***Dimensional Fissure, The Lower Planes***

***Amon***

“You have got to be kidding me!” I call out as we rush past the grinning ghost of my former self. Helpful as it was, it led us towards the mansion’s exit. The only problem was that it wasn’t the same one through which we came in, nor did it appear to be the smart choice.

If I had realized earlier that we would be caught between the camping army and our pursuers, I would have just jumped out of a window.

We burst out the door, almost running over a surprised demon who was standing guard. Another one was in the way and this time I body-checked him aside, freeing the way for Isabella and me. Giving the enraged outcry of my victim no heed, we continued unchallenged, right into Ostreios’s waiting crowd of warriors.

Apparently, the message of the two escapees hadn’t reached them yet, because most of the soldiers were busy with the daily tasks that came up in an outdoor camp. Many didn’t even pay us attention, because why would there be two lone enemies charging right through their camp for no good reason?

We made it ten metres, then twenty, and then thirty down the hill before someone started shouting behind us, alerting the whole camp that something was up. Heads rose and people started scanning their surroundings in confusion, searching for the source of the disturbance.

Just why did the damned ghost have to choose this exit for us to leave the mansion? I cursed the other, though I was fairly certain that the voice inside my head wasn’t involved.

“Just keep running,” Isabella spurred me on. “As long as they are confused, we have a good chance of making it!”

It looked like she was right for another twenty metres, enough to get almost to the edge of the warded zone. Then somebody must have gotten his act together because a spell was reflected off my hastily erected mana shield.

“Fly!” I commanded and summoned my wings, using them to glide the rest of the way towards the stone path that initially led us towards the mansion. Isabella was right behind me, beating her own wings in an effort to be faster – right as the flock of demons that were leisurely camping their time away moments ago stirred to action.

“I envisioned our departure slightly differently,” I admitted while taking a look behind myself, wishing that I hadn’t done so at the same moment.

There was something primeval about having over a thousand angry demons led by a Demon Lord after me. Ostreios looked really impressive as he led the charge, clad in a flaming aura of hellfire.

“Do you have a way of killing yourself?” I asked while a shudder ran down my spine. “Just in case they catch us.” Wondering, I ran a finger over my spacial ring but decided that it wasn’t time yet to pull out the big guns.

“Do not worry about me and fly faster!” Isabella replied without looking back. She beat her wings and overtook me, making it clear that I was the slow one in our team.

We reached the beginning of the warded pathway that allowed safe passage through the fissure, only to be faced with a chaotic landscape and no path in sight. It had vanished right in front of our eyes.

Unnecessarily, that was the moment when the rest of the ward-stones around the mansion decided that it was a good time to give up the ghost. The effect was almost immediate as the Chaos started creeping in from all sides in order to claim the mansion and everything inside.

Faced with no other choice, we rushed ahead into the unknown.

Isabella cursed when the last sign of safe passage evaporated in front of our eyes. “Remember what I told you about the Chaos. Keep your thoughts to yourself, and try not to mess up.” She took the lead and rushed ahead.

Walking past an ever-changing landscape was scary enough, but actually going through it made me promise myself to never repeat the experience.

I narrowly dodged a tree that sprouted out of nowhere right between me and Isabella, the tip of my wing barely clipping its bark. Moments later, Isabella had to dive underneath a rocky ridge that attempted to bury us beneath it.

We couldn’t fly fifty metres without the landscape trying something new and dangerous.

Isabella pointed towards a glistening barrier of light right in front of us. “That looks like an exit!”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but my experiences with dimensional rifts were limited. When we entered, we did so through a foggy, distorted area. What we were facing now was a veil of golden light that stretched towards the horizon in both directions.

Before I could ask what was going on, we went through and I found myself in a sunny field. A large white city rose in the distance, with figures flying between its skyscrapers. Most disturbingly, the sky was the deepest blue I had ever seen.

Both Isabella and I came to a dead halt, no matter the demon army that was coming through the veil right behind us. We knew instinctively that this place was wrong and foreign, and that the figures who were rising from the city to greet us were not our friends.

The Infernal Plane of Lust was a place of life, but as a demon, I could also always feel its dangers as a plane where survival of the fittest ruled. This place didn’t trigger any of my survival instincts. It was calm and peaceful, which was so very wrong.

Just like us, Ostreios’s people stopped as they filtered through the curtain of light.

Everyone felt it.

This plane wasn’t the Infernum. It oozed goodness and friendship, a concept that every demon was taught to loathe from birth.

