The Balor's Death Throes

"Hahaha! Red dragon, I feel it—the Abyss is watching me! My revenge is at hand!" "Sub... sublime!" The fallen giant laughed maniacally, even though his current state was utterly wretched. He trembled from head to toe as blinding yellow light burst from his eyes and ears. The fissures in his skin grew wider and wider, leaking the eerie glow of the Abyss and spewing rolling billows of black mist. A chaotic and magnificent power destroyed his body, only to reshape it anew. Finally, shrouded in swirling dark mist, the giant tore away his original skin and flesh, ripped out his tangled internal organs, and cast aside his identity as a frost giant entirely. He turned himself into nourishment to feed the Abyss, reconstructing a new body out of the purest chaotic abyssal energy—a demon. A true, purebred demon. From the back of the giant—or rather, the demon—fleshy wings unfurled, and horns sprouted from his head. His skin was a vivid, bloody red, resembling exposed muscle. With a slight flick of his arms, his right hand drew a massive, blazing whip from the void, while his left summoned a crackling storm sword from the chaos. "Cassius, I will kill you." The demon grinned ferociously, spitting out each word. Endless hatred and fury burned on his face. Much like the famed Ship of Theseus paradox, once every part of his body had been replaced by abyssal matter, the former Koman may well have ceased to exist entirely; the being standing here now was merely a newborn demon retaining Koman's memories. [Newly Born Balor - Koman] [Challenge Rating: 18 (20,000 XP)] Cassius gazed at the newly reborn demon before him. "A balor?" Balors were the mightiest demons in the Abyss, second only to the bizarre and varied demon lords. Embodying ancient and terrifying evil, they commanded demonic legions and represented the zenith every lowly fiendish soldier aspired to reach. Yet the energy within this balor's body was exceedingly unstable, like a bomb on the verge of detonating at any moment. It was most likely a temporary form created by sacrificing his life—nowhere near as powerful as a true balor native to the Abyss. Even so, for the entity behind Koman to grant a fallen giant the temporary power of a balor was by no means a simple feat. It was very likely a demon lord. This put Cassius somewhat on his guard. While he did not take this newborn balor seriously, the demon lord pulling the strings from the shadows—that "Demon of Vengeance"—was a mysterious and exceedingly dangerous existence to him. "What are you waiting for?" "Red dragon, are you afraid?" The balor let out a roar and lashed out with his flame whip, attempting to coil it around the red dragon's neck. Under normal circumstances, once the flame whip struck an enemy, he could use his immense physical strength to drag them toward his blazing body, attacking them at will. Unfortunately, the enemy he faced was no mortal. Cassius caught the fiery whip with ease, a look of amusement on his face. "Did the abyssal torrents wash away your brain? "You dare attempt to challenge a red dragon in fire and strength?" The balor gripped the whip tightly and tried to yank it back, but even as he exerted all his strength, the flame whip did not budge an inch. The other end was firmly gripped in the red dragon's massive claws. The searing flames—deadly beyond measure to mortals—were nothing to Cassius, not even matching the residual heat he produced in his sleep. "What a laughable trick." Instead, Cassius gave a sudden, violent heave. Caught off guard, the balor was hauled bodily before the red dragon by that terrifying, overwhelming force. "Cassius, you're courting death!" The balor bellowed in fury. The storm sword in his left hand crackled with lightning as he slashed straight toward the dragon's neck. Yet even denser arcs of lightning danced across the red dragon's scales. The electrical discharge of the storm sword was completely absorbed by his Body of Storm's Echo, allowing Cassius to summon an even more ferocious thunderclap in response. Instantly, a thunderbolt plummeted from the clear sky. *Boom!* The balor was struck until he convulsed all over, his body charred black. Grasping the flame whip tightly, Cassius forcefully swung the balor into the air, then slammed him violently into the ground. *Boom!