There is a worrying trend in vs debating these days in which any statement is taken immediatly as both definitely true, and also definitely literal. This is definitely a newer development, it used to be that statements were viewed with suspicion and you had to provide extra effort into showing their accuracy. Here I'm going to give my personal guidelines for what statements I use and what I don't, along with a few examples at the end.
When I am assessing a statement, I assess it through the lense of 3 criteria, which can be positive, neutral or negative. As any negative factor can cast serious doubt on a statement's usage, I give -2 for each negative, +1 for each positive, and +0 for neutral. A statement that has negative points can never be used. A statement with 0 points, either neutral in all regards or positive in two but negative in the third, I consider only "possible" and would only use it as support for something with better evidence. Something with 1 point, having 1 positive regard and neutral in both others, I consider probable, and will state that it is probably or most likely the case that it is true though still view it as not ironclad. +2 is pretty certain and +3 is just clearly the case. The three regards are
1: Truthfulness: How likely is it that the character's words are true and literal. This is positive if the character in question is characteristically honest and direct in their words. This is negative if the character in question is generally deceitful (or has reason to be dishonest) or may be using a figure of speech or hyperbole. This is neutral if character's personality is unknown or doesn't lean particularly one way or the other.
2: Evidentality: How likely is it that the character is likely to know what they are talking about (related to where their information comes from.) This is positive if there is reason to think the character would know about the subject in question. This is negative if there is no way for the character to verify their own statement or there is other reason to think they wouldn't know. This is neutral if a character's source of information is unknown, or if it's unknown how well known a fact in-universe is.
3: Consistency: How consistent is the information with other facts given. Positive means that the statement fits in nicely with other sources, corroborates other data, or explains things without explanation. Negative means that the statement contradicts other statements or worse other demonstated things. Neutral is if the statement is basically in a vacuum, without much else to tell if it's consistent, or if fits most data nicely but contradicts a few things.
So I'm going to be showing a few character statements and how I assess them using this. First I'm going to start with 2 statements from my favorite series that happen to be about a similar thing that statements are often used for, and so make for a good demonstration.
Here we see Usagi see a bus go into a hole in the wall that appeared. The Black Hole statement is actually a mistranslation, but regardless it would still not be very credible. Truthfulness is probably positive actually; Usagi is a truthful person speaking to herself here so she has no reason to lie. Evidentality is clearly negative however. Usagi would have no way to confirm that's a black hole, and beyond that she's a poor student at school who would have no way of knowing what one looks like. She isn't even sure of it herself, as she asks it to herself as a question. Consistency is also negative, the portal shows no effects of being a black hole; it's visible, it does not emit radiation, it has no space-time dilation and a normal bus goes through it fine. Overall it's score is -3, very clearly not true.
Here we see King Endymion describe Nemesis as being a black hole, though formed of a planet rather then a star. This is an example of the inverse. Truthfulness is positive; King Endymion is a truthful person who is telling the Senshi about the enemy they will have to face and has no reason to lie or be metaphorical (and gives specific scientific reasons to show it's not metaphorical.) Evidentality is positive, King Endymion uses advanced computers of the far future to determine Nemesis' nature and gives again scientific explanations of what they know about Nemesis. Consistentcy is also positive; they give the exact traits of a black hole; that it distorts spacetime, that it emanates massive radiation, sucks in light (which is the definition of a black hole), invisible to the naked eye. which remain consistent throughout the arc. Overall this would be a +3, which shows that is an extremely credible statement.
This is a statement from One More Day in Marvel Comics where Mephisto stated that in nearly all of infinite realities Peter Parker ends up alone which I used to state the possible level of Peter's bad luck. Truthfulness is negative, Mephisto is a deciever known for his trickery and has reason to be manipulating Peter here. Evidentality is positive; Mephisto given his cosmic status and his awareness of suffering and torment, would likely be aware of how many of Peter's realities he ends up alone. Consistency is also positive as Peter is supernaturally unlucky canonically and this wouldn't be out of place, especially as early Mephisto had shown numerous alternate Peters who ended up unlikely alone. As such the net is 0 and I only used it as a possibility.
Here we have the famous Cell solar system statement. Truthfulness is probably neutral. Cell has a minor characterization of deceitfulness but he is in a hysteric power-rush so how truthful he is being is unknown. Evidentality is also neutral. Cell just attained this form but is technically a biological super-computer and ki users seem to possess some knowledge of how strong their power is, so it's ultimately again unknown if he knows his capacity well enough to judge. Consistenty is positive; there are guidebook statements supportive of the statement and it fits the general powerscale up to this point. As such it has a total of +1 and seems probably true.
This is the statement that got me to make this because I found it crazy people were taking this at face value. Blight here claims that the Presence fears Blight and does not have the ability to destroy him. Truthfulness is negative; Blight is mankind's conceptual shadow, every vile thought of humanity, and has no character for personality, plus has reason to be decietful here in intimidating his enemies making them think it's hopeless to fight. Evidentality is most likely negative. Blight has no way of knowing about the Presence's full capacity and the basis he makes it on is that he still exists at all which is shown to be a false reasoning (as the Presence states he allows Blight to exist for mankind's free will.) You could say it's neutral since we don't know to what extent Blight knows of Presence. Consistency is also negative. The Presence and the Phantom Stranger both say the Presence could defeat Blight and destroy him, but doesn't to give humanity free will. The Presence also has a character of not controlling people, giving them free will, and it is eventually his will given form, the embodied spirit of redemption that defeats Blight. This statement's score is -6, -4 if taking second to be neutral which is very clearly negative.
Beyond dimensioned existence, beyond space and time, beyond this world of men and their feeble gods resides the outer gods. Infinite, eternal, and formless, their presence is impossible for any human to comprehend anything but an infinitesmal subsection of their immensity. Nyarlathotep is their messager, spawned from great Azathoth, king of all as his will.
Nyarlathotep executes the will of the outer gods across the meager atom that is the infinity we know to the outer gods. Amount the Outer Gods, Nyarlathotep is closest to mankind in comprehension and power, weakest of the outer gods. Nyarlathotep is a malevolent force, lording over the infinitemsal beings of existence and pursuing the vile and despicable. What girds such a malignant intellect? Such is known only to the Outer Gods
This is generally where I'd go over the power and speed of the character in question however this is inapplicable to Nyarlathotep. The Outer Gods exist in the court of Azathoth, beyond the final gate.
The Outer Gods transcend all concepts of space and time. They are in no place and all places, omnipresent and nowhere. They are in no time and all times, eternal and never-there. All position and change are features of lower perspective of a reality that is but an atom in the true infinity of the Outer Gods.
Likewise in terms of power; such concepts as "power", is a human concept, transcended like all other archetypes but the Outer Gods. Trying to apply a lowly concept like power to the Outer Gods would be akin to attempting to apply basic strikes of matter and energy to conceptual existence. The Outer Gods are made of "formless chaos", being transcendent of qualifiers or "forms". No display of power can effect them. While Nyarlathotep could crush all of infinite physical existence just as we could an atom, such not his power. His is the power of the Outer Gods, transcendent of physical or even conceptual boundaries.
In terms of abilities, Nyarlathotep is most famously knwon for his many incarnations. He is never actually seen in the entire canonical Cthulhu Mythos instead only showing in the forms of avatars. It has stated that he warlks the Earth with 1,000 avatars and that he has countless across existence. It is unknown if his true self would have greater versions of every ability his avatars possess, but at the very least he has the same abilities as they are but parts of Nyarlathotep.
One of his avatars is the Black Pharaoh who appeared before on the Earth. At his coming, peasents prostrated themselves before him though could not say why. His presence caused restlesses, an inability to sleep and nightmares. He created distortions in a city, causing madness, twisting a city, and shows visions of the unimaginable beyond space and time as well as showing the future. He also seemed to cause people to vanish. He appears as well in the Fungi from Yuggoth, showing visions of the future where he will reduce the Earth to dust and blow it away. This version then personally brings the narrator to the court of Azathoth beyond all space, time and human understanding. Hypothetically this could be used as an extreme form of BFR. This BFR potential is surprisingly consistent for him.
