I felt oddly conflicted as the mage led us down the halls of the keep. It wasn’t because I just witnessed a slaughter that made the morning’s bloodbath seem trivial. It wasn’t even because Naberius’s little show had clearly demonstrated my place at the very bottom of the demonic hierarchy.

It was because part of me was starting to relish the idea of wielding power like that someday. No matter how many times I pushed the longings for power down, they kept bubbling up within me, influenced in no small part by Hayden’s remnant memories.

I had made my choice in the tower. The only way to survive was to keep pursuing this violent path. But the hunger for power? A burning desire not just to survive, but to rise through the ranks? I knew I was missing some of my own memories, but I was pretty sure that went against my original pre-Hayden nature.

Then again, as a demonic soldier and body snatcher, there wasn’t much ‘natural’ left in me.

I tried to focus on my surroundings rather than my inner turmoil, but there wasn’t much to see. The fortress keep’s sole purpose was to provide a decent defensive position if the locals were ever forced to fall back all the way to the city’s heart. No decorations. Little to no furniture. Just endless blank walls and numerous passages meant to confound an invading force.

All the clever designs were pointless in the face of a demon as powerful as our commander.

The defenders tried anyway.

Teams of assassins leapt from the shadows. Troop after troop of knights blocked our path. At one point, two mages on par with the previous champions appeared. All tried desperately to strike down the demon strolling at the head of our procession.

He made a game out of never killing an enemy group the same way twice.

His fire and ice magic came out first, obliterating the first wave of defenders in a matter of seconds. After that, he started to get creative.

Shadows sprang up and turned into nooses that left assassins dangling from the ceiling. The floor opened up and swallowed the two mages. On one particularly notable occasion, he made an entire troop of knights turn on each other and slaughter themselves in mindless rage.

He left the final survivor sobbing on the ground, the man’s mind so far gone that he wasn’t a threat to even the weakest demonic soldier. Not that this moment of mercy mattered much. As I passed the man, I heard the sound of a knife leaving its sheath, followed by wet gurgling.

I didn’t even flinch. Compared to the literal hell my life had become, the man’s suicide meant nothing to me.

What did stir my interest was our arrival at the innermost chamber of the fortress’ keep. An absolutely massive table dominated the center of the room, with a map strewn over its entire length. From my position, I couldn’t inspect the map in detail, but I could see it depicted a huge continent spanning a multitude of kingdoms. It looked like the largest kingdom, the one in the center, had driven all its neighbors to the edges of the landmass. Figures and notes were crammed into that kingdom’s space on the map, likely denoting important troop movements.

It all went right over my head. Neither Hayden nor I had received any map training, and I couldn’t decipher the foreign writing. But the longer I stared at the strange letters, they began shift around, slowly rearranging themselves into something I could recognize.

“It has come to this then,” an elderly man in full plate armor said with a bitter voice. He stood at the head of the table, helmet under one arm, glaring at our commander with fearless hatred. His aristocratic face was unnaturally pale. “Do you intend to make me beg for my life too? I assume that is what my daughter did, considering she led you here.”

“Really?” Naberius sounded amused. He glanced at the mage, who winced and dropped her eyes. “I had no idea you were so… important.”

“She is not,” her father said harshly. “She is a traitor, and nothing more. I warn you, demon, you might as well kill me now. I will not —”

The man’s voice cut off with a wheeze as the demon teleported right next to him in a dramatic shower of sparks and closed his fingers around the human’s throat.

Casually, the demon said, “It appears there has been a misunderstanding. I was sent to conquer this land. For that, certain traditions must be kept. And those traditions, I’m afraid, quite thoroughly preclude your survival.”

Then, with the same apparent nonchalance, the demon drove his right hand into the man’s stomach.

The enemy leader screamed. His daughter doubled over, covering her eyes.

“Hmmm… let’s see…” my commander muttered to himself. His hand was still buried inside the man’s stomach, rooting around in search of something specific. “I’m going to need four volunteers, so… yes, you will do nicely.”

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His eyes flashed, and four of my fellow soldiers disappeared from our ranks, appearing in equidistant locations around the city’s unfortunate ruler.

Naberius began to chant. His voice rose and fell in an oddly calming cadence, echoing off the walls until it felt like there was a whole chorus chanting with him. As the chanting reached a crescendo, cracks started to form across the chamber’s walls, ripping through the very fabric of reality. A reddish glow leaked through the cracks, casting a sickly glow over the gruesome scene.

My mind was drowning in a strange mix of horror and awe. I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing, but I also couldn’t look away.

I didn’t want to.

Finally, the demon’s hand found what it was looking for in the enemy leader’s stomach, and pulled. His victim’s flesh tore open even wider, innards spilled out and squirming over the floor like snakes. But not a single drop of blood spilled from the grisly wounds.

