People like to imagine that pain has so arbitrary threshold, beyond which your senses blur and you can just sink into numb indifference.
They are wrong.
As I floated in the void, unable to move, every single mont of my temporary state was agony. So force was slowly peeling away everything that ca together to make up the very definition of who I was. One painful layer after another, that force was stripping down to my very core.
I could feel every change. Every fragnt of my being, even as it flaked away, was fully capable of processing everything that was happening.
The pain was like a white-hot blade, slicing through my essence. It kept alert and awake and pointed in a single direction. A presence. Large, overwhelming, and so very, very hungry.
It lorded over my painful reality, readily slurping away whenever a little slice of my essence ca loose. With no doubt in my mind, I could tell that once the presence was done amusing itself, I would disappear, completely and utterly.
I was desperate. I would do anything. Burn the world down. Sacrifice anything and anyone. Anything to get away from the pain. Or better yet, to flee from that unholy presence.
That was when my surroundings shimred. A vague silhouette of a man beckoned from the other side of the presence. I latched on like a drowning man, struggling with all my might to avoid my fate.
And sowhere, sohow, sothing heard my prayers. I could sohow wiggle. That clinched it. Normally, I’d double and triple check before diving in. For now, all caution was thrown to the wind. I dived towards the silhouette, and…
My eyes blinked open. I was sprawled on my stomach on hard, rocky ground.
Then I looked up.
"Huh?"
The unintelligent sound escaped my mouth on its own. Not a hard thing to justify when the first thing I saw after untold ages of tornt was the angry face of a monster, looming re inches away.
The monster had chalk-white skin and eyes that were black pools, deeper than any tar I ever knew. Its angry expression deepened into a scowl as I stared into its face. Before I could even begin to process anything, a heavy blow landed on the back of my skull. My face bounced off the ground, hard.
I saw stars. My head was in agony. Still, after the unspeakable torture of having my essence slowly stripped away, feeling physical pain was almost a relief.
"Damn it all, wasting my bloody ti!" the monster growled. "If you’ve made it through, then keep moving. I don’t fucking need you holding shit up."
Its chalk-white hand grabbed the front of my shirt, dragging up. For a mont I dangled, then it released to totter on my feet. I only barely kept my balance.
"Yes, sir." I managed to slur the words instinctively, and they actually seed to defuse so of the thing’s anger.
It — no, he scoffed, waving sothing at my face. "Move."
I did as I was told, but also managed to get a closer look at the item he held in his other hand. It was a necklace. So sort of choker, really, like one would put on a prized pit-bull just to play up the species’ supposed aggression and fierceness. It seed to be made of so kind of red tal. Sharp-looking spikes jutted out of it in every direction, except at the front, where there was a blank plate.
I tried to keep looking straight ahead. The instincts that drove my body onwards insisted that glancing around would be a bad idea. Despite that, I still caught a glimpse of what was happening.
There were lines of tough n and won, all in their early twenties, stretched away on either side into what seed like infinity. At the head of each row stood a monster, though they varied in color, shape, and even size. Most were decidedly humanoid, like my chalk-white, tar-eyed friend, but that only made them more intimidating. Their job, if it could be called that, was to drive a ball of red energy into those at the front of the line.
A short-distance beyond the monsters were a series of booths, each containing one bored-looking clerk. They weren’t doing much, considering they only had to process about one in five of the people who found their way to the monsters. The other four would fall, flail, foam at the mouth, and then lie still.
It hurt to try and understand everything. My head was still pounding from experiencing intimate contact with the ground. I tried to work on the question of why so people were standing back up while others on the ground were collared and dragged away. Before I could make any progress, a voice interrupted .
"Hrm, looked close, eh?" The red-tinted clerk spoke up when I reached him, shooting such a vicious look that I was tempted to flinch. When I didn’t, he gave a small smile. "Not entirely useless, then. Hand."
Numbly, I raised my right arm. The clerk gripped it with his left hand. Grinning even more maniacally, he raised a stamp and brought it down on my flesh.
The only thing that kept from screaming was instinct. It was like a voice had suddenly surfaced in my brain, whispering advice. Make noise, and they’ll only hurt you worse. Withstand it. Let it pass. Move on by eting their tests perfectly, and claim your rightful place.
