Demon Core

Chapter 30: The Depths of the Castle

~ [Ruhr the River-Sorceress] ~

Half-Elf | ♀ | Sorceress Rank: SSS Location: The Demon-King’s Castle, Floor Thirty-Three Level: 100

Mud.

Arcing spires of fresh mud fly through the air as massive stones crash downward from above, splashing through the ankle-deep, foggy water that rises up the boots of the crusade’s forward legion. The arcs of disturbed water cascade through the air in sharp waves and crescents as the raging battle disturbs the rest of the pool.

A row of tower-shields, lined up in a single formation, rushes forward toward the enemy, creating a wave in their wake as the shields, scraping against the stone floors, push forward against the water and into the mass of claws, teeth, and screams that is the horde of the Demon-King — the demons mounting an interior defense of this floor of the castle.

One of the crusaders holding the shield wall together falls forward a bit as someone kicks off of his back from behind the lines. Ruhr, jumping off of him from behind, leaps over the barrier, flying forward together with the wave of unclear water and the roaring dragon of water trailing in the arc of her descent toward the enemy.

— A giant frog’s tongue slaps right against her, the sticky mass gluing itself to her arm and face as her zealous attack is cut short before it ever has a chance to begin. Before she falls out of the air with her lost momentum, it begins to pull her back in immediately, in the same second, into the mass of demons.

Something cuts through the tongue at the base. Ruhr flops into the muddy waters, tumbling and rolling for a second. The half-glued segment of frog tongue still sticks to her as she rises to her feet, blasting a wave of holy-water out of her hands just in time as a member of the swarm that she’s been pulled down into runs toward her with its massive claws bared.

(Ruhr) has used: [Aquatic Dragon]

The aquatic dragon blasts free from her palm, crushing the demon that it hits instantly as the force of the waters held behind a now broken dam crashes against it and the hundred behind it, cutting a line through the horde.

The half-elf turns her hands, the dragon arcing downward below herself against the stones. The pressure of the spout pushes her back up into the air and back away from the circle that was closing around her, dozens of claws and teeth landing where she was just standing a second ago.

— The piece of frog tongue falls off of her side as she looks toward the body of the monster that had stolen her from the air a moment ago. A prismatic barrier, a glassy magical wall, was created in the middle of its tongue, severing it and freeing her.

A sharp whistle comes from behind her as she flies. A second later, the several dozen tower shields slam against the stones through the water as a new row of magical barriers are created at once all together in a perfect line across the room by the shield-bearers and priests. The prismatic wall divides the full room in half, and it begins to shift as the shield-wall marches forward.

As she falls, another barrier is created below her feet, attached to the outer wall of the room. Ruhr lands on the elevated platform, watching the room from above. The demon-swarm, full of strange, swampy monsters, begins to fight and push against the wall. Hundreds of claws and thousands of teeth gnash, bite, and cut against the glassy barrier, cracking it here and shattering it there, only for the damaged sections to be renewed by fresh magic as the soldiers with tower-shields continue to advance. They cross half of the room’s distance, then another quarter, slowly pushing against the demons who are running out of space to move, to run, as they are crushed against the back wall of the chamber. Muddy waters rise up higher and higher around them, toward their waists and then their chests, as the space they have is reduced further.

The wicked stampede begins to crush itself in its lack of space, the demons clawing and descending on one another in an attempt to move as they’re suffocated amongst their own bodies and mass. The shield wall presses further. Demons are stuck shoulder to shoulder, then elbow to elbow, as their space continues to be stolen. Wet, wretched screams come up to her in the air as the muddy water rises to the demons’ necks and then, soon, over their heads as the wall advances further, indifferent to the noises of crushing bones and ripping flesh.

Ruhr stands there, watching from above, as the legion of cruel, terrible things is compressed and crushed — compacted further as the wall moves forward again.

The muddy waters turn into an indiscernible brack as gore and viscera leak out of ruptured bodies, filling the constrained pool with more bile, urine, and blood than water by the time everything is done. The water begins to bubble from the heat of the Demon-Core, causing an indescribable stink to start wafting upward toward her in clouds of thick steam.

