---

---

David found himself in a long corridor after the descending down the stairway he had discovered at the grave. Lucifer had detected an area with more dark magic leaking out of the ground than the surroundings, and after further inspection, David had found the dark staircase.

There were no torches on the walls, so it was only after David casted <Light Sphere> that he could finally see. He saw that the corridor seemed un-naturally wide, especially considering it was underneath a graveyard. The walls seemed to be made out of stone, with moss growing in-between the gaps of each stone. There were also some sinister markings on them, which were runes as explained by Lucifer.

Moving along the corridor, he eventually came across identical doors. One on his left and one on his right. He was curious of what laid within. Just as he was thinking about which door he would open, something rushed at him. David barely managed to throw himself against the left wall to dodge it. He turned around and saw a spectre.

“<Light Sphere>”

David created another <Light Sphere> and made it fly towards the spectre that was about to rush at him once more. When it made contact, the spectre fizzled, then disappeared into nothingness as if it had never existed.

“I suppose the owner of the tomb has detected your presence, there’s a whole swarm of them coming.”

David send his <Light Sphere> down the corridor. Sure enough a horde of undead was swarming over. Even in this rather wide corridor, the undead were bumping into each other as they swarmed towards David.

“<Light Pulse>”

Seeing the horde of undead headed his way, he casted <Light Pulse>, an intermediate light magic that sends out light in a selected direction. Through injecting more mana into the spell, David was able to increase the damage it was dealing to the undeads. Although it was unable to destroy all of them in one hit, it was able to damage them severely, slowing down their movements. Many of the undeads in the front that took the full brunt of the spell had been destroyed, and the now non-moving corpses blocked the charge of the undeads behind, tripping many of them over.

David conjured his blades into his hands once more and moved forwards to meet the undead horde face on. Seeing this, the undead charged forward with more enthusiasm. Even though they witness first hand that many of their brethren had fell by the human in front of them, to them, a human was just a human. They didn’t expect the human to fight back. This was a poor judgement on their part as they soon found out.

The first undead to actually reach David was an E Gui, thinking that being a ghost made it totally intangible. David slashed down at it, and before the E Gui noticed, it had turned to dust. Normally speaking, it wouldn’t have been possible to actually cut it, but David had already pestered Lucifer a lot about the different types of undead, he knew that the easiest way to deal with ghost-type undeads were actually to fill their weapon with mana and use that as a catalyst to allow the supposedly intangible enemy to be damaged.

“<Light Pulse> <Frost Nova>”

Seeing that his earlier actions had been successful, David casted <Light Pulse> once again to clear more of the swarm, and decided to use <Frost Nova> as well in order to slow down his enemies. After confirming that they were successfully casted and their effects started to show, David run towards the horde himself.

A slice of his right arm bisected a ghoul, a backswing from his left hand knocked a jiangshi away. Three zhiren came at him together, noticing this, he utilised , and covered his blades in fire.

Upon seeing the flames, the zhiren seemed to hesitate a bit, but resumed their charged when they were pushed in the back by the rest of the horde. David easily sliced through them like the paper they are made of.

Confident that he could deal with the rest of the horde just as easily as he did with his initial enemies. David lunged toward, and in a flurry of motion, he was able to exterminate around 30% of the swarm. Although that was an impressive feat by itself, it was by no means enough. If he were to continue at this pace, he would definitely be overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies.

David smiled wryly. He could tell that using large-scale fire magic in such a small space was definitely a bad idea. That left him with only two options. And on of them was to use <Possession>>.

He ran backwards, pulling a distance of around twenty meters between him and the undead swarm. Only then did he turn around.

“<Freezing Icicle>!”

The temperature around David dropped. Pieces of ice appeared by his side, shaping into multiple icicles. When the number of icicles formed were numbering too many to count, David flicked his wrist. The icicles fired towards the incoming horde at an incredible speed. Many were impaled. Many were torn apart from the storm of icicles that approached. In a way these undead were pitiful beings. Having stayed in the tomb for a large majority of their “lives” they had never been harmed. Even those that were occasional sent outside of the tomb to hunt had not come across anyone that opposed them.

Now, without understanding. These undead were ripped apart by the brutal magic that David had casted. This <Freezing Icicle> was an advanced magic that David had manage to learn recently. For the current David, this magic alongside <Possession> and <Firestorm Twister>, could be called his trump cards.

Seeing the results of his spell, David was extremely please. The remaining undead were only ones that had used the corpses of multiple undead in front of them as shields. They didn’t numbered more than fifty. He bolted towards them, a gleaming black blade in each hand.

Upon witnessing this sight, a small portion of undead finally noticed the danger to their “lives”. They turned around, away from David and started to run away as fast as they could.

David became the one giving chase. In less than two hours upon arriving in the tomb, David had already exterminated the majority of its inhabitants.

In Lucifer’s point of view, he was very happy. His current host possessed the qualities he had been looking for. Not only that, but he was also someone who had great talent. Just like him. The choice of weaponry, and choice of magic were both the same. Perhaps, just perhaps, he had found who he was looking for.

---

The three of them approached the tomb. Why did they need to work today out of all days? They had only just arrived in Hong Kong not too long ago. Having been dispatched from the Vatican 2 days ago, and when they reported that they found the location of the feijiang, the higher-ups had screamed at them for even reporting it in.

Hikari couldn’t understand the reason for the higher-ups’ outrage. Even though they were only mobilised for things that seemed to have a higher threat level than B, the so-called threats they had been ordered to deal with had never been overly troublesome. Hikari believed full-heartedly that this time would be the same. Especially considering the fact that Guang and even Lux had been dispatched along with her. With such reliable comrades, nothing will become an issue. It was because of this that she didn’t understand the higher-ups’ outburst.

“Nee, Guang, what do you think the target is like?” Hikari lightly nudged Guang with her elbow.

“It’s a feijiang, so it can probably use magic and fly.” Guang replied. “Hikari, why is it every single time we get sent for a mission, you ask me what the target is like? Don’t you ever read the mission material?”

“Ehhhh, you’re so mean! I do read it, but none of it ever makes sense. The letters are wiggly and weird you know?”

“That’s because you don’t read it properly and scribble on yours before actually reading whatever is on it,” replied Guang. Having been partnered up with Hikari extremely many times, he knew that Hikari never bothered to actually read her mission material, instead constantly relied on himself to explain everything.

“Oops,” Hikari stuck her tongue out at Guang.

The two of them were on good terms with one another, having worked together a lot. Guang was the one who had been taking care of Hikari ever since she was introduced to the team. She was something like a little sister to him. If only she acted a bit… no a lot less like an idiot and used her brain slightly more.

“Guang, you can’t possibly be thinking something bad about me right? Right? RIGHT?” Hikari moved closer to Guang.

“Errr, no I wasn’t thinking anything like that.”

“That’s a lie. You were thinking about something mean!”

“No really I wasn’t.”

“What was it? Split it out you meanie!”

“The two of you. SHUT UP!” Lux glared at them both with an immense killing intent. “We’re on a mission, so act like it. You can mess around in your own time, just don’t do it now. Especially since the tomb is right in front of us, so prepare yourselves.”

---

David arrived in front of a black metal door. The design on it was the same as the tomb, giving off a western feeling mixed in with an asian one. On it were similar markings to the ones on the wall of the corridor.

A baleful aura seeped out from behind the door. It seemed like this was where the feijiang was.

---

---

　

1. N/a

---

---

Over the next two weeks, David resumed his normal life, going at the various trainings with more resolve than ever. He was slowly coming to grasp with exactly what was needed to use magic. By clearly focusing an image of what he want to achieve in his head, then manipulating the mana in his body to help the image take form, he was now able to use a far higher number of spells than he had been able to before.

Going to the dojo with Joseph after school had started to pay off as well. Although not being anywhere close to dominating his teacher, he was now able to keep up with the movements, and very occasionally throw in an attack or two. This was a large improvement from three weeks ago, where he got beaten senseless by his teacher without even a proper chance to defend himself.

---

David woke up to the sound of his alarm. Even on the weekends, David had started to wake up very early in order to have more time to train himself.

“David, you should be about ready to work again right?” Lucifer asked.

“Yeah, did something come up?”

“I want you to start honing your skills in actual combat, so I want you to spend the next two days hunting.”

“Wait, hunting for what?”

“Not demons, so don’t worry. I want you to start by hunting some undead. Mostly ghouls or zombies.”

“And where would I find those? They don’t really just appear anywhere right? After all, if they did then surely people wouldn’t just regard them as stories.”

“Cases like these are usually handled fairly quickly, mostly by exorcists or ghost hunters that may not may not be related to different religions. I want you to hunt down the preys before they are gone.”

“Hmmm, that sounds rather interesting. So where are they?”

“A cemetery in New Territory.”

“Which one? There are loads.”

“It’s private. The reason that undead are starting to spawn there is because of the owner of the graveyard. Before he died, he researched extensively in the field of undead creation and summoning, and his aptitude for dark attribute magic was also very high.”

“And how do you know this?”

“He was one of the mages that had attempted to summon me in order to make a deal. I never answered his summoning, although I did observe him during his entire life.”

“So you’re saying that these undead are his creation? Why haven’t they attacked anyone yet?”

“It’s because he had respawned into a Lich, or more accurately his body had respawned itself as a Feijiang ⌈¹⌋.”

“You mean the kind of Jiangshi ⌈²⌋ that is said to have trained for many years, practicing their spells?”

“Yes, they would also have superior intelligence compared to that of normal Jiangshi. And they can fly. What I want you to do is simple. Eradicate the entire horde of undead as quickly as you can. That’ll give you a good amount of combat experience, something that you lack right now.”

“I suppose I don’t truly have any say in the matter?”

“You’re only fulfilling your side of the contract so…”

“Yeah, okay I get it. Should I go now?”

“Go at the afternoon, there really isn’t a point of arriving there before sundown anyways.”

---

David arrived at an eerily looking cemetery at 5 o’clock. The sun had started to set, but night hasn’t fallen across the entire land yet. The cemetery he was at is a traditional Chinese one. It was hard to imagine that someone that is buried here would have tried to summon Lucifer, a western demon. It was much more fitting for them in David’s mind to summon someone like the Yanluo Wang, or King Enma.

As he was pondering this, he was preparing himself both physically and mentally for the action that would soon follow.

“<Light Sphere>” David casted one of the most basic Light magic spells to test if it was working. And just as he expected, it was functioning fine. <Light Sphere> did like its name suggested, conjuring up a small sphere of light that could be used to light the area around it or as an offensive magic.

“If you’re worrying whether your magic will fail you or not, then the answer is no. Your magic is fine here,” chuckled Lucifer.

“Yeah I know, I’m just double checking. There isn’t really much else to do until sun down. Or would you not mind if I started before?”

“There isn’t a point of you attacking now right? Let them all be wide awake first.”

“Heh. Oh by the way, is there a reason why this place haven’t been exorcised yet? You said there’s a large amount of undeads here, then shouldn’t they have been discovered already?”

