“This is…” The abomination in the abyss growled, helplessly looking forward as Merida slowly walked toward him. His body has been eaten away by the crimson rot, and his bones have started crumbling. The parasitic fungi consumed his energy from the inside out and sent it back to Merida through the mycelium covering the ground.

“I get it, the reason I wasn’t able to do this while fighting Arad.” She said, lifting her sword, “The main strength of my fungus is absorbing energy from the target to feed me. I get more energy to regenerate the stronger the enemy that I fight, which allows me to fight for longer. It’s strange, isn’t it?” Her body started floating, but upon closer inspection, she was getting lifted up by a thin thread of fungus.

“What if I used that harvested energy to supplement myself instead of healing?” Her sword sparked with crimson rot as she flew at the abomination. Blade Dance: Rotten Spore Wind

The abomination jumped away, “Damn it!”

^This monster could as well stand as the demon lord herself and rule a layer of the abyss. What was such a being doing in a human building full of fledglings? What in the hell are you doing, overgod Cain, such monsters should be eliminated from the mortal world.^

Even though he hated nothing more than the overgod ruling over the world, he had expected him to have more common sense and eliminate such threats. 𝖋𝔯𝖜𝖇𝖔𝔳𝖑.𝖈𝔬𝖒

Thousands of demons started crawling around the arena that Merida made, they had come from the layers above and below, horrid creatures unknown to most mortals, the horrors of the abyss.

They were the stuff of nightmares large bull with six arms that stood on two legs and roared flames, a whole swarm of giant spiders with human heads, massive grey worms several kilometers long with maws big enough to swallow a whole city, and even a mass of flesh and guts crawled between them, merely looking at them was enough to make a human puke.

The demons started drumming on their chests and the ground, chanting in an ancient forgotten tongue, their voices rumbling across the arena and reverberating in the abomination’s chest.

He understood their words and so did Merida.

“Kill the invader! Rip the invader! Dance of demons, blood shall be spilled on this day; it’s the will of the abyss!” They chanted over and over, the hatred for abominations was deeply rooted in every plane, and demons were especially known to hold a grudge.

“Our mother is coming! Make way! Today invader blood shall be spilled!”

Merida stopped swinging her sword just as she was about to finish the abomination, the fungus inside her warned her. “The pale night, the mother of all demons is coming.” She mumbled, standing still as the abomination’s body slowly regenerated, she had drained too much of his energy.

Blood started gushing out of the ground like gazers, and a massive mass of flesh burst out, a titanic horrid, and twisted womb spewing demons out like it was nothing. She covered the whole arena and Merida jumped away, dragging the abomination with her.

Above the womb stood a pale woman that looked in her mid-forties wearing a white dress and a veil. She stretched, her clothes doing miracles holding the two massive bags in front of her.

Her glowing eyes quickly glanced at Merida and she took a step forward, disappearing from above the womb and appearing right ahead of her. “What do we have here, a human girl no, Merida, Arad Orion’s wife.” She smiled.

“You know me?” Merida replied with a stern face. She could tell that this woman wasn’t any demon, she’s their mother who taught them to be demons, if anything in the abyss shouldn’t be fought it’s her.

“Of course, I know the woman who raised a new demon lord and now is using her power.” The mother of all demons smiled, his eyes turning toward the abomination. “Worry not, Merida. I did not come to steal your fertilizer; I came to make sure he won’t escape.”

“Did you say Arad Orion? That…” The abomination cried, but the mother of all demons shoved her foot into his mouth. “Now, plug that hole of yours. Be a good invader and die in silence.”

“That reaction was strange.”

“Of course it is.” The mother of all demons smiled, “Void dragons like Arad are the cosmic police, their main job is to hunt and kill abominations before they spread and destroy the world. The world you live in is one of their many breeding grounds; it’s like a cradle of sorts.” She waved her hand and two stone chairs appeared, “Take a seat; we have a lot to talk about.”

“What is this thing?” Merida stared at the struggling abomination.

“They are like viruses if the world was a cell. They invade and change it to be their breeding ground, and then destroy it and spread to other worlds.” The mother of all demons explained and waved her hand, creating a hologram of the world.

“Earth, the world you live in is but one of many, but I agree it’s the most important one of all. It’s the main mortal world. The overgod split into many pieces so it won’t all get infected at once if things went south.” She then conjured an image of Arad fighting the abomination in the caves with Betty and Tempo.

“The world is a cradle for void dragons. A safe place to lay their eggs and give them enough time and food to grow in peace, But the king of all abominations Nyar had devised one last plan after he lost the war five thousand years in the past.” She changed the image into that of a meteor.

“Dracorage Mythic, this is a spell of two layers. It remained dormant for thousands of years gathering power and has just begun to move, the energy it releases is supposed to hinder the void dragons reproduction cycle in the mortal world, and finally send the dragon into a mad rage when it hits.” She smiled, “We can’t stop it the only one that should be able to is the overgod.”

“Then why didn’t he stop it yet.”

“That, I can’t say.” The mother of all demons smiled, resting her head on her hand and gently looking at the distance. ^I probably shouldn’t tell her that he can’t now. He spent all of his energy and life force to rebuild the whole world after the war destroyed it. He is the sole reason that people are living in relative peace.^

“But…” She looked at Merida with a curious smile. “I’m more interested in your husband, Arad Orion. It’s rare to find someone like him, or should I say there was none like him in the past five thousand years.”

“Hands off, he’s our husband.” Merida stared at the womb covering the arena. “I’m not letting someone like you near him.”

“I’m not going to force my way in, that isn’t how I do things.” She giggled, “It’s enough that you’re with him for now. Shall I give you some advice? One from me as the mother of all demons.”

“I doubt that could be anything good.” Merida growled.

“Dedicate your life to grow stronger beside Arad Orion, don’t bother with children now, you can’t have any before you fully turn into a demon. The fastest way to grow stronger is to feed on Arad but you can also kill and use monster corpses as fertilizer for the fungus, pick whatever you like.” The mother of all demons stood, “I’ll make this clear, you’ll never find someone like Arad, grab onto him with your teeth and nails. Don’t lose him,” She kicked the abomination away and it died, “You’ve already eaten most of his power. Use the rest.” She flew away, “We shall meet again.”

“What’s her problem?” Merida growled.

“She’s the demons’ mother.” Fungus replied, “She’s one of the strongest and oldest demons in the abyss, but she rarely fights. If I were to rank them, the demon’s God Slayer Kayden would be the strongest, followed by the goddess of destruction and orphans Kali, and lastly the mother of all demons.”

“I feel like I’ve heard Kayden’s name before.” Merida mumbled.

“It’s a common demon name, many use it. But I have to mention that strongly enough, the strongest demons don’t act like you’d expect demons to be. God Slayer Kayden spends most of his time training dogs and playing with his puppies while helping Kali in her mission to give all orphans a better life, in fact, Kali herself was adopted by him after getting orphaned. The mother of all demons is also just a sweet mother that cares about her children, no matter how ugly or deformed they came out to be for they are demons.”

Merida separated from Fungus, “I’ll head back now. They might need help killing another one of these things,” She pointed to where the abomination was; he had disintegrated by that time.

“I’m always happy to help. But I can’t enter the mortal world; you’ll have to bring the abomination here again.” She waved her hand and opened a portal, “Stay well.”

The fight of Arad, Betty, and Tempo against the abomination main body has reached a critical point, he was far stronger than the clones to the point it wasn’t even funny.