This is possibly this same avatar Nyarlathotep uses in the Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. There within Nyarlathotep showed he could manifest both in physical and mental domains, appearing in the dreamlands. The best feat of this version of Nyarlathotep is after Nodens, one of the Elder Gods, irritates him, he sneals away the gods of Earth, again seemingly BFRing them outside infinite dimensions of space and time, at the very least stealing them away from their home.
One of Nyarlathotep's avatars is the "Black Man of the witch cult", a completely black skinned individual who resembles the Christian Devil and who grants magical powers to witches of New England (including witch Keziah Mason who was able to escape death by sending her soul to the dreamland and implied to manipulation dimenions) and who was also stated to be able to send someone to the court of Azathoth beyond space time and concepts.
Yet another avatar of Nyarlathotep was the Haunter in the Darkness, a three-eyed being of pure darkness from the void beyond space and time, who could grant forbidden knowledge in exchange for horrid sacrifices and had a strange adverse reaction to light.
Finally there is perhaps the strongest aspect of Nyarlathotep. Nyarlathotep is the heart and soul of the Outer Gods, Azathoth in particular and as such will exist so long as they do.
In terms of weaknesses, Nyarlathotep's avatars have weaknesses that are likely not transferable to his main self. For his main self, Nyarlathotep is trapped by the will of his master Azathoth who he holds in contempt. He is also rather sadistic which might be a weakness, though it's unclear. There's no point where he fights someone of his same stature.
Name: Nyarlathotep
Origin: Cthulhu Mythos
Classification: Outer God, Heart and Soul of the Outer Gods, Messanger of Azathoth, many titles beyond
Powers and Abilities: Absolute Being, Will exist so long as the Outer Gods do, Avatar Creation, BFR, Power/Visions Bestowal, Matter Manipulation, Mind Manipulation, Existence Erasure, Spacetime Manipulation/Dimension Manipulation, Soul Manipulation, Darkness Manipulation
Weaknesses: Bound to Azathoth's will
Destructive Capacity: Inapplicable, transcends the concept of "power"
Range: Inapplicable, transcends the concept of "distance"
Speed: Inapplicable, transcends the concept of "spacetime"
Durability: Inapplicable, transcends the concepts of "power", "death", and "destruction"
Stamina: Inapplicable, transcends the concepts of "energy" and "time"
Standard Equipment: Depends on avatar
Intelligence: Nigh-Omniscient
So how would he do in other verses?
In DC Comics, Nyarlathotep would transcend the infinite dimensions of the third world plane of reality as he does the infinite dimensions of his own universe and above that are the gods of god sphere, the fourth world plane of reality that is a platonic archetypal world. Nyarlathotep would be above this too and it is almost a perfect comparison, as this would be similar to the archetypes and Elder Gods of the Cthulhu Mythos. He would transcend the New Gods of DC the same as they transcend regular mortals.
This would put him in line with the fifth world beings, the monitor race. He could be a threat there, particularly if his BFR works here to send one to the void which erase those of the fifth world but I am unsure if their plot manipulation would work on him. There is no plot manipulation in the Cthulhu Mythos but he is an absolute being and presumably transcends the concept of "plot". At the very least I don't believe he would be able to beat Cosmic Armor Superman, who is the meta-concept of good, able to create hyperstories and get stronger to defeat evil, and Nyarlathotep is the "evil" Outer God.
In Marvel Comics, Nyarlathotep would be ridiculously strong. He would be above the multiversal concepts, similar to how he transcends the elder gods and archetypes. As a being of formless chaos, Nyaralathotep would be as difficult to even affect as Oblivion who is considered one of the strongest beings in the verse. It's likely if he existed in the Marvel Cosmology, Nyarlathotep would be considered on the same general level of power as the Living Tribunal and the strongest cosmic forces of the Marvel Cosmology and would be an imminent and nigh-unstoppable force for the multiverse.
In the Dungeons and Dragons, there are hierarchies of gods with their own divine ranks who can affect the entire multiverse and these two would be as nothing before the crawling chaos. Depending on interpretation, Nyarlathotep would be somewhere between Ao, the overgod transcending divine rank controlling all gods, and the Luminous being his boss and representation of the Dungeon Master. He would be able to solo essentially the entire verse, able to steal away all the gods from their domains just as he did to the Gods of Earth and at least threaten the Overdeity.
In the Umineko verse, Nyarlathotep's position depends on one's position on the notion of absolute existence vs plot manipulation and metafictional layers. Uminkeo is a series of metafictional layers that manipulate lower layers like stories. He should be at least about on par with a (very evil) voyager witch who can manipulate gameboards containing layers of infinite metafictional multiverses and due to his absolute nature may be more akin to a territory lord, being an absolute part of being, a literal domain.
In the Dark Tower-verse, Nyarlathotep would be relative to the strongest beings who can threaten the whole of the tower, assuming again you view the metafictional layers thing as being relative the infinite layers of existence in the Cthulhu Mythos. He would be similar to beings like the Deadlights, but not quite on the level of the Crimson King or Gan.
How to be OP in the Dante's Inferno-verse. I personally consider the comic series canon and the animated film non-canon based on their closeness to source material and the intent behind them, but I will note when I use information from either in case you differ in your interpretation. Neither massively changes things.
Local Scale Threat:
So at first glance, this tier, and really this verse in general seems fairly modest in their powerset. They've got a few strong abilities but nothing too outside of the ordinary. However this is a lie and the verse is way harder to fight then it seems for a reason I will get into.
So at this tier are all the normal damned of the Inferno. Every regular human souls just falling into Hell, complete fodders to the forces of Hell that torment them can tank falling at terminal velocity into Hell, and which such force that the can crack off parts of a stone ledge. This should safelty put all the forces of Hell down to it's simplest minions at wall level. This is consistent with them able to endure literal eternity in boiling blood, in a city eternally hotter "then metal need be for any craft", or burning liquid gold. They are dwarfed in strength by the asterian beasts, the warbeasts of this tier, pitch black hybrids of gorilla and crocodiles. A special class of demons called Beast Tamers ride these beasts, commanding their great strength. They can tear down the large gates of hell, push giant gold blocks, and throw the solid wooden giant head of Charon fall into the distance. Only the strongest beings on this tier outside them can survive even the shockwaves of their blows. They should be easily in the low building+ range.
In terms of speed, most of the hellish forces here lack much in the way of the speed feats but the damned of the circle of Lust, seductresses can move faster then the eye can speed, putting them in the subsonic speed range. As such the power speed limit is low building subsonic.
In terms of abilities this tier has alot of fire manipulation. Fire minions in all their forms are engulfed in hellfire and can only be put out by holy energies, asterian beasts breath fire and so forth. The gluttons vomit out an acid attack. Similarly in the comic the falsifiers spit out virulent diseases with their vomit. The heretics and pagans can use a lightning attack. Vaious forms of demons have flight. One could try to fight that with ranged strategies although as the enviornment is often actively hostile to people in the Inferno, a better strategy is some kind of advanced movement option to match. Speaking of enviornment, the denizens are frightfully good at using their native land of Inferno to the advantage with things like gorger worms burrowing through the dirt to consume people in surpise attacks.
The strongest thing this tier has at first glance is the seductresses' mind manipulation, able to compel people and bring them close before skewer them with their phallic tendril protruding from their groin.
However the verse has one other thing about it, not usually remembered. The entire thing is higher plane. The entire game is about Dante's dead soul traveled across purgatory, an astral enviornment. The damned are literally damned souls, not physical beings at all. This is more clear in the comic when characters and enviornments are depicted as ethereal and regularly change forms. In addition when Dante asked why he sees the crusaders in Hell, but not the muslims they were fighting he is told "Because this isn't their Hell Dante, it's yours!" implying the whole thing may be a personalized psychological enviornment adjusted to him in particular. This would make sense with how many times he runs across people he personally knows in Hell in important positions. It's even implied combat in hell may be spiritual in nature with Hell Queen Beatrice in the comic saying she would "annihilate Dante's very spirit" with her vengence. Granted she's not on this tier, so it may not apply, but the tier is at least as high as the astral plane, and possibly as high as the spiritual plane.
