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Sam held the baked soul in his hand and stared at it with a furrow on his brow. Despite the time he spent inside the subconscious expanse, he never learned the Venusian’s trick to withdrawing items from it. However, that didn’t mean he had no way to bring the soul back to Oterra.
A blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman appeared beside Sam, Mayor, one of the more enthusiastic Venusians working under Vercedei. “Hello, Sam,” she said. “What did you need?”
“Bring this back to Oterra for me,” Sam said. “Make sure it doesn’t get damaged.”
“Of course,” Mayor said and retrieved the half-eaten soul. She took one glance to the side at the demon, who was prostrating on the ground, and chose to ignore it. “Was there anything else you required of me?”
“No,” Sam said. After thinking for a bit, he figured he should encourage the Venusian since she was faithfully following Vercedei’s orders. “You’re doing a good job. Keep it up.”
“Thank you,” Mayor said and bowed her head. Then, she vanished, taking the half-eaten baked soul with her.
Sam’s attention shifted back to the demon, whose forehead was still pressed against the ground. It had handed him the soul, yes, but Sam felt like he couldn’t let the demon leave lest it cause trouble in Oterra. Although it said it wouldn’t, could Sam really trust the words of a demon?
“I can’t believe my luck,” the demon muttered to itself, but its words were still loud enough for Sam to hear. “Where did I go wrong? I swindled, cheated, and sweet-talked humans all my life, but in the end, my destiny ends up in the hands of a human. I knew the zone of negativity was too good to be true, told myself too, but no, I had to listen to my temptations, and my last meal was violently taken away from me as well. If I had known I would’ve ended up like this, I would’ve finished that soul yesterday like my had belly told me to.”
Was the demon trying to evoke some sense of guilt within Sam? It was true he had basically mugged the demon of its snack, but when its snack was a human soul, Sam felt justified in taking it away. If he were ever attacked by a pig for eating a piece of bacon, he’d feel like he’d deserve it. “Alright,” Sam said. “That’s enough out of you. Stand up.”
The demon stood up, but it kept its head lowered, refusing to make eye contact with Sam.
“You’re a higher-dimensional being, right?” Sam asked.
“Technically,” the demon said.
“What can you do?” Sam asked. “Nwaps can proliferate, so what’s your special ability?”
“Special ability?” the demon asked. “Can’t say I have one.” A gurgling sound escaped from the demon’s abdomen. “I can do anything a demon can do, but I haven’t ascended, so there’s nothing I can do that other demons can’t. Nwaps was lucky enough to ascend and gain an ability unique to themselves, but, as you can see, I’m a demon down on my luck. If I were lucky, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
So, even demon society was based on luck. In other words, Sam had captured a talentless demon just trying to make a simple living by swindling humans out of their souls. “In that case,” Sam said, “what can demons do that humans can’t?”
“Well,” the demon said, “that’s hard for me to say since I only have very limited interactions with humans, but I noticed most of them can’t visit the subconscious expanse—with you being the exception.” The demon’s tongue extended from its mouth and touched its forehead, rubbing back and forth as if it were using the appendage to scratch itself. “Humans are also unable to pursue us if we enter a shadow to escape, and when they sleep, they’re defenseless against our paralyzing techniques.”
A paralyzing technique? Sam wondered if he could mimic the demon’s abilities. Considering he could imitate blue avians, he didn’t see why it wouldn’t be possible to copy a demon as well. “Show me how you escape through shadows. I want to experience your paralyzing ability as well.”
***
Paula was not having a good time. Then again, the blue avian was rarely happy, so their state of mind wasn’t anything to be surprised about, but it was rare for a blue avian to have strong, negative thoughts, and Paula was experiencing some of those. If they could simply bombard the capital, wouldn’t the illusion obscuring their senses vanish as well? Sure, hundreds or thousands of humans would die or be grievously injured, but for Oterra’s sake, no one would mind such a small sacrifice—except for the humans. Sam’s familiars were planning something, and it wasn’t anything good considering the amount of demons roaming about unchecked.
Paula focused on the ground with their fingers spread outwards, pointing their palm below, and an ash-gray demon figure surged into the air. It was holding a severed arm which was dripping with blood from the stump where it had been torn off. The blue avian glared at the demon. “What gave you the courage to enter Oterra?” Paula asked. The blue avian didn’t wait for an answer before clenching their hand, causing the demon to let out a pitiful cry as its body contorted, crunching in on itself until its body was cylindrical like a stick. Black wisps surged out of the demon’s head as its body dissolved, and the severed arm fell to the ground with a splat.
