Though my core and weave had been thoroughly cleansed from my body, I still had my soul and the will which could bend the world even if only slightly.
Every life has a soul and a will so it's not like this was anything special, all creatures which utilised mana did so through their soul. It was just that a soul was absolutely terrible at precisely and efficiently using mana, which is why we create a core to store mana and a weave to properly control it. Without these two things, casting a spell would be like trying to not only control a whole river with just your two hands but also hold the lake itself. Even if one had the strength to control a river or hold a lake, the water would just slip past you.
Despite the lack of strength I had over mana currently, that didn't mean I was now unable to feel mana. Right now I felt the mana continuously blowing through the rift, it had suddenly exploded with such force I could feel it from here, that wasn't all though.
In that moment it felt like the world below me tilted ever so slightly towards the rift, not more than a few degrees but with how suddenly it happened, it allowed me to actually feel it happening. I couldn't even conceive of how such a thing was possible, how would someone tilt a whole world? Why would you even do it?
There was no possible reason to tilt a whole world, at best it would allow the rest of the demons to go downhill and therefore expend less energy but no not even that makes sense, the amount of mana required to do that for something so trivial is incredibly inefficient but least of all the tilt is pointed towards the rift, not away from it. The people coming out if it would have to be walking uphill to enter earth.
It had to be some kind of byproduct of something, but the amount of energy to tilt the gravity of an entire planet would take... the mass of an entire planet
Once again pieces came together in my mind like solving a puzzle. Yes it would take the whole mass of a planet to produce that much gravity and judging by the fact that the gravity was pulling me towards the rift it meant the planet on the other side of the rift must be even larger than earth.
Suddenly a realisation as to why the demons had invaded earth encroached my mind. They needed land, much like the humans of earth did in the past they were colonising land and culling the indigenous people. Along with this if my suspicion was correct, the rift was more than just a passageway which connects two realms, from what I could tell it physically attaches the two worlds together, which would mean earth is now just... another part of the demon realm.
Why had the demons been so incredibly thorough with their culling of humans though? Why integrate us into demon kind? Why not make us slaves? Why not just ignore us? We were hardly a threat to them, they could have just taken our land and treated us like animals. Letting us live in our own habitats while they did whatever they do. They hunted down and killed every human on earth and did so strictly before they fully merged our world into theirs, It was so incredibly strange.
We had known they were attempting to colonise earth for a few years, it became apparent when we started seeing what infrastructure they destroyed and which they kept and researched but the sheer scale and inconsistency in their actions in this moment with the rift made me incredibly confused.
"Well I guess there is one way to find out the answers to my questions." I said to myself as I looked towards the rift.
I was going to enter the demon realm, even if it was risky it didn't really matter. Whether I said on earth or went into the demon realm it was going to be an incredible risk no matter what. I might as well begin to make steps towards my goal rather than try to hang around trying to hold onto what once was.
Never look back, never regret what you have done, never be weak. This is how I always survived, always walking forwards no matter what.
---
I had walked until daylight had almost ended, I was on top of another hill which was directly overlooking the boundary between realms. In the far distance I could see what looked like thousands and thousands of demons, all of them clearly lesser demons. Refugees I guessed by their shabby appearance.
Demons came in many forms, some like the demon lord were vaguely humanoid looking like a classic demon from hell but most of them were various types of beast looking but intelligent beings.
All demons similarly to humans wore clothes, and their social standing was clearly visible by the quality of said clothes. It looked weird to see things which looked almost no different to a deer wearing clothes but I had long become accustomed to it.
That was how I identified them as refugees, their clothes were no different from rags. They were malnourished and there was an absolute sea of them. Interestingly among the sea of refugees there were things which I could vaguely understand as cars and others which flew through the sky. Along with these in the sky there were absolutely colossal vessels which looked like airships, they carried what I guessed would become the new infrastructure for earth.
It was clear to see what was happening, the demons had already prepared for their arrival on earth, they had already rounded up the poor who overpopulated the demon realm, which was likely the reason for its expansion in the first place, and sent them here along with giving them what they needed to survive.
They were surprisingly kind to their own people. In the war against the demons they seemed to completely disregard the lives of their soldiers, letting over half of them die in total by the time humanity had been wiped out but the demons seemed to be kind enough to help even the poor here start their life.
Each new thing I learned about the demons only made them more and more confusing. All that meant is that I needed to learn more, there was always a reason behind things. The only question is if I can understand it and use it to my advantage.
In that moment I committed to my decision to enter the demon realm. I had no clue what I would do nor how I would survive but I would make sure I would live and pay back all that was done to humanity.
---
As I approached the boundary between worlds I noticed how tilted the world was this close to the demon realm, I also noted how much heavier I felt. I was much more sluggish than I expected but thanks to my immortal body I didn't feel any exhaustion.
A few steps in front of me I saw the boundary itself. It was obvious where it was, the grass looked completely different on one side to the other. It wasn't a type of grass I was familiar with which made sense but I found it interesting that there was grass at all and that it was still green though a very unnatural shade.
Stepping over the boundary with caution, expecting the magic protection which had been there previously but no such thing was there anymore, I had expected some incredible feeling as I crossed into another world but no such thing happened. The only noteworthy thing is that as I continued to walk forwards the gravity felt less and less tilted until not too far from the rift itself, I felt almost no tilt at all and along with that unlike the setting sun to my left the other side of the boundary was almost noon with the sun still high in the sky.
I looked forward to see what appeared to be a forest. The trees on this world seemed to be much more dense and short but looked almost no different apart from the slightly red hue of the bark.
I continued walking into and through the incredibly dense forest, none of the plants I recognised but at the same time they were very similar to earth. There were berries, thorny bushes and fairly large clearings in the forest. It looked less like another world and more like just an unexplored region of earth.
I continued to walk for what must have been four or five hours, it was hard to tell because the sun above me had hardly moved, it seemed days were much longer here. After all this time walking I had finally approached what looked like a large clearing in front of me. The trees were so dense it made the ground underneath dark which made the intense light of the clearing in front of me blinding in comparison, making me unable to make out anything beyond the canopy of trees.
Eventually as I drew closer and closer to the clearing I saw what it actually was, It was the edge of a cliff. That wasn't the part that shocked me however. I began sprinting forwards, trying to confirm what I thought I saw but was almost unable to believe unless I truly saw it in detail.
After a few painstaking moments I had reached the end of the canopy and saw the cliff edge and beyond it perfectly clearly.
In the distance I saw mountains larger than anything possible on earth, stretching far higher and so steeply it seemed like they cut into the sky. The vast plane below me stretched for a simply unbelievable distance and on the edge of the horizon I think I saw a collection of houses. A village maybe?
None of that was shocking enough to make me run over though, I could understand vast planes and terrifying mountains.
What I couldn't understand were the countless floating islands in the sky.