3. ASTAROTH
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In the demon world, power is everything—and it's ranked in stages.
Stage 7 demons are known as The Salpx. They're the weakest of the lot, but what they lack in strength, they make up for in speed and agility. Shadows in motion.
Stage 6 demons are called The Flirt. Winged and cunning, they soar through the skies and serve directly under the mighty Astaroth.
Stage 5 demons go by The Apollyon—silent hunters, feared for their brute strength and unrelenting pursuit.
Stage 4 demons, known as Dargon, are the mid-tier sentinels. They guard the realms between the lower and upper classes, loyal and vicious.
Stage 3 demons are Foris—elite protectors of the Seven Elders, rarely seen, always dangerous.
Stage 2 demons serve as the King's Guard, handpicked from blood and battle. Few ever rise to this rank.
At the top, Stage 1 demons are called the Warriors. They don't follow. They conquer.
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And above them all sit the Seven Elders:
Wrath – the embodiment of rage
Abaddon – the destroyer
Mamom – the hoarder of greed
Thyatira – cold and calculating
Beelx and Beerus – twin brothers, masters of mischief and deception
Astaroth – feared general and ruler of the skies
---
Then—
"Silence!"
The voice struck like a blade through smoke, deep and heavy. It chilled the air, made the walls tremble.
Dexter's breath caught. A cold shiver ran down his spine. Something ancient had just spoken.
---
They waited in the dark for over a century.
Bound in the black abyss of KRONUX, beyond the reach of time, their hatred festered. Now, the wait had ended.
"A hundred years of freedom," the voice rasped like rusted metal, "and your kind used it to wallow in weakness..."
The ground trembled. The sky cracked. Their first act of war had begun.
"Feel it?" the voice whispered—almost gleefully, "That was merely... a flirt."
Then came the laughter—inhuman and jagged like bone scraping against stone. Wings, enormous and leathery, sliced through the air.
Then—Silence.
"Silence!" Astaroth roared, his voice a monstrous vibration that seemed to shake the very marrow of the earth.
He inhaled slowly, deeply.
"Something smells... familiar," he murmured, eyes narrowing into slits of molten gold. Then, as if disgusted by his own sentimentality, he scoffed and moved on.
"I am Astaroth, General of the Primal Army. The flesh of your world will burn under my command."
His voice crawled like spiders into every corner of the void.
"Your species' stolen freedom... ends now."
He smiled—but it was not a smile made by anything that had ever known kindness.
"Who dares oppose me?" he screamed. "Come forward and die like the vermin you are!"
One of the Flirts stepped out. Brave. Or foolish.
Astaroth flicked a claw—and the creature was obliterated in an instant, not a scream left behind.
Among them, Dexter—weak, barely clinging to awareness—saw something... wrong.
A demon that didn't belong.
Its presence twisted the air around it like heat rising from the mouth of a furnace.
Dexter tried to speak. Tried to move.
And then—blackness.
---
Three Days Remain.
Until the Bridge opens.
Until the veil is torn.
"Hahahaha—soon, Master… soon!" Astaroth's laughter echoed through the chasms of hell.
"Your cage breaks... and the world will scream for mercy it will never receive."
The Elders gathered beneath a bleeding moon.
Astaroth's voice curled around them like smoke.
"He grows bored in his prison. Let us give him a spectacle. Let us remind the filth above what true power is."
"Let them drown in fire," Wrath hissed, licking ash from his teeth. "Their extinction will be our hymn."
"Not yet," Thyatira whispered—her voice like frost crawling up a spine. "We need only the Ring. When we have it, we break the locks. No sooner."
---
HUMAN WORLD
The morning was cold. Too still.
Mrs. Clara woke to silence.
Dexter was gone.
She stumbled into the parlor, calling his name—
And then she saw it.
Scorched into the walls, pulsing with an unholy glow:
WE CAME FOR YOUR SON.
WE WILL RETURN FOR THE RING.
The air thickened. The lights flickered.
Her throat locked. Her body froze.
She tried to scream—but no sound came.
Only the whisper that followed in the air like breath on glass:
"He is watching..."
---Mrs. Clara fumbled for her phone, hands trembling, and quickly called Sheila.
"They're coming back!" she cried, her voice tight with fear.
She snapped quick photos of the eerie message scrawled on the wall and emailed them to her CEO without a second thought.
The response was immediate. The CEO contacted the MR President, relaying every detail they had uncovered so far—the symbols, the incident, the strange energy readings.
The ancient ring, now glowing with a strange, rhythmic pulse, was locked away in a top-security facility. Armed military forces stood by, watching, waiting—for the unknown.
Clara stared at her phone as it shimmered naturally, and a chill ran down her spine.
Then she heard it. Not out loud—but deep in her memory. Her husband's voice. Calm, certain, loving.
"I will always protect you and our son, wherever I am."
Her breath caught. Those were the last words he ever said to her before vanishing without a trace.
And now… she wasn't sure if that was a promise—or a warning.