Ep. 24 - History III

"You said humans are the oldest race on this planet. But you've only told the story of humans and angels. What about the demons?" asked Melanie with childish curiosity.

"Well, there are different accounts for that, and we don't know which one is right. There is a version from demon tales, a version from human tales, and one from angels. Since you are a member of a demon clan now, I'll tell you our version. But if you want, I can lend you a few books on other versions."

Arthern got up from his seat with the book he has been looking at from time to time in his hand and walked up to the giant bookshelf to place it back. Right after he took another book and returned to his position.

This book looked somewhat odd to Melanie. It had a pitch-black leather cover without a visible title anywhere on it. When the prince opened a random page again, Melanie looked from the corner of her eye and saw that the page was completely filled with words, no paragraphs, no spacing between words. But there was an unusual burst of color on the page, as if it was written by different pens with different colors.

"This is an original book from the times of the first demons. It was actually written by one of the first demons, then over time, it passed from hand to hand and historians wrote their thoughts on the pages of it.

This story takes place about a thousand years after the supposed birth of God. By this time, the upper world was settled and the number of angels reached a significant amount. But this wasn't particularly a good thing because the ratio between the number of angels who ascended by 'being good' and the number of angels who were born to angel parents was on a decline. And this meant the new generations of angels weren't as 'clean-hearted' as their ancestors. This proved right when an angel called Barak started to question the other angels' way of living.

Barak was born like a normal child. He got his powers like every other angel and had a pretty big friend group. This group, which the author of this book was a part of, was led by Barak and they liked to rebel a bit.

'Barak didn't like his life as a child,' says the author. 'Why are we sitting and waiting for the humans to pray to us just so we get a little bit of chi?' he would say. He wanted to gain more power than he possessed, even if it meant working for it day and night.

'Many years passed after that, according to the author. Though some left, their friend group stayed intact. Over the years, Barak influenced others into believing his ideologies. And in time, they started feeling the urge to take action for their beliefs. But they couldn't, because they knew of God's powers.

'One day, Barak called us to our usual meeting spot. After we all got together, he shocked us all by announcing he would be leaving. That's when he told us about his discovery. Essentially, his theory was based on the link between souls and chi. 'When a human passes away, their chi doesn't disappear immediately. Some vanish in a few days, some stay years after death. This can't be random; there has to be a differential to this time. So, I started observing humans. After decades of inspection, I realized that the faithful souls stay alive longer. But they are not in the Overworld, and certainly not in the Upperworld. This means, there has to be somewhere that these souls reside. So, I started looking into shadows and saw something, a place where no man or angel has ever gone. A place where the souls of the dead escape to. A place that I call The Underworld.

'This seemed ridiculous to us, but Barak was talking with such confidence that we knew he must have been right. He never directly asked us to come with him, but he said he would take the ones willing, and that was enough to persuade us.'"

Arthen took his eyes off the book he was reading and looked at Melanie.

"There is not a definite description of Barak's Zenchi, but we have some pieces that we can sort of get the gist of it. The main focus of his technique is seemingly manipulation of shadows, the extent of it being unknown. We know he can use any form of shadow as eyes, he can solidify and move shadows, but the limit of its size is unknown, and finally he can use shadows to teleport to other shadows."

Melanie felt like the prince was reading her mind for a second. But before she could clear her suspicions, Arthern continued reading.

"This part talks about the first expedition to the Underworld, which you may know as the birthplace of demons.

'We all got close and formed a little circle in a basement without light. Barak then used his power to take us all to this place he called the Underworld. We, when I'm saying we I mean I, thought that we should have felt some kind of nervousness, but we didn't. Barak's look of having control of the situation gave us all the courage we needed to go through with the plan.

I can never forget my first step in the Underworld. I had never felt such pain in my life. The chi created souls of all the humans and angels accumulating since the beginning of time made plain air feel like solid matter, crushing us with its weight, making it hard to breathe. I was sure those were my final seconds. To this day, I've yet to experience anything that comes close to what I felt that day.

After a few seconds, which felt longer than my life up to that point, the air started getting lighter. With this slight relief, I managed to open my eyes and saw the Underworld for the first time. I was left speechless; even if the pain was gone, I don't think I would have been able to speak.

After a few more seconds of taking in the magnificent view, I looked around to see others with me were in the same position as me. All of them, except Barak. Panicked, I looked behind my back to see Barak on his knees, in great pain. I hate myself for realizing that late, that the reason for the air getting lighter was because Barak was absorbing the energy from it. But it was too much for him, and it was visibly damaging his body. It took a few more seconds for others to see what I was looking at, and it was brutal.

Barak wasn't just absorbing the chi energy; he was simultaneously using his Zenchi to expand the Underworld with shadows so the energy density would reduce faster. But this meant his body was a gateway for chi to pass through, and the speed of it was far too big for anyone to handle. We watched as his body slowly tore down.

First his halo started to rot; it turned black and eventually crumbled into dust. Then, it was his body; he slowly lost the color of his skin and wings, and they faded into dark grey. Finally, it was his eyes. First, his iris expanded until it filled the entire eye, after which it started bleeding while fragments of keratin started forming around his eyes. These fragments of keratin grew bigger in time and turned into horns over Barak's eyes.

At this point, the air was finally light enough to let us move, so we helped Barak, but he was already mostly done with the job, so all that happened to us was losing our halos and getting the tips of horns on our forehead, unlike Barak who had them on his eyes.

It took us a few days to recover from the physical pain, but the psychological pain we felt afterward was much worse.'"