Chrysalis

Odin had seen many things in his first life. The pressure that came with being a professional assassin, the piles of bodies he’d left in his wake, none of it prepared him for the Demon horde that surrounded him now. They stretched in all directions, the living carpet of small, gnawing demons of which he once was one, replaced with a fearsome menagerie of monsters that towered over the landscape.

There were thousands of them, tens of thousands. Each one a creature of obsession and power. Each one a being of drive and desire that had known nothing but a desperate fight for survival from the moment of its creation.

Yet even the nightmarish gathering was not enough to outshine the horrors gathered in their centre. Even after all this time, the suffocating aura that rolled off the three demons suppressed him, driving the thoughts from his head and the strength from his limbs.

Torrifex, a mass of fire and violence, stood tall amidst the throng. The heat rolling from the giant demon was oppressive, even to a fellow denizen of this place such as Odin. Hidden behind the veil of black smoke that permanently billowed from his form, Torrifex’s eyes glowed with malicious glee as he beheld the scene around him.

No less terrifying were his sisters. Pyrixan possessed a dreadful visage of ash. All that came near her was subject to her frightful power. Odin himself had seen three demons dissolve to nothing, disintegrated by her mere presence.

She had been the first. Torrifex had woken her from her deep slumber as part of his divine mission, issued through Odin by Arconidem himself. The Demon God had commanded that this layer of the Dungeon be made ready for his return, and Torrifex would not tolerate failure in this task.

With Pyrixan by his side, and Odin trailing behind, Torrifex had set out to liberate his final associate. Somonax had slept beneath a field of rusted weapons, stuck in the ground like a graveyard of armaments. Only later Odin realised that those had been placed to seal that which dwelled beneath.

her need for death. A concentrated entity of murder, the tier eight demon was, in Odin’s opinion, the

the lands, gathering powerful members of their kind to their banner as they went. Wherever they

on the former assassin. [You

great demon often reminded him of his… obligations. The task had been laid

I understand how to serve if I do not think?] he rebutted in a rare show

him regret them, but he was not completely cowed just

came the response, [you listen. Arconidem has spoken to you directly. All you need do is

you,] Odin said, his courage failing under the direct glare of the three great demons. [I have

as barely a whisper of a thought as the heat of Torrifex grew unbearable when

demon god commanded. We are to purge the demon lands of the weak, slaughter the unworthy and burn the outsiders. Our task will only be complete when this entire layer of the Dungeon has been

of all the slaughter that had occurred up

of hell. There is fire and lava everywhere I see. The entire place is covered in demons, top to bottom. What outsiders? Who are the weak? What makes one unworthy?

of death,] Somonax breathed and he recoiled as her thoughts touched his. Even her mind reeked of blood. [Arconidem can smell it too. He called you for a reason. Not because of what you are, weak and pathetic, but what you may become. His return will herald a new uprising, when demonkind will set aside their obsessions and

[This place is ours, it belongs to us. The demon god granted it to us long ago and now we must drive out