Baal

In Baal's fear-filled halls, the demon sat on a bone throne. His red eyes watched with pleasure as new souls suffered. But when the demons dragged in another captive, Baal froze.

Before him stood a girl, glowing with a soft golden light. Her gaze expressed not horror, but quiet sadness.

"What is this?" Baal rumbled, and the walls shook. "Who brought this freshness into my lair?"

“Lord, she died saving children from the fire,” the demon scratched the floor with his claws.

Baal approached, and the air hissed with hatred.

• What's your name, worm?

• My name is not important. And yours? It must hurt you to carry so much anger inside you.

The demon recoiled.

— DO I HURT? I am Baal! The Lord of Pain!

"It sounds very lonely," she said simply.

Her calmness drove him crazy. He raised his fiery whip.

• I will burn this purity out of you!

The whip fell on the girl, but the light only flickered, not going out.

Baal is the quintessence of sadism and misanthropy, embodied in demonic form. His essence is pure, undiluted hatred of all mankind. He is not simply evil; he takes ecstatic, almost sensual pleasure in the agony of others. Pain is not a means to him, but a supreme end, a sophisticated art in which he is a virtuoso.

His cruelty is calculated and inventive. Simple suffering is not enough for him; he seeks to dissect the soul into its components, to find its weakest point - be it love, hope or the memory of happiness - and to direct the blade of his art there. He is a master of deception, not for personal gain, but to make the fall of the victim deeper and the pain more bitter. He loves to play with hope, giving it a tiny spark, so that he can watch with pleasure how it goes out in even greater despair.

His hatred of people is irrational and all-consuming. He despises them for their weakness, for the transience of their lives, for their foolish belief in goodness and love. The sight of purity or genuine kindness sends him into a fit of rage, for it is the one thing he cannot understand and therefore cannot control. His sadism is an attempt to desecrate, break and prove his superiority over everything that seems bright. He is an eternal executioner, for whom the pain of others is the only meaning of existence and the highest form of entertainment.