Free Web NovelChapter 175: « A Demon King Shouldn’t Be A Coward »
The hall was carved into the underside of a drifting asteroid, cold and illuminated by the flickering violet light of dying stars. Five figures sat around a table made of ossified bone. The atmosphere was thick with the scent of ozone and stale blood. They were the candidates, the apex predators of the abyss, each vying for the title of Demon King.
Valerius tapped a clawed finger against the bone surface. He was a creature of sharp angles, his skin the color of dried ash. Across from him, Malphas leaned back, his massive frame shifting and causing the floor to shudder.
"We are wasting time," Valerius said. His voice sounded like grinding stones. "The Earth is ripe. The Tower focuses on the climbers, and the local defenses are pathetic. We should have descended months ago."
Malphas let out a wet, guttural laugh. He spat a thick glob of black bile onto the floor. "You speak like a coward who fears the ceiling will fall on his head. Earth is not a playground for your small-minded ambitions. If we move too fast, we alert the Constellations. I prefer a slow suffocation."
Valerius stood up. His chair clattered to the ground. "Your preference is a mask for your incompetence. You want to wait because you are terrified of the hierarchy. You think if you crawl slowly enough, the current King will spare you when you inevitably fail."
"Watch your fucking mouth, you ash-covered worm," Malphas growled.
He lunged across the table. His hand, thick and covered in coarse fur, gripped Valerius by the throat. The table groaned under the sudden shift in weight. Valerius didn’t retreat. He grabbed Malphas’s forearm, his claws digging deep into the dense muscle. Dark blood leaked from the wounds, sizzling as it hit the floor.
"You think this intimidates me?" Valerius sneered. His eyes burned with a dull, predatory red. "You are a brawler with the brain of a dog. You have no vision. You serve the status quo because that is all your feeble mind can grasp."
"I serve strength," Malphas countered. He twisted his grip, slamming Valerius’s head into the table. The bone surface cracked. "I have slaughtered more worlds than you have ever seen. You are a footnote. A mistake that has lasted too long."
The other three candidates watched in silence. Astaroth, a woman with skin like cracked porcelain and eyes that held the depths of a void, sipped from a chalice filled with shimmering liquid. She didn’t bother to intervene. The fighting was a standard part of their proceedings.
Valerius kicked Malphas in the stomach, forcing the larger demon to stumble back. He regained his balance, his chest heaving. Malphas’s fur was matted with his own blood, and his breathing came in harsh, jagged rasps.
"If you ever touch me again," Valerius spat, adjusting his ruined collar, "I will peel the flesh from your bones and mount it on the entry gate of the Tower."
"Try it," Malphas roared. He moved to attack again, his muscles bunching, but Astaroth raised a hand.
The air in the room grew heavy. A pressure, sudden and absolute, pinned them to their spots. Malphas froze, his eyes bulging as he fought the invisible force. Valerius let out a hiss of frustration, his claws scraping the floor as he fought to remain upright.
"Enough," Astaroth said. Her voice was thin and precise. "You act like children fighting over a scrap of meat. The Earth is a vessel for our ascension, not a stage for your petty insecurities."
Malphas looked at her, his lips curled back to reveal rows of serrated fangs. "He thinks he can insult me and walk away. I should break his spine here and now."
"And gain what?" Astaroth asked. "A corpse that serves no purpose? We need the Earth. We need the resentment of the people there. The more they suffer, the more the Tower weakens. That is our bridge to the higher realms. If you two are so desperate to kill each other, do it after the gate is open."
Valerius wiped the blood from his chin. He looked at Malphas with pure, unadulterated hatred. "Fine. But if he tries to dictate the strategy again, I will finish this."
"Your strategy is a death sentence," Malphas snapped, though he pulled his hand back. "You talk about Earth as if it were a simple farm. Those people have weapons. They have technologies that can pierce even your hide. You act as if they are defenseless."
