Demon's Journey

Palan and Raea stood on the edge of a dark-red circle drawn on the floor. A few inscriptions bordered the edge, spiraling towards the center. Pyre tapped his pipe against a boulder, knocking the ashes out of it. “You don’t need anything from Eljiam, right? Though this isn’t a one-way trip, it’s still inconvenient to transport things back and forth between worlds.”

Palan glanced at Andrea who was standing behind him, outside of the circle. “Did you have anything you wanted to bring?”

Andrea shook her head. “No,” she said and inched closer to her brother. She was told to stay out of the circle or her mana would be drained. But she wasn’t quite sure what mana was; and though she trusted Palan, she wanted to hold onto him in case he disappeared without her again. “You’re really not leaving me, right? Promise?”

Danger Noodle slithered through the air and patted Andrea’s head. “I promise you,” Palan said. “As soon as the portal appears, jump inside. You’ll know what it looks like when it appears.”

Andrea bit her lower lip. “Okay,” she said and nodded. She grabbed Cleo’s tail and pulled the lizardman closer to herself. She knew her snack dispenser didn’t want to be left behind just as much as she didn’t. If she followed the lizard, she’d definitely make it to Palan’s side.

“Then we’re all set?” Pyre asked. When Palan and Raea nodded, he dripped a drop of Raea’s blood into the center of the circle to finish creating the teleportation formation. The runic patterns lit up with a golden light, spiraling outwards from the center until it engulfed Raea’s and Palan’s bodies. A line appeared in the air above the circle. It widened like an opening eye until an oval portal appeared, revealing green grass and blue skies.

“Let’s go!” Cory said and spread her wings before flying through the portal. “Goodbye, burning hot and freezing cold! Hello, moderate weather.”

Cleo held Andrea’s hand and leapt through, pulling the demon along. Raea and Palan extricated themselves from the mana-draining circles—the portal would remain for ten minutes after they got off. Raea went through next as Palan circled around and seized Pyre with his tails. He suspected the half-angel would stay behind, so he decided to forcibly drag him back to Div’Nya. Pyre protested, but Palan ignored him as he leapt through the portal. When he landed, the familiar springiness of grass tickled the soles of his feet.

“Palan, help!” Andrea said. She was squatting on Cleo’s shoulders, hugging the lizardman’s head. “What is this green stuff!?” In Eljiam, green meant danger. Anything that wasn’t the color of sand had some kind of defensive mechanism that allowed them to stay alive despite being glaringly obvious to predators. The king lizard was a perfect example of a dangerous green creature.

“It’s grass,” Palan said as he stepped forward and retrieved Andrea, hugging her to his chest. “It’s harmless, but sometimes things are hidden inside. It’s the sand of Div’Nya.”

“But we have actual sand too,” Raea said.

Palan shrugged. Analogies only went so far. He lowered Andrea to the ground, making sure to keep ahold of her hand. She shuffled her feet a few times with a bewildered expression on her face.

Cleo exhaled and wiped her face. There were a few claw marks on her skin. She frowned as her tail swished. She asked Palan, “Is this how you feel when I climb on your shoulders? It’s not very comfortable.”

“That’s because you’re tiny,” Palan said and snorted. He glanced around. The surrounding area was filled with trees. It reminded him of the first time he came to Div’Nya. “Where are we?”

Cory flapped her wings and launched herself into the air. She scanned the surroundings before descending, perching on top of Crimson Snek. “I see a red wall in the distance. Everything else is trees and a few camp-looking places.”

“We’re probably in the borderlands then,” Pyre said as he freed himself from Palan’s tails. “It looks like my coordinates were off a bit, most likely due to the impurities in Raea’s blood. Good thing we didn’t use mine or we might’ve ended up halfway across the world.” He shrugged when Palan narrowed his eyes at him. “At least you can fly now. There’s no constant mana drain like in Eljiam.”

“You can fly?” Andrea asked Palan, her eyes widening. She climbed up his body and craned her neck, peering over his back. She picked at his shoulder blades, checking for wings. “How?”

“I use my powers and lower our gravity enough to keep me in the air for an indefinite amount of time,” Palan said as a black light engulfed him and Andrea. He lifted his legs by bending his knees, but he didn’t fall to the ground, hovering above it instead. “Like so.”

“Waaah?” Andrea’s eyes bulged as she peered over his lap, waving her hand in the empty space separating him from the ground. “Can I do that? How do you use your powers?”

“Well, it’s linked to my pride,” Palan said. “I just think of myself as better than other people and I’m able to do this. I can also increase the gravity on someone else by believing they’re below me and unworthy to be standing in my presence.”

“That’s how you activate your powers?” Cleo asked and blinked. “Huh. I guess that makes sense. For me, I have a mini-panic attack as I search for a place to hide my stolen goods. Then it appears like magic.”

“So if I’m a glutton … then I have to want to eat something?” Andrea asked and tilted her head. She furrowed her brow and glared at Cory.

The harpy shivered and took a step back. “I’m not food, okay?”

Andrea pouted and shifted her gaze towards a nearby tree instead. “But that’s all I have to do, right? Be hungry?”

“In theory, yes,” Pyre said, his professor instincts kicking in. “All sins and virtues are activated by thinking or embracing said sin or virtue. But sins and virtues tend to not manifest in children except in special cases.” He gestured at Raea. “For example, your parents were archangels and their virtues were passed down. Or you were nurtured a certain way while growing up. It’s rare for powers to even show up amongst demons in the first place, but after experiencing Eljiam for myself, I guess it has to do with the low mana concentration there. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t activate your gluttony.”

Palan’s eyes widened as a giant, black mouth formed in the air above his and Andrea’s heads. It was filled to the brim with pointed white teeth. The mouth lurched forwards and swallowed the tree Andrea was staring at, shattering and breaking it into pieces before anyone could react. The mouth chewed a few times before dispersing.

Andrea hiccoughed as a cloud of sawdust flew out of her mouth. “Was that it?”