《Way Back to Hell: A monster evolution LIT RPG》 Chapter 1 - The Overworld I stood still like a statue. It took everything I had not to blush, because no more than five meters away stood my lord, hell¡¯s first devil, or as I call him, the devil. He was so cool! One day, I¡¯d be just like him. That is if I didn¡¯t die on this day. Around him, and gliding down his magical barrier, were bodies of imps. They were either hideously malaligned, had exploded, morphed into something else entirely, or simply laid on the floor dead. You¡¯ll never make it, my thoughts told me, and I made sure to tell them to shut up. Truthfully two forces fought within me. One of them a fear for my life, the other an excitement over getting to stand face to face with the most awesome being in the whole of hell. His skin was black like the deepest voids, the complete opposite of my hideous bone-white skin, and his eyes were two different colors, one red, the other one completely white. Maybe one day my eyes could also have two different colors but for now they were simply crimson red, like any other regular imp. He had the most amazing body, featuring four arms, two more than I had, and two legs everything carrying muscles so sharp I could cut myself on them. He really had the peak of bodies. The other devils could look envious with him. A crown of molten gold, perpetually heated by his magic, hung on his head, magic keeping its form. It was said, by whom I have no clue, that with a snap of his fingers he made three thousand heads, all belonging to war giants of the fourth devil, explode. I was getting there. Currently, with head aching focus, I could make a pebble shiver. I swear it! His eyes shot over to me, and everything ceased. He snapped his fingers and I found myself standing in front of him. My chest hurt. I wondered if he had to snap his fingers for his magic to work. Either way, I¡¯d snap my fingers when casting magic. A full grown, naked, human male walked like a dog towards the blood on the floor and began licking it. I instinctevely sneered, before my face returned to normal. I really hoped that the devil didn¡¯t care, because if he did I had no chance of walking out. He already seemed rather annoyed. The human saw my expression, and he looked up, sneering at me. My body shivered in rage and if not for the devil''s presence I would have broken his jaw. ¡°Come here,¡± he said, signaling with his fingers towards the human whose face turned into a smile immediately and he slowly made his way towards the devil. I saw terror still clear on his face, clear in his eyes, hiding in his smile. Woof, woof, he said, before the devil bare foot pressed his head towards the floor, harder, harder, and it cracked, blood shooting everywhere. So cool! ¡°Arch-demon Baar, get me another dog, make it a child this time, preferably a girl.¡± As far as I knew, which was very little, it was impossible for hell and anything in hell to reach out to the overworld, but for some reason, some humans were stupid enough to contact hell, and with the right trickery, usually a succubus or two, it was possible to drag them down here or make them send somebody else down. There was another way too, but even the devils feared it. In the very middle of hell a large hole was in the roof. All I knew was that it led to the overworld. However, at night, when the glow-vines dimmed, I¡¯d hear roars that shook me coming from there. I completely understood why somebody as powerful as the devil feared that spot. ¡°First Devil Julius it will be handled immediately, but if I may, I think Imp¡¯s are too weak to survive a teleportation to the over-¡± White flames surrounded the arch-demon¡¯s head. Their heat made even me, standing about twenty meters away, start sweating. His head quickly burned up, and his body toppled over. Two seconds passed and he stood up again. ¡°I apologize for my interruption, greatest devil.¡± Even demons as powerful as Baar had to show respect to Julius. I almost couldn¡¯t believe it. Baar killed imps just for looking at him, heck, he¡¯d kill other arch-demons if they said his name wrong. He might be one of the most hateful creatures in the entire hell, yet he showed nothing but respect to Julius. ¡°You may help however,¡± the devil said. ¡°I am able to breach the barriers between hell and the overworld for a fraction of a second, and in that time, it should be possible to send a demonic power to the overworld, yet no matter how I tweak the spell it won¡¯t do what I desire.¡± ¡°First Devil Julius, it seems to me a creature with too little demonic energy would simply be squeezed to death between the barriers, whilst a strong one would be refuted all together. Perhaps however, keeping the same amount of demonic energy, but heightening its density, could do something.¡± ¡°I will attempt your theory. If it doesn¡¯t work you will pay for wasting my time.¡± ¡°First devil Julius, could you give me the opportunity to attempt the spell?¡± ¡°Are you saying you have more faith in your abilities than mine?¡± ¡°No of course not, I would simply desire my fate to be in my hands. Can it be so?¡± ¡°No.¡± I saw the arch-demons blue face turn entirely red. Despite standing directly behind the devil, I had no doubts Julius saw it, but he didn¡¯t do anything. I guess if a bug was angry at me I too wouldn¡¯t care. But, I could almost feel the arch-demons'' anger and it shook the edges of my consciousness. The devil snapped his fingers and blue runes formed around me. It was the same runes that had formed around the other imps. You¡¯ll explode in 3, 2, 1. Stop. Unlike before however nothing happened. Then the pain came. It felt like something was pushing against my heart, making it smaller. The pain coursed through my making me scream, shaming myself in front of the devil. He was not pleased and snapped his fingers, drawing the air out of me, and forcing my jaw and nose shut. My body shook, and my consciousness grew blurry. I saw his eyes jerk downwards towards my chest, and his eyebrows furrowed, and I followed his sight to see what bothered him, there in the middle of the chest was a blue vein, the size of my forearm, which grew towards my shoulder. ¡°The mark of the primal devil!¡± The arch-demon spat, completely baffled. ¡°I strongly encourage you to kill him First Devil Julius. You must have awakened his far-far ancestry, but as you know, the primal devil will take over his body as he always does when his lineage is provoked. Kill him!¡± ¡°No,¡± Julius said. Once again he snapped his finger and runes of much more edgy and pointy shape formed around me. This time there were many more of them, and they were bright making my eyes hurt. I felt murderous intent shoot out from the arch-demon, and a second after I felt something which cannot be labelled with the same word come out from the devil. I passed out. *** Two eyes, both of them moonlike, stared into mine. Instinctevely, I shrieked, jerked back and tried to slash them with my dirty nails, but nothing of that happened. It wasn¡¯t that my body was frozen but that I had no body. My body wasn¡¯t where I and the eyes were. A laugh boomed radiating hurt throughout my being. ¡°What are you doing freak!¡± I screamed, and the laugh only grew louder, and as a few moments passed, a creature slowly formed, and I found myself staring at a devil that was two meters taller than the first devil, yet kept the same shape proportionally. A large smile pointed towards me, a tooth to the right side of the mouth missing. I noticed that three of his arms were missing. ¡°I had to sacrifice half my arms for that shabby spell to work.¡± ¡°Where am I?¡± ¡°That¡¯s not important, what is impo-¡± The space was split in half. Now half of it was white void whilst the other was the palace room where the first devil stood. In the background I saw the arch-demon Baar¡¯s body completely enveloped in white flames. The devil¡¯s pupils sharpened, and I felt something pass between the two creatures. ¡°I do not permit you to speak to him, primal devil. I the first devil of hell have warned you.¡± The two last words shook me into stillness. I had not heard much of the primal devil, but what I had heard was it took the entirety of heaven to kill him. Which was the second thing. He was dead, but clearly not. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Who?¡± the primal devil said. I couldn¡¯t believe it. The first devil didn¡¯t snap his fingers. His eyes widened and black sparks appeared in the air between them. The sparks emanate danger. The first devil turned his sight towards me and a glare full of hate from him was more than enough for my heart to volunteer to give up. ¡°Come back to me at once,¡± he said and everything stopped again. ¡°This is enough.¡± *** I woke up again but this time it felt like I hung over a fire, except the fire was above me. My skin burned, and I screeched. As I opened my eyes to spot the source of this, I saw a space and distance the like of which I¡¯d never encountered ever before. I saw white rocks as large as mountains floating in the sky, and through one of them, I saw a yellow object, and the second I focused on it, my eyes itched like heaven. I shut my eyes, but my body continued to burn. I opened them up, but it hurt. It stuck me not to look at whatever that object was, which I will now refer to as, dot of pain. Instead I looked at whatever I was laying on, I found a ground I¡¯d never experienced ever before. It was wet, but there was no water, and there were green blades sticking out towards me which were strangely comfortable. I didn¡¯t have time to appreciate whatever this was as to cover away from the dot of pain. I found a shadow created by a large plant. It reached upwards, and it had many different branches each filled with green leaves. A strange plant indeed, but it did a good job of providing cover. I took a breath of air, and looked around to see just where I¡¯d arrived. This was clearly not home. Had I really reached the overworld? My contemplation was cut short as an arrow flew into the corner formed by my neck and shoulder. I started running again. Between the dot of pain, and the casual arrows flying towards me, I was completely focused on the ground filled with stuff. In hell, it was just bare rock most of the time, but here there were sticks and wet leaves, and strange snake objects appearing out of the ground with the same color of those plants reaching towards the sky. One of them even almost made me trip. Thankfully however, I saw something I was used to. Rock. It was sticking out of the ground in the same way the hole stuck out of the roof in hell. It led downwards into darkness illuminated lightly by small glow-vines. It was an entryway to the great cave system. I swallowed, and jumped in, happy to escape whatever it was that had chased me, and the dot of pain too. Fear overtook me, even the first devil feared to go in here, so I made sure not to go too deep, in case I stumbled on anything, but luckily it was pretty desolate. Whatever it was that had shot arrows at me didn¡¯t enter, nor the dot of pain enter. I pushed myself up against the wall, taking a long breath. This was all very scary. I knew he would send me to the overworld, but I had never thought to ask what my task was. Now in that strange dream, which surely had not been a dream, he told me to go back to hell, which I assume he meant through the caves. However, that would almost certainly lead to my death. What other choice did I have? Finally giving attention to the second thing that plagued my sight. A large blue window in the top right corner showing some sort of green bar, that when I look closer at, grows and becomes a larger blue window showing text that I could read despite never learning how to do so. It was strange, without a doubt. _____ Stat Page Current Species: Imp Active Title: Blind Sheep Total Power Level: 13 Level = 0 Level Up = 0/10 Xp Unallocated stat points: 0 Strength: 1 Agility: 1 Intellect: 10 Magical Aptitude: -3 Stamina 3: Toughness: 1 Vitality: 2 Skills: Primal Adaptation, _____ Magical Aptitude of -3. You¡¯re not even pathetic, you¡¯re below it, I heard the voice inside my head say before I had a chance to realize what I was looking at. I had so many questions. Like what was the power level? Was my intelligence really that high? And what was the skill Primal Adaptation? _____ Primal Adaptation Due to traces of the primal devils blood, the body gains an exceptionally high chance to adapt and mutate when under incredible stress. These changes vary from improvement to new limbs and organs. _____ Adaptation? I thought. Does this mean I have a chance to get a new leg if I run too much? I don¡¯t want a new leg. The first devil doesn¡¯t have a leg. I can¡¯t run too much, that''s for sure. I realized then that the vein originating from the center of my chest had wrapped around my shoulder. It really didn¡¯t look like it belonged to me. It looked like somebody snatched it from the primal devil and wrapped it around me as a cosmetic, but when I placed my hand on it, I felt something, but it wasn¡¯t pulsing as much as trickling. Before I had a chance to marvel more at whatever it was I was seeing, another window popped up, one that hadn''t popped up before when I was getting shot at which might have said something but I wasn¡¯t sure what. _____ Urgent Quest Blood lust aimed at you has been detected. Escape or kill its source. Failure will lead to death. Success will lead to 50 XP. _____ My head jerked towards the entrance to the cave system and down further down but I didn¡¯t spot anything. I couldn¡¯t figure out where the bloodlust came from when an ant fell down on my head and started biting. It was huge and panic flooded me. I screamed as it tried to