“There’re demons everywhere,” a blue avian not far from Paula said, communicating with the nearby blue avians through their thoughts. “Are we sure this isn’t just another distraction? I can’t help but get the feeling we’re being fooled again.”
Paula thought back to the Surtakatul, the higher-dimensional being summoned by the mantids. Since Sam had destroyed the calamity detector, the Surtakatul went undetected for quite some time, allowing it to eat and grow to the point it took several blue avians to handle it over the period of a month—not because it was difficult to kill but because it had laid thousands of eggs which hatched one at a time, allowing the Surtakatul to reappear on Oterra over and over. There were probably still eggs hidden around, waiting for the blue avians to drop their guard before hatching once more; without the calamity detector, no one could tell for certain.
“Regardless of whether this is a trap or a distraction, we have to find the source of negativity,” Paula said. “It’s up to us to protect Oterra, and that includes ridding it of demons; if we don’t do it, who will? The reptilians? The mantids? Don’t be stupid; we’re the only ones with a sense of responsibility around here.”
“Why do we have to find the source of negativity?” a blue avian asked and heaved a sigh that reverberated in the minds of its fellow blue avians. “Especially with this illusion messing with our senses, wouldn’t it be a lot easier to destroy this whole place?”
“Yeah,” another blue avian said. “If all the humans die, they won’t be having negative feelings anymore, and whatever Sam is planning will fail. Sam expects us to be gracious enough to leave the humans alone whilst only eliminating the demons while searching for him, so we have to act in a way he doesn’t expect to outwit him.”
“So, you want to eliminate a whole species?” Paula asked.
“Not the whole species,” the blue avian said. “Just the humans in this city. After we’ve wiped them out, we can repopulate the city with the humans we’ve captured. If we wait a few hundred years, it’ll just be a small blip in their history, and it’ll be forgotten in a few generations of humans.”
“One way to get rid of wolves is to reduce the number of deer,” another blue avian said. “If we get rid of some humans, the demons will naturally go away.”
Paula didn’t respond as they hovered in the air, observing the city below with their All-Seeing Gaze. What they saw through their psychic vision was incongruent with what they saw through their eyes. The sounds Paula heard couldn’t or shouldn’t have been made by the actions they witnessed, and for some reason, they were smelling the beach—the closest one being miles away. A demon entered Paula’s psychic vision, and the blue avian grasped it with a thought, lifting the demon into the air telekinetically and squeezing it until it evaporated into black mist without giving the poor fellow a chance to speak. The only things Paula’s senses found reliably were demons, the creator of the illusions clearly using the blue avians as free labor.
“We’ve been searching for Sam for so long,” a blue avian said as they lifted a demon into the air. It let out a screech as it was squeezed, black mist streaming out of its mouth before the demon dried up into a husk and dissolved into ashes. “And now we’ve finally found him, but he’s hiding in an illusion—”
“Might be,” another blue avian said, cutting in. “The illusion could be a distraction as well. Leave one behind for us to puzzle through while he does something else in another region.”
“Let’s destroy this place.”
“If we do enough damage to the region, the illusion should naturally disperse.”
“Why are we taking the high road when Sam goes low? Are we trying to be good people, or are we trying to save Oterra from calamities?”
“Sometimes, sacrifice is necessary.”
Paula listened to the chatter of their peers. It was clear they wanted to get things over with quickly whilst disregarding the ramifications of their actions, and Paula could sympathize with them. The calamity detector had turned them lazy, and even Paula was feeling frustration with how events involving Sam were progressing.
“Fine,” Paula said. “Do as you wish.”
The chatter in Paula’s head ceased as the blue avians fell silent. Then, there was an explosion of noise as they all spoke at once. Paula shut out the sound and floated higher into the air. The blue avians were going to use violence to clear up the illusion, and Paula wanted no part in it; even though they’d feel guilty for allowing such a thing to happen, it was less guilt than doing it themself.
