Episode 102: Eleventh Hour

Fate is always moving. Inching closer to an ending. And for our story the eleventh hour is at hand. The clock, ticking towards an inevitability. A war. The final war. The only thing remaining, yet to be decided, is which side will be left standing.

The timeline of Legends of the Night spans countless eons. The pulse of Magic. Parasites from another world. The saga of the Children of Nature. The Dark’s placing of the Zombie plague in the hands of mankind. None of it is accidental. Every event, every choice, every life, has been part of a design unfolding across history. Piece by piece, a master plan revealed with unseen purpose, leading us towards a single truth. And that destination...is here.

As the scope of our story narrows, the world remains blissfully unaware that it stands upon the very edge of oblivion. Of the Seven Processions foretold, six have come to pass. Ancient milestones bringing mankind one step closer to the final war.

The First Procession was completed in 1946. As told in Season One, the forces of Light believed they’d found Ammit, the elusive Eater of Souls, hidden within a mortal host. Casting the soul out, through their own miscalculation, they delivered the entity into the hands of the Dark.

The Second Procession came in 2005. As chronicled in Season Two, the vampire samurai Renmaru Okayama slew Elizabeth Jovan, the final survivor of an ancient parasitic race, during the climactic battle that ended the Great Vampire War.

A Third Procession followed in 2015. In Season Three, Sara Ivy, a Child of Nature, killed her maker, Thomas Crowley, the elusive Light Bearer.

And in 2032, as told in Season Four, Win Wheeler released plague-infested pigeons into the sky, igniting the last war between men, and fulfilling the Sixth Procession.

Yet two Processions unfolded beyond the periphery of these stories. And so, before this final chapter can truly be told, and before we can understand how the world arrived at the edge of its own destruction, those hidden events must first be brought into the light.

For the Dark, demons are an essential component to their shadowy crusade. The worker bee’s, carrying out Satan's will, sowing chaos and patiently laying the foundations of war.

But the odyssey and maturation of each demon is a winding vine, intricate and complicated at times. They’re not just canon fodder, troops to be used in the fray. Each serves as both instrument and philosophy in Satan's endless campaign against creation. 

As previously articulated in Episode 12, souls are threads woven into an immense cosmic tapestry, concentrated vessels of power that sustain the very fabric of the Universe. But fractured, corrupted, or broken souls are cast to the depths of the Abyss. Reshaped in darkness, bound to the will of evil, becoming demons. Each of them reborn by Brimstone, a primordial and fundamental substance from which the Underworld itself was formed. Malignant and rotten, Brimstone is the essence of demonkind, binding infernal entities to existence while granting them the unnatural power that sustains them.

But even among the damned, there exists an order. Demons are not created all-powerful. They begin as little more than a hint of shadow. Weak little things clawing for influence. Only through the corruption of mankind can they grow. And with the weight of each soul delivered to the Dark, a demon's power grows, allowing it to ascend through the Nine States of Demonhood.

Smoke or Vapor Demons, comprise the First State. They manifest as drifting mist or fleeting distortions. Possessing almost no ability to affect the physical world, they survive by whispering temptations into mortal minds.

The Second State, Imps...More cunning and aware than Smoke Demons, Imps subtly manipulate emotions, magnify fears, and nurture destructive impulses. They delight in mischief, discord, and moral decay, serving as the first active agents of corruption.

In the Third State, Shadowcasters can manifest as apparitions and are capable of projecting their influence across dreams, reflections, and haunted places. Many accounts of ghosts and hauntings are, in reality, the work of Shadowcasters, manipulating the living from beyond the veil.

Soldier Demons, are the Fourth State. These are the rank-and-file of Hell's armies, and the lowest-ranking demons capable of sustained possession. Though forbidden from killing directly, they excel at guiding their hosts toward violence, cruelty, and murder, delivering souls to Hell through the choices of those they corrupt.

The Fifth State, Harrowers are masters of torment and possession. They specialize in breaking the minds and wills of mortals. Unlike Soldiers, who merely guide, Harrowers systematically dismantle a victim's sense of self, often driving them toward catastrophic moral failure.

The Sixth State, Wraiths, also known as Shapeshifters, have the ability to assume the likeness of anyone or seize direct control of a human body. They prefer influence over force, spending years cultivating the downfall of individuals, families, institutions, and nations. Many wars and scandals, bear the fingerprints of Wraiths working unseen.

In the Seventh State, Incubi and Succubi are demons capable of producing offsprings with humans. Through these unions, traces of infernal power enter mortal bloodlines, creating Demonspawns. Few demons rival their effectiveness, for they corrupt not through terror, but through seduction, and irresistible manipulation.

Hellions comprise the Eighth State, among the most feared entities in existence. Hellions can fully manifest in the material world and maintain physical forms indefinitely. They move through history under countless identities, and have the ability to possess large groups simultaneously.

And the rarest of all, Exarchs, reach the Ninth State, the highest known rank of demonhood. Existing across multiple planes of reality at once, Exarchs exert their influence over the course of history itself, shaping civilizations in pursuit of domination on a monumental scale. Their knowledge of humanity is vast, and their power approaches the absolute limits of what any demon may achieve. Though still forbidden from directly taking human life, an Exarch may siphon a soul from a living body. Ba’el, who wore the human guise of Dr. Bellian Vale, was an Exarch.

According to old texts, with knowledge of infernal matters, there exists a theoretical Tenth State, known only as The Behemoth. Should a demon accumulate sufficient energy, it would eventually transcend the limits of its own identity, collapsing beneath the weight of its power. What would emerge would no longer be a demon in a recognizable sense, but a living embodiment of chaos itself. A herald to bring about the end of the world, and something so absolute it could rival even Satan in power.  

The demon Kasson had climbed his way through the hierarchy. Starting as a lowly smoke demon, whispering temptations into vulnerable hearts and slowly ascending through the ranks. Calculating and methodical, he quietly steered countless souls into subtle corruption, in pursuit of the Processions. It was Kasson who planted the dream of the man in the field, in Reginald Black’s mind. He nurtured Orem Black’s obsession with destiny, guiding him to cross over to the Dark.

And as last we saw him, having achieved the Seventh State, he was in a bar in Wyoming in 1980. An Incubus, hunting. His gaze settled upon an unsuspecting young woman named Janet, drawing her attention as though by instinct alone. They exchanged glances from across the room, flirtation blooming in silence before she finally rose from her seat and made her way toward him.

JANET: Hi there, handsome. This seat taken?

KASSON: No, please...May I buy you a drink?

He was powerful enough with his voice and a look to tempt, entice, and bewitch her...and if he could sustain the enchantment long enough, there was little Janet could do to resist becoming his prey. And in the small hours he’d plant a seed, and be gone before dawn could break.

Janet wasn’t the first. She was merely one among thousands lured into his carefully laid snare.

Kasson possessed knowledge of a Procession known to almost no one else, and for decades he labored in the shadows, ensuring when its appointed hour finally arrived, nothing would prevent its fulfillment.

TO BE CONTINUED…