wrap its large mandibles around my neck. It succeeded in doing so and the only thing which stopped them from clamping shut were my hands which had gripped each one of the mandibles and was pulling them apart. I stared into large black eyes, each the size of a human hand, which featured no emotion at all. This couldn¡¯t have been what scared the devil of. Perhaps this part of the dungeon was filled with much weaker creatures, but I wondered why an ant was alone. We had ant¡¯s in hell too, except when they swarmed they were killed through suffocation unlike this ant. Why was this ant alone? It wasn¡¯t ordinary for an ant to be alone, perhaps it had split apart from its colony. I kept pulling apart its mandibles with my life on the line. Its feet, which were thin but sharp and spiky, shot into my body repeatedly as my legs wrapped around its body trying to pin it up against the floor. After a quick moment we were in a draw, with its mandibles around my neck. My arms were quickly growing tired, and the pull inwards from the mandibles only grew stronger. My arms grew so exhausted that they shook violently. I didn¡¯t want to die. Not to a fucking ant. How could I ever look the devil in the eyes again. I prayed for my only way out, for an adaptation to pop up, for that skill to be used, but it didn¡¯t do anything. My hands gave up. The mandibles clomped down. I looked down to see blood pouring out. I¡¯d die. But I couldn¡¯t die. I¡¯d be refuting the devil''s orders directly if I died. It would be way too shameful for me to begin to process. The ant jerked its head to the side, taking a large chunk of my neck with it. Only half my neck was left, and my head slowly followed gravity as it leaned down until it slammed against the ground. My blue blood sprayed out. You¡¯re no better than an ant. I heard the voice say. Anxiety filled me like it had never done before. In that moment, where I should have died, and everything should have been over, that feeling of panic hammered against my body, and froze it. One thought dominated every other thought. Not like this. The blood poured out and my thoughts became slower. If ants could look happy, this one wasn¡¯t even smiling. My death ment jack shit to it. Who do you think you are? You''re a worthless ant. Complete shit. The ant gobbled down that chunk of my neck. My sight became a bit blurry. I tried to breathe, but I couldn¡¯t. I spit out blood instead. The ant came closer ready to take the other piece of my neck off and end me. I saw it through an angle I hadn¡¯t seen before. From the side I could see that the neck connecting its torso and head was incredibly thin, almost ten times thinner than my own. I barely had any energy to move my body with but a direct hit there was more than enough to kill it. The ant reached a bit closer towards my neck. I saw its mandibles open up. This was it, my last moment being alive. Adrenaline surged and my eyes narrowed down on its thin neck, it filled my entire mind. I simply had to break it, make it snap. How? How? How? The question rattled my brain like nothing had ever done before. My body was too weak to move, but I just had to make it snap. If I just concentrated hard enough just like the first devil does, I could make it explode. Concentrate, focus, see it explode. I strained everything inside of me to reach out and make it explode. It felt like minutes of straining and focus. I spent the time usually attributed to seeing your entire life flash past you, focusing on some ants'' necks. This had to work. Its mandibles were right around my neck now. Any moment now they would snap shut and everything would turn dark, but its neck hadn¡¯t started vibrating let alone explode. My eyes widened. It felt as if molten lava floated around freely inside of my head. It hurt like hell, but I kept on pushing, I kept on making the lava warmer, making the pain increase. I felt like I knew when its mandibles would snap shut. Somehow I just instinctively knew it, and the moment before that happened, I pushed so hard it felt that my own head would explode. The excessive straining made both my eyes plop out. Chapter 2 - Floating Head I remember catching a worm once, one of those that slivered in the ground. It was the size of my thumb and the length of my arm, and very slimy. It slithered back and forth. I grabbed a sharp stone and cut off its head. Despite this, it didn¡¯t stop moving for another four hours. I shouldn¡¯t be shocked that I and worms are similar. I was more or less ten meters away from the overworld with the mandibles of an ant around my neck, and my eyeballs rolling around on my cheeks. The feeling of eyeballs popping out wasn¡¯t like I thought it would be. I thought they¡¯d plop out with a burst of pain and ache, but no, instead, the sensation of dryness grew very quickly. Another surprising element was the fact that my sight was now pointing in a direction which my face was not. My right eye pointed towards the floor, whilst my other eye pointed towards my skin. There was very little pain, but perhaps that is only because of my unique situation. The ants mandibles shut close. The rest of the skin, and muscle, and whatever it was inside of my neck, ripped. My head, carrying with my detached eyes, bounced on the floor. and the rest of my body felt limp. Was this how death felt? The feeling of giving up took me. I don¡¯t know if its a feeling, but my thoughts fought about it. I could only think that it was over, but the thought in the back of my mind, which always mocked me, was strangely the only thing still refuting the irrefutable. Pathetic, I heard the inside of my head say. I won¡¯t accept an ant killing me. No. That won¡¯t happen. My body burned. Red flames shot towards the ceiling of the cave. The pieces of skin within the ant¡¯s head turned aflame. The ant shrieked. Its head jerked left and right throwing away the pieces of me in its mouth, but it had already swallowed some. Its legs shook and kicked and it ran up the wall, on the ceiling, round and round, panic completely overwhelming its mind. I saw all of this. Only when the ant stopped moving, and its exoskeleton started turning black did it occur to me that I should be dead. Why wasn¡¯t I? I tried turning my eyes to see if anything was off but they refuted me, and threw pain my way instead. I knew the ant had decapitated me. I couldn¡¯t move anything. Not my lips, not my eyes, nor my body. I was entirely stuck, yet I could still think. I knew the thought which plagued my mind as an intrusive thought had acted with autonomy for a moment. ¡°Hello?¡± I thought out, but my mind was silent. I felt like an insane person, as much as a decapitated head on the floor could feel. This is pathetic. I finally heard, and I shot back. ¡°Who are you?¡± Before I heard a response two windows popped up in my sight. _____ Notification! You have killed 1 Giant Ant. 23 experience points have been gained. _____ _____ Quest completed. Reward: 50 experience. _____ They were followed by three other windows. These ones were very simple and carried only two letters, the meaning of which I had no clue. _____ Level up! _____ The windows faded away leaving me with the window at the very top right. The bar which had been filled completely green was now barely a sliver long, and it was red. I wondered what it meant. I opened up the original box to see if there had been a change. _____ Stat Page Current Species: Imp Active Title: Blind Sheep Total Power Level: 3 Level = 3 Level Up = 0/80 Xp Unallocated stat points: 3 Strength: 1 Agility: 1 Intellect: 10 Magical Aptitude: -3 Stamina 3: Toughness: 1 Vitality: 2 Skills: Primal Adaptation, _____ I noticed two things after staring at the screen for 5 minutes. Firstly, my total power level went down by ten, but it was still not 0. I wasn¡¯t quite sure what it meant. Secondly, I saw that I had 3 unallocated stat points. I figured death was taking its time in coming to grab me. It must take quite some time to travel from hell to the overworld, but I figured before it would, I¡¯d take a chance to perhaps cast a spell. So I slotted in all the points into magical aptitude. _____ These changes will be permanent. Magical Aptitude -3 ===> 0 Confirm/Deny _____ I clicked confirm and my head passed out. *** I found myself back in the white space with two eyes staring at me. I would have screamed out in terror again. This was not usually how sleep came, but the feeling of resignment still trenched me. I found that I could speak, and I asked the only prevalent question in my mind. ¡°Can the first devil hear us?¡± ¡°No?¡± ¡°He doesn¡¯t want me talking to you:¡± ¡°No, he doesn¡¯t want to see you to see us talking.¡± ¡°I see¡­ I have a question.¡± ¡°Ask it.¡± ¡°Why am I not dead?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve tied your life or rather consciousness to the system. The health bar at the top right of your sight should tell you how much hp you have. Unless that drops down to zero you can¡¯t die, and despite all of your blood leaking out, it still doesn¡¯t seem to be enough to bottom it out. Lucky you.¡± ¡°Why are you here?¡± ¡°There¡¯s no other space for me to be.¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°I¡¯m inside of you. You can see me when you sleep.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t you the primal devil?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t you just kill me and take over.¡± ¡°Your body wouldn¡¯t be able to handle the stress of doing so.¡± ¡°Will it be able to if I grow stronger.¡± ¡°Not until you achieve my level of strength. ¡° ¡°Oh but can you help me do so? Like when my body started burning. That was you right?¡± ¡°No, that was your soul.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Your soul and your consciousness are two different things. We can go into it more next time, but you¡¯ll have to wake up now. You¡¯ve got a new quest.¡± *** The headache in my head could only be explained by water boiling in there. My dry eyes, which ached like mad, were nothing compared to the pain ravaging around there. My face involuntarily twitched. It would be voluntarily screaming at the top of my lungs, eyes wide, tongue out but I had no control or lungs. No you¡¯re pathetic.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. ¡°Who the fuck are you?¡± I thought. Of course you¡¯d ask that question despite knowing the answer. ¡°What do you want?¡± For you to be better. Not to be so pathetic. ¡°I know I¡¯m pathetic, you¡¯ve been screaming it in my ear forever, but any idea on how to fix that?¡± What a stupid question. Before I could think of anything else, the box in my sight grabbed my attention. It was a quest just like the other one except it wasn¡¯t urgent. I almost couldn''t believe what was being asked. _____ Quest Through the use of the skill Primal Adaptation learn the magic needed to levitate. Time Limit: 4 hours. Success will trigger metamorphosis. _____ The quest window was different from the last one. The other one didn¡¯t have a time limit. But it did have a penalty for failure, namely death. This one lacked that, but the success was completely different. The skill Primal Adaptation, didn¡¯t make any sense to me. I fought for my life, and strained my body with everything I had. I think it more than qualified for ¡±intense stress,¡± yet despite that nothing happened. Now they were asking me to use it to levitate. I didn¡¯t have the first idea on how to go about it. The only thing I could do was think, so maybe that was the path on how to succeed. I guess I''ll just have to imagine myself floating. I strained, and strained, and strained. I felt a headache, but I continued pushing. I strained some more, and I think something happened, but then I realized I was wrong. So I strained more, and my eyes started moving! I¡¯d done it. Only one of my eyes moved. The movement came with pain, as if something was pinching my eyes by the sides. They slowly turned around. I saw different cracks in the roof, and then, a face came into view. I tried to scream but nothing happened. Whatever it was, its face was completely horrifying. Its face was the shape of a goat, except its eyes that were completely white, were the size of four of mine, and its mouth had no lips, only spiky teeth showing. ¡°Hello there imp!¡± It said with a crazed tinge to the voice. ¡°You shouldn''t be here.¡± I tried to say, ¡°Hello, what are you?¡± but my tongue and mouth were limp. The creature smiled. ¡°I am an agent of chaos, my name is Gokooo. and you my friend are the very best thing that could have happened. hihihi.¡± You can read my thoughts. Isn¡¯t that obvious idiot? The creature¡¯s in this cave are really scary. ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I come from deep down. I teleported to the spot filled with magical residue to see why there was a demonic energy there. I¡¯ve been searching for the demon for quite some time now and it looks like I finally spotted what I was searching for. Sadly, if I could spot you, other people less inclined to your existence also will. I¡¯ve already cast a cloak on you but we¡¯ll have to teleport somewhere else in the cave. Somewhere far away. Otherwise, what are you doing?¡± I have to learn how to levitate. Apparently immense stress is the only way to get it, but I don¡¯t know how to go about how to increase the amount of stress. ¡°Oh, I was thinking about healing you, but it seems that would be counterproductive.¡± Idiot. No no no. Please heal me, I¡¯d appreciate it a lot. ¡°No. I won¡¯t heal you, I¡¯ll do you one better.¡± Goko gra- ¡°Gokooo actually.