Thanatos, Lord of Death.

The third-ranked Demon in the Demon Realm behind the Demon Sovereign and the Goddess of Destiny. But unlike his other kin, Thanatos wasn't a regular Demon.

Thanatos was an existence that had existed for thousands, if not millions of years. Even the Demon himself couldn't tell how long he's been alive. Call him a spectre, a ghost, or an astral being; Thanatos was a special existence.

He wasn't born through conventional methods. He wasn't a pulse of energy that grew into massive Demon Lords like Baishe or Cthulhu. Neither was he a brainless machine like Eyghon. Thanatos was just a soul that wandered through the Demon Realm endlessly and mindlessly, forever cursed to never feel warmth and to suffer in complete solitude.

Everything it touched died instantly. Everything that came near to it withered away like brittle ash. Everything that it dared to love… dissipated away into nothingness.

Years, centuries, millennia passed within a blink of an eye. Without purpose, the brainless spectre continued its existence without any purpose. No one cared about the poor soul; no one even thought to come near it. Throughout its years, the ghost never once felt anything but complete emptiness and melancholy.

But one day…

A ray of light illuminated its darkness.

A beautiful soul found it. A woman of immaculate purity and resplendence. She wasn't afraid of the poor ghost. She didn't run away at its abhorrence, and… She didn't die to its touch.

She brought it into her arms and nurtured it. She taught it how to harness its power, to control its existence to become the strongest version of itself. She blessed it with powers beyond its own imagination, turning it from a lonely spectre to a Demon with a sense of belonging.

The woman was its everything.

But one day, the woman started having dreams. Nightmares that would traumatise her, giving her sleepless nights and endless paranoia. She became obsessed. Obsessed over the fate that was to befall her and all Demonkind. Ever since then, the woman has barely slept. She tortured herself endlessly, formulating plans and creating Gates for the Outer Demons to invade.

The woman had no qualms about sacrificing her own health if it meant evading the terrible fate she saw in her dreams.

In the end, no matter how much she prepared and how much she tried, the nightmares wouldn't go away. The threat that loomed over her neck still tortured her night in and night out. Thanatos couldn't watch as she continued to self-destruct, knowing full well that it was for the greater good.

The Demon repeatedly tried to help the woman, but she always declined it. She buried herself deeper in self-torture with every failed move they'd made and spent much of her life energy and essence to create counter-strategies.

The woman always said Thanatos was the key to liberating her from her misery, the Demon that could end the nightmares and liberate Demonkind.

But Thanatos always felt so useless. The woman he loved was suffering, and he could not do anything to help her. The woman that saved him couldn't be saved. So, with nowhere else to channel his emotions, Thanatos targeted his rage on the invisible enemy of the woman.

Thanatos came to hate the man responsible for the Goddess of Destiny's nightmares. Thanatos' rage bottled up with every failed campaign, and every time he saw Uriel's saddened and forlorn expression. Thanatos came to resent the person responsible for making Uriel fall from grace and turn into a maniac who only sought one thing.

Ultimately, Thanatos' rage toward the man exceeded his other emotions. Be it rationality or love. He wouldn't even listen to Uriel's orders to kill the man immediately. What he wanted… was revenge for all the years of torment that Uriel was subjected to.

And when Thanatos finally met the man for the first time…

"Jin… Valter…"

"... You know me?"

Jin was surprised by the Demon's comprehension and ability to articulate his name. But it didn't take long for his surprise to be replaced with caution. Standing before his precious wives, Jin opened his palm and channelled magical energy through his fingers. Almost instantly, numerous meteors started to fall from the stars and made a beeline straight to the unsuspecting Demon.

"It doesn't matter," Jin spat. "You shouldn't have come on my wedding day, you monster."

'Monster?'

Thanatos laughed to himself.

Who was the actual monster here?

Thanatos felt a feeling of euphoria creep up its entire ephemeral body. How long has he waited for this day? How many millennia had passed since he's seen Uriel's smiling face?

It all ends today.

Swinging his scythe, Thanatos turned the falling rocks into mere ash. Jin gritted his teeth and attempted to cause even more destruction to hopefully deter the spectre of death. Alas, every time a meteor came close, all the Demon needed to do was swing his scythe once, and the entire attack crumbled away as if it didn't exist in the first place.

"It's useless," Thanatos snorted derisively. "All of your attacks are meaningless against my power."