The river-sorceress turns away and descends down the staircase that is made for her out of magical barriers, as the wall is slowly released and the water level floods back slowly all around the room. The gore of the scene is floating around the boots of the crusade as the dam of shields and barriers is lifted.

Ruhr stands there on the last step, looking down at the mess before she steps down into it. For a moment, she considers, oddly enough, if this is supposed to bother her, as some glimpse of a long-since dead version of herself comes to the surface for a brief moment. The half-elf shakes her head, her frog-goo gunked up hair sticking to her face, as water splashes around her ankles. The old pre-Demon-King Ruhr was a bit of a delicate, snobby creature with highly refined tastes and desires. The new Ruhr is less so. That polish she once had has been ground down into something more base and pragmatic.

— She’s still going to get famous, even more so than she already is, by killing the Demon-King.

But it’s going to be for different reasons now than it once was when all of this started.

The half-elf looks toward the end of the chamber, toward the gaping maw that bloodied fluids now flood down into, draining into the deeper section now that the exit to the next floor has opened up.

The Demon-King is running out of space to hide, just the same as they’re running out of time to stop his collection of innocent souls. Pressure is mounting, and the crusade as a whole is in a race against the clock to stop him, before it’s too late for them all — for the world.

Ruhr waves a hand listlessly into the air. “Send the wounded back up,” she orders. “Get me replacements. We’re moving to the next floor,” orders the river-sorceress as crusaders begin to carry and drag the wounded out through a violently unstable portal behind them that leads back up the staging area they’ve set up. As she walks to the next floor, fresh bodies come out of the portal from above, ready to fill the gaps in the offensive force.

A priestess runs after her, holding the bottom of her robe up above the water with her hands as she wades through the surging water that is flowing downstairs. “You’re still alive?” asks Ruhr, looking at the black haired priestess from the other day.

“I- uh, I just wanted to see if you were okay,” replies the woman. “That frog-demon looked like it hit you pretty hard.”

Ruhr looks at her. “We’re not making this a thing,” says the half-elf.

“Huh? I’m, no… I -”

Ruhr lifts a hand as she walks. “Not a thing,” she says, pointing at herself and then at her without stopping. “Thanks for the wall,” says the river-sorceress, her hand shifting to a listless thumbs-up.

“— You still have some tongue on you…” says a voice from behind her.

Ruhr lifts her arm and peels off a strip of slimy frog-tongue that is still stuck to it. She flicks it away. “Lots of repeating patterns in my life these days,” remarks Ruhr, shaking her head as she walks on.

“See you later?” asks the priestess, falling behind.

“We’re not making it a thing,” replies Ruhr, waving the woman off as she goes.

The crusade marches after her as they descend deeper into the darkness of the Demon-King’s castle.

~ [High King Mercator] ~

Half-Elf | ♂ | King Location: The Capital City, in the Nearby North Level: 100

The man’s sleep is filled with screams; his moments of brief wakefulness are indistinguishable from the questionable inlucidity of his sleep as he fades between a state of fugue rest and uncertain awareness. Every time he tosses in patterns of a few minutes, it feels like hours have passed and every time he opens his eyes, new shadows stand all around his bed, hovering over him in such abundance as if it were night — as if it were totally dark in his chambers.

But he can see the lights glowing behind them, through them. The lanterns that adorn the walls of his room continue to shine, their meager flames pressing through the curtain of shadows that hovers around him.

— The king screams, shooting upright again another time, just as he had done a dozen times before. Is he awake? Or is he still asleep, and this latest waking is just another layer of the dream he cannot escape from?

His body feels heavy. His eyes look around the room and the bed vibrates beneath him for some reason. His mass sinks lower and deeper into the mattress, as if it were swallowing him whole. The shadows surround his bed.

— The king screams, sitting upright again and clutching his face as he ‘wakes up’ again, presumably. Sweaty and panting, he looks around the room. He can’t get up. He can’t get out of bed.

