JW OG

## Judas Wormwood

*"I, with the speed and destructive power of a falling star, shall bring you a most gruesome death."*
―Judas Wormwood
**Judas Wormwood** is the tyrant king of Pathos and reincarnation of the fallen archangel Samael, from whom he derives his "true" name. He currently leads the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as the new **Pale Horseman**, along with the Doomsday Army.

## Biography

### Early life

#### Transhumanism

During the embryonic stage, Judas was subjected to genome editing that focused the creation of an "*Übermensch*." This backfired and had a negative effect on his personality; it caused his dark traits to be more pronounced while suppressing his humanity, in addition to embedding the lust for destruction.

## Abilities

**Overview**: As the reincarnation of Samael, Judas is one of the most powerful beings in the world, surpassing that of his mentor Thanatos. He possesses a versatile range of skills, although never really acquiring complete expertise in any particular area, except for maybe combat. And because of his divinity, Judas is virtually immortal, able to survive all injuries as long as his soul remains extant. It notably confers upon him unlimited destructive power, feared by even the gods. He also becomes stronger during the night, reaching his apex at 12 o'clock.

Before returning to Pathos, Judas had attained preeminence within the *Cuerpo de Fuerzas Especiales*, becoming known as the youngest person to be recruited into the FER, as well as their deadliest operative. He supposedly racked up the most confirmed kills to date.

After he underwent torturous human enhancement, Judas greatly benefited from numerous genetic modifications, to the extent that he was likened to a "god of destruction." The exact effects have not been explained, but it supposedly enhanced his body to allow finer usage of his latent angelic strength and almost completely nullified his sense of pain. Judas eventually grew to be feared worldwide because of his monstrous power and due to being able to kill the globally-renowned hero Masato Amanaki, which led to the creation of the United Armed Forces, whose exclusive purpose was to defeat him.

* **Unique Physiology**: Because the vestigial spirit form of Samael displaced his soul, Judas resembles the first generation of Nephilim enough to be mistaken for one by the Four Horsemen during their first encounter. Furthermore, he was originally classified as a supermutant, thus rendering him perfectly responsive to the aforementioned event.
	+ **Enhanced Regeneration**: Judas has been able to recover from innumerable gunshots, broken bones, burns, bite wounds, gashes, and torso impalements, even regenerating his entire left hand after it had been cut off by Starbright.
	+ **Enhanced Senses**: Judas possesses extremely acute senses that allow him to perceive things outside the normal range of perception, which he displayed by easily discerning the presence of enemy forces instantly, even when they were scattered all around a mountain. He has been documented hearing, seeing and smelling near-imperceptible stimuli from remote locations, as well as easily detecting faint vibrations made by subtle movements. It was stated that only *grand veneur* Bloodhound outclasses him.
		- **Night Vision**: Judas retains unhampered eyesight in darkness, attributed to the assertion that he actually possesses a variant of the tissue *tapetum lucidum* found in some nocturnal animals and deep-sea animals. This is also assumed to be the reason for his luminous irises.
	+ **Natural Weaponry**: Judas possesses fangs and sharp black nails. He naturally secretes a hypertoxic venom, dubbed "Nerveracker," that heavily impairs the nervous system to cause paralysis, among other things; the same properties can be found in his blood.

* **Immense Strength**: Judas possesses a godlike degree of physical strength, which seems to grow during times of intense rage and hatred. Judas was able to effortlessly snap the neck of the Titan Atlas, tear apart an advanced fighter jet midair, fight on par with Takali, and can possibly trounce the combined might of the United Armed Forces, even without his added powers. He also demonstrated the ability to move freely in the air with only his arm movements and deflect incoming projectiles by generating intense wind pressure via simple hand motions or kicks.

* **Immense Speed & Reflexes**: To match his strength, Judas possesses meteoric speed and reflexes that have allowed him to dodge rapid gunfire at close range, maneuver through falling debris, keep up with fast-moving vehicles, and take down entire groups of enemies before anyone saw what happened. It was nearly indistinguishable from teleportation at times. The only person known to consistently outclass him in this category is Starbright, who moves close to the speed of light.

