chapter 259

Chapter 259:

Bang!

The female demon’s head whipped backwards as she was blasted in the face with a slug round. I think the armored guy actually nailed her directly in the eye…

It took me a second to remember how I even recognized the armored guy. He looked vaguely familiar to me. I know I had seen him before.

[You have, on a tv screen…back in your past life…]

‘Wait… Doom Slayer?’ I asked in disbelief.

[Yep. I’m just as surprised as you are.]

It was actually the real Doom Slayer!?

What the hell was he doing in our world–no, our Universe!? Was there an obvious crossover I skipped over this past year or did he just spring up out of nowhere?

[Lady Death told you that you broke Space and Time. Maybe that brought him here?]

‘I was expecting some alternate versions of some Marvel heroes to pop up, I wasn't expecting a video game character to pop into reality!’ I replied in my head.

“Ow, my eye! That freaking stings, you asshole!” the female demon shrieked at Doom Slayer in outrage. Her eye looked a bit red, but otherwise was completely fine. Regular human weapons just didn't have enough firepower to put down higher level beings.

“Now now, Jezebel. No need to get so upset about getting hit by a pathetic mortal weapon.” Mephisto chastised his–daughter? She looked like a female version of him so I suspected they were related. She also seemed to be a chip off the old block.

{Daughter of the Devil, Jezebel: Level 66}

Jezebel pouted at her father. “How about I shoot you in the eye and you'll find out what it feels like!?”

Mephisto laughed. “I've been shot and stabbed in pretty much every single possible location over the millions of years I've been around. At this point, nothing can hurt me,” Mephisto said while glancing down at all of us. He was trying to intimidate us by mentioning his age and his made up “invulnerability.”

[What a liar! He was screaming like a baby after the last time you kicked his ass!]

That wasn't exactly a surprise. Mephisto lies about everything. That's pretty much his thing.

Doom Slayer glanced down at the gun in his hands. I couldn't see his face with his helmet on, but I could imagine he was disappointed with its performance just now. A perfect headshot barely even scratched Jezebel.

“Try this instead.” I reached into my inventory and pulled out a few alien rifles I had swiped while I was on Knowhere. They were energy based weapons that I suspected were nuclear powered, so they never ran out of ammo. I tossed him an energy shotgun and assault rifle.

“Thanks.” Doom Slayer nodded at me. He slung the shotgun over his shoulder and aimed the assault rifle at Mephisto. “Does this hurt?” Doom Slayer asked before squeezing the trigger.

Mephisto had been talking tough only a few seconds ago, so I found it hilarious when he started letting out yelps of pain. I swiped those weapons from the Collector’s collection and they packed a pretty decent punch.

“Fuck–ow!” Mephisto yelled while being pelted by high speed semi-nuclear laser fire. Doom Slayer held down the trigger until the gun started to overheat and had to temporarily shut itself off. Mephisto was covered in welts that were already starting to heal, but he was no longer smiling so proudly. “I'm going to kill you first!” he exclaimed while pointing a sharp fingernail at the Doom Slayer.

“Heh! I told you it fucking hurts!” Jezebel laughed at her old man.

I flapped my wings and placed myself in the air between Mephisto and the Doom Slayer. I knew the latter was powerful, but he wasn’t ready for the top of this Universe quite yet. “You won't be getting the opportunity today, Mephisto. You're going to regret showing up in my world in your real body,” I declared while crossing my arms over my chest.

“Yeah! You tell him hot stuff!” Johnny Storm cheered from below. “Flame on!” he yelled and rocketed directly at Mephisto. “Prepare to get wrecked–urgh!”

Mephisto lazily swung his arm and smacked the Human Torch away from himself. Johnny blasted off, careening into a nearby skyscraper. He was lucky Mephisto didn't take him seriously, or he could have been seriously hurt trying to take on someone so many levels above him.

{The Human Torch, Johnny Storm: Level 56}

Mephisto barely gave Johnny a second glance before he scoffed at my bravado. “You were lucky you only had to face a weak avatar of mine the last time we met.” He spread his arms to the sides challengingly. “Now you face the real me!” he proclaimed as malevolent energy began to surround his entire body.