Particularly at this tier, that makes this a lot more difficult.
Fortunately the tier, and most of the verse really has a massive weakness, that being holyness. Holy things harm the damned, and particularly in the comic they were absolutely destroyed just from Dante holding up Beatrice's cross near them. This does bring up a sort of awkward question: whether different types of holy are equalized in vs debates? If you used a character whose powers were holy to Quetzalcoatl, would it still be effective to the damned in Inferno? My best guess, trying to equalize it to other form sof powers, is that holyness can be equalized across verses unless the verse makes an explict depiction between types of holy. Because other gods are not present in Dante's Inferno that means we can go forward on the assumption that holy powers would be similarly effective.
Now granted having holy powers isn't an auto-win. As mentioned before the enviornment often threatens people in the Inferno and can cause great trouble. Plus the Heretics can nullify holy energy with their unholy magic. But it is a definite major boon, downright neccesary.
The verse lacks a lot of concrete weaknesses, although one help for any counter is that none of the damned are maxed in both power and speed. Any subsonic opponent should be able to evade an Asterian Beast one on one (or simply kill their rider and take over the Beast, as Dante does) and any low building opponent should have a clear power advantage against anything else.
Another advantage a counter can have against the Inferno is the inherently disunified nature of the tier. The creatures of Inferno regularly fight against each with Asterian Beasts stamping out the annoying creatures around them when not controlled and gorger worms eating most of the damned. The enviornment that is a threat to any invader also regularly threatens the damned. A character that can manipulate either people or enviornment can functionally turn the verse against each other.
The final point is perhaps a bit speculative but there is some evidence to support it. As the Inferno is an astral environment, having a strong will seems to bolster one's capacities as happened with Dante. As such having a strong will would be at least helpful to resist the manipulation of the seductress and at most might give a substantial power boost.
So this brings me to my counters. My first counter is
Eberk from Dungeons and Dragons
Eberk is a Dwarven Cleric of Moradin, which is probably the best race + class combination from D&D to go into the Inferno. Eberk is a cleric of equal level to wizards who can cast the fireball spell, which can create an explosion with a 20 feet (~6.1 meters) in radius. Assuming his spells and might are relative, his power should be comparable to the asterian beasts. Even low level D&D adventurers are able to dodge subsonic arrows at point blank range which should give him speed comparable to the seductresses as well, making him a physical powerhouse of this tier.
Eberk as a Cleric carries the holy symbol of his god Moradin, the dwarven allfather, the forger of souls. His signature 2 strongest spells include spiritual weapon, which conjures a spiritual weapon that is like Dante's "Sins of the Father" magic in nature, yet holy in nature rather then unholy, which would make it far more dangerous. Adventers also have some ability to affect higher plane nature, which means especially his holy nature, Eberk should be able to melee the Heretics, breaking their staffs they get unholy power from with his warmhammer. His other strongest spell is Divine Protection which would give him functional invulnerability to the tier.
Eberk is a dwarf, a race proud and willful. It's unlikely the seductresses could tempt him with his strong dwarven will and devotion to his holy cause, and he may become stronger in this astral plane. Him being a dwarf is also helpful as Dwarves are famous diggers and he could very well dig around any environment hazards, or create traps in the grounds of Hell to trap the damned. He could very well likely also tame one of the gorger worms and take it for a mount across the Inferno.
The only limitation I could see tying Eberk down is his stamina. Clerics don't get that many spells per day and the forces of Hell are vast indeed. For a counter that is not likely to be hindered by this
Tamahome from Fushigi Yugi.
Tamahome would be a physical powerhouse in this tier. He was able to match Nakago in a martial arts battle, Nakago being the strongest warrior of the God of War, able to blow up numerous police cars at once and set the environment on fire. Tamahome is also fast enough to move faster then the eye casually and leave afterimages. This means he would be as strong as an Asterian Beast, probably a bit faster then even the seductresses, and easily the most skilled fighter of the tier.
Tamahome is one of the 7 celestial warriors of the god Suzaku, each of them bearing one of his 7 holy constellations on their body. The 7 celestial warriors can channel their chi destructively into their aura or project it as beams of energy. As they are holy warriors, this aura which extends from them even as they sleep would be anathema to the damned of Inferno, making it so none save those shielded by the heretics could even approach Tamahome.
Tamahome has a particular resistance to heat based powers including fire and lightning, giving him resistance to the most common form of attack, most enviromental hazards which are almost fire or lightning based, and gives him resistnace to the heretics attacks giving him a much easier matchup against the heretics.
The only real threats to him are the seductress mind manipulation which may or may not work, depending how you think his aura would be effected, and some of the enviromental hazards. However for what I think would be the ultimate counter to this tier I would suggets
Shadi from Yu-Gi-Oh!
Shadi is likely physically similar in durability and attack power to the High Priest of Darkness and the Pharaoh who created a dark lightning that was destroying the environment as a side effect suggesting he should be stronger then anything save the Asterian Beasts. Yami Yugi also was able to just materialize behind some deliquents suggesting Shadi may be comparable in speed to the seductresses.
Shadi is an astral, possibly spiritual being himself and would interact with the Inferno as though it were physical matter. However he can also use his nature to teleport where wants, avoiding any environmental hazards. He is renowned for his extreme willpower to the point that until his game with the Pharaoh Atem, his will had not wavered once. Even ignoring this, his millennium items protect him from the brainwashing of the Millennium Rod, which had even superior mental manipulation to the seductresses.
Shadi carries with him two of the millennium items, items imbued with the dual forces of the light and darkness as within them was sealed Zorc the original darkness and the Pharaoh Atem, the embodiment of the gods on Earth. As they bear a holy power, they would ward off any in the inferno but as they also bear unholy power, they could likely effect the heretics as well. His millennium key allows him to enter the souls of others, changing their personality from within, giving him the ability to control the astral bodies within the Inferno. It can also be used to give visions with which he could likely incite internal chaos within the ranks of the damned. He also carries the Millennium Scale which measures the weight of an enemy's soul against the feather of Ma'at, and if it exceeds it, their soul will be devoured by Ammut, which would be a form of existence erasure against the evil astral beings of the Inferno. He could also use them to intiate a Game of Darkness, brining the rules of a game to life, the loser or one who cheats within being subject to a Penalty Game. As the whole of the universe can be made into a Game of Darkness, it's likely Shadi could do this to at least an entire ring of Hell at once, if not the whole of it. By manipulating the evil hearts of the damned, tricking them to cheat, he can defeat everyone on this tier at once.
However this pales in comparison to Shadi's ultimate power, taught to him by his master the Pharaoh Atem. Shadi posses the prana, the spiritual lifeforce that is derived from the collective unconcious. The prana transcends spacetime and can warp reality or erase the existence of things including duel spirits. Top Tier prana users can affect the entire universe with their prana and Shadi is well high enough to spiritually erase the Inferno with his prana. Of course prana can be resisted, and in fact it can be resisted something fairly common. Prana can be resisted by those with friendship in their hearts, something devoid in the Inferno. As such no one would have any resistance to prana in the Inferno.
Regional Scale Threat:
On this tier exists most of the bossesses of the Inferno, lords of individual circles.
This tier is at least city block in power scaling from the dimension Death, the first boss of the game, making being roughly city block level, as well as the giants of the 9th circle being so large they are mistaken for towers, and Cleopatria being a skyscraper-sized enemy who made her tower rise and created a storm around it. Ths tier could be higher, Phylegas the fire giant is so much more massively then buildings, he's likely multi-city block to town level. Death's dimension extends enough that it's arguably multi-city block level. Cleopatra conjuring a mystical storm may be similar to storm creation feats which would normally take kilotons of energy, especially as her tornado around the storm was coursing with electricity and extended further across the second circle. As such the power of the tier is city block, possibly town level.
