*Radioactive*
(Rules Creepypasta)
[Satan is a demon.
Do not believe a demon’s lies.]
[The Will of the World may manifest in different ways.]
[The cliché method of seizing power might just be a smokescreen.]
“Let’s make a deal.”
The parchment was an old, faded shade, hard to describe as either beige or off-white.
Its edges were unevenly curled, still smoldering with faint sparks.
It looked like it would feel rough to the touch, but John didn’t reach out, remaining cautious.
He just stared at the paper.
The writing on it didn’t look like English, nor was it Latin—it wasn’t any human language.
Yet, he found he could understand every single abstract character.
“You know, contracts in Hell are never written in ink.”
Lucifer unrolled the parchment on the table, smoothing it flat with his palm.
A dull red spark danced on his fingertip before dying out.
“We usually use blood, or souls, or some other rarer currency.
But for you, I can give you a discount.”
“Get to the point.
I don’t have time for your bullshit!”
John stood his ground, his right hand hanging at his side, the dull red glow in his eyes not yet completely faded.
“Oh…
patience.”
Lucifer leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.
He didn’t look in a hurry at all.
The frozen time around them held; the droplet from the kitchen faucet still hung suspended in midair.
The mass of black mist inside Jonathan’s chest remained frozen in its eye-opening stance.
In this fracture of paused time, Lucifer was like a viewer sitting in the very back row of a movie theater.
He didn’t care about the ending of the film playing before him, nor did he mind walking out halfway through.
He was just here for entertainment.
The parchment’s message was clear: he was to go and plunder something.
As for a supposed Satan wanting to plunder something?
It was incredibly easy to misinterpret.
“So you want me to kill people for you?” John frowned, tilting his head.
“Oh, be a gentleman.
I didn’t ask you to kill anyone.” Lucifer pushed the parchment a bit closer to him, his smile brilliant.
“To tell you the truth, there is an idealistic power derived from the Will of the World, known as World Power.
To put it simply, this stuff is just the universe’s favoritism toward its ‘protagonists.’
“Just like I told you, every world has a script.
Some scripts are beautifully bound, others have completely fallen apart…
but no matter what, there are always a few names printed in gold leaf on them.
Those names are the anchors of World Power.
What you need to do is cross those names off the script.”
“How do I cross them off?”
“However you like~”
Lucifer scratched his ear, shifting back in his seat and recrossing his legs.
Then he extended a finger, drawing an arc in the air.
A dull red trail of light lingered in its path.
The trail split into two, then those split into countless others, eventually weaving a spiderweb in the air.
Every node of the web glowed faintly—some as brilliant as stars, others so dim only a dying ember remained.
John, sharp-eyed, noticed to his surprise that holes seemed to have appeared at the very edges of the web.
“The multiverse is like a spiderweb.
You can think of the holes in the web as permits to smuggle yourself across.
“Every node is a world.
The dimmer a place gets, the more likely a hole will form when the light finally goes out.
But look back at where you came from—that crack is still there, just undiscovered.
You could slip right back through it and return to your original world.
“World Power is the only hard currency that can ransom Jonathan Kent from the Force of Correction.
So the question isn’t ‘will I give it to you,’ but ‘how will you obtain it?'”
“So, you want me to extract the World Power of that world?
“From a world where I spent twenty years, and from myself?”
Lucifer pushed the parchment forward another inch.
The edge of the paper bumped against an empty cup Martha had left on the table that morning, making a faint clinking sound.
“Extracting World Power from yourself is like pulling the bones out of your own body; I wouldn’t advise you to do something so foolish.
When there are two of you in one universe, your weight is still factored in.
“So, you can do it another way.
The World Power of your original world might have been anchored to you, but now that you are here, those anchors have loosened.
Thus, they will need a new host, distributing that weight among those who remain.
But no matter who gets it, the total amount doesn’t change.
The total amount is the thickness of that world’s script.
What you need to do is go back and reclaim that share before it finishes dividing it up.”
“Reclaim it how?” John raised an eyebrow.
The word was to his liking.
“There are two ways.”
Lucifer raised two fingers, which gleamed coldly in the dim kitchen light.
“The first is destruction—snapping that world entirely off the tree of stories.
Dimensions collapse, timelines shatter, and all anchored entities lose their foundations the moment it falls apart.
The World Power will drop like ripe fruit.
It’s efficient, clean, and gets the job done in one go.
If you choose this path, I suggest you act immediately.
The sooner you do, the clearer that world’s memory of you will be, the more residual energy will remain after the collapse, and the larger the share you will get.
“Though, the grander the world’s setting, the more terrifying its Will of the World is.
So you might face a relentless pursuit.
“…And the second?”
“The second is seizing.
The redistribution of World Power is a process; it doesn’t happen in an instant.
It’s like an inheritance.
Before the court reads the will, whoever sits in the chair first is the heir.
What you must do is return to that world and snatch your share back before anyone else settles into your spot.
But you must make a choice from the very beginning.”
“What choice?”
“This is the key…
what identity do you plan to return with?”
John looked down at the paper.
The squirming script on the signature line crawled across his retina like living creatures.
He didn’t reach for a pen.
Instead, he shoved both hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and took half a step back, leaning his back against the kitchen wall.
In his past life, he had signed countless contracts.
Vought contracts, military contracts, endorsement deals, licensing agreements.
For every single one, Ashley had stood by with highlighters in three different colors, marking “clauses of concern.” Every single one had PR lawyers auditing it word by word.