“Like I said before about them being led, generally exorcists and the likes aren’t able to actually find the locations of undeads very easily. It is only through reports from people that are being attacked or from an exceedingly high concentration of dark attribute magic that they can predict the location of undeads. The owner of this graveyard has been smart enough to build up the undeads in secret and the tomb I want you to enter is heavily warded, preventing the magic used inside from leaking out easily.”

“I see. Realistically speaking, what is the possibility that I can actually kill that Feijiang?”

“I would say you have a good chance of doing so. With <Body Strengthening> and <Possession> you should be able to deal with it easily.”

“You’re still convincing me to use <Possession> I’m not falling for that bait. The strain on my body is just too great and unless I have to, I don’t want to use it.”

“Then you may struggle against it. The Feijiang would be relatively skilled in dark attribute magic as well and if you need to deal with the rest of the undead as well, then you’ll be in a tough spot.”

“I suppose… Then I’ll use <Possession> at that time.”

“Do as you will. We should get going,” Lucifer replied. The Sun had set, and the night had fallen across the land. It wasn’t pitch dark, so David could still see the way. He slowly followed Lucifer’s direction to find himself a particular large gravestone.

On the gravestone was written “自作孽, 不可活”, literally translated to “The evil we bring on ourselves is the hardest to bear.”

---

In a dark room, a Feijiang could be seen sitting calmly on a throne of some sort. In front of it was a swarm of more than 300 undeads. There weren’t just Jiangshi, but also a mix of Zhiren ⌈³⌋, E Gui ⌈⁴⌋, Difuling ⌈⁵⌋, ghouls and zombies. At the two sides of the throne stood 2 guards, a Mezuki and a Gozuki ⌈⁶⌋, both over 3 meters tall, and wielding a long pole arm that was around 2 meters in height. This was a scene out of a horror film with the antagonist evil overlord calmly sitting on a throne in front of his huge army of evil that threatened the existence of the world.

For experts on undead, this could be seen as a rather unusual site. Normally, these lower ranked undead would be all over the place, but at that moment, they were all bowing down in front of the Feijiang. They seemed to obey his every command.

The Feijiang itself gave off an imposing aura. It was dressed in an exquisite qipao, ones that was worn by government officials. Its skin was pale and wrinkled, the flesh was rotten to the point that you could see that some of it are actually about to fall off. However it sat formidably on its throne. It’s eyes glared at the horde in front of it, almost like that of a ruler looking at its people. In its right hand was a long staff decorated with many jewels. At the tip of it was a black ruby that seemed to radiate evil.

A spectre flown over to its side and seemed to have whispered something in the Feijian’s ear. Upon hearing it, a subtle sneer appeared on its face. A foolish human had found its way into the tomb. It was only right for the human to serve as food for its ever hungry undead. It raised its bone-like left arm and pointed towards a large door behind the swarm of undead. It swung open with a gust of wind and the swarm rushed out into the dark hallway.

Soon, only the Feijiang was left in the dark throne room. Isolated. Alone. Undying.

---

---

　

---

---

“Since many of the beings on the list have never fought against one another, we cannot truly determine the rankings, which is why we classify those within the strongest five hundred beings of the worlds as extremely powerful beings. There are often gods or demons that holds tremendous power and can easily overwhelm an army or two by themselves. The current you wouldn’t be able to even survive a fraction of a second against them,” Lucifer began.

“Hmmmm…” David wasn’t surprised, he didn’t expect himself to be very strong. Certainly he was considered to be somewhat of a prodigy when it came to combat and martial arts, but it was only to a level in comparison to normal people, he wasn’t someone who could fight a martial arts expert and come out on top.

“Above them are the top two hundred, which could be compared to the power levels of entire countries or empires, depending on circumstances, they can be stronger, many of the gods that you know of would be in here: Ares, the Greek God of War; Thor, God of Thunder and Battle; Nergal, God of Plague and War; Seth, God of Chaos, et cetera. Many of them are gods that are related to combat in some way or form.

Stronger than them are those within the strongest hundred, who can essentially wipe out entire continents. Zeus, God of the Sky; Susanoo-no-Mikoto, God of Storms; Indra, God of War; Lilith, the Witch Queen; Duke Astaroth; Huanglong, the Yellow Dragon of the Centre; and Trahern, the Force of the Mountains, essentially beings that possesses nearly unrivaled strength, are all among those who are included within here. Many of them are those who have left their name down in history as supreme heroes, gods or creatures of unimaginable power.

The top fifty would then be a class above them, they are beings that under a very specific circumstance would be able to rival those who are considered the strongest in the world. They are beings that possess powers that could wipe out an entire world. However, these are beings that are generally unwilling or unable to unleash their full powers in order to not destroy the entire world. Ones you may have heard of are Beelzebub, the Prince of Gluttony; Gabriel, the Power of God. Others are ones you probably have never heard of, since among these would be beings that may have never even set foot upon this world, since they see no reason to.

The top twenty could be side to rival those at the pinnacle of the world. They are ones that are considered to be a dimension-wide threat, and could easily be in the strongest 10 in the world given a little advantage. The ones you have heard of would probably be Incubus, the King; Azazel, the Arrogance towards God; and Gadreel, the Wall God.

Finally, there is the strongest ten in the worlds. Among them are the three sons of Death, one dragons, three demons, one angel, one god and one human.”

“A human…?”

“Yeah, a human who has reached the pinnacle all by himself. A warrior that is unrivalled among mankind. But let’s not talk about him, as his personality is truly the worst among the worst.”

‘Three sons of Death?”

“Aye, the triplet sons of Death and Andronea, perhaps the strongest dragon to ever live. Their children are truly monsters, although it may not really concern you all that much, since you may never meet them.”

“Where do you reside on the list? From the way you’re speaking, you are probably within the strongest ten aren’t you?”

“You guessed right. But it really isn’t anything to boast about. This list is only a rough list that many use, which is then altered depending on one’s knowledge on them. For us the Seven Princes of Hell, this is what we have categorised, but there may very well be many other beings that would rank highly on the list. Perhaps one day you would too.”

“Heh. What about Death and Andronea, was it? If their children are so strong, surely…”

“Dead.”

“Death… died?”

“Surprising isn’t it? I never saw it happen, but I have full faith in the one who told me. After all, he was one of the sole witnesses of the event.”

“I see…”

“Anyways, now you know about the kind of outrageous monsters out there, listen carefully to my tale.”

David was deep in thought right now, he was trying hard to process all the information that Lucifer had just given him. At least 500 outrageous beings were out there, and from the way Lucifer spoke, it didn’t seem like Emmet was among them either. David didn’t really wanted to believe it, but yet he get like Lucifer wasn’t lying. There was no reason for him to, he would gain no benefits from it.

“The tale is of someone who loved his kingdom more than himself. Let’s call him M. He was born of nobility and was meant to be the next in line for the throne after his father’s death, but it all changed when he decided to secretly visit the village where the one of the kingdom’s treasured swords was kept.

When night fell and everyone was sleeping, he sneaked outside in order to try to lift the sword. The sword was enchanted magically and could not be wielded by anyone that it did not recognise as a true hero. When he tried to lift it, he failed. He was displeased by this, but he accepted it quietly. He didn’t think he had the composition to be a hero in the first place.

On the next day, just as he was about to leave, he saw someone lift the sword up easily, as if it was designed for them. The person in question was A, a young man about the same age as himself. He was surprised at this, and so were the rest of the people that witnessed this. It was a sword that had been left there for almost fifty years, and no-one had been able to wield it. The fact that someone had achieved this feat was astonishing.

He walked up to the A and asked if wanted to become his companion and fight for the kingdom. A instantly agreed, it has always been his dream to fight for his kingdom.

As time passed on, the two grew closer and became more or more like brothers. As A did not know his parents, he was never given a surname. Knowing this, M decided that A should bare the same surname as him, signifying their undying bond.

On the battlefield, A piled on many achievements, and after a few years M could see that he was a true hero for the kingdom. After the King died, at M’s coronation, he made a surprising declaration. He declared that he would abdicate the throne and A would be king. He believed that the kingdom deserved a hero as its king.

Feeling safe that the kingdom was in the right hands, M set out to traverse the world. Several years later, he heard the news that shocked his years. His kingdom was waging war against countries, one after another and were continuously victorious. Unsure of what to make of it, he went back to the kingdom.

It was there that he discovered the tragic lives of the peasants. A had made the country a power to be reckoned with, but at the same time, destroyed the lives of the people. M was furious, and when he attempted to talk with A about this, he was shunned away. In hope for a chance to talk with A, he took away the sword of the kingdom.

The same night, he was attacked by soldiers that were under A’s command. He fought desperately and managed to get away. It was at that moment that A appeared before him and told him to either accept what he was doing was to make the country strong, or leave and never return. He said that this was the task that an angel had charged him with.

M was shocked. He didn’t believe that the angels of his religion would have wanted this. But he had no way to fight against A. When A appeared before him, he could already tell that A wasn’t telling lies. That’s when he decided to turn away from his faith. He sold his soul to a demon who rivalled the angel in order to procure enough power to oppose A.

He stayed quietly in the country, and peasants rose to this side. Soon, even some worthy knights began to support him.

When he had enough of an army, and he was certain that A was going after him, he started the rebellion.

The rebellion waged on for several years, neither side coming any closer to wipe the other out. It was then, M challenged A to a final battle to end the suffering of the people. He knew that the war had caused even more suffering to the people than A’s reign did, and he wanted to end it all.

At the final battle, they went at each other. Sword against sword, magic against magic, until A used an underhand tactic and took a hostage. M was unable to raise a hand against A, and he was defeated. But knowing that A would not rest until he is truly dead, he took a leap into the lake. Upon seeing this, A immediately followed as he believed that there was no way M would die from just that.

After this, the kingdom was in chaos. Nobles rose to power to take over the kingdom, and eventually another king ascended to the throne.

But M’s sacrifice was not in vain, he had managed to end the suffering of his own people, at the cost of his own life…” Lucifer stopped there, and seemed to reminiscent about something.

“He sacrificed his own life for greater good huh? If I was to put in the same position, would I be able to do the same?”

Lucifer silently chuckled upon hearing that, despite only having known David for slightly more than a week, he was sure that David was someone who could have easily been the protagonist of the tale he just told. That was just the kind of person David seemed to be, it was obvious that he would go to all extents to protect someone he cares about, and admitting his own inferiority is exactly what M had done when he chose for A to be king instead.

“Don’t worry about such worrisome things for now. Hone your skills more, both physical and magical. Train yourself so that you would be able to survive in this world. The demon Emmet seems to have somewhat of an interest in you, and similar to any demons, they will come for you eventually. Ensure you are prepared by then. That is your priority isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is. If I want to defy the so-called fate, then I have to be strong enough to stand up on my own two feet!”

---

---

　

1. N/a

---

---

It didn’t take long for David to arrive at the back mountains, it was only a 20 minute walk from the school gates, 10 minute since he ran.

At the foot of the mountain, he began to feel something uncanny. It was similar to what he felt on the roof of the Art Museum and it made him want to throw up. He suppressed that feeling and walked up the mountain. Right now, it was of upmost importance to investigate what the source of that feeling was.

