Enochia gripped the metal ring, yanked the trapdoor open, and dropped through without hesitation. Her feet slammed against the floor below with a sharp echo. Darkness swallowed everything, but it didn’t bother her in the slightest. Her new eyes drank it in greedily, outlining walls, cracks, dust, and old stone with unreal clarity.
She straightened, brushed off her knees, and let out a low whistle. “Okay, I’ll admit it,” she murmured with a smirk curling on her lips. “Being a demon is fucking awesome.”
As she started walking in deeper, her thoughts drifted into the only direction that made sense, after what she had just said. The downside, she figured, was that most humans saw demons the same way they saw killers: universally hated across the board. And honestly? Fair. She would have hated herself as well... If she didn't already.
If the first time someone meets a demon they're attacked, and the second time they're attacked, and the tenth time they’re attacked, eventually people stop giving the benefit of the doubt. It wasn’t like demons were known for peaceful negotiations. None of them had ever… well, not tried to tear human throats out.
She shrugged to herself. “Guess I’ll be the first,” she muttered, amused and mildly delusional.
To distract herself, she flicked open the map window again with a casual motion, humming as the panel appeared. She genuinely loved this feature, because it made her feel like she was playing life with wall-hacks. But her humming cut short when she stopped in the middle of the corridor and stared.
Before her were four doors: one on her left, two on her right, one straight ahead. But the map? The map showed absolutely nothing besides their outlines. Her face twisted into offense. “Roo, what the fuck?” she demanded, jabbing a finger at the projection. “You gave me a faulty product!”
The silence that followed was somehow more insulting than if Roo had argued back. She rubbed both hands through her hair, groaning, before her brain landed on the most obvious answer: she probably had to open them first so the map could fill in the details.
Enochia marched to the nearest door, wound back her leg, and kicked it open. The door exploded inward, slamming against the wall with a violent crack that startled even her. She blinked, staring at her own foot like it had betrayed her. “Damn,” she whispered, impressed despite herself. “That little STR boost made that big of a difference?”
She quickly recollected herself, shaking the surprise from her foot. With a goofy little finger-gun gesture, she stepped into the room and announced, “Hands up!”
The room she walked into was weird... The door had swung all the way open, a full one-eighty, and since it smacked flat against the wall, she could tell that even that door next to this one connected here.
Now for the room… The place was damaged beyond repair to the point of being borderline unrecognizable. Dozens of scorch marks peppered the walls, blackening them in irregular patches, like something had burned violently and repeatedly in random directions. What used to be wooden shelves had been reduced to char, yet the stone pieces remained defiantly intact.
Ash coated the floor thickly enough to leave footprints, and the air tasted stale. But the strangest thing wasn’t the destruction. It was the statue sitting dead-center. A metal sculpture, warped and stylized, shaped like a deer-like demon with too many angles and really big antlers. ‘Ok Enochia, chill out. That’s most certainly a statue… PLZZZZ be a statue!’
What wasn’t obvious was the sudden burst of notifications that hammered her senses.
Her heart spiked in her throat. She turned her head sharply and instantly sent Roo a silent apology. “Okay, babe, sorry for everything I just said,” she murmured under her breath. “This map works like a goddamn charm.”
Because now, as her updated minimap expanded, she saw two green dots inside this very room.
Her gaze flicked up from the holographic panel to the actual space, scanning carefully. And there were two faint, hovering orbs shaped like little badges or beacons. She blinked. Were those items? Or markers? Or…
Then her heartbeat stumbled, because nestled farther back, in the far corner of the ruined room, her map showed a black dot.
Also, it wasn’t stationary. It buzzed. Flickered. Glitched in and out of visibility, like the system wasn’t sure whether it existed, or was even part of it. It jittered violently on the map, spasming between coordinates with a nausea-inducing flicker.
“Okay…” she whispered, staring at it. “That’s… not normal.” Her voice came softer. The black dot emanated something that her body recognized before her mind did. Something powerful. It was so strong that not even she could force out a joke to break the tension.
“…Please be loot,” she whispered. “Please be very sexy, very harmless loot.”
Enochia’s gaze drifted toward the corrupted corner of the room, her breath caught halfway in her throat. The rest of the ruined chamber was perfectly visible to her demon eyes … but that spot was different. It was totally, utterly and whatever the hell other word was there to say it, dark.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Her skin prickled and her common sense, which she rarely used, finally stood up inside her brain and shouted: Nope. Nope nope nope, turn around, girl.
So she did the most logical, heroic, enlightened thing she could possibly think of.
She ran.
Like, immediately. Her legs kicked into motion so fast her upper body lagged behind, and in two explosive steps she shot forward across the room. Her hand snatched both floating green orbs and the moment they touched her fingers, she pivoted on her heel and launched herself out of the chamber.
The burst of speed nearly made her trip. Her heart skipped as her body surged forward with a force she wasn’t prepared for.
“HOLY—” she wheezed, stumbling back a step. “Damn?!”
Because that wasn’t normal speed, nor was it even athletic human speed. That was bike-speed. And not casual Sunday-ride bike-speed either, she used to bike everywhere back then, daily, all the time, enough that she knew exactly what thirty miles an hour felt like when she was pedaling downhill with the wind screaming in her ears.
