Chapter 20

  Finally, at the end of our second day in the wild forest, the first of Tarashak’s troops appeared amongst the black, smouldering branches of the weird vegetation I still thought of as trees, despite only a vague resemblance to the real ones I knew. One moment there was nothing but the obscuring, obstructing branches everywhere, the next a demon was in front of us. I came to a halt so suddenly Flamey almost walked into me from behind, and my jumbled-up instincts couldn’t decide if I should reach for my rifle, my sidearm or my sword. I had to work on that.

  The sole demon was as tall and well-built as I had expected, and I had to look up to his horned head half a meter above mine as he stood in front of me in all his armoured glory. His plates and the leather clothing he wore underneath were black and red just like Tarashak’s robes, his hands resting on the hilts of a pair of dangerous looking short, curved swords hanging on his belt on either side, his lipless, tooth-filled mouth curling up in a demonic grin as he completely ignored me and Flamey, his eyes on the general. I was getting somewhat decent at estimating the levels of the wildlife, using visual clues as well a vague sense of their strength, but all I could discern of this was guy that he was weaker than Tarashak, and maybe, just maybe, a little lower in levels than what me and SAC had combined. I wasn’t completely sure though.

  ‘General,’ he greeted Tarashak and bowed his head slightly, the grin not leaving his face. The fellow was clearly happy to see his boss. I had not seen a lot of that in the army. Or with the marines. ‘Your army is building the camp as we speak.’

  ‘Lead the way, scout!’ Tarashak ordered him, his tone imperious and bored.

  ‘This way,’ the guy said as he spun around to get on with it immediately and technically beaming with joy as far as I could tell.

  We followed the scout for about an hour before we arrived to the first clearing I had seen in the stupid forest since we’d entered it. Of course it wasn’t a natural clearing, because that would have been unheard of based on what I’d seen so far, no. Dozens of armed and robed demons were still working to get rid of the trees and their twisting branches, by hacking at them with giant axes or smashing them with maces or other deadly implements, or using strange magical skills to lob Hell Mana at them in various shapes and fiery forms. I had never tried to cut into the trees, so I had not seen this before; the branches actually moved, trying to jerk out of the way, only slightly though, and when they couldn’t and their inevitable defeat came, molten lava poured from the wounds and stumps, solidifying on the ground in seconds. Huh! Those glowing veins on them weren’t for nothing it seemed. The demons obviously knew what they were doing, dodging the burning droplets expertly, and a roundish campsite was forming, about a 50 - 60 meters in diameter in my estimate. I saw one, single tent in the middle, cobbled together with cut branches stuck in the dry ground, a large sheet of some kind serving as roof, and another as a carpet. All the ongoing work came to a halt as all demons turned their heads to us entering the campsite; almost a hundred pairs of glowing yellow eyes staring at us menacingly.

  ‘Listen, my man, just remember that from this moment on you are their lord, a vicious, powerful, bloodthirsty demon lord, a demon of all demons who will not have anything less than their total obedience and submission. Got that?’ Burning Darkness warned, sounding a little bit worried for the first time since I’d known him.

  Yes, that was the plan: Sergeant Hyde the ruthless lord striking awe and fear into the blackened hearts of all demons. What Burning Darkness might not have understood, and which I had tried to explain to him a few times, was that no plan ever survived contact with the enemy. Now it was time to see how well our little plan was going to hold up, so I didn’t say anything, instead, I called on my Will of the Infernal Tyrant skill from my dynastic traits. Which had no level to its name as of yet.

  It was a psychic skill just like Lost in the Fog or Princess Charm, but unlike those, it was giving neither a spell nor an aura to use. As it activated it felt different than Flamey’s auras, different than a spell drawing on my supply of HMP. I sensed numerous, invisible tendrils reaching out from my soul, searching and finding each and every demon present, including Flamey and Tarashak. No-one seemed to have noticed, no-one seemed to react in any way. I supposed the word “untraceable” in the skill description wasn’t there for nothing, and in all fairness, a skill like this must have been a godsend for anyone wanting to establish himself as a demon lord for real. For now, it also served my purposes, so I let the tendrils find their targets, hoping this would all turn out just fine.

  The crowd gathered around us, grinning at Tarashak but also eying me suspiciously. One of the tallest demons I’d seen so far stepped forward from the crowd, heading straight for us. He stopped a few steps before Tarashak and bowed his head, looking down on the general. Seriously, the guy was over two and a half metres tall, his horns were more curved and longer than any of the other demons here could boast, and his black robe had even more elaborate red patterns on them than Tarashak’s.

  ‘General,’ he greeted him. ‘We have assembled. Your tent is ready.’

  ‘Hm,’ Tarashak hummed, eying the sole, ramshackle construction in the middle of the camp. ‘It will do for now, captain.’

  The captain, clearly in charge of this company of demons, bowed again, his lipless mouth in a grin. It seemed dismissive comments would pass for praise around here just like it was the norm for marines, and I took note of it.

