Black Spawn

"There's a legend among us youkai. A terrifying legend that tells of the Earth's near destruction by a creature that was neither living nor dead."

- Patchouli narrates the Legend of the Black Spawn A Black Spawn (also known by the title of "Great Destroyer") is a non-sentient member of a mysterious world-eating "species" that inhabit the various realms of the Multiverse. The origin of this species is shrouded in mystery, but based on some of their attributes they may be at least partially divine in nature. This is backed up by the sheer power and defensive capabilities an individual Spawn has, which often takes mid-tier divine intervention to even leave it vulnerable. Mysteriously, despite their process of consuming worlds, the Black Spawns subsist more on negative energy from around the comsos than they do on the worlds they destroy.

The Black Spawns are also the source of the Dark Spores, small fragments of themselves that invade a chosen world in an event known as the Dark Swarm. These Spores infect a world's residents and force them to kill each other, leaving the planet nearly defenseless as the Spawn descends upon the planet and consumes it. So few have survived an attack by a Spawn, in fact, that most believe there exists but one of them.

A particularly notable Black Spawn served as the main antagonist of Hellgate 2 Part II, where it was revealed to have invaded that particular Earth tens of thousands of years in the past. It returned in the present day, now under the control of The General, who treated it as his personal pet. This Spawn was also immeasurably more powerful than a regular Spawn, due to The General's "feeding" of other Spawns to his own.

History
It is unknown how and when the Black Spawns came into existence, though SDM hints that they have some sort of connection to Anathemus. What is known, however, is that each individual member of the species is devastatingly powerful, thus making them ample weapons for those with apocalyptic tendencies. The Spawns themselves are non-sentient, and in fact rarely destroy a world without being commanded to do so.

Due to the majority of worlds lacking interdimensional travel, information on the Spawns is not well spread. On top of that, there are very rarely any survivors from a Spawn attack, which has led to a general illusion that only one exists, when in fact there are many, each confined to a single universe. However, one Black Spawn in particular was known to achieve the powers the legends said it had, leading to a bizarre case of the illusionary becoming reality.

Known "owners" of a Black Spawn include the Nihilius Clan and The General, with both known occurrances in fact being one and the same. It was first summoned to Earth M717 by the local Nihilius Clan branch, led by Vocus. The first being it infected was a light mage by the name of Saito, who wound up instigating a massive rebellion against the youkai kingdom of Coronai. The King of the kingdom at the time, Gustaff, answered her insurrection with full military action, leading to a bloody war. Gustaf's daughter, Mia, began having prophetic visions in her dreams. She saw a dark shadow fall over the two sides, crushing them both as both factions were too busy fighting each other to see it. Gustaf ignored her daughter's warnings, and in hope of salvation she pulled several heroes from the future to her kingdom, asking for their help. They arrived just as Saito began her assault on Coronai City, and assisted with pushing back the first wave.

That night, they followed one of the king's advisors to a nearby cave, where it was discovered that he was a member of the Nihilius Clan. They did battle with him while the rest of the Clan fled, and come dawn the main attack force of Saito's army arrived at Coronai's gates. Eventually Saito and Gustaf would fight one-on-one, and the time-displaced warrirors were charged with protecting Mia during that time. Gustaf finally managed to kill Saito after fify days, but at the cost of his own life. Mia, now Queen, instructed them to take her to the fortress city of Goruntuaff, which was currently under siege by the Dark Swarm.

Along the way, Vocus arrived and kidnapped Mia for unknown reasons, unleashing one of the Spored on the group. His Spore was eventually purged, and he introduced himself as Zoruff. He joined his liberators as they tracked down Vocus, rescuing the princess and killing nearly every member of the Clan in the process. They then arrived in Goruntuaff and assisted with the Cleansing.

The three protective goddesses of Coronai, Ami, Thayla, and Gressalarye, were already there ahead of them. Passive mentionings inplied that even divine beings could be (and have been) infected by Spores. However, the combined might managed ot be enough to beat back the Dark Swarm, and Mia attempted to return the heroes to their proper era.

