Leviathan

Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height

— Alfred Lord Tennyson, "The Kraken"

The creature known as Leviathan has gone by many names and patrols the 5 oceans and the inland waters it can access. It is a winding mass of teeth, tentacles, sharp scales, and fins that has terrorized mariners, coastal villages, and Atlanteans for as long as anyone can remember. The creature is another species of hyperfauna from the early Permian Period like Godzilla, with similar beings or its spawn living on the planet Vixjor at the edge of the Milky Way. Like Behemoth and the ancestors of King Kong, Leviathan has been out of its hibernation for much longer than most other kaiju if it had ever gone into hibernation. It's unclear how much it was affected by the changes of the gaseous atmosphere on the surface or the reduction in solar radiation when it can dive into the deepest parts of the oceans. It may also have been its Deviant biology, changed by early experimentation when the Celestials came to an early Earth, and it took that power and its connection to Heaven and Hell to conquer the 8^th Circle of Hell where it seeded the magical substance known as Necroplasm.

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History

The Primordial goddess Gaea came to rest upon Terra to bring about the birth of life on Earth as the Primordial god Uranous came over her and laid with her. Together they birthed the other Primordial gods and goddesses to populate the universe, and among those children, Ceto was born. When the Titans ruled over Earth, Ceto mated with Phorcys, the spawn of the exiled Elder god Set. Ceto birthed Zirnitra, the Sirens, Scilla, Echidna, the Graeae sisters, the Gorgon sisters, and a creature called Cetus in ancient Greek mythology. Cetus was also known as the Leviathan or the Kraken in many contexts and was the least humanoid of all their children. It evolved into a member of the hyperfauna of the Permian Period. Like the other giant monsters, it obeyed the alpha predators of the Kong apes on Skull Island and Godzilla who roamed the Pacific Ocean. Even as plant life started seeding the atmosphere with oxygen which altered the atmosphere and decreased the solar and cosmic radiation coming to the surface, Leviathan seemed to continue roaming the seas as its fellow hyperfauna went into hibernation. Then the Celestials arrived nearly 1 million years ago and altered it as it would the early hominids, turning it into a Deviant version of itself that would roam the seas and conquer the 8^th Circle of Hell.

The Thurian Age

In the times of the rivalries between the Atlanteans and the Kingdoms of Lemuria, forces of Deviants and their human servants. Like the Homo descendus, the Deviant mutate Leviathan navigated the waters of the world. The threat of attacks by Leviathan inspired the old Witch Kings of Atlantis to adopt the Black Kraken as the emblem on their banners. Leviathan's spawn, the Kraken, played with the Cyclopes throughout millennia while mariners and so-called heroes hunted them down. When the Great Cataclysm came, Leviathan disappeared into the deepest oceans of myth and the Celestials wiped out Lemuria and Atlantis, and reset human civilization once again to rebuild in the Hyborian Age when Leviathan would resurface.

The Hyborian Age

The Leviathan moved into the Western Sea and swam across to where the Mu survivors of the war with Orenbega had taken roost. An island that Hecate pulled out of the ocean for them that was once a sacred place for an undersea people known as the Coralax. The Coralax went to war against the Mu for pulling their sacred sea floor to the surface and were repelled repeatedly by the powerful My Mystics. Then Leviathan arrived and began terrorizing the Mu on the fledgling island with relentless attacks and throwing large bodies from the water onto land. The Mu performed rites to call Hecate back again to plead for help. Hecate demanded that all their enemies be killed and their prisoners sacrificed to the Chthonic gods and the Old Ones. Magus Mu’Rhakmet agreed and Hecate obliged by summoning Lilith, who released her army of demons. The Coralax were almost made extinct in the war but Mu’Rhakmet could not bring himself to kill them all, so he allowed their leader and a few healthy couples to escape captivity. The Mu were surprised to find that Hecate was pleased by this outcome because she used this opportunity to kill the Mu on the island as well, and kept Leviathan trapped inside the island for more than a Millennium where his Necroplasm spawned the Slag Golems that roam its pits and caverns.

