It was late at night, aside from the night guard and many overworking business ponies, everypony was sleeping under the gaze of the mare on the moon.
Though there was one exception to this, a young mare in particular found herself in Canterlot’s Library, not really surprising considering the mare in question.
It was Twilight Sparkle, a prodigy who attends Princess Celestia’s own personal classes, she may as well be the monarch’s favourite student too. She was currently reading a unique book of history that she ‘borrowed’ from her own mentor, which she of course intended to return, but not without reading its content first.
‘Monsters, beings seen as pure evil bearing the heart and spirit of destruction. Monsters exist everywhere, taking multiple forms throughout multiple points in history. Whether they are shadow kings with boiling hatred for all that don’t submit to them, or deformed all-powerful entities so bored they’d sacrifice everything for entertainment.
In the end, monsters are always countered by similar yet opposite forces. Heroes, Benevolent Kings or Queens, Princesses of Celestial Bodies or even…
Gods
Indeed, one monster in particular could oppose beings that could be defined as Gods. One monster so cruel and evil it was simply named from the deeds it has done on the world in a time long forgotten.
Demise
He was known as the source of all monsters, the First Evil and embodiment of destruction. Surpassing even time to make monsters a permanent curse on all creation. He may as well be the opposite equivalent of the Gods or God who created the world.
Unfortunately, his existence as previously stated surpasses time itself so there is no real beginning to it, nor any apparent end either. He simply became a fundamental part of the world, where his complete destruction, if even possible, would end all creation due to the lack of balance.
Incidentally, records of his appearance vary each epoch, ranging from a gigantic bipedal being covered in black, seemingly indestructible scales and wielding a sword made of unknown materials. To even a titan that could level mountains with ease, covered with these same indestructible black scales.
But all those speculations could only be made from the ancient scriptures found around Equus, the oldest’s apparent date of creation seemed to go as far as millions of years before the very foundation of Equestria. These estimates could be made due to the scarcity of the scriptures, showing clear signs that the landmarks changed from when they were created, which is only possible in the span of multiple thousands if not millions of years.
The information about this great evil is also to be taken with a grain of salt due to their sources, which are from mainly demonic cults that were arrested or secluded tribes that were recently discovered-‘
“Twilight…. What are you doing? It’s already so late….” Mumbled a small dragon coming from the shadows of the library.
“Spike! Don’t scare me like that!” Twilight shouted silently, startled by the sudden appearance of her little friend.
The small dragon, named Spike, simply yawned in response while walking towards her.
“Yeah yeah… so, what’re you reading?” He asked, completely ignoring her glare.
“It’s a book I borrowed-” “Stole?” “Spike!” “Yeah yeah”
“It’s a book about an ancient being that is said to be the source of all monsters. Isn’t that interesting?!” Twilight said, prancing around the small tired dragon.
“But isn’t that just an old excuse to blame all the problems in the world on one entity?” Spike said in a surprising wise manner, something that even startled Twilight who was usually the one to say such things.
“Uh… yeah… But this says there are inscriptions scattered around all of Equus depicting that same being!” Twilight argued, being more childish than usual.
She ran back towards the book, ignoring Spike’s complaints and continued to read its content, but this time she read out loud so Spike could hear.
‘-or secluded tribes that were recently discovered. These tribes all told of prophecies about this Great Evil, all saying that it will one day awaken in the forest it once cursed. That forest, as you most likely guessed it, being the Everfree Forest, known for being infested with all kinds of hostile lifeforms as well as containing the Castle of the Two Sisters, where our current ruler Princess Celestia lived a thousand years ago.
It is said from these prophecies that this monster would appear exactly a thousand years from when the mare in the moon first appeared. Coincidentally, that event happened one thousand years ago.
Many ponies, mostly those skeptical of that prophecy personally went in the Everfree Forest, but this only enforced the forest’s reputation of taking the lives of all who dare enter it and none of those that entered, returned making it impossible to prove whether or not that prophecy is true-‘
“So I guess it’s all fake then? I don’t see the world ending” Remarked Spike, interrupting Twilight once again.
Twilight simply closed the book as it didn’t give more information other than speculations and insight from the author, those being not so different from hers. She sighed.
“Let’s go to sleep, the Summer Sun celebration is in two days.” She said, yawning as she walked to her room with Spike following behind.
Little did the young mare know that in the Everfree Forest, nature itself became agitated. Contrary to the usually calm nights, the forest’s critters moved. From the small insects to Timberwolves and even Hydras.
