The Void.
The final edge of all things, where matter ends and nothing begins. A realm of silence and empty of life.
A moment passed, or perhaps ten thousand years. Space twisted, and from that distortion a yellow river appeared. Its waters flowed in stillness, and yet as it moved, it brought with it a faint vitality into the cold Void.
Dust formed from nothing. Grains gathered and clung together, slowly shaping a small celestial body.
Under the river's silent erosion it grew larger, piece by piece, until one day its growth slowed, and life began to stir.
The Void had no direction, no up or down, no left or right, only the yellow River Styx stretching endlessly across the multiverse. Whether born from the expansion of space or shaped by distant material realms, creatures began to appear. Void creatures descended in waves, or perhaps were born directly into existence.
⸻———X——————
{Burial Plains, Thorn Forest.}
A sharp crack split the air as a massive black Canine Corpse Demon let out a last wail and collapsed to the ground motionless.
Nelson stepped forward, planted his foot on the corpse, and pulled free a bone spear. Thick black blood spilled out and pooled across the earth.
"First catch of the day."
He licked his lips, satisfied. A Canine Corpse Demon, over two meters long, was no weak creature.
It stood above the lowest ranks of the Void, able to hunt Lesser Demons with ease, and even two Greater Demons working together would hesitate to face it. Yet today, it had fallen.
Nelson, newly advanced to a Greater Demon, ruled this stretch of land, and luck seemed to favor him.
Though he had only existed for two and a half years, he had already risen above his kind. Once, he had been human, a worker from earth, just another man grinding himself down for money, chasing something as simple as a future.
He died at his desk and woke inside an egg. Since then, survival had been simple, endure, grow, live.
He had climbed from a nascent demon to a Lesser Demon, then to where he stood now, and unlike the others, he held no illusions.
"A Greater Demon is still just an ant," Nelson muttered, lifting the corpse onto his shoulder. "If you want to live well, you have to keep moving."
⸻———X——————
His territory was not empty, and that was by design. Most demons devoured everything within their reach and left nothing behind, but Nelson did the opposite.
He let them live, watched them, and selected carefully. Lesser Demons were beneath him, only those close to his level, only Greater Demons, were worth consuming.
His domain came into view, a crude village of black demonic stone surrounded by forest stretching across a vast expanse of land. As he entered, a figure approached, a demon with curved horns, clawed hands, and hooved feet.
Verus.
A Claw Blade Demon, and a Greater Demon. Once defeated, he had surrendered his true name, and Nelson had kept him, not out of kindness, but convenience.
"Master," Verus said, bowing slightly. "Leave it to me."
He lifted the corpse and carried it toward a massive cauldron. As he walked, his arm shifted into a crimson blade, and he split the skull and pulled free a dark crystal.
"The essence is here."
He swallowed it whole.
The cauldron bubbled, twenty meters wide and filled with thick blood and fragments of flesh, churning with heat and decay.
Around it, Lesser Demons gathered, Scythe Demons clawing over one another, fighting to throw themselves inside. To them, it was not death, but opportunity.
Nelson watched calmly. These were his soldiers, raised through slaughter and strengthened through survival, completely disposable, but useful.
"Bariel, Gaunis."
At his command, the air thickened. A mounted demon approached, riding a three-headed hellhound wreathed in ember and ash, and behind him came another, Bariel, leading a force of towering Abyssal Minotaurs. They gathered without a word.
Nelson rested his spear against his shoulder.
"Prepare yourselves," he said. "We march on another plane."
He felt it then, a pull, a mark left within his bloodline, Other Plane Descent, a gift awakened when he became a Greater Demon. Somewhere in another world, something had tried to summon something, and he had answered instead.
Space trembled, and the air before him rippled like disturbed water before tearing open into a vast portal.
Without hesitation, Nelson sent his forces through first, hundreds of Scythe Demons, Minotaurs, and Gargoyles pouring into the unknown. Bariel, Gaunis, and Verus followed.
This place no longer held any value.
This Plane conquest would either mean rooting himself in the foreign land or dying in a foreign land; there was no third possibility.
If all went well, the next return would be a random teleportation to other Abyssal layers.
The Burial Plains were, after all, just a starter village.
He stepped forward, a grin spreading across his face.
"Brave new world," he said softly. "Let's see which of us devours the other."