Satan

Stripped of his crown, Satan dwindles to a squat, elderly figure with red skin and a stubby tail, his sclera yellow around white irises, his grey hair carved with a pale geometric shave. The moment the crown returns, he snaps back to his real shape, rising several feet taller and reclaiming a thick, stocky build. His neck draws out, his skull twists into something beastlike with a lengthened jaw, horns push up from his head, and his mouth locks into a permanent grin bristling with razor teeth, the sclera now black around glowing yellow centers.

At first Satan is nothing but menace, a presence weighty enough to unnerve even the steady Damien Darkblood. He comes across as overbearing, impatient, and openly cruel, folding thinly veiled threats into his speech and warning arrivals that he may remember his hunger for flesh. A calmer nature lies underneath, though. He truly means to guard others, even through grim tools like torture, which he freely confesses he relishes, and he casts himself as the lesser among far worse evils. With the crown back and his power full, more of him breaks through: cocky to the edge of buffoonery, loose and almost friendly with those who serve him, yet still sharp enough to retreat from a losing fight. He keeps a code as well, freeing Damien from a debt already overpaid and reaching out to him by mind to keep an eye on the surface world.

Eons back the being called Satan hauled himself up from the ashes of the Reign of Chaos to claim the Under Realm's Infernal Throne. The Molten Crown was his own handiwork, which he forged and charged with the captured souls of those he had defeated, and under it he led the demons in caging the primordial Vile, sparing the surface world and letting humankind survive. That long reign fell when Volcanikka cast him down and hurled the crown into the Bottomless Pit, set under Cerberus's watch.

Called up in early 2024 by Damien Darkblood, who swore to help restore him, Satan found his side losing a slow, grinding war with the Magmanites. In desperation Damien reached again for Omni-Man but drew Invincible instead, the two sharing the same blood. Invincible struck at the demon king on sight until Damien explained that Satan exists to keep the balance between Earth and the demon realm, not to sow ruin. The hero then helped retrieve the Molten Crown, and with his strength restored Satan revived the dying Domina and her fallen kind. Even whole again he was overmatched by Volcanikka, and Invincible had to wade in and force the enemy back into hiding. Grateful, Satan honored Damien's courage and loyalty and sent him home to Earth to look into hints that Volcanikka might be stirring once more.