Earth. June. 2022. CE.
The Warlock slammed into the octopien, momentarily engulfing both in crimson energy. A second later, the energy was dispersed as the octopien unleashed a blast of kinetic force that sent the crimson warlock crashing into a nearby building. Then, only a fraction of a second after slamming into the building, the warlock burst forth, sending debris flying everywhere.
Looking at the warlock, Tesilim saw that their spectral wings and horns were gone, which indicated the warlock had already used most of its power in the initial charge. Though powerful, the spectral transformations some warlocks had access to were only momentary and burned through much of the mana their patrons gave them.
These transformations gave warlocks enough power to pierce steel, yet the octopien looked unscathed, which really displayed its magical prowess. However, Tesilim knew that even though it was able to rebuff the warlock's charge, it had done so at a significant cost to its own mana. And if the other aberrations hadn’t occupied the other two warlocks, they would have easily killed it.
Even if the warlock wasn’t able to finish off the octopien, the damn thing was definitely low on mana, which now allowed Tesilim to properly assist in the battle. Luckily, the octopien had stayed floating in the open, giving Tesilim a great shot.
So, taking a deep breath, Tesilim aimed and unleashed the magical projectile, hearing the low hum as it flew forward. As Tesilim watched, he saw the aberration’s shield light up blue as the mana shot struck it.
At that point, Tesilim was already mid-way through an excited but quiet celebratory whoop when he noticed the shield did not flicker. In fact, as the seconds passed, nothing happened. He expected the octopien to fall from the sky, with its death marking the end of its levitating capabilities.
However, it did no such thing. Instead, it looked directly in Tesilim's direction, making eye contact through the rifle's scope. As they both stared at each other, Tesilim felt a connection spark up in his mind, which then grew to a feeling of oddity as the octopien linked to Tesilim's psyche.
Then, after the link was complete, Tesilim heard the thing’s voice in his mind.
“Ah! It seems another rat has come to play.” As it spoke, Tesilim could only stare, seemingly frozen in panic and fear, as the creature sifted through his memories.
“Oh, aren’t you quite the smart rat, waiting for the right moment to strike? Your plan could have worked, too, but my lord has decided no more of my kin will die on this filthy planet.”
It then paused as Tesilim felt the connection lessen in power as if its attention was no longer entirely directed towards him. This loss in strength allowed Tesilim to regain some control over his body, and he released another mana shot at the thing.
Sadly, this one was weaker, and much like the first one, it did nothing but get the octopien's full attention on him again.
“Honestly, you Earth humans are an odd bunch. It is odd to find Warlocks that act more like Paladins. Either way, it does not matter. In the end, all shall fall to-”
And just like that, the connection was abruptly cut off.
As Tesilim regained control of his body and mind, he hastily shook off his fear and looked for the aberration, quickly finding it and witnessing a shocking transformation begin to take place.
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Warlocks on Earth and what passed as them in the rest of the universe were sapient creatures who bargained with powerful entities to gain power.
The key word being bargained, as for some, those who were clerics, paladins, and cultists could be considered warlocks of a sort. However, clerics, paladins, and cultists willingly followed a powerful being without any necessary recompense.
Of course, that particular rule wasn’t written in stone and could change based on other variables.
Either way, warlocks still fell into the category of those who bargained for their powers. Warlocks were known to make tangible soul-binding contracts with entities in order to borrow said entity's powerful mana and use it as their own. These contracts were unique for each warlock and patron and could be as simple or intricate as each party wanted.
Some contracts heavily favored the warlock, while others favored the patron. Now, as binding as these contracts were, they could be altered as long as the involved parties were willing to do so.
Now, on Earth, something relatively odd had occurred. Usually, a warlock and patron were directly involved in the making of a contract, and no third party was involved in the process. Earth had been one of those times when this custom was not followed.
At the time of the contract's making, humanity needed as many powerful soldiers as it could get. As such, the Earth Alliance had directly contacted and made deals with powerful Monarchs that would bind hundreds if not thousands of soldiers. Of course, as much as these governments wanted to create an army of warlocks, they couldn’t sign on behalf of the soldiers.
What did happen was the mass creation of soul-binding contracts that were then given to soldiers to sign. Naturally, many soldiers signed the contracts just for the sole fact that these contracts would give them the powers they needed to save their homes.
