Hell reacted first.
The moment Arthur uttered, "So let's make this quick," the dimension itself roared in protest.
Black lightning forked across a bleeding sky while rivers of magma leapt upward like striking vipers. The bone fortress beneath them trembled, the entire realm recoiling from its master's rising temper. A crushing spiritual pressure descended, heavy enough to flatten a lesser man into paste.
Arthur's silver aura brightened instinctively, pushing back.
"Come on," he muttered, eyes narrowing. "At least pretend this is fair—"
He moved mid-sentence. The screaming realm, the soul pressure, the cosmic fury, none of it mattered. His eyes were locked on Mephisto, and he was going for first blood.
Mephisto had already locked the dimensional coordinates, solidifying the space to prevent Apparition. He expected Arthur to stumble, to waste a fraction of a second trying to teleport and failing.
But Arthur didn't try.
In the Arcane Mage State, he didn't need to teleport. Raw speed was his weapon of choice.
Mephisto's eyes widened. The wizard had been fast before. This was something else entirely.
Before the Hell Lord could fully process the shock, Arthur was already inside his guard, and he hadn't come empty-handed.
In the span of a millisecond, a spinning sphere of compressed vacuum blades had materialized in Arthur's palm.
Vortex Manus.
Arthur didn't just hit him; he drilled the attack into Mephisto's chest.
SHRED.
The impact didn't push Mephisto back, it drilled through him. Vacuum blades spinning at supersonic speeds turned the Hell Lord's impeccable suit, his pale skin, his ribs, and his heart into a mist of black gore.
Mephisto's torso simply ceased to be.
Arthur skidded to a halt ten feet away, silver aura raging, watching the aftermath.
As expected, it wasn't enough.
The gore didn't hit the ground. The black mist stopped mid-air, swirled, reversed, and slammed back into the gaping cavity in Mephisto's chest. Muscle reknit. Bone snapped together. Skin smoothed over.
In less than a blink, Mephisto stood whole again. He brushed a speck of nonexistent dust from his lapel.
"That hurt," Mephisto noted dryly. "Your special state gives you confidence, I see. But confidence is not competence."
The counterattack came without warning.
The floor beneath Arthur liquefied instantly. Obsidian stone turned to grasping quicksand instantly.
Arthur leaped, his enhanced muscles launching him skyward, twisting mid-air to hurl a lightning bolt at Mephisto's head.
But the bolt curved away at the last moment and struck a pillar instead, blowing it to dust.
"Reality warping," Arthur noted, landing on solid ground.
"My realm," Mephisto smiled, spreading his arms. "My rules."
Arthur thrust both hands forward.
White fire erupted. Pure elemental flame hot enough to vaporize steel. It roared toward the demon like a tidal wave.
Mephisto raised a hand.
The fire bent around him, curving past like water around a stone. It splashed against the walls, melting bone-stone to glowing slag, but the demon remained untouched.
"Fire?" Mephisto laughed, the sound echoing from everywhere at once. "I invented fire, wizard. I taught the first—"
He didn't finish. Arthur was suddenly in his face, a chi-enhanced uppercut catching Mephisto under the jaw.
The blow lifted the demon off his feet. Arthur grabbed his ankle, spun with terrifying momentum, and hurled him through the nearest wall.
CRASH.
Stone exploded. Mephisto tumbled through the corridor beyond, carving a trench of destruction through his own palace.
Arthur followed before the dust could settle.
Mephisto was already standing when he burst through the rubble.
"Persistent," the demon growled.
He thrust his palm forward. A wave of Hellfire - true hellfire, fire that burned souls - screamed toward Arthur.
Fiendfyre.
The cursed flames came effortlessly to Arthur in this state, more volatile and hungry than ever.
Arthur's cursed flames met Mephisto's attack head-on.
The two infernos collided, but Arthur's cursed flames didn't just block; they fed. The Fiendfyre ate through the Hellfire like a shark through water, surging forward and taking the shape of a screaming basilisk.
Mephisto's eyes went wide.
He dove sideways, barely missing the dragon's jaws as they snapped shut where his head had been.
Arthur pressed the advantage.
Arthur pressed the advantage. He'd realized in the first exchange that normal elemental spells were useless here. Only the cursed arts carried weight.
Fiendfyre.
A second basilisk formed. With Arthur's control, both serpents dove toward Mephisto in perfect coordination.
The demon dodged the first strike, but a flick of the basilisk's tail caught him off guard, hurling him straight into the open maw of the second. Its jaws snapped shut around the Hell Lord completely.
Mephisto screamed as cursed fire tore through him. His body burned, regenerated, and burned again, a gruesome cycle of destruction and rebirth until the flames finally consumed him entirely.
But then, reality twisted.
The walls became the ceiling. The floor became a wall. Gravity shifted in four directions simultaneously. The space Arthur occupied began to compress, the very air turning solid and crushing inward like a trash compactor.
Arthur didn't panic. His response was instant.
He clapped his hands together and pushed.
Silver light exploded outward, a bubble of sheer magical pressure that overwrote Mephisto's warping. The compression shattered. The corridor snapped back to normal geometry.
Arthur scanned the room, waiting for the demon to reform.