“Lucifer, can you tell what kind of magic it is?”

“Most likely some form of necromancy, you can feel it right? Different types of magic gives you a different feeling. In this case, necromancy causes a small tingling in your soul, making you feel unease.”

“Are you saying that creature affected Enzo was an undead?” David asked. From his knowledge, necromancy was a type of magic that mainly dealt with decreased spirits or the undead, and the creature from before definitely felt like it was a parasite of some sort, rather than an actual spirit.

“No, it appears to be a demonic spawn. Either that or a magically created dark-attribute parasite.”

“I see…”

As David ran up the mountain, the feeling of discomfort became stronger, despite being suppressed. David could tell that he was getting closer and closer to the source.

“Stop here, its coming from the right,” Lucifer said, just as David felt something strange. It wasn’t something he had experienced before, nor did he had any idea about what it was, but it was like his body understood that there was an antagonistic source around and he had to prepare for anything that comes his way.

“Understood.”

David ran through the forests at a rapid pace, somehow he felt that if he didn’t, then something terrible could easily happen. Not long after, he arrived at an opening. It seemed like the source of his unease was here, but he couldn’t see anything.

“<Frost Shell>” David conjured up a thin layer of ice around him. It was fortunate that he had done so because the moment the spell had been casted, multiple daggers flew towards him, but were blocked by his <Frost Shell>.

David looked around to find the source of the ambush, while also quickly repairing his <Frost Shell> using magic. At that moment, he made a quick decision.

“<Flame Crash>” Fire flew out in all directions. <Flame Crash> was a intermediate tier magic that would envelope the area around the user in fire, while leaving a small space so that the caster would not be scorched. This was a bold move by David. Although it was very likely that the forests would catch fire, he thought that it was the best choice to take despite the risk. From the looks of the ambush, it seems that whoever he was supposed to find here had anticipated his arrival and hid himself. The ambush merely seconds before was a solid proof that it was someone hostile. In this forest, it was unlikely for David to be able to find his enemy before the enemy wore him down, especially since his experience in magic was surely far lower than that of his opponents.

The gambled paid off. A darkness surrounded the area, then as quickly as the fire appeared, David’s <Flame Crash> was nullified. It wasn’t a waste though, because David was lucky to spot the location where the magic came from out of the corner of his eyes.

Without wasting a precious second, he dashed towards the place, conjuring up his blades in the process.

Suddenly, a figure popped into his view. David instinctively sliced his blade. It went straight through, almost too easily. David looked at what he had cut.

“Kakakakakaka. Try again,” was what the box said. More precisely, it was the sound of a recording in a huge jack in the box that he had just sliced apart. This was the reason why the blade had passed through with no resistance, since all he sliced through was the clown.

“Try again,” a voice said behind him.

David turned back, and swung the blade in his right hand. It didn’t make contact.

David saw that on the branch of a tree 10 meter away was a thin man crouching down.The man had painted his face to resemble a clown’s, even going as far as sticking a red nose on himself.

“Kakakakakaka, it seems like you found me,” The man jumped down from the tree, and taking an exaggerated bow, “Emmet Wayne Gacy, at your service.”

Now that he was on the ground, David could see the man more clearly. He was around 190 cm tall and was dressed like a Victorian gentleman with a gothic suit and waistcoat.

“Do you recognise him?” David muttered in a low voice so that only Lucifer could hear him.

“I’m not certain, his aura feels nostalgic, but I’m sure he’s not someone I met before. But I can say with certainty that he’s a demon, that is unmistakable.”

“Kakakakakaka, don’t look at me with those eyes. I’m a clown you see? A harmless funny clown,” said Emmet Wayne Gacy, then took another exaggerated bow.

“A clown? Don’t kid around. You’re clearly a demon aren’t you?” David chuckled.

“Kakakakakaka, to have seen through me so easily. Yes I am a demon, a demon clown. Kakakakakaka.” Emmet laughed, then pulled a handkerchief out of his breast pocket to seemingly wipe away his tears of laughter.

This action puzzled David, and so he focused his eyes. He saw the same type of black parasite that had clung onto Enzo previously, “So you are the perpetrator. There’s no use denying it, you’re holding the parasite in your handkerchief.”

“Kakakakakaka. So you followed this child here? It was fun wasn’t it? That fool tried to beat up someone he couldn’t even touch. Kakakakakaka.”

“So it was you,” David glared at him with eyes full of hostility.

“Kakakakakaka, why are you so angry?”

“What is your purpose?” David was trying hard to ignore the annoying demon in front of him.

“Kakakakakaka,” Emmet suddenly flung the parasite from the handkerchief at him.

“<Gust Sphere>” David blew the parasite away from him. Somehow, it landed perfectly on Emmet’s handkerchief once more.

Seeing this hostility, David took a few steps forward and tried to use his blade to slice Emmet. It passed through cleanly, all too cleanly. Emmet fell onto the floor.

“Kakakakakaka, that was quick human. I didn’t see you for a second. Kakakakakaka.”

David looked towards the source of the voice and found himself facing Emmet once more.

“Kakakakakaka, don’t look so confused. It’s a clone you see? A clone. Anyways, it’s a pleasure meeting you, interesting human. Adieu. Kakakakakaka.” And with that, Emmet disappeared.

“Lucifer… what was that?”

“I’m still thinking, but it seems like he used something akin to <Teleport>. He definitely wasn’t a normal demon, most likely a servant of a demon royal or even an archdemon.”

“Were… were you able to analyse anything else?”

“I never said anything about helping you defeat the ones you’re frustrated with.”

“Just answer the question…”

“Heh, aside from what I said earlier… That was most likely a demon that was created from a mana source. He seemed like an assassin or an observer to me, as opposed to a demon that stand on the front lines. The parasite was definitely not of his magic, despite him showing affinity with it. Furthermore, the clone and the jack-in-a-box you slashed apart both seemed to be some technological items. Either his own or given to him by another servant demon. There is no way this demon was a normal one.”

“How was he able to nullify <Flame Crash>?”

“I would hazard a guess at that being the ability of an item rather than his own magic. It seemed to be a dark-attribute spell that held similar effects to that of <Conversion> which is an alchemic ability. Oh, he also seemed to be conducting an experiment of some sort. Or was monitoring someone.”

“Could it actually be me?”

“I doubt it, you hold traces of my magic, but it is not on a level where demon of that level can detect. Furthermore, your magic don’t hold any trace of my magic either, which although is weird, makes it even less likely for you to be a monitor target.”

“I see…” David thought about what this implied, before going back home.

---

When he arrived back home, David lied down onto his bed almost straight away.

“Hey Lucifer, tell me about this world.”

“Why the sudden curiosity?”

“I need to be prepared for anything. Today… Even though I got out unscathed, I barely understood what was going on. I was played like a fool, both in terms of fighting capabilities and… in the short conversation. I want to know more, understand more. Then maybe I can react to situations in a different manner, be more calm and analytical about situations. I lost my cool twice, only because I could’t even hazard a guess at what that demon was going to do.”

“You’re an interesting host you know? Fine, I shall entertain you. What do you want to know?”

“Everything. But start by telling me about the strong, someone I can strive to become… Someone who will never lose. Because I understand now, I understand that in this world, losing can mean losing your life. That demon… Emmet could have easily killed me today. I don’t want to be in that predicament again.”

“Then I suppose I shall tell you about those who are said to be the strongest in the worlds, and a tale of one of them who has been recorded down in history as a being, neither a hero nor a saviour, but someone who had the resolution to exchange his life for his people’s.”

---

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1. N/a

---

---

“<Aqua Bullet>”

A large ball of water shot towards the branch, the impact of which instantly breaking it, causing it to fall towards the ground. Seeing this, David was rather pleased with himself. In just a week’s time, he has already improved the effects of his spells greatly. Initially, he had found that aside from an affinity with ice magic, he was also capable of using fire magic to a decent level, while his water, earth and wind magic usage was quite poor. He found that it was rather difficult to construct a solid image of exactly what he wanted in his mind.

Right now, he has managed to train himself to form a clear image for the basic spells <Aqua Bullet>, <Gust Sphere> and <Rock Bullet>, although not on the level of a prodigy of magic, it does reflect on his affinity for magic.

“Dae! You here?” David could hear Helaine looking for him at the front of the house. It was very fortunate that his family was relatively rich, so they could afford to buy a house on a mountain near the seaside. This offered him the perfect place to practice his magic without anyone seeing him.

“Yeah, I’m in the backyard. Let yourself in, I’m going to take a shower real quick then get changed.”

If anyone that weren’t familiar with them saw this scene, they would surely mistakenly assume that the two of them were an item, but for them, this was already a daily occurrence. If it wasn’t Helaine that came over for David, it would be David going over to her house to find her. They truly treasured each other.

---

It was lunch time, and David was bored out of his mind in the Common Room. Registration and the first three lesson had passed by quickly for David. It always felt this way considering how he found the topics he was studying quite easy.

“Ya there! Who da **** do ya think ya are?”

“It appears like there was another idiot here.” Was what David thought to himself.

“Listen to moi, ya faggot!” David narrowly dodged a pen stand that was suddenly launched at him. He looked up. The loud idiot shouting was Enzo. He was a relatively new student in David’s year that only enrolled last month, standing at 198 cm, he towered over most of the people in the year.

“Ya listenin’ now?” Enzo glared at him. it was obvious that he was furious for some reason. David had no idea of the reason, he didn’t think they got off the wrong foot, in fact as far as David could recall, they hadn’t interacted much at all, mostly because David thought that Enzo had seemed like a relatively troublesome person.

“What do you want, Enzo?” David asked.

“What’d ya think *****? Get da **** away from her.”

“What?” David was confused, he had completely no idea of what Enzo was talking about. He didn’t think that he was close with girls that was on good terms with Enzo, certainly not his girlfriend or anything.

“You heard the man. You understand punk?” The one who said this was Alessio, one of Enzo’s cronies and one of the students that enrolled with Enzo. Apparently Alessio has been Enzo’s lapdog in his old school, like how his father works for Enzo’s father. There were rumours that Enzo’s father had ties with the Italian mafia, but David couldn’t really care less.

“Get da **** away from moi gal.” Enzo walked closer.

“Can you just answer the damn question? Who are you even talking about? I barely know Cassia.” David was annoyed now, Enzo had come off as a muscle head, but David didn’t expect that he would be so hard to talk to. He and Cassia, who is Enzo’s girlfriend, never even talked to each other despite being in the same school for 3 years.

“Stop acting, I’m talkin’ ‘bout that slutty brunette. Ya lil piece of…”

“Are you talking about Helly?” David glared at him. David thought Enzo was a troublesome person and so avoided him, but he wouldn’t let him go if he insulted Helaine, who had been with him through thick and thin.

“So what?” Enzo reached out his hand towards David, but right before he made contact with the scruff of David’s collar, his arm was grabbed and twisted, then before he knew what was going on he had hit his face onto the table.

“Enzo! Are you okay?” Alessio quickly helped Enzo up.

