Withdrawing the Shade Splitters from the ghostly impression of Dorn, the Owl looked around the dark mirror of the battlefield and echoed a hoot into the endless night. If only for show. There were no bodies to be raised in the Realm of Shadows. Not as there was on the outside. Only mounds of sludge resembling corpses existed, with some being capable of spawning creatures of the night that seemed to take off in aimless directions.

Seemed.

A ghostly flash pulled the Owl's attention to first the barbarian felled by a woman on horseback who shuddered as she fled with three other riders to the hills. Using just as much energy as it took to lean forward in a chair, the Owl arrived before the fleeing victims with a flurry of dimensional slices that left them in pieces. The Owl’s cleanup left no survivors. Or rather, it left 2,509 Vrurian cadavers and another 909 Mazian corpses to be claimed. With many of them being undying shadows.

With the arcane focus that was the Owl's perching staff, the Owl slammed the mithral tip into the ground thrice, sending subsequent waves of death energy throughout the battlefield that first prevented most of the dead from decomposing; then second, raised the newest army to face the Owl with their heads lowered and their hands clasped before their hearts, wherein they remained until the third and final wave cleared the land of gore and negative energy, leaving next to no trace of what transpired on this field.

With a wave, the undead began scrambling to retrieve weapons, repair the battlefield to its prior state, and recover objects deemed worthy of inspection. Meanwhile, the Owl gazed over the new undead phenotypes to be born from the battle.

The majority of the barbarians that died whilst seething became the seething version of draugr. Revenants; made whole with searing flames. And since their limitless wrath couldn’t be projected towards the one that killed them, it was aimed towards literally everything else that lived.

Although they were still controllable, their volatility led to them being stored inside the Shadow Pocket after only a few minutes of babysitting. Leaving roughly 2,560 undead to distribute among the Legions and elsewhere.

Setting the remaining barbarians aside, the remaining Vrurians were divided as they’d been before the battle. 749 archers. Roughly 900 infantry. 800 cavalry. Plus 10 ballistae and 5 cannon batteries, each with a five-man crew.

First came the archers, who were promptly rotted into skeletal archers before being sent off to the Shade Room for billeting and training. From the Bob's, they would learn every field of craft and graduate as Undead Captains, ready to be split between the Legions and Silas. The same was done for the 900 or so zombie infantry. The caveat was that half of them went through the transition to become skeletal undead maneuvering units. The cannon batteries, on the other hand, were given to Hogaz, Bazzric Baal, Els, Forgruna, and Ed to reverse engineer and improve. Two of the ballistae went off to Ed and Matthew Reid for the same reason, leaving the remaining eight to be shipped off to Maru to see what the concept of simultaneous invention would produce.

As for the cavalry, they were reserved solely for the Legions to be promoted as they saw fit; a given, seeing as the mountainous terrain surrounding Hill Base would do the mounted troops little good. Thus, when they were sent off, the Owl was once again by his lonesome, staring at the grimoire opened to the boons of the Owl's latest promotion.

[Rogue Devil: Step 3, Soul Mastermind - Complete]

[Reward. Active Skill: [Devil’s Mimicry] - After closely studying an individual for a cumulative total of one hour, you can perfectly mimic their voice, habits, mannerisms, and accent, provided you know their language.]

Perhaps because the Owl was who the Owl was. Perhaps it was because the skill was something the Owl could more or less already do. In either case, no changes coincided with the evolution. Thus the Owl was surprised to learn of its existence.

[Reward. Passive Skill: [Devil’s Intrigue] - Your mana, so wicked and corrupted, works to augment the quality of your disguises, forged documents, planted evidence, or other illicit creations.]

Again, no change. There was, however, a cunning smile felt spreading beneath the Owl’s mask as thoughts of new possibilities associated with this skill came to mind.

[Reward. Ritual: [Fiendish Familiar] - Through braziers, incantations, and flames of dark; you can call from your pit, a soul you have marked. Through this ritual, your devils come to be; the only type of fiend, obliged to let you be free.]

And there it was.

It appeared in the grimoire much like the scroll taken from the Shade Forge’s treasure room. It detailed an elaborate sigil meant to be carved into the ground and filled with a liter of blood from a recently killed humanoid.

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For that, the Owl didn’t even need to do anything, only spread a cloud of darkness to conceal the act before carving the thing into the ground. Then, as the blood began seeping, the Owl began scanning the sigils and lines spread across the script. Only, the Owl couldn’t read them. It was some strange eldritch text that peered off the formless page as the eyes passed over them. Like water going down a funnel, the text flowed into the mind, forming words that found themselves being pushed out the throat in an abyssal and gothic chant.

