughed, but the laughter was not human. It was... void, sheer nihilism incarnate.

He plunged one of his ghostly hands into Gabriel's heart and clenched it tightly; agony engulfed him like never before.

"Certainly, mortal… but were you not the one who wished to know the truth of the universe?"

His laughter echoed in the ether, as if the universe itself mocked Gabriel.

Slowly, Gabriel lifted his gaze, and there, in the middle of the room, the wall had transformed into a massive, spectral television.

But this was no ordinary television.

It was unnaturally tall, its black screen not reflecting light but rather devouring it, as though it were an abyss stretching into infinity. It bore a grotesque, unnatural grin that made one's stomach churn—not a normal smile, but… something fundamentally wrong, something beyond human comprehension.

"No, there was no god."

Zulish approached, and the shadows retreated as if they feared his presence.

"There were only two. The First Ones. The parents who created everything, then died, leaving behind offspring of bloody red fire and ominous shadowy darkness."

He raised his hand and said, "Witness this cosmic event, you wretched mortal. Those two brothers were arrogant; they cared neither for humanity nor their own offspring. They did not care for any creature.

They saw themselves above all. But the fiery brother wished to leave the creatures alone, not to torment them. Though he was also evil, my father, the Shadow Demon, did not like this. He, too, did not care for all the creatures of the universe, but he wanted to rule, to be worshipped, even though this would not affect him in any way.

But his immense malice desired that all creatures live in hell. He also wanted power for himself. So he challenged his brother, the Lord of Demons (maou)."

"As you have heard, the second fiery brother was the Lord of Demons, Demovi Tempest.

My father fought him in an endless battle that lasted for a trillion years, where only hell itself was capable of containing the power of the cosmic entities. They slaughtered each other in Gehenna, and their immense power destroyed hell, the underworld, and even heaven itself.

Though their parents had created heaven and hell to be suitable for enduring their extreme power, even these realms could not withstand a full billion years of their slaughter."

He paused for a moment, as if the events were roaming through a past incomprehensible to humans.

Gabriel's mind was frozen despite his intelligence.

"My father won in the end, for it was a war of attrition, and my father had the greater endurance. But he could not kill the great Demon Lord Demovi, so he imprisoned him in a parallel dimension.

But it was not a prison in the conventional sense, for no power could imprison the Lord of Demons. He agreed with him that he would rule this second dimension, which was very close in size to this one ruled by my father.

It too was filled with countless universes, though fewer than the one we exist in. And because he was the defeated one, Demovi accepted the matter."

Demovi's form was grand, majestic, and terrifying. This cosmic entity was the ruler of all demons, possessing an extraordinary but ominous beauty, as if his very existence heralded destruction.

"In truth, Gabi, I believe that Demovi is my real father and that the Shadow Demon took me from him for some reason. Perhaps they had a pact that required handing over the most terrifying of their future sons to the victor. I do not know why. Here, they relied on making him more terrifying in form rather than strength. I do not know the reason, but I am certain that this is what happened. In any case, Demovi Lord of the demon"s ..."

His face was sculpted with uncanny precision, a blend of allure and dread, covered in skin so pale it was almost marble-white, heightening the contrast with his glowing crimson eyes, which radiated an aura of magic and absolute authority.

Long silver strands of his hair cascaded along the sides of his face, disheveled yet in a way befitting a being beyond human standards of beauty.

His ears were pointed, extending noticeably outward, giving him an ethereal quality, as if he were born from the chaos of the cosmos itself.

Two curved horns protruded from his head, dark as the end of a doomed era, arching sharply backward, like metallic blades carved from the shadows of the night.

He wore a demonically intricate armor, forged from dark metal resembling bone, adorned with sharp embellishments like infernal thorns. At the center of his chest glowed a crimson gemstone, pulsating as if it were a heart beating with energy not of this world.

Behind him, his tattered wings unfolded, with dark red membranes, akin to those of a colossal bat—yet of an unfathomable size, stretching into the void as if they were a veil between reality and nightmares.

His smile, when it appeared upon his lips, was not human—it was a mixture of indifference and disdain, as if everyone before him were nothing more than dust caught in the stream of time.