The figures that came to answer our arrival were clad in golden armour and had wings with white feathers. Just seeing them move was unsettling. Demons would have never managed such an orderly reaction. First, they would have fought for hours about how to reply to an unexpected threat, especially if there was no Demon Lord to take charge.

They quickly formed a little army of their own, practically boxing us in between two parties that promised hostility if so much as a single wrong move was made. The other side had fewer people, but more were leaving the city on foot. Apparently, they had also some among their numbers who couldn’t fly.

Demons looked upon Angels, and Angels looked upon Demons.

Somehow, both sides could tell… no, both sides just knew that there would never be peace between the two of them – not that demons even had any real concept of such a thing as peace. We had learned the general idea of it from the mortals, but our own version wasn’t so much peace, as a suspension of hostilities until a proper reason for bloodshed was found. Now that I thought about it, the demonic language had several words for war, but not a single one for peace.

No, what was happening here was more than that. Like positive and negative, like light and dark, we were the ultimate antithesis to each other’s existence.

The only thing that was left for hostilities to begin was to find a reason to start butchering, a trigger. And it was provided by the most unsuspecting of victims.

As the two armies stood facing each other, neither daring to move a muscle or to speak a word, a butterfly flew in front of a nervous soldier, landing on a flower. And as demons were prone to killing things for little reason, the soldier stepped onto the offending insect, unable to bear its innocent beauty.

That was apparently enough to incite the angels’ righteous wrath.

With a roar, they charged, as did the demons.

I regained my wits before the two sides collided with each other and took Isabella by the hand, urging her to fly straight upwards. We managed to avoid the confusion that ensued when the armies clashed.

Then we were dodging demons who ignored us just to get faster into battle to pluck some wings. Some tried to divert their path in order to stop us but were swept along by their comrades. And moments later we dove back through the veil and into the dimensional rift.

The scenery around us changed once more, and not for the better.

This time, we found ourselves right inside a powerful rainstorm. A powerful gust of wind tore at my wings and I screamed as my muscles strained to keep them orientated correctly. It was almost too much, and I feared that my wings would be torn off despite my inner mana manipulation.

With the next gust, the force was too strong. Isabella’s fingers slipped through mine and I heard her calling for me right before a gush of thick rainfall blocked my sight of her. I cursed under my breath and angled my wings, trying to fly sideways around the stormy area that had separated us.

And then I was suddenly in a white space.

I tripped on the sandy ground and sprawled rather clumsily into the dune that had appeared out of nowhere. To my great displeasure, I also swallowed a fistful of the stuff. And of course, this wouldn’t have been a chaotic fissure if the dirt within my mouth hadn’t decided to turn into pure salt.

Cursing and spitting, I rubbed at my tongue to get rid of the taste. “That’s it! I am never again going to get near anything that’s associated with Chaos! This place is insane!”

“It may be insane, but you are also downright pathetic right now. Really, when are you going to learn to stand on your own two feet? It’s embarrassing to watch.”

I startled to my feet and raised the spear which I had kept a hold of the entire time, pointing it right at… at myself?

There was another me squatting on the dune in front of me, giving me a scowl of disdain that couldn’t be easily replicated. I was clearly losing my sanity in this place. “Who are you? Are you another one of my alter-ego’s ploys?”

The man on the dune covered his face with both hands and shook his head. It actually looked like he genuinely pitied my very existence. Then he looked up to me. “I am you. Or rather, the voice in your head which you so ingeniously decided to call the other.” He frowned. “You know, it’s actually hard to tell since I was born from the Chaos around you. Right now, it’s the only thing that’s giving me substance. So, maybe you could call me an alternate version of yourself, created from your primary soul. Or you could simply admit that you are slightly insane and that nothing of this is real.” He shrugged as if it didn’t concern him. “Might be easier to accept.”

“Great, now I have to fight my mirror version!” I complained and grabbed the spear tighter, not expecting anything helpful from the being in front of me.

The other me rolled his eyes. “Why would we fight? Didn’t I just explain that I am nothing more than a figment of yourself… insulting and demeaning as it is,” he grumbled. “Right now, I only exist because you decided that it would be a good idea to swim through the Primeval in your current state.”

“I did nothing of the sort!” I shake my spear at the infuriating impersonation of myself. “If you truly claim to be the other, then you should know that I was just searching for Amon’s legacy!”

The other frowned. “Yeah, about that, when are you finally going to realize that you are only a puppet dancing on a string. Funnily enough, the puppeteer in this case is yourself.” He mumbled something to himself.

I narrowed my eyes. “It isn’t like I am not doing what I want. I want power, so what is wrong with getting it by taking my predecessor’s things?”

