Kill Six Billion Demons V: Breaker of Infinities (part one)

It's been more than long enough. With two other long projects (Metal Gear Rising and Katalepsis: Providence or Atoms) finished and only one other, more slow-burning, one (Medusa Cronicles) ongoing, I think this is as good a time as any to resume Kill Six Billion Demons.

Where we left off, the status quo was just shattered in a way that not even the destruction of Yre compares to. Jagganoth, the strongest and most ruinous of the Black Seven, has launched a surprise attack on Solomon David's capital city. They all knew that he'd be starting a war with the rest of them sooner or later. They all knew that it would probably come without warning, when it came. But still, that barely reduces the shock.

It also comes at just the right moment to show Killy and White Chain how useless it is to try and negotiate with these people. Not that Solomon David wasn't already trying to wriggle out of his obligations, but now he has a disaster to brush them off in favor of handling. Trying to actually beat him at his own game was always an exercise in futility, because he was only ever playing because he wanted to and could stop at any time. Jagganoth's attack gives him a much more legitimate excuse than he'd have otherwise been able to create, but its still an illustration of the point.

Not that Solomon is happy to have his capital nuked, exactly, but I think part of him is aware that it does serve his interests.

Anyway, I doubt Solomon will be all that important after this point. We saw some unusual proactivity from Jadis right before Jagganoth's attack, and we still don't know the entirety of Gog-Agog's schemes, so I suspect that those two will be the most prominent demiurgi besides Jagganoth himself in this next arc. Well, besides Incubus. Incubus has that secret pact with Jagganoth, so he might just throw things off even further by joining the war on the opposite side. Or, more likely, just use the opportunity to scavenge and loot the multiverse behind the others' backs while they're fighting; that sounds more like his style, and it's something Jagganoth would probably be just fine with.

Where that leaves our protagonists, though, I'm much less sure. Team Killy has more brute strength to its name right now than ever before, what with White Chain's transformation and Killy and Cio's Steven Universe trick, but brute strength isn't going to do much good against Jagganoth. Seems like their best bet is to retreat, regroup, and figure out if there's some esoteric use of the Masterkey that can make a difference. Or, barring that, figure out what Jagganoth's damage even is and see if there's a way to calm him down. Or, barring that, go confront 1 Metatron, who is strongly implied to be the one pulling Jagganoth's strings and fuelling his invincibility acupuncture.

If nothing else, sending Zaid back to Earth would be a nice thing to do. And a way to keep themselves busy for a bit as they try to decide if there's anything they can do to effect the fate of the multiverse at this point.

Now would be a nice time to hear from Zoss, but then, he might not know how to deal with this situation either. After all, he ultimately failed to reign the demiurgi in himself at the end of his reign. Dismantling hierarchy and spreading empowerment and autonomy to all people might be a good goal in general, but it's kind of orthogonal to the problem of "how do we stop big red guy from killing everyone?"

Also, here's the cover art for book 5, and does Killy have a prosthetic arm now?

It could just be a fancy gauntlet or something, but the way the finger joints are drawn makes it seem like there's nothing beneath. So, seems likely she'll be losing a limb and getting a magitech replacement sometime in this book.

Anyway, aside from Jagganoth in villainous silhouette over the ruined landscape, we also see all six of the other demiurgi. The black-haired lady is probably Jadis outside of her ice block; I'm not sure, but she looks like her, and she's standing by the others, so probably. I assumed she needed that block to keep her alive or something, but maybe she's just been pulling a long con with that. As I suspected above, the artwork's more prominent placement of her, Gog-Agog, and Incubus in his withered true body suggests that they'll be very active in this book.

Not sure what that weird black specter behind Jadis is supposed to be. It looks like it shares her general silhouette, and I think it's connected to her blue Key-energy, but beyond that no idea.

No sign of any of Killy's companions in the image. I believe that's a first. And also very ominous, considering that Zoss was just telling her about the importance of others.

Well. Time for the first chapter or two of "Breaker of Infinities."


Solomon David glares at the uninvited party guest, howling in anguish at the attack on his capital and killing of what appeared to be a few hundred thousand of his subjects. Gog-Agog pulls herself together out of the most radiation-tolerant worms she happened to have onsite and whines about everything. Then, Mottom appears - not bothering to disguise her true appearance this time - and says something actually cogent, if self-aggrandizing.

Well, they have an alliance for just this eventuality. And, I'm pleasantly surprised to say, she actually plans to take it seriously. Even with Mammon.

