Instead of himself, Frei saw the promised interface that would supposedly help him with his new role and suprisingly, it really did.

[Infernopedia]

[Teleportation] - no locations available

[Souls] - 20 affinity-none (borrowed 20)

After selecting infernopedia, there was a number of topics he was able to read about, it could be summed up into basic information about his new identity and the specifics of his first mission.

It seemed he had become a demon, more precisely just a hellspawn or simply a spawn. It was the term for all creatures of hell that had devoured less than one hundred souls. If he managed to get more than one hundred, he would become a fiend, above that was a lesser demon with one thousand and finally a demon with over one million souls under its belt. He only glanced in disbelief at the rank above that which required to have more then one billion souls, it seemed like he would not become a greater demon anytime soon.

Well, probably never.

While he had been provided with a loan of twenty souls, he had to prove himself in his first mission or be send to perform non-combat assignments in case of failure. He did not want to even know what kind of assignments those were, no doubt something terrible to encourage people taking the more dangerous jobs in the field. There was not much more about the basics, he noticed that he had no stats displayed anywhere, but he was told to redistribute his souls into specific powers under the third selectable item.

Naturally, he could not teleport anywhere yet.

Before choosing his powers, he thought about his first mission. He would have to return the twenty souls at the end of the mission, so it was most likely his only solid chance to acquire more souls to be able to do something during the following assignments. His mission objective seemed simple, he was about to be teleported to a location where a minor breach has been detected, using the exact words of the {Infernopedia]:

[Mission objective] - Investigate a minor spatial breach at Galinem-hV6, identify its cause or secure extensive intel on the event. Transportation secured. By the way, the tongues were the best, the lunches are getting better lately. GL HF new meat.

Frei did not know who was responsible for posting mission objectives, but he was clearly quite bored.

""Hey, are you going or not?" Frei had to hastily undo the interface to see what was going on, his soul powers had to wait a second longer.

"Yes, of course." He blinked several times, taking in the scene around him. He found out that he was being addressed by an ordinary looking bus driver at whom he was staring through a bus's opened door. He entered the vehicle and sat down. It was late afternoon and there was not many people inside. He looked out of the window and saw himself in the reflection of the lights inside.

He looked completely ordinary, his short hair were cut in a messy way, but his proportions were typical for an average white male. He quickly looked at the information he had about the mission one more time, but whoever planned this had not bothered with anything else.

He had to hope that the bus was going in the direction of the disturbance he had to investigate.

It should be high time to pick his powers. Frei chose the third line with the number twenty next to it and a number of upgrades appeared, each with a specific cost next to it.

[Supernatural Physique]* - 10

[Demonic Transformation]* - 10

[Stealth]* - 10

[Soul Sight]* - 15

[Mesmerize]* - 10

[Black Bullet]* - 15

[Demon Claws]* - 20

[Telekinesis]* - 10

Great! But how was he supposed to choose when he knew nothing about the abilities?

Shortly after having that though, Frei looked closely at the asterisk behind the [Demon Claws]* and suddenly appeared in the middle of the bus that was now standing in place with no people around. He looked at his hands and saw a pair of white, shimmering claws had replaced his nails. After a while of mind-gymnastics, he was able to undo what had to be some kind of a test mode for the [Demon Claws].

"Neat." Frei looked around and when he had not found anyone acting suspicious of him, he repeated his action to invoke the test mode again, but this time he tried out the sharpness of the dagger-like demon claws, swinging at one of the seats. There was almost no resistance and a part of the seat fell off, Frei had to suppress his emotions to not burst out with laughter. The claws were sharp enough to cut through thin steel beams with ease, even the starting abilities of a hellspawn were no joke.

He tested all combat related abilities and decided to take [Black Bullet]. The non-combat abilities sounded nice, but he had no solid way to test them and gathering souls would surely involve killing at some point. He preferred a ranged attack, because he could not be sure about how physically fit would be his targets. The ability's power was comparable to a single shot from a sniper rifle, minus the precision of course. The rate of fire was somewhere about one second.

"We will be at the location soon, I hope you have not chosen some shitty abilities, the party is just about to start." The bus driver looked up at the dark sky and Frei nearly choked on his saliva when he heard him. Along with the hidden identity of the bus driver, the night revealed some distant screams coming from a town nearby that they were about to enter.

"I do not think you will need directions now, but remember this, leave the souls going to heaven alone, devouring them is not worth the trouble." The person's pupils turned bright for a second and Frei could tell he was not joking. The next second, the bus driver was gone, melting into the shadows of the night and the bus stood still with its doors open.

Wait, could it mean that the people in the bus were actually. . ?

"Let's get this party started!" A male even younger than Frei shouted and used [Demonic Transformation], his body turning into a body-builder version of him with his skin tinged dark red. He jumped over several seats and leaped out of the door while laughing like a maniac.