"They are insects," Valerius dismissed. "They possess the illusion of power. Once we bring the swarm, their cities will burn in a matter of hours. The Tower will be forced to acknowledge our conquest."
"And if the Tower acknowledges us, the Constellations will intervene," Astaroth reminded them. "We are not ready to fight a celestial army. We move in the shadows. We infect the government officials, we manipulate the markets, and we turn the human population against the Tower from within. We make the planet a rot that the Tower must excise."
"Manipulating humans is tedious work," Valerius remarked, his voice regaining its cold, analytical tone. "I prefer the direct approach. Blood makes for a more efficient harvest."
Malphas spat again. "You want to kill everyone? That’s not a conquest. That’s a grave. We need laborers. We need pawns to handle the relics and to fuel the dark rituals."
The tension in the room remained, a tight, vibrating wire. The candidates shifted back to their seats. Malphas sat heavily, his chair groaning under his bulk. He kept his eyes fixed on Valerius, who remained standing, his posture rigid and alert.
"The gate location," Astaroth said, changing the subject. "The coordinates we recovered from the last sinkhole reveal a central point. It sits underneath a major metropolitan area. Seoul."
Valerius frowned. "That area is heavily guarded. The local guilds have fortified the surrounding zones."
"Which is why we won’t go in ourselves," Malphas said, his voice dropping to a low, gravelly rumble. "We find the dissenters. We find the people who feel cheated by the Tower’s distribution of wealth. We offer them power. We turn the city into a powder keg."
"I have already begun the outreach," Astaroth added. "There are factions within the local government that are susceptible to the promise of higher influence. They think they are bargaining for protection. They have no idea what they are actually welcoming."
Valerius looked at her. "And the cost? What do you promise them?"
"The same thing everyone in that pathetic world wants," Astaroth said. "Survival. They believe we are an alternative to the Tower. They believe if they side with us, they will be the new ruling class once the current order collapses."
"Idiots," Valerius muttered.
"Exactly," Malphas said. "Let them believe it. Let them build the infrastructure for our arrival. By the time they realize the truth, their streets will be paved with their own organs."
The demons fell silent. The thought of the conquest seemed to settle them. It was a common goal that overrode their immediate desire to tear each other apart.
Valerius walked back to his seat and sank into it. He looked across the table at Malphas. "If you fail this time, Malphas, don’t expect me to cover your retreat."
"I don’t need help from a coward," Malphas replied. He turned his attention to Astaroth. "Start the next phase. I want the whispers in their ears by the next cycle."
Astaroth closed her eyes. The room began to vibrate, the shadows at the edges of the chamber lengthening and twisting into shapes that resembled human faces. The candidates watched the dark energy coalesce.
"The harvest begins," Astaroth whispered.
The asteroid shifted in its orbit, turning away from the light of the nearby star. In the darkness, the candidates began to outline the end of a world, their voices low and sharp, filled with the promise of coming ruin. The fighting among them remained, buried just beneath the surface, waiting for the first sign of weakness to break out once more.
Malphas reached for a flagon of fermented sludge and drained it in a single motion. He slammed the container onto the bone surface with enough force to splinter the edges. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes burning with a dark, restless energy. The silence in the room was brittle, held together only by the presence of Astaroth’s authority.
"The humans have been hoarding artifacts," Malphas started, his voice a low rumble. "Those relics from the sinkholes. They hold immense power. If we can secure even a fraction of those, we can punch a hole through the veil that separates this abyss from the Earth."
Valerius chuckled, a dry and raspy sound. "Securing them is one thing. Controlling them is another. Most of those relics are corrupted. They carry the lingering malice of stars that burned out millennia ago. If we use them without sufficient preparation, the feedback alone could burn our own spirits out."
"That is why we wait," Astaroth said, her voice like ice. "We wait until the humans have done the work of activating them. We let them believe they have mastered the energy. We let them grow dependent on the artifacts. When they are at their peak, we strike. We take the relics and the hosts at once."