The other laughed and spread his hands, gesturing at our surroundings. “Are you serious? The old Amon was obsessed with the idea of becoming a god, a god of the Primeval Chaos, to be exact. You got all the clues but didn’t put them together, but why am I complaining? You may be a demon, but you are still too young to comprehend the role you play.”

He apparently saw that I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. “Let’s make it simple. When you left the tomb after your first touch with Chaos magic, you swore to yourself: Never again! And yet!” Smiling, he gestured at our surroundings. “When you realized that Amon is playing you in an attempt to set his future reincarnation on a path gain godhood, you still took his gifts, no matter that he already failed once!” He gestured at the spear and the rapier that was still hooked to my belt. “What makes you think that it will be any different for you? Weak and uneducated as you are. Isn’t repeating your predecessor’s mistake the definition of insanity? Why do you expect a different outcome by following in his footsteps?”

I placed a hand on the rapier, remembering what I had promised myself. He was right. How could I truly be free of my past if I relied so desperately on it, instead of forging my own path? Hadn’t I already started by creating my own version of the spear? I hadn’t even tried it out yet and I was already chasing after a similar weapon.

“Unfortunately, Amon’s theory of becoming a god was right, and yet so very wrong.” The other shook his head.

“What do you mean?” I asked, captivated by how right his words sounded just now in my head.

“To become a god, you have to take on one of the fundamental laws of the multiverse. You have to internalize it until you become it!” He pointed his finger at me. “Alas, the current you is far too weak for that. You can’t stand the Chaos. The old you couldn’t either. That’s why Amon turned insane and he ultimately died. Becoming an immortal is just the first step to godhood. Even if you continue on this path, you may not achieve the next step for a few more reincarnations.”

I swallowed, still tasting the salt in my mouth. This other me apparently had a deeper connection to my primary soul. Would he be able to answer questions that I didn’t know the answer to?

“Alas.” He dropped his hands, his eyes focusing on a spot behind me. “It seems like our time is up. What will you do?”

I turned around and was faced with a ripple in space that bled chaotic energies. Waiting inside, was Amon’s diary. It was right there, free for the taking and promising limitless power, but with everything that the other had just said, I simply couldn’t do it.

This power wasn’t something that a simple demon could wield without being eaten alive by it. I would be consumed by madness, just the same as my predecessor. Maybe sometime in the future, when another me indeed achieved godhood, he would be able to walk this path and conquer the Chaos. But not me, not now.

I took a step back and the ripple seemed to follow me as if it wanted to shove this cursed power into my face. Concerned, I wondered whether it was actually possible to refuse this ‘gift’.

But then something touched my hand.

Slender fingers enclosed my palm and I was pulled sideways – and was back in the pelting rainstorm, Isabella flying next to me. Somehow, she had pulled me out of that white place.

“Haven’t I told you not to step sideways?” she scolded and pulled me with her.

“But I haven’t,” I tried to object weakly.

“I warned you, and you have, or you wouldn’t have been there. Strange things happen within the Chaos if you go sideways with intent. It takes you to places that aren’t part of the multiverse as we know it,” she clarified. “Where have you been?”

“Just some white place with an idiot who told me how stupid I am,” I replied, hoping that it would be enough.

We flew in silence for another minute, for once unchallenged by our environment. The rainstorm was strong, but this time it couldn’t separate us. Continuing like that, we finally reached a huge front of heavy clouds that drew up in front of us and we dove in.

For a moment, my sight was reduced to nothing, and then we were through.

Lust’s red sky greeted us in all its glory and we found ourselves gliding closer to the ground than it felt comfortable. For the second time that day, I managed a crash landing, entangling myself with the succubus who aided the accident by brushing her wings against mine.

I had my doubts when her apparent clumsiness landed me face first in her bosom. Normally, it would be a position most men would envy me for, but I still had my doubts about Isabella’s motives.

She was about to hug me when I quickly shot to my feet, abandoning the position between her legs. “Sorry,” I apologized and offered her a hand, unable to ignore the fact that she had helped me enormously by finding the mansion, and then by pulling me out of that sideways-realm.

Isabella pouted, but she took my offered hand to get up. “Have you gotten everything you were searching for?”

I considered the question. “Maybe not. But I have certainly learned a thing or two.”

Turning, I looked back at the chaotic fissure that was now presenting itself as the fog-bank that we had entered originally, unassuming and silent.

“Isabella?”

“Yes?”

“Can you let go of my hand now?”

“Hmm. No.”