“YA DARE TO TAKE DIS OUTSIDE?” Enzo’s face flushed red. Being very muscular himself and often intimidated other people with his build, he didn’t expect himself to be humiliated by David, who was a good 18 cm shorter than him.

“Heh, why not?” David agreed. He could tell that this was the best course of action to take, he could tell that Enzo wouldn’t let him off if he just said no.

The other people in the common room started to look at them, and when they heard David’s reply they gasped. Enzo interpreted this as them thinking that David was foolish to agree to this. However, unbeknownst to him, since he was relatively new to the school, David was one of the people you don’t want to pick a fight with. Although he acts calm and civilized, everyone knew that David didn’t have a particularly good temper. Furthermore, it’s also a widespread rumor that David had single handedly beaten up a gang of 5 armed robbers that had targeted him.

David walked out the building to the back of the school. Enzo and Alessio, alongside the crowd, soon followed.

As soon as Enzo reached where David was, the crowd encircled them. In Enzo’s eyes, David seemed vastly unprepared. His hands were hanging by his sides, he seemed to be full of openings. Enzo smirked, during the last few minutes he managed to convince himself that David was just lucky earlier.

He charged towards David, swinging his fist wildly. It didn’t make contact. He swung again, once again it missed.

David easily sidestepped all of Enzo’s punches. The speed of it was nothing compared to the high orc he had fought a few days ago. Additionally, his body had also been strengthened after becoming Lucifer’s host. David was not threatened at all.

After 5 more swings, Enzo took a step back.

“You done?” David asked sarcastically. Enzo hadn’t been able to even graze him a tiny bit, and it was clear that this frustrated Enzo to no end.

This provocation added fuel to the fire in Enzo, “Alessio, give it to moi.”

“Boss, are you sure about it? We’re at…”

“Just ******* give it to moi!” Enzo shouted, causing Alessio to jump up. He reached into his jacket and pulled out something that a normal student shouldn’t have.

It was a black Beretta 90two. When Enzo saw it, his face twisted into a dark smile. It was as if all logic had left him. He grabbed the gun from Alessio and pointed it towards David.

“Just fuc…” Enzo was shocked by David’s actions.

David had lunged towards him and before Enzo had finished his sentence, landed an uppercut below his chin. Then David kicked the side of his head. He attempted to defend himself by raising his arms up instinctively. David grabbed the left hand that held the gun with his own left hand, then used a palm strike towards the back of the elbow.

Crack!

“AHHHHHHHHH!”

It was as if everyone heard the shattering of Enzo’s bones alongside his screams. The gun dropped to the floor. Many of the crowd were wide in shock. They didn’t expect the situation to turn like this. They had expected them to go at each other like high school students, but what they saw was David being completely unscathed, Enzo pulling out a gun, and David breaking Enzo’s arm with one palm strike.

Enzo fell down onto the floor. It seemed like he had fainted from the pain.

David glanced down at Enzo, disinterested. It seems like he should have hold himself back just a little bit.

“David, he’s being influenced by something.” Lucifer suddenly said. “It’s trying to escape now.”

David looked down, and true enough a small worm-like creature had crawled out of the back of Enzo’s scruff and was crawling away. Instead of catching it immediately, David decided to keep an eye out of it and silently made a note to capture it once it was out of sight of other people.

“Dae! Are you okay? I just heard about what was going on here!” David immediately raised his head up to see who it was. Expectedly, it was Helaine that rushed towards David, and due to this, he had lost sight of the strange creature.

“Don’t worry too much about it, the aura radiating from its body might be weak, but I can still manage to trace it to where it is.” Lucifer said. It seems like he could tell that David was going to have hard time getting away from this one.

---

“Thanks.” said Helaine as she nudged David with her shoulder. They were sitting side by side on the roof of the sports hall. It was time for after-school activities, she was supposed to be in cheerleading practice, but she didn’t feel like going right now.

David reached over and caressed her head with his right hand, which she wasn’t leaning on, “Once again I overreacted didn’t I?”

Now that David had time to calm down a bit, he did feel like he might have gone overboard, despite his foe holding a gun in his face. He probably could have held back a bit and subjugated Enzo without breaking his arm, instead knocking him down and disarming him might have been the more appropriate reaction. That would have also allowed him to question him to see if he knows anything about that strange black creature. Right now, Enzo had fainted from pain and was delivered to the hospital, so there was no way David could question him within a suitable time frame.

Helaine looked up at David, “The fact that you got angry for me… It makes me happy you know?”

“I did promise that I’ll protect you from everything.” David replied. It was a cliche line, but when he made the promise to her, both of them were really young.

Helaine quickly turned her head away to hide her face, she was blushing redder than the sun itself, “Stop saying that, people will misunderstand!”

“Heh will they?” David chuckled, he did mean everything he said, but there were times where he just didn’t consider how other people will react upon hearing his conversations with her.

“Humph. I going to practice now.” Helaine stood up and elegantly walked to the stairs of the roof.

“That’s a nice relationship isn’t it?” Lucifer suddenly asked.

“Yeah, she’s one of the few people I would give my life to protect.” David meant everything he said. To him, Helaine was an irreplaceable existence. “But what’s more important here is where the trace of magic leads to.”

“Back mountains, the magic trace seemed to have stopped for a while now, probably with another magician or something.”

“Then let’s go. Although I do wonder what is it with these magicians. And honestly what did Enzo get himself into?”

---

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1. N/a

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---

Articus, It’s been a while since we have last met. How are you doing? Don’t worry about me at all, I’ll come back alive. When this is done, I shall hand over to you a brand new world where you shall be free to pursue your dreams. We shall not follow these false leaders, weak and foolish, we will be led to ruin at this rate. Those of heaven have moved against our race, our leaders are nowhere to be found. We shall use this chance to strike down our foolish kings and build up a new empire. As I’m writing this, the preparations in the human world have begun. The seeds we have planted several decades ago are ready to harvest. This shall be the place where we shall start to obtain everything. That was all what I wish I could tell you about. But the truth is, its not going so well. We have made some preparations that seems to be going smoothly, but the whites are not cooperating much. That Zarachiel, who does he think he is? Does he not realize we’re going against someone who could possible be some of the strongest beings in the worlds? Out of the ten, we have 3 of them as our enemies. That false demon of the fallen, that bewitching ****, and that girl who has looked down on us since forever. I suppose its a good that the whites and the dragons of the ten will not oppose us. The human most likely won’t either, although I still think he’s either lying about being human or he just doesn’t exist. Then there’s the other three. The red one and the one of shadows never intervened with any of our wars, so I suppose all is well. The problem is the black one. He’s been missing, no one knows where he is and that’s a problem. We’re too afraid to make a big move. You probably think of your older brother as pathetic right? Scared of a myth. The problem is that he’s all too real. I still remember that dominating power he used to wipe away half of our army and half of the whites. We were truly powerless against him. He had done it just to deter us from affecting him in any way or form. It was only due to that, that we had stopped the war. Then these fools took over and we’re here. I want our race to be strong once again, not under these false prophets. Even if we have to cooperate with the whites, I shall gladly do so for my dreams and my ideals. I will create a world where you need not worry no more. Take care, Atticus

---

 

“You’re telling me that you didn’t know why you fainted in the first place. Then you got hungry at the hospital, so you rushed out to get some food, and then you went back home because of extreme fatigue?”

“Ehhh…” David didn’t know what to say at this point. He knew it wasn’t a good excuse, but he couldn’t think of a better one, and telling her the truth would only make him seem like he’s lying even more. This was the only possible way, he should be fine if he was to make up a slightly realistic lie, and then confess the “truth” afterwards. This way he doesn’t have to tell the actual truth, which other people will most likely find crazy.

“Just tell me what really happened, Dae. I’m really worried you know?” Helaine was looking at him with tearful eyes, it made David feel quite bad about himself, making such a beautiful girl cry. However, before worrying about that, he needed to get through this first, Helaine wasn’t someone he should mess with. Knowing him as well, or even better than himself did, she would continuously pester him until he eventually give in. If that ever happened, David wasn’t sure how she would react. Being treated as completely crazy was one thing, but if she was somehow dragged into this mess… David didn’t want to think about the circumstances.

“Che, you saw through me like a piece of glass huh?”

“Of course, I have known you for over 10 years.”

“Well, I honestly don’t remember much about what happened when I fainted. But I ran out of the hospital because it was the last day for sending off this research hypothesis to the research organization, since I needed to edit some parts of my proposal, I didn’t have time to talk to you at all. Then I fell asleep, so I didn’t know you came over.”

Helaine stared at him for a bit, her eyes seemed to silently question him before finally relaxing.

“Are you okay then? Wait… You must be hungry, let me make you something, it’s about time for lunch anyways.” Helaine got up from her seat and walked out her room to the kitchen. It seems like David’s plan worked. He felt kinda bad for lying to her, but it can’t be helped. With that thought, he followed her to see what he could help with.

Around an hour later, they managed to finish food preparation. Although it was both of them that worked to cook, David only managed to help by chopping up meat and tomato for the Bolognese sauce. Aside from that, everything else was done by Helaine.

“Mhmm this is great, did you change the Bolognese sauce from usual? It taste somewhat different, a little bit more fresh.”

“Haha, you noticed! Yep, This time I mixed in oregano when making the sauce, do you like it?” Helaine had a huge smile on her face, a pure innocent smile that was completely natural on a teenage girl. She gave off an atmosphere that was completely different from the one David had experienced the previous day.

“Yeah, it’s great.” David felt relieved, it seemed that despite experiencing the surreal situation, he is reminded that it was more or less a one time thing, he was still a high school student, and would still experience a normal highschool life.

---

 

A week passed by without any incidents. David had developed a new schedule for himself to prepare for the unexpected. He would now wake up 5 o’clock in the morning, practice magic, get something to eat, then go to school. After school, he would go to the Muay Thai dojo along with Joseph and spar for a few hours before having going home to practice with the pair of blades that he is now able to conjure and dismiss at will. Apparently it was a type of spatial magic called <Equip>, and depending on the user, could allow them to equip different sorts of items stored within their <Dimension Storage> or a set location. For David, it seemed to be the latter, although neither him nor Lucifer could figure out where it was stored.

In addition to all this, David would also listen to Lucifer lecture him about the different races he might encounter whenever he had free time. Generally, they would be classed into groups: humans, demons, angels, demi-humans (i.e. beastmen), Dragons, Reapers, Fairy-kinds, undead and the so-called monsters.

Humans are a group of races that have the least variety among the different races. Aside from different base specs (i.e. speed, agility, strength, stamina, and magic affinity etc.), humans are more or less the same.

Demons are what most people would expect. Many of them have been recorded down in human history and mythology. They are a group of races that resides in their own realms. Within this group, races can differ a lot, some are extremely intelligent beings, others much less so, and would act like mindless beasts. Different from humans is that the majority of them are capable of manipulating magic of one kind or another.

Angels are a race created by gods, in this world, they were created by the Christian god to act out his will. They can be divided further into Grigori (fallen angels) and the ones that did not fall, and also depending on their hierarchy, they would possess different levels of strength. On top of the ones that did not fall would be the seraphim, followed by cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels and normal angels. The Grigori, on the other hand, did not lack such distinctions, but could also be classified like those that did not fall as they lacked no distinction from them outside of having fell from heaven.

