A soul hurtled through the great void, speeding up every second, in mere seconds it crossed the distance between realities and smashed through space and time, landing on a planet almost exactly like the one it had just come from.
The world froze as reality shuddered before splitting apart into tiny stringed tentacles that grasped at the soul gently, ensnaring it in its eldritch grasp.
Reality split once more, splitting and going off into impossible directions as something came forth from the depths of the world. A deep, powerful, and ancient voice spoke directly into the soul.
<[1]System initializing....>
<[2]Granting superpower....>
<[3]Changing surface personality based on #Role_19383>
Reality cracked and broke against itself, sending splinters of reality all across the great expanse of space.
The eldritch tentacles of reality broke off from the soul, leaving behind bits and pieces of it inside the soul as it did.
As soon as contact was lost, the pieces of reality fused with the soul instantly, subtly changing its spiritual color. Spots of the soul were now entirely transparent, allowing one to look right through it as if it wasn't there.
A wave of invisible force slammed into the floating soul shortly after, sending it hurtling through dimensions instantly. Untold eons of subjective time later, the soul poked through the veil of reality that separated it from a new dimension, Leaving a crack the size of the soul which instantly healed seconds later.
Nothing was unusual about this, it had been doing this for years now, and the soul had changed accordingly. What was strange, however, was the strange pull the soul felt on it, something was calling it.
This was new, so the soul followed the pull, interested in what could have caused such a strange thing. In an instant, it was floating above a world, lush and filled with life, a strange energy too.
Without warning, the pull became alarmingly strong, and a hand made of pure shadow reached out and pulled down to the land below. The soul, unwilling to be captured so easily, fought back with all its might.
Its resistance, however, was crushed and rendered futile as four hands of shadow abruptly materialized around it, they moved in unison, effortlessly pulling it down into an abyss that manifested below.
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The clawd hand of an imp of greed broke through the hard rubbery shell of its egg, and black goo oozed from the hole its tiny hand made, dissolving the rest of the egg in an instant.
The tiny imp fell to the ground with a surprisingly large thud, the black ooze, however, floated above the creature, as if frozen in time.
A second passed and the imp limped to its feet and looked around curiously, eventually, it looked up and saw the floating black liquid above it.
On instinct, it reached out to touch the puddle of floating liquid, as soon as the imp's claw made contact the ominous puddle boiled and popped until only smoke remained.
The change happened in an instant, startled, the imp leaped back with all its energy, putting a good amount of distance between it and the now glowing black smoke.
The smoke shifted and twisted before it shot toward it with unmatched speed, expanding and engulfing the imp in mere seconds.
Pained screams filled the birthing chamber as the smoke carved symbols of power into the back of the screaming imp.
After what felt like forever, the pain abruptly vanished, the crawled over to a nearby wall and hauled itself upwards, using the wall as support.
Slowly, information began to appear in its mind, what it had just gone through was called the awakening, all demons went through it, but it differed greatly depending on the type of demon involved.
It was a demon, a creature of the underworld, which was where it was, apparently.
It was an imp of greed, an imp, the lowest evolution of its kind. its kind got stronger the more essence they devoured and incorporated, the imp's power was where things got strange though, it was called [POKECT DEN].
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It was new, and because of this, the imp had no idea what it did. And the information it had received from its awakening had no mention of a power like this either.
So it mentally went on to the information that it could use and understand.
It was in hell, and soon, according to the information it received, it would be either summoned to the otherworld or eaten by another demon, the imp didn't know which one was worse but it liked being alive.
Abruptly, reality lurched and twisted, seconds later the imp found itself sprawled in razor-like sand painfully dug into its back.
Endless sand and dunes were all it could see no matter where it looked, if it strained hard enough it could make out massive sandstorms raging in the distance.
Suddenly, a wave of heat slammed into the imp, causing it to shrink in pain as its body heated up rapidly, on instinct, it began digging into the glass-like sand with all the energy it could muster.
Pain like it never felt before raced through the imp's clawed hands but it kept going, even when thick black blood began to pour from the gashes and deep lacerations on its hands.
The pain continued to rise even as the desperate imp dug, its blue skin began to turn black as the temperature rose to dangerous levels. It shrieked even more as it was being cooked alive, the imp started thrashing around wildly, unable to bear the pain.
As death was about to open the imp's door, reality twisted and a chime resounded within the confines of the imp's head.
Gone were the barren desert and frighting stormes, the heat had vanished too. The now imp stood in a circle of intertwined lights that constantly shifted and overlapped rapidly, that was the only way it could describe it.
