For a few minutes, I unleashed all of my anger onto the edge of the island, trying to break it down and give myself an easier time, but for a moment I lost all sense of reason and jumped on both feet. The world around me gave and I tumbled down into the infinite void of darkness, that seemed more like the depths of the ocean rather than a vacant void of nothingness.

The darkness invaded my mind, making me pass out instantly as I attempted to swim back up. It dug its sharp claws into the inner folds of my brain and injected a liquid so potent that it rid the insanity from my mind and…

“Huff… huff… huff… huff… huff… I can’t… do this any longer…” I muttered, feeling my body gently float down onto the vibrant patch of grass sitting atop the cone-shaped island. I had unfortunately been teleported back up. “I have to leave this place. There must be a way. This place feels way too much like an ocean for there not to be something else to this…”

Even though I told myself that, the looming threat of being away from the island still hung. If I wasn’t able to counteract the darkness that eats away at my mind, I had no chance of even hoping to escape.

“Thankfully I can breathe… making me a bit suspicious of the properties of this ocean, but… maybe if I obtain a skill. A skill that allows me to resist Mind Rot since I’m positive that is what this is… hmmmmm… maybe I can use this dark energy?”

“What are you doing?” A voice echoed from behind, its very inner workings scraping my soul with a threatening aura. It had teeth to its blades and they weren’t blunt in the slightest. Each tooth was a canine puncturing straight through my skin and into my flesh, holding me in place as the sly black figure appeared in front of me.

“Why do you look like that?” I asked, brushing the chills off my body and taking up a more composed expression. I had faltered at the suddenness of it all, but I could handle it as long as I stayed calm and-

“What… you don’t like it?” His voice dimmed, his hands roaming down his loose robes that revealed his toned chest.

The man looked more beautiful than ever with obsidian black eyes and long sleek black hair flowing down next to his waist. His structure was something that could only be crafted by the gods and with such entrancing features like the double beauty mark placed under his right eye, anybody would fall for him, man or woman.

Well, that’s unless you don’t know his real personality. Nobody would ever want to be involved with a thing like this since this wasn’t even his real appearance. It was something grotesque and horribly abominable just to witness. With long black tentacles and a face full of mouths and eyes… it was something even the most sane god would rot at the sight of.

“What were you even doing with that appearance? Picking up chicks?”

“I was trying to seduce your little friend, but it seems she doesn’t like me,” Beelzebub chuckled, those obsidian eyes of eyes slowly shifting into the form he normally takes. He saw how unamused I was and lightly smiled. “You know, I’m curious as to what your relationship is. Are you in love or are you just friends? Friends with benefits maybe? Kekeekeke…”

Each pupil of his swirled in each socket, dragging a white line through the void slowly spinning in the opposite direction. It was an incredible sight watching his body contort and shift so easily as if it was like he was just beating his heart. It was automatic the way he lazily rolled his eyes, his facial structure and bone structure literally breaking and reworking to create the form that everybody knew and hated.

“We’re just friends.”

…

It was after we had fallen into hell. We were on that stupid mission that Satan had put us on and we were in the wilderness, dirty, stinky, and just straight-up uncomfortable. Everybody had been slowly warming up to the fact that this was our life for the foreseeable future.

“Hey, we got barely enough cold water for two people, so you both figure out how to split it or something. I mean, you can bathe in the river if you want, but it just feels like piss. It’s lukewarm, but whatever,” Orion limply called out as both Bella and I waited patiently for our turn to bathe.

“No way bro…” Bella groaned and with a quick snap of her eyes onto me, my body reacted instinctively. I rushed towards the metal basin which was pretty spacious, to be honest. It could have fit at least three people.

“No wonder we don’t have enough. It’s because our bathtub is too **ing big. It’s spreading the water thin! WHO’S IDEA WAS THIS!?” Bella shouted but nobody responded, causing her to click her tongue. “Fine, I’m going first.”

“I’m gonna have no water then.”

“Then let’s just bathe together,” Bella snarled as Orion disappeared beyond the tree line separating the bathtub and our camp for the week. “Or what, you’re too good to bathe with somebody as noble as me?”

Her smirk was annoying, but I was still as unamused as usual. I had no qualms with this, especially if I could avoid bathing in that crystal clear stream of piss. Once I drank it out of desperation as we had run out of fresh water and well… let’s just say I didn’t have the best time on the toilet for the next few days.

“Whatever,” I sighed, too exhausted to argue, and as we both stripped, I became a bit nervous. But, it wasn’t because I was going to be bathing with a girl naked… instead, I was scared I would end up feeling something for her.