The thoughts were all extrely helpful as they pushed their way through my mind. They were also distinctly not mine.
And the instinctive thoughts were not alone. They brought with them a flood of scattered mories, each one almost overwhelming. I could sll the despair, taste the sweat, and feel the tears. Each mory ca with its own emotion, overwhelming my ntal barriers. In those mories, I had passed far worse challenges, knowing I would die if I succumbed.
To be silent while a leering bureaucratic sadist drove a burning brand into your skin? According to my new mories, that was child’s play.
The mories also helpfully identified the race of my torntors. These weren’t generic monsters. These were demons.
When the demon clerk in front of pulled away his diabolical stamp, he shot a look of deep disappointnt. A mory surfaced. Soone screaming in pain and then getting slaughtered for being weak. The demon had been looking forward to making that my fate.
He was just going to have to get over it.
"Hmm, that’s the marking done. You are now officially part of the legion," the demon said like it was all business as usual. "Let’s see… Here it is, recruit number 18234 of Ao. Taken na of Hayden Hall. Ah, I see. You’re a legacy. No wonder you managed to pass in spite of such a pitiful reaction to infusion."
An intense surge of dysmorphia swept through . That was not my na, and Ao was not my ho. I was… who was I? Fear kept rooted in place as I cast about for an explanation and ca up short.
I knew the na of ’Hayden’ didn’t fit . I also knew that my arms weren’t supposed to look toned and trained, and that my chest wasn’t broad and muscular. I knew all those things, but I also didn’t know what the alternative was supposed to be.
My new instinctive wisdom advised to keep my mouth shut about this identity crisis as the demon rummaged through his paperwork. I tried to focus on why demons needed paperwork to begin with, especially since he seed suprely annoyed by it.
This was good advice. But the mont I finished ignoring my ntal anguish, I started to feel uncomfortable in other ways.
I was wearing only a thin shirt and pants. The clothes did nothing to shield from the alternating waves of heat and cold rolling through the air. As one sensation reached a peak, it felt as if I could acclimate and push through. And then it would flip. Hot to cold, back and forth, never giving a single second of comfort. Each wave was agony. So much so that I was surprised my body wasn’t taking actual damage.
The clothing was also getting too rough and scratchy. It irritated my skin and made squirm, even if I knew squirming was a horrible idea.
To top it all off, sweat that was generated by the heat and chilled by the cold dripped into my eyes. It was all I could do to keep my hands still, away from my face.
"A waste," the demon spat. I was thankful to the red clerk demon for reclaiming my attention, but I didn’t like the scowl he was giving . "A total waste. I can’t believe… Urgh, if it weren’t for the Laws, I would not be doing this."
The demon kept grumbling as he stood from his seat, bent down, and started rummaging around the underside of his booth. The only wise thing to do was wait. For one thing, I knew nothing about what was happening. Another important fact was that this clerk could likely kill with trivial ease.
At least, my new mories believed that to be the case.
Finally, the red demon popped up from under the desk, dragging a long, rectangular box and a simple drawstring bag attached to a belt.
"Here. This is your first and most important piece of equipnt. If you’re stupid enough not to take care of it or fail to use it, you deserve to die. It’s just natural selection at that point. Do you know how to bind it? Of course, I can also… assist you."
The demon raised another stamp model as he flashed crooked teeth. I didn’t know how to ’bind’ anything. But saying that was obviously inviting more trouble. Trusting my new instincts, I raised my hand, forced sothing to well up from within my chest, and brushed my hand across the bag. The bag glowed briefly, then settled down.
"Of course. Legacy." The demon spat at the ground under my feet and threw the bag at . I caught it awkwardly, tying the belt around my waist as he turned his attention to the box. "You are lucky. Oh yes, so very lucky. Stuck with it, through life and death. Just to make sure you understand, no one can steal this from you, not even claim it after your death. Well, unless they’re in the reacquisition departnt. Or they’re in the will. Understood?"
He shot another crazed smile and pushed the box forward. In one swift motion, he had both locks on the front of the box disengaged. Then he threw the cover back.