¡± Gokooo grabbed my skull by the few hair strands I had, and lifted me through something rippling with black edges. And then, gravity lessened for a few moments, as I saw the ground become smaller. My eyes entwined together, and the sight of something blue entered my sight. Splash. ¡°That goes down for 100 meters. The faster you learn how to levitate the better.¡± The cold water enveloped my head. I saw the glow-vines running around on the walls. I didn¡¯t hear much. Barely anything. I felt the water travel deeper into my ears. Fear filled my heart like nothing else, or at least, that¡¯s how it felt. Every sense in my body screamed. My head grew warm. My eyes reached upwards for the ceiling of the eyeholes , the water allowing the movement, starting to spin around. Each second I¡¯d sink further into this wretched liquid. A liquid worse than death itself. I needed to get out. I needed to try harder. I pushed. I don¡¯t know how, but I pushed upwards with everything in my being. Levitation. Something inside me cracked, and I found the sensation of pushing evaporating. For a few moments, my body entirely forgot how to do anything similar. A warmth coming from somewhere in me, and nowhere at the same time. It felt like honey spread and filled the cracks. _____ Alert! Primal Adaptation has been activated! The skill Weak Telekinesis has been gained. _____ The water¡¯s pressure slowly grew smaller. Splash! My head exited out of the water my eyes were still deeply submerged in. I pressed my head higher, and my eyes came out, touching each other, both pointing at the same place. Before I could go any further, another window popped up. _____ Quest completed. Reward: Metamorphosis will commence now _____ My neck fell off. It toppled down into the water with a loud splash. An itch that made me want to explode spread across my entire head. I also felt my head start to expand until I controlled my urge to explode. The itch spread across my eyes too. The red wires connected to my eyes grew three feet longer and the eyes. My eyes stopped itching however. They also felt more instinctual to control. I made them turn towards each other. I saw some sort of gelenatus subject cover them. I turned them to look at me. My skin color had changed from white, to whiter. Devil! A step backwards. But we had first taken five steps forward. I¡¯d learnt magic. The type the devil used too I think. I¡¯d lost my body but I could regain that. Take that soul. Call me worthless trash again. I dare you. That¡¯s what I thought. You¡¯re talking to yourself. Crazy. No, I am talking to you. I am I. I did feel slightly mad at the notion of arguing with thoughts coming from my own mind, so I stopped. My eyes spun around to see the room. I floated three meters above water. The walls were rough and covered with glow-vine which looked like yellow vines swirling back and forward on the walls. The water was in the middle of a vast space. The circular room had three tunnels in its walls, each entry way as possibly far away from the other two as possible. I also realized that I wasn¡¯t alone in the room. Three very small figures, looking like hedgehogs, looked at me. I slowly floated over, my eyes staring right at them. I floated quickly but that became tiring almost immediately. I could float at about a snail''s speed comfortably. If I pushed myself too hard, I¡¯d fall into the water below and that was something that scared me like nothing else. Every single time I¡¯d seen water in hell, a terrifying large creature as big as a mountain, or at least that¡¯s how it felt, swam around in it. My eyes swung down to see if there was any creature like that in this water. I didn¡¯t expect to find anything. After all, two minutes ago I was in the water, and I had not been eaten. My eyes scanned the whole of the water but I didn¡¯t spot anything. I couldn¡¯t help but wonder where the fish had gone. I saw it then, in the corner of my eye, lying beside the edge of the water there was a thiry fished stapled ontop of eachother like pebbles. Each one with a deep cut in it. I also saw many different smaller creatures jumping over and in the fishes, to get bites off them. There was only one explanation. Gokooo had done it in the few seconds he held me. Or maybe he¡¯d done it before that. No that didn¡¯t make any sense, after all, he wasn¡¯t planning on throwing me into the water. I¡¯d have to be careful around him, if I ever saw him again. I floated closer towards the hedgehogs which began to close into spiky balls, but still kept their eyes open. ¡°Hello?¡± I shouted at them. They didn¡¯t respond with words but with squeaky noises. That would work. Now when I squeeze them to death, I can tell my effectiveness by how many squeaky noises I get. That should be good enough. I was more than eager to test my telekinesis on another person. I wanted to see if I could make them pop, just like the devil did. I visualized one of the hedgehogs becoming smaller, and I pushed for that to happen. I heard it start to squeak but at the same time I dropped floating downwards. I pushed harder, and harder, and then I gave it my all. The hedgehog squeaked blood coming out of its eyes. It rolled into a ball. I dropped to the floor, my eyes slamming with a plop, but the gelatinous substance protected them from any damage. I hadn¡¯t noticed it but the hp bar in the top right had become fully green again, albeit smaller. I felt that part of my mind grow more and more tired, and my eyes spotted the other two hedgehogs rushing towards me with wide eyes. They screeched, and I realized that I had to get up very quickly lest I wanted to die. I dropped my hold on that hedgehog and floated upwards as fast as I could. My sight turned black for a moment, and I got dangerously close to passing out. I¡¯d have to be more careful with my telekinesis in the future. The hedgehogs got up and floated away. Something rushed my mind then, some sort of feeling I¡¯d never experienced before. It felt great, like I¡¯d really done something. It stayed there for a few moments before fading away despite me trying to keep it in my grasp. I had to get more powerful, and stomp on more creatures. That was the way. I had to use the Primal Adaptation skill to its limit. The question was how? How should I go about it? I thought back to it. I decided to shelve that thought and float to the creatures eating the many fishes. From that view, far up in the air, I saw many different shapes all gorging themselves. I wanted to kill one of them. I also saw an ant, and all of a sudden, I felt that I had to kill it. To give a touch of revenge. I focused on its neck, on it snapping in the wrong direction. Nothing happened. Its exoskeleton was hard, I¡¯d have to push harder. It grew panicked, and stopped eating, waving its head around, its black eyes looking for the source of the hurt. It spotted me, and started running away from me, but I would not let it go away that quickly. Before I had a chance to follow it though, I saw a small baby with white wings and an expression of pure panic. An angel! Its finger pointed at me and shakingly the little angel said, ¡°a¡­a¡­ a IMP!¡± Its wings flapped and it rushed towards the exit. Many thoughts kicked into my mind, one won out. It would tell the other, more dangerous angels of my location. I can¡¯t let that happen. I felt energy the likes of which I¡¯d never had before rush into me as I rushed towards the small baby angel. Exhaustion piled up but I¡¯d have to hold it back. I had to catch that little thing or it was as good as over for me. But that wasn¡¯t all there was too it. It wasn¡¯t just the fact that the angle saw me, but also, that I saw the angel, and if a demon sees an angel, in all of demon kind, we must kill them. A real demon would kill me if he heard me referring to myself as a demon. I rushed after the angel into the tunnel. Its tiny white wings flapped quickly like a bug, and I could see its shiny little bum sticking towards me. It glanced back at me every now and then, letting out a small scream. ¡°I¡¯m going to tell everybody about you, I¡¯m going to!¡± I got closer. My eyes were almost touching its heels. My consciousness swam out and into the world. The black dots filling my vision became stronger, as if that part of my vision had been burned of by an ever growing flame. ¡°The whole heaven will turn this place upside down to get you. Hahaha!¡± My eyes wrapped around his legs. They pushed his legs together and my eyes made a knot with themselves. The angel and I fell onto the ground, and the angel started screaming at me. I passed out. Chapter 3 - Evolution! Everywhere I looked, I saw the white void. No shapes stood apart from it. No figures or eyes looking at me with scorn or pity or disgust or indifference. The primal devil was nowhere to be found. Why isn¡¯t he here? The question floated in my mind. Probably to avoid you, I heard as a response. I let it slide, but a bad feeling came. I could reason that if that were the case, I¡¯d impacted the primal devil himself, but for some reason it didn¡¯t matter to me then. I blinked, or it was like a blink, the whole world turned black for a sliver of a moment and I found myself staring at myself, at my old self, the imp. My--- its nose pushed up towards its forehead and the eyes were wet with tears but hate filled them. Why was I staring at myself? ¡°You¡¯re disgusting,¡± the figure said to me, its nails digging into the cheek. ¡°Weak, stupid, naive.¡± When I¡¯d just come to the world, I remember words like that hurting. Sometimes I¡¯d cry, other times I¡¯d scream out in rage. Now when I hear them, they are like companions. I feel lonely without them. I¡¯d only been away from constant belittlement for a moment, and I already felt uncomfortable. I knew they were true, but there was also a chance. A chance I could become something greater. Every creature could change, adapt. That chance only grew stronger with the latest developments. ¡°You don¡¯t believe that,¡± the figure looking just like my mirror image said. ¡°You think you can become a devil.¡± He stopped and laughed, his chins turning red, neck stretched out, mouth open as wide as possible. I know it¡¯s silly. And I¡¯d never admit to it out loud. But yeah. I wanted to become a devil. Completely theoretically there¡¯s a possibility. I just had to work hard enough, take enough risks, and train until I couldn¡¯t recognize myself. ¡°Ohh, you sweet fool. You won¡¯t admit that it¡¯s impossible for you to become a devil because-¡± Please don¡¯t say it. ¡°Because you weren¡¯t born with a will.¡± Stop. ¡°You¡¯re lazy, and weak, and stupid, and your dream of becoming a devil will stay as that.¡± I let go. If my body were here it would collapse. I stared downwards, back at the void, but I saw at the top of my sight a smile spread up on my mirror image¡¯s face. The creature turned into grains. It toppled down towards the ground in a heap. It was true. I¡¯d plan and think and believe, but unlike the other people, I never worked. I never pushed myself. I never took risks, or challenged myself or put myself somewhere uncomfortable. I struggled only when I had to. I was lazy. Pathetic is a better word to describe it. I should just give up. I passed out. *** The angel''s fist repeatedly shoved into my skull. Thump, thump, thump. My head bounced around, flinging like a ball tied to a post. My eye wires, that were wrapped around the baby angels legs, pulled me back. My sight rotated and bent and buckled. I¡¯d throw up but I can¡¯t. I grasped everything in me for stability. The psychic powers found the babies arms and shot them back into the wall. I was free from attack for some time. It seems my energy had time to refill itself. Keeping the angel''s arms stuck up against the wall, I unwrapped my eyes, and controlled them. They rose up like snakes about to attack, and stared into the angel. It was like a three month old baby. Its cheeks were chubby. Its eyes glittered with innocence. its neck was practically nonexistent. But, it had some sort of halo above its head, and small white wings on its back. Just what was it? The horror stories of angels I¡¯d heard refuted the existence of this angel, if I could even call it that. I guess I shouldn¡¯t be complaining. I shifted my psychic powers to its head, pushing it in towards the wall. My head dropped down into the ground with a thump. My skull bounced a few times and my eyes followed shortly after. All my psychic energy was focused on one thing, and that was to crack the angel¡¯s skull. I heard it shrieking. It must be working. I kept pushing. Five seconds passed, then ten, then fifteen, then twenty. I realized that the shriek never changed. It was just staying the same. In ever heard that satisfying crack. I sent just a little part to my eye and it crawled up slowly to look at the angel. Blood poured out of its nose, eyes, and ears, but apart from that nothing happened. Clearly I wasn¡¯t strong enough to make a head pop. Not with the hedgehogs, not now. I needed a new strategy. I¡¯d felt my consciousness turn a bit swimmy, and I didn¡¯t want to pass out like before. I needed a new strategy. Or maybe I didn¡¯t. Maybe, I should just give up. It would be clever. Maybe if I just stopped wasting my time and let this baby go away, things would be easy for me. Death would almost certainly welcome me with open arms. No. What am I thinking? Get a grip. Ha, like I could do that. I have to kill this angel. I had a mouth. I had no clue how it worked, and if I got close I think for sure I could bite the thing. What more, I had my eyes, which seemed to have grown more resilient. I wonder if I could use them as clubs. There¡¯s only one way to find out. I raised my eyeballs high up in the air, as far as I could, about four feet, and then swung them down full force on the baby. Strangely, I didn¡¯t feel any hurt, but it was a strange thing to see the baby get closer with one eye until it slammed in there. The baby screeched out in pain. My eyeball rose up into the air again, this time with my other one following, and they slammed into the baby, over and over and over and over and over and over until blood came out of the angel''s face. It coated the eyeballs. ¡°An angel!