Love

Black hair caked in flesh and blood. Bleeding cuts and marred the entirety of her body. Her milky-white skin had been dyed red by the blood of multiple different people. Her appearance was fitting for the identity she had accepted—a demon. And even though she was dying, instead of crying over what she could have done and what she regretted, the demon had decided to go out committing a demonic act. The sound of slow chewing could be heard, her figure hunched over a skeleton with varying levels of flesh remaining on its blood-splattered bones.

Interestingly, the skull had been completely stripped clean, with the top cracked open with no brain matter in sight. What warranted this special attention on the skull? Well, it was quite simple. The demon couldn't focus on devouring the body when her father's hateful face kept staring at her, even in death, he provoked so much hatred from her. So, she got rid of the very thing that kept triggering this hatred, and in the process of doing so, the demon felt a twisted sense of enjoyment. Watching her father's face gradually disappear away into her stomach was cathartic, so much so that she ended up clearing the skull of all its flesh.

Grabbing at the flesh, Faye tried to tear off another piece but with all the blood she had lost, her body no longer had any strength left. She was dying. The red aura that had aided her during the massacre had disappeared as soon as she killed the last villager, which meant the wounds she had gained during her battle with the giant Knight were no longer sealed. She had expected this, there was no way that all the wounds she had accumulated would remain sealed. But it wasn't like she cared in the first place. She had already achieved what she wanted. As soon as this thought appeared in her mind, a voice resounded in her mind,

"That's it?"

"Was this the extent of your love?"

Hearing these words, the girl let out a deep sigh, a demon was a being that lived by their desires, and though she did complete her desire to slaughter the people of the village, there was an unfulfilled desire she had. The love the darkness had given her although she wanted to experience more of it, the first thing she wanted to do was reciprocate the emotions of the darkness. She only had one wish before all of this, to find someone who unlike her father would return the love she gave. And now she had found that someone, and the irony in all of this was that she had yet to have given her love to the darkness. She couldn't die like this.

Calling upon the remaining strength in her body, Faye managed to sit up, only to fall onto her back, her glazed eyes looking straight into the sky. This was fine. She wanted to look at the sky in the first place. The dying girl tried to get words out of her mouth, a feeble, raspy voice was the outcome of this. But she didn't care. Because she knew He would hear her.

"I knew...that you weren't part of me, and you knew...didn't you? But that was just it. You didn't care. You still showered me with your twisted love and brought an end to what I thought would be an eternal drought in my heart. And for that, I give you my everything. I am yours... and yours alone."

In the depths of the girl's eyes, a great fire had been set alight, its intensity constantly growing, as she dragged one of her hands towards the centre of her chest. Death was approaching yet her heart was beating faster than ever while the flames of love didn't have any intentions of stopping their expansion. With renewed vigour, she pulled herself to her feet, her body, which was at the point of death, moving solely due to Faye's sheer willpower. The earth seemed to be doing everything in its power to bring the demon back down, but she resisted with all her might and stood with her back straight. She spoke once again, this time, with no traces of weakness in her voice.

"You ask if this is the extent of my love. Look! I am ready to fight death just so that I can carry out your demands. I will not accept death unless you order it so. You are my love. You are my Lord. You are my everything. Demand anything. I am ready to do anything for you."

The girl who just a few moments looked as if she were at the doors of death, stood with her arms outstretched with a wild grin stretched across her face. Unseen to her, a stream of potent, white energy shot out of her chest and raced through the sky. This energy pierced straight through the walls of a dark space and charged straight towards a figure seated on an ancient throne. The figure made no attempt to obstruct this stream of energy as it entered his chest.

'So this is faith, how interesting. It's slowly raising my Devil Path, I don't even need to do anything, it's an automatic process. Though with this single stream, it will take me hundreds of years to reach the next level, it is probably why the others have formed civilisations; to harvest as much faith as possible

The Devil of Corruption had long made plans to establish a civilisation of his own, but he had wanted to understand the reason behind why every God and Devil needed to do so. However, at this moment in time, what he needed to focus on was his first follower and his soon-to-be apostle, the devil had greatly manipulated the situation to bring him this result. The devil knew that the girl would never betray him, for the devotion that came with undying love could never be weakened, and now it was time to reward the girl for her faith. Activating one of the techniques he received from the Primordial Seed - Whispers of the Abyss - the devil spoke.

"Then become my apostle, conquer the world and spread my name across the land. Raise faith for your Lord."

Using one of his claws to prick his finger while simultaneously activating another gifted technique, the devil observed the girl, his deep purple eyes inspecting her micro-movements.

After hearing the words of her Lord, Faye's eyes and grin widened in joy, while hints of disbelief could be seen swirling in her eyes. As if to rid her of her disbelief, a monotone voice resounded in her mind.

"The Devil of Corruption has selected you as his apostle. Do you accept?"

Without any hesitation, the girl accepted; a great red ritual circle formed underneath her feet attesting to her choice. She watched in awe as the ritual circle began absorbing the blood that stained the floor, restoring the ground to its original earthy-brown colour, before draining the corpses of what remained within. All around her laid withered remains that looked as if they had been ageing for centuries, but even they weren't spared by the ritual circle as they began to disintegrate under the absorption of the circle.

Eventually, everything had been absorbed leaving a deep red ritual circle and a naked girl drenched in blood standing at the centre of it.

Floating above all of this was a singular drop of purple blood.