  ‘General, what are these?’ he asked, turning his head to me and Falmey.

  ‘This, Reinos, is the creature that had somehow managed to kill Ugrathar, and inherited both his title and his heir,’ he explained, gesturing to me and Flamey, stating facts while failing to keep some of his annoyance and disdain from seeping into his tone. Probably on purpose.

  ‘What kind of demons are they? Are they demons at all?’ he asked, not at all convinced.

  ‘They … belong in the Fourth Ring.’ Tarashak said, avoiding giving him the truth.

  ‘I see.’ the captain named Reinos nodded knowingly. He looked me up and down just as Hell Mana began to gather in his hands, and he said, ‘He doesn’t feel that strong. The title should be yours, general. Let’s get to tearing them to pieces.’

  I looked at Tarashak — thankfully the helmet covered my shocked expression — but he just smiled waving his hand.

  ‘Can you?’ he asked the guy. ‘He did kill our idiotic former lord, and he even tested himself against that wretch, the Minotaur King. Both considerably more powerful than you,’ Tarashak warned him, but it didn’t sound like he had any intention to actually stop his captain from taking a shot at tearing me and my daughter to pieces. Not that I had expected him to; it was my job to assert my dominance on this bunch of demons. But to be honest, the almost hundred strong contingent, all of them staring at me, all waiting to see how this played out, was making me nervous. These were supposed to be allies, but they were also demons, and I was pretty sure things like rules of engagement didn’t exist here. Even though I knew it was my turn to say or do something demonic, I nearly froze with indecision. Damn.

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  The captain turned his head slightly and his deep voice rung out, calling for a colleague.

  ‘Grashon, get over here and help me out! You can have the EXP from the heir of this small creature.’

  So, this was his response to his general’s warning. My indecision vanished as the demon called Grashon, a huge guy gripping a spiked mace in one hand, jogged forward from the crowd.

  ‘Are you sure about this, you oversized morons?’ I hissed at Reinos, adding a distortion to my voice through the PA system.

  No-one, and I meant no-one could threaten to turn my daughter into EXP and get away with it! It was time for some lessons to be taught after all. I gauged their strengths to be somewhere between level 30 and 35, and I was fairly certain only Tarashak and I were higher level than the two. The mage demon sneered at me, the Hell Mana in his hands condensing. I wasn’t going to give him the chance to cast a spell. Just as Grashon was to arrive, I moved with all the speed my levels and my SAC afforded me, lunging forward in a flash and without warning, my armoured fist hammering into Reinos’ face. The guy flew back, and I only saw him landing from the corner of my eye as I pivoted, drawing my sidearm and pulling the trigger. Boom-boom-boom-boom. Two rounds slammed into Grashon’s left knee then two into his right. It was a close call; this demon had been much faster to move than the mage captain, but he buckled as he reached me — even the small, 5mm flechettes would do that to anyone — and I caught the huge, horned fellow with both arms and flung him over my head, slammed him down, then I was on top of him with an armoured boot pressing down on his head. I had to say, mandatory martial arts modules included in army training had been all but useless in the past two hundred years since SACs had been introduced and wars were settled with bullets, missiles and orbital bombardments, but now I was more than thankful I remembered some of the throws. Even if my opponent was a giant demon. Adrenalin pumping and my anger caused by the threat to my daughter not showing any signs of receding, I kicked poor Grashon, cranked up the volume and distortion on my PA system, and I growled at the crowd.

  ‘Now listen you sorry sacks of shit and assholes! I am the new lord of this realm, and you are all mine!’ I bellowed at them, having just enough clarity of mind to incorporate most of the demonic nonsense Burning Darkness and I had discussed should be said. ‘You live for my gain, die for my pleasure, your meager strengths are mine to use against the invaders from the stinking, festering realm of the Third Ring. If any of you have a problem with this, then come forward, and I will paint Hell black with your blood, and turn the shards of your shattered bones into toothpicks!’

  I panted as I finished my short but hopefully impactful speech, and I began to calm. As I looked around, no-one stepped forward, in fact, I saw a few approving nods amongst the gathered demons. Tarashak just smiled, seemingly happy with the outcome.

  [Skill: Will of the Infernal Tyrant reached Level 1]

  ‘My man, my man,’ Burning Darkness cheered. ‘You’re a natural!’

  Tarashak raised his hand like a school kid.

  ‘A question, Hellfire Lord?’ he asked.

  I snapped my head to him.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘What’s a … toothpick?’

  Oh boy.

  ***

  Flamey looked sufficiently impressed with my performance, or maybe she was just happy the threat of being turned into EXP no longer existed. It didn’t matter; it looked like she was safe for the moment. I patted her on her head between her horns, which she received with a short giggle, then I turned to the two sods who had thought they could dismember me for my levels and my title. Honestly, I had been lucky; Reinos was a mage not a warrior or swordsman or any other physical combat type, and he was below me in levels. In terms of speed and reaction time I was better and more powerful than him, plus I had a SAC, which was no longer just a simple force multiplier. Grashon, on the other hand, was a warrior type fighter; he was fast, and if I hadn’t used my sidearm to disable his legs, it would have been a tough fight.