Their transit was interrupted, seemingly by the Spawn itself, and they dropped back into Coronai several weeks later. There they bore witness to the coming of the Spawn itself, and experienced its complete devastation of the kingdom first-hand. While they battled Vocus in the sky, the Spawn ransacked the world below. It took the three goddesses several hours and their lives to weaken the Spawn's defensive barrier. Zoruff then sacrificed his own life with a powerful light-based attack that struck the Spawn through its shattered barrier, and nearly killed it.

Unable to continue fighitng, the Spawn fled back into space, leaving a trail of death and ruin. Though the earth had been saved from consumption, the Spawn's attack had killed nearly all the youkai, which allowed the humans of that world to achieve eventual dominance. As for the Spawn itself, its ruined form was encountered by The General, who immediately ordered its capture.

Fascinated by the prospect of a world actually managing to defeat a Great Destroyer, The General reasoned that the world in question must have the power he was looking for in order to complete Project Anathema. As such, The General immediately took measures to nurse the Spawn back to health (becoming its designated owner in the process), and then further increased its power by feeding it other Spawns. Through the feeding, his Black Spawn gained powers beyond what a normal Spawn was capable of, including the ability to travel through universes. Effectively, this made The General's Black Spawn into a real-life version of the mistaken legends.

He used the Spawn's powers to great effect, sending it back out to destroy other worlds, waiting for the one that would defeat it again. Unfortuantely for The General, the record of the universe he found the Spawn in was lost in a specific incident, and The General was forced to wait a long time before he found that world again. In the meantime, The General was not above using the Spawn as a weapon in its own right, sending it to enemy worlds when he did not wish to use his own proper forces.

The Hellgate Gaiden
In the first part of the Hellgate Gaiden, Birth, The General's Black Spawn finally returned to the world that originally defeated it so long ago. Its Messenger Spore infected one Reimu Hakurei, thus kicking off the events of the story. Though she was defeated and her Spore expunged, Patchouli Knowledge of the Scarlet Devil Mansion took this as a sign of the Spawn's arrival and prepared against it. She recreated the light spell that Zoruff originally used to defeat it, but the supplies were limited and she could only cover herself and the other residents of the mansion. The mansion itself was left unprotected despite his sentience, the reasoning being that there was never a precedent for an inorganic being being posessed.

This turned out to be the world's undoing, as SDM was infected by the very same Messenger Spore just as the Dark Swarm began. Though because he was a house, the infection process would occur over the course of many, many years as the Spore slowly made its way to his core. Nonetheless, it was lodged in deep enough when the Spawn itself arrived that it was unable to answer the call of its "mother." This drove the Spawn to target SDM directly, and in his anger the mansion accidentally used the Spore's power against the Spawn itself, shattering its divine barrier. SDM would then lead the Gensokian counterattack against the Spawn, delivering the final blow against the Black Spawn and killing it.

The Spawn would not appear again throughout the rest of the Gaiden, though it is referenced on numerous occassions and its legacy plays a large role. In Part 2, Black Heaven, The General attacks Earth M717 a year later in retaliation for it killing the Spawn. Though he intended for it to be defeated, he did not intend for it to be killed, as the Spawn played an important role in Project Anathema besides being used as a probe. It is also here that SDM begins to show the first signs of being infected, which would lead to his eventual transformation into Hellgate.

The Hellgate Saga
Throughout Hellgate 1 and Hellgate 2 Part I, the Spawn itself never appears. However, it is the being directly responsible for turning SDM into Hellgate, who is the true villain of the two stories. In Hellgate 2 Part II, Gensokyo faces the exact same Dark Swarm invasion as the one from Birth, but due to Hellgate's time travelling they were now armed with the knowledge of what would happn if SDM was infected. They also witness the details of the Spawn's first defeat in Coronai, when Mia pulls them back to it.

As they are returned from the past, they use the same spell devised by Patchouli Knowledge to stave off the invasion of Dark Spores, this time on their own homeland. SDM himself does not participate in this battle, out of the fear of him being infected again. As the Spawn itself descends, all seems lost until Patchouli manages to bait SDM into unleashing the power of his God Aura, inherited from the Hellgate he used to be. In a scene that mirrors the events of Birth, SDM charges the Spawn, punching it and shattering its shield. With the barrier broken, the residents of Gensokyo battle the Spawn and force it to engage its emergency form. They are unable to defeat it, even with SDM eventually joining in to help. Though it consumed the souls of the planet's inhabitants, the heroes manage to break out thanks to the intervention of a mysterious force and cause severe damage to the Spawn's core, releasing all of its victims in the process. They combine their powers for a final attack which leaves the Spawn little better than a shapeless gelatin-like mass.