Speaking of whom, Mammon teleports in too and says...well, what the hell did you even expect?

Well, at least he isn't mad at her either. If only because she hasn't made a point of reminding him to be mad at her in the last fifteen minutes.

Incubus, scarred and hunched, rises up out of a nearby pool of mud and looks...alarmed. Probably moreso than we've ever seen him. Apparently, this wasn't according to plan.

Yeah, how could Jagganoth have done this? It's not like he's been openly holding you in contempt for the entirety of your alliance or anything.

Across the bay, some Rayuban citizens watch from the docks. The city proper seems to be pretty undamaged, and there aren't wounded and dead people everywhere, so I guess the arena did a good job of containing the explosion. Smaller death toll than I thought, in that case. Still, they should evacuate.

One of the people watching isn't a native, though. And she isn't concerned with Jagganoth, primarily.

Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

Jagganoth gives the other six a speech that basically amounts to "everything sucks, you all suck, it's time to end the suckage." I mean, he's not wrong, but. Solomon David gives a speech in return, naturally taking it upon himself to speak for all the others, about how they've been prepared for this for a long time and they're going to imprison Jagganoth until the end of time even if they can't kill him.

Also, he calls Jagganoth by another name.

Yaun Ten Jantris. I thought the name sounded vaguely familiar, so I looked back, and it turns out he's the protagonist of a supplemental text that I didn't comment on at the time. It's scattered in bits and pieces all around the tournament arc, but looking at all the pieces now with this context it comes together.

In short, Yaun was a peasant boy whose village was destroyed and family murdered by a particularly vicious mercenary-company-cum-death-cult called the Dead Men. It's not clear if this was part of the Multiversal War, or just an unrelated conflict that happened on Yaun's homeworld. Anyway, Yaun was taken as a personal slave by Jantris, one of the leaders of the gang, who beat all weakness and - eventually - all coherent memories of his previous life and family out of him, before giving him a sword and making him a soldier. This was apparently the dead men's usual recruitment method.

The story ends there, at least for now, so it's anyone's guess how he went from there to getting his first Key and eventually taking the name Jagganoth. In any case, he started out as a horrendously traumatized child soldier press ganged into a death cult, which does explain a lot about his disposition.

Fittingly, just after his true name is spoken aloud, Jagganoth sees fit to show his human visage as well. Noticing Killy and her friends standing in the rubble a ways behind the demiurgi, Yaun removes his helmet and politely asks Killy to help him out with that Masterkey she's got.

Hmm. I wonder if the fangs are something he added to himself later along with the giant size, or if all the humans of his homeworld had teeth like that. Well, fangs aside, he looks pretty much how you'd expect. Intimidating and pitiable in equal measures, like he wishes he could have just died hundreds of years ago but is resolved to make that your problem now.

When asked why the hell Killy would want to do that, Jagganoth explains that his real target is 1 Metatron. He's been trying to control him, along with everything else, and Jagganoth is sick of the overbearing angel. With his own strength and the Masterkey, he thinks he can free the multiverse from the feathery fucker, so please hand it over.

Heh. He's a good planner, but he's a terrible liar. If that was what he wanted to do, he'd have just quietly reached out to Killy back on Throne. Killy ain't buying it. She falls for some really stupid shit sometimes, but fortunately this is not one of those times.

Solomon draws his attention back away from Killy and asks him if he has any last words that aren't dumb. He swings at Solomon with his sword. Guess we're rolling initiative now.

Jagganoth's initial sword slices miss. They do shoot out these sword-beams with each swing though, and those fly across the bay and kill somewhere in the upper three digits' worth of additional civilians as the seaside buildings come down. Killy asks him what the fuck, and Jagganoth actually is considerate enough to raise his voice above the din of combat and answer her. Death is a mercy, he says. This multiverse was a mistake. Purge it off all life, Yisun will reawaken, and hopefully they'll do a better job on the next version.

Yeah, that's just the Thorn Knight party line, no changes. If Jagganoth actually has any beef with 1 Metatron at this point, it's not an ideological disagreement.

...

Also, it occurs to me that this JRPG villain style nihilism works much better in this cosmology than it does in most JRPG's. We have tangible evidence of the creator gods, and a broad religious consensus across the contacted multiverse that the gods do work more or less that way.

To be fair, a lot of Japanese games probably assume a post-Buddhist audience that these kinds of assumptions come a bit more naturally to.

...