He was not merely a cosmic entity, not just a Lord of Demons. He was the embodiment of absolute power, an unbreakable will, and a terror that transcended the limits of comprehension for all who had ever existed.

Zulish ran his fingers over a majestic green circle and looked at Gabriel with a gaze that made the very air grow cold.

"But I have found a map leading me to that dimension."

Gabriel felt a shiver crawl over his skin. He was unsure what Zulish meant, but he sensed that this was not just an old story.

"Why?" he asked in a faint voice.

Zulish smiled, and his smile itself was a sin.

"Because Demovi is stronger than all of my father's offspring... stronger even than the Seven Princes. And because he may be my true father, perhaps we should unite our blood for a common purpose."

Then, before vanishing into the darkness, he added:

"And I will need you to help me free him."

While Gabriel was trapped in his home, plotting with Zulish, who had succumbed to madness, someone was watching him.

In a distant corner of the galaxy,

inside a terrifying chamber filled with the corpses of extraterrestrial beings and various dead creatures—some of which defied classification—along with a group of slaves kneeling in reverence, a breathtakingly beautiful woman sat upon a cushioned throne, her gaze fixed upon a mystical violet crystal that pulsed with eerie energy.

There, within that forsaken place, inside a colossal black cathedral that seemed to swallow all light, the woman remained cloaked in shadows, her delicate fingers interlocked beneath her chin in a posture of cold contemplation.

She was Arkantha, the Seer, the most powerful witch in the universe.

Through a mirror of frozen blood, she watched the unfolding events, her eyes tracing Gabriel as he conversed with Zulish, observing the key, witnessing the truth as it unraveled before her.

"So, it has begun… I never thought I would live to see your betrayal, brother. How foolish you are… Hahahahahahaaaaa…"

She spoke softly, her voice carrying an undercurrent of amusement and malice, before turning her attention to another presence standing beside her, a figure shrouded in absolute darkness.

This being was monstrous, its eyes glowing ominously, its form veiled in shadows so dense they devoured the very air around it. From its mouth, grotesque tendrils slithered and writhed like those of some eldritch cephalopod. Though its full form remained unseen, what little was visible suggested something nightmarish—something akin to a ghoul, yet infinitely more horrifying.

It was as if whispers from the Darkness had taken a physical shape… or perhaps, it was a new cosmic entity entirely.

Then, in a voice that sent the very walls of the cathedral shuddering, the creature uttered its decree:

"It is time to ruin the party." 

Our events take us back to the terrifying, gloomy and gothic frozen seas.

In the frozen ocean, where no life stirred except for the howling winds and the all-consuming fog, the military vessel carved its way forward with agonizing slowness, as if the sea itself recoiled from granting it passage.

Detective Carl stood at the bow, his heavy coat billowing wildly under the fury of the storm, his gaze fixed upon the ice-bound island that had begun to emerge upon the horizon—a pale specter lurking in the distance.

Despite his practiced ability to mask his emotions, something deep within him howled in warning, an unshakable certainty that they should not be here.

"This island... it feels alive, as if it watches us," he murmured.

But no matter the foreboding weight upon his soul, the time had come. The time to finally eradicate the Reaper of Souls of Wingleton.

Carl laughed—a dry, hollow sound lost within the wind—before muttering to himself, "Hah... I have bested you, Gabriel Sunderland. None in this world can defeat me in a battle of wits."

Meanwhile, Marcus stood hunched over the radar, his face tightening with unease. Strange signals had begun to appear—deep, rhythmic pulses, slow and deliberate, yet unmistakably unnatural. They were neither the heartbeat of any human nor the signal of any vessel.

It was something else. Something vast. Something stirring beneath them.

A dense mist thickened around the ship, swallowing the last remnants of visibility.

Marcus, his voice tinged with reluctant dread, called out:

"Carl… there is something in the water."

Carl did not reply. His hand merely tightened around his gun, as if his body already understood a truth his mind refused to grasp.

Then—

The ship lurched violently!

A sound—impossible, dreadful—reverberated through the air.

It was neither the cry of an orca nor the groan of shifting ice, but something far deeper, as if the very ocean had exhaled in anguish. A muffled detonation, vast and abyssal.

Before the crew could even begin to comprehend, the sea itself split apart!