In terms of speed, Cleopatra can conjure lightning with her attacks which Dante can move comparable too, lightning having a speed of around mach 300. Most game bosses are treated as comparable to Dante in terms of speed.
This includes numerous fairly conventional fighters, even if their appearence is hellish and distorted like Marc Anthony, Franchesco, and the Malacoda. There are powerful giant beings like Phylegas. The Blind King Minos who condemns souls to circles of hell with his serpent tails is here, and has enhanced smell, able to literally smell the sins of those nearby. Cleopatra is here, controlling wind and lightning and with her own form of mind manipulation. Hell Queen Beatrice is likely here as well as she was relative to 8th Circle Dante. Hell Queen Beatrice can manipulate fire and in the comic turned into a fire, possibly a spiritual fire and claimed she would totally annihilate Dante's spirit.
However by far the biggest danger of this tier, even though he is likely the least raw powerful, would be Death. Death is the anthromorphic concept of Death which makes it very hard to fight him. He casually froze time, possibly with his presence, and shunted himself and Dante into a seperate dimension for their fight. Death can condemn souls to Heaven or Hell and seemingly teleport at will. He wields his infamous scythe which can force death onto things, even himself. The angels may be here as well, but there's almost no vs information on them.
In terms of weaknesses, holy powers are still strong against most people here although I don't think it would be especially strong against Death as Death is not particularly unholy. Best strategy against Death is finding anyone who can affect abstracts and taking his scythe, possibly through something like telekinesis to use against him which is essentially what Dante did against him. Given Death's nature, I have to imagine life manipulation would be helpful so a combination of holy and life manipulation would likely do well. This brings me to my first counter
The Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke.
The Forest Spirit by sheer size in his night walker form should be able to compare to the large enemies of the second tier and can match their stronger interpretation as well as when his night walker form fell it crushed iron town.
The Forest Spirit is the guardian spirit of the forest who gives life and takes it away. His holy life manipulation would likely ward away any hellish enemy and likely defeat Death. He also has a much higher effective range then anyone in the tier as he could control all the things happening within his forest.
It's also unlikely any stealth strategy would work on him as animals are granted sentience by his presence and are unquestioningly loyal to the forest spirit. As animals can sense the astral and spiritual forces of the world, so too would the forest spirit know.
That said if they do get an attack off on him, he would likely die as he died to a normal gun. For a more durable counter you could use
Ares from Lego DC
Ares can grow to building sized and sacles to various building to large building feats in the verse suggesting he would not be quite as powerful but relative to the tier. He is also able to react to Lego Wonder Woman whose official description suggests she move near the speed of light, showing he would not be blitzed.
Ares has mind and emotional manipulation which should be able to affect most of the astral beings of the Inferno, drawing on their power to bolster his own. Either way Ares is a divine power and can hypothetically use holy manipulation.
Obviously the big fight is Ares vs Death. Ares is a conceptual being that will exist as long as disharmony and violence will. This means that while Death's concept is arguably more stable, it would be possibly very hard to rid himself of Ares, especially as standard tactic for Ares is to telekinetically steal an enemy's weapon. Death's Scythe may be able to kill him but given Ares's relativistic reactions it's unlikely Death would be able to lead a conceptual hitting blow on Ares.
That said while Ares can teleport, he's only ever shown it on short distances. If Death throws him into another dimension, he could seal Ares away. Also Ares has never shown time stop resistance in the Lego continuity. For the best counter, a counter that would be unstoppable to the tier, I would suggest
Ned Flanders from The Simpsons.
Ned is strong enough to physically battle Homer Simpson, who has tanked numerous building level incidents, and a few town level ones. He should also be comparable to Marge Simpsons who overpowered a hurricane that ripped a bowling alley into the air. This puts him comparable to the tier in power, for both a lowball and a highball. In terms of speed, he's comparable to Homer who outpaced an explosion which would be hypersonic and in terms of reaction speed when Homer reacted to actual light.
Ned despite his usually pacifist demeanor, is actually an acrobatic and skilled fighter from his time as a bounty hunter. Homer, a normal human in the Simpsons-verse, killed the Simpsons-verse Death suggesting Ned should be able to interact with Death normally.
He is also ridiculously holy, to the point that he can simply ask God for things and God will intervene for him. When his son was Todd was being swept away in a deadly river, he asked God to save him and a tree snapped to stop him followed by God giving a friendly gesture from Heaven. As Heaven is a plane outside of space and time, Ned can get around time stop and spatial/dimensional bfr by asking God to bring him to Heaven. This would also give Ned a level of holy aura protecting him from any of the Damned, not even including the cross he usually carries. Death would simply not have any sins to consign Ned to Hell, Minos would be completely blind fighting him, and Cleopatra's mind manipulation would get nulled.
Planetary Scale Threat:
At this tier would be the two strongest characters in the Inferno, Lucifer and Dante. Lucifer claimed that once freed he would shake the earth and leave the world a desert, feats that require energy in the petaton range to accomplish. Dante during the 8th and 9th Circles grow much stronger. This is particularly elaborated in the comics where Beatrice comments on how Dante's devotion and will allowed him to turn all the pain and suffering of Hell into strength and by end of game Dante could directly overpower Lucifer.
In terms of speed, during Dante and Lucifer's final fight, Lucifer almost escapes Hell in seconds, likely moving through the 9 terraces until Dante plunges him back down to the bottom of Hell. This has been calced in the 4 digit mach range.
Lucifer in particular has a massive range of abilities including the abilities he likely gave to his worshippers the heretics. Lucifer has manipulation of space and dimensions, creating a warped space with possibly 4 spatial dimensions in the gluttony circle, and creating a portal to Hell. Lucifer has a form of corruption, though it seems to require people losing bets with him or consuming the food of the damned and so may not be combat applicable. He showed necromancy, raising the dead and manipulation of fire, wind and lightning. Lucifer has showed clairvoyance, knowing of distant events like Dante's sins in the crusaders while he was with Beatrice and showed this to her. He has domain over souls and can consign them to Hell and he is resistant to most of Dante's abilities. He also projected a shadowy avatar while his giant form was trapped in the ice of Judecca. This shadowy form displayed the above abilities.
When freed, Lucifer displayed more abilites. He had such an immortality that Death's scythe did not affect him and he casually caused it to disintegreate with a gesture. He also displayed teleportation and likely possesed some form of sealing as his plan as stated in the comic was to trap Dante in the same sealed state he was in, making him the next king of Hell. He has shapeshifting, and at the end of the game seemingly changed into the red cross that was sewn on Dante's chest. In the animated film he had more abilities including telekinesis, precognition and telepathy (showed Beatrice the future evils of mankind, including future wars), and the ability to manipulate one's perception, keeping the damned from percieving the present. He also stated in the animated film he would plunge the cosmos into chaos. This could be universal power, universal chaos hax, or just poetic language. In the last case it obviously means nothing. In the first case it's a pretty big upgrade power-wise. In the second case it's an extremely difficult hax to get around as it is literally universal chaos hax. Lucifer may also have some level of spiritiual manipulation, as he claimed that the sins of man would be the bedrock of his return, and in the comic that he would use that to break the barrier to leave Hell.
He was only defeated by Dante. Dante had a soul blacker then any in history, and also a holy power within him, his love. This allowed him to use both the scythe of Death, and the cross of Beatrice, unholy and holy magic. He has a number of holy and unholy skills along with his magic including attack reflection, unholy upside down jewel-encrused crosses that piece enemies, and a healing protective aura with angel wings. His scythe can cut through the very fabric of Hell itself. Dante can also grow in strength with his devotion as mentioned above. He turns the pain and suffering oh his struggle into devotion towards redemption, which bolsters his astral strength. He grew rapidly during the 8th and 9th circles. He can use the cross to absolve an enemy or the scythe to damn them. When he does this he absorbs them as pure spiritual energy to regain health or mana depending on which. This leads into Dante's strongest ability. Dante can release the spirits within him, the benevolent spirits he absolved and just as he saved them, so too can they save him. He used this power to seal Lucifer back into the 9th circle for all eternity.
