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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Klokinator on 2025-10-15 06:57:04+00:00.
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(Part 001)
Far-Future Era. Day 20, AJR. Numaria.
A dozen Demon Emperors, as well as Demon Deity Auger and a few others of his rank, listened to Barbatos's tale with solemn expressions. The revelation that their greatest enemy and the galaxy's current crisis were one and the same had a terrible effect on their moods. If before they had a feeling that they might be able to beat the Plague by allying with the Dolgrimites, now they were under no such illusions.
Auger swallowed heavily. "And what of Uriel? She fled with you from the Cosmic Realm, so why isn't she here?"
Barbatos coughed. He had yet to regenerate his missing hand, and his body was in such bad shape that even with Belial healing him night and day, it might take a full week for him to get back into fighting form, or at least to the point he could heal himself.
"We were... assaulted... by Kolvaxians. The entire way back." Barbatos said haltingly. "Uriel fought with great fury. She summoned her Light Constructs to beat back the hordes, but they were numerous beyond belief. I blacked out, then I awoke here."
"Uriel must have sent you to Hell Harbor." Yardrat said, his astral form hovering beside Auger. "Perhaps she launched you away and used some method to hide your Cosmic signature so the Plague would lose track of you."
"The odds are high that Uriel is either dead or has been captured." Auger said. "But this is hardly the worst news Barbatos has brought us."
Auger turned around to look at all the other Emperors.
"All of us have been deceived. The Plague is not a mindless super-organism. It is a creation of Archangel Uzziel. It is a bio-weapon used to convert us into her thralls. Worst of all, she is a High Cosmic now, along with the other Archangels. Uriel may have now aligned herself with our interests, but compared to the trillions of Plaguehosts lurking in the Cosmic Realm, her assistance will be minimal at best."
"What about Michael and Gabriel?" Belial interjected. "They stood with their sister. A force of three High Cosmic Archangels assisting us, along with Barbatos-"
"Will not be enough." Yardrat interrupted, shaking his head. "I believe we only have one choice left to us, now. We must retreat. All of demonkind must enter the Labyrinth. We must disable the Warpgates and hide there, in the dark, unable to leave. If we do not, we will lose the war the moment Uzziel looses her unending legion of 'Hyphytes' upon us."
"Why did she not do so sooner?" Emperor Leeroy pointedly asked. "If Uzziel has always had the ability to launch an all-out assault, why hasn't she?"
Auger chuckled dryly.
"The answer is simple." Auger said softly. "In her eyes, she has already won. She could obliterate all of us, but she hasn't. Why? Because she is toying with us. Slowly stoking the flames of fear in our hearts. Snuffing out our hope. Pushing us to the brink of despair."
"Revenge." Yardrat added. "This entire war is about her exacting her revenge. She wants us all to suffer, weep, and cry as her forces continually push us inward. And now that her plot has been exposed, she might show up in the next hour and announce our executions. We have no way of fighting back."
"The HELL we don't!" Belial barked, startling everyone around her. "We do have a way to fight back! You just aren't using your heads!"
Auger looked at her with disapproval. "Samantha, there is no reason to speak useless words. You cannot win against an army of unending, nigh-invincible monsters using mere bravado."
"Then I guess you're not all that bright, Auger." Belial snapped at him. "I think we can win this war. I think if we all unite together, humans, demons, and Volgrim, along with the monsters, we might be able to find a genuine solution to wipe out the Plague, once and for all!"
"All our species uniting? What difference would that make?" Yardrat asked. "The Volgrim have had 100,000 years to come up with a method for counteracting the Plague. They failed, and that was before the Plague was empowered by the Wordsmith. Now the situation is utterly unwinnable."
Several demon leaders nodded. The look of dejection in their eyes was palpable.
"Samantha." Auger said, walking over to rest a palm on her shoulder. "Perhaps if the Wordsmith were still alive, we might stand a chance. But he is not. Our best shot of wiping out the Plague was before it became empowered by Artoria, when Diablo still roamed the cosmos. Without him, and without the Wordsmith, who can possibly save us?"
Belial pulled away from Auger's touch and looked at him in disgust.
"So that's it? The war isn't over, but you're going to throw in the towel? Just like that? Where's your courage? Your sense of pride? Has it occurred to you that maybe the Plague isn't as powerful as it seems? Maybe the real reason Uzziel hasn't wiped out all life in the galaxy is because the Plague is not as formidable as it first appears."
The other demons simply stared at Belial. Impassioned her words might sound, but they seemed to lack in logic...
"Think about it!" Belial shouted, raising her voice so everyone could hear. "If Uzziel is the mother of these creatures, the queen, the Plague's primary controller, then try putting yourself in her shoes. Do you really think she has the capability to individually control trillions of Plaguehosts all by herself? No, let me do you one better. Do you think she can even control a thousand Plaguehosts by herself? With perfect precision? The same as if she were controlling her own body?"
Auger blinked. "Where are you going with this?"
"I'm going exactly where you think I'm going." Belial retorted. She stretched out her arm and turned it into a long sharp blade, then began scraping the floor to draw a crude diagram. "Look here. We knew of a human Hero, Jepthath, who could combine the minds of his soldiers to allow them to fight with extreme teamwork. We also know that you, Auger, can combine the powers of demons who have pledged themselves to you, passing them around and distributing them as needed. Don't these powers sound similar to what Uzziel is doing?"
Auger chewed his lower lip. "Indeed. I suppose, if we assume that her powers are somehow similar to mine and Jepthath's..."
"Then we might also be able to assume that one mind, her mind, is far from capable of controlling all those Plaguehosts with the same precision as each of us controlling our own bodies." Belial explained. "That could be a weakness we might be able to exploit!"
Auger no longer looked so skeptical. He stroked his beard as he looked at the drawings Belial had made of a distributed brain-sharing network.
"You might be on to something." Auger said. "But this is still mere conjecture."
"We need to inform the humans and the Volgrim." Belial said. "Only by working together do we stand a chance against this threat."
This time, many demons nodded along to her words.
Facing a relatively unintelligent hivemind enemy was one thing. But knowing there was a central intelligence behind that hive was very different. If Uzziel now had Raphael's counsel, she might start to move quickly. They could suffer an assault by the Kolvaxians by day's end. Perhaps even sooner!
Auger hesitated for only a moment before nodding.
"Yardrat. Open a portal back to Sharmur. Samantha, I'll need to trouble you to explain the situation to Commander Adams. Linda should be more receptive if you're the one explaining the situation."
"And what about the rest of you?" Belial asked.
"I am going to personally confer with Founder Unarin." Auger said. "Yardrat, you will speak in my stead to the Dolgrimites. I want all the rest of you to fan out to the various monster-controlled worlds and deliver this news to all of them. I want everyone brought up to speed on the truth behind the Kolvaxians within the next two hours!"
Yardrat stood tall, his wirey frame seeming to hold a deep importance now that his portalling ability would be key in mobilizing the other demons to spread news around their allies as quickly as possible.
"Yes, Lord Auger. We move at your command."
Without delay, the different demons began fanning out. Belial returned to Sharmur, Yardrat sent many demons to worlds such as Pixiv to confer with the fairies, the orcs, the goblins, and dozen of other species.
No longer could the demons maintain even the slightest facade of hostility. The stakes were too high. One of their own had crippled the Volgrim, which meant they had even fewer powerful allies capable of tackling t...
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