Many would think that the contracts signed by the soldiers heavily favored the patrons. After all, the recompense given to the Monarchs for giving up so much of their mana to power up lowly humans would be immense. Some might even come to believe the soldiers were forced to give their souls away as collateral, which could have been a real possibility.
However, there was something that Realm Monarchs favored even more than souls, and that something was land. Specifically, land in a world filled with living creatures. Realm Monarchs, much like Eldritch Gods, were known to invade planets. Though they did so for various reasons, one of the big ones was being able to have access to the millions, if not billions, of souls that they would find in these worlds. So when a planet willingly granted them lands, they would undoubtedly be interested.
Now, Monarchs were not dumb. After looking at Earth, they knew the likelihood of humanity winning their fight was minuscule, which meant they would probably not gain the land promised to them by the Earth Alliance. However, even then, the Monarchs made the deals because even if they did not get their lands, they would still gain access to thousands of weak-willed humans. Who would, in turn, easily succumb to the temptation for more power. After all, what was more braver than literally sacrificing your soul to save those you loved?
Of course, much to the Monarch's delight, they were entirely correct. From the very moment the war started, many human warlocks worldwide altered their deals with their patrons in exchange for power. These alterations came in many shapes and often involved the warlock signing away years of their lives in servitude to their patron.
The issue was that the greater the offer a warlock gave, the more power they gained in return. After all, from the beginning, the deal was they would exchange Earth's lands for a large amount of contracts. However, these mass-produced warlocks acquired through the contract wouldn’t actually be very strong. They would still have superhuman levels of strength, but when compared to high-powered aberrations, they were still helpless.
So, on Earth, the ball of temptation began slowly. At first, warlocks gave up a few years of servitude for a slight increase in power. This wasn’t enough to change the war's outcome, but enough to survive a few battles. Then, as the ball gained momentum and the war really picked up speed, a few traded years turned into decades, which then turned into centuries. After all, when humans became empowered by mana, their life spans could reach two to three centuries. So what was servitude for a hundred or two hundred years when you could save your friends and comrades right now?
Just like that, the cycle continued until centuries turned into whole lives.
And, of course, someone's life was worth something, and these warlocks gained enough power in return to be able to fight a mid-level Aberration to a standstill. These were the warlocks that gained spectral forms or other equivalent and powerful abilities.
Now, giving up your life in exchange for power wasn’t usually the case in most worlds. Sure, the life and servitude of a mortal were useful, but what was more valuable was having an agent on the ground accomplishing tasks that would eventually get the Monarch even more souls and lives.
However, on Earth, the Monarchs had other plans. Letting humans trade their lives for power would be a slow temptation. As time passed, more years would be traded until, eventually, a question would be asked. The question being.
How much power would a Monarch give you if you gave up your soul?
The answer to the question, of course, being a lot. A warlock would gain so much power that it could convince an Eldritch God to stop supplying mana to a certain aberration.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Now, there was another vital follow-up question many humans failed to ask following the first.
What happens to their soul once they trade it to a Monarch?
Sadly, it was already too late by the time humans stopped reveling in the power gained through their trade and gained enough sense to ask said question.
As after their trade came a transformation that was as shocking to them as any nearby observers.
Naturally, it was this shocking transformation that Tesilim was currently witnessing.
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The warlock had regained its spectral form and was once again in the midst of clashing with the aberration, which explained why the mental connection with the thing had been cut off. Clearly, the damn thing had bigger problems to deal with.
Unlike the first clash, the battle this time around was different. The warlock was no longer just barely contending with the octopien. Instead, they were both equal in power and to Tesilim, it seemed the warlock was actually gaining the upper hand.
In fact, it was not just the warlock’s growing power that was shocking. As the fight continued, the warlock's body slowly became encased in the spectral form of a Devil. It was an odd look because the spectral image of the devil outscaled the warlock’s own size, making it seem like the warlock had some sort of hologram around their entire body.
It was around this time, when the warlock was mostly encased by the image when the fight began taking a turn.
Now, when both figures clashed, the octopien was slowly being overcomed by the sheer magical prowess of the warlock. Unlike before, the warlock’s attacks were now penetrating the aberration's shield. Meanwhile, the kinetic blasts of the octopien grew weaker. Actually, Tesilim corrected. It wasn’t that the octopien's blasts were getting weaker since they could still rip entire chunks of buildings apart. In truth, the warlock was just now being able to overcome them.