{The Devil of Marvel, Mephisto: Level 168 (Avatar)}

I scoffed right back at him after using Observe. Of course he was too cowardly to invade Earth in his main body. Once again he was using an Avatar, although I suspected this to be one of most powerful bodies–if not his most powerful Avatar. Losing it would definitely set him back quite a bit.

{Emergency Quest Initiated! Repel or slay Mephisto’s Avatar and save New York City before he drags it into his Hell Dimension!}

{Reward: Level up x 3! & An Ultimate Skill!}

“Status,” I thought to myself. I expected this to be a big fight, and I wasn’t going to hold back anything. Mephisto was going to regret thinking he could invade my home city with no consequences.

[Layla of the Fallen]

[Title: Fourteen Winged Angel, Goddess of Angels, Death’s Favored.]

[Level: 97]

[Sacred Gears: Purger of Darkness, Orb of Infinity]

[HP: 117,000]

[MP: 120,000→130,000]

[Faith Energy: 5,345,678]

[Vigor: 10,300]

[Strength: 5,200]

[Intelligence: 12,200→13,000]

[Luck: 2300→2500]

[Available Free Stat Points: 1000→0]

[Perks and Skills:]

-Goddess of Angels (10x Increase in all Stat Points. Access to all Angelic Abilities. Can turn other races into white or black winged Angels depending on the person's Karma.)

-Death’s Favored (Resurrect on Death after 24 hours. Can resurrect up to three people a day.)

-Daughter of Heaven's Will (Passive Skill: Ask and you shall receive! The universe bends to your whims and circumstances that you wish for are far more likely to occur!)

-Observe (Max: No one's level is hidden from your gaze. No one can detect you using Observe on them.)

-Light Manipulation (Max: All Light Abilities Cost 10x less MP to Cast.)

-Senjutsu (Max: Passively regenerate 1000 MP/Min.)

-Rinnegan (Max: All Rinnegan abilities cost 5x less MP.)

-Faith Pool (Can draw upon Faith Energy when MP runs out.)

-Cosmic Energy (Instead of air, you know breathe Cosmic Energy. All abilities are drastically improved along with access to Cosmic powers.)

I was still pretty low on Faith Energy from my battle with Arishem, but I did have 1000 Free Stat Points to work with. I dumped 800 of them into Intelligence to push my MP to 130,000 and give myself a nice extra damage buff. Even if almost 10,000 more MP didn’t seem like much, there was a big difference between 13,000 Intelligence and 12,000 was going to result in a massive increase. I threw the leftover points into Luck.

{Challenge completed: (Un)lucky number 13,000!}

{For reaching 13,000 in a single stat, you have received a random reward!}

{Now Rolling random reward from the Multiversal Reward Pool…}

{...Reward received!}

{Congratulations! You have received your very own Asauchi–A nameless Zanpakuto capable of severing and slaying souls directly!}

Wow! An Asauchi!? That was from the anime Bleach! It was the main weapon of the Shinigamis.

I closed the notifications as a nondescript Katana materialized in front of my eyes. I reached out and grabbed it out of the air.

A weapon that could sever and slay souls directly sounded pretty useful right about now…

Mephisto was controlling his meat puppet remotely through some kind of soul magic obviously. Destroying his Avatar last time hurt him, but this time, I was planning on doing more than just hurting him.

I wanted to HURT him! And now I had a way to do just that.

“Cool sword, did you get it at the flea market?” Mephisto commented sarcastically as I gripped the hilt of my new Asauchi in my hands. He had no idea what I was currently holding.

“Here we go again,” I said to myself as I took a deep breath and mentally prepared myself for another intense fight. My knuckles turned white as I tightly gripped the sword in my hand. I flapped my wings hard, the sound barrier broke as I flew towards him to try and cleave off his head!

Mephisto conjured a flaming sword and our two blades clashed with a devastating force that sent shockwaves all around us!

…

–Susan Storm–

“Holy Crap! She’s moving so fast that I can’t even see her,” the Thing said as the air vibrated around them after Layla blurred forwards.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Susan stumbled and struggled to stay on her feet as huge gusts of air repeatedly slammed into her. She could hardly believe that just the shockwaves from Layla’s battle were proving to be too much for her to handle!