The battered Spawn escapes and returns to space, where it is collected by The General. He then heals it, and prepares his forces to attack Earth M717 as Project Anathema moves into its final stage.

In Hellgate 2 Part III, after fleeing their world ruined at the hands of The General, the group joins up with the Rebellion and becomes a part of F Squadron. Their first mission takes them to the barren world of Nograd to investigate a ruined Rebel outpost. They learn from the security feeds that the cause of the destruction was none other than the Black Spawn, returned after only two months.

F Squadron would later face it in another battle when the General uses it as a weapon against the Rebel base of Himitsujou. By the time they arrive, the base has mostly fought off the Dark Swarm, save one infected who tricks the heroes into letting him murder the Base Commander. A quick battle is fought before the Spawn itself arrives. This time the barrier is broken by an advanced Rebel weapon, the Saishubii-No-Requiem. Its healing is revealed to be incomplete, however, as though it tries, it cannot fully engage its emergency form. This leaves it perfectly vulnerable for it to be beaten until it's barely the size of a baseball. It has not been seen since, but it is heavily implied that it is, even now, being healed by The General again, presumably until it reaches full power once again.

Other Appearaces
In a What If roleplay taking place during the same timeframe as Hellgate 2 Part II, Patchouli Knowledge gets infected by a Spore, but upon sustaining severe damage she transfers it into SDM, turning him back into Hellgate. As the Spawn arrives, Hellgate fuses himself with it, adding its power to his and gaining full access to its body, the result known informally as "Hellspawn."

In truth, the Spawn attempted to infect Hellgate, however the Spore within him was already doing that. The transferrence of power must therefore be considered "incomplete," but nevertheless it does even out the playing field, giving Hellgate the ability  to square off against the heroes, infused with the power of Arachna and Enthropod.

Legend of the Black Spawn
During both Birth and Hellgate 2 Part II, Patchouli retells the legend of the Black Spawn's assault on Coronai in order to inform her allies of its threat. This was how she told it:

''There's a legend among us youkai. A terrifying legend that tells of the Earth's near destruction by a creature that was neither living nor dead. The tale of the Black Spawn.''

''Long ago, when mankind had yet to spread its influence over the planet, there was a flourishing youkai kingdom that expanded its territory across the globe. A kingdom made up of only the strongest youkai. A peaceful kingdom soon torn apart by unnatural war.''

''A youkai had come across a magnificent source of power. Power that made her stronger than nearly anyone. But it also corrupted her. Her soul became black and tainted with this power, and she started a bloody revolution. She engaged the current monarch at the time in a one-on-one danmaku duel that lasted for fifty days. Eventually, the rebel was finally slain. But at a cost. The battle had exhausted the ruler so much that he collapsed and died not long after. Unfortunately, the worse had yet to come.''

''Other youkai found the power. These same youkai called for the blood of every living creature. They too had become tainted by the power. The skies turned red with the blood of a free-for-all melee.''

''Three goddesses were fortunate enough to not have encountered the power. As such, they cleansed the tainted and expelled the evil power. Those who were successfully cleaned had no recollection of any event that occurred after they gained the power.''

''The cleansing lasted several days. Afterward, the youkai population on Earth had severely declined. Now man had surpassed us in numbers. But we were still the superior power. That is, until 'it' came along.''

''Mere weeks after the great cleansing, the sun was eclipsed by a ball of pure darkness. This ball, a conscious mass of shadow, came to be known as the Black Spawn. The Black Spawn was not a creature of this planet, or even a being of this realm. Nonetheless, countless worlds had seen their end because of it.''

''When the Black Spawn had chosen a world to destroy, it would first send out a 'messenger,' a small piece of itself we call a Dark Spore.' A Dark Spore would fall from the heavens and select the most powerful being it could find within the area. It would corrupt this person, and boost their pre-existing abilities tenfold. It would also grant the user the ability to control shadow. With this new power at their disposal, the person would set about performing a massacre, killing thousands to fulfill whatever their desire was.''