* "This is your so-called revenge?" The corner of Cassius's mouth twitched slightly. The balor before him wielded fire and lightning, abilities quite similar to his own, but every single one was vastly inferior—making him seem like an all-natural punching bag made especially for him. Even as he spoke, Cassius's hands never stopped moving. With muscles taut, the red dragon repeatedly slammed the balor into the ground, leaving several humanoid craters in the earth. "Enough!" The balor finally unwound the whip wrapped around his hand, breaking free of the endless pummeling. He dragged himself up from the ground with great effort, uncontrollable rage erupting in his eyes. This was absolute humiliation! His hated enemy, that red dragon, was treating him like a mere plaything! As a demon at the pinnacle of the Abyss, a balor possessed far more than just brute strength. Koman instinctively considered casting Blasphemy, but realizing the red dragon before him was almost certainly a chaotic evil being as well, he gritted his teeth and held back, refusing to let himself be effortlessly countered once again. "I shall bestow upon you the madness of the Abyss!" With that, a deranged abyssal light flared in the balor's eyes as he unleashed an innate spell-like ability. *Feeblemind.* This spell brimmed with the frantic madness of the Abyss; anyone struck by it would have their senses halved and stand a high chance of succumbing to complete insanity. It was an ability a balor used only when facing a formidable foe they could not overpower. Yet before his spell-like ability could even manifest, the faint shimmer of an illusion surged in Cassius's eyes first. *Terrifying Vision of Tiamat.* Suddenly, the monstrous five-headed chromatic dragon materialized before the balor, letting loose an earth-shattering roar as its five heads poured forth fire, frost, acid, and lightning at will. "No, this is impossible!" "You cannot summon a true deity!" The balor gritted his teeth. Although he saw through the illusion, those terrible breath attacks had already manifested in his mind as reality, causing various wounds to erupt across his massive, twisted body. The moment the illusion dissipated— Cassius was already standing right before the balor. The dragon crystal on his chest blazed with blinding brilliance, white smoke hissed from his vents, and a column of incandescent, searing flame erupted from his jaws. Yet that was not the end of it. The red dragon's jaws opened even wider. Two dazzling rows of flame-tails flared along his neck and tail, the dragon crystal in his chest flooded with fiery radiance, and the incandescent column of fire intensified further, its outer flame taking on a faint blue tint. It was Maximized Flame Breath! *Boom!* Within a few breaths, the column of fire blasted clean through the balor's chest, vaporizing his pulsating, evil heart where it beat. Even with his formidable resistance to fire, the red dragon's maximized breath far exceeded the limits of what he could endure. The balor stared up at the dragon in unwilling disbelief, his eyes burning with venomous hatred. "No, no..." "It wasn't supposed to be like this." His body swayed violently, his arms weakly lifting in an attempt to entangle his enemy with the last dregs of his strength. Yet his life was already a candle guttering in the wind, his vitality utterly depleted. Cassius merely stepped back with agile grace and cast the draconic spell Egg of Refuge, creating an egg-shaped extradimensional space. Amid the flickering magical dweomer, he vanished from the Material Plane. "No—!" "My revenge isn't over! Come back!" The balor let out a gut-wrenching roar, his eyes filled with despair. Dazzling flashes of light burst from his mouth, nose, and eyes. The light flared continuously until it enveloped his entire frame, turning his massive, gruesome body into a ticking time bomb. In the next moment, the balor's death triggered a horrifying explosion. *Boom!* Accompanied by a deafening roar, terrifyingly high temperatures obliterated everything in the vicinity. Fiends, boulders, trees, and anything else in range were reduced to ash in this cataclysmic blast. Nearly half the mountainside was leveled, and abyssal fire raged across the scorched earth. The immense shockwave expanded for miles, its force causing the Anstica Mountains to tremble and shake. This was the Death Throes—the most spectacular phenomenon unleashed upon a balor's demise, the grandest fireworks display ignited by a greater demon's dying breath. Yet this magnificent spectacle lacked its most important spectator. The object of his revenge had possessed the foresight to depart early, safe within an extradimensional space far beyond reach.