And still, the man kept screaming.

The commander gently placed his claws right under the human’s neck, sank them deep into his flesh, and pulled down, tearing the man’s chest completely open. It feels wrong to describe such careless violence with a phrase like ‘surgical precision,’ but there was no other way to put it. The demon was a master.

The enemy leader was now screaming so loudly I thought I’d go deaf, but Naberius just continued his work undeterred. One by one, he tore out the man’s organs and tossed them carelessly aside. Soon the only thing left in the human’s torso was an angrily thumping heart and its network of arteries.

The man should have been dead long ago, but he only looked like he was hoping to die. At least his vocal cords had worn out, so the screams had ceased. When Naberius gently laid him on the floor of the room, right in the center of the four-soldier square, his only sign of life was a weak gurgle.

“Bow.”

The word echoed out of Naberius’s throat, somehow independent of the chant he still maintained, and the soldiers robotically obeyed. They leaned over the tormented human, their heads almost touching.

Gently, almost lovingly, the commander moved from soldier to soldier. One by one, he cupped his hand around each bowed head. Each time, his claws shot out, slitting each helpless throat.

It was clear that the soldiers were aware of what was happening. But it was equally clear that there was nothing they could do about it. By the time it was the fourth soldier’s turn, he was shaking so badly that he shouldn’t even have been still standing, but the demon commander’s will held him firmly in place. His throat was cut too, sending his lifeblood spilling over the heart of the fortress city’s leader.

I watched, transfixed, as the four soldiers’ bodies were forced to pump every last drop of their blood into the man’s chest cavity, nearly filling it up.

This isn’t possible, a small part of my brain insisted. I ignored it.

Naberius and his barbaric ritual clearly didn’t care about ‘possible.’

When their job was done, the four soldiers collapsed into piles of ash. The commander bent down with a smile on his face. He carefully observed the blood, dipping his fingers in that cast off concentric ripples. Slowly, the blood darkened, itself turning to ash until the man’s chest cavity was filled with the sooty substance.

The demon plunged his hands into the cavity. With one final heave, he ripped out his enemy’s heart.

The human’s voice returned. He screamed louder than ever as a wave of light peeled off of his body. For a moment, an ethereal outline of the man hovered above his mangled remains. Then it was sucked into the heart held in the demon’s hand.

The organ was no longer a thing of flesh and blood. It was entirely crystalline. Yet still it pulsed, sending ripples of reddish mana out into the room.

The demon spoke. His words thrummed with power, shaking the foundation of reality.

“Blood of the world, blood of the land, blood of the honored. I bind all three together, and tie them to the blood of your enemies. Let this hallowed heart be an offering, so this plane shall forevermore be connected to the Abyss.”

Suddenly, Naberius cast the heart upon the ground. The ground opened to swallow the offering.

A moment later, a gush of mana erupted from that opening, so potent and foul that I nearly lost my footing. The hall rippled like waves in a storm. Strange veins of red energy spread through the stone, staining the room with unholy light.

Some part of me, though I didn’t know whether it belonged to me or to Hayden, knew with absolutely certainty that everything previously under the city leader’s command was now irreversibly marked and corrupted.

It all belonged to the demons now.

“Ahhhh…”

The demon shook himself off like a dog might, then turned and looked at us with a smile.

“That always feel so… electrifying. A little piece of home, brought into the material plane to make our jobs a little easier.”

Naberius scanned us again. He nodded. Then he leaned against the table, heedless of any disruption to the map and its carefully positioned markers.

“I understand that this day has been trying for you. Fear not! It is over. This city is won, and I recognize all of you as soldiers of my legion. That comes with certain benefits.

“First, in spite of your unfortunate mortal status, you will not be mistreated by others under my command. In fact, so long as you continue to serve me and our master faithfully, I’ll guarantee your prosperity.

“Second, when you venture outside, you will also discover a whole host of useful services, vendors, and even several establishments you might like to visit. I advise you to square away your dues first, then look into ways to bolster your growth.

“Third, remember, this is your very first campaign! That means your dues are extremely low at the moment, and you can pursue the many avenues of growth freely. This is a benefit unique to those only just starting out in the legion. Get in as large a burst of growth as you can before the opportunity is cut short. With enough effort, you can cast off your current shackles.

“Finally, you should take every chance to rest. As I said before, you are only mortal, and we will be heading out soon to further our conquest. For now… dismissed. Ah, not you, my dear.” Naberius turned his attention to the human mage. “You are going to stay here so we can have a chat.”

With those ominous words ringing in my ears, I finally gave in to the instinct my body had been screaming at me for a while. Power-walking out of that room, a part of my mind was eager to see the ‘opportunities’ that Naberius had mentioned.

But honestly, I was far more relieved to get as far away from his presence as I could.