She realized that the Fantastic Four were currently in way over their heads. Her brother had gotten swatted away like he was nothing more than an annoying firefly just a second ago.

“Susan! Hurry up and untie me while everyone is distracted,” Reed practically begged her. “Hurry up!” he said a second time while glancing nervously at the fight in the sky. A battle of true titans was occurring directly above them. This was one of the few times she had ever seen his arrogant self actually looking genuinely afraid. It seemed that Reed Richards finally realized he had bitten off more than he could chew.

“Ok, I'm hurrying.” Susan took a step towards him before an armored hand once again stopped her. The man who had saved her still didn’t want to free Reed.

“No,” the Doom Slayer told her. “He doesn’t go free. He has to answer for what he’s done,” he told her with no room for argument.

“Fuck you! Who the hell do you think you even are! In case you didn’t notice, the Baxter building is private property! You're currently trespassing, and by not untying me you're aiding and embedding kidnapping! My lawyers will see you in prison if you don’t help me,” Reed tried his best to threaten the man.

A man who had literally killed his way through an entire army of demons to reach the top of the Baxter building…

Susan didn’t think the threat of “lawyers” was going to make the man think twice. Also, she was very much aware of the fact that Reed Richards was on the verge of bankruptcy. He alone spent the vast majority of their funds creating his crazy inventions. Inventions that he refused to market so that they could make some of their money back…

“No,” the Doom Slayer dismissed Reed’s threats as Susan suspected he would.

“Y–You son of a–” Reed started uttering some very out of character curse words and insults. Most of them were directed at the Doom Slayer, but a few of them were also directed at her for not helping him.

She’d known and worked with Reed Richards for years. She had always respected him as a Scientist along with his never give up work ethic. Lately, she didn’t know if Reed felt the same about her however. Did he keep her on his staff because he respected her as a fellow scientist, or because he was infatuated with her? Was it even worth protecting him at this point?

Hundreds of thousands of Demons pouring into the City was bound to cause more than a few casualties. Even if Layla revived everyone afterwards, those deaths were going to end up tarnishing the Fantastic Four’s reputation. The team hadn’t been together long, but she knew that it was pretty much done for at this point. Susan suspected that it was time to just cut her losses and move on with her brother…and Ben, if he also chose to finally abandon Reed after all this.

“Damn slut! The only reason I hired you was for your looks, and then you never even bothered putting out! What good are you then!?” Reed spat at Susan. She was momentarily taken aback. He had never spoken to her that way before, and now she knew his true feelings about her.

That pretty much sealed her decision. She also glared at him for degrading her. “Fuck you, Reed! I have three PHDs and over a dozen fortune 500 companies have offered me jobs with them! I’m leaving, and I’m taking Johnny with me!”

Reed let out a squawk of disbelief as she turned back towards the Doom Slayer.

The Doom Slayer nodded at her. “Good. Go check on your brother.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked her savior.

“I'm going to do what I do best,” he said while marching past her towards the portal. He aimed the assault rifle in his hands towards Jezebel who looked more than a little eager to get her revenge against him.

“Are we really not freeing Stretch?” Ben asked her as gunshots started going off nearby, along with the sound of Jezebel’s demonic screeching.

Susan shook her head at Ben. “We can’t free Reed… We’ll be seen as his accomplices in all of this if we do. Let’s just go and check on Johnny. After that, we’ll take down as many demons as we can until this is all over. We need to be seen acting as heroes here,” she said and Ben solemnly nodded at her.

“Guys! Don’t just leave me here tied up! Come on! T–This wasn’t my fault!” Reed called out behind their backs while thrashing against the black chains holding him in place. “Sue! I'm sorry! I didn’t mean what I said…”

“...”

“Johnny! Are you ok!?” Susan called out worriedly as they entered the next door building Johnny had been blasted into. Susan was able to fly them over by creating a forcefield underneath herself and using it as a mobile platform. It was a trick she had come up with completely on her own–despite the fact that Reed kept telling people that it was his idea…

God, she hated how he always tried to take credit for everything…

“Heh, you got a good clobbering there kid.” the Thing laughed, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

“Yeah, I did. I think my arm is broken…” Johnny whined while trying to pick himself up. He was lying inside a destroyed office cubicle that had halted his momentum. “That guy hit me a lot harder than I was expecting him to. Who was he?”