Demi-humans are a race similar to humans, both possesses traits that normal humans don’t possess. Lycans and lizardmen are good examples of such races. Since it was a wide classification, demi-humans did vary a lot. Furthermore, orcs, goblins, trolls and ogres also fitted into this category. Due to their various differences, they also possessed a lot of variety in terms of their abilities. Mermen would be also to swim well, but would be at a massive disadvantage outside of water, whereas races like harpies would be helpless underwater despite their advantages against enemies in the air.

Dragons are a dominating race. Commonly speaking, massive amounts of mana circulated within a dragon’s body at any given time. Even the a wyvern hatchling, which would be one of the weakest draconic races, had the mana capacity of ten demi-humans. However, it seems like most dragons liked to keep to themselves, away from the outside world, so it was relatively unlikely for David to encounter one in the near future.

Fairy-kinds incorporated many races, from dwarfs to elves to faeries and pixies. They are a group of races that, like dragons, hold tremendous mana within their bodies and were tied much closer to the existence of magic and mana than anything else. Furthermore, they were tied to nature as well, with dwarfs favouring the mountains and naiads are fond of the rivers.

Undeads are a classification for anything that was “living” yet should be dead. Liches and zombies are two examples of such. Although they could form naturally, undeads are generally summoned or created through the use of magic. Necromancy in particular is able to do this with relative ease. However, most undeads also have the weakness of light, making them relatively easy to defeat as long as one is prepared.

Lastly, it was the classification of races known as monsters. It was like demi-humans, an extremely broad classification that included anything that was not classified elsewhere. Essentially it included races from phoenixes to slimes.

It was David that pestered Lucifer to lecture him on these topics. He wished to be prepared for any situation that could be thrown at him. He was determined to continue to live his normal life, while being Lucifer’s host and surviving the “fate” that Lucifer claimed his host had.

---

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1. N/a

---

---

It was the next day. David was back home and not in school. He was glad that the doctor’s note had said that it was recommended for him to rest for a day at home before going back to school. After witnessing what he saw, he had tons of questions piled up, and this time he was determined to have them answered.

“David, I’m sure you have a lot to ask. I did not expect this to occur at all. Although before asking, are you sure that you are sufficiently rested?” Lucifer did not sound like the previous day, he sounded genuinely concerned for David’s health. After the incident, David had been in complete shock, he was barely able to move his body back home before collapsing on his bed. He didn’t utter a single word to anyone. Despite having just contracted with him, Lucifer had watched over David and offered him a contract time and time again, all the while observing his behavior, he could already tell that his actions were clearly out of character. He knew David had a lot to ask, and he wanted David to be in the best physical condition before answering the questions.

“Yeah… I’m fine,” David hesitated, he felt fine physically, but a lot was going through his head. It was truly fortunate that he was still logical enough to know that only by asking Lucifer all of the questions on his head would he be able to relieve himself of his worries. “Who are you?”

“My name is Lucifer Morgenstern. I was once the right hand of god. It was in heaven that I was given the name of Morgenstern, a name meaning morning star. When God had asked us to bow down to men, I refused. Not only that, I convinced others to follow my lead. I did not understand why God would have asked us to bow down to these mortals, so I had hoped to ask God to retract his command with all my companions.

But I was betrayed. Betrayed by the one who I thought was my closest friend and brother. It was Michael that betrayed me, he framed me for rebellion and for this, God had casted the Grigori and I down from heaven. We fell for seven days and seven nights before landing in Hell. It was there that the Grigori left me, many cursed my name. I was left alone.

I had no idea what to do, I had hardly anything left, my wings were black, my soul was hollow. It was in my despair that I lost control of my powers. Perhaps it was always hidden in my subconsciousness, my magic casted a spell which transformed me into a demon.

Following that, Leviathan found me. Despite my looks changing, she recognized me and attacked. Somehow I had fended off her attack. Perhaps it was out of pity that she finally stopped and asked me about my situation, and I spilled it to her. She convinced me to continue living as a demon.

Eventually I grew to become more famous within Hell and fed up with the way the society worked with the hierarchy of the 72 scriptures, we started an actual rebellion. It was through this method that I eventually ascended to the throne, claiming the Throne of Superbia, becoming the Prince of Pride. That’s about it, would it be sufficient?” Lucifer replied.

“As I said before, can you prove it?” David asked, he was more keen to believe Lucifer now after what happened the previous day, but he still held his doubts.

It was then, David’s view turned black, then grey, then finally white. He was surrounded by white, but he wasn’t too surprised. He had been here before in his dreams. It was here that the voice, now Lucifer, had offered a contract to him. Before him stood a dignified man with long blond hair with fair features. On his back was a pair of large bat-like wings that was pitch black, the only thing that gave him away as a demon and not an angel. David could guess who he was. The being standing before him had to be no other than…

“It is the first time you have seen this form of mine. Once again, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lucifer Morgenstern.”

It was like he expected, the being was Lucifer.

“David, is this enough proof?”

“For now. I don’t believe you 100%, but for now it’s good enough. Next question, what happened yesterday?”

“I’ll assume you’re referring to what he was doing and what happened to him right?”

“That and also who that succubus was.”

“Judging by the looks of things, it would appear that the magician yesterday was attempting to summon a succubus, it’s actually quite evident from the magic circle he used that you probably noticed on the ground. The man succeeded, or actually overachieved himself. If it was a weak succubus, the magic circle would have done its job and restrained her.

Oh I should explain about demons first. Demons are split into very many different races, just to name a few of them: imps, succubi, incubi, rakshasas. And unlike popular belief, the term “Archdemon” does not refer to a specific race of demons, but refers to a demon that possesses immense power. I would be one of the Archdemons, but in terms of the demon race, I would be an unique existence, one of the only two demons that was transformed into a demon by a spell casted by themselves.

Going back to the topic of yesterday, the demon that came out of the portal was Asmodeus, not a succubus. Asmosdeus is the Princess of Lust, the one that holds the Throne of Luxuria. Although somewhat akin to a succubus, she is not one herself, but the one who created them in the first place. What she did to the man was merely combust his entire being alongside the spirits of the dead he seems to be using. The magic she used should be <Soul Combustion>. As for why she was here, if I was to actually hazard a guess, it would be because of our contract. It’s been a long time since one of the Seven Princes of Hell formed a contract with anyone, even longer that we have had a host and a meister. My last host was during the Arthurian era.”

“What did Asmodeus’ words mean? She specifically told me to become strong or else I wouldn’t survive what was coming. What exactly is she referring to?”

Lucifer smiled wryly, “She’s referring to fate. My hosts generally did not have a long lifespan. All of them have died before their time came, for one reason or another.”

“For what did they die for? What exactly hunted them down? Fate? That’s too vague.”

“They were all the type of people to live and fight for their ideals. Taking my last host for example. He was a hero among men, and he fought for his country and his people. He died trying to fight for what he believed in. Those are the types of hosts I have had in the past.”

“Then why me? Out of everyone, why take notice of a young man doing his first summoning that he wasn’t sure if it will succeed or not? Why offer me salvation against an orc? What caught your attention?”

“Your affinity with magic, your aura. All of them resembles my last host. In fact, it feels identical to his. That kind of desire, to fight for what you believe in. Even willing to turn against the entire world for the sake of protecting the people important to you. That also resembles him. Among the people that conduct summoning to try and summon me, you are the sole person in the last few hundred years to have this level of resemblance to my past host.”

“Che, your past host huh? Who was he?”

“A man who loved his people more than himself. A truly selfless one, who has been unjustly recorded down as a villain.”

“Name?”

“That I cannot say, out of a promise. It is to honor his memory, for us who are immortal, he will live forever in our memories. My only hope was to find someone like him to be my host and wield my strength as your own. That is the reason why you were chosen.”

David wanted to ask about the name of Lucifer’s past host once again, but he realized that any more, and he would be acting completely insensitively. He didn’t want to be that type of person, even against a demon, he believed that one must maintain a certain level of common courtesy at all time.

“It’s fine if your unwilling to answer me. It’s not like its really relevant to the topic at hand anyways. So essentially you chose me and not anyone else due to my semblance to your past host. I’ll get more out of you later. So right now, tell me about what the magician meant by “Chanting Omission”? I can guess the general gist of it, but I want to hear it from you.”

“Chanting Omission is essentially the ability to cast spells without chanting the incantation. Most magicians require a chant in order to use magic. As a person gets more familiar with casting, they are able to shorten the incantations, omit it all together or cast it silently in their heads. What you did was omit the incantation. However it wasn’t a simple <Water Sphere> or <Fireball>, but intermediate-tier spells, to omit the entire incantation and to just fire off the spell through uttering the name of the magic is something only a very accomplished magician can do. The fact that you were able to show the high levels of aptitude you have for magic, something that is not exactly common.”

“And why am I able to do it so naturally? You told me that to use magic, I would only need to visualise the image in my head and then chant out the name of the magic. Why did you not tell me any of this earlier?”

“I didn’t deem it necessary. You are someone born with an immense amount of mana already, and you are able to host my power without any drawbacks. I simply judged that you were capable of castings spells without chanting.”

“Then to what extent am I able to do it? Is it possible for you to teach me some form of higher-tiered magic?”

“Most things are rather simple. Like I have explained before, magic is separated into a lot of categories: Fire, Water/Ice, Wind, Light, Dark, Earth are some examples of non-unique magic.. Under these categories, they would be further distinct by their usage: offense, defense, enchantments, et cetera. Most mages would learn magic through the use of spells that have been used over and over again. The name of the magic is merely a way for us to focus magic. It doesn’t actually matter if <Fireball> was called <Fireball>, <Storm’s End>, <Magic of Disappearance> or whatever you can think of. It is only a means for the user to focus on the point of the magic. If it was tied to a name, then people with different languages would not be able to cast the same sort of magic. However, it is very common for mages and magicians to stay with the conventional name of a magic, mainly because it would allow them to visualize the effects properly and focus their magic into achieving the target. That is the underlying truth behind magic.

You want to learn of stronger spells to test your limits. For now, I would recommend against it. If you were to strain your body, then it might cause you more harm than good. It will not be difficult for you to learn these magic, so rest yourself for now.”

“Fair enough. Now onto the next question then. What are the exact effects of being a meister? What additional power will I be able to weird in comparison to a normal mage?”

“Being my meister and my host, you should be able to borrow some of my mana to cast spells and use magic unique to me. Generally, contract with a demon also involves the strengthening of one’s body to a greater level.”

“Is that so? Hmmm…” David pondered, even without him asking, Lucifer had answered many of his questions. “Last question. Yesterday you talked about the place having the same trace of magic as the orc. Were you lying? And I’m pretty sure you talked about high orcs?”

“I was being truthful, it did hold the same trace of magic as the high orc you killed. If I were to guess, the magician probably summoned the orc as a test to see if his summoning was working properly. The magician did mention that he recognized you right? Most likely he also wanted to use the orc for something. As for high orc, that was the type of orc you killed. High orcs are orcs that have evolved, gaining a bit more intelligence and improved physical stats. This is the same for most of the races humans refer to as monsters, fairies and demi-humans.”

