A man in his late twenties clicked his tongue when reading the page before him. He put the page down and looked at the door of the room.

“When is Lucille returning?” Vincent murmured. He flinched when the door creaked open.

“Hey, Vincent!” a humanoid snake said, poking his head around the doorway.

“Oh, it’s you, Scytale.” Vincent sighed and picked a pen up. “Is it important? If it isn’t, I’d like to finish this lot of work first.”

“Well.. kinda, kinda not.”

Vincent rubbed his neck and rolled his eyes. “Never mind. Just tell me.”

“I wanted to say I’d be meeting up with Lucy if you need to know why we could be out longer than normal,” Scytale said, raising a hand.

“Oh… I suppose that makes sense.” Vincent nodded as Scytale ducked back out of the room. Then Vincent blinked. “But wait, Scytale! Where are you going?”

Scytale poked his head back in. “The Demon Realm!” Before Vincent could reply, he raised a finger. “To complete our next three Stages!” The amphiptere ran off.

Vincent slumped as he let out a sigh, sitting in the armchair. “That scared me for a moment.” He went silent and then frowned as a thought occurred to him. “Didn’t Lucille have her escapade around this time last year?”

He looked up, narrowed his eyes at the door, and then saw his remaining work. Vincent groaned. “I think I’ll finish this and ask Marellen what ‘Paragon Anomalies’ are…”

----------------------------------------

Lucille stirred the cup of glowing orange liquid with a spoon and sipped it, closing her eyes. “This tea is quite a delicacy. Demonic Firemane, did you say?”

“Yes, a specialty from one of the Marches under the Infernal Duchy’s rule.” Duke Reighdorlan Nefas Infernalis walked over and sat opposite her with his arms crossed. “But I believe it would be time for you to explain what connection you have with the newly destroyed County,” he stated solemnly. The seven flames within his irises, each representing one of the Flames of Sin of his clan, burned viciously.

She placed the cup down and bowed deeply in her chair. “I was only the middleman between His Majesty and the representatives of the House of Wordless Observers. I relayed their words to him and he gave them written permission to freely enter and exit any Dominion of this Realm during the period of the mission.”

“The House…” The Infernal Duke scratched his beard. “What have they done to provoke them?”

“Support the Malediction Society, Your Grace,” Lucy replied respectfully. “As I’m sure you’re aware, it is the ongoing goal of the Court and the House to eradicate Heretic items.”

“But why have they involved themselves with the Demon Realm now?” The Duke said, leaning forward.

Lucy dipped her head and placed a hand on her chest. “Because I reached out to them, Your Grace. They wish to use my ties to His Majesty.”

“Yes… which brings me to my next question.” The Infernal Duke stood up and flicked his wrist.

Lucille flew out of her chair and was pinned against the back wall. She stayed still as the powerful demon approached. One pair of the flames in his eyes grew brighter than the others until the ominous deep purple flames flickered in both of his irises.

“Who are you, that I should believe your words without proof?” The purple Flames of Luxuria flickered around his body, one of the seven Flames of Sin. The flames, capable of ordering someone to do anything when used, licked at her skin when he placed a hand on her neck. “Tell me the truth: why should I value what you say?”

Instead of reacting as he expected, Lucille smiled and rebuffed the demonic ability with her spiritual energy. She dropped to the ground and stood up while brushing herself off. “You shouldn’t be too hasty to pressure someone, Your Grace. You might make a mistake if you’re not careful.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, the seven flames returning only to switch to the vivid red Flames of Ira. “Oh?”

The power of Wrath burned around him until Lucy held up her left hand to show him the glowing demonic pact. “I’m the only contractor of the Demon Emperor,” she stated nonchalantly. “That’s also why he decided to dump me in your study.”

He stared at the sigil and then at her. “When…”

“Did the Abyssal Duchess not tell you about me?” Lucy asked, raising an eyebrow as she pulled her glove back on.

Duke Nefas Infernalis scoffed and walked over to a window. “That ancient witch wouldn’t give me the time of day if it benefited me in the slightest.” He glanced back at her and frowned. “I suppose you have no reason to lie if you’re his contractor… not that I’d be able to force the truth out of you with the powers His Majesty has bestowed on you…”

“The contract didn’t give me any powers. My immunity to your abilities was an effect of my soulbound weapons,” Lucille told him while checking her pocket watch.

“Hm…” He tilted his head. “And why would you reveal this to me?”

Lucy smirked and gave him a bow. “Why, as we are both fellow subordinates of His Majesty, we should have a relationship of understanding between us. Besides…” She got on one knee and saluted him while grinning. “A humble, lowly mortal Count such as I wouldn’t dare to play tricks on the mighty Infernal Duke. That would be inconceivably disrespectful!”

