Barbatos

Barbatos is the second-ranked Grim Reaper, the Underworld's active defender, and Neo Hargraves's first formal Underworld trainer. He designs a five-part course that turns Neo's inherited access to Death into earned knowledge of Darkness, responsibility, self-definition, and Grim Reaper institutions. Much later, he serves Zagreus during the Voraka Shadow Trial while suspecting that their enemy Nameless Death is the missing Second Prince. His defining loyalty is therefore not blind obedience to one brother: it is service to Hades's family and the Underworld, even when those obligations point in opposite directions. (Chapters 31–36, 67–70, 104–125, 270–273, 606–663, and 710–711)

Biography

The Underworld's five trials and an unforgiving apprenticeship

Barbatos first speaks to Neo during a capture-the-flag trial in the Underworld. Neo's blood has sent the local monsters into a frenzy, yet Barbatos seals the blessing that made the realm survivable and increases the pressure on him instead of providing rescue. He gives Neo knowledge of Darkness and leaves five flags whose posts lie among enemies Neo cannot initially defeat. The exercise is deliberately harsher than his existing rank can bear through conventional combat. To live, he must observe, adapt, use Necrotic Touch, and accept that Darkness devouring is a survival mechanic with psychological and moral costs. (Chapters 31–36)

The later exercises continue the same philosophy. Barbatos warns that prolonged contact with death can taint Neo, then arranges the Gremlin ordeal so retreat and ordinary restraint cannot complete the objective. Neo's mastery rises because he is forced to devour what hunts him, but hallucinations nearly break his mind. Subsequent stages require him to defeat a Shadow alone and confront other tests before the fourth demand: surpass himself through an achievement that is uniquely his. Barbatos is not training a replica of Hades. He is forcing a bloodline heir to decide what his own Death, limits, and responsibilities mean. (Chapters 33, 67–70, 104, and 270–272)

Paimon complicates Barbatos's severity without opposing its goal. When Neo needs the full Underworld blessing to rescue Jack Hanma, she can return it only temporarily without Barbatos's permission. Barbatos protests the unsealing and later condemns the expenditure of Monarch blood, but he also recognizes that Neo made a considered choice and accepts its consequences. His anger is not simple possessiveness over a resource: he believes Hades's blood must not become a shortcut or currency spent without understanding what permanent responsibility follows its use. (Chapters 104–125)

The fourth trial, the past Underworld, and Barbatos's own beginning

The fourth flag survives with Neo's soul and reappears after he awakens Shadow in a past Shadow World. When he plants it, an Intent projection of Barbatos manifests. The projection recognizes Neo's new Death Concept, complete recovery of past-life memories, and Adept Intent mastery. Barbatos explains that either unique achievement would satisfy the requirement to surpass himself. He then directs Neo toward the fifth trial: use the Soul Hunter badge, seek Paimon's help concealing his future origin, become a Grim Reaper, and undergo ennoblement. The message is urgent and temporary, not a freely living duplicate of Barbatos. (Chapters 270–272)

Neo soon meets the historical Barbatos who made that knowledge loop possible. This younger version is a bruised boy in torn clothes who has recently become a Grim Reaper and received the name Barbatos. He serves Paimon and recognizes the future traveler only as the person his master has summoned. The encounter explains how the later projection knows which past Neo has entered: young Barbatos experienced the meeting before the ancient Reaper designed the trial. It also establishes his formal origin without supplying the Soul Hunter ranks, soul-capture history, or exact ennoblement process that preceded it. (Chapter 273)

The fifth trial's requirements demonstrate the scale of the institution Barbatos is opening to Neo. A candidate needs the highest Soul Hunter rank, one hundred thousand captured souls, Expert mastery in a qualifying element, a Grim Reaper's recommendation, and ennoblement. Those are Neo's stated requirements, not evidence that Barbatos reached each prerequisite in a particular shown chapter. What the past scene establishes is narrower and exact: he was newly ennobled, received the office-name Barbatos, and began a Grim Reaper career that eventually placed him immediately below Bael in formal seniority. (Chapter 273)

