The massive eye in the sky blinked once.
Then dozens more opened around Ethan — across the air itself, enormous pupils staring from every direction, some high above, others forming directly beside him, blinking in slow unnatural sync.
The atmosphere dropped heavier with each one that appeared.
The pressure hit immediately. Not physical. Straight into the mind.
The air distorted. Whispers started moving through the wasteland, thousands of voices at once in languages that sat wrong in the ear. The force pushed harder against his consciousness.
Inside the barrier the demon dropped to its knees.
"That's his authority," it whispered. "Mental domination."
Ethan looked around at the eyes surrounding him and rolled his neck once.
"Mental attacks," he muttered.
Then he laughed.
"Wrong person."
The blood aura surged.
"I devoured many deadites," he said, eyes lifting toward the sky. "And one very old dark entity. My mental resistance stopped being normal a long time ago."
A greatsword formed in his hand — not metal, something denser, blood and darkness fused together with holy energy and monstrous power twisting across the surface simultaneously.
He swung it.
SHHHHRRRAAAKKK—
A colossal shockwave tore across the wasteland, splitting the ground apart. Every eye caught in the path exploded one after another while the sky rippled from the impact.
The destroyed eyes regenerated instantly.
Then more appeared. The sky filled with them — gigantic pupils opening across the heavens until the crimson atmosphere itself seemed alive. Every direction Ethan looked, something was staring back.
The largest eye shifted.
Its pupil split vertically like a doorway. Lava poured out — crashing onto the wasteland in massive streams, spreading across the scorched earth while black smoke filled the air. The ground trembled as entire sections melted into glowing rivers.
Ethan raised one finger toward the sky.
A sphere of blood-red energy formed at the tip, compressing tighter, distorting the space around it, cracking the ground beneath his feet. Inside the barrier the demon stared upward. The blood moon trembled.
Ethan fired.
SKRRRRRAAAAAAA—
A colossal beam tore through the sky, splitting burning clouds apart, the recoil shattering the earth behind him for miles. It surged straight toward the giant eye —
Massive jaws emerged from the lava.
Rows of burning teeth large enough to swallow buildings. They snapped shut around the beam and devoured it whole. The explosion lit the sky crimson.
The lava began moving.
Something rose from beneath it — blackened scales cracked with glowing magma, huge horns curving back from its skull, tail hitting the wasteland hard enough to split the ground. Burning eyes locked onto Ethan.
It roared.
The sky shook.
The demon nearly collapsed inside the barrier.
"A Behemoth," it whispered.
Ethan looked at it for a moment.
"Yeah," he said. "Troublesome."
He snapped his fingers.
The barrier vanished — Wednesday, Morticia, Thing, and the demon gone from the battlefield before the real fight began.
The Behemoth moved first.
Despite its size it was fast — oe enormous claw crashing down hard enough to shatter the wasteland beneath it.
BOOOOM—
The ground exploded where Ethan had been standing a fraction of a second earlier. He shot backward through the air and before he could stabilize the Behemoth swung its tail sideways, tearing through the air like a collapsing building.
Ethan crossed both arms an instant before impact.
KRAAAASH—
The tail launched him across the wasteland, body tearing through scorched rock formations, crashing through three stone pillars in succession.
The Behemoth didn't stop.
Lava erupted beneath Ethan before he'd recovered, the monster charging again, jaws opening wide enough to swallow him whole.
His eyes narrowed.
The moment the Behemoth bit down Ethan caught its upper jaw with both hands. The impact cracked the earth beneath him. Monster and vampire locked against each other, shockwaves rippling outward.
Ethan smiled slightly.
"Oh," he said, blood energy spiraling around him. "You're physically strong.
The Behemoth roared directly into his face.
Mistake.
Ethan drove his knee into its lower jaw hard enough to snap its head backward.
BOOOOOOM—
Before it recovered he grabbed one of its horns, spun violently through the air and smashed the colossal creature straight into the wasteland below.
The ground split for miles. Lava erupted upward while the Behemoth roared beneath the destruction.
The giant eye blinked.
Every remaining eye on the battlefield focused on Ethan simultaneously.
The world distorted.
The Behemoth vanished. The eyes disappeared. The burning wasteland bent around Ethan like liquid, colors shifting, space folding wrong. The screaming across Hell cut out completely, replaced by silence that pressed against his ears.
Ethan looked around slowly.
"Illusion," he said.
The atmosphere felt artificial. Crowley specialized in perception manipulation — the scale of it was impressive even by Ethan's standards. A weaker mind would've been trapped without realizing reality had changed.
The darkness split.
A massive beam crashed down from above and swallowed him whole.
The attack detonated across the wasteland, tearing through the distorted landscape, shockwaves spreading outward in every direction.
The smoke settled.
The Behemoth reappeared. The giant eye materialized back in the sky above it, pupil fixed on the impact zone with something that read as confidence.
Something moved inside the explosion.
A gigantic claw made entirely of condensed blood erupted from the smoke and drove straight into the eye.
The pupil distorted violently under the impact.
The smoke cleared slowly.
Ethan stood at the center of it, wounds sealing shut beneath shifting blood energy, crimson aura pulsing once. He raised one hand and made a sign with his fingers.
"Blood Realm," he said quietly. "Blessed Land."
The air went heavy.
Then the world changed.
The scorched wasteland shattered apart — burning skies dissolving into clear blue heavens, lava rivers vanishing beneath water so pure it reflected the sky, cracked earth becoming endless green. Sunlight spread across the battlefield.
Warm. Holy. Peaceful.
The entire atmosphere saturated with divine energy strong enough to make the space feel sacred.
The Behemoth roared. Smoke rose immediately from its body, the environment itself rejecting its existence. Even the giant eye recoiled slightly.
"You filthy creature." Crowley's voice thundered across the realm, fury finally entering it. "How dare you bring a blessed domain into Hell."
Ethan looked up at the eye.
The halo above his head gleamed beneath the clear sky, blood-red energy and holy light mixing around him.
"You invaded my fight first," he said.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"So don't complain when I start cheating back."
***
A/N: And on Patreon, The Boys arc started.
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