Beneath the Earth’s surface, far beyond the reach of humans, lay a grand network of caverns.

Inside of these caverns was a constant lingering smell of sulfur, but all the inhabitants were used to it, never having known anything else.

But there was something else down here that they couldn’t get used to, and it was far worse. As far as the eye could see, and as far as anyone could travel down here, there were only faded dark rocks.

These rocks were slightly luminescent, and they lit up the surroundings a tiny bit so they didn’t have to live in complete darkness. But that didn’t change what they were.

The cavern walls, the ground, even the ceiling, it was all dark rocks. Little else existed, even their primitive buildings were built by using stone blocks carved from those very same rocks.

Most of those buildings were dilapidated, in shambles, and on the verge of collapsing. They were like a relic of times past, showcasing that life down in these caverns had once been far better.

Now this place was was just a husk of its former self.

And in the cavern that lay at the center of it all, stood a fortress. The exterior was just as dull and monotonous as everything else, its size was the only thing differentiating it from all the other buildings.

But the interior hid a few secrets. For one, this fortress had a library, the only one in existence down here.

Inside of this very library, a young person sat at a stone table, hunched over and reading.

In the faint lighting, he could only barely be made out to be a boy. Somewhere between 13 and 16 years of age.

In the darkness, with no candles, and only the little light given off by the rocks, it should’ve been impossible to read anything.

Still, this person was clearly reading, his eyes focused on the words littering the book’s pages.

“Hah….” The boy sighed, lazily turning the pages of the book with little interest.

In these dreary surroundings, a book was a significant item. It was something rare that should be coveted by many.

But to this boy, the book wasn’t interesting in the slightest. The entire library only had precisely 30 books, and he had already read them all several times.

Well, there used to be 31 books, but one had fallen apart years back. Ever since then, he had been far more careful with the books.

Turning another page, he found he had reached the end. With the empty back board staring right back at him, it was glaringly obvious.

There were no more pages left to turn.

As careful as ever, he closed the book and took hold of it, walking over to a stone board he had hung on the wall.

With his nail, he etched a line into the board right next to three others. Finally, he put the book back on the bottom row of the bookcase, at the very far end.

Taking a step back to think and admire the bookcase, the realization of it all washed over him.

This marked the end of another cycle. Once more he had read through every single book in this library, starting from the top row and finishing with the bottom.

The fourth cycle, that was what this was. The fourth time that he had wasted his time by reading through the same old boring books.

His hands shook as he tried to contain himself. The weight of his meaningless existence bore down on him, filling him with dread.

It’s always the same! Every single day is the same!

Nothing ever changed down here, surrounded by an infinite amount of worthless rock.

His existence had no purpose, and there was nothing but tattered old books to keep him company. There was nothing to see or do, experiences to have, or things to explore.

Or almost nothing… He scoffed at the thought as his mind turned to the other inhabitants of this place.

He wasn’t the only one stuck in this hellhole. That fact should’ve been a positive, but those other people could hardly be described as living.

They were content to spend years of their life, sitting around and staring at the walls for days.

And if they weren’t doing that, they would tell each other ancient stories. They took pride in the stories that were passed down through their families for hundreds of generations.

But they weren’t worth much, and by now he had heard every single story tens of times. Compared to how many times he had read these books, it wasn’t even close.

Still, he needed a distraction for now. He would have to wait a few days before starting over with his reading. He really wasn’t in the right mood for it at the moment.

Trudging through the fortress’ many halls and rooms, his footsteps echoed out because of the empty interiors.

Every hall and room he passed through was abandoned, not another soul in sight.

This fortress was thousands of years old, and its size had once served a purpose. But not anymore. These days, the vast size was only a sad reminder that there was nothing to fill it with. Neither people, furniture, art, or treasure. Nothing.

All they had was lots of rock, far more than anyone could ever need or want.

Just thinking about it was enough to make him depressed.

His feet brought him to a grand hall. It was the only place that the fortress’ occupants gathered.

Inside, a group of horned people were present. They all wore stone leg armor and sat on stone benches around a stone table. Stone, stone, stone.

That table was once made of oak wood and had matching wooden chairs to go with it. According to his father, it had been a sight to see.

But that man had never even seen it in person, he had heard about it from his father, who’d heard it from his father, and on and on it went.

Yes, it was exactly one of those stories that had been passed down through hundreds of generations. One of those that would be told over and over until everyone could repeat it verbatim.

No one even knew if it was true, but everyone wanted to believe it.

