I directed the feeling of irritation I was genuinely experiencing outward. What a blunder this was. My security service clearly isn’t catching any mice. And I’m no better, not checking everything myself. It’s true what they say: if you want something done right, do it yourself. Meanwhile, the demon continued to gloat and speak.

“Although, your camouflage is quite intriguing. Your aura is not detectable at all. What is this? Some sort of artifact?” - My irritation grew. – “Yes, I knew it! It’s an artifact. Hey, when you grab them, don’t hit the main one too hard. I don’t want such a valuable item to be damaged.”

“Do you really consider this junk a valuable item?” - I pulled out a small crystal from the chitinous fold that served as my pocket. It contained a simple spell that made it shimmer in all the colors of the rainbow and emit a ‘powerful and mysterious’ magical aura. Well, this toy came in handy. – “If you like it so much, take it. I have more at home.”

I waved my hand, and the glowing crystal flew towards the demon. At that moment, I activated my ability and took control of his consciousness. The timing was so perfect that Rabator didn’t even realize he was under my influence. His gaze fixated on the priceless treasure flying directly into his hands. With a quick telepathic command, he deactivated the barrier of the trap and caught the crystal. Greed overtook him, and another mental impulse paralyzed all the demons in the city, ordering them to freeze, remove magical protections, and await further instructions. Then, his gaze focused on the magical glow of the crystal, and his consciousness no longer perceived anything except it.

“My precious...” - Rabator managed to think before losing consciousness.

I momentarily shifted my focus from controlling the foreign mind and assessed the situation with my senses. The fourteen spiders had completed their task and activated the highest level paralysis spell, channeling almost all their energy plus reserves from accumulators into it. It was time for the second part of the plan.

I scanned the demon’s mind and found the location of the portal to other worlds. It was located in the center of the city at ground level. Essentially, right below us. The path there was long and winding, so I opted for a bit of vandalism. The spiders picked up the helpless demon ruler, and I activated the Doton technique, opening a pit in the floor leading to the desired level. If I had used magic, I would have had to overcome the resistance of protective spells. But chakra simply ignored this layer of reality, displacing the spells along with the matter.

Within a minute, we were standing in the portal chamber. I stayed to monitor Rabator, while my loyal minions began activating the portal. It required a vast amount of energy, but it had to come from my world. All we had to do was disable the security module in the portal control mechanism and accept the ‘incoming call.’

Finally, after five minutes, the portal opened, and a flood of spiders poured out, immediately starting to secure the area, further immobilize the demons, and spread throughout the city’s rooms. My world conquest plan moved into the main phase, where I only needed to provide overall guidance.

The capture of the demon city, though not bloodless, generally proceeded according to plan. The number of rooms and corridors was so vast that we couldn’t clear them all before Rabator died, and the oath of loyalty to him ceased to be effective. However, the positive aspect was that we still prevented any witnesses from escaping, so no one outside knew about the change in power.

For the next few months, we sent subjugated demons using mental magic to recruit ‘volunteers’ and bring them to the city to swear allegiance. Naturally, all the newcomers lost their souls, and some of their bodies were remotely controlled by spiders, creating the appearance of normal proceedings. The problem with demon auras was easily resolved. It was the body’s aura, so ‘zombified’ demons looked just like regular ones on the outside.

While the spiders stocked up on valuable resources in the form of demon souls, I studied their magical books. Rabator had a rather decent library containing numerous works by mages of various races. The main demon’s possession also included the souls of powerful mages, whom I employed as consultants for studying the material.

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I tried to find any references to chakra but instead came across a somewhat different phenomenon. In the Naruto world, it was called Ki. From an ordinary observer's perspective, it was simply the projection of negative emotions. But in reality, it was a special substance that could be termed sacrifice energy or worship energy. Perhaps this energy was what was called Bahion on Earth.

Powerful demons could absorb this energy and use it to enhance themselves. And since the energy needed to be sourced and then accumulated in sufficient amounts, demons created their own domains - isolated areas of space where Bahion accumulated over millennia until its density reached the required level. The source of this energy was the suffering of enslaved souls and the suffering of the demons themselves.

And here, another interesting thing emerged. The chakra tail that Kyūbi had provided me with was created using Bahion. Moreover, I found a ritual describing the process of creating such energy centers tied to the soul. The essence was that you could take the souls of powerful demons, cleanse them of personality and memory, and then turn them into a sort of energy node capable of storing and later generating almost any type of energy.

So, at some point, a fox demon encountered chakra, recognized its advantages, created nine energy centers for himself using Bahion, and tuned them all to produce chakra. Thus, an ordinary demon, devoid of magical energy, became a ‘beast of chakra’ later known as the Nine-Tailed Fox.

I also became excited about the idea of creating such centers for myself. Especially since I had numerous demon souls and an entire world filled to the brim with Bakhion at my disposal. Unlike Kyūbi, I planned to tune each tail to its own type of energy. After all, chakra and magic were quite different, and where one faced difficulties, the other easily overcame them. Moreover, I could leave my future ‘tails’ in a dormant state and activate them only when I encountered suitable energy.

By the way, demon magic and that of other races were significantly different from spider magic, although they were based on the same type of energy. Our magic was a precise mathematical science. There was no place for divination here. There were spell diagrams, rules for manipulating and transforming energy, and so on. Demons, on the other hand, primarily focused on their innate abilities. That is, the ‘spells’ that were embedded in their bodies. They could also replicate a spell learned from a mage’s soul memory but didn’t understand how it was structured or why it worked at all.

A third group was the ‘human’ magic. Spells were created through emotions, belief, and magical egregores. For instance, all forest elves believed that a certain combination of thoughts, emotions, and energies led to accelerated plant growth. And it did lead. But the exact mechanism of this influence was unknown to them. The main argument from magic teachers was that a hundred generations of ancestors used this spell, so you should use it too. This approach didn’t appeal to me, so I studied this field only for general knowledge—to understand what I might encounter in the future.

I fully relocated to the demon world, immersing myself in the process of developing the ritual for obtaining eight additional ‘tails.’ I decided not to be greedy and limit myself to nine tails, like Kyūbi. I think such a limit wasn’t arbitrary. There was very little information on this topic in the books, so I had to figure out much on my own.

The ‘ritual of acquiring tails’ was very complex. Books on Bahion were more theoretical works, so I had to conduct numerous experiments and essentially become a sort of professor, leading an entire Institute of Higher Magic. To accomplish what was impossible for a mere mortal, I used chakra, spider magic, and sacrificial magic in the ritual, as demons were no worse than spiders or elves as sacrifices. I personally verified this.

To be honest, this plan became something of an ‘obsession’ for me. Days and nights were spent studying magic, artifact creation, rituals, and even sacred texts and philosophical treatises. Somewhere in my subconscious, I realized that time was slipping away, and thus I became more and more driven towards my goal.

Much of my plan had to be simplified. Some things I did based on results from practical experiments rather than understanding. In creative bursts, I created an incredible blend of magic and technology. But at one point, I realized—there it was! The entire ritual came together perfectly in my spider’s mind, and I realized I was only a step away from fulfilling my dream.

After that, there were three months of frantic preparations, during which I involved all the inhabitants of my world in one way or another. Now, all the resources of the spider civilization were focused on fulfilling my desire. After all, I was their ancestor, the source of all their knowledge, the one who gave them the dream of reaching the stars and gave meaning to their existence, instructing them to spread the contagion of life throughout the Universe. Millions of spiders were building the Sacred Ziggurat, drawing the patterns of the ritual circle, casting spells, and preparing sacrifices.