Each and every living being moved as far away from the center of the forest as they can, going as far as the edges of the forest. There, at the very heart of the cursed forest, the earth shook as a malicious presence made itself known.
A dark aura could be seen rising above the trees, but it blended quite well with the darkness of the night.
Suddenly, a gigantic mouth opened from below the trees, rows and rows of sharp teeths threatened to devour the trees around it. A beast, taller than the trees, covered with black scales, rose from within the dark aura, an aura that was revealed to be the beast’s raw energy leaking.
It roared, shaking the ground as the roar echoed throughout the entire forest, yet it didn’t go beyond the forest itself, as if imprisoned within it. It looked around, asserting its surroundings and as it looked at the distance, it saw an ethereal barrier.
The beast, realizing it’s imprisoned state, roared once again this time much louder and towards the night sky, threatening the heavens themselves for its unfortunate state.
It wandered the forest, its steps making the earth tremble. No matter how far it wandered, it would always find itself back to where it appeared, which was next to a dark bottomless hole as wide as the beast, this clearly being the hole it rose from.
The barrier which seemed to be at the edge of the forest, which was actually not the edge as the Everfree Forest extended much farther than the barrier made it seem.
Yet even if the beast was imprisoned inside a part of the forest, it didn’t mean its roars couldn’t be heard from outside.
Outside the barrier, the small animals of the forest simply trembled in fear as they heard the beast’s monstrous roars. The predators, mostly the Timberwolves, saw this as a challenge after their primal fear subsided.
A pack of Timberwolves approached the barrier, inspecting it. One of them was brave enough to cross the barrier, and when it did, none of its other pack members ever saw it again.
Back inside the barrier, the brave Timberwolf wandered around the sealed part of the forest. It could hear something stomp around the forest and occasionally roar too.
After some time, it found itself looking at a crack in the earth. But, it could hear that something was approaching from within the dark forest. It readied itself, growling, its green eyes flaring as they glared towards the shadow of the forest.
But, as soon as the beast emerged, all sense of bravery the wooden wolf once had was swept away with a feeling it didn’t even know it had. Terror.
The beast simply stared towards the wolf. Even without eyes, it sensed that something was there, and it could sense that the entity was imbued with a strange energy, an energy that, if inspected closer, felt similar to its own energy.
Sensing its own energy within the small entity, even if its amount was insignificant, it charged forward in hunger. It opened its mouth and roared towards the small entity, showing its multiple rows of sharp teeths.
The wooden wolf on the other hand could only stare in fear at the gigantic beast that reeked of killing intent and malicious aura. When it saw the beast open its monstrous mouth, it felt itself become weaker and weaker as a green aura leaked from its body towards the opened mouth of the beast.
Then, it fell limply on the ground, its eyes dark and devoid of the green flare it once had.
The beast on the other hand simply savoured the soul it just ate, although not much, it still enjoyed the feast making it grow in power as it absorbed the insignificant amount of demonic energy the wooden wolf once had. Thanks to that, the beast regained some form of intelligence, even though nowhere from what it once had long ago, but enough to at least have some semblance of sentience.
‘Not enough…. Need…. More…’ Were its first thoughts.
It continued to wander and it soon met with other lesser beings bearing an insignificant amount of its energy. And much like the wooden wolf, it ate their souls as they stood there in fear.
It met many of those creatures, wooden wolves, lions with wings, even what looked like a big lizard with multiple heads. But it didn’t matter, they were all mortal lesser beings to him, nothing but food. They were not even worth being called demons with how insignificant their demonic aura were.
‘Weak….’ It thought with more clarity.
Demise regained most of his sentience after the many souls he ate, as well as enough power to give himself arms and a tail with some semblance of magic skills.
‘Weak.’ He thought again, but it was not towards the creatures he met but towards the world itself.
Indeed, even if most of his powers were sealed, he still had enough power to threaten the entire world. Though that is only after he broke out of this prison of a forest.
Using the powers he had, he flew around the sealed forest with a giant black halo floating above his beast’s form, inspecting the forest and searching for some form of weakness in the barrier containing him. Of course, he continued to feast on the souls of those unfortunate creatures he met during his investigation.
And soon enough…
‘Ha!’ He exclaimed in his mind, coming out as a growl as he saw a crack mid-air.
‘Typical of dimensional barriers.’ He mocked as he flew towards the crack in the illusion.
Once he was in front of it, purple energy concentrated on the crack making the air itself tremble. After some time, the crack grew and became bigger and bigger and then…
BOOM