So how do you fight this? Purification while it can be helpful to some extent against Lucifer is not the catch all it was in prior tiers as Lucifer has resistance to holy manipulation and granted it to his worshippers. The biggest weakness I notice for this tier for both Lucifer and Dante is a lack of range, both normally and in terms of powers. Lucifer has a lot of abilites but outside his possibly chaos manipulation, none of them are shown on a massive scale. Large scale mind manipulation or space manipulation etc. would probably work on both of them as would hitting them from outside their range.
In addition, both Dante and Lucifer have a personal weakness. Lucifer, and this is made even more clear in the comic, is impotent, unable to create real change due to his seal. Lucifer is consigned to Hell, and in his sealed form is vastly weaker then normal, his power severaly limited. Sealing/Binding, or exploitng his inability to move freely in general, would be good tactics to use against him. For Dante, the main weakness is psychological, in particular his emotional short-sighted. All of Dante's sins were things not thought out, but spur of the moment decisions made due to the heat of the moment. All of his desire for redemption, to save Beatrice come from a similar source, and when he thought it was truly hopeless, he willingly gave up his quest and merely asked Beatrice that she someday forgive him for what he had done (where on this act of humility, Beatrice's cross freed her.)
So who would be a good counter? My first idea for a counter is
Angemon from Digimon.
Angemon scales well past digimon like Meramon whose mere presence was dying up all of Southeast Asia. While he would be at a power disadvantage, it's like Angemon could hurt Dante or Lucifer with a concentrated attack. He owuld also well be able to compete in speed as Digimon weaker then Angemon have feats of outpacing lightning by a good margin. He also has relativistic reactions
Digimon fight on the plane of pure data, to protect and affect each other's digi-cores, their essences or spirits. As such Angemon should be able to fight the same spiritual plane as Dante and Lucifer. He also has a far more versatile pool of attacks he does as opposed to Dante and Lucifer who focus on the same general attacks. Angemon's attacks are all holy light themed, and are particularly strong against those who are of the dark which would include both Dante and Lucifer. As a virus buster digimon he has the power to delete them outright, which would get past Lucifer's immortality and resistance to death.
He can also freely travel through dimensions which means he can easily teleport away from any attack the tier throws at him by teleporting into another dimension before teleporting in again and attacking them.
That said he is at a power disadvantage pretty notably and could be caught off guard by some of the abilities of this tier like Dante's sealing. For a more consistent counter, you could use
Lucia Nanami from Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch
Lucia scales to the power of the original Aqua Regina's whose appearence in Mikeru dimension made i fade in and out of existence, a dimension large enough that Mikeru planned to fuse it with the whole human world. She's also stronger then a mermaid princess who was going to drown the world with the seas of the dark ocean. Thus she should be comparable, if not outright superior in raw power to Dante and Lucifer. Her speed is only hypersonic, but it's kind of irrelevant here for reasons I will go into.
As the new Aqua Regina, Lucia has the same abilities of the old Aqua Reginas. This includes the ability to see past the boundaries of space and time. She was able to see all the people praying for her across he Earth and at Lucia's birth, the Aqua Regina before her appeared and foretold that she would become the next Aqua Regina. Thus she would know when to strike them while they would not know of her existence. She has inter-dimensional teleportation as Aqua Regina teleported into Mikeru's dream dimension of her own accord and could easily teleport into Hell, when Dante or Lucifer is not suspecting her.
Lucia's main form of attack is her singing. The song of the mermaid princesses has purity and beauty so great that it brings suffering to all evil. Lucifer as the great evil would be massively damaged by her song and at least incapacited for a moment. This would give Lucia the chance to use her sealing, as the Aqua Regina has sealing strong enough to seal the entire Panthalassa clan, on him. However it would be even stronger on Dante.
Lucia's song is essentially an extremely powerful form of emotional manipulation, the song of the mermaid princesses reaching into the hearts and purifying all hostile intent. It would force Dante to face his own sins and would probably similar to the end of the 8th circle where Dante gave up his quest for redemption.
However while Lucia has some hax resistances, she is slower and can't resist all the abilities of the tier or defend against all of them, relying entirely on hit and run tactics. For the best counter I would recommened
The Idea of Evil from Berserk
The Idea of Evil is very difficult to quantify. It is an abstract force, a dark god created by mankind attempting to justify it's own suffering. It sits in the abyss and controls all fate and causality of the Earth through the power of the collective unconcious of Earth.
Just off the bat if Lucifer or Dante doesn't kill The Idea of Evil immediatly, it will control their fate and causality, a form of hax they have no resistance too. Lucifer doesn't have feats of affecting abstracts, and Dante's scythe can only hit a few people at once while the Idea of Evil is omnipresent across humanity. It is also a conceptual representation of evil, and as such Lucifer would find it impossible to banish from himself, and for Dante to do so means losing much of his abilities and become vulnerable to being killed by the Idea of Evil.
Neither Dante or Lucifer really have the area of effect on a conceptual level to kill the Idea of Evil, while it can casually fate them to seal either other or the like, manipulating their emotions or sealing them inside the abyss which it can do by turning off someone's individuality so they become nothing alone. And it would be essentially impossible to affect with almost any hax they have not just due to it's conceptual nature but due to it's nigh omnipresence and it residing in the abyss, a seperate astral dimension that neither Dante or Lucifer can reasily reach.
Universal Scale Threat:
So this is something I was sort of skirting around when thinking about this, but this verse clearly has the Christian God in it. Like it's not implied or anything they just straight out talk about him at points, like Lucifer saying God was the real evil and that he rebeled for reason and justice and the like. The problem is God never appears in Dante's Inferno, so assessing him for vs standards is quite hard. The compromise I came to is: While I was preparing for this blog I found numerous things suggesting the verse could be a lot higher then it currently is, and this tier is sort of the "if this verse was really highballed" tier.
Lucifer states he was the "Morning Star" strongly implying that the angels are the stars. St. Lucia who is an angel is treated as comparable to Dante, though it's unclear whether this is pre 8th circle Dante pre-Redemption Boost and thus scales to regular Bossess or 9th Circle Dante and thus scales only to him and Lucifer. Angels and redeemed Beatrice can see down into the 9th Circle from Heaven in the comics. 9th Circle Dante also easily took down the ice giants in the comics, whose fall would "shall Hell". This is notable because at least one circle of Hell is shown to have it's own sun. If this statement is taken at face, this would make the ice giants who should be on the tier of the bosses, should be stellar+ to multi-stellar.
Lucifer also has numerous statements suggesting he may be a universal threat. He has the aforementioned statement of plunging the cosmos into chaos. In the game Lucifer stated that they would soon witness the end of the universe and stated that all that is good shall be gone from the universe forever. So possibly universe level.
In terms of speed, again Hell contains circles that have their own sun meaning Lucifer's feat of nearly escaping would be FTL to some degree.
All the prior characters with their powers and feats were created by God, as well as presumably the universe? As such God scales to all the abilities mentioned prior. He also has a form of conceptual manipulation and reality-warping to create metaphysical "rules", what vs battles wiki called "Law Manipulation" as it's stated in all 3 versions tha there are rules of Hell, with one in particular (not a single soul may leave this place) being specifically stated to be "forbidden....by HIM" (Lucifer points upwards)
So how to fight this? Well outside of law manipulation again, while there are a lot of abilities here, they're not on a very high scale. In other worlds having at least low resistances can go a long way and having a single high level hax can be surprisingly effective if it can work on conceptuals. There's one hax in particular that might be really strong, that being large scale spiritual or mind hax.
I say this because at one point Lucifer states that with the spirits Dante had gathered, the two of them could rule the three kingdoms of the afterlife, presumably including God. Now I'm not certain about this, because obviously the Devil could be lying, but being able to manipulate people on a wide scale to use their sealing ability doesn't seem like a bad idea in the first place. Plus numbers can really help if the opponent doesn't have a good area of effect.