“Prince Azazel, come, have a seat,” A man with two fairly large black horns sitting atop his head waved him over respectfully.

Among their kind, horns were a sign of status. Displaying one’s strength and bloodline.

Despite his royal bloodline, he was still far too young to have horns of his own. He had recently had his 15th birthday, so there was at least a decade more to wait.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Azazel walked over and sat down beside the man.

“Finally bored of your books, huh?” The man laughed, putting his arm around him. “Luckily you came just in time. I was about to tell everyone about the time an angel was sent down here—”

“His name was Lucifer, and he was sent to the Underworld for rebelling against god,” Azazel interrupted, already bored by the drivel the man was about to spout. “I know, you’ve already told the story a million times.”

“Hahaha,” The man laughed, not bothered by the Prince’s disrespect in the slightest.

He clapped Azazel on the back, a little harder than necessary, and continued.

“It’s a great story. Besides, he was one of your ancestors, I’m sure the King would like it if you took an interest in Lucifer’s history.”

Azazel just rolled his eyes and refrained from responding. Thankfully, he didn’t have to as the rest of them had already returned to telling their stories.

He sat and pretended to listen for a while, but was mostly just lost in his own thoughts.

His father was the Demon King, and he, the second Prince. By all means it should’ve been a good life, full of interesting things to do.

But reality was that it was the exact opposite.

He had servants, sure, but they couldn’t do anything for him. There was simply no need for them. They couldn’t prepare food, because there was none. They couldn’t wash his clothes, because all he had was one pair of tattered rags. He slept on a stone bed, so they didn’t need to make it.

They could carry him around, but he had his own legs to walk with, so even that was useless.

Speaking of useless, the guards were even worse off.

Nobody was going to attack them down here. Every demon in the Underworld was already loyal to his family. With no resources to fight for, there was little strife.

His father even kept the library open to everyone, it was just that nobody other than him was interested in using it. Maybe he saw someone else there once a week, if even that.

Azazel got up without saying a word, leaving so that he could go back to wandering the empty halls. He was eager to be just about anywhere else, at least then he wouldn’t have this nonsense as background noise.

Not that he didn’t care for his ancestors, he did, but the legendary Lucifer had already been dead for over ten thousand years.

How he died, no one knew. They didn’t even know precisely how long ago it had been. All they had was vague estimations.

But they knew that his death coincided with the sealing of the passage between Earth and the Underworld. And that all of demon kind had been stuck here since then.

Nobody had come in or out, and with that, information about the outside had dried up. Not to mention resources and items.

Most of the things remaining down here when the passage was sealed, had broken apart over the many years. Only a little of it was still left. A big part of it was those 30 books in the library.

These days, people couldn’t separate fact from fiction in those old stories that everyone was so fond of. By now they were nothing but myths.

If not for a few stone tablets that were written very long ago, they wouldn’t even know most of what they did.

It was only because of one of these stone tablets, that they were aware of the passage’s sealing and the fact that it existed.

But as for the things that weren’t written down, they were lost to time, or misconstrued as generations of demons came and went.

Demons used to have a long life span, with even the weakest bloodlines living for a few hundred years.

But it wasn’t like that anymore. They could survive without eating or drinking, but this stunted their development and lifespan. With the lack of resources, it was only the royal bloodline that originated from Lucifer that had such a long lifespan.

Azazel himself was a descendant of this very bloodline. But in his mind it wasn’t a blessing, it was a curse.

While other demons could live for a hundred years at most, he would easily pass the two hundred mark. If he was really unlucky, it could even be three hundred.

At times like this, he almost wished he was a human. Many of the books in the library were plundered from Earth, and contained stories or sagas about their lives.

Throughout their history, they often had a grave problem with disease. Many humans died in their early years from sickness.

It was morbid, but sometimes he wished this would happen to himself.

But he knew it was unlikely. Disease was incredibly rare among the demons, and even more so among those with a powerful bloodline. Among their population of one hundred, no one had died from any diseases in the past five decades.

With his mind wandering, he opened another door. Through the gap, bright white rays of light flooded out, lighting the hall up.

Without even realizing it, his legs had taken him to this room.

He couldn’t complain. Of all the rooms in the fortress, this one was probably his second favorite. Sometimes he would come and just sit inside, watching the bright white light.

Closing the door behind him, he sat down on the cold stone floor, his eyes gazing at the origin of the light.

