***The Infernal Plane of Lust***

***Amon***

The dawn of a new morning had arrived and all of us were exhausted after having to run through the entire night, fearing that an enemy search party might be just behind us.

But nobody could go on forever, and so Philomena landed in one of the many valleys once the sky began to brighten back to its daylight violet. She was clearly exhausted when Uphir and I arrived shortly after we had seen her descend.

We were joined by two of the prisoners who managed to follow us. One was a demon with a very human-like physique just like myself, only that he had a crown of horns on an otherwise bald head. He was dressed in black robes and had no other distinct features aside from the fact that he looked a little older than me.

The other newcomer was a demoness with a messed up mane of yellow hair and pale skin. A central white horn adorned her forehead and if it weren't for the long, reptilian tail that waved behind her I would have joked about her being related to a unicorn.

The third of the unknown prisoners was absent, but I didn't truly believe that he had been caught. Thanks to the mana manipulation technique I was able to feel the energy signatures of others to some degree and while I couldn't identify auras yet, I was fairly certain that the third prisoner had veered off direction early during our escape. It hadn't felt like he had lost his way, and apparently simply chose to make his own escape instead of staying with us.

That still left Philomena, Kitia, Uphir, and me, with quite the strange group dynamic. The three of them were a tight unit with me being a somewhat known outsider. On top of that came now the two strangers who had chosen to follow us.

I decided that it was best to say nothing for the moment and see how all of this would work out, so I plopped my ass onto the mossy ground and produced one of my military rations. Buying a stash of several dozen of them was such a good move on my part. If Betsy ever decided on summoning me again, I would certainly also stock up on those aside from the bullets.

Frowning, I promised myself to write a list of things to shop for so that I wouldn't forget. Hopefully, Betsy hadn't deleted my shopping list from her computer.

The demon with the crown of horns was the first to break the silence. He positioned himself in front of us with a very self-assured demeanour and somehow managed to smile down on the whole group. “I am Everik, the Flametongue. And all of you would be well advised to follow me from now on if you know what is good for you.”

Kitia, Philomena, and Uphir shared a look, while the other demoness seemed undecided on what to do. She stood a little to the side and farther away from Everik, but unicorn-girl clearly wasn't in his camp. The situation seemed like a very strange social stand-off between several factions.

I freely admitted that I wasn't an expert in social interactions, but this Everik fellow didn't seem to grasp that he stood against at least three or even four people who would form a unified front. Or he simply believed himself to be powerful enough to subdue all of us.

Uphir took a step away from the other demon. “What reason would we have to follow you? If you haven't noticed, we just wished to get Kitia out. Freeing you was only a side-effect.”

I kept eating.

Everik raised his chin. “Isn't it obvious? I am the strongest here, so it is my right to lead the rest of you.”

Uphir, Kitia, and Philomena looked to me as if they were one organism, then took a decided step away from me. The unicorn-demon took note of their strange behaviour and also increased her own safety distance towards me.

I blinked and looked at my minions with a hurt expression. Did they intentionally try to direct the idiot's attention towards me?

It came just as I feared.

Everik looked towards me, noticing that I was somewhat ignoring his posing. “You! Why are you eating right now when someone else is claiming dominance? Are you even a proper demon?”

“Because I am hungry,” I explained as I ripped open the package with the cookies. Those were always the best from the field rations, so I went for them first.

“Well, you are not hungry right now, because we still have an hour to go before we reach the next settlement, and I am not going to be caught out here while you weaklings are resting!” Everik griped.

I shoved another cookie into my mouth, wondering what he knew about the local lay of the land, but my obvious ignorance of his order apparently did it for him. He pointed a finger, and a small fireball shot out, hitting the ration package on my lap.

Food exploded all over me and the flames of the localized explosion singed me slightly as I cursed and rolled to my feet. I hit my chest and activated my armour with a shout right before I charged the other demon who slipped out from between my arms with a surprised expression.

I turned and followed, casting out a web of mana in an attempt to restrain him while he retaliated with a breath of blue flames that flowed ineffectively over my armour.

Trying my telekinesis, I mentally reached for him, but interfering with his body directly failed completely, so I instead went for some rocks and shot them at the nuisance. He simply slid out of the path of my attack with ease yet again, giving me pause this time. Something made it impossible to affect him with magical or physical skills.

Whatever he was doing, it seemed too perfect to be anything less than a skill. Did he have something that allowed for perfect evasion? If so, then that was a huge ability.

I roared and summoned a mana stick to test my theory, then hurled the tightly packed piece of energy at the one who was mocking me. The infuriating bastard didn't even move his legs as his upper body tilted to the side just enough to avoid the projectile. It hit the ground somewhere behind him and fractured, spraying the surroundings with its shards. But even those were no problem, as Everik just did a backflip without even looking at the danger. His body just moved flawlessly once it became necessary.