“I'm pretty sure he’s the literal Devil.” Susan told her brother. “Layla is fighting him right now. Their battle is shaking every building around us.” Susan said, a few nearby windows rattled so hard she thought they were about to shatter.

Johnny ended up laughing as he stood up with one working arm. “Hahaha! I got bitch slapped by the Devil? I don’t know why that’s so funny to me, but it is,” he said and Susan smiled. She loved that her little brother could always make light of whatever weird situation they tended to find themselves in.

Their lighthearted mood ended abruptly.

“Humans! I found humans over here!” a garbled voice yelled towards them.

She snapped her head to the side. She saw a small squad of Imps land inside the building and point their pitchforks at the three of them.

“The woman is mine! I want to have some fun with her before I eat her. Woman flesh is the most tender!” one of the disgusting creatures said while leering at her.

Did this creature just say he was going to–?

Susan scowled! Susan formed an invisible circular shield, and then she completely flattened it while rapidly rotating it at the same time. She created an invisible buzzsaw and hurled it at the disgusting Imp. The perverted demon’s head was sliced clean off of its shoulders. The rest of the Imps screamed at her in rage and charged.

“Nice one, sis! Flame on!” Johnny called out as he started roasting them alive. It turned out that burning demons did not smell nice…

“It’s clobberin time!” Ben leapt past Johnny’s flames and started smashing some demon heads as well. Their pitchforks harmlessly bounced off of his rock hard skin.

“Good job,” Susan said. “We’re not done yet though.” The smell of blood and sounds of fighting had attracted a few more squads of Imps to their location.

Despite being surrounded by demons from hell and fighting for her life, Susan actually found herself smiling. She found the fighting to be cathartic in a way. She realized that this was the first battle she’d ever been in where Reed wasn’t barking out annoying orders to everyone mid fight. In fact, without Reed’s constant yelling distracting them, Susan found that the three of them were fighting as a much more cohesive unit. They were tearing through any demons that came at them with ferocious precision.

‘The Fantastic Four were no more, but the Fantastic Three might turn out even better than the original.’ Susan thought to herself.

…

–Layla–

[You’re going to need to learn how to properly use a Katana at some point. You’re just swinging the thing like it's a bat.]

‘I’m doing my best, System! I’m used to spears, not swords!’ I thought back with some snark.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

My Asauchi clashed against Mephisto’s flaming sword over and over in the sky. I hadn’t been able to land a solid hit yet to really hurt him.

I did have a few opportunities to land some light cuts on him, but I held back on all of them. As soon as my Asauchi makes contact with him, he’ll be aware of just how dangerous my new weapon is against him. I didn’t know if I would get more than one shot on him with it.

“Is this all you’ve got, Layla of the Fallen? I expected more!” Mephisto taunted me as he blocked my overhead strike. I was begrudgingly impressed by his strength. He was matching me blow for blow.

{-500HP!}

Air left my lungs as he landed a solid kick directly in my diaphragm. Of course, as an edgelord supervillain/devil, Mephisto was wearing boots covered in metal spikes. Metal spikes that stabbed me when his kick landed.

{You have been poisoned! -50 HP/Second!}

And of course, he poisoned his freaking shoes…

“Not even the special poison I prepared for you seems to be working. I have to say, Layla, that you have the strangest physiology I’ve ever come across. All of your injuries end up disappearing within seconds.” Mephisto commented while observing the puncture wounds in my stomach fade away. “I can’t wait to rip the secrets of your body out of your corpse. Maybe I’ll even resurrect you as my zombie sex slave once I'm done with you.” he added with a chuckle.

“Almighty Push!” I hastily threw out my hand and blasted him off of me.

“Fuck!” he cursed, a wave of condensed gravity smashed him in the face. Mephisto flew back a dozen meters before extending his large wings to both sides. His wings caught the air around him and halted his momentum. “It's that annoying gravity attack again. Haven't you learned anything new since our last fight?” he asked in irritation.