Conan the Cimmerian battled Leviathan on multiple occasions while he traveled the waters of the Hyborian Age. The first was while sailing close to the coast of Stygia in the Western Sea, Conan worked as a deckhand on a stolen Zingaran sailboat when the Leviathan attacked. The Deviant mutate destroyed the vessel with the teeth between its powerful jaws and the wrenching power of its enormous tentacles. It devoured the captain and most of the crew, but Conan fought until he believed he had killed it then swam to the shores of Stygia. On his next venture into the Western Sea, Conan set off from the Barachan Isles to see what lay beyond it but the ship encountered the Leviathan's new hunting grounds. The beast took 2 of his crewmen and dragged them down to be eaten before it pulled Conan into the water. Conan fought on the way down but couldn't break free until he slashed 1 of the Leviathan's eyes. The Leviathan reeled and Conan swam back to the surface and was able to get back on board his vessel, but that was just the first of the many misfortunes on this journey.

Antiquity

As he traveled back to Seriphos from adventuring into Tartarus to claim Medusa's head to satisfy the king of Argos, Perseus learned that King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia had decided to sacrifice their daughter to a monster known as Cetus to atone to the Olympian Poseidon. Perseus gazed upon their daughter, Andromeda, and desired to marry her. As Leviathan, known at that time as Cetus, emerged from the sea to claim its sacrifice, Perseus scaled the cliffs and pulled Medusa's severed head from his bag. When Medusa’s severed head and the Leviathan met each other’s gaze, the Leviathan turned to stone before crumbling back into the sea. Cephus and Cassiopeia agreed to allow Perseus to marry Andromeda, and Perseus promised to return to do so once he finished his quest for the king of Argos. Unfortunately for the king, Perseus carelessly presented the head to him and the king caught Medusa's eyes and was turned to stone.

Sometime after Perseus petrified the Leviathan with Medusa's severed head, it traveled from the Earth realm into the many hells where it took roost in the 8_th Circle. There it spawned its Mire Squids that returned to Earth, also known as Kraken or giant squid, and that spawning spread Leviathan's Necroplasm throughout the 8^th Circle. That Necroplasm held great infernal and mystical power that attracted other demons of varying power to this great pit, where the wicked were drowned in the burning wells. Whether a demon prince ruled this circle before Leviathan took the throne remains murky. Another mal-demon, or greater demon, named Malebolgia plotted to kill and dethrone the tortuous serpent. When Malebolgia launched his plan, he was successful in dethroning Leviathan but not as successful in killing Leviathan as he thought. Leviathan was returned to the oceans of the Earth realm where it continued to roam the oceans and terrorize mankind.

As Job suffered because of a wager between Lucifer and Jehova, a wager made for reasons no mortal man could understand, the Metatron came to him. The Metatron was the angel known as the mouth of God that brought His word to mortals, who appeared before Job to give him God’s instruction to remain faithful and obedient no matter how unfair or difficult life may become. The Metatron then showed Job the marvels of God's creations, first with Behemoth and then with Leviathon who roamed the sea. The Metatron gave Job a description of Leviathan's fiery breath, its impenetrable scales, its powerful, jagged teeth, and its overall indomitability. The Metatron calls Leviathan the tortuous serpent who will be killed at the end of time. The Metatron uses Behemoth and Leviathan as examples of being resolute but also to reinforce the futility of denying God's plan and will. For if God could create beasts as powerful as these, that only He could defeat, then what good would it be for mortal men to forsake Him?