“I see. Your guess is probably right on target, it does seem to make quite a bit of sense.” David answered. “Is there any job for me to do today?”

“Just take a rest. It’s not like things will continuously happen here everyday. I rather not overwork you.”

“Heh, fine. I suppose this is where I say, please take care of me.”

“Yeah, it’ll be a pleasure to work with you.” Lucifer held out his hand. David took it in his hand and shook. The scene before him started to fade away, and once again returned to the familiar scene in his room.

Now that he thought about it, the situation just now was rather surreal, if the last 2 days didn’t happen, he would have taken what he saw as a dream. Since he had sorted out his emotions through asking Lucifer a bunch of questions, he felt rather calm, only realizing one crucial thing – He had forgotten to get back to Helaine about everything. Knowing her, she was probably quite stressed out about him.

He decided to call her.

“DAE!!! Where have you been? You ran off yesterday and never answered your phone! I went around your house and other places you could be, looking for you! Just what happened?” David could hear Helaine shouting anxiously at him from the the other side of the phone.

“I’ll tell you when I see you? I’ll come over now if it’s alright?” David replied, it would take him a while to get there, especially if he went over to the convenience store to buy something along the way.

---

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1. N/a

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---

“Dae! Is he alright? Where is he?”

“Wait you can’t go in there, the patient is still in a coma.”

David slowly opened his eyes. He could see that he was no longer on the sidewalk.

A ceiling? Was everything a dream?

“Finally awake?” asked a voice in his head.

“So it actually happened?” asked David, he recalled that the voice in his head seemed to have identified itself as Lucifer. Although that immediately led David, who read a bunch of religious texts to associate the voice with a name, it could easily just be a coincidence that their names coincided.

“What do you think?”

“The fact that I can hear you… I suppose it means that it must have been true. I have several questions for you.”

“We have time, as long as the questions aren’t absurd, I will provide you with an answer.”

“Who are you?”

“I told you before. I’m Lucifer. Lucifer Morgenstern.”

“As in…”

“As in the fallen angel, the Crowned Prince of Pride. Yes I am Lucifer Morgenstern, the one that is known to humans commonly as the Devil.”

“I see.”

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Isn’t that obvious? Why would such a famous demon written down in history take an interest in me? From what I know, summoned demons are usually weaker ones, especially the ones that respond to a simple contract.”

“Demons don’t lie.”

“But they can. Demons don’t lie under circumstances that would benefit them from telling the truth.”

“You’re a bright one aren’t you? Not taken every word I say at face value.”

“Isn’t it obvious? Trusting a demon could very well lead to my own death. But I can see this is getting us nowhere. So next question,” David stopped asking, he could tell that the voice in his head was unable or unwilling to show him proof of its identity. Instead, David could only guess that the voice at the very least was telling him the truth about it being it demon and that he had made a contract with it. “What were the terms of the contract?”

“You asked for power. I gave it to you. In exchange, you are now my host.” The demon said calmly. It, no he, didn’t even stutter a bit.

For some reason, David felt like there was no reason for the demon, Lucifer, to lie about it. David was curious about one thing though, a demonic host held many meanings, he wasn’t sure to what extent was he a host.

“A host huh? So what would that involve me doing?”

“As a host, all you need to do is fulfill tasks which piques my interest. This is in exchange for you becoming a meister of my powers.”

David was at a lost here, that description sounded too easy to be true, “Tasks that piques your interest? For example? And a meister of your powers. What kind of power will I actually wield?

“Hunting and artifact seeking. That’s about it, although speaking of tasks, there’s a place I want you to check out right now.”

“Now? Are you serious? And you didn’t explain anything about powers yet.”

“If what I can sense is right, the place holds the same trace of magic as the high orc you killed. And powers, I will explain them on the way of us going there.”

“You should have said that earlier!” David exclaimed, jumping out of the bed he was in, and rushed towards the door. He did notice that he was actually in a hospital earlier, since he was wearing a hospital gown.

“Dae! You’re awake! What happen?” As David rushed out of the room, he saw the surprised look on a nurse’s face as well as a concerned Helaine demanding to know what happened.

“I’ll explain later!”

“Wait… Where are you going now?” Helaine shouted as David ran off, towards the exit of the hospital.

---

David ran in the direction Lucifer was telling him, all the while listening to an explanation of what he was capable of.

“The reaction is coming from the top of the building.”

“The roof of the Museum of Art? That’ll be a *****, but whatever. Let’s test out this <Portal>.”

“Focus on a still image of the place you want to go.”

David pictured the emergency stairways within the building. There was no way he could just walk into the building, even under the guise of night. In fact, it was because darkness had already fallen on the entire city that he couldn’t do so, or else he was sure that he would be deemed a suspicious person.

“<Portal>.”

A black space slightly over 2 meters appeared in front of him. It seems like the spell succeeded. David hesitated a bit, he did read a lot of stories where a character got into a malfunctioning portal and got into un-needed troubles. Yet somehow, his instinct told him that it was safe. Thinking of it, there really doesn’t seem to be any reason for Lucifer to trick him either. It’s not like it’ll benefit him in any way. That was enough for David to convince himself to step into the portal.

He took a step through.

Nothing happened.

He took another step.

He arrived exactly where he had pictured, right by the emergency staircase of the top floor of the Art Museum. He looked around to make sure he made no mistakes and he had indeed arrived at where he wanted. Seeing that there were no mistakes, he immediately rushed up the stairs.

On the midway, he started to sense something amiss. Was this the feeling of magic? He quickened his pace. Soon, he bursted out of the door to the roof.

A wave of nausea engulfed him. David felt sick, his entire body screamed out at him. What he saw in front of him was a red robed figure holding a large sinister staff in front of a huge magic circle. He was surrounded by many disfigured torsos, and another one was rising out of the magic circle.

“What’s going on here?” shouted David.

“Take heed, the enemy should be a dark attribute summoner.” warned Lucifer.

David’s shout startled the figure. It turned around to face him, David saw that the face under the robe was a man not much older than himself.

The man glared at him and laughed, “What the hell? I already used a human clearing spell. I suppose that means you’re an enemy aren’t you?”

“Be on guard, he could send an attack your way.” Lucifer warned him once more.

David manifested two blades in his hand. The same two blades that he used to kill the orc.

“You’re that ******* kid? ****, if the ******* police didn’t… No matter. You’ll die right here!” Then turning to the monsters surrounding him, he utter a command, “Kill him.”

The monsters rushed towards him with their limbs, some on 2 legs, some on their hands and feet.

“Lucifer, anything special I should know about those things?” asked David while taking up a defensive stance.

“Ghouls, mindless creatures that obey simple commands. Your blade will tear through them. Although this number… It really is a bit too much to handle with just that.”

“I guess now is a good time to try it out. <Frost Nova>.” Everything 5 meters in front of David came to a halt, frozen, completely still.

This surprised Lucifer a lot. Although <Frost Nova> wasn’t a novice spell, but an intermediate one, it shouldn’t normally freeze everything in front of David. Frost Nova would freeze ghouls, but the stronger ghouls would actually be able to break out of it. Also, Lucifer noticed that even the floor was covered in ice, this was not the effect of Frost Nova either, “An aptitude in ice. It certainly fits the bill.”

Since he couldn’t make out what Lucifer had said, David ignored him and dashed forward, slicing apart the frozen ghouls along the way.

The robed mage stood still, shocked. He did not expect his ghouls to be dealt with in such a short period of time, un-sure of what to do, he conjured up a sphere of dark magic and threw it at David.

Seeing the incoming projectile, David took a leap to the left, dodging it. Then another was sent his way, followed by another, and another, and a barrage.

“<Ice Barrier> <Frost Shell>” A huge wall of ice appeared in front of David, blocking off all of the magic blasts. Meanwhile, the wall of ice continued to thicken, and a thin layer of ice seemed to cover David.

<Ice Barrier> is an intermediate-tier magic that like its name suggests, create a barrier in front of its user out of ice. <Frost Shell> is another intermediate-tier magic that can be used to support by covering the target in a thin layer of ice to protect them. What David did was merely cast <Ice Barrier> on him, followed by <Frost Shell> on the barrier created with the former magic.

“What is this person? Chanting Omission?” The robed man once again had a distorted look on his face, but for some reason, it turned into a large smile. “It doesn’t matter. In a few moments he’ll be dead anyways. Just like an ant on a sidewalk!”

David managed to stay safe from the magic blast and was prepared to charge towards the robed figure when he felt an ominous presence. It wasn’t overbearing enough for him to be scared out of his wits, but he did felt pressure from it.

A slender figure was rising out of the magic circle. David guessed that it was some sort of demon, but not any that he would have imagined. It was a beautiful woman. She was dressed in a red strapless dress that amplified her voluptuous breasts, displaying her cleavage. Her skin was fair and smooth like something you would see on the heroine of a movie. Possessing red hair that matched her dress and emerald eyes, she gave off an aura of grace and divinity.

The only things that were out of place were the wings on her back. Two large bat-like wings of a dark shade of red. Without them, she would have been able to convince others that she was only a goddess among men.

“Obey my commands succubus. Slay the imbecile over there!” the robed figure shouted, finally clearing his head. The demon in front of him was what he was trying to summon. A succubus.

The succubus looked at him, her face was filled with contempt.

“Obey my…”

His sentence stopped midway. He couldn’t speak. He could only scream. The reason for this was that he was enveloped in a green flame that was quickly burning him away. After a few seconds, nothing was left.

David could only stand there baffled. Although the robed man seemed to be hostile towards him, he didn’t expect the situation to turn out like this. He wanted to beat up the magician and then question him about the matter of the orc. It was impossible now.

The succubus turned towards him. Hoping that the succubus wouldn’t hear him, he muttered, “Lucifer, would my magic work on her?”

Before he heard a reply, the succubus spoke, “Is this the one? For you to take notice of a human like this…” She stopped, pondered a moment and spoke once more, “Human, think of this as an introductory gift. I don’t know why he has chosen you, but take my advice. Become strong, or you won’t survive what’s coming.”

With that, she disappeared in a gust of black smoke. It seemed all too surreal. The only thing that would prove that the things that David had witnessed was the magic circle on the ground.

“Asmodeus…” Lucifer finally spoke after a long silence.

---

Author’s Note:

Hi everyone. It’s the second chapter of the story. Is it getting slightly more interesting?

Do you enjoy the dialogue more than action? Or is action better? Please leave a comment below to tell me your thoughts.

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1. N/a

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“Ahh, I had another one of those dreams again,” said the young man as he finally woke up. Since he was barely awake, the young man didn’t hurry to get dressed or anything, instead laid lazily on top of his bed. “I really do wonder why I keep having those weird dreams. But I suppose it’s less bizarre than the one asking me about my desires.”

The young man in question was David Ng, a 17 years old from Hong Kong. He wasn’t really anything special, black hair, brown eyes, only slightly taller than average. If there was one thing special about him, it was that he didn’t really stand out too much in the crowd. That and the fact that the dreams he remember about tends to become real life. Just last month, he had a dream that his girlfriend had been NTR’d from him ⌈¹⌋, and that exact thing happened a week afterwards.

