A Taste of Hell: Eelis

~~Author's Note~~

Welcome. "A Taste of Hell" is a mini series of small novelettes, each told from a unique point of view of side characters in my upcoming main series "The Pleasures of Hell", a fantasy adventure set in Hell. While the main series will have two PoVs, both human (brother and sister) and not featured in this series, these prologue/bonus chapters will give curious readers a taste of this setting from the view of the various angels and demons that populate it, and a taste of the erotic elements.

These chapters are entirely optional. No need to read them if you'd prefer to go into the main series blind.

Erotically, "A Taste of Hell", and "The Pleasures of Hell", will focus largely on monster girls and monster boys, usually paired with someone not monster-y. Expect lots of kinks to be explored, with exaggerated proportions, size difference, deep/large penetration, harems and/or reverse harems, and plenty of others. There'll be fantasies for dominant and submissive readers alike. Erotic scenes that are particularly long and descriptive will be bracketed with ♥♥♥ /♥♥♥. If you're not looking for a juicy scene, skim the dialog in these sections so you don't miss anything important.

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~~Two thousand years before the Arrival~~

~~Eelis~~

"Get down!"

Arioch didn't listen. Eelis grit his teeth until they threatened to break, and punched the mikalim in the face, toppling him, before Eelis slammed his titanic shield into the stone. The rocks shattered and split apart under the shield's base, the holy metal sinking a foot into the bowel's of Hell as Eelis braced behind it. And behind him, the fallen Arioch's eyes stared wide through the slits of his helmet.

Hellfire crashed against them, and Eelis roared into his shield as he pushed his weight against it. The scorching heat rolled over them, and both angels tucked deep into the shadow of the shield, wings snug to their backs. Arioch was mikalim, and his wings came with no armor, but Eelis's wings were larger, and white and gold armor guarded the arm of each. They glowed bright against the incinerating heat of the demon's breath.

Only when they heard the battle cry of another angel launching themselves toward the bolstara did the hellfire cease, its billowing waves fading as the demon turned to face the attacker. Without the thunderous barrage of the deathly fire, Eelis could hear the battle rage around him. Holy metal struck metal. Demons roared and angels screamed. Before him stood the False Gate, with its giant walls of black metal, spikes, and a million hanging skulls. Above them, the great vortex swirled, and the base of the eternal maelstrom licked the top of the False Gate Cathedral.

Death was everywhere. Beside Eelis lay a fellow angel, Mayme, dead, both legs removed. Beside her, lay Nadir, with one of Belor's weapons skewering his back. A double-sided axe with a long grip, with dark metal that glowed amber at the core, power they had not been prepared for. The korgejin that wielded it, a ten-foot-tall beast with wings and hooves, lay next to the two angels, a dozen deep gashes cut through his hard, black, leathery skin deep enough to bleed him to death.

Hundreds of angels, and thousands of demons lay in the field of stone, metal spikes, and jutting coils of metal chains, hooked to more spikes that stuck up from Hell's surface. Around them far in the distance and in shadow of sharp mountains, cathedrals of black metal, blood, and stone surrounded the False Gate. Eelis did not know who built them, but he knew it wasn't this Belor, this warmonger. Each cathedral was a battlefield, with angels flying around them, slaughtering demons small and large alike. The imps and grems stayed far away, watching the battle with wide, scared eyes, and the volas were nowhere to be seen.

In this fight, one could find only brutality and murder.

With a moment to breathe, Eelis turned and looked to the captain.

"Arioch, are you injured?"

"Other than your punch, I'm fine." The mikalim stood up, and Eelis could see the man's eyes go wide inside his helmet. "Your wings..."

Eelis looked to his wings and the armor that covered their arms up to the final joint. What was once metal, gold and white and beautiful, now sagged, half melted, and the searing heat teased Eelis with threats of incredible pain to come. His wings no longer glowed gold, but were tinted black where hellfire had burned his feathers.

"I'll be fine." And he would be, once they were done with this madness.

With a heavy grunt, Eelis stuck out his right hand, and summoned his spear. The enormous staff burst forth from a blast of light, a nine-foot weapon topped with a mirror blade. With his arm hooked into the several grip straps of his tower shield, he yanked it out of the stone, and held the seven-foot shield at his side.