Did he make it out this time? Did the sleep-paralysis break?

Shadows creep toward the edge of the mattress. A voice rings through his head.

‘We have to get out of here’.

He sinks into the mattress that his back feels as if it were glued to.

— His eyes open again.

He sits upright, lost in an animal fear, as the cycle of the dream he cannot leave continues on over and over and over. He’s locked in this state, this pattern. He’s repeated it hundreds of times, and each time he thinks that he’s about to wake up for real, but then he never does. How long has it been? A night? Days? He isn’t sure. His exterior and interior senses are totally lost, numbed by the fake sensory input of the dream.

Shadows surround his bed, staring down at him. One of them is sitting on his chest. The bed vibrates, and despite being in his own chambers, he can feel roaring winds rushing over his skin, as if he were falling, as if everything were falling.

— He sits upright, covered in sweat again.

~ [Military Adviser Blumen] ~

Human | ♂ | Royal Knight Location: The Capital City, in the Nearby North Level: 100

Blumen sits at the table.

His heavy head rests there in his folded palms, and his eyes are closed. People run around the room all around him, organizing all manner of defensive and offensive operations. Special military advisers and diplomats hurry in frenzies as they try to enact last minute measures.

There is a soft shuffling sound as something moves over paper. The noise, clearly discernible from all of the rest of the chaos, causes his body to twitch together in response.

Weakly, Military Adviser Blumen, who has taken over the central defense in the king’s place, lifts his exhausted gaze to look at the most hated man in the room. The court artist, well aware of his own poor fortune, makes eye-contact with nobody else as he quietly slides the miniature caravan figurine across the map, ever closer to the capital. It’s not his fault. He’s just doing his job. But everyone hates the artist nonetheless because he’s associated with their troubles by being the one who has to represent their ever worsening situation.

Nobody likes the bearer of bad news.

The Demon-King is almost at the gates of the nation’s capital. The final siege is going to begin soon. There are a few tricks and games left to stop him, some final desperate acts to be given a chance.

Everything they’ve thrown at the Demon-King so far has been intercepted, has failed, or has been subverted. Not a single one of their most creative strategies or spontaneous plans bought them more than a day at best. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead or worse. The country is in disarray. The nation’s greatest fortifications have all but fallen. Their experimental weapons and technology have failed and lost, setting them decades back in the fields of magical research alone, which will cost them more than dearly should they even survive this mess — and that’s not including the damage to infrastructure and the spirit of the country. The king is lost to madness. The world is soon to end.

All in all, it’s really not going that well.

“Sir,” says a voice from the side.

Military Advisor Blumen turns his gaze, looking at the knight who has lifted a hand. “A suggestion.”

“What is it?” asks Blumen.

The knight shrugs. “Why don’t we just ask the Demon-King if he’ll give us a day?”

The room is quiet as everyone immediately stops their work and looks at him.

“Soldier,” starts the tired officer, looking at him. He lifts an arm, pointing to the window.

Everyone turns to look at the darkness beyond the shattered windows of the castle that haven’t held against the ever increasing intensity of the storm. There, on the far horizon, an arm of a demon of impossible scale and size reaches up toward the sky to steal another star of its many thousands.

The knight looks around the room and shrugs. “…It’s just an idea…” he mutters silently, his gaze lowering to the floor.

— Someone clears their throat from across the room as people slowly look at one another.

The exhausted head of defensive operations, Blumen, sighs and holds his face in his hands. “…Get me a scryer,” he instructs after a minute of silence.

Their only hope is that the capital can hold on long enough for the crusade and its reinforcements to break through to the Demon-King.

~ [The Demon-King] ~

“I don’t understand,” says the reengineer, Peribsen. The young gallu looks at his plans, ripping through sheets of flayed souls as he tries to spot something that he’s missed. “How are they getting through my designs so quickly?” asks the demon, referring to the crusade. He scrunches his face in frustration, throwing everything away to his side.