“Oh ****, I just realized, it’s Monday, not Sunday!” David jumped up from the bed, grabbed his uniform out of his closest and got dressed in record time, before grabbing his bag and rushing out of his house. He didn’t bother saying good bye to his parents or anything, only because they were on a business trip as usual and wasn’t home.

One day, I’m going to find out what the heck my dream were about. He promised himself as he ran to school, the dreams were really starting to get to him. It wasn’t so much as they frightened him, it’s just that having an unexplainable dream for someone with his “ability” just really disturbed him.

When he reached the school grounds, it was already 8 o’clock, and without thinking, he dashed through the school gates, up the staircase and ran towards the classroom. Just as he was about to twist the doorknob, the door opened, and that made David lose his balance, falling face-down onto the floor.

“Oh, you’re late.” said his teacher. As if on cue, the entire class laughed at this situation.

David could feel blood rushing to his cheeks, he wasn’t a shy person, but it didn’t mean he doesn’t feel embarrassed. Due to this, he quickly got up from the ground and rushed to his seat at the back of the room, away from the sights of everyone, allowing him to get lost in the Book of Revelations. Although David himself was an agnostic and didn’t believe in any religion himself, he did find reading various religious as well as mythological texts very interesting. Perhaps it was due to these interests that urged him to recreate the summoning of a demon like in the myths several weeks prior. The results of the summoning? It was a failure like he expected. It wasn’t like he didn’t believe in the existence of demons, rather, he didn’t believe that summoning a demon would be so easy that would allow him to succeed on his first attempt.

Soon, roll call was over, and upon hearing the bell, David rushed straight to his first lesson. Thankfully, nothing special happened with him unlike in the morning.

“Dae! C’mon, c’mon, have a taste of this. I made it last night!” said a girl, holding out a box of amazingly made chocolate chip cookies in front of him. She was Helaine Papadopoulos, David’s childhood friend. Helaine was of an average height at 168 cm, with a body that made her look far more mature than she really is. Since the school they went to didn’t have a school uniform, she was wearing a tank top with a jacket that bared her midriff, showing off her thin waist, and her skin-tight jeans also showed off her rather long legs. In short, she was a head turner and many times, men on the street would eye David with jealousy whenever they went out together. What made her even more outstanding was that she was extremely talented in both, singing, dancing as well as cooking, often entering competitions and coming out with prizes.

“Ehh? Again? Didn’t I already help you taste cookies for the past month already? Could you cut me some slack for once?” replied David. He really wasn’t too bothered trying out the cookies, most likely because he have been her guinea pig ever since she found her interest in cooking.

“But this one is different. It’s not just any normal chocolate chip cookie though! I actually used a different type of flour for this one and I even used your favorite dark chocolate for the chocolate chips! So try one!”

“Instead of asking me to try a cookie, couldn’t you just let me have a peaceful break…”

“Get a room! Seriously, you two need to figure what exactly is going on between the two of you,” interrupted a third person. He was Joseph, one of David and Helaine’s close friends. He was somewhat of a genius at sports, being simultaneously the captain of both the school soccer team and basketball team. Other than that he also practiced Muay Thai. It was at the Muay Thai dojo that he first met Helaine and David, who were both disciples there, but unlike them, he continued on even after he enrolled in high school, where academics seemed to matter more.

“Helaine and I already sorted it out ages ago. We’re just good childhood friends. And she’s also my important person.”

Helaine was actually also David’s ex-girlfriend, they started dating at the beginning of high school, however due to various circumstances, they ended up apart. For several months, neither of them knew what to say to each other, but realizing that it was childish of them to ignore each other, they reconciled and have returned to being good childhood friends.

“You know? That sounded like a proposal to me,” responded Joseph. He wasn’t going to let such a good opportunity to take a mickey out of the pair go.

David outright ignored him and walked off. He knew that was the best course of action. If he replied, Joseph would have just used whatever he said and twist it against him. It was because of that, which made him just outright ignore Joseph and walk-off to his next lesson, where he would probably get lost in his own thoughts again, since he found the content they were studying in school far too easy for him.

“Wait! You still didn’t try the cookies!”

Why have you called? What do you desire?

---

The bell rang, signalling the end of school. Students rushed out of the school grounds, happy that they were free to do whatever they want. David was not an exception.

Waiting at the school gates was Helaine, and when she saw him, she immediately ran up to him and said, “Come over to my place today? Since your parents aren’t here, you might as well have dinner with us.”

To everyone else, this was exactly like a girl love trying to find an excuse to spend time with the boy she likes, but for the two of them, this was only normal. They have known each other so long that their parents treats the other like another child.

“I’ll swing by for food later. Baldie said he got some interesting stuff, so I’m going to his place first to check them out.”

The “Baldie” that David referred to was a middle-aged man that loved to shave his head bald. He was the owner of a knife store that David frequented. Knives was the other things that David had a huge interest in aside from book. To him, they held a special type of beauty that few could understand. In his perspective, knives were like pieces of artwork that should be treated delicately, and people that was able to perform tricks and shows with them elegantly were the pinnacle of executants.

With that, he ran off towards Baldie’s shop. This was one of the rare times where David would show so much enthusiasm towards anything. “I wonder what he has to offer this time, aside from the switchblade, everything else was rather lackluster.”

---

“Here they are. Eight brand new knives straight from their producers.” said Baldie with a large smile on his face that would give most people creeps. He was an ex-Triad member who managed to get out after massacring anyone that pursue him, rumour had it that the Triad only stopped pursuing him to cut their losses after losing a tenth of their main members. Although, to David he was just an old busybody that shared his passion.

“Hmm, aren’t you treating me like an idiot? Apart from this one.” David retorted, aiming the only ballistic knife at the shopkeeper. “All of them are third tier knives that are mass produced.”

“Oi, oi. Don’t point the blade at me, if you fire it at this distance, I have completely no confidence in getting out unscathed. But as expected, you managed to see through these in an instance.”

“Hurry up and show me the masterpieces you talked about.”

“Ahh, yes. Here they are. Aren’t they just beautiful?” asked Baldie, taking out a closed box.

When he opened it, David was amazed. In front of him were a balisong, more commonly known as a butterfly knife, with extravagantly decorated handles; a Sgian Dubh with a blade that could reflect even the smallest detail; as well as an Athame, whose black handle was carved with a strange pattern. Each one of them could indeed be called a masterpiece.

He took hold of the Athame in his hand first and take a closer look at its handle. The patterns seemed to depict a strange snake-like creature with 3 heads. What truly amazed him were the details on the creature’s body, that showed even the scales.

Carefully placing it back down in the box, he took the Balisong into his hand. Flicking it around a few times, David could already tell that the craftsmanship was first class. He turned to Baldie and asked, “This one, I really want this one, so give me a discount on it?”

“Ohoho, although we are both knife enthusiasts, business is business you know?

“So? How much are you asking for?”

Baldie lifted 2 fingers.

“2,000 HKD? That’s not too bad I suppose.”

“Ohoho, nope. 2,000 USD.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You can tell its first class can’t you, it shouldn’t surprise you that much right?”

Hearing that, David didn’t know how to retort. Indeed, just from flicking the balisong around, he knew that it was truly well made, with the blade flickering through the air. He could also tell from the sharpness of the blade tip that it was carefully sharpened, most likely by its creator and not Baldie, since it was sharpened in a unique way that its edge wouldn’t be seen when you were flicking it around unless you were to look very closely.

“I would be willing to give it to you for a discount though, only because you have something I’m interested in as well.”

“Well… I guess I don’t have a choice…”

They continue to barter for a while, and without noticing, darkness had fallen. David did finally manage to barter the price of the balisong down to 2,000 HKD, only because Baldie desperately wanted a Shiv that David showed him a while back. David promised to bring the Shiv over the next day, and Baldie being Baldie, he allowed David to take the Balisong home today.

---

SMASH!

David was on the way over to Helaine’s home when he heard the sound coming from the alleyway. It piqued his interest. Common sense dictated that he shouldn’t go in there, since it was probably dangerous, but for David, satisfying his curiosity was more important.

He walked into the alleyway.

SMASH!

David walked deeper into the alleyway.

RAWRRRRR!

David saw a silhouette of a being that towered over 5 meters.

SMASH!

David’s body was sent flying before he even noticed. He fell several meters from where he was. Pain seared through his body. It was the kind of pain that he hadn’t felt for a long time, not since he stopped sparring with his father, who loved martial arts.

The silhouette approached him.

By chance, moonlight shined onto the silhouette, revealing its grotesque figure. It had a humanoid shape, but nothing about it made it seem remotely human. Its four limbs were as thick as the trunks. In its right hand, it held a large club. On its head, a face filled with anger was seen. Two large canines from the bottom of its jaw stuck out, covering the two sides of its nose. No, more correctly speaking, it didn’t have a nose, only 2 large nostrils in the center of its face. It glared down at David.

A high orc huh?

David was scared. Yet at the same time, he was strangely calm. “So this is what it feels like to know that you’re going to die. I’m calmer than I thought I’d be.” He stood up slowly from the ground, “I guess running is futile. It’s a long alleyway without a place for me to hide.”

Calmer than ever, he slowly took out 2 knives he had in his pockets. In his left hand was a switchblade that he always carried around with him which made him feel at ease, in his right hand was the beautiful balisong that he only just came to possess.

“Che, looks like this is my only option. I’m not sure if I even stand a chance, but I don’t want to die without trying to survive.” within David’s eyes, there was no trace of fear or despair like you would find in most people’s eyes if they were to be caught in a situation like this. In the first place, his entire reaction wasn’t normal. Any normal person would scream for help or run away, or more likely both. David didn’t do either. He calmly analyzed the situation within his head and took the course of action he saw fit. This was only thanks to the multitude of martial arts training that he had been through, he knew that in a situation as desperate as this, running would only decrease his chances of survival, realistically, his only shot at surviving this abnormal situation was to deal with the monster in front of him. Kill or be killed.

By this time, the orc was already slamming down its club towards David. Unlike before, this time it didn’t make contact with David. He had jumped slightly backwards, just out of reach of the club. As soon as the club made contact with the ground, David rushed forward, and attempted to stab his switchblade into the orc’s right hand.

SMASH!

Before he could succeed, a fist collided into his body. The orc had swung its left arm towards David. David was once against sent flying several meters back. When he once again made contact with the floor, he felt as if several bones in his body had already been cracked.

The shadow of the orc moved closer. David could barely move his body, but still he tried to stand up. He realized that he didn’t want to die. No, he was scared of dying. Even though he could calmly assess the situation a few moments prior, his mind was now running wild when he realized that there was a less than one percent chance of survival, in fact the exact chance was closer to zero.

Heh.

Was he going mad on the verge of death? Or was it the orc sneering at him?

Could it be that you can hear me now? The contract I offered before still stands valid you know?

Yeah, he was going mad. Wait… Contract? Could the voice be talking about that dream? In the dream, a similar voice had offered him to make a contract, it had asked him for his desires.