How could I defeat someone without hitting him or a single one of my spells or touching him?

If he can't be targeted, then don't aim, you fool!

Slightly angered at the voice in my head, I prepared as Everik decided to go for a larger fireball this time. But I simply knelt down and took it, relying on the automatic activation of my Infernal Shield while I threw out more of my mana without aiming directly at him.

This time, he didn't slide to the side, simply because it wasn't necessary.

I tanked another fireball before my improvised technique went off. The mana which I had so generously expended formed into a cone above Everik from which I expanded it to a cylinder as large and as quickly as I could.

Right before the strain threatened for me to lose control of all of the energy, I simply dismissed the lower end of the mana construct which was pointed at my opponent. Everik started moving, but it was already far too late by that point. There was a sharp hiss as the previously vacuumed space filled with air, sucking the other demon right off his feet and into the tapered tube.

Everik might be capable of perfect evasion, but there was nothing to be done once my impromptu creation sucked him up with the force of a jet engine thanks to the telekinetic force effect which I had added as rune magic along the cone. It was the first time that I had tried that, but rune magic practically offered itself as a natural combination to mana control.

His upper body fit the large end of the hole just so, and the droning hiss of the air was abruptly cut off with a resounding ‘plop’ as Everik's body hit the cone's lower end. Thankfully, I had seen to it that it was able to withstand the physical forces that came into play. Everik was compressed in ways his body wasn't meant to and consequently sucked through a hole the size of my fist.

This resulted in a fountain of blood and gore that painted the inside of my mana construction. Within moments, the insides of the cylinder were red.

Exhausted, I dismissed the energy and allowed my hands to fall. Once the mana was no longer under my direct control, it simply dispersed and allowed the goo that represented Everik's remains to fall to the ground with a wet splash.

I looked to the others who had distanced themselves from the battle, with the unicorn-girl now suspiciously hiding behind the others. “Uphir, fetch the tongue.”

The other demon looked at the pile and then back to me. “Do I really have to?”

“Tongue.”

“It's just going to be minced meat after what you did,” he winced but moved towards the goo.

Whatever goodies Everik’s remains held, I doubted that it would be worth my dignity to search through that mess. I decided to stay well away from the gore and only enticed Uphir towards action, “Tongue.”

Uphir gagged and covered his nose. Apparently his current evolution was gifted with a good ability for smell. “No, just no! Look! The faeces are all mixed in with the rest! I promised myself to never do such a thing again after my evolution. Baaar’s sewers were enough!”

I pulled down the corners of my mouth as I tried to imagine how tongue spiced with faeces would taste. It probably wasn't worth the experience. “Fine, no tongue.”

“Oh, thank the Infernum!” Uphir quickly distanced himself from the ugliness on the ground.

My own attention turned towards the unicorn-girl. “You!”

She dropped to her knees and kowtowed. “I won't challenge you! You are the master. What do you want? Sex? A minion? Please don't kill me. My tongue isn't tasty! I will do anything...” Her mouth kept moving, not allowing me to get a word in. At least twenty seconds passed before I couldn't take it any longer.

“Shut uuup!” I screamed.

Surprisingly, the unicorn-girl did so.

“Don't say anything! Just point in the direction of the settlement which the corpse mentioned – if you know the region,” I instructed, feeling that this one was in need of a gag.

She pointed somewhere to her left without looking up.

I rubbed my face, or at least I tried to, realizing too late that the faceplate was in the way. After deactivating the armour, I gestured towards the indicated direction and started walking. “Let's find ourselves someplace to rest!”

The others lined up and followed me like a flock of ducklings. Kitia had recovered mostly and was now wearing a blue robe that matched her blue hair and horns. She looked like the perfect image of a yuki-onna. Though, that didn't stop her from bickering with Philomena. Consequently, the two women also didn't fail to loosen up the unicorn-girl who was following the group as the last in line.

Once Jebril got talking, she was like a never-ending well. She was a djinn, a demonic evolution that focused on wish-magic. Jebril was a member of a wandering warband that had been in the region to collect herbs in the forest close to the Ashborn estate when misfortune struck.

My ears perked up and I paid more attention when I heard the name ‘Ashborn’ mentioned.

Apparently, the rift-event had caught the eyes of many powerful groups who quickly flocked to what was clearly an opportunity to gain power and wealth. Jebril's group didn't only have to fend off the rift-survivors who had numbers on their side but were disorganized at best. No, what was worse was that a few hours after the spectacle occurred, several slaver groups appeared in the region as well.

One of these parties overwhelmed Jebril's group. She was then separated from her people because of her skills, which ended her up with Kitia, and the rest was history.