“They’re slippery creatures,” growls a heavy voice from up above. The gallu looks up at the Demon-King. “- Humans,” explains the lord of monsters, staring at his hand as he curls his fingers, as if he were trying to grasp hold of something he had once held onto but that would no longer fit in the grisly, monstrous appendages he has now. “They are unpredictable and strange.” He shakes his head. “Even worms have a beauty to them,” explains the Demon-King. “They have a pattern of motion, a rhythm of nature that guides them through the simplicity of their days.” The beast looks toward the architect. “Ugliness, however, is the only repeating dance that humanity as a whole carries with itself.”

The gallu thinks for a time, souls swirling around the throne-room of the Demon-King’s castle in a raging torment as the intensity of the Demon-Core grows with every minute. After a minute, he lifts his gaze, looking back toward Swain. “I’ve learned as an engineer that all materials can be useful, in their own way,” he explains. “Some woods fracture easier than others but have incredible properties against moisture,” says the demon-engineer. “Some stones weather terribly, yet make for the sturdiest foundations.” He shakes his head. “Surely there is a flaw in judging the collective whole of a species?” asks the demon, questioning the logic of his king, who doesn’t reply, his head simply resting on his massive fist.

Something disturbs the swirling anarchy that is the throne-room. A light, an orb, forms together in the air between them.

“Let me prove you wrong, Peribsen,” says the Demon-King. “Watch, as I demonstrate to you that there is not a single light within the skyward span of the collective totality of humans,” instructs the Demon-King. “They are depraved, lost things far more wretched and cruel than anything that I could ever hope to imagine.” He lifts his hundreds of eyes, staring at the mass of flying souls. “They will do whatever they have to if it means they get what they want.” His fingers close again, trying to grab something that isn’t there, trying to grab hold of a hand that had once held his own. It is not something he remembers with anything more than base instinct from the moments that led up to his transformation into what he is now. “Any flower, no matter its beauty, will be trampled,” he says. “Any song will be crushed within its windpipes, any bridge burned; if it means they can have just a little more of what they want.”

A message comes through the scrying orb, a human communication and observation spell that has been cast into his castle — allowed through his permission. The humans’ predictable groveling comes at an opportune moment for him to demonstrate the clarity of his mission to a kindred soul.

They have come to ask for mercy, pleading like sniveling children, now that it looks like they wont get what they want.

The Demon-King looks, listening as a human voice speaks from the other end of the spell, asking for exactly that; a stay on his offensive for a single day.

— A single day longer than they deserve to live in his eyes, and they will prove it themselves.

~ [Military Adviser Blumen] ~

Human | ♂ | Royal Knight Location: The Capital City, in the Nearby North Level: 100

This is stupid.

Military Advisor Blumen stands there, his hands gripping the edge of the table, the winds of the spirit-world coming to claim their lives howling outside of the castle, carrying over the city’s walls. The gale’s whistle sings the tune of the end of days, upon the precipice of which they find themselves as a collective.

His eyes lower away from the scrying orb, looking around the room, tense.

Of course it’s stupid.

The last scryer who tried to send a message to the Demon-King spontaneously combusted, yet this one persists — sweating very profusely. A final act of desperation. The city’s defenses might hold when the Demon-King arrives, but they also might not. There are still a few regions left before the Demon-Carnival arrives at their gate, but…

— He looks back at the orb, toward which every face in the room is turned.

The orb floats there, crackling with wild energies as it begins to fail to sustain the power of the spells moving through it in both directions, like a glass tunnel trying to funnel the ocean.

Priests surround the scryer, readying themselves for him to start melting on the spot.

The lantern lights around them waver, a wind creeping in through the broken windows like a witch‘s fingers crawling through the slats of a crib, creeping forward towards them all. The lights dim in and out, the magics of the spell fading at first and then brightening in an overpowering up and down. The room is filled with wavering light, the features of their tired, horrified faces dancing first to hide in the shadows and then to be over-exposed. Papers fly around the room, the corners of the pinned down map rising up and ripping free from its constraints as a heavy heat billows around them, hammering the exhaustion deeper into their frames. The moving air does not have the grace to wick the sweat from their brows, and the moisture of the storm that never stops only worsens their breathing difficulties.