As the fight continued, the warlock became fully encased in the ghostly image of the devil. Then, once the image was complete, Tesilim watched in mild shock and horror as it began to manifest physically. Not only that, but the warlock's body began slowly growing, ripping off its clothes in the process.
It was as if the body was growing to fill a mold.
Just then, that thought reminded Tesilim about something he had heard from a few soldiers he had met a while back. The soldiers spoke to him about the warlock battalions and how often, in battles, some of the warlocks would transform into odd entities, almost as if from fantasy stories. The transformations were also permanent, almost like the warlocks gave up all of their humanity in return for gaining enough power to turn whole battles around. The worst part was that after eliminating the enemy, the transformed warlocks would often turn on and eliminate all nearby living creatures. Until, at some point, the warlocks would just vanish into thin air.
At the time, Tesilim hadn’t believed the soldiers, thinking they had gone crazy as they were probably exposed to some odd magic or were having side effects of the mental assaults caused by the aberrations. But now, one of these transformations was happening right before him.
Not only had the devilish illusion wholly solidified, but the old warlock's clothes were gone, replaced by what Tesilim could only describe as hoplite-like armor.
The armor seemed to be made of molten magma, and dark crimson flames flickered from its surface. The warlock was also clearly no longer human. The thing had black curved horns extending backward from its forehead as well as a pair of leathery bat-like wings that matched its deep crimson skin.
Though the Devil looked like a Spartan warrior from hell, it had no spear, shield, or helm and simply slammed the aberration around like a ragdoll. It seemed that with the transformation complete, the warlock-turned-devil not only gained the physique of an olympic athlete but also power akin to an Olympian demi-god.
The battle ended as the octopien's shield failed, and the devil pierced its chest and promptly ripped it in half. And as the octopien died, the devil unleashed a roar whose shockwave cleared the smoke and dust that had come due to the destruction of the town's center.
With the smoke cleared, Tesilim watched as the devil looked downward, and he hoped that the thing was just searching for more aberrations to kill.
Either way, it was time for Tesilim to go. He did not want to be around for any more exciting fights, even if he did need supplies.
So, shaking the remnant shock and fear out of his body, Tesilim stood up, grabbed his rifle and bag, and turned around to walk toward the stairs. Unluckily, his progress came to a halt when he ended up walking into the rather hot - and not in a good way- pile of muscle and destruction that could, of course, only be the devil.
Tesilim backtracked so fast that he stumbled and fell to the ground. Sitting there, hoping it was a dream, he couldn’t help but notice how much he was sweating all of a sudden. In fact, he felt extremely hot, which was odd, seeing as the cloud-covered skies kept the sun's heat to a minimum. This heat made him finally acknowledge the terrifying creature in front of him.
The devil was definitely the cause of this heat and was also probably the reason for the strong smell of smoke clawing up his nostrils. As he stared at the floor, his mind whirled in an attempt to find words to speak, but all he did was notice that the area around him had become so hot he could now see the heat waves radiating from the concrete.
Finally, Tesilim gained enough courage, and his eyes began moving towards the feet of the devil and then further upward.
To Tesilim's bad luck, he came to learn that the devil was a guy. He gained this information by having front-row seats to the viewing of the devil’s dangling bits being exposed from its too-short spartan-like skirt. Not wanting to stare at the damn thing, Tesilim looked up, meeting the devils burning eyes, which turned out to be a bad idea as flashes of a fiery death appeared in his mind.
Quickly averting his gaze, Tesilim instead stared at the molten magma cuirass that almost seemed to meld with the devil's body. As he stared, Tesilim’s idiotic mind wandered about how the cuirass could show such a chiseled depiction of the devil’s muscles.
Realizing how stupid his thoughts were, Tesilim pulled himself together a bit and closed his eyes in preparation for his death. While waiting for death, Tesilim couldn’t help but feel how dry his mouth had become. It was also now in this peace before death that he noticed he was really getting drenched in sweat and that there was also a good possibility he had peed himself.
As Tesilim admonished himself for his last thoughts being about peeing himself, a few seconds passed, then a few minutes, and he was still alive.
That was undoubtedly odd, as he could still feel the blistering heat emanating from the creature before him.
After another minute passed and nothing else happened, Tesilim's curiosity got the better of him, and, with his eyes closed shut and a bit of terrified stuttering, he asked.
“Ss-so, a-are you-u g-going-g to-to k-k-kill me o-or w-wha-what?
“Ha! Of course, I am!” The Devil responded with a bit of laughter and mocking in his voice.
