Devourer

Cecilia grimaced as she glanced down at the parchment before her. The Seraphim were going to accept the deal of prayers from the Devotees. They were taking the leash… but why? The plan was to force them into it and use it as a bargaining chip.

But their acceptance so soon suggests that this was a ruse. There was no bargaining chip to be had here. With her friend gone off to hell, she would have no choice but to settle this herself…

However, she did have some options. Her friend did say to ask Legiana and Malegaros if something bizarre came up. Perhaps her friend had some contingencies…

When the door was unceremoniously thrown open, she looked up to see none other than Legiana standing there.

“Malegaros may potentially have a solution to your problem.” Legiana stated at the door.

“What is it?” Cecilia said as she rose to her feet.

“See for yourself.” Legiana said as she extended a hand and Cecilia got up from her desk. She took Legiana’s hand, and they were instantly teleported into the bowels of the massive Hive structure deep below the capital.

Cecilia’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness, and immediately, fluorescent creatures on the walls lit up to help her see. Most Hive creatures had perfect dark vision and could move in complete darkness. However, humans were not so lucky.

Every inch of the Hive structure was filled with those fluorescent creatures in the event humanoids needed to traverse the tunnels. It wasn’t just for her. If war broke out, these tunnels would serve as evacuation paths.

Yes, the walls, floors, and ceiling were made of flesh and chitin, but it was preferable to dying above ground. Cecilia had ordered the entire network to be large enough to house the capital's entire population. The experience would most likely traumatise the average citizen, but Cecilia was sure they wouldn’t mind that much if they had to run down here.

Cecilia heard an ominous skittering, and he glanced up to see none other than Malegaros on the ceiling. His six insect legs clung to the ceiling before detaching and quickly dropping down. Even though she has seen him numerous times, his body still sends a thrill of primal unease up her spine. His body was of an ancient design, built for a cruel purpose. He had a vaguely humanoid-shaped torso attached to an insect's lower half. The “torso” was just a shell and could open up to reveal tentacles adept at probing and dismantling any living creature. Each of his legs were filled with sharp spines, Malegaros did not stick to walls, he stabbed his legs into the surface to get a foothold. Every part of his body screamed violence and brutality. His designer cared little for collateral damage; his body reflected that to a tee.

“The Serpahim seems to be willing to take the offer of the Devotee.” Malegaros said as he approached.

“Yes, it seems they have tricks up their sleeves.” Cecilia stated, and Malegaros simply responded with a gurgling laugh.

“Creatures of light they may pretend to be. But few are as skilled at trickery as the foul chldren of light.” Malegaros said as he turned to face a wall. The wall opened up revealing several holding vats filled to the brim with a sickly green fluid. Through the transparent wall she could see another creature, this one was an odd-looking thing. In fact it resembled Malegaros in design. No armour, no weapons, nothing. It looked like a fleshy bulb atop four spindly insect legs.

Cecilia took a knowing step back as the fluid drained from the tank, and the carapace opened with a hiss. The odd gelatinous creature stepped out of the tank and unceremoniously plopped itself onto the ground while using its legs to stabilise itself.

“I assume there is more to this than what meets the eye?” Cecilia asked as she raised a brow at Malegaros.

“Yes, the Devotees are but a ruse, which is why my king designed them to look humanoid. These are the real Devotees.” Malegaros stated.

“Far less marketable, as my king would say,” Legiana added, and Cecilia gave the two a conceding shrug.

“So what is this called?” Cecilia asked.

Legiana in response just gave Malegaros a look and Malegaros also just gave Legiana a look. Cecilia furrowed her brows when she realised this moment was almost awkward.

“What did my dear friend call it?” Cecilia asked in exasperation.

“Door.” Malegaros deadpanned.

“Just Door?” Cecilia asked.

“Yes.” Malegaros replied with a nod.

“Why is it called Door?” Cecilia pressed.

“Our King realised that by channelling prayers to High Heaven, it also opened up a door into their storage of ether energy. If you were to visualise the storage as a pool of water…” Legiana explained.

