Jonathan rolled to a stop, canceling out his momentum. The ground beneath was glassy obsidian. Jagged spikes of a blood red rock rose out of the shiny black stone. A haze of flame and ruin filled the air, the very world somehow infused with the paen of a battlefield in full swing, on a conceptual level.
Before him a throne fit for an emperor… no, a god, stood. It was made out of the same stone as his surroundings, towering over him. Easily twenty feet tall, it was summited by a jagged sigil of a shattered sun surrounded by serpents. The throne was nothing compared to the man who sat on it.
A true titan, a fifteen foot tall demon sat there. Held loosely in one hand, a sword gleamed. Every inch of its surface was lined with fell glyphs and inscriptions. In its pommel a pitch black orb sat. That orb radiated the very idea of destruction, so much so that just looking at it started to erode Jonathan’s vision from the inside out. He quickly looked away.
The man on the throne looked human enough, wearing nothing but pitch black plate armored pants. His chest was bare. Above it all was a cruel face, fit for a conqueror. Eyes of red and black stared out at the world like they owned it. Above that, eight horns crowned him, twisting in on themselves in what Jonathan realized was the same design as the sigil on the throne. In between the horns, a black star burned with the flames of the apocalypse. It felt very similar to Sarnakthros’ power, but even more malevolent.
“Hello, Jonathan,” the man said matter of factly. Despite this, his voice seemed to command reality. The air shuddered on every level of existence with each word. “You’ve really made a mess of my Hells, haven’t you?”
Jonathan simply stared at who could only be Angranor himself, the Lord of the Infinite Hells. The Devil in all of his glory, glaring down at him like judge, jury and executioner.
Angranor rose to his feet, his sword sliding across the ground. It cut straight through like butter. “When I sponsored your journey, I thought you would be… an amusement. Nothing more.” Angranor swished a long, forked tail that Jonathan only noticed now that the demon had stood up. “But you’ve really proven to be something more than that. The lowest level Lesser God in the entire history of this universe.”
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“Why did you bring me here?” Jonathan asked, for once unable to keep the tremor out of his voice. He was standing in front of a true God, a Tier 100 entity. His life was nothing more than a plaything in the hands of Angranor.
Angranor smiled, showing off shining white teeth. “You’re, simply put, too strong. You might have thought that your ascension only brought a bonus to your Divinity reserves, but it really empowered your whole being.” He raised a hand, conjuring up two spheres of dark energy. One was about twice as wide as the other. “Becoming a lesser god is not simply like reaching the next Tier. It is an exponential boost to your strength. Take this sphere for example.” The larger of the two orbs flashed. “Twice the width, but eight times the volume.”
Jonathan starting to become very confused. Mixed with his fear, that was not a pleasant combination. “Are you going to kill me?”
“If I wanted to kill you-” Angranor suddenly appeared before Jonathan, his sword raised “-I would have already done so.” He lowered the sword. “No. I want to talk.”
Jonathan blinked out of existence for a moment. When he returned, he and Angranor stood overlooking a vast metropolis. Inconceivably large buildings vied for space, all struggling to bathe in the light of the black sun above. Everything was cast in black and white, save for Angranor himself, the only refuge of color in the entire realm.
The space was so large that Jonathan’s mind almost broke trying to take it in. Each of the buildings were larger than worlds, and the sun above, so large that even his senses, thousands of times greater than any mortal’s, couldn’t even see a fraction of it.
“That sun was the icon of my ascendency, long ago,” Angranor explained. “Back when the world was young, and the gods also. Now it provides light for the people of Finis Mundi, my circle.”
“World’s End…” Jonathan muttered. A few fragments of a Latin class, long ago, came back to him.
“A fitting name, is it not?”
Jonathan nodded hesitantly. “What does this have to do with me?”
