Arazmodel first noticed the lack of pain, which was in itself pure bliss.

He cautiously regrew his eyes, and tried to move, but found himself still chained with adamantine links to the floor, and still in the Fateweaver's dungeon.

Then came the realization of why the pain stopped. His vows were gone, erased. The allegiance to his guild, to the scepter, even the contract with that human, Legion.

With a glimmer of hope he tested his magic, founding it working, very weakly, but working!

Good. In a few years he'll be able to erode the mana dampening jade floor, and escape, even if still bound by the damned chains.

His mind entered overdrive, rapidly postulating theories and ways to test them. After a few hours, he reached the obvious conclusion. The wards of the Fateweavers were weakened, which meant... no Chosen was available to reinforce them, even for the highest priority prisoners. Dead, probably.

His vows however, that took more thinking. Most likely the Archdemon was dead, and unable to control the scepter anymore. Arazmodel grinned at the thought.

The crazy human had to be the reason for that.

But how could he win? Even with his pet Greater Demon, even if the Elf King helped...

Arazmodel mused for a while. Then it came to him. The black mace which was not a mace. It seemed it was indeed stronger than the scepter.

That was the only logical conclusion.

Arazmodel thought forward. What would the human do, now that he won?

No doubt liberate more slaves, but that wasn't a goal in itself.

Arazmodel himself was in the midst of doing the same thing, replacing weak humans with enslaved demons. Until the Archdemon captured him at the behest of his advisers, the cursed Fateweavers.

He thought about the human would do, but in truth he couldn't guess. Damn man was too unpredictable for him.

Anyway. He would have to escape first. Rebuild a power base maybe.

A few years passed, but in the end Arazmodel managed, and broke the jade, freeing the adamantine chains from their anchor.

First step complete! Now he had to leave the dungeon...

A rumble and a blinding light enveloped him, and the next second Arazmodel found himself in his old house, free of the chains and face to face with Legion.

"Arazmodel, my old friend! So glad you survived your ordeal!" the human exclaimed with an exuberant voice.

Truth!

The Soultrader hesitated for a second, unsure if this was truly a joyous occasion.

"I had already freed myself, human." he chose to respond. Lie.

"Yes, yes. Almost, but close enough. But beside the chains, there were some tricky vows too, correct?" the smiling human asked rhetorically as he began arranging a table full of deliciously smelling dishes.

Arazmodel nodded and sat down. He had seen the tournament, after all. Between the choices of eating amazing food and getting killed, he chose the former.

An hour later his hunger was sated, and he gulped a jug of fruity wine.

Then the human glanced up. "Didn't have a proper battleship for polite negotiations, so I brought the Elf King instead. I'm afraid most of the planetary defenders will have to attain critical thinking in their next life."

Truth. Arazmodel realized with horror that he hadn't been paying attention to the space around.

The glaring alarm at the presence of the Elf King seeped into his eyes, before he brought himself under control. Critical thinking. Negotiations.

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"My name is Pef Xi, Soldier rank, Veritas Legion." the human said in a different tone, and placed the freaking Archdemon's core on the table.

Truth.

Arazmodel nodded wordlessly and poked the core with wonder. He couldn't use it yet, not before attaining a Greater Demon rank, but that could be fixed much easier.

"Yes. You killed him. So what do you want from me? I'm not in charge of anything." he asked in confusion.

"You're smart. And you proved to learn when you saw there are better options. Perhaps you learned from your suffering as well?" Pef asked with a sad voice.

"I've always known you need power to be free. My brain and skill didn't help me when I was tortured to break my vows." Arazmodel complained with a grimace.

"Exactly. Now you know how those slaves feel. And I'd prefer the demons to survive as a species. Trading partners, shipbuilders, explorers. You can be more than just more barbarians that I have to exterminate." the human said in a soft whisper, then vanished.

On the table, the Archdemon core remained, glowing a beautiful blue and promising immense power. And possibly extermination. So easily given, the core, without any vows. Just as easily taken away then, from his corpse if he misbehaved.

Arazmodel had no illusions, now that the human had revealed his name and origin. If that Legion could make such powerful weapons, another Archdemon would mean nothing to them.

