I hummed a little tune to myself. Not even really a showtune at this stage, just my failing mind skipping along the lake of sanity like a thrown rock. It spun and hopped about, but the distance between each bouncing point was dwindling. The rock, which I was sure was me in the metaphor, threatened to sink below the surface, never to return.

“Move your fingers, Max.” Ren held my arm, a bandage at the ready in the other hand.

I wiggled them as requested.

“I can see your tendons move about. Hehe.” She smiled up at me before her brow furrowed. “I think… I’m starting to really lose it, trickster.”

I nodded slowly. We had killed another three demon princes in short order. Or long order. It was hard to gauge the time as we seemed to no longer feel tired - or were just in a constant state of exhaustion. Since the ball had started rolling on the whole demonic-king business, we hadn’t stopped and slept.

We’d hit Level Sixteen, but our STARs had remained gray and inert, as if the System didn’t consider us existing any longer. Like we were lost to it and doomed to sink into this quagmire of death and sweat forever.

Crown number five sat on the bloodied floor just ahead of me.

This fight had been a little rougher than most. Even now, the barbed tentacles that hung from the dead prince’s mouth still squirmed across the stone tiles as if they could escape or take another bite from me. He could see through invisibility, much to my chagrin. I leaned that lesson by way of a broken leg and patches of flayed skin. System had fixed my leg up but was being slow on the rest of the damage. Unusual.

Ren was right, though. The longer we spent seeped down here, the more unhinged we were getting. Although the rampant lewd acts and acceptance of violence had started off as something we could ignore, we’d trudged past the benefits of insanity and struck the rough ground of the reality that we were becoming unraveled. Insane.

“I’m not even sad,” she continued, tears running from her eyes as she bandaged over my wounds. “Or… anything really.”

“Exhausted.” I smiled. “We’re hitting the limits, I know. I promise you we will get out of here soon.”

Her once radiant golden hair was no longer a beacon in this place. Matted and stuck together from weeks of sweat, grime, and blood. It was now in the roughest and saddest looking ponytail we had been able to manage. Pretty sure my hands were soaked with something unpleasant when I did her the disservice. Our duty of care had… slipped.

Wolf had just become more sour over time. Still had all the patience in the world for us two - especially considering what we got up to - but he had long given up on pretending to be fine with our current situation. Roger had toed the line a little better, but had become more avoidant the more crowns I had accumulated. As if he was scared of what I was turning into.

I hadn’t changed that much. The slight amount of extra muscle was a nice addition for someone so usually lean, but made sense considering we had been fighting non-stop for weeks.

“Chin up, moonflower.” I ran my hand along the side of her face.

She held it there softly and kissed at my wrist. “Let’s wrap this up and get moving.”

I nodded, and we stood up. She wiped the unintended tears from her face, smearing the briefly clean tracks with the residual dirt that existed around the rest of her.

“Hey.” I placed my hand on her shoulder. “If it's the last thing I do, I will get you a warm bath once this is all done.”

She tilted her head and gave me a glum smile. “I believe you, trickster. It'd be a dream come true. I would say I’d do anything for you if you made that a reality, but I already do and we’re basically soulmates, so… you’ll just have my eternal gratitude plus one.”

“Don’t say that.” With a smile, I let her go to step over to the discarded crown. “I’ll end up finding a way we can live forever so I can cash in on that.”

“Imagine the shows we could put on with hundreds of years of practice?”

I shivered. An odd feeling down here in hell, but the elf always knew how to press my buttons. Hand went down to the circlet of silver, but my eyes turned to Roger.

The demon was leaning up against the wall, and while he normally avoided looking my direction the last few… hours? Days? Currently, he was staring at my hand reaching for the ornamental symbol of power.

“Something to say, Roger?”

He jolted, realizing I had been watching him. “No… Boss. I mean, you sure you want to do that?”

“I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing, Roger. If you know a reason why I shouldn’t be doing this, then speak up.”

The rabbit twitched and looked over across the reduced group of my summoned demons. “A crown grants you a claim to the throne. Two or three means you’ve taken over a swathe of hell itself, like a political thing, right?” His furred hands came together. “With your demonic side, five crowns would be empowering that side of you… that amount of political power is a direct threat to the king himself and you’ll-”

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“Boring!” I placed the crown on my head, the object absorbing into the others that had formed the singular one decorating me.

It had been quite the while since I had the taste of humble pie. A necessity sometimes when we lived with so much natural bravado and false confidence.

Immediately after the deed was done, I felt a pang of pain shoot through me. A sickening, sour stream of bile that ran from my core up through my chest and neck. It wasn’t vomit, however, and rather than make itself known through my mouth-hole, the feeling continued up to my head. I held my hands up over my eyes. Let the darkness calm my senses.

Heartbeat throbbed through my skin, rolling around the outside my brain before my thoughts could neutralize the imagined toxin that had slunk its way through my insides. I took a deep breath as two points of sharp pain vibrated on the top of my head.

Inevitable, really.