A strange creature holding extremely precious items stood outside the circle. Each item buzzed with golden essence in its eyes, signifying its immense value and the absurd amount of essence compacted within.
The imp completely disregarded the figure holding these precious things, leaping at the nearest one and shooting off the ground with unnatural speed.
Images of it gorging itself on precious golden essence flashed in its mind, soon, it promised itself. Soon it-
The imp slammed headfirst into a shimmering wall of solid light, its head twisted backward, and sharp fangs broke loose from its mouth. Despite all this, the imp kept watching the various items held by the creature, whose features it couldn't quite describe, with unmatched greed.
The creature moved towards it, causing the imp to flinch back as it felt something press down on its mind, completely erasing the greed it had felt earlier.
"Greetings, greedling, can you understand this one?"
The creature was now somehow inside it, fear rose in the little imp as it began tearing and clawing at its own body with its mangled and twisted claws, hoping to find the source.
"[Heal], stop! At once! I Command you!"
From the creature emerged a net of white essence that wove itself around the imp and sank into its skin, seizing all control of its body instantly.
The imp abruptly froze, its body going limp, it fell on a cushion of light that materialized from below. A wave of multicolored essence slammed into its body seconds later, completely healing all its wounds and replenishing its stamina.
Simultaneously, the imp felt something from deep inside it latch on to the various essences having their way with its body and began to slowly eat away at them.
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<[99] 99 attempt failed, connection with main system permanently lost>
<99% of assets lost>
Strange things floated before the eyes of the imp, it tried lifting its hand to swash the strange annoying things away but remembered that the creature had somehow stopped it from moving, and frustration built.
No matter how it internally struggled, it couldn't move a single inch,
The creature spoke in its mind once more.
"Strange, you're pulling a lot more essence than I suspected, no matter. [Greater bind]! "
A feeling of dread latched itself in the young imp's mind, its instincts were screaming for it to run away but it couldn't move, it started screaming as loud as it could but the creature didn't falter one bit, it was futile.
The imp watched in mute horror as a bloodied chain of red essence broke loose from the creature's hand and rapidly expanded toward it.
The chain encircled the immobile imp, constricting it like an angry python before growing deep glowing fangs which it used to bite into its neck. Burning a mark of submission into it.
Instantly, the imp felt a connection to its mind form with the creature and information flew into its mind.
The creature, no, the man, was a wizard, a human wizard. The imp didn't know what any of this meant, but it now knew what its captor was.
"Stand up."
The imp's body stood up.
"Move one step backward."
The imp's body moved one step backward, inturnally, the imp screamed and struggled for control, but it was no use.
The strange annoying things were back again, it screamed in irritation internally, willing it to go away, and seconds later, it did.
A cool feeling washed over the immobilized imp, emanating from the absolute depths of its soul, and with that feeling came a bit of freedom, the imp dashed forward with all its might, crashing into the wall of light it had completely forgotten about.
"ohhhh! You're quite something! Aren't you? Somehow already adapting to overcoming the restrictions placed upon you. I shall study you greatly!"
The man bobbed around happily, rapidly shuffling through various items that each glowed with essence in the imp's eyes.
"I'll apply the adaptive rune, just in case, [Bind]!"
The imp felt the connection shift and continued to shift until it hurt its mind to even focus on it, becoming more complex and cryptic by the second.
The imp felt a bit more freedom in its hands, but this time, it didn't dare act rashly, something in its mind told it that would mean its doom. For the first time, the imp decided not to act rashly.
<+1 [##]>
A familiar cooling sensation washed over the imp through this time the feeling was strongly concentrated in its head, for some reason, usually the feeling came with changes it could notice but this time it didn't notice anything.
Time passed quickly for the imp as it watched the human cycle through various commands, each one getting more complex and nonsensical to it, sometimes the man would ask it to do things it had no concept for. Such as be loyal, or not to hurt itself.
The imp had no idea what those things meant, it didn't even know how the human was talking to it, only that it had something to do with the connection it felt between it and the human man.
Now it was standing in a room buzzing with essence—from the floor to the walls, even the air was thick with the stuff, but it wasn't golden. It didn't tingle its senses; in fact, the imp felt a new emotion swell inside it with every passing second it stayed inside the room: disgust.
Suddenly, the voice of its human captor boomed from a strange object located on the other side of the room.
"Welcome, my new best friend! Let's find out what makes you so special!"