Suddenly, the floor opened beneath him, jagged teeth snapping shut like the maw of a monstrous trap.
Arthur reacted on instinct, snapping his wrist down.
ÆGIO
A disk of pressurized wind exploded downward, propping the maw open just long enough for him to launch himself into the air.
Arthur floated in the air, chest heaving slightly.
Mephisto emerged from the shadows like a nightmare unfurling. His true form towered now, massive wings blotting out the broken sky.
"You should feel honored," the demon mocked, his voice booming. "No mortal has ever forced me to take my true form in my own domain."
Arthur didn't blink. "Good. Means you can still be pushed."
A low growl vibrated through Mephisto's chest. "And you think that gives you a chance to kill me?"
"No." Arthur's tone was flat, almost quiet. "It gives me a place to start."
Mephisto's snarl stretched wide as he thrust a massive claw forward.
HELLFIRE.
It erupted from every direction, a sphere of annihilation collapsing on Arthur. But when the fire hit, there was nothing there.
A portal swallowed the attack. A split second later, a second portal opened directly above Mephisto, pouring his own attack back onto him.
"My attacks cannot harm me!" Mephisto roared through the flames.
"I know," Arthur smirked from a distance. "It was just a distraction."
His basilisk Fiendfyres, which had been circling high above in the smoke, plummeted down onto Mephisto's true body.
The demon roared in pain and rage as he burned again. But Arthur wasn't done. He clenched his fist, compressing the massive fire dragons around the demon. When the density reached critical mass, he snapped his fingers.
BOOM.
A massive flash of destruction engulfed the throne room.
When it faded, nothing remained but a floor of bubbling lava. No sign of Mephisto anywhere.
Had he actually won?
—
Suddenly, a golden portal spiraled open. It wasn't Arthur's.
Out stepped the Ancient One, her yellow robes pristine, her face set in a grim mask.
"Arthur," she said, voice steady but edged with concern. "Have you confronted Mephisto? Tell me where he is now."
Arthur descended slightly, keeping his senses open. "Reforming somewhere. He'll be back."
A faint crease appeared between her brows, a rare display of surprise.
"You forced him to reform in his own domain?" She studied him, something like awe threading through her tone. "Your progress defies even my expectations."
Arthur touched down, tension loosening at the sight of a friend. "I had to. He went after my family."
She stepped closer, shaking her head. "Even so, you should have spoken to me first. Hell is not a battlefield for lone warriors, Arthur."
"Here, Mephisto can be... troublesome. Even impossible to kill."
Arthur's voice cooled rapidly. "Is that so? Because from where I'm standing, he's been getting beaten like a drum without landing a single hit on me."
The Ancient One lifted one hand with practiced grace, and a refined golden mandala spun to life in her palm, its intricate patterns shifting and evolving.
"Then let me help you even the odds a little," she said, her eyes locked on the spell's construction. "This will loosen Mephisto's grip over this entire region of his domain."
Arthur watched, recognizing fragments of the construct. It resembled a containment-weakened ward, and parts felt like a stabilization array.
But the overall structure? Beyond him. Beyond anyone except her.
The spell grew, folding into itself, forming a spherical lattice of light that hummed with power. The sphere locked into place, its final layer crystallizing.
Arthur waited for her to hurl it outward.
Instead, at the last instant, the Ancient One snapped her wrist and redirected the spell straight at him.
But when the spell arrived, there was no Arthur in its path. The mist disappeared.
From behind the Ancient One, another Arthur appeared, Vortex Manus ready. He slammed it into her chest point-blank.
The Ancient One didn't bleed; she shattered into smoke.
"Nice try," Arthur muttered, his eyes scanning the hellscape around him. "But there were too many loopholes in your act."
Two figures emerged from the dissipating haze.
Arthur recognized them instantly. His blood ran cold.
His parents. Richard and Sarah Hayes.
"Arthur," Sarah said, her voice dripping with disappointment. "How could you betray Earth's protector? We didn't raise you to be like this."
"Look at yourself, son," Richard added, shaking his head sadly. "What have you become? Is this what our deaths did to you?"
Arthur's fists clenched, knuckles turning white. "Mephisto. Are we really playing these games? Do you have no real power other than cheap parlor tricks?"
"Arthur, what are you saying?" Sarah's expression twisted with confusion. "Don't speak ill of Lord Mephisto. He's been nothing but gracious to us."
"Your mother's right," Richard said, that hollow smile spreading across his face. "Or maybe it's that woman who's poisoned your mind. What was her name again? Eileen?"
Arthur's aura erupted, silver light crackling and warping around him.
"She's the problem, isn't she?" Sarah's voice turned cold, accusatory. "She's corrupted you. Changed you into something we don't recognize."
Her eyes hardened. "End it, Arthur. Divorce her. Before it's too late."
"Yes," Richard's tone grew stern, paternal. "And those children. Half-breeds bearing our family name."
He shook his head with disgust. "I will not allow it. They are no Hayes. Neither is that woman."
"ENOUGH."
Arthur roared.
Magic exploded outward, a spherical wave of pure destruction. The illusions shattered instantly. The fake parents dissolved into ash. The world cracked like a broken mirror.