¡± I heard a voice screech from my side. I looked over to find a strange plant consisting of a stalk and a large eyeball, all three eyeballs staring intently at me, and a small red caterpillar. I almost shouted at myself. It reminded me of the hell caterpillars. They hunted the sea creatures. They were gigantic, and their running made the ground rumble. This one was just like them, except smaller, much smaller, almost the size of a leg. It crawled towards me. I thought it would attack me, but it began biting into the baby instead. The baby shouted and shrieked, but the blood soon came into its mouth and muffled the screams. It didn¡¯t take long for the baby to die. Two windows popped up. _____ Notification! You have killed 1 minor angel. 5000 experience points have been gained. _____ And the second one. _____ Urgent Quest Due to killing a minor angel, in three minutes, a major angel will arrive. You must travel at least 500 meters away from the current location. Otherwise certain death will follow. Failure will lead to death. Success will lead to forced evolution. Time remaining 00:03:00 Distance traveled from angel corpse 0/500 meters. _____ The caterpillar munched on the angel as I slowly floated backwards. I had to go. I tried to move further down into the cave system but I found myself stuck. I couldn¡¯t feel anything however, so my eyes looked around to spot the source of this impediment. I found nothing, but the three eyes staring at me. I tried moving again, and this time I went a bit away, but then, I was dragged back to my original location. I saw the pupils on the plants dillate. It was more than clear to me that they were using a psychic power to keep me there. I pushed harder backwards, eagerly trying to get away but nothing happened. I pushed looking at the timer which ticked downwards. I realized that I was stuck, and I looked back at my previous ally and called back for them. ¡°Hey, can you help me out?¡± I asked, and the centipede stopped, and looked my way, before resuming its feast. ¡°Hey, I¡¯ll tell you something very important if you help me.¡± ¡°Really?¡± The centipede said, and slivered towards me. ¡°If this is a lie, I will kill you.¡± ¡°As if you could. Kill those eye plants keeping me stuck.¡± Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. The centipede moved towards them, its many legs beating against the stone floor and traveling further forward. It slowed down the closer it got, and the restrictions on me lessened. I realized that I could leave it there and float away. I turned away, but something caught me before I floated away. I didn¡¯t have to do this anymore. I didn¡¯t have to act tough or cruel or merciless. There was no reason for it. I would never become a devil either way. I turned around and instead of running away, I pressed the centipede further forward using my own psychic power. The eyes of the plant looked shocked at the development. It only fueled me to push the centipede further. It got so close that its mandibles could reach the stalks, and it cut them, the eyes falling down and plopping hard on the ground. After the first one fell, I didn¡¯t have to aid it with my physic power. It had enough power to eat and swallow the plants and do the same thing for the other one. _____ Notification! You have killed 3 Eye Plants. 160 experience points have been gained. _____ ¡°There¡¯s another strong angel that¡¯s coming this way. You need to get going.¡± ¡°Ohh.¡± I floated in one direction of the cave, and I was shocked to see the centipede tapping behind me. I didn¡¯t mind it too much. I saw a part of the cave where there was a large whole in the ground. I realized that it was another cave entrance, one made for smaller creatures. Thanks to my floating ability I could descend without an issue. The feet on the centipede''s legs had no problem sticking to the wall. The hole opened up larger. I realized that there wasn¡¯t any glow vine here which suggested that it must be new. The centipede rushed faster than me. I dropped the psychic hold on myself and free falled downwards to catch up. We¡¯d traveled almost four hundred meters in complete silence when I heard some bug screaming. It was a lightbug which shrieked like nothing else. I looked at it to see it in the middle of being eaten by a large spider. The spiders many eyes jerked, and I didn¡¯t need any more motivation to fall even faster. Even without time motivation I rushed like my life depended on it. The centipede seemed to have similar thoughts. I lost the spider rather quickly as the tunnel continued downwards. After I couldn¡¯t hear the spider or the bug anymore, I relaxed. I had thirty seconds on me but I only had to travel about thirty meters extra. The exhaustion from using my physic power so much began to impact my consciousness rather severely. It felt like sleep would overtake me any second. My speed slowed down dramatically. I heard a voice then. It was a familiar voice that echoed power. ¡°Hello Imp,¡± the first devil said. ¡°You thought it wise to kill an angel?¡± ¡°They would have reported m¡­¡± My left eyeball blew up into blood. ¡°Do not speak back to me. This will not happen again.¡± Resigned, I flew forward without another saying. I had disappointed the devil. That is not something. At that moment I flew into a web. It was sticky, and no matter how much I pushed I couldn¡¯t get loose. I was firmly stuck and panic came to flood my mind. The last thing I wanted to do was pass out so I stopped using my psychic powers too. I just had to hope and pray that the spider didn¡¯t come back until I figured this out. However, that prayer wasn¡¯t answered. I saw the red eyes slowly grow larger in the darkness. Furthermore, when I looked at the quest bar I realized that I¡¯d made a terrible mistake. I was so close to completing it, yet so far away. _____ Urgent Quest Due to killing a minor angel, in three minutes, a major angel will arrive. You must travel at least 500 meters away from the current location. Otherwise certain death will follow. Failure will lead to death. Success will lead to forced evolution. Time remaining 00:00:29 Distance traveled from angel corpse 499/500 meters. _____ The centipede seemed luckier. It had also gotten caught in the web, but much deeper into the webbing. It was far enough that it would have completed the quest. It would also be the second meal this spider would have. I tried to use my physic powers to push the spider away but it didn¡¯t seem effective at all. Instead it felt like I¡¯d just blown air at the spider. It inched closer to me. Those eyes which signaled a hideous face growing ever so closer. I felt terrible about it. At that moment something struck me. I¡¯d been in the very same scenario. An enemy having me caught, and with no other path out. I¡¯d won then by my blood turning a flame. I wondered if I could do the same. I pointed the eyeball which exploded towards the spider and willed the blood inside of me to spray out towards the spider. It landed on the spider, and I heard the spider shriek for a moment and then stop when it realized that nothing happened. Come on, I thought, do your thing. Finally. All my blood turned aflame. The spider screeched. I passed out. *** ¡°You burned yourself to kill the spider. Hahaha, that¡¯s pretty gnarly.¡± ¡°I still don¡¯t understand. How does my blood start burning and what connection does it have to my soul?¡± ¡°Your blood burning is the reaction of your soul leaving your body. It¡¯s always fatal, but due to the system you¡¯re able to cheat it. However, if you do it another time you won¡¯t have a soul left, which means you will never be able to cast magic.¡± ¡°What? Haven¡¯t I been doing magic all this time?¡± ¡°No you¡¯ve misunderstood the skill Primal Adaptation. It makes your body grow, giving you new abilities. It is possible to cast telekinesis through magic, but it is also possible to do it through your body. ¡° ¡°Huh. Mind telling me why you are so notorious.¡± ¡°It¡¯s nothing special really. People say I was the first devil but that¡¯s not the truth either. I¡¯m neither of those things. It¡¯s simple. At the exit to hell of the cave system, the heaven has placed a creature that is specifically made to kill demons. It has numerous immunities to demon related skills. It posed no problem to me however.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°If somebody has an immunity. You¡¯ve just got to break through it.¡± ¡°What the hell? You¡¯ve never experienced being weaker than something have you?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°That¡¯s disturbing to think about to be completely honest.¡± ¡°I never found it disturbing.¡± ¡°I¡¯d like to wake up now.¡± ¡°It¡¯s done.¡± *** _____ Quest completed. Reward: Forced evolution will begin. . _____ I saw my body hurt, and shift, and change. Two spikes with wires connected to them, these wires weren¡¯t like the ones connected to my eyes which were weak, but instead durable almost like bone, whilst the spikes looked to be made out of steel. Something shifted in my brain. I don¡¯t know what it was except that it felt bigger now. I also realized that my eyes had gained a faint glew which illuminated the darkness. Apart from that I didn¡¯t see a difference, so I opened up my system. _____ Stat Page Current Species: Kimp Active Title: Blind Sheep Total Power Level: 0 Level = 13 Level Up = 0/20 Xp Unallocated stat points: 10 Strength: 1 Agility: 1 Intellect: 10 Magical Aptitude: 0 Stamina 3: Toughness: 1 Vitality: 2 Skills: Primal Adaptation, Average Telekinesis _____ I noticed immediately that my species had changed from imp to Kimp and I wondered what that entailed. Furthemore I saw that my experience bar had gone down from 80 to 10. I also saw that my telekinesis had gone up one, which was a huge gain. Perhaps now I could squeeze creatures to death. I had 10 points I could put into anything. I figured that I needed to round my stats out more. If I put more into intelligence I could use telekinesis more, but it would also not be beneficial if I got stuck in the web again. Also, I wanted to be strong like the devil was. I needed to be feared on all statuses. So I put all my points into toughness. This way if I got caught again at least I¡¯d have some more time to figure things out. Also with my new spikes, I figured making them tougher would make them deadlier. They were pretty cool and I really wanted to shove them into people. It seemed that their wires were very long which meant that they could be used for combat, but I couldn¡¯t have them breaking if I shot them to pierce something. _____ These changes will be permanent. Toughness 1 ===> 11 Confirm/Deny _____ The pain. Ohh the pain. It was a pain only a devil could dish out. I screamed like mad. It felt like my entire body had been submerged into molten lava. It convinced me that the primal devil had created this system, because it was the type of pain only a primal devil could issue. I would have to make sure never to put ten points at once again. Instead I¡¯d take my time. I¡¯d wait. I never wanted to expe rience pain like this ever again. I saw a definitive change on the wires, and the eyes, and the spikes which were new. They had changed material completely. They were something new. They were darker, and looked scary and dangerous. I sent a signal to go upwards, and I found myself flying upwards with a speed that made the air blow. I stopped myself and found that my telekinesis really had grown stronger. I fell down again. Using the light provided from the spikes I found the caterpillar. ¡°Can you help me?¡± It said. I had an important decision to make there. Help this caterpillar and gain a new friend throughout the cave system, or do not help the caterpillar but instead kill it, and continue alone. I¡¯d just evolved and I was much stronger than it, but I figured having a pet might not be so bad. My spikes drove into the web. It was a bit clingy but after rubbing them against the net a bit, the net broke. The caterpillar tumbled to get caught in more nets. I cut them open and it tumbled into more nets. I realized that this would take forever so I found a way to solve it. I wanted to try it. I used all of my psychic powers on the caterpillar. The spiderweb stretched as he traveled further down. The spider web stretched more and more, and more and more, and then it snapped. I heard a screech and then I saw a pair of sixteen eyes in the darkness. It seems this was the real owner of the spider web. Chapter 4 - The Kimp, The Imp, and The Chimp I saw light about twenty meters away. The hole I traveled through ended in a large circle. Through the circle were yellow and green colors. I heard leaves rustle loudly against the variad of different monster and creature sounds. The cave worried me. It became smaller, and smaller, the walls pushing in against each other and forming a smaller circle. I wondered if I could fit through the hole. The opening stretched about one meter across, but it was rapidly closing. It could be a sign that the rest of the cave was closing. Damn it. The centipede rushed towards the exit, and I found myself dropping full control of myself, and letting gravity take over and pull me downwards. The hole retained the same size despite me getting closer to it. I passed it, the edges brushing up against my few strands of hair. It closed the moment I¡¯d left. Lucky me. Any later and I¡¯d be dead. Brains and bone and skin splashed into a mess on the wall, I wonder if walls ate. That would certainly be how. It would mean that they were alive. They needed to poop. Maybe that¡¯s how monsters are created. I grabbed control of my body and looked around. Plants of different sizes and shapes filled every direction. They were mainly the colors green and blue, but occasionally a bit of red crept in too. Some of the plants were tall enough to touch the sky, with large brown stems supporting them. The forest continued as far as I could see, which was about two hundred meters. I imagine evolution must have worsened my sight. It felt bad to have one of the few organs left on my body worsened. I was a floating head with two disconnected eyes. Of course, now only one. And I had two spikes which I could thrust at people. I was also exceptionally tough yet despite all of this, many different creatures could grab me and lock me up. I wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything then. The caterpillar had fallen to the ground, landing with a whack. Its body bended to look like a ¡°C¡± at the collision but then it straightened out, and ran around in a circle. I hadn¡¯t thought about it, but it couldn¡¯t look upwards. I floated down to the ground. A tingly sensation spread over my body. Only now did it strike me how far up in the air I was. It was a first for me. All my life I¡¯d been down on the ground, that was simply how imps operated. ¡°What¡¯s ya name bastard?