Simialrly spatial manipulation on a cosmic scale might be really strong for similar sealing purposes or just to avoid the small area of effect attacks. God also doesn't seem to have had any fights against any equals so skill based characters might do fairly well here.
Things brings me to my first counter
Giygas from Mother
Giygas is many times stated to be able to destroy the universe and is coterminous with all of spacetime meaning speed is somewhat irrelevant.
Giygas is an abstract entity extending over all of spacetime meaning that it would be very difficult for the verse to even harm him, let alone beat him. Giygas has a vast arsenal of his own. Most notably he has a planetary form of mental manipulation, which he could do even in his vastly weaker form of Gigue, which not only should work on anyone but could possibly force them to use their sealing power as his psychic power seems to extend into the spiritual, affecting those with evil hearts greatest and altering morality.
Giygas is particular for his spacetime manipulation, existing in a personal dimension of darkness, able to attack and affect anywhere in time and be unaffected. Combine this with his passive existence erasing aura in the future, rendering things into the void means that almost no power used on him would be effect as he could null them or avoid them via spacetime trickery.
The only caveat is I'm not sure he could resist the holy purification abilites that could revert him to Gigue, vastly weakening him. Even in that form he would still be something of a threat given he would still have planetary mind hax but his reactions only being lightspeed means he would likely be blitzed by beings far more powerful and hax. He also can't particularly take advance of any skill weakness as he himself is completely mindless. For a counter that could use the skill weakness, you could use
Shao Kahn from Mortal Kombat
Shao Kahn can merge two realms into one, each one being stated to be endless by someone with divine perception showing that he would have a large power advantage over the DI-verse. In terms of speed he would be somewhat at a disadvanage but should be somewhat comparable as he would be relativistic scaling from Kotal Kahn's sunlight attack.
Shao Kahn is an incredibly skilled fighter and is a master of soul magic which allows the draining of souls and spiritual energy, which he did to the entire Earth at once. This dura-ignoring hax should allow him to one shot plus give him the ability to amplify his power. If a few dozen souls gave Dante and Lucifer the ability to rule the afterlives, Shao Kahn absorbing billions would make him clearly absolute in terms of power level.
Shao Kahn in the novel was stated to be able to merge life and death, and scales to Raiden who existed "outside" the laws of time and thus was not duplicated across time. He also scales to Ermac whose massive supply of souls gave massive resistance to soul and mind hax as well as can resist the magics of sorcerers of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi. All this means that a lot of the haxes of the verse would not work on him especially given his more common tricks like attack reflection, regen and creating inter-dimensional portals to spatially manipulate attacks away.
Furthermore Shao Kahn has the ability to fuse souls and make beings from them, including clones of him. While it's unclear how many this requires, it at most requires the souls of one world. Meanwhile Inferno and Paradise collectively contain the souls of all who had ever died. For comparison the people living currently make up about 7% of the people who have ever lived, meaning that from absorbing those souls, which requires no greater range and should take at most seconds means that Shao Kahn should be able to create dozens of copies of himself.
That said some of the abilities like reality warping on the conceptual plane would be difficult for him to beat. For the best counter to the verse I would suggest
Rayearth from Magic Knight Rayearth
Rayearth was able to overpower the power of Mokona who casually created universes, suggesting Rayearh could do something similar to the God of DI-verse. Rayearth in a weaker form was able to match the speed of starships that could travel across a star system rapidly, suggesting it should be relative or superior in speed.
Even the power of Mokona who could create the laws of each world, freeze time, dimensionally BFR , and erase existence was overwhelmed by Rayearth. This is because Rayearth is born of the wills and friendships of the three Magic Knights, a will that used the power of Cephiro where will controls all, and can even warp the reality of the world.
Rayearth is the culimination of the hopes and the collective wills of all of Cephiro, and can use their power, suggesting it could use the power of the spirits of DI-verse Earth. Rayearth used this power to destroy Debonair, the Dark Pillar, the embodiment of the despair of all of Cephiro, resisting Debonair's emotional manipulation and corruption.
With magic resistance granted by the magic resistance of the Magic Knights, the ability to travel through dimensions at will, resistance to the godlike warping powers of Mokona from sheer willpower, and resistance to the spiritual/psychological powers of Debonair by the combined wills of Cephiro, Rayearth legit resists every ability of the Dante's Inferno-verse and can hit conceptuals due to not just hitting the embodiment of the despair of all Cephiro but by being able to channel the wills of all of Earth, or through dimensions to Cephiro which can warp even the laws of the world. This means at best they can beat Rayearth by raw power, but Rayearth can heal itself if it takes non-critical damage via Fuu's wind magic.
Rayearth is also incredibly skilled as it is piloted by the three magic knights including Hikaru whose matched the greatest swordsman of Cephiro in combat and Umi who matched the greatest swordswoman of Chizeta in combat. Fuu can also use wind magic to bind enemies and Rayearth can likely do the same on a cosmic scale.
And if need be, Rayearth can split into 3 Rune Gods, each strong enough to at least be difficult to deal with but taking out their ability to affect them all at once.
And that's how to be OP in the Dante's Inferno-verse.
Through millennia and generatons mother nature created the apex hunter, mankind. But be careful if you wander into the supernatural, dear humanity, into the forests of imagination or the caverns of magic. Watch out for strange lights and eyes in the darkness. If you lose your way you may find the hunter has become the hunted, by a monster that hunts more then just your body...but your soul itself.
sans also might be immortal. He's a skeleton made of magic but also at one point during his fight he says "even if we have to wait here until the end of time." That might be hyperbole but either way it's not really helpful since it's only agelessness immortality.
sans is introduced as a silly goofster who enjoys puns, bad jokes, pranks, and lazing around. This seems to be a defense to protect against the sense of meaninglessness that pervades his existence, an existence where no matter what happens, it will all get reset and he'll be back doing the same things. Despite that when everything was being threatened permanently, despite he had no chance of winning, sans stepped up to defend it all. sans had no chance of winning and he was aware of it, but fought regardless, hoping to crush the evil determination of the genocidal anomaly. sans represents the crushing force of apathy and fatalism, being a fight so hard and so aggravating that it would reduce the player's will to apathy.
There exists a place that few have seen, a mysterious place list to the annals of history. This is the place where lost souls go, and where long forgotten stories are revealed. It is a perilous place abounding in magic. However of all the perils in the Unknown, none are more feared then the Beast.
The Beast is the de facto lord of the woods collectively called the Unknown. A shadowy and sinister figure, he is the hunter of lost souls, stalking like the night, singing like the four winds. He is the death of hope and all those whom lose hope, shall forever be a part of his forest.
(Note: It is strongly implied that the Unknown is actually an astral place outside physical existence. However because this is not confirmed I am not going to be including that in this blog. It's also wierdly irrelevant to this particular fight.)
Physiology:
The Beast is a creature of edelwood (8:24), woods made of the souls of those who have become lost in the unknown and which "bleed" oil. The Beast seems to have control over the wood making up his body, able to shift it at one point in anger (6:52). However the wood body he has is not his true self, for in truth, the lantern he tricks others into keeping aflame, has his soul within. (6:50) So long as it is aflame, he will not die.
As the Top Tier of the verse, the Beast likely scales above the lesser threats in The Unknown, including "Papa", a creature the size of a small house, and the beast-wolf. The beast-wolf was a normal dog before eating a turtle with edelwood oil on it turning into a monstrous wolf that could survive the force of a mill's wheel (8:50), the sheer force destroying the mill (9:10). Notably this was only a dog that had eaten a little edelwood oil and which the Woodsman implies is vastly weaker the the Beast. (9:20) This possibly could be talking about the Beast's intellect and wider range of abilities but it does still suggest the Beast should at least scale to the beast-wolf.