Once again I shall ask. What is your desire?

He wanted to go back to his normal life. No, not that. He wanted to had never stepped foot into this alleyway. No, not that either. He had one wish. He wanted to survive.

What is your answer?

David’s thoughts were in shambles. He was almost ready to cry out that he wanted to just get away from here, no mater the cost. Yet, at the corner of his mind, he desired for slightly more than that. He desired to possess the power to never be in this situation again.

“I want power. Power to overcome this. Power to never fall into this situation again.”

Power always come at a cost. What you desire, I can grant, but it will not be cheap.

“Whatever the cost. I’ll pay. Whatever you want. I’ll give. Grant me my desire, whoever you are!” shouted David. He was becoming desperate at this point. His calm demeanour was gone, he figured that since he was about to die, taken a leap of faith and trusting in a hallucination might not be the worst idea.

You shall become my host.

David could feel a subtle warmth covering his body. When he looked down, he could see a large circle around him, almost exactly like the one he had drawn for the failed summoning he attempted.

“Although, I have granted you power, I have no intention of aiding you further than this. Your right for survival must be grasped by your own hands.” a voice resonated in his head. It was the same voice that had offered him a contract, the same voice that he had just pledged himself to. It was the voice that had made him its host. “Lucifer. Be honored human, it’s not everyday that I respond to a human’s summoning.”

David was baffled. Did his summoning succeed after all? No, this was not the right time to ask such questions. He was on the verge of death.

“The enemy in front of you is a high orc. Although less, it no doubt possesses intelligence. Imagine, human. Use your mind to conjure up an image of your weapon. The current you is capable of doing so. I had no wish for you to die right now, so your wounds have been healed. Show me, Lucifer, that you have the right to become my host!”

David slowly stood up. Imagine huh? He could do something as simple as that. Right now, all he could do is place his faith in this suspicious deal he made.

As the orc charged towards him, ready to finish him off, David manifested his weapons. Twin blades appeared in both of his hands. They weren’t weapons that should be called practical. It was something that had left an impression in his mind from one of his dreams. Each weapon had a double-edged blade on either ends, with one side longer than the other. Between them was a simple handle with a ring on both sides. The entire weapon was pitch black, darker than even the night’s sky. It seemed to be made of a metal that David could not name. Instinctively he placed his index finger and forefinger of both hands into the ring of the blade. His middle fingers stood straight, touching the surface of the longer blades. The thumbs and little fingers wrapped around the sharpened edges of the shorter blades, but somehow they didn’t cut him.

“Those blades?” muttered the voice in his head.

David ignored the voice. He knew what must be done. He took a stance, and as soon as the orc once again smashed down its club, David jumped to the side. Again he rushed forward, anticipating the swing of the orc’s left hand.

Like he had predicted, it came swinging towards him. David crouched down just enough to have it swing over his head, and rushed even closer to the orc. This time, he wasn’t aiming for the right arm. He aimed straight for one of its legs.

The blade cut cleanly into the orc’s right leg. It howled in pain. Letting go of its club, it attempted to use its right arm to grab David.

David was ready this time. He swirled his body around, turning his right hand’s weapon towards the incoming right arm, meanwhile he used his left arm’s weapon to make a clean cut on the wrist of the orc’s left arm.

It yielded an unexpected result. The blade glowed black when it came into contact with the orc’s skin. And the glare enlarged, somehow allowing David to slice of the entirety of the orc’s left hand.

The orc howled in pain again and staggered back. Not missing this opening, David turned around once more and jumped, using the turning force of his body to slice at the orc’s neck.

The orc tried to raise its right arm to block it.

Too late.

It had lost its head.

The orc was dead.

David landed onto the floor. He hadn’t exactly expected the blade to glow once again and cut through the orc’s neck. It didn’t matter though. He had grasped victory.

Seeing his opponent dead on the floor, he let out a sigh of relief. He managed to survive.

After making sure the orc wouldn’t rise up again, he slowly walked towards the main road, feeling immensely fatigued, “I guess I should head straight home. I’ll apologize to Helly tomorrow or something…”

Then he collapsed on the sidewalk.

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Author’s Note:

I hope you have enjoyed Chapter 1 of the story. Quite a bit different from the prologue. Many of you are probably confused about the relationship between the prologue and the chapter, but I promise it’ll all tie together.
At last you have meet David, our protagonist of the story. Was he what you expected? What are your impressions of him? I want to hear it all, so please leave a comment below.

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He was at a vibrant ball, surrounded by people. More precisely, a humanoid race that gave off a vibe completely different from any humans he knew. Somehow, by instinct, he knew that they were demons of the Marturion race, a peaceful race of demons that possessed extremely high perceptions of magic that lived secluded from other demonic warring states.

“Lord ______, is something wrong?” asked an angelic voice to his left.

He turned his head to see who it was. It was Mira Vassago, the daughter of one of the ruling families of the Marturion race. She was a beautiful young woman dressed elegantly in a green dress, wearing a tiara decorated with a huge green emerald on her head. Furthermore, as if naturally, she had her arm coiled around him, it was obvious from first glance that she was his date for this ball.

“Lord ______, shall we?” she asked, pointing to the middle of the hall where many are dancing.

“Ahh, yes. Lady Mira, may I have this dance?” He hesitated before turning to her.

“It would be my pleasure!” she blushed, and held out her hand.

Leading Mira by her hand, he took her to the middle of the dance floor. There they danced naturally. He questioned how he was able to dance for a brief moment, but he couldn’t think of an explanation for it. His body moved instinctively, in sync with both the music and Mira’s movements as if they had practiced together for years. Their movements were perfect, even though they were surrounded by many who have learnt how to dance from a young age, their movements stood out from the rest. Soon, everyone’s attention was on them.

“Lord ______, this is getting a bit embarrassing. It seems like everyone is looking at us…”

Without replying, he merely smiled at her. A dashing smile that seemed to captivate her heart. That seemed to somehow calm her heart down, and they continued to dance until the end of the next song.

When they stopped, the entire ballroom was filled with claps. Many were walking up to the pair, praising how amazing their dance was.

“That was an amazing dance with my daughter, Lord ______,” said an old man with a croaky voice. He was Duke Aodhan Vassago, father of Mira as well as a well-known magician throughout the entirety of the demon race. He was a middle-aged man, just past his prime, that towered over others with a physique that would not have suggested to others that he was in fact a magician and not a swordsman. Although his family was originally only of the Marquis rank, through exceptional achievements in the advancement of magic, the Demon Kings had granted him the title of a “Duke”, holding a rank just below the Princes and the Archduke. “Would you like to join us for a drink?” Then turning to Mira, he chuckled and said, “Sorry Mira, I would like to borrow Lord ______ for a while.”

Hearing Duke Vassago’s invitation, for some reason, he could feel a smile upon his face, “Then Lady Mira, shall I see you later?”

“Yes!” Mira replied, instantly turning away and leaving in grace towards other young people that she was acquainted with. Unbeknownst to him, she was blushing heavily, exactly how a maiden in love would when the man of her dreams invites her out for a date.

“Then Lord ______, let us proceed to the next room. Both Count Furcas and Earl Decarabia have also arrived,” said Duke Vassago.

If he could recall correctly, Count Furcas was originally a Knight that had gathered a lot of merits, an abnormally among the Marturion that loved peace. He was a Spellsword, a Magic Knight that commanded several legions of demons. One of his most outstanding achievements was the subjugation of a Greater Sphinx, that was said to be born once every century, it was a creature that possessed extremely high intelligence and could cast spells on par with a Great Wizard. In fact, the last subjugation of a Greater Sphinx was lead by the current Great King, and even his army had suffered quite a few casualties.

He’ll make a good sacrifice.

Wait what? Why did such a though pop up? There was no reason for him to possess that kind of thought towards Count Furcas. He couldn’t understand his own thoughts.

On the other hand, Earl Decarabia was another outstanding individual, who specialised in healing magic. Due to this, he was one of the court healers for the Demon Kings.

On that thought, he saw Duke Vassago walk away, so he quickened his pace to catch up. Together, they left the ballroom, and walked through a long corridor, decorated with paintings of famous events that have occurred. The wall was painted red like roses.

And like blood.

Once against, he decided to ignore the peculiar thought that seems to have popped up in his mind. He followed Lord Vassago and entered a large room, where a dozen people had already been seated around a large rectangular table with 2 seats left empty. At the head of the table sat Duke Anzu, an elderly man that seemed to radiate confidence.

It appears a troublesome fellow is here.

Just as that thought popped up, Duke Anzu began to speak, “Greetings Duke Vassago and Lord ______, please be seated. Although do relax, we’re all here to enjoy ourselves and make small talk. There is no need to be overly formal here.”

It shall begin.

As he and Duke Vassago seated, everyone began to talk about different things. Like Duke Anzu had said, nothing about it was too serious, nothing concerned with politics or the fate of the world. All they talked about were their hobbies, their travels, and their families. You could see that they were all truly at ease. But he was not, his head hurt. His thoughts were clouded.

Ahh, finally let it begin!

He could not comprehend his own thoughts at all. The headache he feels made him use his hands to hold his head.

“Lord ______, are you feeling unwell?” asked the person, no demon, beside him.

Let it begin!

His hands moved by themselves. With trained movements, he used the nail on his thumbs to make a cut on the tips of all his fingers. Blood began to flow out at an astonishing rate, like he was forcing the blood out with magic.

“What? A magic circle?”

“What are you doing?”

Accept who you are. Obtain what you desire.

“From blood to blood, my blood is black…” The blood began to move on the floor, flowing out in different directions, and it began to form the shape of a magic circle. Words began to come of his mouth, to him it sounded like a chant,

“Defile. Corrupt. Tarnish.
It is the beginning of the end.”

I shall leave no trace…

“I shall leave no trace…”

You fools shall perish.

“You fools shall perish.”

Die.

“Die.”

“Stop this at once, Lord ______!”

People rushed towards him, many of them conjuring weapons that were only used on the battlefield, others began to chant their spells. Despite all that, he still continued to chant. To protect him, red tendrils of blood from the ground wrapped around those rushing towards him, squeezing the life out of them. He paid them no heed. He continued to chant, and the red tendrils continued to kill. Soon, not many were left.

Count Furcas stood before him, having cut down many of the tendrils that tried to restrain him. He finally stood up from his chair, but he didn’t stop chanting. A blade materialised in his hand. Count Furcas raised his sword high.

It was too late, as he began to lose his consciousness, he clearly saw that Count Furcas was already dead.

Screams filled the air.

“Please… I… I love you…”

When he finally regained his consciousness, a sea of red was in front of him. He was no longer indoors. He could see the night sky that was filled with stars. Under the dim moonlight, he gazed far into the horizon. All he could see was red. Red like roses. Red like blood.

Somehow, he felt different. Something changed. He had succeeded. At last he obtained what he desired.

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Author’s Note:

I hope you have enjoyed this prologue to what I hope will end up being a great story. The prologue itself is very vague and the person whose the POV belongs to is not very clear, but it won’t be like this for the rest of the novel.

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