Chapter 168: Your Life Is On The Line!
Kamanda Voss regarded the demon with an expression that betrayed nothing of whatever disgust or concern he might have felt.
This was the cost of alliance with forces from beyond the River of the World.
This was what the Murderous Saint had agreed to when he sought power capable of reshaping the Lands of Stone.
He waved his hand in dismissal.
"There should only be some Sworn and Dross tribes in that direction. Go all out. Consume whatever you find. Just don’t make it too obvious yet."
His stellar crimson eyes locked with her hungry gaze.
"Secrecy is still a weapon. We don’t want the Covenant or the Noble Beasts understanding the full scope of our arrangements until we’re ready to reveal them on our terms."
He turned back to the map, to the broken crystals and dimming lights.
"Go."
...!
Paimon’s smile became something that belonged in nightmares.
"As you command, Dear Kamanda."
She bowed with exaggerated grace, her horn catching the light of crimson crystals as she straightened.
"Paimon will be thorough. Paimon will be discreet."
Her form began to dissolve at the edges, reality rejecting her presence as she prepared to depart.
"And Paimon will be very, very full by the time she returns. Oh, get some Shamans and those little bulky Anointed Ones to serve me. Make sure they have some decent...stamina."
...!
She vanished.
The War Chamber felt somehow cleaner for her absence, as if the air itself had been holding its breath and finally remembered how to circulate.
Kamanda Voss stared at the map for a long moment.
Whatever had destroyed Alex’s army was still out there. Whatever had nearly killed a Half-Step Eighth Circle Warrior with a partially mastered Third Tier Physique was waiting in the Threshold Lands that everyone had dismissed as worthless.
And now he had sent a demon to investigate.
He wondered, briefly, if he would regret that decision.
Then he pushed the thought aside and began composing his report to the Murderous Saint.
---
The crystalline cavern felt smaller with death waiting to be dealt.
Damian stood before the row of suspended Imperators, their bodies hanging from golden chains that pulsed with heat enough to sear flesh. Multiple figures in various states of ruin, their hearts still beating only because his Mana forced them to continue. Seven of them had already lost consciousness. Sir Alex was among thr few who remained aware, those dimmed star-filled pupils tracking every movement Damian made.
Serala stood beside him, her white-gold wings folded against her back.
"You don’t have to stay for this."
His voice emerged flat, carrying no particular emotion. What he was about to do would be ugly. Necessary, but ugly.There was no requirement for her to watch what came next.
She shook her head firmly.
"I know now that the Lands of Stone are not as pretty as I was led to believe."
Her wing-shaped pupils met his burning gaze without flinching.
"I will stay."
...!
He studied her for a moment longer, searching for hesitation that wasn’t there.
He turned back to the suspended Imperators.
The first one hung at the far end of the line, a woman whose crimson armor had been partially melted to her skin during the battle above. Her breathing was shallow, maintained entirely by the Mana he channeled through the earth into her failing body. Without that support, her heart would stop within moments.
Damian withdrew his Mana.
The effect was immediate. Her chest ceased its mechanical rise and fall. The color drained from skin that had already been pale. Her head slumped forward as the last threads of life unraveled.
He waited.
"..."
Nothing happened.
Her corpse simply hung there, motionless, dead in the ordinary way that corpses were dead. No crimson circle blazed on her chest. No transformation rippled through her flesh. No demon emerged from the shell of what had been a Vessel Completion Warrior!
Damian frowned.
That one didn’t have a Seed?
He moved to the next Imperator, a man whose face had been burned beyond recognition during the golden lightning strikes. This one had been stronger than the woman.
Damian withdrew his Mana.
The heart stopped. The breathing ceased. The body went still.
Nothing.
No transformation. No demon. Just another corpse joining the collection!
The hell?
His frown deepened as he moved down the line. One by one, he released his hold on the Imperators who had marched into his garden expecting easy conquest. One by one, their hearts stopped beating as the artificial support vanished. One by one, their bodies slumped in their chains, terror and light fading from eyes that would never see anything again.
The third Imperator died without transformation.
The fourth followed moments later, equally unremarkable in death.
The fifth had been the one with Stone Titan’s Flesh, his Physique now worthless as Damian crushed his heart with concentrated Mana. His corpse simply hung there, hardened skin beginning to lose its grey sheen as the power sustaining it disappeared.
The sixth and seventh...all that followed...
None of them changed!
None of them sprouted the crimson circles that had marked Imperator Vienna. None of them enlarged or grew bony spikes or revealed handsome faces backed by grotesque hyena features. The demon seeds he had expected to bloom remained dormant, or perhaps had never existed at all.
Damian killed all the Imperators apart from Sir Alex.
Corpses hung in chains around the cavern. The blue crystalline light painted their ruined forms in cold illumination that made them seem almost peaceful despite the violence written across their flesh.
His gaze changed as he stopped before the last survivor.
Sir Alex’s star-filled pupils were wide with terror that exceeded anything he’d displayed during the torture. The prospect of death had apparently accomplished something. His body trembled in its chains, burned and broken and utterly pathetic compared to the being who had sat upon a throne of bone commanding armies.
Damian freed his mouth.
"Please don’t kill me!"
The words erupted immediately, desperation stripping away any pretense of dignity.
"Bind me to you! I’ll work under you! I will serve you just like I served your father, Emperor Vakochev, in the early years, dutifully, loyally, I can be useful, I can provide information, I can...!"
"Shut the fuck up."
Damian’s voice cut through the babbling like a blade through silk.
Sir Alex’s mouth snapped shut.
"What is going on?"
Damian gestured at the corpses surrounding them.
"Why did no demons come from any of them? You are the only one who can talk now. So if killing you won’t get a demon to pop out, you will really need to talk and sing as much as you can."
His wing-shaped pupils burned with blue-gold flames.
"Starting now."
...!
Sir Alex’s mind visibly raced behind those terrified star-filled eyes. He was calculating, even now, trying to determine what information might purchase his survival.
"I don’t know for certain."
His voice came out hoarse.
"But all armies of the Dominion have Life Stones. Crystals connected to our vital signs that allow command to monitor our status across distances. The current Kamanda of the First Crimson Legion watches these stones obsessively."
He swallowed, the motion painful against his burned throat.
"If he noticed our stones dimming, if he saw the army’s crystals shattering, he would have notified the demon allies immediately. They have methods to deactivate the Seeds remotely when exposure becomes a risk...I think! They would rather lose the planted demon pathway than reveal the full scope of their infiltration!"
...!
Damian absorbed this information with an expression that betrayed nothing.
So the Dominion knew something had happened here?
He frowned.
Did that more forces would be coming?
He looked at Sir Alex with eyes that held no mercy and no particular cruelty. Just cold assessment of a resource that might still have value.
"Your life is on the line."
His voice emerged flat.
"Tell me as much critical information as you can. Your life is on the line here as if I hear something decent enough..."
He paused.
"Then maybe."
Another pause, longer this time.
"Maybe."
...!
Sir Alex stared at him with the desperate hope of someone clinging to the thinnest thread of survival.
It wasn’t much of a promise, but it was apparently enough.
He began to talk!