¡± I said to the caterpillar. ¡°If we¡¯re sticking together I better know your name.¡± ¡°Alfred. What¡¯s yours?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have a name. Imps don¡¯t get names.¡± ¡°Then I¡¯ll call you Head, because you¡¯re a head.¡± ¡°That¡¯s genius of you.¡± ¡°Ahh! My head is hurting from all that straining.¡± I chuckled. I didn¡¯t know caterpillars could be funny. I never had the chance to talk to one in hell. Those ones were huge. If I¡¯d so much as hear rumors of a caterpillar heading out of the way, I¡¯d flee. It would never hunt me of course, but one of its many feet was enough to press me flat. And it would do so accidentally. I noticed on the floor an ant staring at me. The ant was barely the size of a little finger, nothing like the other ant that had attacked me. Yet something in me didn¡¯t like the way it looked at me. It¡¯s looking down at you, I heard a voice said. It thinks you¡¯re pathetic. It thinks it could take you in a fight. It¡¯s going to run to its friends and tell them all what a coward you are. It thinks you¡¯re pitiful. It¡¯s right. Before my thoughts shut up, the ant¡¯s neck snapped. Its body fell down onto the floor. No sound came. For a moment, my focus lost track of the ant. It blurred into the brown ground littered with tiny pebbles barely the size of a chopped off fingernail. I wasn¡¯t weak anymore. A thought I repeated over and over in my head. It wouldn¡¯t stick. If the thought was oil, my mind was water. But I knew I was powerful. I had evolved. I crushed everything in my path. Nothing could stand in front of me. The trees were tall and thick but I could float above them. I wanted to prove it. My eyes scanned the area for a creature. The strongest creature. The one the others feared and avoided. In the distance I saw a giant almost six meters tall carrying a boulder of stone heavy enough to make it bend its spine. It heaved loudly as it stepped, its feets sinking deep into the brown material. The brown material was soft like skin, wet like the tongue and consisted of many smaller parts like pebbles. Small blue strands covered it. But it didn¡¯t have the aura of a ruler. The devil carried himself in a certain way that made it clear he was above everybody. I needed somebody who seemed careless, yet screamed danger and threat. My eyes landed on a small chimpanzee on the branches just as I had the thoughts. It snored loudly, and its arms were pushed far to the side. Its skin was red. I don¡¯t know why, but my sight wouldn¡¯t leave the chimp, as if there was something my instincts were trying to tell me. I floated over to the chimp. A large drop of snot hung on its nose. Its fur was a mix of fire red and grape purple. There were splotches of black on its stomach. A bit of electricity crackled silently and subtly over its fists. It pushed outwards and inwards as the chimp breathed. Different thoughts of what made it so special flooded my mind but one stuck. I slept so peacefully. It was the type of peace a baby who had never been submerged to the dangers of the world sleeped with. The devil liked to be the one to ruin that innocence. Sometimes he brought in a baby only to wake it up with his most despicable face. It was a bit of a hobby he had. His cruelty is truly something to aspire to, I thought. It wasn¡¯t just the cruelty. It was the capacity to be capable of such cruelty. I mean, it¡¯s always struck me as something to be proud of to have complete and total control over your heart. I¡¯ve always felt bad at treating humans poorly. I think everyone does, but its still doing it that makes you a real fiend. And that¡¯s what I want to be. It was my turn to ruin that innocence. At ones I put all the psychic energy in me towards one goal. Twisting his neck. I imagined it and I pressed reality for it. His chin would spin to the left, further than it could ever possibly hope to achieve and he¡¯d die. Nothing happened. I felt the exhaustion radiate throughout my body. I tried again, and this time I got a response. Slowly the chimp¡¯s hand rose up towards his head. It approached the forehead, then went past it, and scratched the tip of his skull before falling down again. I snapped his neck in my mind over and over but it didn¡¯t budge the slightest. Alfred, the caterpillar, decided to come over. He wanted to find out what I was doing. He saw the chimp on the branch, and went to bite him. His mandibles wrapped around his neck, just like the ant had against my neck. He bit down, as hard as he could. His eyes widened, and his mandibles opened, before shutting again. I heard the last noise I expected. Ouch. ¡°What the hell is wrong with this guy?¡± Alfred said. ¡°A lot. The whole of heaven is wrong with him.¡± ¡°Shut it,¡± the imp said with such dominance that I felt compelled to sleep. His right eyelid slid up just a sliver, enough to see his pupils, which were slits, staring right at me. ¡°Another noise and you¡¯re both dead.¡± Sweat coated my entire head, and after a few seconds began dripping off my neck onto the ground floor. Alfred looked at me, probably confused. Can ants even feel stress, or bloodlust for that matter? If no, lucky them. At once, every part of my head strained. The pain was awful, like a nail slowly crawled through every part of my brain at once. The physic wave I sent towards was powerful enough for reality to bend just slightly. He¡¯d die here because I was strong. The attack hit him. He sneezed. Heat that scratched and hurt and ached, flooded my head. It had to die now. My pride as an imp forced me. What am I saying. I¡¯m worthless. My consciousness went white as I gripped the spikes with everything I had and shoved them into the chimp. The chimp didn¡¯t open its eyes. Its left hand flashed an arc in front of its face, and suddenly both my spikes were in its palm, and it was clenching hard. What the hell? It wasn¡¯t even looking at me. Look at me! If you respect your enemy in a fight you look at them. Everyone knew this. The chimp probably also knew it. This was a clear offense. It wasn¡¯t just not looking at me. It was purposefully not looking at me. ¡°I¡¯ll slaughter you!¡± I screamed at the top of my lungs. Its arm shot to the right. The air shrieked. My head spun. I found myself flying a far distance, the world passing around me in a blur, until my head slammed into the moss of a tree. I didn¡¯t pass out but the world spun as if my head rolled down a hill. The many different noises that filled my ears morphed into each other. The I¡¯s and E¡¯s and U¡¯s blended together and the pitch raised and lowered, alongside the volume which in moments was really loud, and otherwise silent.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. I¡¯ll kill you. I heard the voice without even thinking about it. My soul was just as harsh at me, as people who disrespected me. It didn¡¯t make much sense. Did it hate me or like me? Or maybe I¡¯m just realistic and think you¡¯re trash. I saw a black figure that bended towards my way. It held a human skull attached to a metal chain in its right hand. A crazed smile spread across its face. The top of its head was the head of a bull skull. Two large brown horns sticking out. ¡°Get this through your head,¡± the figure said, ¡°The only person who¡¯s killing Jeffrey is me. You¡¯ve been warned.¡± The figure walked away towards the bushes and I couldn¡¯t see it anymore. My headache. What type of strange world had I fallen into now. They had rules here just like in hell. Actually, now that I think about it, the terrain here was unique unlike the rest of the cave. There was certainly something off about this area. His warning didn¡¯t matter to me though. I¡¯d be the one to kill Jeffrey or that little chimp. I¡¯d have to train first though and become much stronger than I already was. The chimp had beaten me without so much as a sweat. After a while, I floated up and looked around. I could only see the strange tall plants and nothing else. The chimp must have flung me far. I¡¯d have no chance of finding Alfred, but that¡¯s the best. If he was going to stick with me he¡¯d also have to get stronger. My goal was simple then. Me and Alfred would meet up in some time, but until then we¡¯d have to grow much stronger. He won¡¯t recognize me the next time he sees me. No. I¡¯ll be a completely different beast. One that puts that little chimp to shame. That meant killing many different monsters in the forest. I didn¡¯t wait, but flew up. The air brushed against my cheeks as my eyes scanned all over the ground. My ears were attuned for any noise too. If I heard anything, or sensed anything I would attack immediately. _____ Urgent Quest Blood lust aimed at you has been detected. Escape or kill its source. Failure will lead to death. Success will lead to 500 XP. _____ It seeemed something else found me first. The ¡°500¡± said this creature was much more powerful than the ant that had attacked me. Then it had only 50 experience points. I looked to the left and right at the same time. Nothing. I felt safe for a sliver of a moment, but I remembered that all angels had not been covered. My eyes stared upwards, and there, sticking against the roof of the wall, was a squid which was falling quickly towards me. An instinctual urge attacked me. I handed over the control of my body. The sense of my brain controlling my floating jerked to the right with a speed I hadn¡¯t previously thought possible. It was different from my other movements. Despite the high speed, I didn¡¯t get exhausted. The squid splashed on the floor. The tentacles spread as wide as possible. The ground sizzled from the acid produced by the squids mucus. The last thing I wanted were those tentacles on my head. With my physic powers, I pressed down on the squid but like with the imp, it wasn¡¯t effective at all. Why wasn¡¯t it as effective? It was a question I¡¯d have to save for later. Fortunately I had another weapon. I sent a spike shooting straight for the squid. It pierced its head and blood oozed out. The squid cried out in pain and one of its tentacles reached out for me like the tongue of a toad. I just barely dodged it. A part of the tentacle grazed my cheek burning me like hell. The pain sharpened my focus. I could not die. Not to this squid. _____ Urgent Quest Blood lust aimed at you has been detected. Escape or kill its source. Failure will lead to death. Success will lead to 5000 XP. _____ It wasn¡¯t that the window flashed again, but rather that an almost identical copy showed itself. Instinctively my one remaining eye pointed upwards. I saw a squid at least three times the size of the one on the ground falling towards me. I rushed towards one side, and I would have gotten away but its tentacles wrapped around me, and pulled me in. Thank me so much for spending those extra points on toughness. My skin barely sizzled unlike the ground. However, I could see the acid eating up on the slimy substance defending my eyes. I had to get away. I kicked and pushed. The tentacles bent but held me tight. The squid seemed furious. The smaller squid laid in a puddle of its blood now, but the bleeding had slowed down a bit now, whether that be due to a lack of blood or a lack of injury I don¡¯t know. With one especially powerful jerk, I kicked myself up and away from the squid. I floated high up in the air, to give me ample time to avoid its tentacles which it shot out rapidly like a frogs tongue. These were dangerous. A single hit would kill me. My mind was blank. I hadn¡¯t thought of it but this was fun. I was invested in the fight like nothing else, because at this very moment, nothing mattered, it was simply me against momma squid, and I was planning on winning. I sent out my spikes. They pierced the head multiple times, and blood gushed out, but unlike the little squid those wounds healed very quickly. It didn¡¯t stop the squid from squeaking out in pain each time, and that powered me further. Die damn you. Die. I sound completely insane. I am completely insane, I agreed with my inner thoughts. I was concentrating on nothing else but winning. The humiliation the chimp had put me through still tainted me. About ten spike shots later, the squid''s arms failed to gain the strength required to reach me. It was easy pickings from there on. The smaller squid crawled onto his mothers arm to support