“Hey Lucy! Who is the most beautiful in this room? Me or Clara?” Clarice asked, just as we entered a rather spacey underground dome, its ceiling painted in murals.
“It’s me …” I mumbled looking at a painting of the river styx. The odd part weren’t the steam going off it, but rather that Aska and I were standing on a boat on it, which me pointing head out of the scene. The problem was that I couldn’t remember that at all. For a short second I thought there were still memories in my brain I didn’t have access to, but that was rather unlikely. Because I didn’t have red eyes there, but green ones.
“Artistic freedom sure goes out of hand sometimes.” I mumbled a bit disturbed. Someone knowing that I knew the god of death but was in the dark about my real eye colour shouldn’t possibly exist, should it? On the other hand … there were fish swimming in the river, so I didn’t put too much thought into it in the first place.
“I’d like to be an artist too!” Clara shouted out loudly, probably already taking mental notes on how much red she could use.
“Murdering is an art already.” I mumbled quietly and walked past this strange place, following the faint smell of ozone in the air through a temple-like hallway. This place was fitting to be Aska’s gateway into this world, especially as the murals on the walls started to cry with blood. It was as unholy as it could get, but as I saw skeletons dancing to jazz, I was completely and utterly convinced this was the right spot.
“Can you feel that, Lucy?” I certainly didn’t know what they meant, but I felt something different. The system latching onto my souls acted up and refused to bend to my will more than ever before. I didn’t know what the effects were at first, even though I could already imagine them.
“What do you mean?” I asked quietly and looked back to the twins who were biting on their skin to draw out of bit of blood.
“We can’t do any magic … and we kind of feel heavy in here.” That was the trap laid out for intruders. With no magic at all and system to support them, all the heroes levelling and training was for naught. Even worse, the demon kings base strength was far superior of that of humans. While he had time to adapt to that new environment, the others surely didn’t.
“Let’s go … the others might be in trouble.” I grumbled unhappily and walked onwards, this time a bit quicker though.
“Oh? The others?” Clara asked, dashing towards my side and staring into my eyes curiously.
“Are you an altruist now?” Clarice asked, doing exactly the same on my other side.
“Not that I know.” I only cared about two people, that was for sure. Determined, I thus followed the faint noises of someone doing a lengthy monologue until we reached a corner. I continued to listen a little bit and was especially worried about muffled groans, but didn’t go around there right away.
The demon king seemed to have won the battle already, a highly unfortunate development if you ask me.
“Hey Lucy, what’s the plan?” There was an around ten metre hallway until we could reach the room the demon king and the others were inside and so far, I had no reason to assume he wouldn’t notice before I could ram my sword into him. Therefore, their whispered question wasn’t one I could answer without any headache.
“Put your swords at my back and feign to betray me.” I whispered back, held my hands into the air and nodded towards the twins. Then, they looked at each other, shrugged a little and drew their swords, only to point it at my back.
Then, the three of us turned around the corner and directly gazed into the eyes of the demon king from afar. Just as I already guessed, there was no way we could approach him quietly.
As such, we could be considered rather lucky that we chose this approach, especially as he let us come closer.
“Brother! Brought her here, just like you asked.” Wait … what? Why didn’t these fools tell me that? Were they too busy cuddling around or what went on in their depraved minds?
“Good job.” Oh no … the demon king didn’t expect them to betray him at all, but neither did I sense any betrayal coming from these two. We were still going closer and neither of the two made any indication to warn the demon king of our plan.
As we were stepping into the oval room with an equally oval table in the middle, I finally grasped that they were thinking along the lines of ‘She wanted to go there anyway, so it wasn’t really necessary’. In a sense, they were right. But certainly not when we were dealing with Aska. I certainly didn’t have a good feeling about this as I looked at Hannah, bleeding from a shoulder wound and bound to one of the chairs. She was screaming into her gag, shaking her head left and right but I didn’t get it.
He was weakened by the suppressed magic as well, so I should be able to beat him easily.
Stopping in front of the table, I looked over towards him and noticed the metallic object in his hands. It looked like some sort of strange key I definitely hadn’t seen before. Disregarding that thing, I smiled brightly as soon as I noticed he didn’t even had his sword in his hand. Sprinting across the table and kicking him in the face should be rather easy this way.