The Beast also easily scales to the speeds of most humans in the verse, clearly moving equally to the Woodsman. (4:12) He should thus be superior to Wirt, who is less physically capable, if only by a small bit. There are numerous talking intelligent animals in the Unknown which Wirt has moved comparable to, including an angry bear. More impressive he was able to react and move slightly as Papa's tears were just beginning to fall but before they had reached him. This is impressive as Papa's tears quickly filled the farm they were on, flooding it. It's difficult to tell how big it is due to the odd perspective however it is a fully functional small farm. A small farm in the United States (where OTGW is set) is, on average, 231 acres or 934,824 meters squared. This would equate to a circle of radius ~545.5 meters. This seems to happen quickly, faster then they can say another word despite Wirt, Beatrice and Greg all speaking. Assuming it was 1 second this would be obviously 545.5 meters per second or ~ Mach 1.6. Assuming 2 seconds it would be ~Mach 0.8. As such the feat is a high end subsonic, possibly low supersonic speed feat.
Magic:
The Beast has several supernatural abilities beyond his physical capabilities. Easily his most famous is his ability to turn anyone who has lost hope into edelwood. (8:14) This actually extends not just to those who have lost hope but to those who are dying or dead physically, even if they have not lost hope. The Woodsman warns Greg and Wirt to keep both their bodies and spirits hearty (1:40) and the Beast says all those who will perish here (in the forest) will become trees for the lantern. (8:03) This is how he almost converted Greg to edelwood, not by crushing his hope (as Greg has the highest hope in the series), but by exhausting the young boy in the cold and brekaing his body. He can also cause edelwood to bind those who are starting to lose hope. (9:05)
The Beast is also surrounded constantly by an aura of darkness, save for his glowing eyes. He can freely manipulate his dark aura such as when he tried to stealthily extend his hand in darkness (4:05) and can even engulf an area in total darkness. (6:55) The Beast also knows a few more tricks. He can throw his voice, a form of supernatural ventriloquilism. With it he commanded Adelaide from far away, being the voice of the night. (10:08) Indeed he is known for his sinister song before he kills. The Beast can control his soul within the lantern, making it appear as other things to deceive.
Also I'm not sure how to interpret this, but after the Beast died, the Woodsman's daughter returned (10:00) despite her disapparence due to the Beast's interference. I've seen some people suggest, on a seperate note, that the Beast has weather manipulation due to the sudden strong snowfall in the ending, but I'm not sure what says the Beast caused him. The best I can tell is that Greg's dream, which seemed to have some truth within it, suggested that the North Wind changed the weather in his dream to reflect the change of weather in reality, and him being seen as a stand-in for the Beast but I don't think it's very clear evidence for it.
Mental:
The Beast is an infamous manipulator. (8:10) He has an almost supernatural ability to make people listen to him, which he used to convince Adelaide of the forest to listen to his commands without objection, deceived the Woodsman into doing his biding for years, and almost got Wirt to become the new caretaker of the lantern.
He also seems to have some level of awareness of the happenings in his woods, as he was aware of when Wirt had lost hope and he could bind him with edelwood, however it's vague.
Weaknesses:
The Beast's most infamous weakness is his lantern. His soul is within it, and if the flame goes out in any way, the Beast will perish. In addition, Beast's abilities are somewhat reliant on his opponent running out of hope. This is most obvious with the explicit limitation that only someone without hope can be turned to edelwood, but things like his darkness manipulation and his voice manipulation are also tricks used to intimidate and deceive those who already see him as an unstoppable force.
That leads to his other weakness, he may be a great manipulator, but he relies on his opponent to be deceived and not having full information, keeping them metaphorically "in the dark". He was defeated at least once by the woodsman, who has no special abilities save stats just because he was fighting for his daughter and was neither intimidated or out of hope. The Beast isn't much of a fighter, and doesn't have much fighting experience or direct fighting abilities.
Personality:
The Beast represents the loss of hope, the encroachment of night. Those that have fallen to despair will remain forever in his domain, literally as a part of him. Those whose only hopes are depraved or vile are manipulated to his biding, trying to stave off his displeasure. He seems affable at first, if intimidating in apperearence, to those that are unaware, the quiet and gentle approach of the cold darkness of giving up, of letting oneself die. However it is yet another deception, for he is a sinister personality that will literally feed on the souls of those that have accepted his inevitability.
Alright, the combatants are set. It's time.....for a DEATH PREDICTION!!!
Twilight broke over the strange and distant wilds. The frontiers of the Unknown, the strange to the strange, came to the crest of Mt. Ebott. Creatures tended away from those places, sensing the strange and twisted energy of the lord of these woods pursuing a lost child, far from home, before he fell down...down.....down deeper past a barrier long since forgotten, a barrier light and darkness and man fell through without error.
In the shadows deep underground, sans lurked on the watchout from humans. The area was a small rocky tunnel, with some of the great old trees making their roots and growing from this spot up above, above where the humans resided. A large circular room, with several trees within sprouted from this spot near the barrier, an intersection of the forest and the underground. Not many knew of this entrance to the underground, so small and remote was it, but to his surprise, a child had indeed fallen down. A human child. sans remembered the promise he had made the ol lady and did not engage. But the child was followed by a mysterious figure...
The Beast wandered in the underground. Such was on the edges of the unknown, skirting the great mountain. He had seen a lost soul, full with hope, pass by here, capable of powering his lantern for a pleasently long time. He made his way down nimbly down the rocks falling, as a graceful beam of pure darkness down into the depths into a circular room, a building of some form. But before he could pursue the child, he saw to his surprise... a skeleton wearing the most peculiar clothing looking at him with an insulting grin.
sans beheld the Beast and was somewhat taken aback. The figure was as though a great inky blob of darkness had come to life, save for two glowing eyes in the darkness. sans was mildly unnerved. He didn't like not being able to see this being's expression.
"Do not impede me..." said the Beast softly but sinisterly "return to Pottsfield, or fall." He didn't want to waste time and let the human get away.
sans replied with a jovial tone "I can tell you have a BONE to pick with that human...but I guess I'll have to do." Silently sans said to himself "old lady, your promise is really getting me in trouble. I guess we're having a bad time today."
sans immediatly attempted to skewer his enemies soul with a surprise bone surge from below. The bones crashed through the grounds scratching at the enemy's body, creating the scratching sound of wood on bone...
"...Huh?" said sans in confusion. It was like his enemy didn't have a soul.
The Beast growled in anger and sent a shadowy hand at sans' position but by the time it got there the skeleton had easily sidestepped.
"Hmmm, I can see you are stronger then you appear." The beast said with a gutteral growl.
sans casually balanced one bone on a finger telekinetically. "I'm not the type to just stand there and take it."
A cruel laughter came from the Beast's position before he spread his aura of darkness across the arena, plunging the two in darkness. The only lights sans could see were the lights of the Beast's eyes and his lantern. However sans raised his hand and the area immediatly became lighted by glowing bones spiking from the back wall and two gaster blasters floating to either side of him which fired.
The Beast's eyes sparked with recognition of the threat and dodged behind a nearby tree, completely disappearing in the dark. Before sans could pursue his enemy, he heard his enemy's voice behind him. sans, who was no strange to teleportation teleported quickly to a nearby tree branch, leaning against it to minimize his body area and maximize his stealth.
The two quickly noticed the impass....neither had visual on each other. The Beast knew quickly he was at a disadvantage seeing glowing bones pop up from the ground and the walls randomly searching for him, soon to find him by blind luck. The Beast knocked into the tree adjacent to him and heard nothing fall out. However as the sound echoed through the rooms The Beast saw two gaster blasters beign aiming around the tree he was at.
sans heard the shaking of a nearby tree and quickly tried to summon two gaster blasters to fire at the surrounding positions before he suddenly heard an eerie singing come from the opposite side of the room. A deception! sans tried to quickly skewer the area with bones only to come up empty.
The Beast spoke, his voice seeming to come from all around the room at once. "Why do you fight me skeleton?"
sans responded "Got asked to protect humans. What can I say, when I'm talking to old ladies, I guess I don't have any back-BONE."
"Humans...." The Beast said with a mild disgust in his voice. The Beast attempted to charge the position where sans's voice had come from but sans, expecting this teleported above before raining done bones on his enemy.
