DxD : Actually Satan..?

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What is the cornerstone of human nature?

Some might point to greed, that gnawing hunger for more—wealth, power, status—driving people to claw their way over others.

Others might argue for deceit, the lies woven into smiles and promises, a second skin so well-worn it blends into truth.

Love gets thrown around too, as if it's the glue that holds everything together, a selfless force that somehow explains every sacrifice, every reckless choice.

Philosophers and poets could fill libraries with jargon about desire, ambition, or compassion, each claiming their pet virtue or vice is the root of what makes us human.

But those are just masks.

Facades people slip on day after day—masks of confidence, kindness, or cruelty that, over time, fuse to their faces until they forget they're wearing them.

Greed can be sated, deceit unraveled, love faded or betrayed.

They're fleeting, mutable, just layers we pile on to navigate the world.

Strip them away, and something deeper remains, something that no mask can hide.

Fear.

It's always fear.

Not the fleeting panic of a near miss or the dread of a looming deadline, but the irrational, bone-deep terror of death.

The void.

The end.

It's the emotion that lingers behind every choice, every step, every breath.

People build empires, chase love, spin lies, all to outrun that one truth: nothing lasts forever.

They cling to gods, to legacies, to fleeting pleasures, anything to drown out the whisper that one day they'll cease to exist.

It's irrational because no one escapes it, yet it's the engine of human nature—pushing some to create, others to destroy, all in a desperate bid to defy the inevitable.

Fear of death is the pulse beneath every mask, the current that drives the human story.

It's why we fight, why we love, why we lie to ourselves and call it meaning.

But human nature, with all its masks and primal fears, is a fragile framework when applied to something inhuman.

What happens when a being—alien in mind, body, and soul, with a mindset forged across eons—encounters fear for the first time?

Not the fleeting unease of mortals, but the raw, visceral terror of oblivion, a sensation so foreign it shatters their mind.

That's what was happening to Veylith, the Primordial of Darkness, under Leo's suppression.

Veylith, an entity older than the stars, had existed in a state of untouchable permanence, her soul woven into the fabric of the Morningstar bloodline's curse as well as the world..

She was no mere ghost—she was a force, a cornerstone of shadow and will, her consciousness a vast, void that had never known vulnerability.

Time, death, fear—these were mortal frailties, beneath her notice.

Her existence spanned dimensions, her power exceeded the blood pool and the mask-like engraving that tethered her to this plane.

But now, under Leo's domain, something had changed...

For the first time in her endless existence, Veylith felt the sting of vulnerability, a creeping dread that clawed at her core.

It wasn't just the threat of destruction—it was the taste of true fear.

Her eyes alight in a desperation she couldn't comprehend.

The sensation was utterly alien.

Fear of death, of ceasing to be, was a mortal concept, yet here it was, flooding her with an urgency she'd never known.

Leo's golden eyes bored into Veylith, as he tightened his spiritual grip.

"Do you understand your situation, Founder Veylith?" Leo's voice was a low, emotionless drawl, each word sharp as a blade. "Tell me..., or I'll rip it from your burning soul."

He was bluffing—a little.

Truth Layer and his mana brains had mapped the mechanics of her soul , but extracting her full essence wasn't a sure thing.

His magic, might not pull it off 100%. Maybe he'd fail, maybe the conduit would hold.

But Veylith didn't know that.

Leo could see it in her eyes—those crimson orbs, wide with a fear so raw it was almost tangible. It was the same desperate, hungry look he'd seen in his past life, staring down the barrel of a gun at a soldier's head, the man's eyes pleading for one more breath, one more moment to live.

Veylith's gritted her teeth, her voice strained, . "I know what you are," she said, the words forced out.

"What I am…?" Leo repeated, his tone flat, his golden eyes narrowing as he leaned slightly forward. "Last I checked, I was part of your bloodline. Just another Morningstar, cursed like the rest."

"No, no," Veylith rasped, her crimson eyes darting, the fear in them sharpening as she shook her head. "You are the consequence of my first mistake… You must've read the story in Allan's journal."

She continued.."While it's true the journal mentioned my mistake, the cause and effect are all wrong. The planet doesn't give a shit who or what creates life... It wouldn't curse one of its children just for something so easy...."

Leo's eyes narrowed,. "Then what was it?" he asked, his tone flat.

Veylith's gaze locked onto his, her ethereal face inches away, twisted with a mix of defiance and fear. "I guess you'll never know," she whispered, her voice a strained, taunting hiss, as if she could still claw back some semblance of control.

"What are you—" Leo began, but the words died in his throat as a cataclysmic jolt ripped through his senses.

The barrier around the island shattered with a sound like a thousand mirrors exploding, the fragments of its magic dissolving into the air.

A tidal wave of mana surged into the cavern, so vast it seemed to bend reality , the walls trembling as if the earth recoiled.

Leo's perception slowed to a crawl, his five mana brains processing the event with machine-like precision.

This wasn't mana flowing in—it was spawning, erupting at points pf space time around them with near-instantaneous ferocity.

It wasn't a spell, not a person, not even a god—it was the planet.

The sheer magnitude of its power dwarfed anything Leo had seen.

"I'll tell you one thing," Veylith rasped, her voice barely cutting through the deafening hum of mana that filled the cavern, her form flickering like a candle in a storm.

