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Path to Prosperity - B3 Chapter 44 - Interlude
🕑 Added 2024-12-13 11:00:06 +0000 UTCThe streams of mana flickered violently, trying to escape the darkness pursuing it.
It wiggled and writhed desperately, but it was to no avail. The corruption had already spread too far. Too long. It couldn’t be stopped anymore. It…was everywhere.
A big mass of darkness clinged onto the wide streams of mana, its tendrils reaching out to the massive river hidden from the mortals’ eyes. It infested the mana, devoured it, tarnished everything it touched, and expanded quickly.
The mass looked like the spot Percy saw in the Beastlands’ mana vein before. It looked the same and had the same functions, but it wasn’t the same. The darkness wasn’t in the Beastlands, yet it could be found not too far away.
If it hadn’t been too late already.
The darkness had been nourished for a long time, right before mankind’s eyes, yet too obvious to be discovered.
It trembled violently and split open. The darkness spread out explosively, creating ripples in the stale air as it cut through the fabric of space and reality. The darkness bubbled, burst, and expanded until it filled the gloomy cave. It calmed down and stopped moving, stabilizing as the darkness in its center was replaced by something else.
Boiling lakes filled with lava and magma flowing out of massive ponds replaced the gloomy darkness. Tendrils of darkness swept around, thrashing the Demons kneeling before a gargantuan obsidian throne. A great creature sat atop the obsidian throne, the most remarkable piece of furniture in the cold and empty palace.
The palace occupied an entire mountain and seemed to be alive. Shadowy tendrils bursting in all directions, swallowing everything in their path, yet most shadows wreathed the creature sitting on the throne. The shadows shifted, gathered, and compressed around the creature, seemingly forming an armor.
Upon discovering the other side of the portal made of darkness, the creature got up from the throne. Its red, almost crimson, eyes glowed dangerously, its excitement overwhelming the Demons kneeling around it. The Demons’ lifeforce drained rapidly as the creature walked past them, but it didn’t pay any attention to them, even after the collapsed dead to the throne hall’s grounds.
A tendril of darkness burst out of the creature, swallowing the carcass whole. Nobody paid attention to it, even as a deafening crunch resounded.
“Disgusting,” An eerily cold voice rang out as the creature approached the portal. The darkness around its legs wiggled and expanded uncontrollably as it strode forward, but the creature didn’t seem to care. It was still far from its former peak, but the Seven Hells weren’t enough anymore. The Seven Hells had never been enough.
The mortal realm was much better…tastier…
The creature’s red eyes glowed even more vibrantly. It released a wave of darkness, stirring the Demons hibernating across its domain awake.
“Prepare for the final battle,” it hissed to the creatures of its domain. It arrived before the portal, studied it for a moment, and stepped through it ever so slowly. Your time will come.”
…
The portal distorted, black lightning bursting in all directions, melting through the stone around them. It expanded by force as the first foot of the creature emerged on the other side and tore apart once the rest of the creature’s body followed.
A hoarse laugh escaped the creature’s lips. It looked around, darkness and hunger filling every inch in a range of hundreds of meters.
“Perfect,” The creature muttered, its words powerful enough to crack the ground underfoot.
The portal behind the creature shut tightly, and the river of mana dimmed. It couldn’t be accessed anymore.
“That’s a shame,” The creature tilted its head but conceded with a simple shrug, “Whatever.”
It had succeeded. At last, he had returned to the mortal realm.
The Devil had returned…and he was hungry.
***
The Devil reached the surface within minutes. His pitch-black skin stretched thin with every move, and darkness oozing out of him tainted mana and all life in its wake.
He emerged in a large man-made hall blocked by massive steel gates. Dozens of minuscule runic enchantments appeared in his view, but the Devil snorted in disgust.
“Pathetic.”
His scaled tail swept across the stone floor and smashed heavily into the steel gate, ripping it out of its hinges in one go. The runic steel gates crashed heavily into the opposite wall while the Devil adjusted his size to walk through the gates.
He found a flight of stairs to the first floor and walked upstairs without care. The scent of death, both Demons and humans must have died there some time ago, but the Devil just smiled.
He was back. Nothing else mattered at this point.
At last, he reached the surface for good. The Devil arrived amidst abandoned ruins, the remnants of Demonic Essence and death still apparent.
The Devil waved his arms, and tens of glistening crimson marbles emerged from the darkness.
The marbles were well-nourished Infernal Lair Seeds, and the Devil was in the Moonlight Forest, where enough prey was waiting to be hunted and devoured.
“Come out,” The Devil called out, the Infernal Lair Seeds burst apart, forming portals to the Seven Hells.
“Conquer the Moonlight Forest…”
The Devil roared, the first Demons emerging from the Infernal Lair.
“Then we conquer the mortal realm!”