her, but it wouldn''t do anything. _____ Urgent Quest Blood lust aimed at you has been detected. Escape or kill its source. Failure will lead to death. Success will lead to 6000 XP. _____ Fuck. Me. I looked up to see the largest squid yet falling. The feeling from the first time took over me except for one vital difference, the previous time it had felt like a flash of luck but now it was skill. Instead of trying to doge the squid I sent some sort of blast out of my body. It was like a part of me leaving myself. A sharp pain stabbed my eye, making it unstable and fizzy for a brief moment, and then when my sight opened up again, I saw that the squid was splattered against the cieling. Only one small problem. I was falling down towards the ground. My psychic energy had depleted completely, and my head bounced against the dirt floor. No matter how much I pushed for it to come back and work, nothing happened. Slowly I saw bits of the squid''s body unstick from the ceiling. When its entire body had unsticked it would fall down right at me, and kill me. And, there another one of its tentacles went unstuck. I needed to do something now. Otherwise I¡¯d die. Fortunately for me, it seemed that my luck hadn¡¯t stopped just yet, because just then, the little died, giving me 500 experience points. _____ Quest completed. Reward: 500 experience. _____ I leveled up six times, and I brought up my status almost immediately. I needed to spend my six points on something that could get me out of this scenario. _____ Stat Page Current Species: Kimp Active Title: Blind Sheep Total Power Level: 79 Level = 19 Level Up = 60/320 Xp Unallocated stat points: 6 Strength: 1 Agility: 1 Intellect: 10 Magical Aptitude: 0 Stamina 3: Toughness: 11 Vitality: 2 Skills: Primal Adaptation, Average Telekinesis _____ I needed to think about this. Intellect wouldn¡¯t work as that only helped for magic, and I¡¯d already been explained to that this wasn¡¯t magic, but something else. Increasing Magical aptitude had allowed me to unlock this. If I increase my stamina, perhaps I¡¯d gain more energy to throw around. It¡¯s either that or putting everything onto vitality and hoping I survive long enough for my energy to regenerate. Yup, stamina is the way to go, I thought. _____ These changes will be permanent. Stamina 3 ===> 9 Confirm/Deny _____ I clicked confirm, and for a few moments, I felt like the lung had been pulled out of my lungs, which I didn¡¯t have. I choked, and black dots swam in my vision. It made the squid blurry, who had gotten three tentacles loose. For two minutes I felt completely useless. The squid hung off the roof and one of its tentacles was still stuck. It had been slightly shaking that one limb for the last minute, trying to drop down on me. A bit of its drool dripped on my forehead, burning. Then, it dropped. I didn¡¯t care if my body wasn¡¯t prepared. I pulled energy from my body. I¡¯d tripled my stamina, it must be there. But it wasn¡¯t there at all, and what I¡¯d feared was true. Increasing stamina didn¡¯t lead to me getting free stamina, it simply meant that regenerating and keeping stamina would be different. No, I couldn''t accept this. This was complete bullshit! The squid traveled down lower towards me. I swear I could see a smile on its face and I hated it. I needed energy. My body would give me energy, even if it broke. I pulled from an empty well, and when that didn¡¯t give anything, I pulled harder, and when that gave nothing, I ripped the well out of me. In the end something happened and it saved my life. _____ Alert! Primal Adaptation has been activated! The skill Magical Companion has been gained. _____ Chapter 5 - A talk with the devil A white circle edged by mist floating slowly outwards, formed on the skin above my heart. Fire roared out of the hole. A small red bird exited the hole and without me having to say anything, its talons grabbed me and it slowly flew away from the spot. A few seconds after a large squid landed on the spot, releasing a loud squishy noise. Its head twisted round, and the eight black eyes lining its head stared at me. I knew what was next. Three tentacles shot out towards me. Before I had the chance to scream, I felt myself drop a bit. The bird shifted courses just enough to dodge the tentacles. It had never looked back, keeping its sharp eyes pointed forward. A strange sensation swept over me which made me reflect over my scenario. I was a head with strange skin, two spikes hanging off wires, and only one eye, which hung downwards desperately pointing at the squid, carried by a small burning red that¡¯s flight was jagged and erratic, dodging the occasional purple tentacles which shot through the air. I couldn¡¯t believe it. But why? I deserved this, I was destined for this. I knew it all along. A part of me that would never be silent. This was my path to greatness, and at that moment the realization struck all over me. The tentacle hit the bird. The flames on the spot it had been hit dimmed, and I saw a bit of ooze drip spread to other spots. The bird dropped down quickly, and my eyes jumped up a bit higher, shaking my vision. Maybe that¡¯s why we got hit again. The tentacle came from above, slamming us down into the ground, but there was no use anymore. It was only me, and I laid down on the ground with my head spinning. Goodbye sweet world. I knew it all along. I wasn¡¯t destined for anything larger. I was just a mere imp, and I¡¯d die now. Thinking anything else was simply silliness. A well of emotions flooded over me. Ever since my childhood, I¡¯ve never cried. But, I couldn¡¯t stop my eyes from watering up, and tears from running down my cheeks. I was happy nobody else was here to see this. I¡¯m so pathetic, a voice in my head said. The tentacle never came. At one point I was almost urging it to come. My life was completely frozen, awaiting that last breath, but the breaths just continued to come. Eventually two windows popped up which shocked me, and made me jerk my eyes up to look. _____ Quest completed. Reward: 5000 experience. _____ _____ Quest completed. Reward: 6000 experience. _____ I don¡¯t know how I¡¯d missed it, but the place screamed of every different type of noise. A huge fight broke out between many different types of creatures. I stared in amazement. Of course. How had I not thought of this? The sounds, the smells, the sights, everything about the fight attracted more predators. Currently a large bird wrestled with the father squid. The bird must be really stupid to opt for such a strategy. The mother squid laid dead, a large panther biting into it, and staring fiercely at the two large toads wanting to get a piece. Many more windows popped up, all of them detailing my leveling up, but one of them was red unlike the many blue ones. My sight jerked to it, and my will to survive which had been slowly whittled away during the fight, sprung back. _____ Urgent Quest Blood lust aimed at you has been detected. Escape or kill its source. Failure will lead to death. Success will lead to 10 000 XP. _____ 10 000 xp. That was the largest number yet, and it definitely meant trouble. The father squid was only six thousand experience and this was almost double that. This was a real danger, and I didn¡¯t know where it was. Before I had a chance to look upwards, a voice pierced through the havoc. ¡°H-hhh-e-llhhoo,¡± it said slowly with a voice screaming deciet. It had a dark tone and a slow way of speaking, and my sight immediately jerked to the source to find whatever it was. I found two slitted eyes about two meters away, and a black small ¡°Y¡± shaped tongue exiting and entering its mouth. I floated up into the air. ¡°Sss-o it can f-hh-lly¡± Its eyes didn¡¯t leave me for a moment. The slitted pupils followed me at precisely the same speed. I knew this creature had no good intentions for me but I was afraid to make any sudden movements. Maybe doing so would trigger it to attack. Instead I floated backwards slowly, and somehow, I knew it had noticed that movement. It stood completely still so it wasn¡¯t its body movement. I guess there was something about its eyes that told me it knew, yet it stood completely still. ¡°There¡¯s a lot of food to the side,¡± I said, without looking at the location I spoke of. The other creatures I¡¯d attacked, but doing so with this one would result in death for me. I was certain of it. The difference between us was huge. ¡°Sss-o it is, but I¡¯m intere-ssted in you,¡± it slowly crawled forward. We both knew where this was coming. I slowly floated up towards the sky, to get more distance from the ground. It would strike, and I¡¯d fly to the sky where it couldn¡¯t reach me. ¡°Why?¡± I said, and it rang truer than it should have. It smiled. I¡¯ve never seen a snake smile before, and I never want to see that again. Its jaw opened up as wide as possible, where only two teeth showed, and they were both longer then my entire head. ¡°Becau-sss-e you look ta-sss-ty.¡± It lunged. My body reacted on its own, flying upwards, but I remembered to bring my eyes up alongside my head. The snake¡¯s mouth shut right in front of the eyes, as I pulled them up and away. I floated up higher, and I was about to take a sigh of relief when I saw the snake slithering into the air towards me. It could fly. The feeling of anxiety, fear, and shock splashed around inside my body. My eyes looked away, fidgeted, widened at the same moment. The snake slithered closer, about one meter away. I pushed on my psychic energy harder to increase the speed. The snake chased me like that across many different trees, and only after about a whole minute of mental screaming did I relax. It seemed like the snake was slithering at its quickest pace. I was certainly floating away as quickly as I could. My consciousness began to blur. I needed a plan before everything went to shit. In three seconds at least fifty different strands of thoughts had been worked through and discarded. Intuitively of course. The plan was simple. I¡¯d drop down to the ground with the help of gravity, surprising the snake with my speed, and then when I passed through leaves, I¡¯d activate the physic powers again and jerk away. I let the snake get closer to the point where it could bite, and as I floated forward, my eye had turned a full 180 degrees to keep a sharp eye on the snake. The second it began to stretch its mouth, I¡¯d drop down to the ground. My consciousness began to bend, and I knew I was approaching the danger zone. If I kept pushing I¡¯d pass out and in a scenario like this it almost certainly meant me getting killed. I slowed down even further. The snake took the bait. its jaw opened wide, and with a spring in, it jerked forward, shutting down its mouth but finding nothing but air. I can imagine it¡¯s confusion in that moment, I¡¯d already crashed through the leaves. I¡¯d hoped to catch myself before I hit the ground but that failed. My head bounced against the ground. It had been bouncing quite a lot lately, I hope my brain wasn¡¯t getting impacted by such collisions. The world spun around in front of me. I wondered if this was what creatures saw when the devil made their head explode, or was it more like a silent death with no forewarning. Just one second they are there, and the next their brain matter is splattered in many small pieces over a large distance. I didn¡¯t have time to waste. My head rose up into the air as I used my psychic powers to swerve slightly up. A plant¡¯s brown stem almost collided with me, instead I slammed through a bush which is a much more favorable fate. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. I hadn¡¯t thought of a few things. In my mind, I fell down, sped away behind a bush, and that was that simple. But there wasn¡¯t a bush big enough to safely hide me, and I also didn¡¯t want to stay in this location. Two gigantic monsters were slugging it out almost five meters away to the right of me, and a simple misstep would crush me. I heard the slithering behind me, above the leaves and to my left there was simply a large boulder, so I had to go forward. I pushed myself. It was the last chance I had, and I found a cave opening there. I entered the cave, hoping desperately that it was empty, and it seemed so. I almost started laughing but I didn¡¯t want to make any noise in case the snake was on my trail. My vision bended. My head screamed and ached, and I stopped using my physic then and there . I tried summoning the magic firebird as defense, but it didn¡¯t come. I wondered if I''d only had one life and I¡¯d already used that up. That wouldn¡¯t be fun at all for me. A whole skill wasted like that. As I looked around the cave I realized that it was rather unstable. Cracks covered the walls and the ceiling and a slight push would be more than enough to make the entire thing come vaulting down. But that wasn¡¯t a problem, because the few hours would be silent. Nothing but silence. I hope so. I guess it really is a silly hope. Nothing in this world goes as planned. In a few moments I¡¯ll realize that the cave wasn¡¯t empty, or that the snake found me, or both. None of those cases ran true. Instead an even worse scenario presented itself. Jeffrey, the goddamn chimp, came strolling through the entrance, and stared at me in complete and utter rage, when he saw me. ¡°I¡¯m killing you,¡± he said. He didn¡¯t put any energy into it, and he walked towards me so casually I could have thought he was joking. But a window popped up, that told me otherwise. I swallowed. _____ Urgent Quest Blood lust aimed at you has been detected. Escape or kill its source. Failure will lead to death. In case of killing, success will lead to 50 000 XP. In case of escaping, success will lead to 8 000 XP. _____ 50 000 experience. That was an insane number. No wonder my psychic powers had no effect on Jeffrey. He was a real beast. I had to escape, but I knew for a fact that I couldn¡¯t run through him. I could use my psychic powers for about one minute before passing out but I¡¯d get crushed in an extended fight. Fighting him at all was a loss for me. I had an idea though. If I used my psychic powers at once, really pushed myself, directly at the ceiling, I think I might make the cave fall down. It won¡¯t be enough to kill Jeffrey or me due to my high toughness but it would give me an escape. It was my only hope. ¡°Jeffrey,¡± I said. ¡°I said I¡¯d kill you and I meant it. Just not today.