The dark-haired demon chuckled and held out a gloved hand to her, politely pulling her back up. “I’m beginning to find myself liking you, Lucille Goldcroft. What a shame that there isn’t much opportunity for us to meet like this.”

“Opportunity? I see…” Lucille glanced at the door and then shot him a wry look. “There happened to be a deal I wanted to suggest to the Abyssal Duchess, considering that the contract with His Majesty included a condition that the Demon Duchies wouldn’t interfere with the Commission’s deals in the Demon Realm.” She spread her hands wide. “But with the Demon Duke of the largest Ducal clan in the Demon Realm right in front of me, how dare I consider going to another Demon Duchy?”

“Curious.” The Infernal Duke smirked. “So then, what grand proposition did you plan on making to dear Lilith?”

Lucy’s smile widened and she dipped her head. “Well, there have been some ongoing plans to turn the Black County’s black market dimensions into a space where the races are equal and freer amongst each other while in secrecy. This would, of course, eventually require the backing of a powerful demon clan…”

…

[Secondary Skill: Reward | Type: Demonic/Lexicon ]

Rarity: Ancient

Desc: Not many are brave enough to request a reward from the Demon Emperor himself. Nor do many have the sheer audacity to do so. Most consider surviving a meeting with him their reward. You’re a living miracle, in more ways than one.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Kudos to you for finally getting A########### to do something for a change, I guess.

Abilities:

Polyhistor of Daemons – A genius scholar of the Great Beings.

* Due to the User’s expertise in a multitude of areas regarding the Great Beings, this has amplified the skill to grant them the ability to understand Ancient Daemon traces and sigils.

Demonologist of the P̸̨̬̗͕͉̣̺̞̝̟͚͓͎̲̔̾̈́̃̔̎̓͛͂̊ŗ̷̨̡̱̼͇̦̱̟̘̖̗̺̼̅̀͆͌͂͂͆͗͠͠1̸͓̖̩̞̘̪̝͉͇̭̝̞̀m̸̧̧̺͎͉̺̼͈̠̺͙̣̠̋̇̑0̷̡͖̦̯̱̺̐̒̾̚̕͜͜G̸̡̙̺͎̺̪̘̪̹̫̥̥̝̼̎̆̈̾̌̄̉͋͘͝3̸̢̢̫̱͍̫̰̮͎͍̼̥̿̉͜͜N̶̢̲̹̝͇̜͔͍̈́̏̏̓̈́̊̿͛̄̑̾͒̕ͅ1̸̹͎͇̫̭͇̻̗̮̤̑͊͂͗+̸̨̃̓̎̉̆͘̚Ø̵̢̰̬̠̙͚̲̠̗̗̎̏̽r̴̩̞̘̮̫͕̊̀͜ͅ - Sorry. Can’t let you see that.

* Grants the User the ability to use memorised characters of the demonic script to cast demonic spells. User cannot verbally speak demonic spells but may use other mediums.

* User may further their capabilities as their comprehension of demonic script grows.

[ ]

It occurred with my Origin Skill too, but that… ‘entity’ is definitely communicating to me through skills and such. I thought they were supposed to remain impartial?

Not that they seemed very impartial when it came to their Authorizer. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have had to deal with such an unfair contract in the first place.

Did they remove that title because it’s related to the Demon Emperor? But they mentioned Ancient Daemons in the line above just fine. Don’t tell me he’s more than just the enemy of Primarchs like all Ancient Daemons-

“Heeeeey! Luuuuucy! Over heeeeeere!”

She sighed and turned around to face her obnoxious bond, pushing through the crowd to get to her. He let out a groan when he arrived.

“How unfair is it that as soon as I arrive, I get told to teleport to another Stronghold entirely?” Scytale complained, panting with his hands on his knees. “What the hell happened for you to be in the capital city of the Infernal Duchy?”

“Demon Emperor. That’s what happened.” Lucille looked behind them and then grabbed her bond’s wrist to take him over to the Obelisk they were nearby. “You have the teleports to spare, anyway.”

They stepped through the black archway and found themselves in the Obelisk cube, hovering above the Stronghold.

[Do you want to continue the Stages in Team Mode or Solo Mode?]

[Team Mode/Solo Mode]

Scytale hit [Team Mode] without bothering to talk to her. “Time to get this thing rolling! I want to see what’s on the other side of that tunnel!”

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “I would’ve thought you had forgotten about that.”

He squinted at her. “I’m not that scatterbrained.”

She shrugged as they were teleported into the System limbo and the Stage selection list came up.

[Welcome to the S.T.A.G.E.S!]