“You can contaminate that pool.” Cecilia said.

“Exactly, but for now, this system is incomplete. The Seraphim jealously guards their secrets, and we do not know how their ether is stored. Any effective infection requires knowledge of the host. We will investigate using the Doors and find out how the ether is stored as we feed them ether.” Legiana said. 𝖗ＡƝο₿Ěş

“So we don’t actually have an answer to this at this time.” Cecilia stated.

“Not yet.” Malegaros said.

“The game grows more interesting, I sense the hand of the ancients in this.” Malegaros stated as he glanced at Legiana.

Indeed, this smells of the Light Born.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.♚.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

I swept down onto the desolate land of Limbo. By now, all the surviving Limbo demons were concentrated in this town. My hive has been working to build infrastructure, and their magical abilities are being used to create more hospitable ways of living.

If you think this is out of the goodness of my heart, you would be mistaken. I do not need a population that only manages to survive. If I need ether and biomass, there are more efficient ways to do it than by breeding humanoids. Wheat and rats are far more effective for raw biomass, and the primordial font is just a bottomless pit of ether. A bottomless disgusting pit of ether, but ether nonetheless.

No if I need them to be productive I need them to not worry about basic necessities. If I’m going to run the place I sure as hell am not going to leave an entire continent worth of people to rot. At the very least I could turn this place into a giant industrial hub. I don’t have to worry about pollution, its not like I can make this land any more fucked up than it already is.

When I landed I saw Anya and Regari jump in fright as I suddenly appeared in the square.

“You ever heard of a gentle landing?” Mahaila asked in annoyance.

“Where’s the fun in that?” I asked with a grin and Mahaila just huffed as she snapped her book shut.

“You know that guy with the axe you smashed into the air?” Mahaila said as she got up.

“Oh the goat guy? Yeah I saw that, the hive sent an alert.” I replied non chalantly as I gave a lazy stretch.

“Yeah he wants a word.” Mahaila said as she approached.

“About the Morningstar Brand.” I said, finishing her sentence. Mahaila just nodded calmly.

“Can you get rid of it?” Mahaila pressed.

“Getting the brand off is not the problem, making sure he remains as he is after I remove it is the main problem.” I replied as I glanced at her.

“I thought so.” Mahaila muttered as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Well, I’ll need to take over the Black Heart at the very least. The Morningstar Brand has ties to Magne Morningstar, and she was a Prime Evil.” I remarked, and Mahaila nodded in resignation.

“Let’s discuss this another time then, I assume we will be proceeding?” Mahaila mused, and I nodded.

“Yes, the food situation here is bad, so I brought something that should tide them over as the druidic magic takes hold for the fields,” I said as I waved my head, and five giant metal containers appeared in mid-air before crashing unceremoniously onto the ground.

“Nutrient Bars. I presume?” Mahaila asked as she approached the containers.

“Yep, it should last these guys a year or so. One bar can keep someone going for a day if they ration it. It won’t taste that good, but I think the people here won’t really care,” I said, and Mahaila conceded with a shrug.

“But how are they going to move these things?” Mahaila said as she glanced at the containers that were towering three and a half metres tall and about as wide as a house.

“Oh yeah… well I can fix that.” I said with a mischievous grin.

“What are you…” Mahaila asked with a hint of irritation. Ah, she knew I was about to pull something funny, and she was right!

With a snap of my fingers, the containers vanished but left all their contents behind. Without the container, the giant stack of bars just collapsed on top of itself, and I barely caught the flash of annoyance on Mahaila's face before she was buried under the sliding tide of nutrient bars.

There was a slight pause before she shot out of the pile with a mighty flap of her wings, sending the bars flying into the air in all directions.

“Very funny.” Mahaia said dryly.

“Mmmphhh!” I heard a muffled cry coming from the other side of the collapsed pile of nutrient bars.

Mahaila just sighed as she flew over to the source of the sound. With a wave of her hand, the bars lifted off the ground with an ethereal blue glow, and I saw none other than Regari and Anya lying on the ground, gasping for air.