Part of thought the box would hold sothing horrifying, like a pile of innocent souls all screaming and begging for rcy. Another part of expected gold, jewels, and other precious tals.
No part of suspected the box would hold a sword that looked like it belonged in a junkyard.
The weapon might have once been beautiful. It still had sections that were a soft lemon-green color. Whatever tal it was made of was obviously so magical bullshit. I could tell just from the way it refracted light.
All this, however, was overshadowed by the general state of the weapon. The sword looked like soone had done their best to destroy it.
Most of the blade was blackened, chipped, and brittle. There were actual cracks running all the way down its length. And when the demon jostled the box impatiently, the blade rattled audibly inside the setting of its poml.
Now, I was by no ans an expert, but I was pretty sure that the only thing you could do with a sword like that was scrap it. So why was the creepy demon looking at the weapon like it was a sumptuous al he had to hand off to soone else?
"Well, boy? Are you going to bond with it or not? Or would you like for soone else to catch onto the fact that you, of all people, have a blade like that?"
None of this made sense, but I was not a fool, at least never to egregious levels. If the clerk demon was showing such obvious greed, delaying would do no good. So, as I’d done with the bag, I bonded myself to the blade.
I almost staggered when the weight of its connection settled on .
Unlike the bag, this sword was not to be underestimated. Hoping for so relief, I rushed through the motions of grabbing the extrely plain scabbard from the box and slamming the sword ho into it. The feeling of weight on my shoulders ebbed, but didn’t disappear entirely.
"Lucky bastard," the demon muttered, then motioned to a stand with weapons on them. These, I noted, looked much better than the weapon I had just claid. Gleaming daggers, swords that looked sharp enough to cut through razor wire, and shields that could both take and give a beating. "Pick your standard-issue weapon."
It wasn’t a hard choice. I grabbed a blade that was sothing between a dagger and a short sword. It didn’t look particularly deadly, especially in comparison to so of the other stuff on offer, but my body gravitated towards it. The second I took it, the demon clerk loudly shouted "Next!" and motioned aside.
For no other reason than a lack of better options and a desire to get away from the demon, I complied.
Thankfully, ahead of stood a line of people who looked to be in circumstances much like my own. They all held a weapon of so kind and had a bag hanging from their hips. They were also eying hungrily, twigging every single self-preservation instinct I had.
Violence wasn’t on the nu, though. In fact, as I stood there, slowly feeling a pit of hunger build up in the pit of my stomach, I realized that nothing was on the nu.
I didn’t complain. My new instincts were telling to stay still, keep quiet, and wait for instructions.
For a long ti, nothing happened. It was boring enough to sleep, but not safe enough for such a luxury. Eventually, I settled into so kind of half-awake trance. I must have zoned out for a while, or for a very long ti indeed. The next thing I was aware of was the booming voice of a demon ringing through the cavern.
"Listen up, you lot." The demon stood on a small stage beside the line of booths. He swept his head, so thick with horns that it looked like he was wearing a crown, over the gathered humans. "Today, you join the glorious ranks of the Duke of Tornt! You will spill blood for him, you will fight for him, and you will claim souls in his na!"
He paused, like he was daring anyone to say sothing to contradict him. No one did, on account of not being idiots.
In what was ostensibly an endless expanse of cavern, his voice should have been devoured by the sheer amount of empty space. Instead, the words were echoing. It sounded like he was standing right next to .
"And you will claim souls," he continued angrily. "If you fail to bring ten souls on your way back to hell, I guarantee that you will be unmade. My best torturer will have their fun with you, and by the ti they’re through, you’ll regret not extinguishing the everlasting fla of your own soul sooner. I hope we are clear on this."
We were. The demon radiated so much bloodlust and rage that I would have obeyed him even if I’d been perfectly free, in control, and fully cognizant of what the hell was happening around .
"Good. In that case, let’s get this started. I declare a war of conquest against the plane of Berlis!"
With those words, the demon spun and slashed one arm in a wide arc. His claws tore through the very underpinnings of reality, opening a rift directly onto a stretch of enchantingly picturesque grassy fields. Beyond the fields, I saw a scary fortress in the distance.
"Charge!" The demon released a guttural scream of pure violence, and countless throats echoed the sound.
Including my own.
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