* **Immense Durability**: Judas has withstood a ridiculous amount of punishment, such as getting crushed, stabbed, beaten, blasted, and burned by all manner of enemies. He traded blows with Takali on multiple occasions. He was also hit by a freight train moving at 102 kph that weighed around 275 tonnes, walking away with minor injuries.
	+ **Supernatural Resistance**: Judas is highly resilient to most forms of powerful magic, elemental manipulations, meta abilities, enchanted weaponry, and divine artifacts, allowing him to easily take deadly mystical attacks capable of killing or otherwise affecting regular humans. However, he isn't immune and can still be severely harmed or influenced by the aforementioned phenomena if they are potent enough, as seen when Null concocted an illusion that tricked him.

* **Immense Stamina**: Judas has demonstrated significant staying power, being able to tolerate tremendous pain and continue standing despite having his bones shattered. This allows him to remain constantly active for days without tiring or slowing down. During his one-man crusade against Pathos, he was able to travel several hundred kilometers while being critically injured, sleep-deprived, dehydrated, and suffering major blood loss, becoming evidently unable to properly think and on the verge of collapsing – yet still managed to fight off countless enemies under these harsh conditions through sheer rage.

**Genius Intellect**: Judas possesses an incredibly sharp mind, displaying enough observational and analytical skills to infer an opponent’s abilities simply by watching them in action; he can perform deductive, inductive. and abductive reasoning of the highest caliber. He was able to calculate the variables for jumping between two advanced fighter jets, as well as figure out where a teleporter would most likely appear, completely neutralize Lucas’ Railgun, orchestrate the espionage mission for the Blood Moon Gala, and allude the prying eyes of the public. He mostly relies on *ad hoc* plans that utilize lateral thinking, intuition and lightning-quick wit to outsmart adversaries, but employs "vertical" logic when it better applies, or even a mixture thereof.

Thanks to his flexibility, Judas can quickly adapt to foreign environments or situations that normally impede his abilities. He has regularly shown himself to have extraordinary versatility and improvisational skills when put under intense stress, changing directions in mere moments to better suit the occasion, even for simple reasons such as persuading someone.

* **Enhanced Memory**: Judas can remember great volumes of information, in more detail and for much longer than the average human; he can read books, listen to song lyrics, encounter people or experience events and recall a vast amount of the fine points involved.

**Indomitable Willpower**: Stemming from his traumatic childhood and profound hatred of life, Judas has a remarkably strong willpower that presents itself whenever placed into onerous situations. Even during fights where his powers were disabled and he was faced with numerous formidable opponents, he stubbornly refused to back down since yielding meant he would be forfeiting his objective. Despite being overwhelmed by the collective onslaught from successive paid assassins, he pulled through their debilitating attacks and completely dominated them during the struggle, all the while being exhausted from his previous twelve-dozen confrontations. Judas had even brought himself back from biological death, denouncing the idea of dying when he still had “so many more people to kill." Additionally, he shows to be capable of temporarily negating mind control, or even ignoring it completely, as shown with his mental battle against the Inner Demon’s attempts at possessing him.

Following the events of the war, Judas' consuming obsession with exacting revenge on Takali became progressively worse as he succumbed to the stress caused by the ongoing conflict around him and the pain brought to his allies. He began to overexert himself, under-eat, and constantly fended off enemies, and showed increasingly worrying behavior, abandoning his comrades in order to keep them out of harm's way despite making himself easier to attack in the process.

**Body Modification**: TBA. However, because the part of his brain that regulated strength was sabotaged during the procedure, Judas has to manually control it since his musculoskeletal system will quickly fall apart under the strain caused by the disproportionate output, e.g. the sudden appearance of a large, grisly fissure on his chest and left arm after unintentionally overexerting himself to pick up his cellular phone.

* **Accelerated Growth Rate**: Judas has become a particularly fearsome opponent both in the short and long term since he can undergo physical augmentations fast enough to transcend his enemies during battle. It was noted that his body is trying to seek an "ideal form" to accommodate his power and desire to destroy the world, hence the constant shapeshifting.
	+ **Adaptation**: Due to his extremely volatile DNA, Judas can reactively mutate to counteract new threats, evincing the natural affinity for rapid acclimation that all mutants have. This first manifested as desert locust-like wings used to escape a minefield, which he later detached and regrew on command. He also sprouted eight, red-violet tentacles to defend and fight for him while being restrained. He even developed pseudo-Goetias, but was forced to eliminate them because of the resulting physical backlash. Judas seemingly has some control over his mutations.