Not expecting a response with such a dismissive and mocking tone, a bit of Tesislim's brain wires crossed, and some interesting thoughts came to light.
What if devils weren’t so bad after all? What if they were just misunderstood?
Luckily, the wires quickly fixed themselves, and Tesilim gave himself a mental slap. However, the thing was, he wasn’t dead. If the devil wanted him dead, he would already be dead. So, something was clearly stopping the devil from killing him. At this realization, Tesilim quickly scanned his brain, looking for what he knew about warlocks.
First, they had patrons who gave them powers. They were given these powers in exchange for something. This exchange was enforced through a contract. The contract was unbreakable but could be amended.
That’s it! The contract! Tesilims screamed inwardly.
In the fear caused by the devil being so close, Tesilim had forgotten that the devil used to be a human warlock. This meant he had to have traded something for power, leading to the transformation. This also meant the warlock had amended his contract, which had somehow included not killing other humans. Tesilism wasn’t entirely sure about this, but he couldn’t think of another explanation.
As such, he gained a bit of confidence and went to test his theory by saying one of the dumbest things he could possibly ever say in such a situation.
“Do it then!” Tesilim blurted out. “Kill me! Put me out of my misery!”
Of course, this only managed to piss off the devil even more, causing it to release a very literal and hellish aura which did indeed cause Tesilim to pee his pants. The devil then followed this up by approaching Tesilim while yelling and roaring about puny mortals.
“You insolent pest! You think I can’t kill you?!? You are nothing but a bug in my eyes! As a matter of fact, you are less than a bug! You are nothing but trash used to fuel my burning anger!”
Tesilim then felt the air woosh past him as he felt the devil's intent, letting him know he was about to be a headless puppet of flesh and bones. His last thoughts as he felt the approaching arm were of him hoping to be reborn in another world.
Sadly, death never came. Instead, Tesilim felt the blazing heat of the devil's hand right next to his head. Feeling the warmth, Tesilim grinned and opened his eyes, only to find the devil's face before him. The devil was also grinning.
As Tesilim stared into the eyes of hell, his mind wandered about the events that had just occurred and his feelings on them.
It was odd. As scared as he had just been, there had been a small part of him that had felt elated just then. He had found something exhilarating about gambling with fate and coming out the victor. It was something that likely wouldn’t happen again, but he was glad to have experienced it right before Earth was gone and him with it.
A few seconds ticked by, and Tesilim was brought back to reality as the devil spoke.
“You are braver than most. Human. Taking a gamble like that.”
Having nothing to say, Tesilim stayed silent and watched the devil get up from his crouch, only to look off into the distance.
Then, after spending a minute or so looking into the horizon, the devil spoke again.
“Ugh! This is terrible. I was hoping to stay around and get a few souls before leaving. However, it seems the end is approaching for this miserable planet.”
With that sentence, the devil turned around and waved a bit oddly at Tesilim before disappearing in a burst of flames. However, before extinguishing, the flames arranged themselves into a final message, which read.
See you in hell.
With that, Tesilim got up in confusion and stared in the direction the devil had been looking towards. From what he could barely tell, some sort of light covered the horizon. This light also seemed to be moving forward, which was really odd. It was like when rain began to fall, and it traveled forward as it conquered an area before entirely drenching it.
Tesilim wasn’t sure what the light was, but he did know one thing: it was time to leave this town. So he grabbed his backpack and rifle once again. Luckily, this time, when he turned around, there was no devil.
Unluckily, the light in the distance was much closer, almost a mile from his current location. It also spread across the whole horizon.
Tesilim stared into the horizon, watching as the light advanced. Then, when it was around half a mile from him, he realized what was causing the light. The clouds were being pushed back, letting the sun shine again. Eventually, even the clouds above him were pushed back, and he felt the sun on his skin for the first time in years. He had honestly forgotten how great the sun felt on his skin and just stood there enjoying the sunshine, warmth, and joy spreading through his body.
This joy lasted until his eyes landed on the horizon once again. There, he saw the cause for the clouds dispersing.
A giant, enormous, tsunami-sized dust cloud quickly approached his location. It wasn’t just dust either, but also trees, cars, and what had to be entire buildings being carried forth by what Tesilim had to guess was a very powerful shockwave.
And what, other than an atomic bomb, could cause such a massive and powerful shockwave?
Well, a God. More specifically, an Eldritch God could.