Rise Of Hades' Hellborn: Trumpets Of The Damned

Infernal Apex Unleashed.

Sorran stood still, his skeletal helm catching the flickering embers that danced in the smoke-choked air. The ruined Paragon base groaned around them, metal straining, fires raging in wild tongues along the shattered walls. The Watch had sung its song, and now the result stood before him—suspended in a fiery cocoon of purple flame.

Myles.

His form had changed. No longer just flesh and bone, he was evolving—becoming something darker. Something ancient. Something hungry.

From within the infernal sphere, bones cracked. The sound echoed through the air like drumbeats from a war long forgotten. His body twisted and stretched with unnatural grace, muscles rippling, tendons pulsing with violet and crimson light. Where skin once was, lines of molten gold now traced beneath, flickering like lava under pressure.

It wasn’t divine. It wasn’t demonic. It was a hybrid thing born from two colliding forces.

Sorran didn’t flinch. He knew this phenomenon. The Infernal Apex.

"So it begins," he whispered, tightening his clawed fingers around the air.

Then came the scream.

Myles’ voice, no longer wholly human, tore from the cocoon like a siren of torment and wrath. A beam of energy split the air around him, forming an arc that burned a trench through the floor and the far wall, disintegrating steel, stone, and reality alike.

The walls pulsed like lungs, drawing in the raw energy leaking from him. The very atmosphere seemed to buckle, colors distorting like warped oil on water. Violet flame curled upward like fingers reaching for the heavens, pulling in sparks from the air. The temperature spiked. Anna, watching from behind cover, wiped sweat from her brow and activated a thermal dampener in her suit, heart hammering.

She’d seen rage. She’d seen divine channeling. She’d even witnessed possessed warriors lose themselves to madness.

But this?

This was Myles becoming something unchained.

A second pulse detonated outward.

Sorran planted his feet, just as he had done in countless hell-born battlefields. He reached behind his back and called forth Hellthorn, his hell-forged demon blade. It hissed as it emerged from rift-space, edge glowing red, shaped like bone and fire fused by cruelty.

The blast hit.

Sorran grunted, shielding himself with Hellthorn. The impact gouged a crater around him, and even his eldritch defenses flickered. Shadows screamed. Time stuttered. Reality fractured around Myles as if unable to comprehend what he was becoming.

Then Sorran saw it—a flicker.

For the briefest moment, behind the glow, something shimmered. Something that shouldn’t be.

It wasn't just Apex mode. There was a parasite in the stream. A signal hitch in the cosmic code. His instinct screamed. Sorran rarely ran. But ignorance, to him, was worse than defeat.

A portal hissed open beneath his boots, conjured with the slash of Hellthorn.

He dropped through it.

Not out of fear.

Out of survival.

---

Myles descended slowly to the floor, flames trailing behind his boots. His breath came in growls. His eyes were no longer blue. They were obsidian slits with golden rings spiraling outward like galaxies collapsing into themselves.

Anna stood frozen. Her bow was already in hand, an arrow notched, but her heart warred against her logic.

He was magnificent. Terrible. Unstoppable.

He turned.

"Anna..."

His voice—distorted. A growl buried in melody. Power surged around him in waves, each heavier than the last.

She stepped back, calculating range.

He wasn’t seeing her. He was seeing through her.

Myles took a step forward, and the floor cracked beneath him. One hand reached out, black smoke trailing from his fingertips.

"You're... part of it," he said. "You’re... in the song."

"No, Myles. You’re losing control."

He clenched his head. Screamed.

A building nearby collapsed from the force.

Anna activated her targeting lenses. Readings were off the charts. Radiation spikes, quantum tears, energy fluctuations in the godlike spectrum.

"If I don’t stop him," she murmured, “ The motherf- gonna tear through dimensions."

Her hand trembled.

Then it didn’t.

Anna switched arrows. Black tip. Crimson fletching. Quantum disruptor core. Designed to destabilize a divine vessel just long enough for a respawn cycle to reset them.

Her eyes stung. Her aim didn’t.

She breathed once.

And let go.

The arrow sang.

Myles turned.

It struck his heart.

The moment froze.

He gasped, not in pain, but in clarity. The rage halted. His hands stopped trembling. The purple flames flickered.

Then silence.

His body collapsed forward, hitting the ground like a statue knocked from its pedestal. Smoke curled from the wound. His body glitched—data unraveling into light.

"You'll come back," she whispered. "You always do."

From the scorched sky above, the world began to still. The Watch lay glowing on the ground, quiet for now. But not for long.

And deep in the void between realms, Kaelin watched.

And waited.

***

When a portal opened up at Kaelin's lair. Kaelin knew who was coming even without looking up.

“ The mortal carries it doesn't he?” Sorran said without preamble. “ welcome back Sorran, you're now free to head back to hell” Kaelin said.

“ That mortal isn't normal, is he?” Sorran insisted. “ Well of course he isn't, I thought I made it obvious that he's an avatar of Hades” Kaelin drawled.

“ “Don’t feed me that infernal rot, Kaelin. Does this mortal carry it or not? And don't lie to me because I know that you know what I'm talking about” Sorran snarled.

“ That will be revealed soon enough” Kaelin muttered.

“ Why are you doing this? The seals what do you hope to gain?”

“ I want to merge hell and earth in the effect of that we shall be able to fight our way out of Hades dominion and stand our ground”

“ Are you aware what this could do to the sapiens?” Sorran inquired. “ I know it is a fatal but necessary decision that could alter the universe laws but we've been leaving under those laws for too long I think it's time to change it” Kaelin declared.

“ We have been writhing in the gates of hell while the sapiens curb their worse habits through the collective fear of our world and they still think we're the bad guys, I plan to end it all” Kaelin added coldly.

Sorran jaw hung open at the audacity of the plan. “ Your actual plan is to extinct the gods”

“ They were tyrant beings who fed on humans belief in them due to sapiens current lack in belief they've now been awakened which should make my plan easy” Kaelin clarified.

“Everything in me says this is madness… but maybe madness is what we need.” Sorran thought.

He immediately bowed to a knee. “ As far as I'm concerned whatever your motives may be, you are actually fighting for us and I shall do my best to serve you and help you achieve this purpose… Lord”