### Goetias

**Destruction**: Judas can disintegrate whatever he touches. The speed at which it progresses has developed from slow to almost immediate, eventually permeating a person's whole body if the afflicted section isn’t somehow separated from the rest. It also no longer requires him to maintain constant, five-fingered constant, since briefly brushing against his target or using less than five fingers will provide the same results. It has been shown to capable of affecting masses as large as the city of Ayalec and later Protivník in one fell swoop, and spreads throughout groups like wildfire, infecting anything they come into contact with even when he himself isn’t touching them.

By nature, this power forces Judas to always engage his opponent in close quarters, though he needs only to make minimal contact with his enemy in order to kill or heavily injure them.

Judas was usually careful with his hands whenever touching objects he didn’t want to destroy, letting at least one of his fingers free from use while holding things, but later gained enough control to freely interact with items without accidentally disintegrating them. This disciplinary achievement was accompanied by a new look for the power, appearing as mechanical lines akin to a circuit board that shoot across the intended targets, allowing him to leave certain obstacles completely unharmed. Through continuous precision training, Judas had even learned how to manipulate the speed at which it progressed and would have it very slowly eat away at victims’ bodies as a form of physical and psychological torture, forcing them to watch as their body became devoured by the gradual putrefaction.

* **Hallucination Inducement**: Destruction was presumed to inadvertently cause a person to perceive their own demise whenever directed at them; the phenomenon has been nicknamed “the Mirage of Death.”

**Dark Harvest**: Judas can remove the souls of others and either destroy or transport them to the afterlife. The process looks as though he's pulling out a misty vapor from the mouth, akin to him taking someone's last breath.

**Pseudo-Goetia**: Judas has manifested numerous Goetias that he can reawaken on command.

* **Physiognomy**: This allows him to learn someone’s personality and intent by looking at their face.
* **Crisis Revelation**: This allows him to detect threats.
* **Nerveracker**: This allows him to generate smoke from his body that's infused with his venom.
* **Air Walk**: This allows him to float and suspend himself in midair.
* **Nuclear**: This allows him to generate powerful explosions.
* **Wind Cannon**: This allows him to release pressurized wind from his arms.
* **Hellstorm**: This allows him to precipitate and control destructive weather. Prominent usage of this ability revolves around explosive, trajectory-changing lightning that can be shot out or called upon from the sky, capable of destroying large buildings in an instant.
* **Super Regeneration**: This allows him to massively speed up his natural regenerative abilities. However, it can also worsen any malignant growths present.
* **Rupture**: This allows him to purposely detonate any part of his body at will.

### Skillset

**Combat Specialism**: Judas is an extremely accomplished special forces operator with tremendous mastery over both armed and unarmed combat, retaining his status as one of the finest CQC combatants in the world. He is shown to know various different martial arts, even developing a personalized system called Street Style. Due to years of taking notes on many battles, he has become very adept at strategy, capable of accurate scrutinization of his enemies or current situation and creating an effective plan from that information. Additionally, he can almost perfectly react to attacks by analyzing an opponent's body language (e.g. line of vision, posture, muscle tension, and center of gravity), including those meant to be unforeseen.

Judas' combat skills are so acute that “they could only be achieved through brutal, life-or-death training”; he's extremely agile, precise, proprioceptive, astute, and requires little to no windup whenever executing physical actions.

* **Ninjutsu**: Judas learned ninjutsu from the seasoned ninja warrior Chie Minami.
* **Horsemanship**: Judas learned how to ride horses and perform mounted combat from the Four Horsemen.
* **Weapon Mastery**: Judas is able to operate several different weapons, such as knives, swords, scythes, bows, and rifles. He can throw knives with deadly precision and accuracy, and even wield two weapons simultaneously.
	+ **Chain Weapon Mastery**: Judas is highly proficient in using chains or chain-based weaponry, easily taking down opponents with them and masterfully handing his spiked chains for not only combat, but also parkour.