No matter how flashily those contracts were written, their core clause always boiled down to one thing: profit.
Yet this contract from Hell didn’t mention a single word about what Lucifer himself stood to gain from it.
Having received an education, John was now a completely different kind of creature compared to the Homelander of his previous life.
As a side note, John personally balanced all the household accounts, big and small.
“You explained how World Power works…
but you don’t seem to have mentioned what you get out of this.”
Lucifer didn’t look down at his fingers.
He tilted his head slightly, the smirk still on his lips, though it had dimmed a fraction.
There was no embarrassment on Satan’s face at being seen through; instead, he wore an “Ah, you finally asked” expression.
Quite spectacular.
“A former old Satan of Hell comes and sits in my kitchen, explaining the mechanics of the multiverse to me—what are you after?”
In this life, Jonathan had taught him how to fix pipes, how to change engine oil, and he had also taught him a saying: *If a stranger offers you a favor out of nowhere, don’t take it yet.
Ask why they’re giving it to you first.*
“What is Hell, some kind of poverty alleviation office?
“It makes me uneasy, because the terms you’re offering are too good.
Too good to be a devil’s bargain.”
Saying this, John felt quite satisfied with his own reasoning.
His canines showed slightly as he flashed his signature fake smile.
“Interesting.
well, it’s been a long time since I met someone who dared to negotiate with me.
“I mocked Clark Kent for being a written slave, a person locked into a script, never having a single choice from birth to death that truly belonged to him.
To me, that kind of person is just a bird in a cage—pretty to look at, but boring and not worth investing in.
“But you—” Lucifer tapped John’s chest lightly with his index finger from a distance.
“You are a mistake in the writing, a mutated isotope.
You carry a world imprint that doesn’t exist in any directory of the multiverse.
You are the sole variable.
“I’m interested in you because you are a butterfly that grew entirely outside of any known ecosystem.
I want to see how much of a storm your wings can whip up across how many worlds.
I’ve lived far too long…
think of it as adding a little spice to my long, rotting existence.”
“Even though I really don’t want to believe a devil’s lies, I genuinely don’t have any time left.”
Having resolved to save Jonathan, John hesitated no longer.
Instantly, his eyes lit up as he fired his Heat Vision at his own wrist.
In a flash, a few drops of searing hot blood splattered out.
The parchment began to burn where the blood landed, the flames spreading outward from the signature line before vanishing at the edges of the paper.
On the signature line, John’s signature emerged—*JOHN*.
“As a final bonus piece of advice, timeline correction is one of the most troublesome things in the entire multiverse.
Its command is just a single word: *realign*.
“Jonathan Kent was supposed to return to his position this afternoon.
He didn’t, so it will haunt him relentlessly until he does.
I can suppress it, but I cannot remove it.
Removal requires you to return with enough weight.”
Lucifer then stepped forward, placing his hand over Jonathan’s chest.
He spread his fingers, pressing his fingertips into the gaps between the ribs.
In the next second, the entire mass of black mist tried to retreat deep into the heart, but the dark red energy from Lucifer’s hand was faster.
It instantly split into countless hair-thin tendrils, wrapping around the black mist from all directions.
One layer, two layers, three layers—until they formed a semi-transparent, dark red membrane enclosing the black mist.
The black mist continued to squirm inside, but it could no longer constrict.
It struck against the inner walls of the membrane repeatedly, but while ripples appeared, the membrane did not break.
“How long will this hold?” John squatted next to Jonathan, activating his X-ray Vision again to stare at the dark red membrane enveloping the black mist.
The thickness of the membrane was wearing down at an extremely slow rate.
“Three months.
Three months in this world.” Lucifer pulled his hand away from Jonathan’s chest.
“After three months, this suppression will be exhausted.
If you haven’t returned by then, Jonathan Kent will die the instant time restarts.”
John said nothing.
He gently pulled Jonathan’s work shirt back down, covering his body.
“Oh, right, here’s something for you.” Lucifer pulled an object from his pocket.
It was a flat, wafer-like object—semi-transparent, paper-thin, and about the size of a credit card.
John took it, and the moment the wafer touched his palm, it melted into his body.
Soon, a modern holographic projection panel appeared on his retina.
“What you see is an information panel,” Lucifer said.
“When you travel between different worlds and draw near to a world’s anchor—be it a person, an object, a location, or an event node—it will automatically respond.
“You can use it to locate whatever you’re looking for.”
“Since when does Hell use high-tech?”
“Oh, that’s just a stereotype…
What did you think Hell was?
Brimstone, fire pits, a bunch of skinless souls wailing in misery?
That was Hell during the Bronze Age.
“Modern Hell has millions of souls, a third of whom were from Silicon Valley in their past lives.
Oh, and a fifth of them spent time in Shenzhen, China.
“Jony Ive, Steve Jobs—I don’t know if you know them.
Three years after his death, Jobs took over Hell’s UI design department.
The entire bureaucratic interface of Hell was designed by him.
Sleek, clean, rounded rectangles—Satan himself couldn’t find a single flaw in it.
“There’s also Alan Turing.
Crick and Watson have been suing each other for fifty years over the discovery rights of DNA after they died, and now they work in the same department.
Hell is far from a fire pit now, my dear isotope.”
John was in no mood to banter with Satan.
Controlling the information panel with his eye movements, he located an option labeled “Memory Recall Anchor.”