'That was how I was designed.'

The Demon thought to himself.

All these years, the Goddess of Destiny had warped Thanatos to become the ultimate weapon against Jin. Cthulhu's black goo was just a precursor for the perfected ability of Thanatos. Thanatos' black mist had the capability of causing the 'death' of anything. Be it a tree that had lived for a thousand years or a mere rock floating about in space aimlessly.

Thanatos could cause their 'deaths' with just a single touch.

Weaker existences that couldn't resist the mighty Demon's power would go mad simply by looking straight at it. Their souls would be reaped, and their bodies would decompose. Just his aura was enough to destroy entire civilisations, and the moment he swung his deadly scythe… There was nothing in existence that could resist his power.

The only reason the Goddess of Destiny had never sent Thanatos over to Earth was the bottomless energy needed to break open a Gate large enough to fit him through. To successfully send Thanatos through the dimensions, Uriel must sacrifice over half her lifespan. Not to mention, she wouldn't be able to open Gates once she'd expended that much energy.

Therefore, sending Thanatos over was her last resort. A card she was forced to play when Baishe and Cthulhu died at Jin's hands.

"I would never waste my time killing prey, but you…"

Thanatos' annoyance could be felt by his rising, agitated voice.

"I'll take my time to kill you. The monster who made Uriel suffer."

It's funny.

Jin considered Thanatos, the Demon who invaded Earth and gate-crashed his wedding, a monster he needed to defeat. The Outer Demons had, for generations, murdered humanity and all of Earth's inhabitants in cold blood. They had forced humanity to a standstill, and the world had to be on its toes whenever an Outer Demon invaded. In fact, Jin was a victim of one such attack.

On the other hand, Thanatos considered Jin as the nightmare that had plagued Uriel and, therefore, the entire Demon race. A monster that could never go away, no matter what the Demons did.

Both of them were right in their opinions.

And yet, both of them could never see eye-to-eye.

Therefore, they could only fight it out… to the death.

"Fuck off!!!"

Jin yelled out with increased agitation while mass-casting his spells. If meteors didn't work, he'd use fire. If fire doesn't work, he'll use Spirits. If Spirits didn't work, he'd cast beams of destruction.

Everything in his arsenal was being fired out at a rapid rate. As a Progenitor, the man had near-bottomless amounts of magic power. And the diversity of his spells had increased ever since he'd ascended to a higher existence.

It wasn't an exaggeration to say that Jin could cast every spell conceivable. But alas, no matter what Jin attempted, all Thanatos needed to do was swing his scythe, and everything would be countered.

Death was an inevitability for all existence.

Whether it was a tiny ant who only lived for a few short weeks or a fully grown whale who lived for hundreds of years. Fire will eventually burn out. Rocks would decompose. The ephemeral lives of humans… They will always flicker and disappear once their time comes.

Even stars, galaxies and the universe… They weren't immune to death.

And all of Jin's magic wasn't an exception.

Thanatos countered all his spells, and eventually, the Demon finally got bored of defending. With one swing of his mighty, deathly scythe…

"ARGHHHH!!!"

"JIN!!!!"

"BROTHER!!!"

Thanatos severed Jin's right arm, and a blackened mist began to corrode his body. Biting down on his lips so hard that they started to bleed, Jin transferred his Soul Armament from his severed right arm onto his left and desperately attempted to slow down the deathly mist.

Fortunately, with his immortality and endless amounts of life essence, Jin could somehow stop the black mist from spreading, containing it to only his severed arm. But alas, the damage was done.

From that moment on, Jin knew he was outmatched.

His wives rushed over to his side, and even unconcerned parties like Matriarch Innocence and Sirius Moonreaver attempted to save their new Progenitor.

Alas…

"Don't interfere…"

Thanatos swung his scythe with one brutal swing, creating a circle of black mist that encircled them. Anyone who dared to cross the threshold would be decomposed into atoms, leaving their ashes behind. And with the pair alone, Thanatos let out an exuberant cry.

"Yes… You can't die yet." Thanatos flew straight at the groaning Vampire, and with one final laugh, he said: "Endure you monster. Endure the pain until I get my vengeance. And when my revenge is complete…"

Thanatos pierced his arm straight through Jin's chest. Cries from Irina and Rosa could be heard in the backdrop as Jin fell down while gasps of shock resonated throughout the dead meadow.

"Then, I shall grant you a merciless death."