“So how ar-“ I asked but couldn’t come any further. Without further notice, he pointed the key at me, pulled on something. I saw a little flash, a small metallic object travelling impossibly fast and then my body ceased to support my soul.
Within a few milliseconds, my brain was penetrated by that object and my corpse fell backwards while I still stood there, confused about what the heck just happened.
“What … what have you done?!” Clara asked in shock looking down onto my corpse while Clarice gripped her sword tighter. As I saw the demon king pointing that key at Hannah’s head though, my emotions ran rampant.
Luckily, I didn’t have to restore my whole body and my soul didn’t take any damage whatsoever.
But before I could return, the twins already sprinted forwards past my head, which was definitely not what I needed.
As quickly as I could, I returned back into my healed body, grabbed the twins ankles and made their heads slam onto the tables edge as they wanted to jump onto it just that moment.
While they both got up with wide open eyes, I followed them right away and rubbed my forehead.
“I’m sorry for their behaviour.” Whatever that thing was, it was way faster than I was. And without any apparent way to protect herself, Hannah would die when they took any action.
“It does seem you notice this weapon.” He said and pressed the thing against Hannah’s head threateningly.
“I have no clue what it is.” I admitted, curtsying a little to show my gratitude.
“ … it’s a fucking gun!” The demon king admitted which made me twitch in anger ever so slightly. Albert told me a lot about their world, which obviously included guns. And in all honesty, they were definitely not the kind of invention I wanted to see on this world. A barrier surely helped against these, but they couldn’t save you from being shot out of the blue.
And even worse, I wasn’t capable of erecting one, meaning I had to resurrect myself each time I was fatally shot.
But the worst of all was obviously the time I could react to these, which was obviously very low.
I couldn’t even save myself, let alone Hannah or Sofie who were strategically right beside him. Truly, thanks to Aska he knew my weaknesses very well.
“How about we play a little game?” The demon king asked, a devilish smile on his face.
“Oh, I like games.” I usually won them … even though I had the feeling I didn’t want to play this one.
“How about we play a few rounds of truth or dare?” The demon king asked, dumbfounding me a little. He should have known lying was one of my specialities, but if he really wanted to play that game, so be it.
“Go ahead. I’ll choose truth.” I claimed right away.
“Are you happy with how the gods are viewing our fight from afar?” So far, he was the only one who claimed as such, so it was rather weird to ask me that question. But he also thought I was working together with the gods … which couldn’t be further from the truth.
“I do not know what you are talking about.” I explained right away.
“LIE!” He pointed the gun downwards and pulled the trigger right away. Hannah’s groans filled the room while our so called heroes fought against their bindings valiantly … even though it was useless in the end.
“Okay, okay. I am quite pleased with the result so far. The heroes did a great task of fighting so bravely against you, even though they apparently lost in the end.” Ironically, he didn’t want to hear the truth. He wanted to hear what he thought, which did happen rather often with these humans. “You are next. Truth or dare?”
“I am doing the rules. You aren’t going to ask any questions whatsoever.” He pointed the revolver all across Hannah which did make me panic a little. My hands were twitching a little and I was considering throwing a deathly blast at him … but I didn’t know for sure if I would be faster than him.
“Okay … okay. Truth, once more.” I explained soothingly while eyeing my sword stuck in a wall.
“And the twins? How did you get them on your side?” Once again, this wasn’t a question of truth, but rather to verify his thoughts.
“… we had a lot of sex.” At least he laughed loudly and didn’t shoot Hannah this time. Without taking my gaze off him, I directed my full attention to the sword in the wall and transformed it into a snake, far longer than my arm was. Nobody seemed to notice as it slithered across the floor quietly. “But you know, this game is rather boring if I’m the only one playing.”
“Fine. I’ll allow one question.” Oh? I didn’t get a dare? I had really hoped to make him shoot himself. Placing my hands onto the stone table, I leaned onto it and gazed into his eyes deeply.
“Have you ever asked yourself if it was a good idea to invite a god onto the face of this planet?”
