The Abyss is a harsh, cruel, and vile land. It is the worst place to live in, quite literally. Not a single plant can live in the Abyss, for the environment is too toxic, unfit for any flora. Since its inception, not a single plant has managed to grow. Many have tried, none have succeeded.

The only food found in the abyss is demonic beasts and demons; some elven scholars argue that there is hardly a difference between the two. The Abyss is a harsh place; none in the entire universe comes close.

It can give birth to life, but it cannot sustain it. Every three years, certain layers in the abyss turn into brood hives, the ground splits open, and many larvae, numbering in the millions, on a single layer emerge.

These larvae are of many shapes and sizes, but one common thing about them is the white skin and the sharp teeth that line their mouth. And what happens when they emerge from the ground?

They eat, eat, and eat.

It is a battle royal, millions of larvae against one another until only a few hundred or, very rarely, a thousand remain. As they eat, they evolve, becoming either demonic beasts or demons of many types. There is a popular saying in the abyss.

"The first feast of a natural demon is its own."

A natural demon, born from the brood hives, feasts upon its brothers and sisters, it feasts and feasts and evolves, until it has dominated the area it was born in. It is a cruel process; it is a brutal process. Some may become noble, most become feed.

However, that is not how all demons are born. Some were created directly by the Abyssal conscience, his court of seventy-two demon lords, from Rank 1, Baal, to Rank seventy-two, Dantalian.

The ranking does not specify their strengths, but rather unique aspects of the Abyssal conscience, as it created them. The seventy-two all represent a part of the Abyssal Conscience and the Abyss as a whole.

They share his blood, his authority over the demonic, but the Demon Lords aren’t ’loyal’ to the Abyssal Conscience, perhaps the truest representation of himself. They believe in it, but are not bound by it. However, they are susceptible to influence. Many Demon Lords prefer to focus on their desires, choosing to pursue what benefits them and their followers the most.

Baal, Rank 1, represents the power of the Abyss. He is the truest representation of the Abyss itself, a power forged through hardship, cruelty, and pure demonic prowess! However, rank 72, Dantalian, represents the Treachery and deception of the Abyss, and the Abyssal conscience; in a sense, both of them are the ’perfect’ representations of the Abyss as a whole.

To survive in the Abyss, you need both wit and strength. Baal and Dantalian are two sides of a coin; rank one and rank seventy-two are not so different as they seem. They merely embody the two principles closest to the Abyss; the other demon lords each embody something else.

Lucifer, the sole Supreme Being of the Abyss, and his ’devils’ are an oddity. They are not natural-born demons, those originating from the Abyss or Abyssal means, but those who fell into it. Legends say The Overgod, the Supreme Being presiding over Celestia, threw Lucifer into the Abyss.

They fought, and the Celestial God held Lucifer in the palm of his hand, wreathed him in flame, burning his most beautiful visage, and threw him into the abyss, a flaming comet that fell from the highest place to the lowest filth.

In a sense, Lucifer represents the rejection the Abyss faces in front of all, and in the same way, he represents the pride of the Demons who manage to survive in the Abyss. Lucifer, the King of Hell, represents their Pride over the others, over everything in the Universe, who did nothing with the gifts they were given from birth. And that is why the Demons worship Lucifer, the fallen who resists the high and mighty, he who knows what the top of the universe looks like, and the miserable bottom.

The demons are an endlessly confusing and miserable race. They have no choice but to invade other worlds, or else they would starve to death in their own home. Agriculture is a myth in the Abyss. It does not exist, it cannot exist.

Even the meat of demonic beasts and fellow demons is foul and nasty, filled with chaos and poison. Survival is possible only when they invade others and rule other worlds that are not filled with corruption and chaos.

Another kind of demon is the demon born from the communion between other demons, man and woman, A Demon born from a Demon, the natural reproduction most species follow in the universe. However, this type of demon is the most pitiful.

A demon born this way almost always has nothing, nothing. The first feast of a natural-born demon is the flesh of his brothers and sisters, the first feast of a Demon Lord is the energy of the Abyss, Chaos in its truest form. The first feast of a Devil was the satisfaction granted by their Unique skill.

The first ’feast’ of a demon born from another demon? More often than not, it was the corpse of their own mother. They filled their bellies with their mother’s corpse, and that was the first feast of such a damned existence.

Either the parent sacrificed themselves, or the demon killed them purposefully, either during birth or after. It could also be the father, but such accounts were rare; demonic men rarely cared about their children.

However, one demon in particular was denied such a right as well. He had no corpse to feast on, whether his own brethren or his parent. He had no way to absorb abyssal energy, no way to absorb chaos for sustenance. He had nothing but a piece of coal from the mine he slaved in.

He groaned in pain as starvation threatened to consume him. He groaned in pain, wondering what he must do. He groaned in pain, grabbing anything near him. He groaned in pain as he grabbed a piece of coal and shoved it in his mouth.

And he groaned in pain as he consumed the coal.