Nameless Death, Voraka, and loyalty divided between two princes

In the Voraka Site, Zagreus summons Barbatos and Asmodea to investigate an amnesiac Heavenbreaker called Nameless Death. Barbatos notices him before the introductions and asks whether he is the missing prince. The evidence conflicts: Nameless carries Monarch blood but has a changed soul, no detectable blessing, a weapon unlike Obitus, and no recognition of the Reapers. Barbatos proposes a method that will take time rather than declare certainty. His caution matters because Zagreus's Shadow Trial encourages everyone to sort the unknown man quickly into ally, enemy, or family, while a mistaken answer could make one prince kill the other. (Chapters 606–610)

The uncertainty becomes dangerous when Nameless frees The Berserker and Leonora. Barbatos senses the betrayal, searches the Site, and eventually forces entry into a hidden Space-Time Prison. He tells the fugitives to return to Zagreus, but he does not attack immediately despite the First Prince's order. There is still a possibility Nameless is the Second Prince. Only when Nameless chooses to fight does Barbatos answer with a Stage 5 lesson, wielding a massive black scythe and an attack that Nameless believes only another Stage 5 could counter. The blow is devastating, yet Barbatos still checks for the foreign death that would confirm a kill. (Chapters 625–631)

Nameless escapes, but Barbatos's attack leaves injuries that require centuries to repair. The clash also exposes a limit on Barbatos's pursuit. Forcing entry into a Space-Time Prison consumes so much energy that he can make only one decisive attack afterward. When Berserker later routes red mist through thousands of prisons, Barbatos can pinpoint and dismantle them, but must proceed slowly rather than repeat the breach. His tracking advantage guarantees eventual contact without guaranteeing a favorable battlefield; he correctly concludes that an enemy who permits the trail to remain has prepared for the people following it. (Chapters 631–632 and 648–649)

The final Voraka battle and reconciliation with Neo

Barbatos remains Zagreus's most reliable subject while the opposing pair prepares. He helps plan the temporary awakening and dormancy of Zagreus's Ancient Dragon blood, buys Asmodea time to strengthen the prison, and fights with Death, Shadow, and cross-element Concept applications. His role includes restraint as well as offense: when Nameless moves to interrupt Zagreus, Barbatos blocks the path, and when Berserker tries to create openings, he keeps the battlefield aligned with the First Prince's plan. That loyalty does not erase his original doubt about Nameless, but the active Shadow Trial now requires him to protect Zagreus against the man who refused surrender. (Chapters 651–659)

For the final battle, Barbatos carries a sword acquired through his own Shadow Trial and chains identified as his third reward. The linked weapon has stored energy over fifteen thousand years and can convert it into the form most deadly to a target. Nameless nevertheless completes an Independent Space whose turn-based law prevents the others from acting first and slices Barbatos in half. Bael, the Rank 1 Reaper, takes Barbatos's weapon and launches its stored attack. Barbatos is not permanently killed; he revives weakly until Bael sends him back to the Underworld before the Site collapses. (Chapters 660–663)

After Neo returns openly, he visits Paimon's mansion and apologizes to Barbatos for his actions during Zagreus's Shadow Trial. He also thanks the Reaper for helping his brother. Barbatos refuses the need for apology rather than demand an explanation or repayment. Later, when Ilyana's awareness enters the Underworld through the Akashic Record, Barbatos raises his power as the realm's defender and withdraws it as soon as Neo defuses the intrusion. The same man who nearly kills Nameless can accept Neo over tea because the conflict was duty under uncertainty, not a personal grievance against the Second Prince. (Chapters 710–711)

Appearance and personality

Barbatos normally wears deep black robes and a hood that conceal his face, hands, body shape, and even much of his presence. In direct Voraka narration, his visible hands are bony and blue flame-like eyes burn beneath the hood. He carries a massive black scythe in battle. The younger Barbatos seen in the past is physically a bruised boy with torn and dirty clothes, showing that the formal name and office precede the ancient, nearly featureless image Neo knows. No unhooded adult face is established in the supplied chapters. (Chapters 273, 606–609, 629, 648, and 651)