An archway made up of dark stone just like anything else, but with runic white lines carved upon the stone. In the middle, it was like there was a hazy white curtain of light, shimmering as it fluttered and swayed slightly, brightening up the surroundings.

To his eyes, it was marvelous, a wonder. Something that didn’t exist anywhere else in the Underworld.

For some reason, watching the light always cheered him up.

It had a simple name, but one he liked very much.

The Void.

It carried so much meaning, no matter how he thought about it.

He knew little about it, but his father and elder brother had both warned him about it many times. And for good reason, no one had ever come back through it.

Most demons stayed far away from the room. Why that was? He didn’t know.

Maybe they feared it. Supposedly there was nothing on the other end, no life could exist there. Just a blank existence. Simply nothing, a void.

At least that was what he had been told, but something inside him thought that wasn’t the case. That perhaps the true meaning had been lost in translation as the years passed. Misconstrued over time like everything else.

In some of the human stories he read, there were believers of a thing called rebirth. That after one life, there was simply another. That it was a never-ending chain, always with another link beyond the one before.

Azazel liked this concept, he wanted to believe that it was true.

As he considered the concept, a thought struck him, making him frown.

If this life didn’t suit him, perhaps he could just move on to the next link?

He could be re-birthed and live again some place else.

Even if those stories about the void were true, and that there was simply nothing after going through it, then surely it was still better than his current life.

Surely it was still better than being confined to these caverns where barely any life could exist, where little living could be done.

Without noticing, his hand had stretched out towards the hazy white light, almost touching it.

He was longing for a change and wanted desperately to cling on to something. At this point he would take anything, any hope that there was something out there greater than this.

Pulling his hand back, he forced himself to look away. Yes… This was yet another thing that his father and brother had warned him about.

The Void had a certain pull, a certain way of endearing itself to you, of drawing you in.

It’s nothing but manipulation, he told himself to clear his head.

Was it acting on him now? Meddling with his thoughts? That had to be it. Even if this life was meaningless, even if it was a boring, pointless existence, it was still better than nothing, right?

He could grow old, live his life down here. And then when his life was at its end, he would be ready for the next adventure. If there really was one.

There was no reason to be in a hurry and risk it all here. The future wasn’t running away from him, was it? If the next link truly existed, it would wait for him.

But then again… 300 years was a long time to wait. A long time to bear with it, to be patient and suffer while hoping that there would be something better at the end.

Was it worth it? His eyes were drawn back to the archway before him, he couldn’t look away.

To wait for so long instead of taking a chance now.

What was the worst that could happen? That he simply ceased to exist? Without existence, there is no regret.

Without being alive, he wouldn’t know what he was missing out on.

If he simply stopped existing, then he couldn’t regret his actions anyway, so what did it matter?

He took a step forward, bringing him closer to the curtain of light. Close enough that he could almost feel the faint caress as the curtain swayed back and forth, nearly brushing against his body.

Without existence, there is no regret.

He repeated this thought to himself like a mantra, convincing himself and giving him the courage to take this leap of faith.

For a moment, his thoughts turned to his family.

They would definitely miss him, but it wasn’t their life, it was his. He was prepared to take this risk and face the consequences of it.

Nobody wanted to be some doll, living for the sole sake of appeasing others. Living just so they wouldn’t be sad that he wasn’t here.

Deep within, his heart yearned for something more, something grander.

There was a whole other world out there, and he wanted to see it. No matter what it was, just as long as it wasn’t this gargantuan hole in the ground.

Just something with meaning, no… It didn’t even need that, it could be anything! At this point, he would truly take anything!

Those books had tales of a sky, a blue sky, with white puffy floating things called clouds. And seas filled with so much water you couldn’t drink it all. There were even forests, with endless trees, enough that anyone could have a wooden table if they wanted.

What did these things even look like? He couldn’t even imagine, only ever having read about them. But he wanted to know. If it all existed out there, he wanted to see it for himself.

Standing right before the void, he was close to tearing his hair out from the cascading thoughts in his brain.

All these things! He just wanted to see what they looked like! Was that too much to ask?!

“Without existence, there is no regret,” He said it out loud this time, yelling it as he closed his eyes, taking a giant step forward.

He stepped into the archway, his body plunging into the curtain of light, sending a cascade of ripples outwards as the light enveloped him.

And then, just as if he had never been there, his body disappeared, leaving no trace behind. Like the light itself had swallowed him.

Inside of the archway, the curtain of light gradually stopped rippling as it returned to its calm state.