Ah these two must have walked closer to the container to get a better look and ended up trapped in the ensuing nutrient bar avalanche.

“I suggest you move.” Mahaila said bluntly as she glanced at the massive stack of nutrient bars she was holding up. Once the two scurried away she sighed as she dropped the stack back down.

“Anyway we should speak with the elders, they are wondering what is to become of all of them. They are nervous to say the least.” Mahaila said as she gently landed back down onto the ground.

“Why do I scare them that much?” I asked with a low feral laugh.

“Yes, but honestly Serchax does like to spend her free time terrorsing the locals.” Mahaila grumbled and I just laughed in response.

We headed to the main capital building, if you could even call that crumbling ruin anything so grand.

“What about Rosa, she causing any nightmares?” I asked and Mahaila just grumbled something under her breathe that sounded suspiciously like “No but I’m not sure if thats a good thing.”

“What?” I asked.

“She isn’t so much terrorising as she is blatantly oppressing.” Mahaila replied.

“Well she is a Vampire Queen.” I mused.

“Yes I suppose she is…” Mahaila grumbled.

When we reached the capital building I quickly understood what Mahaila meant with regards to Rosa. As to why I did not know, it seems my hive did not see anything out of the ordinary and thus did no alert me to what they were doing.

She was sitting on a comfortable looking chair out in the open. There were two Limbo demons fanning her and another was standing by with a bottle of wine. Rosa herself was holding a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. As for her legs they were currently kicked up on the back of a poor soul that was on his hands and knees, effectively acting as a living foot rest. For all intents and purposes she looked like she was on vacation.

“I see you are enjoying yourself.” I remarked with a laugh as I approached Rosa.

“I’m surprised Mahaila let you do this.” I added as I glanced at her Mahaila who just sighed again in response.

“These cretins were getting unruly, Mahaila couldn’t keep them in line, bunch of wretched degenerates that they are. The hive would cause too much terror so Serchax and I tried something else.” Rosa said as she took her legs of her living breathing footrest who quickly scampered up to his feet and stood beside her like an obedient little pet.

“I suppose tyranny has its uses.” I replied with a laugh.

“Yes, a lesson Mahaila refuses to learn. What with her code of honour and all.” Rosa said as she held out her wine glass to the side and servant quickly took it from her with trembling hands.

“You will find the populace pacified and obedient. They should not prove troublesome to instruct.” Rosa said.

“Good work, this should speed some things up.” I said as I glanced at the captial building and as expected the gaggle of so called elders filed out of the crumbling ruin they call a building.

The lead elder, whatever his name is approaches fearfully and falls to his knees. The rest do the same and all of them lower their heads into the dirt.

“We greet you Great One, we are yours to command.” the lead elder said. I glanced to the side and saw Anya standing at the side, it seems she has resigned her position on the council. A wise choice, no doubt Regari has told her what he knew of me.

Very wise of him. Heirs are really different, that clarity of mind will be a great asset. Most of the other more weak willed fools have their minds collapse into mush the very moment they meet me.

I’m almost sorry to say that perhaps Rosa and Serchax’s efforts were in vain.

“Seeing as all of you are alive I assume you are behaving. I heard you lot were an unruly bunch, it turns out you just needed a big enough boot to keep you in the dirt.” I replied with a low grumbling laugh. My voice was loud enough that even that laugh was enough to send tremors through the ground.

“No Great One… we live to obey…” the lead elder said through chattering teeth.

They are afraid, we do not immediately kill all that we capture

Living specimens have uses…

Adhaya said through the Hive Mind.

Yes, we do no kill everything immediately. Live specimens are useful for experimentation. The threat of a torturous existence was an excellent deterrant. I mean the Black Box’s reputation in the Empire speaks for itself. People were terrified of it.

Speaking of terror, I glanced down at the bunch of trembling elders. Looks like this was going to be rather straight forward.

I leaned down until my face was just an inch from the lead elder. I could sense his fear, and from the looks of it he was just a few more shocks away from wetting himself.

“Look at me…” I growled at the lead elder raised his head as his pupil dilated at the sight of my serrated fangs.

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