The demon took a step forward, and Mark took a step back.

He felt something like a wall to his back, and looked up to see Zirrilit standing in gray robes, unmoving. He turned and grabbed her, trying to push her away.

“What’s wrong, Mark?” Zirrilit asked.

The demon took a step forwards, the dragon-kin and the human who was now clinging onto her-

-It would grab the dragonoid and hurl them through the door to Hell so fast that the human wouldn’t have time to let go.

It held all the cards, it had ensured the human had no weapons, nor ways of communicating with the outside.

And now its prey was isolated, alone to face the horrors of demons.

It took another measured step towards Mark, and he tried to shove Zirrilit back to no avail, she was boxing him in between the basin and the door.

The demon stepped forwards again, slowly, so as to prolong his fear. A measured step with all the inevitability of an eternity.

Mark tried to step back, Zirrilit saw him desperately trying to move away from the winged figure.

It grinned, and reached out-

Then Zirrilit took a step to the side and Mark stumbled out of its grasp.

She was tilting her head in confusion, only understanding that Mark wanted to back up through where she was standing.

The demon’s arm was still in the air where Mark had been, its expression changed from one of hatred and triumph to one of disbelief.

She wasn’t supposed to do that.

Part of the demon’s facade started to slip, Zirrilit saw it begin to shake from anger as it realized its puppet wasn’t moving in sync with the strings it was pulling.

“Zirrilit, won’t you grab him for me?” Its growled as its voice took on a dangerous tone.

She blinked, then reached to grab Mark.

Mark screamed, “Wait! No! That thing’s evil! Zirrilit no-”

She lifted him slightly off the ground, but stared at the winged creature in front of her.

Why was it suddenly acting so different? So… Hostile?

“Good, now. It is your turn to ascend.” The demon coaxed. “Step through, but hurry, everyone is waiting for you.”

Zirrilit nodded, smiling, and turned to face the door.

“Zirrilit, no! The door is evil! That place is awful!” Mark was getting desperate, “It’s not- it’s not even real!”

Mark’s desperate lie caught the demon’s ear.

“Wait.” The demon spoke.

Zirrilit froze at the sudden raw emotion and dropped Mark.

“You are lying.” It rasped. “Bearing false witness- you dare to lie in front of me!?”

Mark swallowed, the hatred on its face was like nothing he had ever seen before.

“It’s not even a real portal, it’s fake-” Mark swallowed and found his voice growing quieter. “-and you are lying… to everyone.” He finished with a whisper.

It screamed and charged, Mark flinched and covered his face only for the demon to fly straight past him, and through the dimensional doorway.

The demon turned, triumph once again competing with its rage. “See. This place is real-”

Mark stared at the dimensional door, a portal to another realm.

It had a door, and Mark grabbed it and slammed it closed before throwing his weight into holding it shut.

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They heard the demon screech, “You liar! You tricked me! Let me in! I give hospitality to the lost and you take advantage of me!?”

It started slamming on the door, becoming more and more desperate.

Mark refused to budge, it had enough strength to rip a door to pieces, it could have shoved away the door if Zirrilit and every other follower it had taken threw their weight into holding it at bay-

Mark wasn’t holding the door closed with strength, but with the desperation to keep a demon away from his friend. He had the chance to run but had instead tried to pull Zirrilit away.

Keeping your friends safe was good, self sacrifice was good, and that meant it was wrong to stop him.

The demon pulled at the door, before realizing the futility of its actions.

It took a moment and an eternity moving to the side, then reached out and pulled at the place where dimensions overlapped. It grasped a handle and pulled a new door open.

It emerged, scowling, and set its sights on the room. Zirrilit stood staring at Mark and the door, beginning to realize everything she had been promised sounded a little too good to be true.

Mark turned his head and the horror on his face took a new tone.

The demon was free, and now there was nothing going to stop him.

It took a step forwards and Mark slammed a shovel into its face.

The demon paused for a moment, not injured but shocked.

It had forgotten that the human had never let go of that shovel.

The demon pointed, bringing weapons into someone’s home and attacking them breached the rules of hospitality. Nothing could be done but complete and utter retribution.

Nothing came from the demon, no retribution, no utter destruction.

No punishment, the human was not bearing a weapon but a tool.

It stood dumbstruck as the human slammed the makeshift weapon into its face again, producing the same nonexistent result.

The demon froze, watching the human’s form as it used a tool adapted to kill and it remembered-

The demon stood watching, physically unable to intervene. Incapable of wanting to, it hadn’t understood emotions until it felt loss. A cruel god had descended on an unsuspecting village and this time his own stayed to stop them. The wishes of a child. His god raised a-

The human raised his shovel and charged, the demon was forced to back up. Mark was facing the predator, something that could crush every human on Earth simultaneously, something that was merely irritated by anything Mark could do.

