In the following days I notified everyone of my plan and what I suspected that would happen.
Most of them were fine with it except for Allenya, my father, Noah, and Beatrice. The later two did not really try to stop me, but my father and Allenya actively tried to talk me out of it. however, they both knew that it was growing more dangerous for me here and that I at least needed the strength to protect myself.
Eventually the dwarf and I prepared what we needed for me to return even if I were to be in a different world.
As it turned out, names were really important for regular summoning. But as it was possible that multiple demons had the same name, it needed to be a little more specific to call me back from a potentially different world.
So, I left three of my scales and a glass bottle filled with my blood behind. I could just rip the scales out like I did last time. But filling the bottle with my blood was tricky. Whenever I made a wound, it would of course bleed. Yet it would heal to soon for me to fill a significant amount of the bottle. And since I did not want to use some holy object, I had to make wounds multiple times over.
When everything was prepared the dwarf preformed the ritual to send me away from this world. Only this time it was a lot harder for him and it took a lot longer than the first time as my presence had grown a lot from my previous trip to hell.
But eventually I found myself wandering the infinite inferno once again. now I was not merely trying to survive, but actively hunting other demons.
After I had spent an unknown amount of time slaughtering everything with a heartbeat, I found a strange rift in space. I could tell that this was indeed a way to a different world. But this one was open at all times. And what confused me more was that this one was not in one of the temple-like structures. It was like a floating window in the middle of a field.
As I had already killed a lot. I decided that I could spend some time trying to explore this world.
Maybe I would even be able to get new knowledge about magic from the humans in this world.
I walked trough the rift in space and entered a large dark room that was only lightened by a few candles that hung on the walls.
The first thing that I noticed was that I did not need a connection to this world. I could only assume that this was because of the odd way of arriving here. I obviously did not need one for my original world as I was from there. But back when that man summoned me that wanted tree of my hairs to impress someone. I was immediately sent back to hell when I killed him since my connection to that world broke.
I looked around the room was not high enough to fly in, but I could definitely move freely. The room was covered in markings made of blood and I could hear screaming in the distance, along with the smell of fire. There was a pile of books in the corner. Some were about the teachings of the gods, and others were about the terror of demons.
There were seven men wearing robes and kneeling in front of me. Each of them were wearing dark robes. But the thing that caught the most of my attention was what hung on the wall on the opposite side of the rift in space.
It was a dead angel with its wings and arms spread out to form a cross. Only the angel hung upside down. I could immediately tell that this was a lesser angel. If it were an important one like the angel of time or the angel of space then the holy energy would remain, even years after the death of said angel.
At first, I had a glimmer of hope, as an angel had to come down to the worlds in order to die there. Meaning that the angels and gods had not forgotten the people who were now desperately fending of the demons that were attacking world after world in order to merge it with hell.
But then an uneasy feeling grew over me as I started to wonder why the gods had not protected this angel. Its swan like wings were pure white and its golden eyes still shone like a sun. the image of this angel was something so beautiful that nothing I had seen before this could compare to it. Still, I could barely withstand the overwhelming existence. for in the end beauty was nothing but terror, which we can just bear. I admired the angel only because in its death it could no longer destroy me.
Yet the gods had let it die. This was truly an angel. It was not fallen and was not a Nephilim. It had not lost fate to the gods it served; it was a true angel. One of the closest things to the gods. And yet it hung here, upside down. Used to open a gate to hell that would not close even after I had walked through it.
One of the men kneeling in front of the gate looked up. Admiration shone in his eyes as he gazed at me.
"To think that the first demon to come out is the devil himself. We are honoured by your presence and are ready to fulfil all your wishes."
I repressed the urge to roll my eyes, of course I was not the devil. I was not even sure if that demon existed in the first place. And how could these humans just straight up assume that the first large, red demon with wings that they saw was the actual devil? If he existed, I was sure that he had something else to do than just walking trough a rift in space that appeared out of nowhere.
I sinister grin grew on my face. Even though these humans were wrong. I was not planning to let this chance go to waste. I turned to the man who I assumed to be the leader.
"I than you for letting me in. I couldn't be here without you. As a token of my gratitude, I shall allow all of you to live and serve under me."
The men bowed deeper as they spoke in union. "We await your first command."
"I request all knowledge of this world that could possibly raise my strength. And a cleansing. I want you to sacrifice all the twisted and disgusting people, all who do not deserve to walk this world, to me."
If this worked as well as I hoped, then could focus on raising my strength while they would grand me more than enough souls to sustain myself. Of course, there would be a few innocent people in there, but as their souls contained less energy the taste would be better. And it had been way to long since I had eaten souls like that.