The Renaissance

After many of the Eternals moved into the Amazon and then the Andes, Gilgamesh and Thena learned of coastal villages and seafaring vessels going missing off the Atlantic coast of what would be known as the Americas. As they came to the clear waters below the limestone cliffs of Baia do Sancho, Brazil, Gilgamesh spotted a sunken Spanish ship below. Although Thena and he felt conflicted about stopping the attacks on the murderous conquistadores and colonizers from Europe, their command from the Celestials was not to get involved. Gilgamesh dove into the salty waters swam to the wreckage, and a Leviathan attacked him beneath the waves. Thena saw the once clear waters froth up from the conflict and dove in to help Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh saw that Leviathan was pulling him toward its large maw and jagged teeth, so he bided his time and struck Leviathan with such force to knock himself free. When Leviathan saw the second Eternal, it filled the water with poisonous ink and fled into the deeper waters. The Eternals would not battle the Leviathan again until they battled the Kappa and believed they had ended the Eternal-Deviant war on Earth.

Cold War Era

The Leviathan tasted familiar blood in the waters of the Indian Ocean and braved the storms and crashing waves around Skull Island, but it found that the source of that blood still lived. King Kong battled Leviathan away from the shores but the sea serpent challenged the giant ape for the island. Leviathan would take whatever massive body it could find in the ocean and lob it at Kong, or the Iwi. And anything coming to the island was immediately attacked. Leviathan spawned more Mire Squids around the shore of the island and they worked their way to inland bodies of water to attack Kong. This conflict stretched for 2 decades until finally the protector of Skull Island defeated the Leviathan and believed it killed. However, the Leviathan fell into the depths where it recovered and swam off to new waters to find other prey.

The ancient Atlantean artifact known as the Horn of Proteus was designed to summon and control the largest beasts in the sea to defend Atlantis. Namor's rival to the crown of Atlantis found the artifact and kept it in his vault until it was stolen by Andromeda who used it to summon Leviathan. Andromeda then ordered it to attack Atlantis under Attuma's rule. Attuma, Namor’s rival, ended the Leviathan's attack by luring it into an underwater cavern that led into the heart of Atlantis and then collapsed it. The roof and the layers of seafloor above came down and trapped the Leviathan there, and the Lovecraftian mass of tentacles and serpentine body with enormous jagged teeth were imprisoned there. Andromeda was captured after that when she challenged Attuma for the crown, announcing that she was his daughter. She lost that challenge and was sentenced to death.

Superhuman Registration Era

The body of Leviathan was discovered in the Great Loch Ness of Scotland sometime within the last decade. Monarch researchers and the British Regular Army set up a secret containment and observation facility to keep watch over the sea serpent. The only hints of what the Leviathan looks like are from previous accounts of encounters with it because the body in the water is largely a tangled web of serpentine tails and tentacles. Had an amateur cryptozoologist not found its maw and cut himself on its jagged teeth, it might have been mistaken for a mass of kelp or seaweed. The Monarch facility in Scotland is kept as secret as possible though it has become a large center of employment in the area. Among locals, Leviathan is the best worst-kept secret in the Scottish countryside.

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References

1. Leviathan on Wikipedia
2. Kraken on Wikipedia
3. Kraken (Deviant) (Earth-199999) on Marvel Database
4. Ceto (Earth-616) on Marvel Database
5. Kraken (Race) on Marvel Database
6. Kraken (Deviant) on Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki
7. Krakens on Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki
8. Kraken (Species) on DC Database
9. Necroplasm on Spawn Wiki
10. List of Monsterverse Monsters - Leviathan on Wikizilla
11. Kraken (Monsterverse) on Wikizilla
12. Skull Island on Wikizilla
13. Mire Squid on King Kong Wiki
14. Skull Island on King Kong Wiki
15. Leviathan on Gojipedia
16. Kraken on Gojipedia
17. Skull Island on Gojipedia
18. Monarch on Gojipedia

Aliases:

• Cetus
• Craken
• Kraken
• Mire Squid
• Na Kika
• Octopus
• Sea Beast
• Sea Creature
• Sea Monster
• Squid
• The Tortuous Serpent