Malphas glared at her. "You are too cautious. We are Demon King candidates. We have faced armies and gods. Why do you treat these humans like they are a threat to us?"
"They are not a threat to us as individuals," Astaroth replied. "They are a threat as a conduit. The Tower has already shown its interest in this world. Every time a climber clears a floor, they gain favor with the Constellations. If we move too fast, the Constellations will see the threat and reinforce the defenses. We have to be the shadow they do not see until it is too late."
Valerius looked toward the ceiling of the chamber, where the rock pulsed with a dim, sickly light. "I am tired of waiting. My legion is ready. We have been training for centuries in the dark. Every moment we spend here is a moment the humans get stronger."
"Your legion is a collection of mindless brutes," Malphas countered. "They would be slaughtered the moment they stepped out of the gate. We need precision. We need to strike the heart of their society."
"And your precision is a failure," Valerius stood up again, his chair screeching against the floor. "You speak of strikes, but all I see is you sitting here, drinking bile and complaining about the state of the world. I have the resources to launch a campaign right now."
"Sit down," Astaroth commanded. Her eyes turned solid black. The shadows in the corners of the room stretched out, moving like tentacles toward the table. "I will not have this meeting turn into another bloodbath before we have even agreed on the timeline."
Valerius hesitated, his claws digging into the table. He looked at the shadows, then slowly sank back into his seat. The tension remained, a palpable force in the air, making the room feel smaller and more suffocating.
"We need a compromise," Malphas grumbled, shifting his weight. "Valerius launches a distraction. A small-scale invasion in the rural areas. It will draw their attention and their strongest defenders away from the city. Then, Astaroth and I move into the city itself. We infiltrate, we corrupt, and we prepare the ground."
"A distraction," Valerius mused. His eyes flickered with a sudden, cruel amusement. "I can work with that. I will send the vanguard. They are expendable. If they die, they die. It will provide the chaos we need."
"And if they gain ground?" Astaroth asked.
"Then we adapt," Valerius replied. "I will have them target the resource nodes. The ones that feed the city’s power grid. We cut the lights, we sew the confusion, and we see how well the humans function when they are screaming in the dark."
Malphas leaned forward, a grim, satisfied grin spreading across his face. "Now we are talking. We tear the power away. We make them feel the vulnerability they think they have moved past."
"The timing," Astaroth said. "We wait for the next floor transition. The Tower will be occupied with the climbers, and the local guards will be stretched thin. That is our window."
The candidates began to map out the details. They spoke of routes, of infiltration points, of the specific corruptions they would spread. The chamber became a furnace of dark intent. They were no longer arguing; they were building a machine of destruction, piece by piece, layer by layer.
Hours passed. The asteroid continued its silent drift through the void, carrying the architects of a coming war. They were beings of infinite greed and malice, and as they solidified their plan, the shadow of their ambition stretched across the void, pointed squarely at a small, blue planet they would soon turn into ash.
Valerius stood up again, his movements now fluid and composed. "The plan is settled then. I will prepare the vanguard. You two handle the infestation."
"Do not fail us," Malphas warned, rising to his feet. His stature was imposing, his presence filling the cramped, dark chamber. "I will be watching your progress, Valerius. If you hesitate, I will take the lead myself."
"I do not hesitate," Valerius said, turning to walk toward the exit of the hall. "I simply prefer to enjoy the slaughter."
Astaroth remained at the table, her gaze fixed on the empty chalice. The shadows retracted, the room returning to its dim, violet state. She seemed lost in a thought of her own, a calculation that went beyond the immediate conquest.
"The Tower is watching," she whispered, though it was not clear who she was speaking to. "It is always watching."
Malphas turned to her, his brow furrowed. "Let it watch. By the time it reacts, the Earth will already be ours."
He turned and followed Valerius out of the hall. Astaroth sat alone for a long time. The silence in the room was absolute, save for the rhythmic dripping of liquid somewhere in the darkness. She stood up and walked to the wall, touching the cold rock.
The plan was in motion.