***
Toka was on break from doing his duty at the temple plaza: being attractive and encouraging individuals who hadn’t found their faith to enter a temple to see if their beliefs and values resonated with any of the deities. The golden plaza was nice, allowing Toka to move around as he wished; there were even a few roads paved with gold, allowing the Venusians on duty to see other parts of the city as well if they wished. He was currently walking along one of those roads, and if it were a normal day, he’d be smiling and waving at people, making conversation with the regulars he encountered on his walks.
Unfortunately for Toka, it was not a normal day, and the humans he saw regularly were nowhere to be found. In fact, the buildings that should’ve been there weren’t; instead, there were massive craters in their places with piles of shattered debris and unidentifiable scraps of organic matter pocking the region. A loud explosion rang throughout the area, causing the ground to shake, and Toka sank halfway into the golden road to prevent himself from losing balance, only his torso sticking out of the ground. His ears rang with a shrill noise, but before they had time to recover, a second explosion rang out, quickly followed by a third and fourth.
Screams and frantic shouts drifted through the air, but they were jumbled and drowned out by the boulders falling from the sky, making it impossible for Toka to discern what people were saying. The ground beside Toka trembled and groaned before rising into the air with a cracking sound akin to thunder. His eyes widened as the chunk of ground surged upwards until it was practically a dot in the sky. Then, he ran for his life as the dot grew larger, falling towards the ground like a comet. If he were a human, maybe he would’ve been knocked over by the impact behind him, perhaps, it would’ve even disabled him. Luckily, Toka was a Venusian, and he sank into the golden road completely, rushing as fast as he could back to the plaza.
“The world is ending!” a familiar feminine voice said. “The apocalypse is here! If you wish for your lives and your souls to be saved, then pray, pray to the deities to save you!”
Upon reaching the plaza, Toka poked his head out to see who in their right mind would be preaching at a time like this. Then again, the preacher probably wasn’t in the right state of mind considering the ground itself was rising and falling to destroy the region. “Mayor?” Toka asked. “What are you doing? Do you know what’s happening?”
“As an angel, how can you lose your calm so easily?” Mayor asked, turning to look at Toka as if she were oblivious to the ongoing devastation. “We have a duty to uphold.”
“We have to be alive to uphold it,” Toka said. “Do you seriously think anyone is going to have time to pay attention to you while”—he gestured wildly around himself—“all this is happening?”
“Why not?” Mayor asked. “There’re bomb shelters located in the basement of each temple. If they’re smart, everyone in the city will flock here.” The Venusian woman turned her head to the side, and she waved her arms in the air at a group of approaching people. “Believe in the deities! They’ll protect you from harm if you truly believe!”
A portion of the city block descended from the sky, having been picked up earlier, and slammed on the ground beside the group of humans. They screamed as they were blown off their feet, shrapnel and debris spraying upon their bodies as they fell to the ground.
“Believe harder!” Mayor shouted at the fallen people. “Ask the mighty deity Raindu to save you. Scream your heart out for him to hear you!”
Toka looked at Mayor as if she were crazy. She was completely disregarding her own health and safety because she wanted to please Sam by fulfilling his orders. Maybe she fell for the words she was spouting herself and truly believed she’d be protected by Sam despite him not doing anything to stop the destruction. Toka took a look around from his vantage point; since the plaza had the highest elevation of any location within the capital, he could see the destruction happening in all directions. Buildings flew up, and some people took their chances jumping out as they were rising rather than allowing themselves to slam into the ground building and all. Dozens of blue avians could be seen in the sky, using their telekinetic grasps indiscriminately lifting and slamming.
“Save us!” someone shouted, their voice barely entering Toka’s ears.
“Please! I can’t die here!”
“If not me, at least my son! God, please, save my child at the very least!”
“O mighty Birdbrained, I promise I’ll worship you faithfully and forever!”
Toka’s eyes widened as the boulders made from the ground and buildings stopped rising, freezing in place. His eyes widened even further when they disappeared and reappeared where they had been taken from as if everything that had happened hadn’t. The debris from the destruction Toka swore he had seen had been cleaned up, and even the bits of organic matter were nowhere to be found. Toka blinked as his surroundings shifted, and he found himself back on the golden road, on the street he had been before the first explosion went off. Despite everything resetting, he still remembered the events that had unfolded previously.
Toka raised his head as a shadow fell over him, and he swallowed upon seeing the underside of a wing covering the sky. “That which has been shall no longer be,” a reverberating voice said followed by a sharp squawk. “None shall lay their malicious paws or grubby little wings on the followers of Birdbrained.”