Paimon Impact (and Other Short Stories)

Paimon Impact - Chapter One

"Hell is empty and the devils are all here." -William Shakespeare

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I hate it. I hate it so much. No, I despise it. I carry infinite knowledge. And yet, it is always taken for granted. Everything is always "Lucifer, this!" and "Lucifer, that!" as if I am not a King of Hell myself. This must be disrespectful at least and blasphemous at most. I just cannot fatho–.

"Boo!" A head dropped down into my line of sight, a gleeful smile on her face which quite frankly did not relatively match the dim reddish appearance of the netherworld. I did not move a single hair from my original position, hovering slightly above the ground with my right leg propped up, my left leg pointed straight out, and my right arm covering the lower half of my face as my bone straight black hair shielded my face, only leaving my dark eyes visible. "Did I scare you?" She asked, her ghost white hair dangling upside down, in front of my face. I remained silent, continuing to stare straight, my eyes unfocused on her face.

"You're no fun." She groaned as she moved from my field of vision, migrating beside me. For a moment, we both stared out into the vast nether in silence, the only sounds being the inferno that raged far below and the distant sounds of agony of pitiful humans who had somehow made it into the one postmortem realm that could spread angst across all realms. "You know, I heard your thoughts," She said, attempting to begin a conversation. I attempted to remain silent. It became obvious, though, that she would not elaborate unless I said something. "And?" I merely said. It was not that I disliked her; I just despised small talk. Almost as much as I despised my lack of recognition. Yet, she was not discouraged by my standoffish behavior; she continued to talk as if I were an old friend.

"In my time, I've worked with two other Kings," She continued. "One of them, Asmodee, had a similar problem to you. He was exhausted with his vast power but lack of recognition. He was mildly jealous of Astaroth and Beelzebub's popularity. In order to satisfy himself, you know what he did?". I initially believed this question to be rhetorical until the pause after this sentence was far too long and a bit too awkward. "What did he do, Genshin?" I sighed to the lesser demon. "He made himself a world!" Genshin exclaimed, partially excited that I had responded to her. "From the ground up! Made everything from the scenery to the people in the world! The only issue was the people turned on him so he unleashed these creatures called Honkai in the world. Killed pretty much everyone too." She then turned to face me. I continued to face forward.

"That's the only issue I've ever seen with it. Well, that and the fact that Lucifer only allows you all to make one world so if things go wrong, you can't really do anything about it except destroy it all." She continued to drone on and on about world creation. I tuned her out but continued to consider the idea of creating my own world. It was surprisingly a good idea. I could create a world, loan my wealth of knowledge to the inhabitants of my world, and in return, receive the praises of my people.

"And he made me possess some girl named Kiana. It was honestly so weir–" "Genshin," I interrupted her in the middle of her monologue. "Er, yeah? What's up?" She paused, unfazed at my interruption. "I would like to create my own world," I blinked and looked in her direction. "Would you be willing to assist me?" Genshin's face morphed into pure joy. I could tell that she was overly excited that I had made her the offer but she attempted to cloak her trepidation. She then stood up and bowed down, her forehead making direct contact with the ground. I got up from my sitting position, still floating, and stood over Genshin's prostrate body. "I would be honored, King Paimon."