¡± I wasted the rest of my physic power on the ceiling. Blood poured out of my eyeball, and out of the one which had exploded. I even spat out some blood. I felt my consciousness fall into blackness, but I kept myself to see the ceiling fall down. Jeffrey snicked, and turned around. ¡°I¡¯m not getting dirty today.¡± The ceiling fell down when he exited the roof. I heard the rocks rumbling loudly next to me, and around me, one even landing on me. The sudden mayhem was all I saw as the world light slowly disappeared from sight, and I was left in darkness. I passed out. *** ¡°You made the cave collapse on yourself. You¡¯re 90% brain yet somehow you manage to be stupid,¡± the primal devil sat behind a table sipping on a cup of wine. I was quite sure that a glass was used for wine but I wouldn¡¯t correct him. ¡°What else was I supposed to do?¡± ¡°You could kill him.¡± ¡°Can I really?¡± ¡°You¡¯re barely scratching the surface with what you can use your telekinesis for. If it were a sword you¡¯d be using the blunt side. Actually. I don¡¯t have anything better to do here. The wine¡¯s garbage and the entertainment is dull,¡± as he said it the table and the cup of wine disappeared. Was he talking about the table as entertainment? I nodded approvingly without understanding or getting or agreeing with what he said. If the primal devil said it then it must be true. The next thing I knew we were standing on a field of small green blades sticking out of the dirt, with the dot of pain in the sky. It didn¡¯t hurt this time. ¡°Look at this tree,¡± he pointed at the plant standing tall, the tree. ¡°I want you to cut it in half with your psychic ability.¡± A stone materialized and he sat down on it. It creeped me out a bit how much control he had. We were quite literally inside of me. I should also be able to control something. Matter of fact let me try. I strained my hands, trying to make a succubus appear, but nothing came out of it. Maybe one day. ¡°Go on, then try to cut the tree in half.¡± I used the psychic ability, but unlike before, there was absolutely no strain on my head. I tried going full force just to see how it would be like having an unlimited supply, but it stopped after a while. There wasn¡¯t a strain, but a limit to the amount of psychic energy I could output. I pushed it up against the tree, but nothing happened. ¡°What should I do?¡± ¡°Keep pushing it up against the tree until something happens.¡± That¡¯s what I did. I brought the psychic energy back to my body before shooting it back into the tree. I¡¯d make the tree shake, and drop a few leaves, but nothing more than that. I knew I was doing something wrong. I felt it both from the primal devil¡¯s stare, but also his gut. ¡°Hey, can I ask you a question?¡± I asked. ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°How strong were you at your peak?¡± ¡°At my peak¡­ That was some time ago. Maybe I could kill a god or two, nothing special. I have a question for you too. From one to ten, how strong are you?¡± One, the void in my head said. Truthfully, I wasn¡¯t anywhere near as strong as I wanted to be. I needed to get stronger. One day I¡¯d stand side to side with the devil himself. Then everyone would know my name, and people would scoff when they heard I started off as an imp. Imagine that. Just the thought alone fills my head with satisfaction. ¡°One,¡± I sighed, and promptly after, I heard the tree make a noise. It was a loud, deep noise, and then I saw it topple over, and heard many branches break. I¡¯d cut through it as I said the word. ¡°That¡¯s what I mean.¡± ¡°How did I do that?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t tell you because then you¡¯d simply know and that¡¯s not enough. You need to be enlightened and you are the only person who can achieve that.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t take you for such a smartass.¡± I bit my tongue as I said the last word. I immediately regretted it. If I could take it back I would, but words didn¡¯t work that way. Once something was impossible to take back. And if that thing was an insult to one of the most powerful creatures to ever have lived, it isn¡¯t a very smart thing to do. His head leaned back and I fully expected it to come down spraying fire, but instead he broke into laughter. Sweet, care-free laughter, and I joined in after a while, happy to still have an intact head. The first devil would have killed my entire ancestry line for that. I wanted to continue the conversation, but I also didn¡¯t want to risk saying something stupid so I focused on training. Before I knew it, he¡¯d made a new tree. I sent out another burst of psychic energy, but I found that nothing happened. The result I was looking for wasn¡¯t there. I sent out another wave, one thick enough to be seen, but except for shaking the tree nothing happened. What was so special about the last one? I sent out at least twenty other bursts, all resulting in the same thing. The primal devil began whistling to pass the time. By the thirty first attempt I¡¯d had enough. I grunted in frustration, and I sent another attack. This one chopped through the tree so cleanly, I thought I was chopping a human leg. ¡°Finally!¡± I said and the devil snickered. ¡°Can you make another tree?¡± I realized then that it had worked both times when I was angry. So I tried that, each time I was casting a spell, I grunted really loudly, or screamed. After the seventh attempt I realized that wasn¡¯t it either. I entered a state of focus, one that created a headache even in this magical world. I wondered what it would do to me in real life. The headache was subtle, but grew stronger as I focused in on the psychic attack. I did it again, and the attack barely made the tree vibrate. Maybe I was doing it wrong, All the times when the psychic power worked exceptionally well, I¡¯d been under heavy duress. I was looking at it wrong all the time. I had to focus as little as possible. I sent out the attack again, this time I simply pictured the result as a back thought, and left it at that. A part of my brain beyond my control began working, and I saw the tree cut in half in my sight. I understand it now. I had to use my subconscious in the fights too. Clap, clap, clap. ¡°That took you some time. I¡¯m sending you back into reality now, you have two hours to get out of your situation.¡± Everything went black. *** I don¡¯t know when I woke up. Everything was black. It took a while to realize it was coldness that I felt against my cheek. I was waiting for everything to start. I wasn¡¯t prepared for it to start like this. I was blind. The falling ceiling must have crushed the other eye. It was a strange sensation to be blind. I still had the distinct feeling that my eyeballs scratched even though I knew they weren¡¯t there. I couldn¡¯t blink or move my pupils, despite this I still saw the little health bar in the corner. I focused on it until my stats rose up. I had leveled up quite a few times due too my encounters. 15 times to be precise, and I had fifteen stat points to spend, and an evolution to pick. Something about my talk with the primal devil had refreshed me. It felt as if my heart had run out of will, but now it was full again. I felt a motivation in myself to become great again. I would do it, and nobody would stand in my way. I was sure of it. A window suddenly flashed that sent me into a world of panic. _____ Urgent Quest Blood lust aimed at you has been detected. Escape or kill its source. Failure will lead to death. Success will lead to 2 000 XP. _____ Chapter 6 - Ouroboros I was blind, pressed tight by rocks in all directions, probably some twenty feet below the ground. And a window in my sight told me something aimed to kill me. It could be anything from an insect to a ghost to another snake. Anything could come out and kill me. I think fate doomed me into this spot. Making the cave ceiling crumble had been my only choice. Anything else would result in certain death, in a stupidly-strong chimp wrapping his palm around my head and crushing me. _____ Urgent Quest Blood lust aimed at you has been detected. Escape or kill its source. Failure will lead to death. Success will lead to 2 000 XP. _____ Before I did anything else I opened the system and slotted in the unassigned points I had. ___ Stat Page Current Species: Kimp Active Title: Blind Sheep Total Power Level: 79 Level = 25 Level Up = 80/72 000 Xp Unallocated stat points: 8 Strength: 1 Agility: 1 Intellect: 10 Magical Aptitude: 0 Stamina: 9 Toughness: 11 Vitality: 2 Skills: Primal Adaptation, Average Telekinesis _____ I contemplated the topic. Eight points were a lot. Each investment I¡¯d made had paid out a lot. The toughness investment radically changed my skin, and the magical aptitude allowed me magic. However, I need a stat which will help me against whatever enemy I can¡¯t see right now. If I could survive its strike, then I¡¯d know here to aim my psychic powers. I needed health, so I put everything into Vitality. I suffered. My body screamed as if flames enveloped every single cell on my body. The only thing convincing me it wasn¡¯t actually fire was the complete lack of heat, but instead the opposite, a cold, vigorous, breath of life forced itself into me. If I jumped into a fire made out of ice, I imagine I¡¯d feel the same but slightly better. Before I had a chance to regret my decision the pain stopped. I was left alone in the void once more. Silence. The pain disappeared in one gasp leaving me alone to the void. All I could do was wait for time to pass and for whatever creature that targeted me to attack. Anxiety slowly built up, tingling at the edges of my heart. Am I dead? The thought ambushed me, leaving me dazed. Perhaps it was a mix of the void, and the lack of signals which caused it. Death was probably like this. But I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d died now, but rather back when the devil sent me to the overworld. I couldn¡¯t believe I was the one to survive the experiment. The idea that some ancient bloodline just welled up within me out of nowhere was too good to be true. I was just an imp, nothing more than insect food in the world of hell. Yet I¡¯d been the one to survive it.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Could this all be a dream? Maybe I¡¯d died that moment, on the devil¡¯s floor, and my body was being licked by a human at this very moment. Maybe everything I¡¯ve gone through up until now has been my brain simulating what I¡¯d hoped to be my dream. Yeah, that made sense. I mean the idea that the primal devil would speak to me is just silly. Pain brought me out of that thought spiral, which took a nosedive for the worse. It was a sharp pain coming from the wire which connected to one of my spikes. I felt a bit of relief as panic flushed out of my system, and adrenaline replaced it. My first instinct was to jerk and move my eyes, but as I sent out the physic force, I heard only rocks tumbling. I realized that a faulty cast of my psychic powers might hit the rocks supporting this little space I was in, and it could result with me being crushed. I had to be careful. The pain continued to ache on the same spot, except it traveled upwards towards my head. I wondered if I was being eaten. What creature was this? It must be able to eat in such a small space. Could it be an insect perhaps? I sent out a cut, the same I¡¯d learned practicing against that tree, towards the pain, but it didn¡¯t seize. Instead I felt another pain, one coming from the other wire connected to the spike. I tried to attack again with my physic powers, it was all I could do, but it didn¡¯t work. I remember the time when I was a child. My father hit me a lot. I think it¡¯s because he was weak. It¡¯s only natural for imps, who are constantly abused because of their weakness, to want to do so onto other imps who are weaker then them. I was a prime target considering that I wouldn¡¯t strike him back because I cared for him. So he hit my blood day in and day out, and I lost all of my teeth by the time I was two years old. The only reason I¡¯m still alive is because my mother killed him. It wasn¡¯t an act done for me. I don¡¯t really know why she did it. I could guess many reasons. Perhaps a demon took control of her, or maybe she¡¯d grown tired of him, or maybe she just wanted to kill something stronger. That¡¯s an urge in imps too. Hitting on weaker was satisfying in some way, but beating somebody stronger tops that in every way imaginable. It¡¯s like comparing rotten meat to fresh meat. Of course, fresh meat took a lot more pain to get, and as an imp, most of the time it got you. I sent out another psychic attack towards the pain. It didn¡¯t stop. Either it was immune to psychic attacks or this wasn¡¯t an insect but something else entirely. I wondered about what it could be. If it wasn¡¯t an insect the options were limited. Not because they actually were but rather, I didn¡¯t know of any other options. But I guess that didn¡¯t matter. As long as I could kill it that didn¡¯t matter. My psychic attacks didn¡¯t work, and my summon wouldn¡¯t