We travelled onwards until we reached the village of Irkos, a small settlement that was located far enough away from the Ashborn compound to survive and flourish. Another little detail that I filed away for later.

Just who were the Ashborns, and what did I get myself into with that damned contract?

Irkos was located in a large basin that acted as an oversized moat right in the middle of the plains. The walls stood much larger and stronger than necessary for a settlement of its size. The buildings were strong structures made out of stone. They were stacked on top and into each other, a design feature that reminded me of Baaar.

But where Baaar was a pure mess, Irkos seemed more structured with an overall idea of easy protection in mind. Calling it simply a village didn't feel right. Irkos was more like an oversized fortress. In numbers, it was smaller than Baaar, but I had no doubt that this settlement could hold off an armed force of several hundred demons.

Our group wasn't challenged as we approached the main gate. With only five people, the guards didn't see us as a sufficient threat to take preventive actions. And the gate had several guards, which made me wonder why so many of them would be needed. I counted ten people directly at the gate and several more on the wall, evenly spaced out.

Then again, in a land with slavers and roving warbands it was probably the smart thing to have a few strong hands to keep your doorstep clean.

Nobody questioned us as we entered the village, and I allowed Uphir to take the lead in finding us accommodations. That was accomplished easily enough, and we soon found ourselves in a reasonably priced tavern with rooms for each of us. Logically, I knew about the concept of paying people for certain services, but it was the first time that I got to go to a demon-tavern. Especially one which served something called hopper-tongue, and I was eagerly awaiting my food at a large table while the others talked among each other.

“Who exactly is Amon?” Jebril asked, a little bolder now that we had entered a place which had, presumably, law and order as far as it went for demons.

“A very troubled person,” Uphir commented while chewing on a piece of bread that the waitress-imp had brought out.

“Just don't challenge him, and you will live,” Philomena gave her the essentials which she had worked out in dealing with me.

To kill some time until the food arrived, I decided to question Jebril about something that bugged me. “You mentioned the Ashborns several times while we travelled. Who are they?”

Jebril fiddled for a second with her glass of weed-brandy before she came up with a narration. “The Ashborns are a large clan of succubi who have their castle nearby. They are well respected, insofar that no sane demon would settle down too close to their estate. Rumour is that they once had a village next to their castle, but that all the males died out over the years. Though, I am not old enough to confirm or deny that. As I said, they are a very old and respected bloodline. Their leader is a succubus matriarch of the name Ashley Ashborn, also known as the Burning Death of Desire, though I don’t know how she got that title. She must be powerful since she managed to keep forty-one of her daughters and a succubus can have only one egg every thousand years on average. This should be proof enough that Ashley is nobody who should be messed with. Although, I heard that there is currently some tension going on between her and the other Demon Lords in the region, even if she doesn’t hold that title officially. There is this powerful upstart by the name of Khorne who is trying to recruit her into his ranks. I dare say that he would have succeeded already if his enemies hadn’t formed an alliance against him. There is quite the war going on further to the south. I am glad that this region stayed safe so far, though safe is relative with such a huge succubus-den nearby. Since this rift appeared in the sky, and with all the warbands and slavers trying to find their luck… I would revise this statement and say that this area is now downright inhospitable. At least until all the slavers decide that hunting in this area is no longer profitable. I think that the Ashborns will be very pleased now that they have all these males on their territory…”

Her one-sided narrative became hushed once her eyes accidentally drifted to my face and finally faded out.

I smiled and tried to remind myself that this demon obviously had some mental and physical deficits. She hadn’t taken a single breath once she started going. “Thank you, but that was just a little too much information.”

The waitress saved me from further verbal attacks by bringing the fried tongue and other food which my companions had ordered to our table, upon which we paid with some lesser souls.

It was the first time that I got to eat a properly cooked tongue, and it was heavenly which made me immediately amiable to further sentimental actions. “Uphir, now that we have Kitia-”

“Thanks for saving me, by the way,” the famished demoness interjected while stuffing her face with noodles and strips of meat on a creamy sauce.

“-yes, well… Now that you have her back, all that’s left is to find Shax, right?” I finished.

Uphir shook his head. “I actually think that particular problem is solving itself.”

Philomena nodded. “I felt his aura becoming stronger, although, it still feels diminished. Which means that he appears to be free and is moving in this direction. In fact, it feels like he should arrive any moment now.”

The two indeed didn’t disappoint with their prediction, because a few seconds later a familiar, large demon stepped through the inn’s entrance, bowing deeply in order to not hit his horns on the ceiling. It only took me a single glance to recognize one of the two succubi who were hanging off his arms.

Consequently, I decided that the only proper reaction was to spit a sizeable piece of meat into Jebril’s face – who was unfortunate enough to sit across from me.