“He has opened my eyes. And he will expose every single one of your lies.” I had my doubts. “Don’t even try to change my mind now. It’s already to late for that.” I opened my eyes wide as soon as the snake launched itself off the ground. It’s deadly fangs were exposed to the air, aimed directly as its neck.
And yet, it never came to that.
The wall behind him turned pitch black with a single tendril shooting out of it, strangling the snake in the middle of the air. I quickly turned it back into its usual shape, so that nobody would notice anything right away.
Rather annoyed by the development, I extended my hand to the portal and focused my mind. The portal was shrinking fast as death flooded out of it.
He was coming. Quickly.
“No you don’t.” The demon king said, pointed the open hole of the gun at me and shot me once more.
But this time, I knew what I was dealing with. Dodging a bullet was hard, but dancing away from where he pointed that thing at the last second wasn’t an impossibility. The shot went underneath my armpit and into the hallway we came from.
The portal was closing even more with Aska fighting against me, but he seemed strangely weak as if he was still very far away.
But the demon king knew what to do very well. He pointed the gun at Sofie and pulled the trigger once, apparently firing into her leg before he held the weapon against her head.
“Stop that at once.” I looked into Sofie’s green eyes. She felt regret, anger and so much despair. She didn’t want to die, and yet she nodded towards me. She wanted me to close the door … and yet I couldn’t.
There had been times where I would have let her die without any remorse … but I couldn’t. She was my friend and even in my world filled with pain and agony, we didn’t let friends die if we could avoid it.
As such, I didn’t even blink as the feeling of death filled the room to the brim, a black streak of light racing towards me. Instead, I lifted my hand at the last possible second and deflected the attack with my own kind of reality warping barrier. I was pushed backwards by the immense energy behind it and went on my knees, but at least the twins were still safe.
And as fast at this attack came, so did it end. My eyes must have glowed pleased as the demon king finally looked away from me, but not only because of that. I didn’t know about the magic for sure, but the system finally settled down, giving everyone their power back.
As fast as I could, I pushed myself onto the table and raced towards the demon king. My steps resounded through the oval room and the last possible second, the demon turned around a little surprised. I crashed into him, mere moments before he pulled the trigger yet again and tumbled to the ground with him.
And yet, I didn’t fight him down there. The twins were already by my side, restraining him, and Hannah’s restrains were burning to crisps as I stood up in horror.
It was too late. He was too close for me to close the portal.
Luckily, I wasn’t frozen in fear. There was still something I could do.
I ram to Sofie as quickly as I could and tried to open her gag while looking into her questioning eyes.
“Sofie, you need to teleport everyone of us out of the room as quickly as you can. It’s our only chance at survival. He will kill all of us otherwise.” I claimed and finally undid her gag. Then, I flung my sword over to her with nothing but my thoughts and faced the portal once more.
“Lucy! We have to fight!” Sofie shouted out loudly and attempted to undo her restraints once more.
“No. We have to flee.” I replied and stared at Hannah. I didn’t know what Aska would do, but I knew for sure he would try to use my feelings against me. And I couldn’t have that if I wanted to face him head on.
Hannah understood that, and yet she chose to ignore my feelings. She rushed towards me and grabbed my hand without any intention of letting go. Worst of all, if I wanted to push her away, I would need to cancel out the system around her, giving her what she wanted anyways. The only two other people as free as I followed Hannah’s example and hugged my other arm which honestly made me think they had a death wish.
“Do it now!” I shouted out as welts of darkness sprouted out of the darkness, threatening to bring chaos into magic.
“Teleport.” Beneath my feet, a violet light erupted for a millisecond until I destroyed all signs of the system round me. The magic lost its form right away and with it it’s use.
But not for everyone. Our four brave heroes were teleported to safety right away, taking away with them the green light which had healed Hannah.
“One last question, demon king. Do you want to ruin my world that badly?” I asked, even though his full attention was on the portal. And then, I could feel it.
A density of death only seen around him.
And then, I could see it.
A hand with skin as fair as mine.
And then, I couldn’t ignore reality any longer.
A god had descended onto this world.
