My Primordial Demon System

Silva grabbed the cloth and pulled it off, releasing a cloud of dust. They all covered their noses while swiping their hands to clear the dust. When the dust finally went down, they all looked at what was behind it.

It was a stack of boards and poorly kept books, along with what looked like an older hologram machine. Silva grabbed one of the books, looked at the front, and noticed a similar mark on the book to that of his hand.

He opened the book, but the pages crumbled immediately. He picked another and the same happened. "These books are too old," he said.

"Yeah, but the machine seems to be fine. We should try to power it," Peter said. He walked to the machine and found the cord and a socket on the wall.

"Are you sure that's safe?" Silva asked.

"No, but I'm doing it," Peter said as he plugged it in. Immediately, sparks flew; he jumped back, scared by the sparks.

"You destroyed it," Ella said.

"No, look at the machine," Silva said, pointing at it. It was turning on. They all stood back and watched. The machine turned on completely, and the hologram of a woman appeared. She was sitting at a desk.

Her face was the exact same as Ella's, only a bit older. She had a beautiful smile and a shine in her eyes. She looked at the projector with a soft smile.

"Mother," Silva muttered.

"She looks like me," Ella said. She had been very young when her parents left, so she barely had any memory of them.

(Hello,) their mother started speaking.

(This is a prerecorded message, one that I hoped I would never have to do or to share. If I am alive, then you would have never seen this video, so I take it I'm dead.

Well, dead in the sense that you understand. It basically means I've vanished from Earth. I know it's not fair to you or your sister to have to see this message. You can even say it's cruel that your dad and I left you to chase something that took us away from you.

But I want you to understand that what we did, we did for you,) she said. She had a sad expression on her face. She looked at them as if it wasn't recorded, her eyes glassy.

(There is more to you than you know, and if you have seen this recording, then you have started discovering the truth about yourselves as demons—half demons.)

"Demons? What is she talking about?" Peter asked, looking at Silva.

"I'll explain to you after this, I promise," Silva said. Peter looked at him, took a breath, and kept quiet to watch.

(Your father and I fell in love a long time ago. It was during my research of the Infinite Gate. I travelled there to explore. We couldn't go deep at the time, only the outskirts.

The monsters within the gate were beings direct from Hell and more. They were the strongest of the strong. During one of those explorations, I found your father lying there, injured and battered.

He looked like he was about to die, so I took him out and nursed him back to health. No one suspected a thing because your father looked like a human.

With him, I began learning about everything that was inside the Infinite Gate. Slowly we built a family, then we had you and your sister. That was when it all went bad.

The two of you are half demons, the first of your kind. But you, Silva, you are more demon than not. You can't resist,) spark spark.

The machine started sparking, the hologram distorting. Silva panicked immediately, rushing around trying to see what was wrong.

If his mother had set this for them, then he was sure she would have ensured that nothing happened to it when they used it, so this didn't make any sense.

Clap clap clap.

The sound of slow clapping echoed through the warehouse.

Silva spun around, eyes narrowing.

A man stood there. Red hair. Red eyes. A flawless black suit draped over a tall, pale frame. A coy smile curled at his lips as he clapped, the sound sharp in the silent space.

"Who are you?" Silva barked, already irritated by the fact that the hologram machine had stopped working.

The man's smile widened, his crimson gaze drifting lazily over the warehouse. When he spoke, his voice was smooth, almost playful.

"Who would have thought it would take more than ten years for you to come here?" he said. "Your parents went to great lengths to hide this place from me." He glanced around at the draped shapes at the far end. "But I found it. After many years of searching, I found it. And I prepared for you two."

Then his eyes settled on Silva. They glowed faintly as an energy seeped from his body, heavy, dark, unmistakable.

Silva felt it immediately. Demonic.

"You're a demon," Silva said flatly.

"Oh?" The man tilted his head slightly, amused. "So you can sense demonic energy now? Good. It shows you're growing."

"There are no demons on Earth," Silva snapped.

The man chuckled softly. "No demons on Earth? What a crazy guess." His smile sharpened. "In a world of more than five billion people, you think not a single demon has found its way here? Of course there are demons on Earth. But we can't reveal ourselves."

His tone deepened, the playfulness edged with something colder.

"Disconnected from Hell, our true powers are sealed. We can't fight at full strength. We can't take this place from humanity outright." He spread his hands slightly. "And that is why we use the cults. We use their connections, their influence. We use everything they have."

Silva's eyes narrowed. "So you're with the cult? You work with it?"

The man's smile lingered, but his tone shifted. "No. We use the cult to do what we want. Its creation has nothing to do with me. Maybe some demon a hundred years ago nudged the choices that led to its birth, but their actions, everything they do, are their own will and their own resolve. It has nothing to do with me." His grin sharpened. "But still… their path aligns with us demons."

Silva looked at him. "You keep saying we demons. You mean there are more of you around?"

The man chuckled softly. "Like I said, this world already has demons walking about, going about their daily lives, and you barely know. The eyes of Gia cannot see everything. She's struggling just to hold the structure of this world together, so she can't watch what moves beneath her."

His red gaze glowed brighter, his smile now a thin line of mockery. "Gia might be powerful, but she cannot stop us from infiltrating her world like we already have. The only issue is that we've reached our limits. Our power, our strength, everything that made us what we were, we had to leave behind in order to come to this filthy world of yours."

"So what do you want from us? And how do you know our parents?" Silva demanded, his voice low and sharp.

The demon's smile widened, a flash of red glinting in his eyes. "What do I know about your parents? Well… a lot, actually. I know that your father is a demon, and that you are his offspring. There's far more about him, and about what he did to reach this world of yours, than you could imagine. But I won't be the one to tell you."

Silva's heart pounded. "What do you mean?"

"Your mother wanted to explain it all in her message," the demon said lightly. "But I couldn't allow the secrets of the demon world to be handed to you so easily. So I sabotaged the recording. I left just enough for you to see, enough to know what you truly are. And now you do."

He raised a pale finger, pointing past Silva to Ella. "And now you understand: you have something we want. Your sister has something that belongs to us demons, something we desperately need. I am the only demon on this planet who knows she's the one. The others don't know, and I don't plan to tell them." His smile turned cruel. "Demons are selfish creatures. We look out for ourselves. I want this for myself alone."

The air between them grew heavier.

"If you hand her over," the demon said coldly, "I won't kill either of you. But if you resist, I'll destroy you all." His voice was ice, yet his bloodlust leaked into the room like a storm.

Silva said nothing. He didn't move his lips. He simply armed his gauntlet, stepping in front of Ella, blocking her from view.

The demon's grin faltered. "Wrong choice."

He raised his hand. A ball of red energy swirled into existence at his fingertip, spinning faster and faster until it howled with power.

Then he fired.

Silva grabbed Ella and leapt aside, Peter diving with them. The attack slammed into the ground and erupted, blasting apart everything it touched and leaving a blackened crater behind.

"I'm not joking with you," the demon said, his voice a deadly promise.