**Survivalism**: Over the course of his life, Judas has acquired an assortment of skills focus on subsisting within natural or built environments, and exhibits the ability to very easily gather information about foreign biospheres/ecosystems to almost perfectly assimilate its “do’s and don’ts.” Examples include Kismet Island, the Tacez Jungle, albeit with help from the native tribe, as well as the distorted imitation of a tropical forest when he temporarily visited the Underworld.

In addition to his earned skills, Judas seems to be particularly predisposed to inhabit alpine locations and arctic climates that the majority would actively need to pursue experience for. This natural aptitude extends to intuitive knowledge of organic tracking methods, even understanding how to entrap and kill prey simply by instinct despite never having formal training. He also has an incredible sense of direction.

**Special Operations Expertise**: Judas underwent intense training during his time with the FER. He is well-versed in espionage, special reconnaissance, direct action, counterintelligence, infiltration/exfiltration, sabotage, assassination, deception, interrogation, manhunting, operation deep behind enemy lines, unconventional warfare, and asymmetric engagements. He can also hack most computer systems.

* **Stealth**: Judas has repeatedly shown the ability to almost completely obscure himself from conventional senses, demonstrating extraordinary control over his body to profound effect, breaching into high-security buildings without being detected and suddenly disappearing out of sight the moment he’s looked away from. This includes social cloaking, disguise, acting, and camouflage.
* **Polymathy**: Judas procured a broad education within biology, general history, medicine, mathematics, physics, advanced chemistry, toxicology, metalsmithing, mechanical engineering, psychology, cryptography, religious studies, etc, though he cannot be viewed as comparable to an actual expert of the aforementioned fields. He learned how to perform magic tricks, sleight of hand, card throwing, and tarot reading from Null. He also knows how to sew.
	+ **Multilingualism**: Judas can speak English, Spanish, Russian, French, Arabic, Mandarin, Greek, and Latin, in addition to his mother tongue Pathonian, as well as use their signed variants.
* **Poisoning**: Judas is familiar with exotic poisons and sedatives. He specializes in neurotoxins.
* **Makeshift weapon creation**: Judas was taught how to manufacture IEDs, smoke bombs, improvised firearms, acid packets, rudimentary incendiary devices, phreaking boxes, booby traps, and related weapons.

**Parkour**: Judas is an amazingly talented traceur, honing his every sense into quickly deducing the fastest, most efficient way to maneuver throughout urban terrain fluidly and executing complex techniques without any issue.

### Weaknesses

**Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder**: According to Doctor Herūpa Shimadi, because Judas experienced a great deal of physical and emotional trauma all throughout his childhood, it affected his body's ability to respond to stress normally; this resulted in him reacting to new stress as though his life were in serious danger and subconsciously perceive trivial inconveniences with disproportionate concern, such as when he nearly melted down due to being unable to remember where he had left his scarf.

**Unnamed Headache Disorder**: Judas suffers from recurrent headaches that are often moderate to severe, which cause symptoms such as nausea, sudden fatigue, body spasms, hives (especially around the neck), and sensitivity to light, sound, and/or smell. He has dealt with it since puberty. They can be triggered by emotional distress, and he describes them as "feeling like his head is splitting."

Headaches are sometimes accompanied by visual and/or auditory hallucinations or visions of Samael, who usually tempts Judas into committing acts of violence and destruction, but also provides cryptic advise or an opinion that is relevant to the situation.

## Equipment

**Costume Avaddon**: Judas donned a specialized combat uniform, but has long since abandoned it. He claims to have stored it in one of his caches.

**Field supplies**: Judas owned a yellow backpack that he filled with useful gear. This included a first aid kit, a 60-meter rope, a canteen bottle, a tinderbox, a flare gun, a handheld transceiver, and survival rations. He also packed two large smoke grenades that were used to completely screen areas or signal for help.

**Weapon arsenal**: Judas wields various weapons when engaged in combat.

* A flaming sword.
* A machete.
* A spiked chain.
* A shortened spear that was shaped into a dagger.
* A pair of spiked knuckledusters.
* Toe-spiked combat boots.
* FX-05 Xiuhcoatl.
* Thanatos' scythe.
* Two ITA Knives; a standard edition and a smaller one, the latter stuffed down his left boot.

1. ↑ Learned from Thanatos
2. ↑ Learned from Nikolaos Kontos