A sickening skewer sound was heard and the Beast's darkness shrunk back, as the Beast shuddered slightly. sans triumphantly teleported back to the ground but before he could act, he felt himself begin to slip on the oil coating the ground from the Beast. He quickly conjured a platform to stand on, nearer to the Beast but this was the moment the Beast was waiting for who promptly shot up. sans quickly found himself encased in edelwood. The Beast brought down a mighty strike but just as the blow came to the tip of sans skull, the skeleton teleported away.
"Impossible!" said the Beast in shock.
sans felt his breath start to get harsh. He was starting to fatigue, and he had almost gotten hit. He had to finish this!
sans tried to telekinetically grab The Beast's soul, but again found nothing in his body, only the strange lantern. Inside sans could view a strange humanoid shape....
sans redoubled his efforts, teleporting the Beast into bones on the wall, causing small punctures in his body though sans could not see anything more then brief flashes of parts of his enemy. sans attempted to fire gaster blasters at the Beast though he managed to just barely avoid, slinking to a nearby tree.
sans bounded from tree to platform to tree, attempting to quickly bombard him with lasers from above even as the Beast conjured up darkness across the room again.
The Beast attempted to grab one of the platforms to hurl it at the skeleton, but it was of some ethereal make. For the first time in a long time, the Beast felt the shivers of fear, this enemy's attacks were not causing much damage with each strike, but they were relentless and they had a seeming never ending amount of abilities. However he had one last trick.
"Wait, wait" came the voice of the Beast, feigning weakness. "You protect humans? Well this human depends on me..." he said, willing his soul to take a more clearly humanoid form in the lantern. "If I die, then she will do as well." The Beast took the darkness back within him form, taking on a defensive crouch.
sans paused. He promised to protect humans but this being was clearly a threat.
As if reading his mind the Beast spoke again "I can just leave now and we can both forget this little encounter ever happened" as he said so, the Beast reached his hand like a dark claw along the ground to grab the little nuisance. However just at the moment he was going to do so sans sidestepped.
"Nice try" he said mockingly "but no one dunks on sans!"
Saying so, sans with his right hand brought more bones into the Beast's side, tearing into his wood, telekintically tossing the lantern aside with his left hand.
A chunk of wood fell off the Beast and sans could immediatly see something was not right. The wood had horrid faces carved into them.
"Is this some kind of joke?" sans asked surprised "if so, it's not a very funny one." however the Beast growled in defiance. Snow and darkness sweeped the area. sans summoned a platform and teleported onto it only to find that his slippers had snow and oil on them, causing him to skid slightly.
He felt himself start to lose balance and felt his body skid to one side. His breath was caught in his throat. "Wha...what's happening?" he thought to himself, before coughing up leaves.
The eyes of the Beast looked up at him from the pit, able to see him in the faint last light in the sky, watching him begin to turn to edelwood. The Beast would be happy to use this petulant skeleton as kindling. sans felt a part of his body sickeningly convert to wood, and snap off of him.
"You've delayed me long...but now you will become a part of my woods forever" said the Beast gleefully.
"So....I guess this is how it ends...."he though groggily as the lifeforce began to seep out of him.....however visions of people came to him....Papyrus....his brother....
a blaze in the snow....something primal awoke in sans and the small part of his body....reappeared. sans eyes glowed fiercely against the darkening area. Maybe it was hopeless, but it was still worth fighting for!
The Beast could not believe his eyes, someone who had lost hope....had regained a will to live so strongly? Before he knew what was going he felt himself flung spatially, flung down a seemingly unending corridor, with that strange smiling skeleton appearing and repeating over and over along the sides, bones on the ceiling and the floor scratching at his body.
"What is this feeling?" The Beast though to himself in fear, it was like his sins were running through his form. Like the souls making up the edelwood of his body screamed in hatred.
The Beast covered the area in darkness quickly but sans scraped a bone against the ground and the oil that had accumulated causing a fire to burst across the area, bringing it all alight briefly against the raging snow.
Large portions of the Beast's body was torn from him. He quickly attempted to ensnare sans in edelwood again, but sans sidestepped the roots coming up from the earth. sans attacked and attacked, throwing everything he had, more then everything he had into each blow, until his enemy was naught but blazing ash and cinders.
The snow came to a stop as the battle's tempest ceased. sans' breath was heavy and labored and, happy that he had stopped the strange threat walked over to the clearing and laid against the tree, quickly falling asleep against the snowy bark. As he lay there asleep, he didn't even notice the soul inside the lantern looking at him, or the fact that he was turning to edelwood.
The Beast had been stopped for a time, but sans' soul quickly transmuted into a small edelwood tree, a tree bent and broken by the gravity of the world, and beautiful in it's flowers.
K.O.
So going into this one, I honestly thought that sans would take it relatively clearly due to his versatility and hax. However going into it more, it got more and more unclear and confusing. That said I have to say I think the Beast may be as bad an enemy as sans could get.
So let's go over the obvious point first. The Beast could, at any point, turn sans into edelwood. sans has lost all hope which is what led to his crippling apathy and fatalism. This is worse then it sounds because sans's main defense, his ONLY defense is his ability to dodge attacks. Transmutation is not something you can really dodge however. At best he can get out of line of sight of the Beast but it's unlikely that would stop a transmutation that has already begun and that's arguably not even in character. It's possible sans could be transmuted as well from the fact that he's a skeleton and therefore might qualify as "dead", however he's probably not dead. It's likely skeletons are a natural species of monster however their physiology seems to be close enough that I don't think it means they could resist transmutation, especially since they DO have a soul (even if it's weaker then humans). Also while sans has willpower in a very important fight, and he did at least briefly since he didn't instantly evaporate upon being hit by the second attack, he still didn't have hope. In fact that was the time he arguably had the least hope.
sans is a more skilled fighter sure but despite his ability to dodge attacks he still stands in the line of sight until the moment of attack and then dodges. This could dodge any melee strike the Beast could throw at him sure, but it wouldn't help against something that isn't a melee or projectile attack (which is what comprises essentially all UT-verse attacks)
Now sure, sans could also have easily one-shot The Beast. It would have been relatively simple for him to teleport the soul of the Beast out of the lantern killing him. But not only does sans not have the information, that the soul in there is the Beast (although it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest a supergenius scientist could figure it out quickly), sans only stepped into fight against Genocide Frisk because he ABSOLUTELY had too. We've never seen him fight otherwise but it's likely he wouldn't have taken it as seriously and gone for the kill right away.
In terms of stats, the Beast actually would be very similar to most UT boss monsters at low building level and around the speed of sound. The Beast also has killing intent which is not very helpful since any attack from him would one-shot but it is nice I suppose. If you said that sans is low city because monsters convert food to pure energy and Beast is city level from creating a strong snowstorm, the power differential would be about the same.
The Beast could fill the area with darkness and use voice manipulation to trick sans but sans could also use teleportation and spacetime shenanigans to trick the Beast. Problem was two fold, while sans could avoid most attacks, he couldn't avoid being transmuted without at the very least knowing about it first, and second of all, he could do damage to the Beast by teleporting him into blasts or bones or the like, but he couldn't do massive damage to his body since KR has no feats of poisoning the body. This means sans could only do tiny chip damage.
You might think the Beast would want an area of effect to use on sans but the fact he doesn't means sans has no way of teleporting him into his own attacks or the like meaning that unless sans realizes The Beast's soul is in the lantern, the fight is going to come down to transmutation, a melee strike from the Beast, or one of sans' ranged attacks eventually chipping him down.
sans could delay by teleporting around or using spatial manipulating but his offense was minimal without him figuring out the lantern, and at the very least would take a little bit of thought if he did. Meanwhile the Beast could one-shot at any time. sans was massively more versatility, but sometimes versatility can't stand up to sheer potency.
The winner is....The Beast
Next Time:
Please join me for my Halloween Special Death Analysis
Special Thanks to my friend Thor for making this amazing next time trailer and for providing the soundtrack for this death prediction.