Right, he should remember none of the people here were the ones destined for heaven nor hell, Frei tensed for a second reminding himself to be extra careful about his future co-workers.

"What an idiot, he will not last one minute." A lean man with glasses and neatly cut brown hair stood up and looked outside through the window facing the nearby houses. "Let's split, we will only compete for souls if we stick together."

The man left the bus in a collected manner without even introducing himself.

The third man leaving the bus had not even bothered to say anything, his long hair messed up by the windy weather the moment he stepped through the door.

Only four people were left and even thought two of them were girls, Frei fully agreed with the guy with the glasses. One had to secure his living first to have the time for games later.

"Frei, good luck out there." He said and followed the example of those that had left before him.

The bus had stopped at the edge of a small forest, or more likely a large park with very poor maintenance, in front of him were the first few houses of the beginning outskirts of the town, most of them reminded him of large huts rather than proper houses, the residents were probably using them only in summer. There was an occasional bigger house, but he could count them on fingers of his one hand. Every residence had a rather large garden attached to it, as land did not seem to be a problem around here.

Where he was again? Yes, Galinem-hV6, but the name was useless anyway, because he had no way to search about it with his phone or anything and [Infernopedia] considered it unimportant details. . .or the staff over there was totally lazy.

Frei reviewed all the abilities again in his head in case someone of the fellow hellspawn decided to simply kill him. He was confident to shoot anyone with the close ranged abilities before they got near him, the only truly dangerous situations were those involving ambushes using [Black Bullet] [Stealth] or [Mesmerize]. His comrades looked surprisingly human-like, but he wanted to put a lot of distance between them and himself just in case. At first, he had expected [Telekinesis] to be awesome, but after some probing of its limits, he had found out it was simply too weak. It was surely convenient, but his current ability could kill a man in a bulletproof vest or armor in an instant, which was much better than [Telekinesis].

He was only about ten meters away from the bus that funnily enough looked like an ordinary school bus, something that sharply contrasted with the whole demonic origin of its passengers, when he heard a loud gunshot from the inside and watched a small part of its roof to explode into a cloud of metal and glass. A split second later, there were shouts both male and female and several more gunshots followed.

Blood froze in Frei's veins, he had taken his time with his departure and anyone who had not been closely following him would expect him to be quite a distance away already. The question was what was the nature of the incident? Was it a cold-blooded murder or someone had just lost his nerve?

He hid behind one of the trees and waited for further movements, it would have been silly to try and get away, he was too close. Apparently, the one who had most likely killed the other passengers had the same ability as Frei, the first clear shot would be the last. After a while, he could hear a frantic argument going on inside, the only word he could understand was "No" that had been shouted out by the last victim, the last word before she had been silenced forever by another gunshot.

Only silence followed.

That should be a good sign.

Frei shifted his weight closer to the tree he stood behind and waited for the shooter to leave the bus. He guessed his or her actions had not been properly planned, he would expect no delay between the last shot and the initial onslaught if the killing had been the original intent of the killer.

Why argue with the last victim if it all had been just a ploy?

Sadly, the shooter decided to remain holed up inside and Frei had to wreck his brain on how to proceed. He could not leave with a potential deranged sniper in his back, especially when he had the advantage now.

After a while, he began to circle the bus slowly, watching the bus's windows like a hawk. Switching trees one for the other, he finally arrived at the place he had intended.

"Let¨s hope the killer sits or lies on one of the seats." Frei was facing the back of the bus now from where he could shoot through all the seats with four shots, that gave the killer just three second to react at best if he really was on one of the seats.

Frei extended his hand slightly and activated the ability. A black ray of light shot out and pierced the bus, exiting at its front. The next second, next shot thundered and a shrill scream rose from the inside.

It was a hit!

What followed was a mad showdown, where Frei was systematically destroying the bus along with anything inside while observing a few blind shots to exit in random directions, but the enemy had clearly no idea where he was. Frei was not surprised, the second shot was a hit and his opponent had to be barely breathing, considering the power of the shots. When he was content with the state of the wrecked bus that now looked like it had survived a war, he walked closer to ensure the killer was really dead.

He was not stupid enough to leave himself some serious trouble for later.

He entered the ruined bus and saw four bodies, one of them lacking both legs that had been probably shot off post mortem. He had to steel himself, when confronted with the intensity of the bloody scene, but after he got closer, a blissful feeling overshadowed all else, as faint grey lights entered his body along with four black ones.

It was. .. like tasting whipped cream, just more intense.

"Wait, was that what I think it was?!" The good feeling still circled through his veins and his brain began to connect it to the scene in front of him, a strange mixture of pleasure and disgust mixed together.