— The orb in the center of the room crackles.

The lights all fade, the candles die out, the lanterns suffocate, and the magic of every spell present within the chamber dissipates into nothingness. Only the scrying orb remains, but it is no longer under the control of the human scryer who cast it. He lies unconscious on the stones, blood leaking from his eyes and nose. Strands of white come from the orb, peeling off of it as if it were an unraveling cocoon. The threads fall down to the table, while others rise up to the rafters above, wrapping themselves around the beams. All of them expand outwardly like the arcs of multi-pronged lightning bolts.

A web is created; a spider’s silk is spun across the room of the castle, above their table. And the orb from which it all stems, the egg that the Demon-King has now made it into, breaks as two sharp, long, black, and chitinous legs appear from within, resulting in the horrified screams of everyone in the room as people start to run, trying to get to the doors that have locked themselves.

Two more legs appear, then two more. Sharp, needle-like protrusions, each joint alone the length of a healthy oak, come to span. They are covered in fine, thin hair — soft and white. The legs arc themselves, trying to fit inside the ceiling of the castle room, which they are much too long and spindly for.

— Two more legs appear, bringing the total to eight, and then follow eight glossy, ruby eyes that catch sight of every person in the room.

The chittering mass clicks with its mandibles. The giant spider, the size of a dragon, clicks and snaps as it spreads its legs around the magically spun web.

Crying and screaming, people hammer against the doors and try to climb up to the windows, but none find success.

A voice fills the air around them; the screaming harrow, the growl of the true beast, the Demon-King speaks. “Sacrifice yourselves,” it instructs, the stones all around them rumbling. “If you really love your people, your world, then step into the web,” it says as dozens of eyes look up toward the spindly monstrosity that stares back at them, hungry. Foamy venom leaks from its jagged, meat sheathed fangs, which are the size of crooked swords. “For every willing volunteer, I will stop for one precious, beautiful hour.”

The wind lessens. The howl quiets. The spell fades, leaving only a dark room filled with dozens of people and the docile spider, clinging to its web above them.

“— Or was that not why you were interested?” he asks in a mocking tone as his voice fades away, leaving them to their choice.

~ [Ruhr the River-Sorceress] ~

Half-Elf | ♀ | Sorceress Rank: SSS Location: The Demon-King’s Castle, Floor Thirty-Four Level: 100

— Bones crunch beneath her boot.

Ruhr screams, violently stomping down again on the skull. It cracks, with pieces of fractured bone pressing out through the soft meat on the sides of the compressing head. The demon’s arms flail, its broken body either trying to mount a defense or simply reacting to the senseless signals its own brain is sending in its death rattle. Her boot cracks down again, mush pressing out beneath her.

— The battle has long since ended.

“Are you… are you okay?” asks a voice from the side.

Ruhr’s boot breaks through the top of the skull as it fully caves in, her foot sinking into the broken bowl of the cranium.

Panting, she turns her head, looking at the priestess, who is still tailing her. “I’m working through some stuff,” replies Ruhr dryly, before turning to the crusaders with whom she had been fighting against the enemies of this next floor. “Bring me another one.”

The crusaders look at each other before turning to her. “Ma’am…” starts the first one.

“Bring. Me. Another,” repeats Ruhr, tapping her finger into her open palm.

“Ma’am,” says the other crusader. “There aren’t any left,” he says, gesturing around the room.

Ruhr looks.

The battle has long since ended. After the flooded room, they moved on to the next floor and cleared that one just as violently. Although, she might have gotten a little too into it. The fight has been over for a good ten minutes now, but she’s just been here letting out some rage.

The half-elf’s eyes wander down around her, at the other dead demons that lie strewn at her feet, all of them with caved in heads and broken necks that have been stamped down on. Her boot is perforated with shards of sharp bone fragments. There aren’t any living ones left to kill.