It was a lion facing a sheep. The other god was a predator suited to killing, and his god was just a farmer. Yet they stood unwavering, holding the beast off the same reason that prey always could.

Mark refused to back up, always pushing forward and swinging with reckless abandon. There was no grace, no skill and no overwhelming strength or magic-

-But the difference between the two was obvious. Predators couldn't risk themselves, even lions picked on the weak and sick, or the young and old. They had to do the same thing daily so while the sheep fought with everything it had the lion would suffer from a scratch.

His god lashed out with a hoe, each of his arms held one of his tools. The one that created life, the one that he used to make fields grow lush with a single touch smacked into the larger beast, maggots poured out of the wound and rot spread throughout the beast’s body.

It was too much for the demon, it couldn’t stand to remember. Tears poured from its eyes, but it couldn’t look away from the human who impersonated his God better than a demon formed in His image.

The demon missed what had once been so much, before the change, before violence overtook everything.

But the demon had no more tears, they had cried them out until there were none left so long ago.

Blood was leaking down its face and it stained everything from the floor to its own clothing to the shovel that the human was hurling at its face at that very moment. But what it was feeling hurt worse than any pain it could ever know.

The demon took a step forwards and latched onto the shovel, ripping it from the human’s grasp before dropping it onto the ground.

Stealing was wrong and it couldn’t hold the stolen property in its hands.

Zirrilit shoved the weak human out of the way and launched a beam of energy directly into its face, but the heat and light that could turn concrete and steel into slag within moments dissipated uselessly.

It had belonged to a God who carried the sun, and it did not fear heat or light.

The demon struck Zirrilit in the face so hard and fast that the aftershock tore the surrounding floor and furniture apart, but Zirrilit only slumped forwards unconscious, it couldn’t murder someone because murder was against the rules.

But it gave Mark enough time to reequip himself. He shouldered his weapon and swung-

Being around them burned. The demon pulled out a hay fork before it heard a voice and stopped.

The people who had passed the door disappeared, destroyed. The God of Humans did not revel in suffering. The demon obeyed unheard commands and walked back to the place it had been commanded to stay.

The demon’s king, the archdevils, even the first angel waited for their lesser sibling with open arms. A crowd of fiends like him applauded his attempt.

He looked up for a moment before he left and wondered why God loved humans more than it.

~

God was looking down, his movements were being limited as the foreign gods objected to his presence within their territory.

Many of the foreign gods were of conflicting natures, and He could sense competition, wars, and maneuvering.

He noted his competition and their elements, natures, and names.

Because, no matter what, you took everything that threatened you seriously, no matter the disparities in age or power. Overconfidence was indiscriminate.

~

One of the goddesses looked up, a god she had never heard of for a species whose only trait was their unremarkability stared down at her as if He was greater.

He stood, dead and rotting but alive. Eyes half open as if asleep, but focused on all.

Though she saw him the way she saw everything. The most likely probability played itself while she searched for her own optimal path.

He approached, not close enough her defenses would trigger, it was a challenge. She in turn called her allies and answered. A true dragon stood, still too young to create an entire universe, but old enough to charge at the front of a formation of gods. This wasn't on a planet where they might strike against reality like a meteor hitting an atmosphere, this was in the place between where they had complete power.

The dragon moved much faster than its allies, outdistancing them all as they prepared to concentrate their attacks. They knew how to fight as a group. The foreign God stood there unmoving.

Was He dead on His feet? He did nothing as the dragon opened its maw and the power of a thousand stars going supernova was directed at him.

The fire engulfed Him, and He stood unresponsive.

The true dragon closed the distance and bit down; the foreign god was larger than any of them but still comically small compared to the dragon who swallowed Him down.

The dragon, task completed, began to fly back towards the group. It didn’t gloat or taunt; it had completed its task and returned just as seriously.

But once it got close she began to see, it collapsed and began convulsing, they saw something displacing its powerful muscles. The foreign god was still alive and it was inside the dragon.

The host began bleeding from every orifice. The thing was eating him from the inside.

God burst from its chest, directly in the middle of the group, past the defensive arrays and where their concentrated fire risked hitting each other.

The God leapt waving a scythe-

He did none of those things, he was outside of his own defenses, staring at her. She began searching other probabilities. In which one did he wave all of his arms out as if searching for something he couldn’t see?

She watched while searching every path that time could take, the God of Humans reached out, waving he plucked a string from nothingness. It had no beginning and no end. It was infinite, bigger than the universe and the god holding it.

It belonged to her, and to her horror, He pulled out a pair of sheers and opened them and-

She fell down, she couldn’t see the future anymore. Her string now had an end and a beginning. She was no longer a goddess, but a mortal.

Her compatriots routed.