Chapter 181 The Father and the Dark Lord (2)

Hearing the story, Vane couldn’t help sighing.

“And that’s what happens when you trust demons.”

The Icon of Sin, however, had no interest in the tragic circumstances surrounding its creation.

It retained none of its former memories.

Its mind contained nothing but an overwhelming desire to destroy everything in existence.

“ROOOOOAR!”

The monstrous creature unleashed a deafening roar.

Then it rose from its throne and charged toward Vane and the Doom Slayer.

Its enormous body shook the chamber with every step.

The Icon of Sin possessed terrifying physical strength.

When one of its massive fists struck the ground, the supposedly indestructible stone floor cracked apart, spiderweb-like fractures spreading in every direction.

Against an ordinary opponent, the creature would have been an absolute nightmare.

Unfortunately for it, the two people standing before it were anything but ordinary.

What followed was a vicious battle.

The Icon of Sin attacked relentlessly, unleashing its monstrous strength against the two warriors.

But Vane and the Doom Slayer fought back with equally overwhelming brutality.

After a fierce exchange of blows, the enormous demon was finally brought crashing to the ground.

Vane stepped forward and drove his Nemesis Force Halberd straight through its chest.

The weapon pierced the creature’s body, ending its life once and for all.

With the Icon of Sin defeated, the two warriors continued toward the enormous Foundry mechanism located deep within the hall.

It was a colossal metallic structure.

At its center rested a massive Crucible radiating dark crimson light.

Hell energy flowed through the artifact before being distributed through countless pipes to the portal’s core mechanism.

Destroying the Crucible’s connection to the machinery would permanently shut down the gateway.

Vane approached the device and removed the Demonic Crucible.

Then he reached into his inventory and retrieved the high-energy annihilation bomb Marcus had given him.

He carefully installed it at the center of the Foundry’s machinery.

Once everything was in place, Vane and the Doom Slayer withdrew to a safe location.

Vane activated the detonator.

BOOOOOOM!

The high-energy annihilation bomb erupted with devastating force.

The explosion completely destroyed the Foundry Fortress, along with the machinery sustaining the portal between Hell and the human world.

With their mission accomplished, Vane and the Doom Slayer made their way out.

Unfortunately, someone was waiting for them.

“Hand over the Demonic Crucible.”

Standing before them was none other than Dr. Samuel Hayden, the man responsible for setting this entire disaster in motion.

Behind him stood a squad of special operations soldiers.

Each wore armor powered by Argent Energy and carried advanced weapons built using the same technology.

Vane glanced at Hayden.

“Nope. It’s mine.”

There was absolutely no way he was handing over the Crucible.

Once something entered Vane’s possession, getting him to give it back was practically impossible.

“Don’t force me to use violence,” Hayden warned.

Although he knew nothing about Vane’s background, the doctor sounded remarkably confident.

“Well, I’ve got a personal rule.”

Vane’s voice took on a deliberately provocative tone.

“If someone attacks me, I never let them get away with it.”

“Doesn’t matter whether they actually manage to hurt me.”

He looked Hayden straight in the face.

“You’re welcome to test whether your men can handle me.”

“But just so we’re clear, the stakes are your life.”

Hayden turned toward the Doom Slayer.

“Kill him.”

The Doom Slayer looked at him.

And did absolutely nothing.

Hayden glanced at Vane, then at the Doom Slayer, before finally looking back at the special forces soldiers standing behind him.

The difference in strength was painfully obvious.

They weren’t even remotely in the same league.

If fighting broke out, those two armored monsters would tear his entire squad apart without breaking a sweat.

Realizing that threats weren’t going to work, Hayden changed his approach.

“The Demonic Crucible serves no purpose in your hands.”

“But in mine, it could become the key to saving humanity.”

“Perhaps even the entire universe.”

“And why exactly should I believe you?”

Hayden fell silent for a moment.

Then he revealed a secret that very few people knew.

“The truth is, I’m not human.”

His real identity was Samur Maykr.

He had once served as a high-ranking leader of the Maykr civilization and had been one of the Father’s closest advisers.

And the Doom Slayer wasn’t simply an exceptionally powerful Marine either.

He was a living weapon infused with a portion of the Father’s original power.

A weapon created to destroy everything that stood in his path.

But the Father’s origins were far more complicated than most people realized.

He wasn’t actually the universe’s original creator.

To understand the truth, they would have to go back to the very beginning.

Long ago, when the universe first came into existence, there was an immortal primordial being named Davoth.

Davoth created a realm called Jekkad, the world that would eventually become Hell.

Under his leadership, Jekkad’s civilization flourished.

Its people prospered, and their society developed rapidly.

But despite his achievements, Davoth was troubled by one terrible reality.

His people were mortal.

No matter how prosperous their civilization became, its inhabitants would eventually grow old and die.

Witnessing the deaths of his beloved creations filled Davoth with unbearable sorrow.

Determined to free his people from mortality, he began searching for a way to grant them eternal life.

He conducted experiment after experiment.

But every attempt ended in failure.

Eventually, Davoth discovered the fundamental obstacle.

The bodies of his creations simply couldn’t contain immortal souls.

Desperate to uncover the secret of eternal life, he created a new species of electronic life-forms known as the Maykrs.

The Maykrs were designed to assist him in his research.

For a time, they worked together, searching for a solution to mortality.

But their cooperation didn’t last.

Eventually, the Maykrs came to believe that Davoth’s continued existence posed a threat to other civilizations.

So they betrayed their creator.

They sealed Davoth away along with Jekkad, cutting both off from the rest of existence.

Then they extracted Davoth’s power and infused it into the body of one of their own.

That Maykr ascended to become the god of their civilization.

The Father.

Davoth, meanwhile, had lost his physical body.

And the betrayal left him consumed by an unimaginable hatred for the Maykrs.

His rage and bitterness gradually corrupted Jekkad itself.

The once-prosperous realm transformed into Hell.

Its formerly peaceful inhabitants became the very demons that would eventually wage war against countless worlds.

Fearing that the Dark Lord might one day escape his prison and unleash unimaginable destruction, the Father removed his own Life Sphere and hid it away.

Unfortunately, this decision had serious consequences.

Without the Father’s power sustaining them, the Maykrs gradually lost their ability to remain immortal.

Their civilization entered a period of terminal decline, with its people facing the inevitable degeneration of their bodies.

Desperate to save her species, the Khan Maykr eventually fell prey to the corrupted Davoth’s temptation.

She entered into an alliance with Hell.

Together, the two factions began exploiting weaker civilizations to sustain their own existence.

Samur Maykr, who had been entrusted with safeguarding the Father’s Life Sphere, recognized the corruption spreading through his people.

Unwilling to participate in their downfall, he secretly departed from Maykr society.

He eventually chose to live among humanity, assuming the identity of Dr. Samuel Hayden.

But his plans didn’t end there.

The reason the Doom Slayer possessed such extraordinary power was that Samur himself had infused the warrior with a portion of the Father’s essence.

And all of Samur’s actions had been directed toward a single ultimate objective.

He wanted humanity to replace both the Maykrs and Hell as the dominant civilization.

To accomplish that, he intended to use the Doom Slayer to permanently kill the Father and the Dark Lord Davoth.