Available S.T.A.G.E.S (Demon Realm):

Completion Rate: 0%

Stage 11: The Escape from Cressilin Stronghold (COMPLETED)

Stage 12: Blackbrook Woods (COMPLETED)

Stage 13: Haven of the Heathen (COMPLETED)

Stage 14: Ancient Daemon Seal (UNLOCKED)

Stage 15: LOCKED

Stage 16: LOCKED

Stage 17: LOCKED

Stage 18: LOCKED

Stage 19: LOCKED

Stage 20: LOCKED

[Please complete Stage 14 to proceed to the next stage.]

Lucy’s gaze went flat as she saw the name of the next stage. “I don’t think I’ll like where this is going,” she stated flatly.

“What’s the problem? You’ve had tooons of experience with ye olde abominations like these.” Scytale put his hands behind his head. “True, we never interacted with the demon kind specifically, what with their role as being enemies of Primarchs and avoiding the poor mortals and whatnot, but we’ll be fine.”

She sighed and spun around to put her hands on his shoulders. “Scytale. What Rank were we last time we met an incarnation of a Great Being?”

“What kind of question is that? We were Rank…. 7…” His words trailed off and he began to look slightly sheepish as their reality dawned on him. Then he shook his head. “Nah, we’re still good. Even after the Cosmic Realm, the Demon Realm never had to deal with them. The System has been protecting us from all the big tough guys from day one.”

“And what time period do you think your Beast Realm Stages were set in?” she said in a deadpan voice.

“Obviously that’s-”

“Before the Tower assimilation. So, with all the Stages presumably being the same, there is no unidentifiable force of extraterrestrial origins to save the day and protect our souls from becoming Ancient Daemon sacrificial food.” Lucy turned back to the list, looking pensive.

Scytale screwed up his nose while thinking. “Do Ancient Daemons… use souls as food?”

Lucille shrugged. “I don’t know. As you said, we’ve never really interacted with them. The chaotic forces of nature they are, they just spontaneously arrived whenever an incarnation was around and began fighting them. Nobody knows if you can communicate with them in the first place.”

“Yeah, but…” Scytale leaned his elbow on Lucy’s shoulder. “Didn’t you tell me that the big bad Demon Emperor is an Ancient Daemon? You can obviously speak to him.”

“Like I said, I just don’t know,” Lucille replied with a sigh. “I thought he might’ve been, but when he brought it up in one of our meetings he got angry, and then my new skill is weird…” She shook her head. “I’ll do some research on Ancient Daemons once we leave here if it’s relevant to me and my contract with the Demon Emperor. It might be a little easier now that I’ve made that agreement with the Infernal Duke…”

“Sure, but…” Scytale tapped on Stage 14. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

…

[S.T.A.G.E.S | Stage 14: Ancient Daemon Seal]

You have found the first of many clues to locating your objective. But what you do not know is that your journey is far from over. For what you seek has been sealed away… for the protection of the world above. Are you prepared to face the consequences of your thirst for knowledge?

You may forever abandon hope of returning to your home realm if you continue.

[Collapse]

Main Quest (Rank-2: Demon Realm) Overall Objective:

* Last two weeks while being pursued by forces so that the stolen treasure you carry can be placed on the summoning ritual along with yourselves.

Sub-Objectives – Stage 11:

Compulsory:

* Locate the ruins.

Optional:

* Document the timeline.

* Determine the true identity of the Ancient Daemon.

[]

[Completion Rate: 30%]

“Oh great, it’s not even being subtle anymore. There is an Ancient Daemon down here,” Lucy stated dryly.

“What in the realms is a ‘Regolith’?” Scytale asked.

“A layer above the bedrock.” She glanced at her bond. “This is relevant to us because?”

“I have to… analyse the composition of the regolith?” he read with confusion.

Scytale looked at her, and Lucille sighed. “It seems I’ll be doing the analysing. Remember that our identities in the Stages are researchers, so we get a lot of tasks like this.”

“What possessed the System to think that I would make a good researcher?” Scytale asked with incredulity.

“But we suspected that the System made changes to our Stages because of me this time around, didn’t we?” Lucy walked forward, into the doorway under the eight demonic signs. “Come on, let’s get a move on.”

The tunnel was surrounded by walls of glassy black stone, as if a river had flowed down for thousands of years, carving out a path. It was clear by the chiselled steps they were walking down that it wasn’t wholly natural, however. Or could it be considered natural when Ancient Daemons were almost part of the realm itself?

It soon got too dark for them to see much without getting annoyed, so Lucille summoned a small orb of light to hover above her finger. As they descended, she traced her fingers along an interesting pattern of repeating characters that appeared the entire way down the tunnel.

“So… who made this kind of place?” Scytale wondered aloud, clearly expecting an answer of some kind from her.