He is calm, formal, and economical in speech. Courtesy does not soften his threats: a request to return to Zagreus can be a command dressed in civility, and a lesson can be delivered through an attack that takes centuries to heal. Yet Barbatos is not indiscriminately severe. He waits through private telepathic discussion, refuses to strike a possible prince merely because ordered, and distinguishes Neo's considered sacrifice from careless waste even when he disapproves of it. His restraint is easiest to see beside the enormous power he is willing to use once a decision has been made. (Chapters 125, 272–273, 606–632, and 710–711)

Barbatos's loyalty is institutional and familial. He calls Hades's children princes, protects the Underworld, obeys Bael's seniority, and serves Zagreus throughout a Shadow Trial. None of those bonds becomes mindless submission. His uncertainty about Nameless suspends an order, and his reconciliation with Neo requires only mutual recognition of what happened rather than humiliation of the defeated side. The result is a Grim Reaper who treats hierarchy as a structure of responsibility: rank establishes who commands, but the Monarch's family and the Underworld's purpose still govern how commands are interpreted. (Chapters 606–663, 696, and 710–711)

Powers and limitations

Stage 5 God and Rank 2 Grim Reaper

Barbatos is explicitly a Stage 5 existence and the Rank 2 Grim Reaper. These are different systems. Stage 5 describes his God-level power, while Rank 2 places him immediately below Bael in the Underworld hierarchy. With Bael absent, Barbatos is responsible for defending the Underworld itself, although Agares may command routine Reaper operations. He can suppress his presence so completely that a monster sensing Asmodea cannot detect him, and he answers an external divine awareness with power strong enough to frame the intrusion as a threat to the entire realm. (Chapters 609, 629, 696, and 710–711)

Neither number is a universal combat guarantee. Nameless's Stage 4 body initially cannot block Barbatos by ordinary means, but an emergent Concept and later Heavenbreaker Path let him survive, learn, and eventually surpass the confrontation. Bael's Rank 1 authority allows him to take and command the Shadow Trial weapon Barbatos carries. Rank therefore reflects formal seniority and often power, while Stage describes existence; specialized Paths, borrowed strength, and Shadow Trial conditions can still overturn a simple numeric comparison. (Chapters 629–635 and 660–663)

Death, Shadow, the scythe, and Concepts

Barbatos channels Death and Shadow through a massive black scythe. His arrival in a sealed prison releases both elements as shockwaves laced with red-and-black lightning, and a single downward cut produces pressure that Nameless believes only Stage 5 strength could normally counter. The attack harms body, soul, and long-term recovery rather than merely leaving a physical wound. Barbatos also manifests shields and malevolent shadow around the scythe when facing Holy or Void-derived attacks beside Zagreus. (Chapters 629, 635, and 651–660)

His techniques help Nameless understand what Stage 5 changes. Concepts are not confined to the element through which a person first interprets them; Barbatos creates harmony by applying conceptual understanding across multiple elements. That makes a technique more than a larger quantity of energy. It aligns different forces behind the same meaning and purpose. The story demonstrates the result but does not assign Barbatos an Apprentice-through-Supreme elemental mastery tier, so his control is described through applications rather than an inferred formal level. (Chapter 635)

Barbatos remains subject to cost and counterplay. Forcing a way into a Space-Time Prison exhausts him enough that he can launch only one major attack, and Nameless escapes by exploiting a Concept that emerges under lethal pressure. Later, turn-based Independent-Space law prevents Barbatos from summoning shadows or defending before Nameless acts. His Stage 5 strength is formidable inside ordinary rules; it does not automatically negate a Heavenbreaker's power to change the rules governing the battlefield. (Chapters 629–632, 648, and 660)

