Apocalypse Demon

The **Apocalypse Demon** was a powerful Demon that attacked Anglecynn in 5 FE. The Demon united the hells against Aerb to a degree not seen since, waging a conflict against Uther known as the **Apocalypse Demon's War**.

The Apocalypse Demon physically travelled to Aerb via the usual means available to infernals. Once it arrived, the Apocalypse Demon controlled the mind of Zona, Uther's wife, from afar. At some point the Demon attacked and destroyed much of Caledwich, possibly the same final battle that Uther defeated the Demon in.

To defeat it, Uther went on a long quest to find the legendary warhammer Marcion, returning to Anglecynn and smiting the Demon at the last moment, with a blow so mighty the Demon "crashed through every single layer of hell and bottomed out with such force that it permanently pushed every single hell away". The impact permanently made it harder for powerful infernals to cross over to Aerb, particularly in Anglecynn.

With the benefit of hindsight, it was considered one of the major crises that defined the Foundational Era, among the major threats that attacked the newly-emerging Anglecynn, alongside the Invasion of the Ice Wizards and the Wandering Blight. Uther's defeat of a demonic cult attempting to employ demonic binding to possess him in 5 BE, which resulted the exclusion of binding, was generally regarded as a prelude to this war. The destruction it wrought on his capital allowing Uther to completely rebuild it to his own designs. It was popularly believed that the effects of Uther smiting the Demon had permanently eliminated the hells as a serious threat to Aerb, although in truth the scholars of the Infinite Library did deal with some similar threats over the years.

## References

1. ↑ 4 FE: Uther defeats the Ice Wizards

5 FE: Uther defeats Apocalypse Demon

7 FE: Uther defeats the Wandering Blight - Chapter 196: Notes II
2. ↑ The hells were mobilizing, and much faster than expected. Compared to the time of the Apocalypse Demon, this represented a fairly small mobilization of forces, but it was clearly laying the groundwork for something bigger. - Chapter 184: The Further Adventures of Valencia the Red
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 The hells haven’t been united since the time of the Apocalypse Demon, and the dent Uther put in our cosmology has helped ensure only the weak can make it up - Chapter 106: The One-Hand Warder
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Exclusion came in 5 BE following Uther’s defeat of a ‘chained’ cult. The demons had, in secret, been working on a plan for a maximal chain... In the end, the maximal chain misfired. Intended to capture Uther Penndraig, it instead captured one of his assistants, and he fought a brutal battle with her, now largely seen as the prelude to the Apocalypse Demon’s War. - Chapter 60: William's Net
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 “Infernals can travel to Aerb,” said Raven. “Part of our work at the Library was stopping them. Imps and lesser infernals can even do it without terribly much effort, but they’re poorly adapted and can wind up worse off than if they’d stayed in their mild hell.” The Apocalypse Demon was one notable example. - Chapter 231: Hellfall
6. ↑ A year after Dahlia was born, the ice wizards invaded, and Zona was kidnapped. Uther brought her back, but they didn’t have terribly much time together before the Apocalypse Demon arrived and began controlling her mind from afar. It was the Wandering Blight that cost her half her body, everything below her rib cage. - Chapter 55: Bond Girl
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 The layout of Caledwich was designed by Uther himself following major destruction during the time of the Apocalypse Demon, and put into place once the Wandering Blight had been defeated. It was considered the first and greatest feat of urban planning, with a foresight that was utterly unrivaled, though critics will often point out that this redesign was essentially only possible because of the enormous political capital that Uther wielded, and even then might not have happened without half the city being razed to the ground. Of the major structures left from before the Dark King’s only Caledwich castle remains, with numerous additions that dwarf the original structure. - Worth the Candle: A Brief Description of Aerb - Chapter 9: A Few Major Cities
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Caledwich had become his home, and the combination of a clear vision and nearly limitless resources had allowed him to reshape the place to his liking. Beyond that, the Apocalypse Demon had wreaked havoc on the city, which was exactly the sort of thing that allows for the bypass of eminent domain issues (not that such a thing existed in a monarchy like Anglecynn’s, though you had to be conscious of the lower classes revolting). - Chapter 177: The Erstwhile Manor
9. ↑ To defeat it, Uther went on a long quest to find the legendary warhammer Marcion, returning to Anglecynn and smiting the Demon at the last moment with a blow so mighty that it "crashed through every single layer of hell and bottomed out with such force that it permanently pushed every single hell away", forever making it harder for infernals to cross over to Aerb; particularly in Anglecynn. - Chapter 69: In Mutual Congress
10. ↑ The demon she was using was -- or had been, since it was dead now -- an old and powerful one, but without much exposure to the surface world since the time of the Apocalypse Demon. - Chapter 102: The Adventures of Valencia the Red
11. ↑ “If we chart Penndraig’s life as a series of journeys, calls to adventure, metaphorical deaths and rebirths, then returns to comfort and a new normalcy, we can define a few large ones,” said Amaryllis. “And as a matter of fact, there are often dramatizations of those journeys. Penndraig against the Dark King ends with him restored to the throne. Meeting of the Seventeen Swords goes from the time he becomes king to just after the First Empire finally finds its footing. After that, there’s the Invasion of the Ice Wizards, then the Apocalypse Demon, then the Wandering Blight -- those are the major ones, from what we’ll call the Foundational Era, when threats started coming out of the woodwork to stop him.”

“Huh,” I said. “Were they all external threats that came to meet him?”

“Yes,” nodded Amaryllis - Chapter 54: Looper