“Hey Lucy! Who is the most beautiful in this room? Me or Clara?” Clarice asked, just as we entered a rather spacey underground dome, its ceiling painted in murals.
“It’s me …” I mumbled looking at a painting of the river styx. The odd part weren’t the steam going off it, but rather that Aska and I were standing on a boat on it, which me pointing head out of the scene. The problem was that I couldn’t remember that at all. For a short second I thought there were still memories in my brain I didn’t have access to, but that was rather unlikely. Because I didn’t have red eyes there, but green ones.
“Artistic freedom sure goes out of hand sometimes.” I mumbled a bit disturbed. Someone knowing that I knew the god of death but was in the dark about my real eye colour shouldn’t possibly exist, should it? On the other hand … there were fish swimming in the river, so I didn’t put too much thought into it in the first place.
“I’d like to be an artist too!” Clara shouted out loudly, probably already taking mental notes on how much red she could use.
“Murdering is an art already.” I mumbled quietly and walked past this strange place, following the faint smell of ozone in the air through a temple-like hallway. This place was fitting to be Aska’s gateway into this world, especially as the murals on the walls started to cry with blood. It was as unholy as it could get, but as I saw skeletons dancing to jazz, I was completely and utterly convinced this was the right spot.
“Can you feel that, Lucy?” I certainly didn’t know what they meant, but I felt something different. The system latching onto my souls acted up and refused to bend to my will more than ever before. I didn’t know what the effects were at first, even though I could already imagine them.
“What do you mean?” I asked quietly and looked back to the twins who were biting on their skin to draw out of bit of blood.
“We can’t do any magic … and we kind of feel heavy in here.” That was the trap laid out for intruders. With no magic at all and system to support them, all the heroes levelling and training was for naught. Even worse, the demon kings base strength was far superior of that of humans. While he had time to adapt to that new environment, the others surely didn’t.
“Let’s go … the others might be in trouble.” I grumbled unhappily and walked onwards, this time a bit quicker though.
“Oh? The others?” Clara asked, dashing towards my side and staring into my eyes curiously.
“Are you an altruist now?” Clarice asked, doing exactly the same on my other side.
“Not that I know.” I only cared about two people, that was for sure. Determined, I thus followed the faint noises of someone doing a lengthy monologue until we reached a corner. I continued to listen a little bit and was especially worried about muffled groans, but didn’t go around there right away.
The demon king seemed to have won the battle already, a highly unfortunate development if you ask me.
“Hey Lucy, what’s the plan?” There was an around ten metre hallway until we could reach the room the demon king and the others were inside and so far, I had no reason to assume he wouldn’t notice before I could ram my sword into him. Therefore, their whispered question wasn’t one I could answer without any headache.
“Put your swords at my back and feign to betray me.” I whispered back, held my hands into the air and nodded towards the twins. Then, they looked at each other, shrugged a little and drew their swords, only to point it at my back.
Then, the three of us turned around the corner and directly gazed into the eyes of the demon king from afar. Just as I already guessed, there was no way we could approach him quietly.
As such, we could be considered rather lucky that we chose this approach, especially as he let us come closer.
“Brother! Brought her here, just like you asked.” Wait … what? Why didn’t these fools tell me that? Were they too busy cuddling around or what went on in their depraved minds?
“Good job.” Oh no … the demon king didn’t expect them to betray him at all, but neither did I sense any betrayal coming from these two. We were still going closer and neither of the two made any indication to warn the demon king of our plan.
As we were stepping into the oval room with an equally oval table in the middle, I finally grasped that they were thinking along the lines of ‘She wanted to go there anyway, so it wasn’t really necessary’. In a sense, they were right. But certainly not when we were dealing with Aska. I certainly didn’t have a good feeling about this as I looked at Hannah, bleeding from a shoulder wound and bound to one of the chairs. She was screaming into her gag, shaking her head left and right but I didn’t get it.
He was weakened by the suppressed magic as well, so I should be able to beat him easily.
Stopping in front of the table, I looked over towards him and noticed the metallic object in his hands. It looked like some sort of strange key I definitely hadn’t seen before. Disregarding that thing, I smiled brightly as soon as I noticed he didn’t even had his sword in his hand. Sprinting across the table and kicking him in the face should be rather easy this way.