"The curse was never from the planet."

Leo didn't hesitate.

He thrust his mana outward, a desperate bid to seize control of the chaotic energy, to shield Veylith's soul from the impending strike.

His reserves were immense, but this was a force of nature.

He was already channeling and controlling mana 1200 times his capacity, the number skyrocketing as his will expanded, trying to wrestle the torrent into submission.

It was like trying to leash a supernova—every time he grasped a thread, another erupted, faster, hotter, wilder, slipping through his mental fingers like molten glass.

Then it came.

A beam of pure, incandescent energy tore through the cavern, faster than light, faster than thought.

It grazed Leo's hands, the heat so searing it vaporized flesh and bone in a heartbeat, leaving only charred stumps.

The pain was apocalyptic, a white-hot pain that drowned out almost everything.

The beam didn't stop—it slammed into Veylith's soul.

Her form erupted in a silent, anguished wail, her crimson eyes frozen in peace not terror as her soul fractured, shards of her soul scattering like embers into the void.

"Nooooo!" Leo roared, his voice shattering the emotionless facade, raw with fury and defiance.

He hadn't meant for this—not her end, not yet.

She had so many answers...

Then it hit him—Echoforge.

His mana snapped into focus, and he scrambled, thrusting his mana outward.

He reached for any fragment of Veylith's soul, any wisp that could hold the truths she'd withheld.

His will clawed through the void, desperate to salvage something, anything.

But all that remained was a tiny, flickering wisp, barely a spark of her essence.

Leo projected it into his mind, and a fractured vision unfolded.

A newborn Veylith, her form soft and unmarred by eons, stood in a void, speaking to someone .

The memory shifted, collapsing into a second, even more broken fragment: an unbearable flood of light, so intense it scorched his mind's eye, drowning out all detail.

The vision shattered, leaving nothing but static.

"Damn it!" he screamed in his mind, the frustration boiling over.

He glanced at his unhealing body—his soul was intact, but his hands remained stumps, the blacked flesh refusing to mend from any healing spells.

The planet's mana had done something to him, something he couldn't heal from.

His gaze drifted to the blood pool, its dark surface still and reflective under the cavern's dim light.

He sighed, a grim resolve settling in. "I guess we're doing this, huh…"

He stepped toward the pool, shedding his tattered jacket and boots, leaving them in a heap on the stone.

As his bare foot touched the blood, a searing heat erupted, his veins igniting with a bright red glow that spread like wildfire through his body.

Step by step, the blood rose around him, warm and viscous, until only his head remained above the surface.

Yellow lightning sparked from his body, arcing outward, dancing across the pool's surface in erratic bursts. It wasn't external—it came from him, a manifestation of his mana surging in response to the blood's power.

Leo focused, his mind locking onto Echoforge.

He reached out with his will, assimilating the blood, compressing it, shaping it.

The pool's essence flowed into him organic matter, mana, memories, all transmuted and grafted into his being.

Thousands upon thousands of unique abilities fused into his body, each one a fragment of the Morningstar bloodline's legacy.

It was like the Codex of Krypton, a living archive of power etched into his flesh and soul.

Every memory, every experience of the bloodline's ancestors, was recorded in his blood—triumphs, failures, loves, betrayals, all woven into his essence. His hands rebuilt themselves, flesh and bone reforming, but they bore black, seal-like patterns, alien, a mark of the fact that they were not his hands...

His eyes changed colours, crimson and golden hues warring within them, until the process reached a crescendo.

The last of the blood was absorbed, the pool drained dry, its power now part of Leo.

His body was brimming with energy, no longer human, no longer even supernatural.

He hadn't merely integrated the bloodline's abilities after all.

His eyes turned grey for a fleeting moment, then shifted to crimson pupils ringed with concentric golden patterns, glowing with an otherworldly light.

A system notification flashed before him, its text glitching, distorted:

[ Warning: {Curse of #### – Etch of the Unmade Prophecy} has parasitized {Truth Layer } alongside {Unknown memory fragment} to generate… {Eye of Ambition.} ]

Leo didn't read it though.

He was in a trance, high on power, his senses drowning in the plane of information.

It was clearer than ever before—every thread of mana, every whisper of intent, every ripple of causality laid bare.

He not only saw the world as it was, but as it could be, a sea of possibilities stretching into infinity.

Leo could see all the branches of timleine stretching from this moment...

A set of footsteps rang through the cavern, echoing off the stone walls.

Leo's father and mother burst into the chamber.

They froze at the sight of him standing alone in the empty space where the blood pool once was.

His ringed pupils glowing faintly, staring into nothing.

Leo turned slowly, his gaze settling on them.

Unconsciously, they took a step back, their instincts prickling with unease.

It wasn't his appearance, because that was the same other than the hands and eyes.

Something deeper, something instinctively told them to be on edge, as if the son they knew was now a stranger.

"I told you, Dad," Leo said, his voice calm but resonating with an unnatural depth. "I'd find a way. I did."

His father's eyes widened. "Leo… what have you done?" he asked, his voice low filled with a mix of awe and dread.

Leo's lips curved into a faint smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I took the bloodline's power," he said simply. "The curse is gone. "

"Veylith's gone....Everything the Morningstars were—it's mine now."

They're are afraid of me .... how strange..

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Power Stones and Reviews please