I growled as two horns grew out of my skull, bursting through the skin and parting my hair. It was unpleasant. I took another couple of deep lungfuls of stale air as the puncture wounds healed up, leaving me feeling… fine.

Removed my hands from my face and stood up tall, turning around to Ren.

Her eyes ran me up and down, the bright blue pools the only thing about her not torn down by the wear and tear of this existence. “First thought - yum. Second thought… you okay? Not possessed or even crazier now?”

I brought a finger up to prod at one of the horns. Only four or five inches in length, not too sharp at the end, but still pointed. Slight pressure on my skull when I pushed them, but I would hope they’d break off like antlers if they caught an attack, rather than rip my skull apart.

“No… I feel okay.” Furrowed my brow and looked at my hands, as if they would be a good signal of my well-being. “System says I’m part demon now.” That wasn’t all - it now clearly displayed my demonic powers.

My Domain and the regeneration were pretty straightforward. Both from my prior life topside, and tied to my Power bar.

Domain Escalation allowed me to summon the creator of a Domain, which had been useful against the last few corpses we had made. Probably useless when we escaped from hell, but it was likely we would have died otherwise without it. These princes didn’t like to show face when in their little pockets of control.

Corruption Resistance was a party-wide aura that stopped us from getting too hot or insane from being in hell for a long time. Wasn’t sure when I had picked that up, but it explained how we had survived in such a hostile place. Still, it was only resistance and not immunity.

If only I had…

I rubbed at my chin. System seemed to favor me today, finally. Inside this interface, where my demonic skills were laid bare, was a little icon showing how many spare crowns I had. Four, at present. And it didn’t take a genius to realize that I could use these spare artefacts the same as Power Tokens for these abilities.

“Terrible news,” I said, grinning. “I have become yet more ironclad with bullshit.”

“You realize you have fangs, Max?” Ren tilted her head to the side, any concern now washed away and replaced with… intrigue?

Ran my tongue across my teeth - ah, my canines were extended a little. “All the better to eat you with, my dear.”

She nodded slowly, her mind clearly busy imagining thing I didn’t want to be privy to. Not if we wanted to be productive for the next hour, anyway.

My eyes went back to the menus while she daydreamed. Couldn’t upgrade my actual Domain, which seemed unfair - but then it was similar to my Class ability.

[ is now upgraded. Resistance is now doubled.]

[ is now upgraded. Regeneration is now doubled, and 15% healing rate is applied to nearby allies.]

I turned to watch Ren blink her eyes and take a breath. “Huh. Either I have a new kink that has grounded my sanity, or something just changed.”

“As much as the former sounds delightful, it’s actually because I have upgraded our resistance to hell.”

She pulled a face. “You can do that?”

“What can’t I do?” I gestured to some of my wounds, which were now healing up at a much faster rate.

“Oh!” She ignore the obvious bait and held up her arm. Her STAR was glowing golden, as was mine on inspection.

Lost no longer.

I switched through the screens quickly, not wanting to distract myself from the demonic information. New ability was called . Another taunt where ranged allies would have reduced threat and increased damage, while I would take increased damage from those watching me. Seemed fair. Passives reduced my fall damage, and something else that doubled the chance of a critical card after casting a critical card - but it didn’t stack.

Abstract, in some ways, I thought unironically as I tried to turn more into an actual demon.

Didn’t want to waste the last two crowns on Domain Escalation since it wouldn’t be useful long term. Demon Form was… yeah, fuck it. I was in for the ride.

[ is now upgraded. You can now toggle the form on cooldown. Increased demonic power gain when form is active.]

I swirled a summoned sheet around myself to obscure my body, letting it fall back to the ground to reveal me back as a normal human with no horns or sharp teeth.

“Aww.” Ren crossed her arms. “Cured already? I want a refund.”

“Do you have a smoke cloud scroll? Let me show you something.” While she nodded and handed it over, I looked around the room.

Roger looked… scared. His nose twitched as he sat on a table, his eyes completely glued to me. Wolf was asleep - a rarity, but something I’d allow considering how tired out he could get. Hopefully my resistances and regeneration would have him feeling more himself soon enough. The handful of my small demons left watched me intently, no change in their loyalty despite my change of being.

I took a stroll away from the elf, across the stone square, away from the ‘outdoor eatery’ area of this tall bridge over the lava river. An interesting place to fight, and certainly made a change from woodlands and small villages… but I did miss that simpler life.

Around twenty-five feet away from the curious Oathwarden, I stopped and turned back to face her.

Aimed the scroll out and started running as I cast it.

Cloud of white smoke bloomed into being and I passed through it, hitting just before jumping out of the other side.

A more numbed pain this time as horns emerged from my skull. However, there was also a larger pressure and brief agony from my back this time. No time to panic as I landed on the smooth stone in front of the elf.

My purple wings buffeted the air, swirling the smoke away and assisting my landing. Her matted hair briefly shuffling from the breeze.

“Motherfucker...” she whispered, eyes wide. “Let’s go get you some more crowns.”