Imp to Demon King: A Journey of Conquest

Meanwhile, Helel sighed and closed his eyes, his brow twitching slightly.

"The gods never entered our realms. Instead, they sealed them with curses: water turned to poison, and the wind drove us into madness. Escape was impossible, so we chose the next best option—adapting to survive."

Nodding, Adam remembered their twisted, mutated bodies, finally understanding why they were each uglier than the last. He also remembered how his thoughts had darkened when he first arrived. But the phenomenon lessened with each passing day until it vanished after his fifth evolution.

"Why did you discard your bodies, then? I mean, you're not the real you, even if you kept your intelligence."

"Indeed, the real me left long ago. But let me continue, will you?" Helel offered him a disturbing smile. "We altered our bodies, and I made pretty good progress. But our powers became incompatible with our new forms." It gestured behind him. "We had no choice but to extract and place them in those braziers, only keeping the passive abilities. It was unacceptable."

"Aren't your powers still there, though? Did you fail?" Adam asked, eager to get to the bottom of this surreal story. Each word he heard caused his heart to hasten and his pupil to constrict. After all, who ever learned the abyss' story from someone who had lived through it?

Helel laughed before he revealed something that sent Adam's mind reeling.

"Those fragments? They're merely dust, remnants of the powers we left. We created perfect bodies with the rest: the ultimate weapons against the gods."

Rising to its full, colossal height, Helel's gaze lingered on Adam's pensive expression.

"I don't know what happened after the real us escaped, but we're bound to these flames. Unable to leave yet dreaming of recovering these bodies' once glorious looks."

Helel unfurled two immaculate wings, each feather glistening with a divine glow.

"And that's where you come into play, little one. We've all been waiting for someone who'll regress to adapt to this place naturally. And at last, I will reap the rewards of my enduring patience."

Adam's blade flashed before him, his eye narrowing. So many questions remained unanswered, and new ones appeared. But there was one he had to ask.

"So we're done talking? I have one last question, though. How did they escape this prison?"

Helel's veins throbbed on its forehead, its expression distorting into one of sudden rage as its palm rose and its voice thundered.

"The strongest punched a hole through the lowest layer. He is..."

A heavy silence followed, only broken by the red flames bursting to life on Helel's palm.

"The only one who didn't need to adapt—an aberration born from fire and chaos. I showed you respect enough by telling you why you'll die. Depart without regret, little one."

'Great... Someone called an aberration by another aberration.' Adam clicked his tongue. How was he to punch a hole through this place?! No! Perhaps the first one was still open. Why would Helel and the others want to regress if it wasn't since the wind would turn them mad again?

He inhaled, his rapid breath filling his heart with radiant hope. He had finally found a clue to leave. But he would have to think about it later. Helel already aimed its fiery palm at him, the two round holes in its chest bursting red and its lips parting to let out a wrathful roar.

"Flames of Annihilation!"

Dread's icy fingers wrapped around Adam's heart as the air distorted. Vapor swirled and light cracked, as if the world itself collapsed around them before the red flames stormed forward.

Adam's own somber, scarlet flames burst from his skin's crevices, left hand, and feet, rocketing him upward. His eye darted down, scanning the blinding storm that washed the melting ground in an ocean of wildfires.

'They don't absorb or destroy like Ba'al and Ploutiel's... but my flames don't even come close to his. What fuels them?'

His devilish wings unfurled and flapped as the unbearable temperature made him sweat. The scent of sulfur filled his nostrils as he barreled and twirled in the air, narrowly dodging Helel's fierce barrage and understanding its battle style more with each passing second. Of course, he didn't remain idle and left small, static balls of fire in his wake.

If the other eldritch horrors were mindless melee fighters or illusionists, Helel was an explosive mage. Each spell only had one purpose: wide-range devastation in furious blazes. Yet, something felt off. Since the fight began, the previously calm horror wore a disfigured mask of rage as if it consumed it from the inside. Or rather, fueled his strikes.

A smirk crept onto his lips, icy chuckles echoing as a blinding blast seared his left cheek and sides.

'You want to recover your angelic radiance? Let me show you a preview.'

Flames burst from him, distorting the reddened air and rearranging the photons into a lifelike illusion.

An immaculate toga unfurled, each elegant wrinkle wafting a faint divine scent. Two white wings, inspired by Helel's, flapped as a golden aureole hovered over benevolent features.

Helel paused, its eyes widening at the illusion for a split second—all Adam needed to make his preparations burst into action.
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The inactive flames roared to life, drawing rows after rows of vibrating lights arranged in a dome using Baal Peor's amber. They burst in a blinding radiance, Ploutiel's flame gulping the surrounding heat like a whale before Ba'al's destructive properties shattered the air's molecular bonds, plunging the surroundings into darkness.

Drawn by the phenomenon, Helel raised his head, only to see dozens of thousands of miniature stars accelerating in the darkness, and Adam's smirk part to let out a piercing taunt.

"That's why you don't tell too much to your adversary."

However, it smiled back and opened its four arms wide as if willing to embrace the beams. After all, it couldn't defend against so many projectiles and suspected Adam's plan extended beyond this attack. He had lost.

Yet, Adam had made a mistake: it had talked a lot, but who said it didn't slip a lie or two in the story?

"I recognise your mastery over the four previous flames. Take the inferno and kill the sixth layer's beast," Helel said as the beams dug perfectly circular holes into its body.

Even after four billion years, it still remembered its mission: wait for a demon to adapt, gather the remnants, and test his mastery. Only then could it escape this endless wait.

As for regressing to its glorious appearance? How could it when it was born in Helel's discarded body? This ugly form was its original appearance, and without the complete inferno of wrath, its life hung by this remnant's presence.

It closed its eyes, a soft smile playing on its lips as the Adam in the sky faded, and a scarlet blade pierced through its mangled head. Despite the deliverance of death, he mustered its last sliver of life into a final warning.

"Don't use your flames against the next one. Good luck."

Adam watched it drop on its knees, scalding steam rising from its pulverised body before a notification rang in his ears.

[You have defeated the tier 7 level 94 boss: Eldritch horror born from Helel's discarded body. You have gained 16.000.000 experience points.]