He placed the core in his pocket and headed towards the guild.

It was time Arazmodel took charge, now that he had the backing of his new human friend.

The offices were a mess, with half the staff in tears and half missing.

"Silence!" he yelled. "Who's the highest rank left?" he asked after the demons put themselves together, very slowly.

"Lord Arazmodel!"

"Praise the Nine Hells! You're still alive Lord!"

"Nobody else had returned from the war. Good to have you back, Lord." the secretary demoness explained with a happy sob, while the rest were just happy to see any Soultrader was alive at all.

Made Arazmodel feel strange, since people usually feared him instead of being glad at his appearance. Well, except that strange human.

"Good news is the Archdemon is dead. Bad news, as you all know, the vows are gone. No more Chosen or slave collars." he explained patiently, then took out the glowing core.

Even the lesser demons in the staff could sense it, the amazing power and temptation it held. Power over the galaxy, or so they thought.

A few of the staff even changed their eyes, becoming greedy and treasonous. Poor fools.

Arazmodel smiled cruelly and squeezed with his mind, crushing the few idiots then ripping out their cores, using their own blood. The staff stood straight now, and much more respectful.

"We'll have to adapt and become JadeTraders. Jade and metals like adamantine or gold are still valuable. And there will be plenty of idiot demons trying to test the new regime. They'll be sent to the mines instead of our slaves." he ordered in a loud tone.

The staff, almost a thousand of them rushed to their desks, drawing holojades to begin sending the new orders.

"First order! All treasure ships are load as many slaves and jade as they can carry, then return to the capital as fast as possible." he began yelling as he walked behind each and every employee.

"Two! Prepare a list of our competitors planets and compile them into a map." he added as he noticed Pef appear in their headquarters.

"Three. Pef Xi and his Legion will be given all support if they ask, and complete respect at all times. We don't mess with the people who killed the Archdemon." Arazmodel said with a smaller voice.

Pef walked around, observing his guild's setup with curious but not impressed eyes.

"You'll need bigger offices and a thousand times more workers. Plus an enforcement group. I can provide a thousand cores if you prefer to promote from within." the human said in a thoughtful tone, then simply discarded on the floor a chest-high mound of demon cores, some of them even High Lord quality.

Arazmodel smiled sadly and swept the remains of an entire army into his inner world. "I'm not able to use this core, Lord Pef." he said in a polite tone, offering the Archdemon's core back.

It was all a cruel test, he knew. Think ahead or die. But then human surprised him again.

"Oh. You mean you need to progress in order?" Pef asked with a surprised tone, then offered a fistful of Greater Demon cores.

Arazmodel calculated for a moment, then picked a small and then the largest core in the pile.

Immediately he began draining the essence of this dead demon, adding to his own core bits of lands of the previous owner, even mountains and mines. Of course, anything alive was gone now, as would be items or artifacts brought from outside.

Fragments of body cultivation followed, circulating through him as the core dissolved into essence.

The bigger core bought Arazmodel to the peak, and the small one crossed him over and pushed him in Greater Demon rank.

Pef floated the Archdemon core back at him. "So easy?" the new JadeTrader asked with suspicion.

"Well, I do want to observe what exactly you do when you reach next rank. Let me in." the human said with a gentle voice.

That confirmed it for Arazmodel. To put himself in his power, and enter his inner world?

It would be plain suicide, especially for someone below a fourth tier of soul cultivation.

Except it possibly was another test, and the human was way too strong, playing games with him.

Arazmodel wasn't ready to risk his life, not when an entire galactic army had tried and just died.

He nodded cautiously, and allowed the human inside.

A human female appeared as well, standing beside Pef. She felt alien and deadly, and not quite alive.

"This is Reason, my weapon. Go ahead and ascend to tier 4." Pef said with a finger pointing up.

Arazmodel obeyed, and began draining the Archdemon's core.

The woman began to sing, while Pef took out a bed and went to sleep, ignoring the lava field underneath. He ignored the human and his bed, but the song was really pleasing.

Sometime during the ascension, Arazmodel fell asleep as well.

But when he woke up, the inner world's sky was full of stars.