And what she’d just done?
That was at least thirty miles an hour.
Except she wasn’t on a bike… She was just running.
“That— that was ME,” she gasped, half laughing, half horrified. “That was MY BODY. Oh my god, I’m FAST.”
She bent over slightly, catching her breath, holding both glowing items tight against her chest like stolen candy.
She straightened slowly, glancing at the sealed door, then down at her own legs again, as if verifying they still existed.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself, voice still shaky but riding high on adrenaline. “Note to self: AGI points? Second best investment of my LIFE.”
Now that her lungs had calmed down, Enochia finally dared to lower the two glowing items she’d clutched onto.
But even as she looked at them, her eyes kept flicking back to the door she had just slammed shut. The wood didn’t rattle and nothing scratched at it. The hallway was silent except for her own harsh breathing. And yet every three seconds her gaze snapped back to the door just to make sure it wasn’t… doing anything.
“Stay. Stay in there. Stay—good boy,” she whispered at the door like she was commanding a dog to sit.
Her voice cracked as she finally forced herself to look down at the items.
─────────────────────────────
NEW UNCOMMON BLUEPRINT ACQUIRED
Name: Lesser Excavator
Tier: Grade 4
Function: A mining unit used to acquire Grade 5 Materials.
Cost to Create:
? 15 Souls
? 3 kg Grade 5 Material
or
? 15 Souls
? 1 Praying Man
─────────────────────────────
─────────────────────────────
NEW COMMON BLUEPRINT ACQUIRED
Name: Praying Man
Tier: Grade 5
Function: A sacrificial unit used to empower or create other creations.
Cost to Create:
? 5 Souls
─────────────────────────────
Enochia studied the two blueprint windows, pleased smile on her face only for it to sag almost immediately. She wasn’t ungrateful; no, far from it. Getting blueprints at all felt like cracking open a loot box and actually pulling something useful. But still… she had expected something a little flashier.
Saints who had blueprints always got iconic, game-changing stuff. The biggest, loudest example popped instantly into her head: Matthew Steel. The man, the myth, the “Why Does This Lunatic Have Thirty Summons?” legend. His constructs were all brutal metal monsters and walking tanks and weird mechanical angels. Like, yes, they were horrifying, but they were also insanely cool.
And her second summon was… a miner. And a monk who existed primarily to be sacrificed.
She sighed loudly. “Okay, let’s get this straight. I’m happy! Like actually happy! But also? Meh. Big meh.”
Still, she couldn’t completely dampen the spark in her chest. These were the first three pieces of what would eventually become her theme.
She tapped the Praying Man blueprint thoughtfully. “So… this guy is definitely important later. But, Roo?” she asked out loud. “What happens if I just… didn’t come down here? Would I ever get him?”
Roo responded instantly:
[Your assumption is accurate. All individuals blessed with the Creation Gift manifest units unique to their identity. Praying Man is a core component of your system. Had you not obtained it here, you would have discovered it elsewhere.]
Enochia nodded as if she had known all along. “Alright, alright. That’s reassuring.”
She clapped her hands. “Sweet. Let’s summon these little guys and check if they have any cool abilities!”
─────────────────────────────
Would you like to create 1 Praying Man?
[YES]
[NO]
─────────────────────────────
“Yup!” she chirped, hitting the option with zero hesitation.
A tug hit her chest as several of her Souls bled outward, spiraling into the air. The particles gathered on the floor in front of her, shaping themselves into limbs, then a torso, then a bowed head. The form clothed itself in brown fabric, and not a second later, a man stood before her.
He was kinda tall, as he was the same in height as her. He was also bald, like really, really bald, like he could have been a mascot for a certain cleaning company. Also, his hands were pressed in a prayer, and his eyes were shut.
“WAIT—WAIT—THIS IS A HUMAN?!”
She waved frantically at him. “Hey! Hey! Hi! Buddy? Friend? Sir?? Are you, are you good?!"
The man didn’t react.. His bowed head didn’t lift, his lips just kept moving in that same soft monotone.
Roo’s window appeared again, calm as always:
[Only creations of Grade 3 or higher possess sensory awareness or the ability to speak. This individual is Grade 5. Functionally, it is non-sentient.]
Enochia stared at the Praying Man for a long moment, then slowly placed her hands on her hips. “So he’s… a vegetable.”
[Correct.]
She sighed. “Mehh. Too bad. Would’ve been nice to have someone to talk to, besides Chad.”
Still, she opened its status page out of curiosity.
─────────────────────────────
STATUS:
Name: Praying Man
Level: 5
Grade: 5
HP: 50 / 50
STR: 0
AGI: 0
VIT: 1
FAI: 4
LCK: 0
DEF: 0
─────────────────────────────
Enochia’s face collapsed into a politely horrified grimace. “Wow. Those stats are… aggressively bad.”
He didn’t have even a single ability… But he was important. A required ingredient. And that was enough to tip her disappointment back into excitement. Because if she finally had the sacrifice unit…
“Hehehe…” A wicked grin stretched across her face. “Time to put you to use then.”
Another window popped up immediately.
─────────────────────────────
Would you like to create 1 Lesser Excavator?
[YES]
[NO]
─────────────────────────────
“Oh Roo, you don’t even have to ask me!”