There are a bunch of explosions and special effects. The ground shakes. Incubus, pulling out his own weapon and finally making to demonstrate why he's called the sword king of the middle army instead of just the dream guy, takes a moment to give Killy some advice before lunging in. It's probably the first and last actually good advice he'll ever have given her.

Also, it looks like his body is...inflating?...around those aggravated blood vessels. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say he's pulling energy out of that magic blood pool back in his castle and using it to temporarily restore his body tom its physical prime. This must be costly for him, if he doesn't just do it by default. Probably because of his age, just like Mottom needing more and more of her fruit to stay young the older she gets.

I'm guessing the fruit are more efficient. Mottom a) is able to keep herself rejuvenated all the time rather than just in emergencies, and b) probably knows how to make a vampiric pool like Incubus' but she still sees the loss of Hastree as a big deal. So yeah.

Killy isn't sure if she should really not even TRY to help here. But, well. She's not even able to keep up with the action, let alone react to it.

At one point, Mottom tells Solomon and Incubus that trying to swordfight the indestructible warrior is a waste of everyone's time; it'll be sorcery, not steel, that gets around Jagganoth's defences. Whatever she's about to cast though, Mammon hears her, agrees, and casts his own thing first.

He calls down a meteor shower on Jagganoth.

Using sorcery to do something that sword powers wouldn't, like hitting him with solid projectiles. Brilliant, Mammon. Brilliant.

Jagganoth doesn't even let them hit him, though I doubt they'd do much even if they did.

Abbadon really went all out on the art in this fight sequence. I wish I could screencap every other panel.​

Ironically, I think Jagganoth might have actually saved a lot of lives there. If the meteors had hit the ground, I'm pretty sure the rest of the city would have collapsed.

Well, we've definitely put the lie to Solomon's claim that they've been preparing for this. These guys haven't done even a single team drill for dealing with Jagganoth. We already kind of knew that, but now we're seeing it onscreen.

As the battlefield is covered in giant ice spires and flickering afterimages of Solomon David, and the sky turns red and then starts raining arrows, Killy finally throws the towel and runs back over to the others. Finding them isn't as easy as it would have been a minute ago, owing to the increasingly surreal nature of the landscape as the demiurgi go all out on it. Things aren't good. White Chain is still figuring out her new body. Nyave is injured, and bleeding heavily. Cio, Zaid, Princess, and Vigilant Gaze are all fine, but none of them have any idea what to do.

They look to her for leadership. For some reason. Well, okay, that's not fair; she's the one who can cast plane shift at will, so if they want to retreat via the safest and most expedient route they're going to need her participation. And, well...like I said before, Incubus has just given her his only ever piece of good advice, and she's inclined to heed it.

They gather around, Killy concentrates. People complain and snark fondly about each other's missteps on this mission, including going on the mission itself. The Masterkey glows, white portal-energy surrounds them, and then Jagganoth spins around at them out of nowhere and counterspells it.

They all collapse in a heap from the backlash. Jagganoth goes back to fighting the other demiurgi without skipping a beat.

He wants that Masterkey. And, more importantly, he can apparently shut down Killy's one big trump card that she's had to fall back on throughout the comic. Except for in Yre with its anti-teleport wards, she's always been aware that if all else fails, she can plane shift herself, her friends, and whatever vehicle they happen to be on to safety.

Not with this guy. There's no safety when Jagganoth is on the field.

It's not clear how long it'll take before Killy recovers from the backlash enough to try again, but Jagganoth doesn't seem willing to find out. After blocking another volley of ineffective attacks, he swivels back around and sends a volley of sword blasts at the group. Presumably hoping for the off chance that it'll wound Killy enough that he can grab her and tear the Masterkey out of her skull the next time the flow of battle permits it.

Surprisingly, Incubus actually goes out of his way to help Killy block this barrage. Like, he puts actual effort into protecting her.

I guess he's still hoping he can get at the Masterkey via their dream connection, and it might give him a chance against his former BFF Yaun. Or maybe there's something else going on here. I don't know. Either way, he tells them he meant it literally when he told them to run. No teleport. No dimensional bullshit. Physically move away from Jagganoth using their limbs. Walk, swim, whatever. Just go. Now.

Alright then. Hopefully once they get out of Jagganoth's line of sight they'll be able to plane shift, assuming Killy is up to it by then. For now, they start running for the water line. The bridges, of course, are no longer standing.


That's the beginning of "Breaker of Infinities." It's off to a start, alright.