“So how ar-“ I asked but couldn’t come any further. Without further notice, he pointed the key at me, pulled on something. I saw a little flash, a small metallic object travelling impossibly fast and then my body ceased to support my soul.
Within a few milliseconds, my brain was penetrated by that object and my corpse fell backwards while I still stood there, confused about what the heck just happened.
“What … what have you done?!” Clara asked in shock looking down onto my corpse while Clarice gripped her sword tighter. As I saw the demon king pointing that key at Hannah’s head though, my emotions ran rampant.
Luckily, I didn’t have to restore my whole body and my soul didn’t take any damage whatsoever.
But before I could return, the twins already sprinted forwards past my head, which was definitely not what I needed.
As quickly as I could, I returned back into my healed body, grabbed the twins ankles and made their heads slam onto the tables edge as they wanted to jump onto it just that moment.
While they both got up with wide open eyes, I followed them right away and rubbed my forehead.
“I’m sorry for their behaviour.” Whatever that thing was, it was way faster than I was. And without any apparent way to protect herself, Hannah would die when they took any action.
“It does seem you notice this weapon.” He said and pressed the thing against Hannah’s head threateningly.
“I have no clue what it is.” I admitted, curtsying a little to show my gratitude.
“ … it’s a fucking gun!” The demon king admitted which made me twitch in anger ever so slightly. Albert told me a lot about their world, which obviously included guns. And in all honesty, they were definitely not the kind of invention I wanted to see on this world. A barrier surely helped against these, but they couldn’t save you from being shot out of the blue.
And even worse, I wasn’t capable of erecting one, meaning I had to resurrect myself each time I was fatally shot.
But the worst of all was obviously the time I could react to these, which was obviously very low.
I couldn’t even save myself, let alone Hannah or Sofie who were strategically right beside him. Truly, thanks to Aska he knew my weaknesses very well.
“How about we play a little game?” The demon king asked, a devilish smile on his face.
“Oh, I like games.” I usually won them … even though I had the feeling I didn’t want to play this one.
“How about we play a few rounds of truth or dare?” The demon king asked, dumbfounding me a little. He should have known lying was one of my specialities, but if he really wanted to play that game, so be it.
“Go ahead. I’ll choose truth.” I claimed right away.
“Are you happy with how the gods are viewing our fight from afar?” So far, he was the only one who claimed as such, so it was rather weird to ask me that question. But he also thought I was working together with the gods … which couldn’t be further from the truth.
“I do not know what you are talking about.” I explained right away.
“LIE!” He pointed the gun downwards and pulled the trigger right away. Hannah’s groans filled the room while our so called heroes fought against their bindings valiantly … even though it was useless in the end.
“Okay, okay. I am quite pleased with the result so far. The heroes did a great task of fighting so bravely against you, even though they apparently lost in the end.” Ironically, he didn’t want to hear the truth. He wanted to hear what he thought, which did happen rather often with these humans. “You are next. Truth or dare?”
“I am doing the rules. You aren’t going to ask any questions whatsoever.” He pointed the revolver all across Hannah which did make me panic a little. My hands were twitching a little and I was considering throwing a deathly blast at him … but I didn’t know for sure if I would be faster than him.
“Okay … okay. Truth, once more.” I explained soothingly while eyeing my sword stuck in a wall.
“And the twins? How did you get them on your side?” Once again, this wasn’t a question of truth, but rather to verify his thoughts.
“… we had a lot of sex.” At least he laughed loudly and didn’t shoot Hannah this time. Without taking my gaze off him, I directed my full attention to the sword in the wall and transformed it into a snake, far longer than my arm was. Nobody seemed to notice as it slithered across the floor quietly. “But you know, this game is rather boring if I’m the only one playing.”
“Fine. I’ll allow one question.” Oh? I didn’t get a dare? I had really hoped to make him shoot himself. Placing my hands onto the stone table, I leaned onto it and gazed into his eyes deeply.
“Have you ever asked yourself if it was a good idea to invite a god onto the face of this planet?”
