Devourer

Chapter 193: New Tricks, New Trade

I stared down at the big beetle as I poked it causing it to jiggle. It let out this little happy gurgling noise at the attention.

“Why are you doing that?” Regari asked.

“Just leave him to it.” Mahaila said, her tone filled with exasperation.

“I’m just waiting, while they harvest what they need.” I replied as I poked it again to another happy gurgle.

“It likes it?” Regari asked in confusion.

“It's a hive creature, it likes everything he does to it.” Mahaila added from the side as she flipped another page of her book.

I glanced at the rest of my group and saw quite an interesting scene. We were all in the realm of Limbo. We kind of just blitzed through Treachery since there was nothing there that could really stop us, nor was there anything of any significant point of interest.

As its name implied, Limbo was a rather dry and boring place. If I had to describe this place in one word, it would be “grey”. The ground was this ashen grey soil, the vegetation was this dull, almost grey colour, the sky was filled with grey clouds and there was barely any light from what passes for a sun.

Even the people here were grey, both in form and personality. Honestly, when I took over Hell I was going to rename Limbo into Depression. Everything here was just miserable to look at. I guess for being a soul trash heap, it was a rather large one.

The lesser demons here barely even fought back, some just quietly sat there as my Hive worked to harvest their flesh and ether. As for my party they were plainly bored. Mahaila was leaned up against this grey rock as she flipped through a book and taught Renna how to read the common tongue. Regari was just staring at me as I worked hard at poking the beetle. Azatherine and Rosa were playing chess on another grey rock to pass the time. Serchax was just annoying the living hell out of Alastor, who decided to tag along.

Since the cat was out of the bag, Alastor thought he might as well come along. He was an interesting fellow, though he had been thoroughly humiliated he still kept up his cheery facade. I guess when you are an Arch Demon being used as a kickball by Daemon Princes was just part of life. He certainly didn’t seem at all bothered by it.

I switched to examining my growing Hive and I saw Adhaya leading the new queens as they cleared out any villages and slums they came across. It turns out that indiscriminately slaughtering anything that breathes was a really quick way of growing a hive.

Funnily enough, Mahaila didn’t seem at all against what I was doing. The reason for this was the state of the existence of these discarded souls. These souls belong to their higher masters, the control was total that they couldn’t disobey any order. They didn’t even have permission to die, since their lives were, in essence, property of their masters. Their contracts demanded them to strive to survive even if they only wished for the release of death. In truth to many within Limbo, death was a mercy.

“You don’t seem that bothered by what we are doing.” I said to Regarii as I sent the beetle on its way. It trundled off into a tunnel where piles of demon corpses were being repurposed into a more useful form.

“Everyone knows the stories of Limbo. This place is just living death.” Regari murmured in response as he looked around at the desolate landscape. In the distance, I could even see some willing volunteers who came to me for assisted suicide.

“Yes, I could in theory save them after the end of everything but the people that end up here aren’t really worth saving. This is the hell of hell, where the wretched and forsaken end up.” I said as a small group of these volunteers walked down into one of the tunnels like a herd of depressed sheep.

“How would you save them?” Regari asked.

“Its simple, really. They are owned by demons, so I just need to own the owners. Once I own the owners, I can force them to transfer ownership to me. Then I just shred the contact.” I replied as I ordered one of the queens to start rolling out some basic Fiends.

“But why don’t you do so? Surely they can be useful.” Regari said.

“Potentially some might be useful, I’m having the Hive keep an eye out. But they have come up empty so far. Honestly, these ones just aren’t useful. They are stupid enough to sign a horribly unequal contract with a demon, which was how they ended up here in the first place. They were also too useless to be of any practical use, so they get dumped here. What am I supposed to work with?” I asked as I glanced at Regari.

A portion of my mind shifted to one of the bored queens who were tasked with sifting through the piles upon piles of memories being assimilated into the hive.

Honestly, the memories were really pathetic.

One of them belonged to a farmer who was a consistent drunk. He beat his wife and daughter and when they ran away he blamed this lower-class noble who ran the land he lived on. From the memories, the Noble wasn’t that bad of a landlord. After all, a drunk idiotic farmer like him who frequently didn’t pay those “unfairly priced taxes” still had a farm.

So this Demon had a plan to destabilise this kingdom, which happened to be Averlin interestingly enough. So he signed a contract with his idiot to kill the noble, which the idiot tried to do. The best part of this was that the plan failed and the Noble survived. This idiot was then snatched from his cell by the demon and chucked into Limbo for his failure. As to whether the over arching plan worked, I highly doubt so, since Averlin was still there when I arrived and the plan was to completely overthrow the ruling house.

Even as he was being eaten, this idiot was still blaming everyone but himself.

That was just one amongst the useless idiots. There were mass murderes who didn’t murder that much and not for lack of trying. Corrupt officials who didn’t actually manage to do much other than embezzle a pittance. Bad kings who were ascended just lower nobles, who also didn’t last that long on the throne.

Basically they could be descibed as bad people who were bad at being bad.

Although my scouts did indicate there were some small communities of these Limbo demons in the far corners of this realm. What I see seems to be at least semi functional societies, one of them even seems to be decently organised. The stand out one seems to be at about the level of most of the societies in Terra before I stepped in. Which was quite impressive considering what the leaders there had to work with.

Maybe some of them finally got their shit together, but the scouts also indicated a large concetration of children in those communities. Even babies were sighted, which was surprising considering as far as anyone knew children don’t last long here. With the severe lack of resources and their naturally weak bodies, succumbing to the elements was a common result. But with a functioning society in those areas I could see how such things were possible.

“So if you find someone worth your time, you might free them?” Regari asked.

This kid was testing me. Well he was stuck with me so it did make sense to an extent.