Within ten minutes, the blood unnaturally pooled from the surrounding environment, filling each nook and cranny of the sigil before it began darkening. Within five minutes it began darkening to a deep black, and over the course of fifteen minutes, it began pooling up and over the lines gouged into the earth. A cold, blue-violet flame spontaneously appeared from the inky tar some five minutes later. Five minutes after that, and every five minutes thereafter, another Flame of Moil sprouted to pour its cold umbral clouds into the already midnight skies above.

The entire time, the chanting continued. Only now, as the last line was read, did the strange energy flow into the Owl's mind. Forcing from it words that remained echoing in the mind, probing the Owl to call out the name of this new devil.

And so, the Owl shouted the first name that came to mind. “Diamante!”

With a muffled boom, the Flames of Moil thinned into streaks and rose in fantastic arcs that slammed into the center of the sigil, forming a smooth sphere that was soon breached by a clawed foot covered in a shoe of darkness. The night erupted in equal parts cackling and gasping as the figure continued pushing its leg through. Covered in the same darkness, it was, all the way up the leg and onto the torso to form the likeness of an umbral suit; unbuttoned in the front and torn up the sleeves and trousers to make way for the cruelly sharp spines running up the sides of its arms and legs.

As its trailing arm remained in the portal, its other shoulder pushed through, allowing a leathery umbral wing to drape gently over the snow before it flapped in accordance with the tug of its other arm. That tug produced a trident made of a purplish-black material that soon hung lazily before its head, pointed like that of a reptile.

A moment was taken to study it further. Though it had the smooth skin of a human, its head seemed like it truly was blended with the likeness of a reptile. There was no nose like that found on a human. And I could clearly see the distinctive membrane that served as its ears sitting behind its white, slitted eyes. Not to mention the rows upon rows of jagged teeth protruding from its thin lips.

“Diamante!” The Owl spread its wings, smiling as he approached the portal the new devil was stepping through. “We will travel the Underworld. And you will teach the Owl Deep Abyssal.” The Owl said. And before he could reply, the devilish raptor pushed him in.

“Yes, Sir.” Came his eventual hiss of a reply, but the Owl's mind was on a version of the Underworld that had never been seen before. It wasn’t the home-like realm of the Necro Throne. Nor was it the cold, endless plain of the greater Underworld. This was, in effect, like the Bodhi Tree. There was a city, but one with a sky of darkness that boasted white grains and veins that looked uncannily similar to the arcane roots of the Bodhi Tree. And there was so. Many. Devils.

No longer did they cower from the void within the Owl. And yet, neither did they look at the Owl with more than a passing glance- even when The Owl’s vestiges came off and I showed them my true form.

I may have been their God. But I was still a Rogue Devil.

With no real sense of time, it was hard to tell how long I remained there, learning Deep Abyssal and the nature of curses from Diamante, the devil who would be writing my contracts from now on.

As I already knew, the bread and butter of devilhood was making deals with mortals. Souls increased a devil’s station, vitality, power, health, and virtually everything else. It was our life force. It was how we evolved or grew into greater devils. But most of all, it was our social standing. And we were always aiming to increase our station.

However, deals, like many things, came in different forms.

By themselves, Deals served as the highest form of a curse in all the realms of existence. One only we were privy to. But even then, all but the Archdevils could only make deals in a language the agreeing party knew despite the contract being written out in Abyssal. Those deals were, in effect, used to grant wishes that ranged from wealth or power to longevity or revenge. No matter what was exchanged, the devil would gain ownership of the soul. Life was then leeched from the soul while it lived and in turn was replaced with cursed mana, driving that soul into a deeper state of depravity and madness whilst simultaneously keeping them alive and thus suffering longer until their inevitable death. The more deranged they became, the greater devil they were reborn as; and thus more capable of serving the devil they made a deal with.

Just like Diamante with me.

Only the Archdevils, despite all devils of a high enough station knowing Deep Abyssal, only the Archdevils could make deals in the primordial language. Those were the deals that could most famously grant 'immortality.' But it was through this that the Archdevils imbued power into mortals to create warlocks, clerics, and anti-paladins.

From what I understood about my future boons, my claimed souls would work similarly; as a source of power for my warlocks, a catalyst for evolutionary growth, and a boost to my physical attributes; but only whilst in my transformed state. Only, my warlocks would be better. They would have castes. Specializations. Jobs. Industries. Domains.

That, I assumed, besides my divinity, was what separated me from the other devils.

Or at least, that was what we- Amun and I- assumed until I returned to the Mortal Plane.

——

[Rogue Devil, Soul Mastermind - Step 4: The Pact. To continue your path towards removing your brands, you must perform the Pact Insidious or the Pact Certain on a mortal soul and guide them and many others to your Underworld without any becoming the wiser to your vile deeds.]