Deal with The Devil! Prologue

Prologue

"W-will this really give what I want?!"

The trembling voice of a man echoed in a room so dark that even the burning candles seed as though they were about to be swallowed by the darkness itself.

The scents of despair, hope, old books, wood, oil, and ink blended so seamlessly with the stench of death and deceit that it was impossible to tell them apart.

Slumped on the cold, hard floor was a haggard man, his face buried under thick locks of unkempt hair. Sweat dripped from his cheeks onto the stone below him, and a pair of bloodshot eyes looked into the void ahead. They were full of determination but also hid sothing deeper...

Sothing very dark.

For a ti, the shadows answered with silence. Then, when the man seed ready to despair, a soft chuckle rose from the void.

"Haha! HAhA!!"

At first, the laugh was lodic, but then it twisted and warped until it beca sothing evil. The hysterical noise shook the man’s already weak resolve. Yet no matter how long the laughter went on, he dared not interrupt. His only reaction was a sharp, audible gulp.

And then there was silence.

The sudden absence of sound was almost worse than the laugh. An unholy stillness settled over the room, suffocating, until—

Bang!

The broken man flinched at the dull sound from the darkness. His heart lurched when sothing rolled toward him, bumping softly against his leg.

By the unsteady glow of a dying candle, he saw it—an old, tiworn scroll.

Before he could even move, a voice slithered through the shadows.

"As long as you can afford the price, there is nothing in this world I cannot grant."

The allure in that tone sent another chill crawling down his spine. Promises glead across the withered page. The more he read, the more his hesitation was devoured by greed.

He nodded frantically, desperation shaking his voice.

"I will do anything!"

But his excitent dimd the instant he reached the final line.

The Offering...

His throat tightened, "W-what d-do you need of ?"

The answer ca not with words, but with sight.

From the dark void ahead, two red eyes glimred softly. With each heartbeat, their glow grew stronger until they snapped wide open.

The man stopped moving, as if he were frozen in place. He felt sothing heavy pressing on his chest, like soone was squeezing his heart, and it hurt.

Then ca the smile.

Then, beneath the eyes, a smile erged. At first, only teeth—thin, white lines in the dark. But as he stared, unable to even blink, the grin stretched higher, curving until it nearly touched the bloody eyes.

"What I want—what I have always wanted—is only one thing. And you know it."

The voice pulsed through the air, enchanting and terrible. The face within the darkness rose, shadows rippling like waves around it.

The man’s throat tightened, but no sound ca. His eyes darted desperately—only to land on the final candle left burning.

Its fla suddenly flared, turning crimson as though fed by blood. The violent light surged, illuminating the room he was in but the next mont he caught the the corner of his desk lting...

Soon it was his book, the curtains, the bookshelves and even the darkness itself. Everything started to lt and pool around him.

Before he knew it, the world before him has shifted, a heap of mangled bodies—decapitated, twisted, torn, piled grotesquely one atop another.

The stench of rot and the coppery tang of blood struck him all at once. His stomach twisted and sank, until it could not take it anymore and spat everything across the floor.

After vomiting, a raw sob tore from his chest.

"Umm..."

Another fla erupted behind him. Then another. Then another.

Only then, did he realize that he was no longer in the sa room.

He turned wildly, only to find the chamber was gone. He was enclosed by corpses in every direction. The heap stretched so vast that even a city would be too small to contain it.

The voice returned, heavy and cold.

"Nothing satisfies but your soul."

The shadows twisted and turned, and from their depths ca claws—claws made from nothingness itself that reached for him.

He couldn’t breathe. His pupils got bigger. His mind was about to fall apart. ’W-what?!’

He fell back, unable to hold on any longer. He fell over and hit the icy ground.

Just before his consciousness slipped away, lightning cracked across the sky above. For the briefest instant, the silhouette of the true figure ca into view—a towering demon that stretched to the heavens. Horns twisted high. Wings spread like mountains. Claws long enough to uproot the world itself.

The man’s eyes rolled back, his body crashing against the unfeeling stone. Consciousness fled him, but not before the whisper slithered into his skull:

"Or have you forgotten... you made a deal with the Devil?!"

The last thing he saw was a hollow face, grinning wide.

And in that final instant, he realized the truth.

The price for his greed had already been claid.