“Waste not.” I replied with a grin as I summoned magic into my hand and started working on a design I had in mind.

“Come here kid, let him work. Your reading needs work too.” Mahaila called once she sensed the tell tale signature of Flesh Crafting magic

Now then onto more interesting things. Demons are quite strange in the sense that their bodies can store alot of ether but they can’t really manifest it that well. From what I can gather it’s a rather interesting adaptation to handle long periods without food and water. This place isn’t exactly rolling in resources so when you get to eat and drink you better make it count.

What this adaptation means is that I can potentially increase the Ether reserves within my hive. Combine that with some interesting interactions with Daemonic flame I can probably make some kind of new artillery unit, maybe even a suicide unit.

I think I’ll start with the suicide unit. The Living Ammunition needs to be replaced. Exploding mid air firing spikes in every direction was good and all but it could be better. Especially considering that I now had Focii crystals. I might be able to come up with something interesting, like a projectile that takes targeted shots at enemies. The idea in my head is a projectile that can adjust flight path to precisely target individual targets. The mass area of effect spines wouldn’t be much good against the angels since they will most definitely have enchanted armour. But if each shell dumped all their energy into attacking one target, they just might be able to take one down. I could easily replace my numbers the angels on the other hand do not have such luxuries.

In a few moments I created my first draft. I handed it over to the test creature next to me and it calmly swallowed the pulsating orb. The creature took aim at something over the horizon, thanks to the network of scouts my artillery units can fire directly at targets even out of sight. One sight, one mind and all that. Being able to share battle field information in real time across all my soldiers is a definite benefit. With a single thump the creature shot that test projectile out of it’s maw. Using my aerial scouts I traced the trajectory of it as it soared across the grey sky.

At the moment of release the creature let out a burst of ether to propel it forward. Then small wings opened up on its side as it started to adjust course. It was a little adaptation I made to allow the projectile to dodge to an extent.

So I put it through its paces doing a nice little cartwheel and barrel roll before focusing on the target. This one was this lunatic who was going around stabbing everyone in her immediate vicinity in a fit of deranged rage. I don’t know why she was doing it, and honestly, I don’t care. As the projectile zeroed in on her, it released a barrage of enchanted spines filled with enchantments designed to break shields. Then the tiny Focii crystal fired a jet of ether frying the target, and at last, it exploded in mid-air, firing poisoned spines in every direction. It was supposed to explode into a fireball but that would ruin the meat so no point in that at the moment.

Not bad, but the order of operation seemed slow. The angels would be able to react in time…

“Adhaya, sending you some designs, improve upon them. Consider it a test.” I said into the Hive Mind. I already had a solution but it was important to give your subordinates some experience. Now then onto the more interesting part.

Soul Crafting…

It’s an unheard-of art as far as I can tell. I have not heard hide nor tail of this particular skill. It must be because no one took the Sovereign branch. From what the voice has told me, no other Firstborn on record has taken it. It wasn’t accurate of course, I highly doubt the voice in my head has an exhaustive record. But the fact that Mahaila hasn’t heard of it either did raise some questions.

I might be the very first Soul Crafter, meaning I am in unchartered waters…

Now then, let's hop to it. I gazed down at the souls I had extracted from a pair of demons. I could feel the souls trembling in my hands as the two orbs flickered like flames. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could feel the fear of these two souls. As if they somehow knew what was about to happen…

??,`°.???.?.???.°`,??

Ashtu trembled as she stood within this strange white world. The last thing she remembered was being held down by these monsters. The world was nothing but white emptiness, yet she could feel his pressure bearing down on her. She could almost feel a border to the world.

She tried to find it but even as she ran she found nothing, nothing but endless emptiness. At first she was about give up but then she felt it. Something had entered this white world. Whatever it was it felt… evil…

Not evil in the way the Daemons were, not evil in the way she was. It was something more… something far worse…

She could practically feel its presence on her now, its malicious hungry gaze bearing down on her. The fangs on her neck, probing, and tasting her.

Ashtu screamed as she flailed around trying to fight it off, but as far as she could tell she was just flailing against nothing. But still the gaze remained and she felt it grow amused.

It felt her panic was funny, as if her raw unadultered fear was some great comedy.

She let out a shriek when she felt more gazes reach her skin. They were weaker, their presence less caustic but there was so many of them. All of them cold in their gaze, as if they were staring at a mere object not a sentient creatute.

Ashtu let out a blood curdling scream as she felt the most powerful presence bear down on her. Her insides boiled as if her blood had turned to acid. She felt as if her very sense of self was being torn apart. She glanced down at her body and saw bits of it was fading away as if it was never there. Where it vanished it burned like a thousand searing knives, tearing into her flesh.

Then she was hurled like she was a sack of rubbish in some random direction. Or at least that was what she thought it was until she collided with something. She turned and saw she struck herself, no another person. A man, she was becoming him. In a fit of desperation she looked around for an escape but she froze in horror. Her pain and fading sense of self forgotten for a moment. She saw eyes, millions of them gazing at her in mute fascination and then there was one more. This one had no eyes but as far as she was concerned it might as well be a god. A dark mass made of oily shadows that licked and writhed like black flames. In it’s maw it saw ebony fangs that each looked like small buildings.

It was smiling as it forced her together with the man. Nijal, her name was Nijal, no his name was Nijal. His sense of self was fading around her, she couldn’t remember where she was, who she was, where she came from. She couldn’t even remember what he was, what he did all her life.

Then she felt something break, she didn’t have time to scream as her being shattered into a million pieces. The last thing she knew was a vaguely amused humm and then words filled with cold callous indifference.

Hmmm…

Not bad for a first attempt…

Bring me two more…