1 Sacrifice

Fear.

It had taken root within the depths of his heart and spread its roots until all that remained was fear. No anger for his fallen comrades. No joy from the cutting down the swathes of enemies before him. Only fear.

He was not alone, for every warrior that stood on the battlefield felt it slowly grip their very souls. A primaeval fear that lay hidden within the hearts of all. 

Death.

An inevitability feared by all existences. Even those with the most noble of hearts cannot have claimed to have conquered the fear of death.

For death represents the end.

They all felt it.

The slightest movement would lead to death.

Every pair of eyes moved towards it; the source of the fear that paralysed their bodies.

And there it sat. Atop a mountain of corpses, a being of indescribable power sat meditatively. Skin, sanguine like the rivers of blood that flowed out of the mountain, Eyes with vertical slits, golden like the sunlight that bathed the battlefield and most importantly, horns. Two long horns, pointing towards the sky, adorned the head of the being.

There was no doubt about it.

The origin of this fear was the demon that was meditating upon the corpses of both their allies and enemies.

Did the sight of this demon generate this fear?

No. 

For these soldiers, demons were a part of their daily lives. But not one of them had encountered a demon with such power. The rulers that led them into this war were like ants compared to the being.

There was no denying it.

This was a being that was at the pinnacle.

And now it had decided to grace the battlefield of the Grand War with its presence.

Out of the millions of soldiers that fought upon this plain, only a few hundred lived. The rest had their lives reaped by the demon.

But why?

Why had it let them live?

Why were their comrades torn to shreds but they stood here in one piece?

Why did stop its rampage?

The answer?

"It seems I have fulfilled the requirements, now it can begin"

Every corpse that littered the plain slowly disintegrated into crimson energy. If a mage saw this energy, they couldn't tell you what it was. Not even a Grand Mage could. But those who stood at the peak of their respective fields of magic, the Supreme Mages, would run the instant they noticed the appearance of this energy. The reason? 

This crimson energy was Devil Essence. The most concentrated form of demonic mana. 

The only energy that could compare with Devil Essence was Divine Essence. For such huge concentrations of this essence to appear could only mean two things: Either a devil was descending into the Mortal Realm or a demon was ascending into the Realm of Gods.

Simply put, it was a level beyond the peak of the Mortal Realm.

To make matters worse, Devil Essence lacked any healing qualities. How did this make things worse? Well, all things in the universe must be balanced in some way. So to make up for its lack of a healing aspect, Devil Essence's offensive capabilities were greatly enhanced.

Such an enhancement was not be underestimated. The best way to understand the effect of the universe's adjustment is to know how much of each God Essence was needed to kill a Supreme Mage. A basketball-sized bundle of Divine Essence is enough to kill a Supreme Mage, whereas only a tennis-ball-sized bundle of Devil Essence could kill a Supreme Mage.

And now, an ocean's worth of Devil Essence had appeared on the battlefield.

The survivors of the demon's rampage watched as their comrades' bodies slowly crumbled away. Fear was temporarily forgotten as anguish took its place, caused by the inability to lay their brothers and sisters to rest. Alas, fear quickly returned as a mortifying scream broke the silence that had been held for what felt like an eternity.

Heads turned towards the location from which the scream seemed to coming from, eyes widened as they bore witness to the scene before them. A giant woman dressed in armour that only covered her vital points with her face contorted in pain. Her large stature and lacking armour suggested one thing: she was a berserker. A class of warriors known for their inhuman levels of pain tolerance, for such a terrifying warrior to be letting out such a soul-wrenching cry, meant that the rest of them stood no chance against this new threat that had appeared.

And then they noticed.

About a finger's worth of the crimson energy that surrounded them was eating away at her shoulder at a rapid pace. Moments later the scream stopped, the energy had consumed the berserker's vocal cords. The more it devoured, the larger it grew and the faster it consumed. Soon there was nothing left, her very existence had been erased. 

They had all seen it. Her screams may have stopped, but the excruciating pain she felt was visible on her face the entire time. The realisation finally struck them, that they weren't going to leave this battlefield alive.

The previously stationary Devil Essence had started edging its way towards the centre of the plain. It was how it had come into contact with the berserker. All the survivors stood in the path of the crimson energy, they were nothing more than breathing corpses. And they knew it.

They could only look on as Death slowly approached them. 

One by one, like dominoes, screams erupted and were silenced just as quickly. Sometimes a cacophony of shrieks could be heard. Yet no one reacted. They had accepted their fate. They just watched as the gluttonous energy ebbed closer. And closer. And closer.

As the final screams were cut off, the Devil Essence had finally reached the foot of the mountain of corpses. The Essence had gained slightly more volume due to devouring the survivors, but it was like throwing a cup of water into an ocean. It made very little difference.

From all sides, the enormous pile of bodies was surrounded by the crimson ocean. Unlike the other bodies on the battlefield, since the ritual had started not a single body from the mountain had been converted into Devil Essence. This changed the moment the red energy brushed the base of the mountain.

However, instead of joining up with the ocean that surrounded it, the newly produced Devil Essence rose and raced towards the demon that sat upon the apex.

The demon showed no reaction, it simply sat there and waited. It had prepared for this moment for a long time, every step had to be completed perfectly.

Once the Devil Essence reached the demon, it began to coalesce around it, slowly forming a structure of some kind. After an eighth of the mountain had been converted, it became clear what this structure was. A cocoon. A deep red cocoon.

The formation of the cocoon meant the first step had been completed. 

The sacrifice had been accepted.