“He has opened my eyes. And he will expose every single one of your lies.” I had my doubts. “Don’t even try to change my mind now. It’s already to late for that.” I opened my eyes wide as soon as the snake launched itself off the ground. It’s deadly fangs were exposed to the air, aimed directly as its neck.
And yet, it never came to that.
The wall behind him turned pitch black with a single tendril shooting out of it, strangling the snake in the middle of the air. I quickly turned it back into its usual shape, so that nobody would notice anything right away.
Rather annoyed by the development, I extended my hand to the portal and focused my mind. The portal was shrinking fast as death flooded out of it.
He was coming. Quickly.
“No you don’t.” The demon king said, pointed the open hole of the gun at me and shot me once more.
But this time, I knew what I was dealing with. Dodging a bullet was hard, but dancing away from where he pointed that thing at the last second wasn’t an impossibility. The shot went underneath my armpit and into the hallway we came from.
The portal was closing even more with Aska fighting against me, but he seemed strangely weak as if he was still very far away.
But the demon king knew what to do very well. He pointed the gun at Sofie and pulled the trigger once, apparently firing into her leg before he held the weapon against her head.
“Stop that at once.” I looked into Sofie’s green eyes. She felt regret, anger and so much despair. She didn’t want to die, and yet she nodded towards me. She wanted me to close the door … and yet I couldn’t.
There had been times where I would have let her die without any remorse … but I couldn’t. She was my friend and even in my world filled with pain and agony, we didn’t let friends die if we could avoid it.
As such, I didn’t even blink as the feeling of death filled the room to the brim, a black streak of light racing towards me. Instead, I lifted my hand at the last possible second and deflected the attack with my own kind of reality warping barrier. I was pushed backwards by the immense energy behind it and went on my knees, but at least the twins were still safe.
And as fast at this attack came, so did it end. My eyes must have glowed pleased as the demon king finally looked away from me, but not only because of that. I didn’t know about the magic for sure, but the system finally settled down, giving everyone their power back.
As fast as I could, I pushed myself onto the table and raced towards the demon king. My steps resounded through the oval room and the last possible second, the demon turned around a little surprised. I crashed into him, mere moments before he pulled the trigger yet again and tumbled to the ground with him.
And yet, I didn’t fight him down there. The twins were already by my side, restraining him, and Hannah’s restrains were burning to crisps as I stood up in horror.
It was too late. He was too close for me to close the portal.
Luckily, I wasn’t frozen in fear. There was still something I could do.
I ram to Sofie as quickly as I could and tried to open her gag while looking into her questioning eyes.
“Sofie, you need to teleport everyone of us out of the room as quickly as you can. It’s our only chance at survival. He will kill all of us otherwise.” I claimed and finally undid her gag. Then, I flung my sword over to her with nothing but my thoughts and faced the portal once more.
“Lucy! We have to fight!” Sofie shouted out loudly and attempted to undo her restraints once more.
“No. We have to flee.” I replied and stared at Hannah. I didn’t know what Aska would do, but I knew for sure he would try to use my feelings against me. And I couldn’t have that if I wanted to face him head on.
Hannah understood that, and yet she chose to ignore my feelings. She rushed towards me and grabbed my hand without any intention of letting go. Worst of all, if I wanted to push her away, I would need to cancel out the system around her, giving her what she wanted anyways. The only two other people as free as I followed Hannah’s example and hugged my other arm which honestly made me think they had a death wish.
“Do it now!” I shouted out as welts of darkness sprouted out of the darkness, threatening to bring chaos into magic.
“Teleport.” Beneath my feet, a violet light erupted for a millisecond until I destroyed all signs of the system round me. The magic lost its form right away and with it it’s use.
But not for everyone. Our four brave heroes were teleported to safety right away, taking away with them the green light which had healed Hannah.
“One last question, demon king. Do you want to ruin my world that badly?” I asked, even though his full attention was on the portal. And then, I could feel it.
A density of death only seen around him.
And then, I could see it.
A hand with skin as fair as mine.
And then, I couldn’t ignore reality any longer.
A god had descended onto this world.