“Next floor. Let’s go,” says Ruhr, shaking her leg off before she starts walking to the next staircase.

“Ma’am —” says the crusader officer again. Ruhr turns her head his way. He lifts his hands. “The soldiers need a few minutes at least. Let them heal their wounds,” he explains. “This pace is too much.”

“The world is going to end,” replies Ruhr, narrowing her eyes. She stops and then steps toward him. “Everyone you know is going to die,” says the half-elf, grabbing him by his breastplate and looking him in the eyes. “Everything, everywhere, is going to die,” she says. “Because you slackers need to take a pee break?”

To her surprise, the soldier, very bravely, grabs her wrist and pulls it free from his armor. He looks her in the eyes. “Ma’am, respectfully,” he starts. “Families died today,” says the officer. “Rein it in.”

— Her eyes go wide as those words ring through her head. Those familiar words, which are one and the same as Zacarias had once told her back in the castle before they left on this mission. She should have told him back then to fuck off and that she’d go without him.

If she had…

He lets go of her arm and then turns around, walking back to the piles of the dead. To the heaps, where not just dead demons but also dead people lie. Soldiers tend to their own wounds and the wounds of their brothers and sisters. However, they also sit and kneel together with the dead. They weep over them, mourn them, dress their faces with clothes, and hold their hands tightly, as if they were guiding them over the precipice.

Ruhr hisses, turning away and gritting her teeth.

They have to get to the bottom of the castle before that bastard expands it again. They’re already at the razor’s edge of their time-table, even now. If the Demon-King adds another ten floors like he’s done twice to them now…

— It’ll be over.

This is their last, final shot. This push, this continued assault, is all that’s left for humanity.

“Hey. Do you wish to speak about it?” asks a voice from behind her.

Ruhr’s fingers clench together as she turns around, glaring at the black haired priestess, who is still here for some reason. “This. This here,” says Ruhr, her finger motioning between the two of them. “This isn’t a thing. It needs to stop.” The half-elf looks at her. “I was just using you as a quick rebound to get over someone who actually mat -”

— A slap cracks through the room.

Ruhr holds her red cheek, looking at the priestess, who lifts her nose and nods as she speaks. “While we’re opening up on the spot, don’t forget to mention that you’re a loveless bitch with daddy issues and a broken ability to bond to anyone and anything.”

“…What?” asks Ruhr, taken aback at the quick rebuttal. She has the feeling that this might not be a spontaneously generated thought from the woman.

The priestess turns around, looking at her scornfully over her shoulder. “I’m sure your dead friend would be proud to see you acting like a shit-head. It’s very kind of you to be so respectful of his memory.” She looks away. “You should be glad that he’s dead, so that he can’t be let down by you.”

Ruhr stands there, holding her face, watching the woman walk away. The skin on her face stings, and those fresh words ring around her skull. Confused, she looks away for a moment through blurry eyes as she tries to understand something.

— Why did it feel good that somebody finally yelled at her?

The river-sorceress stares into the distance.josei

“Hey,” says Ruhr, turning around after a moment.

“What?” asks the venomous priestess, stopping but not turning around.

“What’s your name?” asks Ruhr.

The priestess walks off, shaking her head. “What is wrong with you?” she asks as she leaves.

Ruhr shrugs, staring off into the distance for a moment. The half-elf mutters to herself. “Apparently, I have daddy issues,” she mumbles, adding the pieces together in her head. It checks out. It’s not like she didn’t know that already. Her childhood was… well, it was. That was about it. It just was.

Having someone acknowledge it for her externally, along with the rest of her characteristics, is nice, though.

“- Fuck,” mutters Ruhr in a revelatory tone, turning back and then running after the priestess, shards of broken bones crunching beneath her boot as she goes.

~ [Military Adviser Blumen] ~

Human | ♂ | Royal Knight Location: The Capital City, in the Nearby North Level: 100

There are no volunteers.

Everyone stands with their backs against the walls, not daring to get too close to the spider that is content on its web. All attempts to batter the door down from either the inside or the outside have failed.