  Grashon the warrior was writhing and groaning in pain, not showing any inclination to stand up. Reinos was also down still, but unlike his mate, he was not moving or making any sounds. Was he dead? No, I had not received any notifications of defeating him. Now that I had calmed down somewhat, I felt bad for those two; they had done exactly what their demonic nature and their poor upbringing had dictated: they tried to take my title and give it to someone they firmly believed deserved it more. Their general. It wasn’t foolish, and they may even have been right. The foolishness on their part was that they had thought they could.

  It would have been a waste to let them expire. This army — if one could call it that — was small to begin with, woefully insufficient against the who knew how many millions of invading minotaurs standing between me and my dungeon. Unnecessary losses were something I didn’t think we could afford. I had agreed not to reveal to the demons here that I was human, but I made up my mind.

  I stepped to Grashon, still writhing, still gurgling, his knees oozing black blood. I looked around and addressed the crowd.

  ‘These two idiots thought they could take what I had taken from … uh …’ What the hell was his name again?

  [Ugrathar, man, Ugrathar!] Buring Darkness yelled into my mind in a panic.

  ‘… from Ugrathar the Great Stupidity!’ I uttered the name, sighing with relief inwardly. ‘These two fools, for some reason thought it was somehow a good idea to attack their lord at a time when the armies of the shittiest ring in all of Hell, the Third, run rampant in our stupidly hot, fiery home. These two idiots thought their lives belong to them. Oh no, their lives are mine, just like all of yours, and I am a greedy and selfish one. I will not allow you to waste what belongs to me just because you don’t know how to use your brains.’

  I knelt beside the warrior demon; his grin had been long gone, replaced with dread and pain. I detached my carry bag from my SAC and got my medkit. After running a scan with the IFD suite, I got a pair of forceps and a scalpel out, both of them sized and shaped so I could hold them even with my SAC’s gauntlets. Without further ado — and without any anesthetics — I fished out as much of the small flechette fragments from his knees as I could, letting his screams of agony fill the campsite. Then, having a full tank of Hell Mana, I cast Hades Heal skill twice, guiding it to restore and rebuild his shattered, demonic kneecaps, replacing chunks of missing flesh and a bit of the red skin on each knee. Then cast again on each to double down on the healing. The crowd was deathly quiet; most of them could only hear the painful shrieks of my patient without seeing what I was doing. Some of them might have thought I was torturing the poor, horned sod.

  [Skill: Will of the Infernal Tyrant reached level 2]

  Ok, good stuff. I had to admit though, I would have been disqualified as a medic for something like this, but luckily Hell was off limits to army bureaucracy. On the other hand, magical healing would have made my life so much easier on some of the deployments over the past eighteen years. When I was satisfied that the job was done and the warrior would be able to walk again without issues, I stood up and let him carry on with his writhing. I walked over to Reinos, the mage and captain of this outfit.

  Something was wrong with him, that much I could tell at first glance. He was alive, but he wasn’t moving, instead of pain something else showing on his face. A complete lack of pain. And fear.

  ‘Can you move?’ I asked him as coldly and imperiously as I could.

  ‘N … no.’ He managed to push the word out with great difficulty, his yellow eyes darting around in a panic.

  Damn! I might have hit his face too hard, or maybe he had just landed at a very unfortunate angle on the hard and dry ground, but I was fairly certain he had a spine injury, likely between C1 and C7 of the cervical spine no less. Well, at least that’s what I’d have been suspecting if he was human. I was out of my depth here, this sort of injury was way beyond my expertise. A good hospital could and would reconstruct the discs and replace lost nerve cords with synthetic ones, but Hell didn’t have that option ready and available. They didn’t even have healing spells here, so normally this guy would have been doomed. I supposed this was his lucky day, however much of an idiot he was.

  I employed the IFD diagnostic scanner once again, placed it on his neck under his pointy chin, and brought up the software on my NeuroHUD, initiating the scan. The little machine whirred, and soon enough the information started to come, complete with grainy, rudimentary imaging results.

  Firstly, demonic vertebrae looked quite similar to those of humans, with an obvious difference in shape and overall size. Nonetheless, demons were vertebrates without the shadow of a doubt. And the cracks were there alright, right around C4 and C5, both cracked and the space between them wrong. How a level 30-ish demon had managed to suffer an injury like this, I’d never know. Probably because he was a mage and didn’t invest into his constitution, or something similarly stupid.

  ‘Button, do you think Hades Heal can handle this one? I have a vague idea of what it should do, but I’m no expert.’ I asked my hellish assistant, hoping he’d confirm the level 1 healing spell could do the job.

  [Hades Heal is able to regrow damaged bone, muscles and nerves. Efficiency will depend on skill’s level and your guidance as its user.]

  ‘Right. Okay,’ I breathed out the words. ‘Let’s try this then.’