~~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.