Intent projections and illusions

Barbatos can create illusionary clones from Intent and prepare projections that persist until a condition is met. The figure that appears when Neo plants the fourth flag recognizes his achievements, explains the trial, and supplies directions into the past Underworld. It is sufficiently convincing that Neo must inspect it to realize the true Barbatos is absent. This use of Intent allows teaching and communication across distance, death-state transitions, and a time-displaced Shadow World without requiring Barbatos's body to accompany Neo. (Chapters 272 and 356)

The projection has clear boundaries. It says it cannot last long and moves quickly to its prepared message. Its knowledge of the past is explained by young Barbatos meeting Neo there, not by a claim of total foreknowledge. The illusion is also an ability manifestation rather than an independently continuing clone. Consequently, its words and accomplishments remain Barbatos's planned instruction, while its brief existence does not create a separate character or an additional formal rank. (Chapters 272–273)

Space-Time Prison pursuit and tracking

Barbatos can find, breach, and dismantle Space-Time Prisons whose placement frustrates ordinary searches for decades. When he follows Berserker's red mist, he recognizes that the route is being circulated through thousands of hidden prisons before reaching its owner. The mist still reveals every prison's exact location, turning an impossible search into slow, guaranteed pursuit. His spatial entry can tear open a sealed environment whose internal scale and temporal distortion would protect its occupants from ordinary Stage 5 hunters. (Chapters 629–632 and 648–649)

The same scenes establish the limits. A forced entrance consumes enormous energy and leaves Barbatos unable to repeat his strongest attack immediately. Slow dismantling preserves strength but gives Berserker and Nameless time to prepare. Barbatos explicitly recognizes that a visible trail may be bait. Tracking therefore supplies location, not surprise, and the red mist becomes a contest between his patience and an opponent's ability to choose the final battlefield. (Chapters 648–651)

Three Shadow Trials and their rewards

Barbatos is the only person stated to have completed three Shadow Trials. Completion is a persistent structural achievement rather than a numbered God stage. It explains why sealed places and trial mechanics that terrify other Reapers do not make him hesitate, and it gives him personal experience beyond the course he designs for Neo. The text does not narrate when he completed each trial or supply the full reward list, so the confirmed total is preserved without constructing missing arcs. (Chapter 629)

By the last Voraka battle, Barbatos carries a sword identified as a Shadow Trial reward and ominous chains identified as the third reward. The weapon stores fifteen thousand years of accumulated energy, while the sword can turn that energy into the form deadliest to the intended target. Bael takes the sword and performs the decisive release; Barbatos's achievement and custody supply the weapon, but the resulting attack is Bael's use rather than a demonstration that Barbatos personally activated every function. (Chapter 660)

Training, blessing control, and bloodline knowledge

Barbatos designs training as a chain of conditions that forces capability and judgment to develop together. He ingrains Necrotic Touch into Neo, teaches Darkness devouring, seals the Underworld blessing, creates soul-bound flags, and sets trials whose objectives progress from survival toward unique Intent and formal ennoblement. His ability to restrict the blessing is not absolute ownership of Neo's power: Paimon can restore it temporarily, and the dispute turns on permission, cost, and whether the recipient can handle its responsibilities. (Chapters 31–36, 67–70, 104–125, 194, and 270–273)

He also understands Hades's bloodlines well enough to help Zagreus awaken Ancient Dragon power temporarily and return it to dormancy. Barbatos coordinates the timing with Asmodea's Independent Space so the hidden dragons cannot immediately locate the prince. His knowledge does not eliminate the external risk or create the space himself; it works as one part of a plan requiring another Reaper's Truth, a protected environment, and a brief window before the blood must become dormant again. (Chapter 654)

Power progression

Relationships

Neo Hargraves

Neo Hargraves is Barbatos's student, the possible Second Prince he refuses to kill prematurely, and his enemy during Zagreus's Shadow Trial. Barbatos gives Neo essential tools but makes every lesson dangerous enough to demand independent judgment. When Nameless's identity is uncertain, the Reaper balances an order against family evidence. Their later tea resolves the violence without denying it: Neo apologizes and thanks him for protecting Zagreus, while Barbatos treats no further debt as necessary. (Chapters 31–36, 67–125, 270–273, 606–663, and 710–711)