Arioch joined him, a longsword with mirror blade in one hand, a medium four-foot shield in the other. Both of them wore the colors of Heaven on their armor and shields, shining white with designs of gold, lined with dancing silver. But both of them were covered in a new color: red. The blood of demon and angel alike coated them, oozing over the elaborate indentations and ornamentations of their armor and shields. Much of it was burned to black char, and the smell turned their stomachs.

They wouldn't, couldn't vomit, but their reflections wanted to, nonetheless.

The bolstara that had breathed flame upon them stepped back again and again, slashing at the angel in her face with her four arms. But the mikalim attacking her was relentless, smashing aside her claws with her shield, and blocking oncoming claws with her sword, all at the same time. Wings kept her in the air, and bolstara had no wings. The angel woman slashed away at her again, and again and again, pushing her back and stopping the huge creature from using her hellfire. And with the lighter armor and shield compared to a rapholem, the mikalim woman had the mobility to flap away almost instantly, and close the distance just as quickly to force the tetrad demon back and back.

Eelis spread his wings, summoned his grace, said a silent prayer, and pushed forward. And promptly stumbled, the weight of his armor crushing him and forcing him back to the ground.

"Eelis, you damn fool." Arioch groaned and shook his wings out as he walked up to Eelis's side. With a heavy grunt, he helped Eelis to his feet. "Stay back until you've recovered enough to fight."

"I can't stay back, we don't--"

"I said stay back. If necessary, wait for help from the rest of Avinoam."

"You think more survived?"

"I trust my legion."

Eelis winced and looked down. He did not share Arioch's optimism.

Before Eelis could stop him, Arioch bolted past him, wings bursting into bright light as they fueled his charge. He closed in on the enormous demon, but the bolstara compensated immediately. She ducked back underneath Arioch's dive, disgustingly nimble for such a tall creature, and she spun as she did. One of her four hands snapped out and grabbed a nearby blade that had fallen from one of her comrades, one of Belor's gleaming black blades made of meera, with veins of hellfire somehow trapped within cracks on the blade, like veins of lava.

The demon spun, a graceful dance as she continued to back up, her long hair tendrils slashing at the air with the many blades that'd been pierced into their tips. Arioch and his companion were forced to hover outside the range of the creature, both with sword and shield raised, but unable to approach. The woman, Eelis didn't know her name, was exhausted, panting and unsteady as she tried to maintain her hovering next to her captain.

They both dove upon the demon again.

Eelis looked around again. A dozen of the terrible four lay dead before him, and a few hundred other demons lay about as well. Ragarin, tregeera, devorjin, gorgala and riiva, and borjin. How Belor had managed to recruit breeds from other spires, Eelis didn't know, but the sheer numbers the creature had summoned surprised the mikalim assault into paralysis. The Heavenly Islands Ravid, Avinoam, Samael answered the call, and their rapholem and gabriem came to save what they could.

Only to find disaster. They'd yet to reach the stairs of the main False Gate Cathedral, where it stood next to the spire. But they had grown closer, and closer. But for each of the terrible four they slew, for each of the dozen lesser demons they brought low, an angel died. The battlefield of stone and metal, bathed in the red of the burning sky above and blood alike, was becoming a grave of claw, horn, and feathers.

Eelis lifted his shield enough to slam its base against the ground once again, and let it hold his weight as he fought for breath. Sweat dripped down his body, mixing with blood that coated the left side of his waist. Earlier, a blade had stuck him hard enough to break through his armor at the waist hinge. If he didn't treat the wound soon, this reflection would succumb and die, and he would die with it.

He tried to lift his shield again, but it would not rise. He tried again, and groaned as flesh twisted and fought against the weight of his own blessing. But it would not lift.

"Eelis, you fool. Enough." A woman's voice.

Eelis looked behind him, wincing with the motion as his flesh fought to not tear. "Seonaid."

Mikalim angels were powerful warriors of agility and strength. Rapholem like Eelis were immovable walls of protection. And Gabriem like Seonaid were beacons of restoration. Her armor did not have the thickness needed for prolonged battle, and her helmet did not cover her face. Her soft wings glowed behind her to their fullest, and her long blond hair flowed down over the plates of her shining armor. White silk drifted out from where layers of her armor met, but white no longer, stained red in the blood of the fallen, with sheets of shining chainmail behind, also dripping crimson.

With her open helm showing her face, her dismay was clearly visible. Eelis met her opal gaze for only a moment, before looking away as pain ripped through his side. He fell, and the stone beneath him cracked as his knee slammed against it.