My Rinnegan locked onto his form. “As a matter of fact, I have learned something new. Amaterasu!” Black flames covered his form from head to toe! He was completely engulfed by the flames of Amaterasu.

“I” took that split second opportunity while his sight was cut off to plan out my next move…

The flames burned atop his red skin, but there weren’t any screams of pain coming from the Devil. “Now you’re just spoiling me,” Mephisto said from underneath the fire. “Mmmm, these flames are delicious. I love devouring divinity.” He opened his mouth wide and started sucking in all the black fire surrounding his body. He let out a happy belch after swallowing all of them. “I rule over Hell, you actually thought I would be harmed by fire?” he asked me in disappointment.

“It was worth a shot.” We were fighting above the populated city, so I had to stick with my attacks that caused as little destruction as possible.

Mephisto shook his head at me. “It seems that I have overestimated you. You obviously can’t defeat me in my real form. I suppose I might as well finish you off now. Maybe your beautiful sister Gabriel will be more fun?” He taunted me.

I grit my teeth and glared at him hatefully! “I wont lose here and I won't let you touch her!” I yelled loudly. “I'll stop you!”

“You will try,” he replied dryly.

I flew directly at him again and started wildly swinging the Asauchi in my hands. I wasn’t going for any subtle moves this time, every single swing of mine was aimed to take his head off!

Clang Clang Clang Clang!

Mephisto effortlessly parried every single one of my strikes with a grin on his face. “Wow, you really are trash with a sword, aren’t you? You should have stuck with spears…” We continued to rapidly exchange swords strikes for another 30 seconds. In that short window, I must have swung my sword thousands of times! Not a single blow managed to connect with him. He was right, I was trash with a sword.

“Rah!” I yelled again. “Just die, you monster!” I stabbed my blade towards his non-existent heart!

“I don’t think I will.” Mephisto parried my strike out of the way before spinning his blade and delivering a high speed cleaving strike.

A cleaving strike that landed directly on my neck…

An expression of pure shock appeared on my face as my head separated from my body! The last thing my eyes saw was Mephisto’s smirk of victory.

And then my body exploded into smoke…

…

–Mephisto–

He had done it! He had finally slain the annoying Fallen Angel and gotten his revenge. The expression of shock on her face as he separated her head from her shoulders was glorious. Mephisto was going to remember this amazing moment for eternity. He couldn’t wait to present her head to her family members and witness their collective despair!

He reached his hand out to snatch her severed head out of the air. Before he could grab hold of it though, it disappeared in a puff of smoke!

Mephisto frowned. “What the–”

Puchi!

A sword exploded out the front of his chest! Someone had impaled him from behind when he was distracted by his victory! ‘How dare they!’

Mephisto glanced down at the blade sticking out of his chest. He recognized it, it was the same weapon that Layla had been trying to fight him with. The strange and average looking Katana that had randomly appeared in front of her before they started fighting.

He turned his head to see who had stabbed him. To his shock, it was a very familiar face.

“But…How…?”

“You’re not the only one that can use clones, Mephisto. I knew you would let your guard down after killing me,” Layla told him while twisting the blade in his chest. “My Shadow Clone was pretty convincing wasn’t it?”

Mephisto was starting to feel strange… He was starting to feel incredibly weak. Not just his Avatar either, he felt like something was wrong with his main body! “W–What did you do to me? What is this word?” Mephisto coughed out a mouthful of blood.

“It’s called a Zanpakuto,” Layla told him. “It’s a weapon that directly cuts and sever souls. A weapon that can harm you just by cutting your avatar here!” she explained to him with a smirk.

Mephisto’s eyes widened! That was–that was very bad for him. No wonder he was feeling so weak. He needed to cancel the connection with his Avatar immediately! He was in the process of doing just that when Layla ripped the blade out of him and caused him to scream in pain.

“You’re not escaping that easily. If you survive this, I want you to know that I will finish the job some day!” Layla declared before quickly swinging her blade horizontally.

In an ironic twist of fate, Mephisto ended up losing his head. Layla had slain another one of his Avatars.

As for his main body, back in hell…

It experienced more pain and agony than he had ever thought possible. Before his world went black, his last thoughts were of how he had been defeated by Layla for a second time now…

XXX