After the slaughter and the populace weakened, hundreds more Dark Spores would fall, and initiate a massive bloodbath between the tainted.

''Finally, The Black Spawn itself would appear, and suck out all remaining life on the planet, turning it into a barren wasteland. Then it would collect the Dark Spores and return to the stars to seek out another world to bring doomsday to.''

''The Three goddesses fought until their last breath. But it was still not enough to defeat the monster. Finally, one of the formerly tainted focused all of his life force into a concentrated beam of pure light, finally banishing the monster into the great void from whence it came.''

Appearance and behavior
The Black Spawns are little more than mindless beasts, completely unsapient and driven purely by their owner's will. They do not even seek sustenance out of their task; they survive off of the negative energies in the cosmos. It is unknown why they do this. The Black Spawns are amorphous, but their basic form is a black sphere protected by a thin but tough external membrane, their surface littered with tentacles. Short "studs" also appear sporadically across the Spawn's membrane. When they engage their emergency form, their one stud or tentacle will extend further out and bend, appearing akin to a neck as the Spawn's main body sinks into the planet itself. The tip of this limb glows bright red, indicating the use of the Spawn's trump card.

The Black Spawns begin an assault on the chosen world by dispatching a single Messenger Dark Spore, with the ability to corrupt sapient beings. It proceeds to overtake the strongest being in the vicinity and cause as much chaos as possible. The Messenger is followed by a swarm of more Dark Spores duiring the later Dark Swarm, which possess any living being they can find, plunging the world into a free-for-all bloodbath. Once the world is ruined and ripe for the taking, the Spawn arrives on the planet personally, recalling its Spores before draining all the vital energy both from the planet itself and from anything still alive on it.

Offensive and Defensive Skills
The Spawn's surface is littered with tentacles which it uses as its primary weapons, both blunt and indirect. It can use them to swiftly drain the life out of enemies it catches or charge itself up with energy from the planet by plunging them into the earth. The tentacles can also fire energy blasts, as well as detach from the body to move independently. Additionally, the Black Spawn can utilize the Dark Spores in combat, firing them at enemies from the tentacles to distract them from fighting the Spawn. Its studs are also fully capable of combat, most often in the form of projectiles as they launch off the Spawn's body and home in on their targets.

Tentacles can also expel a dark liquid known as "Black Mud" which can leave victims drained of life in no time or plunge them into horrid nightmares. If hit with the mud, it's possible to cure the infected if immediate action is taken. Otherwise, only a portion of the mud can be separated form the victim (how much depends on the amount of time that has passed since being infected), and it will always be fatal. The only known way to cure a victim after this point is to cut off the energy drainage at its source, or in other words, kill the Spawn that did it.

The Black Spawns possess a divine barrier that are almost invulnerable to assault. They can only be pierced by attacks from a God or other divine-level entity. Once the external barrier is pierced, however, the creatures are susceptible to all attacks.

All Black Spawns are all capable of an "emergency form" in the extremely rare cases where the Spawn in question is actually in danger. It does this by spreading darkness across the planet, farming negative emotions for it to feed off of. It then channels all of this power into itself, and begins to tear the planet apart. When used to its fullest, this increases all of its abilities to apocalyptic proportions and even grants it new abilities such as using the planet itself as a weapon against those who have put the Spawn under threat. It can also recreate its divine barrier around itself in preparation for consuming all the souls on the planet. This is the Spawn's ultimate move: pulling the souls (foregoing the bodies) of every sentient being on the planet into its core, where they will be doomed to suffer eternally, each one feeling the collective pain and grief of all.

This form completely destroys a planet, powerful enough to actually tear a hole in the fabric of spacetime, as opposed to simply draining it. The potential backlash is even dangerous to the Spawn itself, which is why this form is known as its "emergency" form.

The General's "pet" Black Spawn, as a result of its consuming other Spawns, gains even more abilities, such as increased speed and durability. It can also fire more streamlined energy blasts in the form of lasers, and to such a degree that it can make a literal cloud of them. Rarely, his Spawn may unleash the darkness inside itself into an all-out attack, plunging the field into blackness and forming giant claws out of its shadowy substance. This Black Spawn can also adapt itself to magical attacks, so repeated assaults on it with the same school of magic will deal successively less damage. However, this ability is seemingly centered in the studs littering its body. Severing those studs removes the Spawn's ability to absorb magic.