“How should I know? I’m not a demon,” Lucy retorted.

“Ugh, why has your seemingly endless knowledge begun to fail us only now!” he complained, stomping loudly down the stairs. “Do you not know anything about this place? Really? Not even a guess?”

“Look, Scytale.” Lucille sighed and increased the glow of the light to see further. “I’ve spent much less time in the Demon Realm compared to the other realms. I snuck into the Daemonium Palace’s Crypt during my first long-term stay, and that was mostly to understand the demonic language better.”

She paused for a moment when the edge of a step crumbled slightly and then continued moving. “That was before I began to explore the older places of the Cosmic Realm. Eventually, I found out more about the current Demon Emperor and… internally swore off investigating more about him.” Lucy frowned. “It didn’t help me to do that. I would’ve researched about them if I knew he was the Authorizer.”

Scytale crossed his arms. “Okay, but… if you were to guess, who made these?”

“My guess is that they come with the Ancient Daemon.” Lucy landed on the last step and stopped to investigate a demonic rune engraved on a slightly different wall. “Like Primarchs. The ‘ruins’ it wants us to investigate bear characteristics similar to the places the demon frequented in their lower race life before becoming an Ancient Daemon.”

[Sub-Objective complete: Locate the Ruins]

[Completion Rate +2%]

[New! Completion Rate: 32%]

Scytale stumbled. “Wait, demons can become Ancient Daemons?”

She turned around. “You didn’t know that? Well, it’s only demons at the same power level as the Demon Dukes who also manage to obtain-”

Something caught Lucille’s eye and she went over to a wall just before a wide opening. Scytale raised an eyebrow and followed her in, to where a large life-sized statue sat in the middle of the room. Rings of uncanny demonic script, eerily different yet with some similarities to the normal script, were engraved into the floor around the statue’s base.

Scytale whistled when he saw the statue. “Someone had a type when they carved her out. Wait, you said it came with the Ancient Daemon. Does that mean this is the ideal type of the Ancient Daemon? I can appreciate their taste.”

Lucy looked over her shoulder to give her bond a flat look and then observed the statue. The curvy woman was cloaked in only a single sheet that wrapped around her and covered her head. Her hair fell to her feet, and her wrists and ankles were adorned with antiquated bracelets. Demonic script wrapped around her skin and dipped down from her neck to her chest and over her breasts. It probably covered her whole body.

Lucy walked over and crouched to read the inscription at the base of the statue. “When translated, this can roughly read as ‘She In Her Scarlet Raiment Who Blesses With Vengeance’. Not very descriptive, but then again, not many Ancient Daemon titles are.”

Scytale looked around. He scratched his head. “Where’s the notification for having found her true name, if this is the Ancient Daemon?”

“That’s just the title she received upon becoming an Ancient Daemon.” Lucille stood up and looked around, then walked over to a wall with engraved imagery. It looked like the panorama spanned the entirety of the circular room’s walls. “We need to work out what her actual name could’ve been.”

“Not True Name, I hope,” Scytale asked suspiciously.

“No, just her common name.” Lucy traced the fire pattern the young demoness was casting with her hands and compared it to the picture of the flames on the signboard of the palace in the background. “It looks like she was an Infernal Demon. She’s using the Flames of Ira, so she came from a family branch that specialised in the Wrath abilities.”

Scytale looked at the woman and nodded. “Her title says she wears scarlet, so… yep, I can see that. She also ‘Blesses with Vengeance’. I can’t see that being the ability of the Luxuria branch. They’re too interested in seducing poor plebs.”

“Nefas Infernalis as the last name, an Ira derivative for her middle name,” Lucy mused, walking over to the next scene where the demoness was burning an entire army. “There are three possible middle names for female demons that were Ira derivatives. But first name…”

The last scene had her ascension to Ancient Daemon. A strange orb was held in her hands, and the scene depicted her stuck in a mid-way point between the form of the Ancient Dameon statue and her original body. Lucille tilted her head when she noticed there were minuscule characters engraved across the forehead of the reflection of the demoness in the orb.

“Hellawes Irada Nefas Infernalis. Hellawes Iradian Nefas Infernalis,” Lucy stated out loud. “Hellawes Irandes… Nefas Infernalis.”

The grey statue in the centre of the room glowed with blood light. The sheet she was wrapped in bloomed with colour until the pale grey skin of the statue demoness was wrapped in crimson… or scarlet, robes.

[Sub-Objective Complete: Determine the true identity of the Ancient Daemon.]

[Completion Rate: +2%]

[New! Completion Rate: 34%]

Lucille looked at Scytale. “That was easy, wasn’t it? Now I just need to write down her most important life events on paper…”