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.”

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.