The Dark Spore
The Spawn's most notable ability is the creation of Dark Spores, normally sent out prior to the Spawn's arrival to cull any resistance a planet could oppose it. These are small clots of black matter, normally intangible, which seek out the nearest sapient lifeform and fuse with it. Spores grant their victim a boost in power and the ability to cast dark magic, but they suppress all positive emotions and significantly amplify negative thoughts in order to make the victim go violently berserk. Once the Spawn arrives, it recalls all Spores so as to prevent their hosts from attacking the Spawn itself.

In very rare cases, a Spore can possess something it was not supposed to, such as the Scarlet Devil Mansion. In those cases, the Spore may find itself unable to leave the host when the Spawn recalls it. Not only does this put the Spawn at risk, but Dark Spores were not intended to remain in a host for longer than a few months at most. It will pervert and twist any desire the host has to result in bloodshed, but if a being with a suitably long lifespan were to never lose its Spore, it would encounter an endless loop of nothing but constant destruction once those goals are achieved.

Luckily, Dark Spores can be forced to exit a host's body. The primary way of doing that is to inflict significant damage on said host (the light element works best), but some other techniques can also help - Arachnos' Purging Poison has proved potent in causing regurgitation of the Spore. Patchouli's light spell also makes those cast under it tangible to the Spores, as well as being granted immunity to infection and the ability to harm the Spores themselves.

Weaknesses and Flaws
Unfortunately, the Spawn is invulnerable until a divinely powerful attack shatters its external barriers. If that step is successfully accomplished, however, the Spawn's various tentacles and studs will be vulnerable. Severing those will deprive it of its weapons and defenses. If possible, it is recommended to kill the Spawn by striklng the core through the membrane before it can engage its emergency form - as overcoming it is almost impossible.

Relationships
Anathemus - A relationship was confirmed, but as of yet unknown.

The General - He is responsible for fusing multiple Spawns together and uses the result as a weapon of mass destruction.

Design and Influence
The Spawn was presumably designed to come off as alien, unidentifiable and impossible to relate to. Its tentacled amorphous form is reminiscent of the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.

SDM says that the Black Spawn was designed "backwards." When writing down the original ideas for Hellgate 2, SDM wanted an entity that could be responsible for corrupting his character of the same name, turning him into Hellgate. Listening to a certain song (which is now the Black Spawn's main theme) inspired the Coronai legend. It gave him the image of a black, faceless monster that roamed the stars and devoured worlds. To keep the Black Spawn from upstaging either The General or Hellgate himself as a villain, and to make it appear even more inhuman, SDM designed the Spawn to have no personality or even will of its own. Additionally, the idea for there to be multiple Black Spawns didn't exist until roughly around the time H2P2 ended.

The connection to Anathemus also didn't come until SDM began developing Him further, as well.

Appearances

 * The Hellgate Gaiden
 * Birth (Main Antagonist)
 * Black Heaven (Mentioned Only)
 * Red Earth (Mentioned Only)
 * The Hellgate Saga
 * Hellgate 2 Part II (First Appearance, Main Antagonist, Final Boss)
 * Hellgate 2 Part II What-If Edition (as "Hellspawn," Final Boss)
 * Hellgate 2 Part III (Boss)

Trivia

 * Interestingly, the Black Spawn's size has shrunk over the course of the Hellgate Saga. When it first appeared in Coronai, it was said to be big enough to blot out the sun even while it was still en-route. When it appeared as the final opponent in both H2P2 and HGG1, it was just barely small enough for SDM to have a slight grip on. Lastly, when it showed up at Himitsujou, it was roughly only 2.5 times bigger than a Mimic. This could be attributed to either it losing mass as a result of it literally exploding every time it's been defeated, or oversight on SDM's part.
 * Several times, most notably in H2P2, SDM ocassionally referred to the Spawn with a male pronoun (him, his, he). SDM has since state that those occurrances are just mistakes and the Spawn should only be referenced as "it."