come back. I needed to use the other skills I had. Primal Adaptation had to be my saving grace. I had no other cards to play. I was still too weak. I¡¯d increased my vitality and my toughness, making my body increase in strength. It should be possible for me to do things that weren¡¯t possible before. Yes. Now I got it. I could direct the attacks onto myself. If I struggle to survive, then according to my own skill, my body should mutate making me stronger. Of course if this doesn¡¯t work, I¡¯d just die. It would be hard to rip into myself with telekinesis and then have nothing happen at the end of it. But it was a gamble, one that I was rather confident in, if only stupidly. Confidence was stupidities virtue. If you can¡¯t think of any reason things should go sour, and you can not think of any reasons why you might not be able to think of any reasons things can go sour, then you have to be confident. And that is called stupidity, or naive optimism, of which, I have too much. Turning the telekinesis onto myself was easy at first but it got progressively harder as the pain went up and the resistance too. It felt like trying to bend my finger in the wrong direction. Something inside of me was stopping me from cutting into myself. ¡® Until it cracked. I heard a loud pop noise, and all of a sudden, I could not use my telekinesis anymore. I looked at my health bar at the top right corner and it showed 25% remaining of my hp. But whatever it was that ate up my spike wires was still doing so. I needed another strategy. Otherwise I might die. After the spikes it would start eating into my head. That was more resilient then the spikes, but it would still not be good enough. I thought of another way to injure myself. My mouth. I hadn¡¯t used it for fights in quite some time, I almost forgot it existed. I bit into my tongue as the creature ate up my leg. As I bit into, and gnawed, my own tongue, I couldn¡¯t help but resent myself. I felt the resentment traveling through my body. I began eating my cheeks. it tasted like dry leather, and had the same consistency. I couldn¡¯t get a good bite on it. Blood flowed out. It felt warm, filling my entire mouth. Whatever it was eating me had gotten to my chin. I needed primal adaptation to work faster, so I ate myself faster. At one point it turned into a competition of who could eat me the fastest. I ate quickly, but it seemed that the creature eating me had caught up and also increased its speed. My own blood drowned me. The instinct to stop hurting myself beats harder than the instinct to beat the heart. Everything inside of me wanted to quit, but I preserved. When my health bar got to 5% something happened. _____ Alert! Primal Adaptation has been activated! The skill Ouroboros has been gained. _____ Without looking into what this strange skill did I used it. Chapter 7 - Cults Chap 7 1567 The strong and sudden urge to eat myself overtook me as I used the skill Ouroboros. I lost myself in the act which became more natural than breathing, to the point that I stopped breathing. A daze washed over me. I wasn¡¯t thinking about the passing of time, or noticing it, so it felt that time had stood still, but that didn¡¯t bother me. The taste of my own body wasn¡¯t an issue either. It was as if I¡¯d fallen asleep, and all of a sudden light pierced my vision. That shouldn¡¯t be possible. My eyes are ruined. I¡¯m blind, but then how can I see light? All this time the feeling of controlling my eyes had never left me, despite them quite literally having been blown or crushed to nothing. The just function like that. Creates shadow limbs. So telling my eyes to turn around and look at eachother wasn¡¯t particularly hard. And I saw my eyes staring into each other. I don''t know which eye was more shocked, my left eye or my right eye. I mean I don¡¯t even know which one was which. I just knew that whomever the eyes belonged to was shocked. I looked towards the source of the light to find a hole in the many boulders stacked onto each other. It was a space I could easily fit through. I also locked down towards my chin to see what was eating it. I found my spikes and the wires to my spikes completely whole, and almost as if they¡¯d been completely repaired. I looked up what the skill Ouroboros did. ______ Ouroboros - whilst eating yourself your healing turns to 1% of total hp each second. ______ I can¡¯t believe it. Just like that I¡¯d gained a healing skin. I found a few issues with it though. Firstly, I¡¯d have to eat myself which meant that my mouth would have to work. Secondly, it was completely useless against any attack that killed me instantly. Otherwise, it was a solid skill to have. I looked back at the mold. It must have come from one of the walls in the ceiling. Some sort of ancient evil I¡¯d unleashed on the world. I tried to fly up, and found that my telekinesis skill worked just fine again. It seemed that ouroborus had fixed that skill. I wonder if¡­ The white portal opened up on my chest, and the little flaming bird came out of it. It jumped across to another open space in between the rocks, and stood there staring at me. Fly up to the sky, I thought, and the little bird did so. The next fifteen minutes or so were spent in complete agony. Using the psychic ability I cut into the part of my skin infested by the mold. It resisted my efforts, digging itself deeper into my chin but when it realized that wouldn¡¯t work it tried fleeing to my wires, which were succinctly cut off. I saw it morph into the stone, as I chewed on my cheek. I smiled but then I remembered that I had to get away from here as quickly as possible. It ate my health very slowly, but I feel that if I hadn¡¯t spent those points into vitality it would move through me just as easily as it did with the stone. _____ Quest completed. Reward: 2000 experience. _____ With my psychic ability I flew up out of the debris and into the jungle. The bird had flown and rested on my head when this happened. Damn bird, use your wings! I floated out of the debris, and landed on top of a boulder. I looked out at the forest with hope. It felt refreshing and new. I relished the moment, letting it stay as long as possible. I could do it, I could be somebody. ¡°I can¡¯t believe you¡¯re still alive,¡± I heard a voice I had not heard in a long time. It belonged the the first devil. ¡°Very well, I have a new task for you.¡± ¡°What task?¡± ¡°You will start a cult under my name, and you will unify the entire dungeon. You will start by taking over that zone you are in.¡± Before I had a chance to say anything else, his presence was gone and I was left alone once more. I took a deep breath. This was insane. Just arriving at hell was already an impossible task, but to unify the entirety of the dungeon whilst I¡¯m at it? That¡¯s beyond crazy, there¡¯s no way I¡¯ll be able to do that. I should have told him. No, I can''t do that. It¡¯ll take me forever. I¡¯m too weak. Or look at how powerful you are, why don¡¯t you do it? I couldn¡¯t believe it but the first devil himself was starting to bother me. I liked the primal devil a lot more. I felt a surge of panic wash over me, and quickly in trying to find an explanation for why, I realized that the first devil could hear my thoughts. Fucking heaven. I¡¯m dead. Unless he didn¡¯t hear it. If he had heard it I¡¯d already been dead, but I¡¯m still standing which must mean that he didn¡¯t hear it. I felt relieved. That¡¯s good. I¡¯m still alive.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I¡¯m now just a head with strange abilities that I shouldn¡¯t have. I¡¯m tasked with a crazy mission of unifying the entirety of the jungle under one cult. Also, I¡¯ve got a flaming bird on my head and a centipede to find. I also felt a bit hungry. The first thing I¡¯d do before I started my cult was find my little centipede. It would do me well to have another person to tackle this problem with. Although it wasn¡¯t really a person, more like a pet. Although it wasn¡¯t like one of those human children pet¡¯s a lot of demon¡¯s had, those only cried and whined, but more like giant furr beast pets some merchants from the southern hell had, for protection. It was useful. A useful centipede. The wind brushed up against my cheek, and only after a moment, did I realize that there was no such thing as wind beneath the ground. I looked up and screamed at what I saw. A large skeleton creature stood there, except the top of its head was completely rotten and human and air came out of it. I swear that it came from nowhere. It must have teleported right into my sight, whic means that it was strong. The only other creature I¡¯ve seen that can teleport could kill gigantic fish in a few seconds. This creature was clearly on that level. ¡°Hello,¡± I said. ¡°You¡¯re a demon.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not supposed to be up here.¡± ¡°Why not?¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to need you to go back to where you came from.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the intention.¡± ¡°Can you not go back?¡± ¡°Not really no.¡± ¡°Well then that makes things a bit trickier. I could kill you.¡± ¡°Preferably not.¡± ¡°No. I don¡¯t want to do that either. Well then let¡¯s make a deal.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± ¡°Promise me that you won¡¯t go up into the overworld, no matter what and I¡¯ll let you walk away.¡± ¡°Promise made.¡± ¡°Great.¡± The figure disappeared. The space he¡¯d just stood in returned to normal. My eyes couldn¡¯t believe what they saw. Who was that guy? The problem behind making promises was that I had very little agency in my own actions. If the devil told me to do something I had to do it or else there would be certain death. Hopefully however, he doesn¡¯t ask me to go to the overworld. Considering that he wants me back in the underworld, he shouldn¡¯t. That leaves me back to my original dilemma. How to go about creating a cult, and then forcing everybody in this damn jungle to join. As I thought over it, I couldn¡¯t help but realize a pack of trees falling over in the distance. They gave off a loud boom as they hit the floor, and past the other trees, about two hundred meters away they fell. I wondered what happened. There seemed to always be something happening in this cursed jungle. So far it seems that I¡¯ve been getting in the spotlight but that¡¯s only because my attention has been solely kept on my enemies to stay alive. I¡¯ve failed to notice the doubtless havoc happening around me. Yet ,that¡¯s going to change. If I want to make everybody here join my cult, or rather the devil¡¯s cult, I need to first establish what happens in this area. I also have to get stronger. A lot stronger, otherwise I won¡¯t be able to convince them into joining my cult. By convince I mean of course threaten them with death. It¡¯s always proved the most reliable method, but despite this, I doubt I could become stronger than the chimp in short time, so perhaps finding some other way to convince him would be ideal. Or getting somebody to end him. That¡¯s also ideal. I floated into the bushes with my bird still on top of my head. The ground was slightly wet. Large leaves crowded around my face. A few bugs flew past me, and I wondered if they carried any dangerous mold, or disease. Sometimes I¡¯d focus on some of the more annoying mosquitos, and I¡¯d send out a small wave of telekinesis and crush them into splats of blood in the middle of the air. It was quite satisfying so I continued to do so. Gradually the buzzing around my ears died down. Somehow they¡¯d gotten the message. I traveled through the forest for quite some time before I reached what had caused the havoc. It was a face that sent terror through my spine. There stood the chimp from before. He was bloody, and in front of him stood the other creature I¡¯d met, the one that looked more spooky. To be frank, they were both in terrible shape, and so was the area around them. But they looked used to it. They stared at each other almost as if they¡¯d done this a few hundred times. Boredom, or rather, a knowing in their faces. ¡°This is the three hundreth and twenty-first fight we¡¯ve had. It ends in a tie. Let¡¯s have our next bout next week.¡± ¡°No. I¡¯m too tired.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve said this a million times, but it¡¯s never a question.¡± The figure standing in front of the chimp disappeared. It seemed that everybody could teleport except for me. I didn¡¯t know it was such a common skill. I¡¯d make sure to get it in the future. It would make life so much easier. I wouldn¡¯t have to spend time walking, or fleeing, or dodging. Or I probably still would, but it¡¯s always good to have an extra tool in your pocket. You never know when things might go sourly. Especially here in the dungeon where monsters lurked around every corner. It makes me miss hell. At least there was order. A might is right, type of order. It exists here too, but nobody respects it. Here it¡¯s might survives. Back in hell simply being mightier would be enough. It makes life a lot harder than it would be otherwise. The chimp jerked his face to stare at me. Then, he sighed, stretched, and walked in the opposite direction. Was he avoiding me? It seems like it, but it¡¯s almost certainly not out of fear, but some other reason. I floated up into the sky, staring at the jungle. I¡¯d have to take control of this whole place. It made things difficult. I noticed something I hadn¡¯t noticed before. On the far wall there was a symbol. As I floated closer to it, the symbol became more clear, and I realized that it would make my mission all that much harder. It was the sign of the angels. They were here to spread their religion. I had to get my cult goin, and fast.