Would he give his life for his country on the field of battle? Sure. Of course he would!

— But this is different, isn’t it?

This is… it’s not the same.

Blumen turns his head, looking at the many knights of the castle’s legions and at the higher officers and noble-born of the high estates who were in here when everything happened. From them too, nobody steps forward.

Besides, if he dies, who’s going to run this operation? They need him. He’s important. With the king absent, nobody else could do this work like he does this work. He’s important. He’s vital. His presence alone is worth more in value toward the defense than the single hour his life would buy. It would be a waste for him to sacrifice himself for a vague promise made by the Demon-King of all things. Who says that he’d even keep it? You can’t trust the Demon-King.

Blumen shakes his head, having fully finished his argumentations to himself for the third time now, just in case anybody happens to ask him to step forward. However, nobody has yet to do so, because nobody wants to be asked themselves to step into the web.

And so, they all stand there quietly, waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever does. Only the darkness outside grows ever-bleeker, as more and more lights vanish from the sky above.

~ [The Demon-King] ~

He sits there with his head on his palm, his point having been made clear to the gallu, Peribsen.

“You see, Peribsen?” he asks, his voice shaking the walls of the castle. “Not a one,” says the Demon-King. “Not a single one of them has within them the capacity of love for a thing greater than themselves,” he says. “Those who truly do are rare and few.” The Demon-King leans back on his throne. “And they are destined for better graces than what this world is now, after our work is done,” he explains. “After we reach the apex, the pinnacle of beauty.”

“…I see…” says the gallu, watching. “I admit, I am… disappointed.”

“We all were, Peribsen,” replies Swain, looking at him. “People who are truly satisfied with the world do not make art, for they would perceive it to be so already,” explains the Demon-King. “Art is the manifestation of that which does not exist; it is the collective wishes and memories of a person, both brought to life as an avatar, an imprinting of the soul.” He shakes his head, looking at the humans cowering against the wall. “What their problem is, is that they have nothing to wish for,” explains Swain. “— Nothing except for life itself, which is an empty, token prize.”

The Demon-King slowly rises to his feet, the stones of his grim seat crumbling. “Living is only sustenance, Peribsen.” He steps down from his throne, looking at the gallu. “Beauty is what nourishes.” He looks up toward the wall, toward a picture of a goose, and then at his own long claws. “It what lets us… grow,” says the demon, curiously as his senses reach through the castle, reaching toward something that was festering and now begins to break through the rot.

~ [Ruhr the River-Sorceress] ~

Half-Elf | ♀ | Sorceress Rank: SSS Location: The Demon-King’s Castle, Floor Thirty-Two - The Staging Area Level: 100

It is later.

“So I used to have this really neat owl doll,” answers Ruhr, staring upward at the top of the tent and responding to the question about her favorite childhood toy. “When I was a girl.”

“…An owl?” asks the voice next to her. “I somehow figured you were a frog person.”

“- Yuck!” Ruhr sits upright, looking at the priestess who is lying next to her. “As if,” she says, lifting an eyebrow. “Frog people are weirdos. Total creeps.”

“Mhm,” replies the priestess, staring at her blankly.

“For real, have you ever seen somebody who is super into frogs?” asks Ruhr, leaning down with wide eyes and shaking her head. “Wackos.”

The priestess leans sideways with her head resting on her palm. “Springer,” she says.

“Huh?”

“My name is Springer,” says the priestess. “- And I like frogs. A lot.”

Ruhr purses her lips, the two of them looking at one another.

Quietly, Ruhr leans over to the side, grabbing her clothes. “Okay. Maybe this was a mistake after all,” she starts, before they’re yanked out of her hands and the two of them get into a play fight over them.

Perplexingly enough, laughter finds itself present inside the Demon-King’s horrific castle.

In honor of this rare blossom, the Demon-Carnival stands still for one hour — but not a second more.

As for the castle of the human capital, the giant spider gruesomely and horrifically eats someone randomly in exchange and then vanishes. If only because the Demon-King cannot let it be known that he is a softie.