Wind cut across the ground around him, and Seonaid joined his side instantly. The long white and gold bow and her quiver of mirror arrows vanished from her grip as she knelt down beside him, and placed her hand against the dent in his armor. The light of her grace flowed into her fingers and palms, and soon the soothing waves of its power seeped into the wound. Pain faded, and Eelis sighed relief as the flesh of his reflection mended. The armor did not; his rune and grace would only recover with rest.

And there would be no rest, not yet.

He grunted acknowledgment, nodded to the gabriem, and stood. Flesh struggled and screamed in pain, but did not tear. Good enough.

"Thank you, Seonaid."

"Eelis, this battle has--"

"It is not lost!" Body no longer threatening to tear apart under his own power, he slipped his arm back into the grips of his shield, and lifted. A great weight, the great burden of all rapholem, and a weight he would bear. "The other islands will have heard of this assault. They must be on the way."

"It will take days for them to arrive! The True Gate is too important, and--"

"Then we will make sure the demons are delayed until then." Guardian shield at his left, spear at his right, he took a step toward the False Gate Cathedral. Never did any of them predict the demons would attempt this. Never did they think Belor would be this arrogant.

They should have, and now angels were dying because of their folly. Damn the council.

He took five more steps before Seonaid stepped in front of him, hand pointed toward him, eyes glaring.

"Eelis, your grace is drained."

"The battle continues."

"It does, and if you continue, you will die needlessly."

"The battle continues, Seonaid. Step aside." He took a step toward her.

Her face broke, a cross between rage, and sadness. "Must you, fool? Your death will mean nothing!"

"It will mean something to me!"

"You will be dead, Eelis! Returned to the Great Tower, and I will have lost my friend!"

He frowned at his old companion. His helmet hid his face, he knew that, and he knew Seonaid could guess his expression easily nonetheless. But her face softened as he gently pushed her aside with an armored wing.

"Go, Seonaid. Other angels need your help."

"You damn fool." The curse cut deep, and it hurt her to say it. "You damn fool."

"I'm not planning to die here today, old friend. Go. I will enter the cathedral and save those I can."

She glared at him, unbelieving, but he pushed her with his damaged wing a little harder, and she relented. Glare unending, she took to the air, and flew over the battlefield. Doubtless she would find more angels to save, others on the precipice of death. Angels were difficult to kill. But they could die, and they had not died in this number in thousands of years.

Eelis walked forward in the path of Arioch and the carnage the mikalim had wrought, and he looked about him at the increasing death. The bolstara who had breathed her flame upon him lay dying, long tendrils from her head scattered about and covered in blood, defeated. She glared up at him as he past by her, and she reached up to grab his ankle with one of her four hands. He did not avoid her clawed grip.

"Damn... you..." The ten-foot-tall demon, even with her elongated skull, smooth, noseless face, and horns and claws, was a strangely beautiful creature, alluring in an exotic way. But one of her arms lay beside her, severed, and several gashes cut across the beautiful black and bronze armor of the False Gate forge, exposing burn marks where the mikalim had smote her. She was dying.

He glared down at the creature, and pointed his spear toward her, its mirror blade reflecting fire and blood.

"Tell me how Belor amassed so many demons from so many spires, bolstara, and I will grant you a swift death."

The deadly creature coughed, red pooling over her lustrous red lips. But she managed to glare at him through the pain, her dark eyes staring with the passion only one of the ancient four could muster.

"High on your perch, you stand and watch. But Heaven does not belong to you."

"Belong to us? We never said it did, filth. We guard Heaven and the souls within to preserve the balance of the Great Tower. You know this."

To speak with a demon was a rarity, and if he could gleam some information, all the better. But this bolstara spoke nonsense, and he frowned down at her as frustration boiled in his blood. All this, with angels and greater demons dying in droves, for some foolhardy notion the demons held that wasn't true?

"Could have fooled me." She coughed up another splatter of blood, and it fell into the cracks of her broken armor. "Lucifer will take back what is theirs. And your precious tower will crumble, the way it should have."

"Lucifer..." Eelis cast his gaze to the center of Hell. In the distance all he could see was spiked mountains, lava, enormous statues of demons long dead, and colossal walls of jagged metal that blocked the horizon, but all knew where to look, when someone dared mention that name.

