Thomas opened his eyes and found himself floating in the middle of nowhere. It was like he was in outer space without any of the stars. Somehow he was able to see himself even though there was no discernable light source nearby. Questions were flowing through his mind. ‘Where am I? Am I dead? What was that screen I saw before I died? Is this Regrea?’ Without anything else to do, Thomas started to pump his arms and legs to swim through the strange space.

After a few hours, Thomas started to think that he would never be able to leave this place when he began to hear sounds of battle coming from up ahead. Thomas’s heart rate quickened and he pumped his arms and legs even faster. The darkness ahead of him quickly diffused and Thomas finally got a glimpse of something other than the endless darkness.

There were two winged creatures fighting against each other. One of them looked like a female decked in white leather armor. Her entire body emitted a soft glow and two large, feathery wings extended out of her back. Her opponent had blood-red skin and hardened leather armor. Various spikes jutted out from his armor and two large, leathery bat wings were attached to his back. They were both holding oversized swords and both were bleeding from multiple wounds.

Thomas observed the demon and the angel for a few minutes. They seemed to be equally matched in every way. At one point, the demon slashed down the front of the angel, however, he overextended himself and received an equally nasty cut back. At this rate, they would end up killing each other.

Thomas decided that his only hope to escape this place was with these two creatures and decided to intervene. Initially, Thomas wanted to help out the angel because they were revered beings back on Earth. However, the surge of cold emotionlessness that he had felt on the bridge clawed it’s way back into his head. He turned back to the demon and thought ‘He does look much cooler than the angel....’ And with this unusual logic, Thomas turned back towards the angel and started to swim around to flank her.

He was able to sneak up on the angel due to her being so engrossed in the battle. Thomas looked over her shoulder at the demon who looked surprised for a second before smiling and nodding in response. Thomas moved quickly as he wrapped his arm around her neck and started to squeeze. The angel was caught off guard but her strength was immense and she began to extricate herself from his hold. She was partially out of Thomas’s grip when the demon opened his mouth and unleashed a torrent of red flames.

Thomas saw the flames rapidly approaching and hid behind the angel. The flames slammed into her and she screamed in pain. Flames licked out from around her body and seared Thomas’s open skin. The pain was worse than anything he’d ever felt as the red flames seemed to claw its way across his body. A red bar popped into existence in the corner of his vision and started to rapidly decrease. Luckily, Thomas wasn’t receiving the brunt of the attack as the angel’s screams sounded loudly for a few more seconds before her vocal cords expired. The flames quickly cut out and the angel writhed in agony for a little longer before she abruptly went still.

A screen slammed into Thomas’s vision:

You have gained the skill: Sneak

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'No one can spot me, I am one with the shadows...'

Skill Type: Active

Cost: 1 stamina/second

+1% chance to escape notice while sneaking (current: 1%)

Activate sneak +1% faster (current: 1%)

You have gained the skill: Backstab

‘No one expects a stab in the back…’

Skill Type: Active

Cost: N/A

+100 damage on attack from sneak

+1% damage per level (current 101%)

Daggers do 3x base backstab damage

Level Up!

You have 5 attribute points to distribute.

Thomas was still shaking from being nearly cooked alive and quickly swiped the screen from his vision. He would deal with whatever those were later. He had more pressing problems to deal with, as the demon was floating in front of him holding his sword and idly flapping his wings. Thomas blanched and closed his eyes, preparing for a finishing blow. That strike failed to come and Thomas slowly opened his eyes to see the demon grinning broadly and holding his hand out to him.

A look of confusion flashed on Thomas’s face before he accepted the hand and the demon hoisted him vertical. It was very strange to be helped up in a weightless atmosphere, but the demon made himself clear with the gesture. He wasn't going to kill Thomas.

The demon floated over to the burned corpse of the angel and picked her up. Thomas could only stare in shock as the demon stuck her entire corpse into a normal-sized bag. He began to look for any indication that the angel was in there but couldn’t see any abnormalities about it. The demon looked over at Thomas’s shock filled face and smiled evilly as he explained, “Demon Prince Carreau will want to see this bastard burn later.”

The demon started to float away before looking over his shoulder and said, “Speaking of the Demon Prince, he is probably wanting to see you now, eh kid?” Thomas didn’t want to be left behind in this endless space and attempted to swim after the demon. The demon looked at Thomas as he tried to keep up and chuckled as he swooped back over to him and grabbed him by the collar. “By the way, the name’s Maier, dont wear it out,” the demon said. He then shot off into space at the speed of a bullet.

Thomas was astounded at how fast they were traveling and decided to observe the demon to try to gain some semblance of how he was traveling so fast. His wings were slicing through the air towards their feet as his legs were moving up and down, kind of like a dolphins tail. His tail was stuck straight out and would occasionally bend in order to make subtle changes to their direction.

While it certainly looked cool, his technique still didn’t explain how they were flying so fast. After observing him for a while longer, Thomas noticed that there the air was wavering near Maier’s feet, like air does above a road on a hot day. He figured that the demon must be using some sort of heat skill to shoot hot air out of his feet. Thomas also noticed that the red bar that had appeared in his vision when he was being burned slowly started to refill. When the red filled the entire bar, it slowly dissapeared from his vision.

After a few hours of travel, Maier abruptly stuck his wings out and came to a screeching stop. Thomas looked around for any indication that they had arrived somewhere, but all he could see was the same endless dark space all around him. The demon let go of his collar and floated over to a random spot a few meters over. Thomas could see a look of hard concentration on Maier’s face as the demon started to mutter unintelligible words while contorting his hand into different positions. To be honest, Thomas thought that it looked kind of painful, but within a few seconds, the demon spat out a final word to his chant and squeezed his fist.

A great vortex exploded into being. It looked a lot like the vortex that brought Thomas into this place to begin with. The portal looked like a tear in space that was slowly rotating. It was pitch black in color and when Thomas tried to peer into it, it felt as if his whole soul was being sucked through. He quickly looked away before anything bad happened and looked towards Maier with a confused expression on his face.

The demon looked back at him and grinned broadly, “Well, get a move on! We don’t have all day, you know. The Demon Prince awaits.” And with that, the demon stepped through portal. Thomas sighed as he took one last look around before talking a deep breath and walking through the portal.