A wave—no, something greater than a wave—rose. Not water, but flesh.

A shape emerged from the abyss.

It was colossal beyond mortal reckoning. Its skin, black as the void between the stars, shimmered with cosmic light, reflecting the moon as though it were cast from the cold metal of a forgotten, dead world. Down its spine stretched vast, blade-like fins, slick with seawater that dripped in inky rivulets, darkening the ocean into something unnatural.

The sea itself no longer resembled water. It had become an abyssal firmament, an oceanic void. There, constellations swirled, supernovae flared and collapsed, comets streaked through a nameless expanse.

And its head—

It was not the head of a whale.

It was malformed, elongated, as if creation itself had faltered in the act of shaping it.

Its eyes—no, there were no eyes. Only gaping voids, absences in the fabric of reality, as though this entity perceived the world through some unknowable, eldritch sense.

Then, its mouth yawned open.

But no teeth lay within.

Only writhing limbs—torn, emaciated arms—reaching blindly, groping hungrily for something unseen.

And in that moment, Carl understood a simple, terrifying truth:

We are not the hunters here. We are the prey.

A scream tore from his throat, raw and uncontrolled.

But then—

A voice, familiar, yet impossibly distant, called out to him.

"Carl! Carl! Carl! Wake up! What's wrong with you? We're almost there!"

Carl jolted awake, his breath ragged, his body trembling with a terror that had not yet faded. He scrambled to his feet, wide-eyed, his gaze darting frantically across the deck.

"The hell happened? Where—where did it go? That thing... the demon whale—where is it?!"

Marcus stared at him, concern and confusion etched upon his face.

"What are you talking about?

There was no whale. You were standing right here with us, then suddenly collapsed. You started shaking, screaming, your eyes rolled back into your head. We thought—"

Marcus hesitated. "We thought something was wrong with you."

Carl could only stare, his lips slightly parted, his breath shallow.

His eyes, hollow and distant, carried the gaze of one who had seen too much.

And, in a voice barely above a whisper, he murmured:

"It is impossible… for that to have been merely a hallucination."

While Carl was filled with fear and madness, there was something even more fearful and maddening happening somewhere far away from our universe.

In the forgotten dimension of the parallel universe, there stood the majestic castle of Dimofsi Tempest, the Supreme Demon Lord. It loomed over a terrifying cosmic river, with thirty crimson moons and twenty blazing suns casting eerie shadows upon its walls. A colossal dragon soared through the sky, while giant vampire bats flitted between the towering spires.

Inside the castle, an enormous hall stretched into the abyss, its floor a deep, menacing violet, marked by bizarre carvings that seemed to pulse with life. Statues of monstrous dragons lined the corridors, their twisted expressions frozen in eternal agony.

Seventy terrifying, winged demons knelt in absolute submission, their bodies trembling in reverence. Among them, one demon—towering, exuding an overwhelming aura of power—stepped forward, yet he too knelt before the throne.

A deep, chilling voice broke the silence:

"Maou sama Tempest… Zolesh has begun to move."

Before them, sitting on a colossal throne, was Dimofsi Tempest, the Lord of Demon Lords. Before his feet lay thirty legendary swords, perfectly arranged, and countless skulls—remnants of past betrayals. Upon his throne, a crown of bones shifted, as if whispering ancient curses. On a golden plate beside him rested the severed head of a demon, its frozen expression one of sheer horror—evidence of a traitor's fate.

Dimofsi sat with an unmatched aura of dominance, his chin resting on his palm, his legs crossed with effortless arrogance—a posture every ruler of the abyss shared.

The kneeling demon spoke again:

"Maou samaa… Zolesh is making his move against you."

A long, dreadful silence filled the hall.

Then, Dimofsi Tempest smiled.

And with a laugh that shook the very foundation of the castle, he declared:

"Hahahahahaha! That insolent son dares to challenge me? Let him prove his worth in battle first… if he truly seeks my favor! HAHAHAHAHA!"

But then, his laughter faded, and his eyes gleamed with an ominous light. His voice dropped into a chilling whisper:

"Before he reaches me… I will show him something he has never seen before. I will show him… his true fear."

If you want me to ally with you, my son, you must defeat me in a fight, life or death.

End of Chapter.