The Forgotten Place.

"Lucifer will rise again, angel. And Heaven will--"

He stabbed the head of his spear down into the huge creature's large skull. Enough of this. They'd heard this garbage before. Eight thousand years ago, he'd heard this garbage before! Almost thirty thousand years ago, he'd heard this insane, worthless garbage before!

With a heavy growl, he pulled his bloodied spear free of the demon's skull. Her blood flowed freely over the hard stone of False Gate, wasted blood to join thousands of her kin.

"Damned creatures." He swiped his spear, cutting through the air hard enough to draw a line along the stone with the bolstara's blood. Was that truly what this was? Not since the Third Age had he seen such chaos and carnage, and then too it had been a pointless war because another spire ruler thought they could somehow free Lucifer.

Fools. Damned fools.

He marched forward toward the great cathedral, and the sound of battle raged on. A glance left showed several mikalim encircling and rending a gorujin asunder. A glance right showed a dozen lesser demons swarming a fellow rapholem, and dying to her spear as their claws bounced useless against her shield. Slowly but surely, over the corpses of their enemies and friends alike, the angels were gaining ground, but not fast enough. If the battle did not end soon, if reinforcements from the other islands did not arrive soon, demons from the other spires would soon arrive. And Eelis, and everyone too foolish to flee and fly, would die.

What could Belor be thinking? Was he not content to rule his spire? Damned monster.

Eelis marched forward and flared his wings. The melted metal struggled to bend, but with a heavy grunt, he forced his wings to full extension, bending the metal regardless. Rapholem wings could wear armor for a reason. He growled louder as he looked between the two wings and tested them, flexing each massive appendage out to full length, despite how the metal sleeve of each wing's arm protested. Flying would be difficult. Perhaps it was better to walk.

It was not a walk he looked forward to.

A glance above showed three mikalim circling a korgejin that had the audacity to fly in their presence. No demon could fly for long, tetrad demon or otherwise. Its great horns were soaked in blood, and it roared at the angels, hellfire spewing from its flat snout. One of them attempted to block the thick wave of fire, its density so great it was almost liquid. But the mikalim's shield was not meant for such an assault, and the angel screamed as she was enveloped.

Eelis forced himself to look away as she fell. Her burning corpse and charred wings landed next to him on the black stone, and he walked past her.

To the left, two shakarin's circled a rapholem. Large creatures, nine feet tall and thick with muscle, they prowled on two legs but could easily walk on four. Their heads were flat and connected into sharp snouts full of death, and their horns spread sideways before pointing forward. With many spikes on their bodies, along with a long tail, they were well equipped for battle, but they did not have the power of the tetrad. Eelis did not know this rapholem, likely from the island Samael, but she fought off both demons without issue, blocking one of the huge beasts with her great shield, as she stabbed forward with her spear. The sudden thrust caught the shakarin off guard, and he went down in a roaring mess of blood and slashing claws as the great angel spear skewered his guts.

Eelis ignored her as well, and marched forward. There was a path before him now, cleared by Arioch, and he had to follow it while it was still available.

The dark stone ran red with blood, but not only blood. As he grew closer to the grand False Gate Cathedral, the glowing red grew more intense, coloring the stone around it. Lava. Molten meera and other minerals of Hell flowed through tiny streams, deep cracks in the stone. Many of the cracks grew thicker as they winded through the landscape, cutting through the stone hills, and running between the other cathedrals of black metal that lined the horizon of False Gate. But the largest and deepest cracks snaked their way toward the False Gate Grand Cathedral in the center of the land, next to its spire.

The spire. He spit upon the stone the moment he looked its way. As he grew closer, he gazed up at the colossal tower, and grit his teeth. Its shape curved in and out as it went upward, like a tall vase, thicker at the bottom. The base was as wide as the False Gate Grand Cathedral, the structure easily able to house thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of demons with its thickness and height. The black metal of the spire stabbed into the ground with enormous spikes not unlike claws, and more spikes jutted out from its sides in spiraling patterns moving upward. The spire matched its environment. Blood flowed down from the top of the tower where a host of spikes waited, a landing platform of sorts, and the red splashed endlessly against the stones beneath the tower's base. Thousands of chains dangled, many decorated with the bones of demons and humans. And now, more than a few fresh angel corpses joined the spire, hung up by blasphemous demons seeking to increase their status.