Zagreus

Zagreus is the First Prince, Barbatos's commander, and a member of the Monarch's family whom he protects through the Voraka trial. Barbatos answers the summons, investigates Nameless, searches the prisons, teaches the temporary Dragon-blood awakening route, and participates in the final battle. His service is steadfast but not unthinking: he delays attacking Nameless because Zagreus's enemy may also be his brother. (Chapters 606–663)

Paimon

Paimon is the third-ranked Grim Reaper and Barbatos's complementary partner in Neo's training. She offers tea, affection, bargains, and practical access where Barbatos supplies austere conditions and standards. Their disagreement over the blessing is real but bounded by a shared goal: Neo must grow capable of bearing what Underworld power demands. In the historical past, young Barbatos serves Paimon; in the present, they receive Neo together as old family. (Chapters 104–125, 272–273, and 710–711)

Asmodea

Asmodea is Barbatos's fellow high Grim Reaper and principal Voraka ally. They share concern for Hades's bloodline, assess Nameless together, and divide responsibility around Zagreus, Leonora von Villiers, and the hidden prisons. Barbatos supports her Truth-based Independent Space and prompts her to tell Zagreus the danger behind awakening Ancient Dragon blood instead of continuing the Reapers' old policy of concealment. (Chapters 606–612 and 631–659)

Bael

Bael is the Rank 1 Grim Reaper and Barbatos's formal superior. In the final Voraka battle, Bael takes the sword and chains Barbatos brought, quiets the weapon, and releases its accumulated energy against Nameless. He later sends the injured Barbatos back to the Underworld. Their interaction shows the distinction between custody, activation, and rank: the rewards belong to Barbatos's Shadow Trial history, while Bael commands them during the crisis. (Chapters 660–663 and 696)

The Berserker

The Berserker is Barbatos's Voraka opponent and the architect of the red-mist trail through the prison network. Barbatos correctly understands that the visible route is an invitation to a prepared fight. Berserker's alliance with Nameless forces Barbatos to operate as tracker, pursuer, and battlefield support rather than simply overwhelm a weaker Stage. Their conflict culminates in the Shadow Trial's final battle rather than a private rivalry. (Chapters 625–663)

Hades

Hades is the Monarch whose blood, family, and Underworld define Barbatos's service. Barbatos calls himself one of Hades's Angels and extends formal devotion to both sons even when they fight. The supplied chapters do not dramatize a private master-servant conversation between them, but every important choice—from protecting the Underworld to delaying an attack on Nameless—is framed through the responsibility inherited from that allegiance. (Chapters 31, 606–632, and 710–711)

Items

Black scythe

Barbatos's principal weapon is a massive black scythe. He uses it to tear into sealed Space-Time Prisons and channel Death, Shadow, conceptual pressure, lightning, shields, and wide shockwaves. Its strongest direct attacks carry Stage 5 force, but entry costs and specialized battlefield laws can limit when he can swing effectively. The scythe is associated with Barbatos throughout Voraka and is distinct from the reward sword used in the final battle. (Chapters 629, 648, and 651–660)

Shadow Trial sword and chains

Barbatos brings a sword gained through a Shadow Trial with chains wrapped around it as the third reward. The weapon holds fifteen thousand years of accumulated energy and can convert power into a form especially lethal to its target. Bael temporarily takes and wields it in Chapter 660. This is combat custody under a superior, not evidence that ownership or the underlying Shadow Trial achievement transfers away from Barbatos. (Chapter 660)

Soul-bound flags

The five flags used in Neo's training are bonded closely enough to his soul that they reappear in the Underworld even after his body and clothing are destroyed. They indicate hidden posts, record completion, and trigger the fourth-trial Intent projection. Barbatos creates and supplies them as training instruments; once issued, their continuing custody and soul bond belong to Neo's trial rather than ordinary equipment Barbatos carries. (Chapters 31–36 and 270–272)