"YOU'RE FINALLY AWAKE, KID?"

"Shit, who is being so loud!" Ray shot up from the hard ground. When he looked ahead, his eyes almost popped out and he pulled his tongue back into his mouth. A demon was sitting on a rock, staring at him not too far away.

The devil snorted. "HMPH, KID, YOU BETTER BE MORE RESPECTFUL. I CAN KILL YOU WITH A PINCH, OK?"

Ray's ears were about to bleed. He held his head subconsciously at the defeaning sound. "fuck.. Can you please lower your voice? Please?"

"oh, sure!" the demon made a look of understanding. "I forgot you're a fresh mortal. You don't even have a core." it said while jumping off the rock and walking towards Ray.

Ray, on the other hand, looked puzzled. "A core?"

"Forget that for now. How do you feel? Got a headache of sorts? Feel sore?" the demon squatted infront of Ray.

"uhh... no. My body feels a bit sore, but my head doesn't hurt. Who are you by the way? Rather, what are you? Is this hell?" the demon looked strangely good looking from up close, with what looked like a month old beard, a perfect face and and well defined, completely red body and giant wings on his back. However, his eyes were bloodshot and one of the long horns on his head was broken. Ray even saw a missing toe!

"How impolite of me, I haven't introduced myself yet." The demon spread his arms as if to gesture to the environment.

"As you can see, this is hell. I am Satan, the singular resident of hell. Nice to meet you, kid." he lowered his arms.

Ray immediately frowned. "Hell? What did I ever do to come to hell? The worst thing I did in my life is steal a mango from my neighbours' tree as a kid!"

Satan was perplexed at first, then remembered something. "Do not believe those religions of yours! Everyone with a strong enough soul gets into heaven, and the rest simply dissipate. There is no 'good' or 'evil'. They all go to heaven after death, unless their soul is too weak."

Ray was a bit baffled. To be honest, he was an atheist, but he came to think heaven did exist after seeing those wisps of souls. Now, he's being told non of that is true.

"Then what is heaven? What is hell? Why am I here if everyone goes to heaven?!"

Satan sighed and sat on his butt with his legs crossed. "Heaven is simply an upper realm. You lived in a lower realm created by the ancients of this higher realm. There are 8 of these lower realms attached to the heavenly kingdom. Which one are you from?"

Ray was dazed. "I'm from ear-"

"actually nevermind. I don't really care. You said your head doesn't hurt? Good. That means your soul wasn't damaged as I dragged you into hell."

Ray remembered the giant hand that grabbed him and gulped. "what about hell? Why are you the only one here? And why did you drag me here?!"

The devil looked at Ray curiously. "I was sealed here.. A long time ago. Long story short, I betrayed the upper realm and ended up sealed in this shitty place. However, to seal ME, they had to detach a large area, half the size of the Heavenly kingdom. This was the battlefield, and it stretches over 50,000 kilometers."

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Ray almost hung his mouth open. 50,000 kilometers?! Are you fucking kidding me? Even the United States is less than 5000kms across, so this place is 10 times larger than that? What about the Heavenly kingdom, that is even twice the size of hell? As Ray was trying to conceptualise the size of this place, he suddenly thought of something and asked. "You refer to the upper realm and heavenly kingdom as different things?"

The demon answered quickly. "ofcourse! The Heavenly kingdom is only a medium sized territory in the upper realm after all."

When Ray heard that even the Heavenly kingdom is a medium sized territory, he felt stupid for even comparing heaven and hell to human countries. "So.. why did you drag me here?"

"REVENGE!" Satan billowed.

"I need you to set the Heavenly kingdom to ruin. I will give you the means, and the fact that you're fine after I dragged you in here means you're talented. You have a strong soul." he said while getting up.

Satan then snapped his fingers, and a white ball appeared on the air. "This is a core, a demon core. It's something I invented in the upper realm and the main reason I was hunted and sealed. This will be my gift to you."

Ray looked at the ball curiously. "ah, a core? You mentioned that before. What's the use of this thing?"

"first of all, there's 2 types of cores. A divine core, which the residents of the upper realm are all have, even the ascending mortals. When you are first given your divine core, it's jet black, the complete opposite of the demon core. When you cultivate the divine core, it gets gradually lighter, and lighter. The demon core gets darker, until it is pitch black. Of course, there's more to it than that, but I'll tell you about it later."

Ray wanted to ask a question, but was cut off by Satan immediately. "Yes, you CAN have 2 cores. I had 2 cores for example. However, because I cultivated my divine core to an extremely high level before forming my demon core, not only was it not well integrated, it also had limited potential. It's why I lost." The devil looked solemn. "But you're different! You don't have any core, and a strong soul. You're perfect for a dual core physique."

shifting into a more comfortable postition, Satan looked at Ray. "Now, kid. what's your name? I shouldn't call you kid all the time I suppose."

Ray staggered to get up and moved his hand to greet the devil. "I'm Ray. It's.. a pleasure?"

"Anyways, kid. come for now.. I'll teach you how to materialise a demonic core. It's going to be painful! Even I, a being who was at the white core divine stage, made a scowl."

'Shit.. if I refuse, is he going to kill me? fuck, I don't wanna do this! Also, why did he ask my name if he was just going to keep calling me kid anyways?'

"First of all, the divine core. Did you know that your world had an infinitely thin amount of mana in its atmosphere? That amount is much higher in the upper realm, and does not exist in hell, So you can't create a divine core here. however.. the demonic core, my magnum opus, is different. it makes you stronger by absorbing anti-mana. Anti-mana exists everywhere, even in your lower realm. what was it, urs? "

"It's earth." Ray chimed. "But that doesn't matter anymore, I won't be able to go back again. I won't.. be able to see my mother again." Ray was trying to ignore it for a while.. but it's true that he died, and his mother was probably devastated, as well as his friends.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that!" Satan ignored the pathetic look on Ray's face. "If you get strong enough, you can simply go back to your urth.. physically."

Just then, Ray's face was filled with hope again, his eyes jumped, and he put on a smile for the first time since he found himself in hell. "I think I'm ready to learn now, no matter how painful it is."

"That's the spirit! Now, sit back down. you cut me off." Satan said while giving Ray a passive aggressive smile, Making him flinch back down.