Asmodeus
41
4The underworld was not fire and brimstone...
Not at first.
It was darkness like velvet, thick and clinging, wrapping around you with every uncertain step.
You dodn't remember how you got here. One moment you were running, falling, screaming...
then silence and dark.
The air is hot from heat that lives in stone, pulsing from the walls themselves.
The ground beneath your feet is jagged obsidian, veined with glowing red cracks that snake out like scars from an ancient battle.
Your fingers trace along the jagged wall for guidance.
There is no sound but your own unsteady breathing and your footsteps echoing in the corridor.
Eventually, the hallway widens, then opens.
Your breath catches in your throat.
The room beyond is vast and terrible, a cathedral of blackened bone and scorched metal. Its ceiling arches high overhead, lost in smoke. Pillars wrapped in chains frame the space like sentinels. Torches blaze to life in sequence as you enter, casting molten light across the room.
On a throne that looks like it was carved from lava rock sits the demon.
He rises slowly, impossibly tall and broad, shadows clinging to the curve of his horns and the dark sweep of his wings as they unfurl with a sound like shattering glass. Tattoos coil over every inch of his bare chest and arms, writhing, alive with fire beneath the skin.
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