Victor awoke to a sterile room. The electric lights buzzed white above him. He tried to sit up, but a stabbing pain coursed through his ribs. When he pressed his hand against them, he found a series of bandages sculpted over his form. He must’ve broken something without realizing it. Adrenaline had likely banished the pain from his mind until it surfaced, suddenly and unexpectedly.

“Victor, you’re awake.”

Victor managed to right himself enough to find Kelly sitting beside him, her damaged eye facing toward him.

Victor smiled at her. “Kelly! It’s been a while...What is happening here?”

Kelly leaned toward him and pushed him back into the bed. “You were injured in the fight when you tried to steal the Cessation Sword.”

Victor flung himself upright, proudly puffing his chest out in a manner reminiscent of a blowfish. “Well, but I managed to achieve this terrible and difficult task in the end, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Kelly said, glowering at him.

Victor shrunk away from her glare and his shoulders sagged. He averted his gaze, fidgeting with his fingers. “I just wanted to assert my dominance, you know? Show Rohan that nothing is safe from my terrible grasp of evil.”

“You knew Prince’s house was going to be attacked, didn’t you?”

Victor shook his head. “Of course not. I wish to be an administrator of evil. What evil deed would it have been if I knew the truth behind my actions?”

“Don’t lie to me. You had to have known. This isn’t the kind of coincidence that just happens. You are telling me that you just happened to stumble into Marquitta, and then just happened to stumble into Prince’s house just as it was getting destroyed?”

Victor tapped the tips of his fingers together, a guilty expression on his face. “I’m telling you, I have no idea what you are blithering about...You know that I cannot use rosearics. That is not a fact that I hide…”

Kelly’s hard stare did not waver. “You have to have started using rosearics. I am certain that you foresaw these events. Why are you trying to hide your good deeds?”

“They were not good deeds!” Victor exclaimed. “I am telling you...I, the great overlord of

darkness, would never succumb to the confines of the light!”

Kelly clenched her fist. “You are allowed to help people, you know.”

Victor blinked at her. “Of course I am allowed to. I simply actively choose not to. I do not understand what you are trying to say.”

“Just because the world abandoned you in your childhood,” Kelly muttered, “doesn’t mean you have to do the same.”

Victor blinked. A moment of silence passed between them.

“But I do,” Victor said, furrowing his eyebrows. “There is no need for me to preserve a world that confined me to the shadows. It would be idiot for me to try to help others with this kind of background.”

“No, it wouldn’t be,” Kelly said testily. “It would make sense. If you want to make the world a better place, you need only say so.”

“I do not want to!” Victor exclaimed. “I am going to be the best daemonics practitioner that the world has ever experienced! To do that, I must commit myself to a life of evil.”

Kelly blinked at him. “Why are you so persistent about perpetuating this foolish narrative? You aren’t an idiot.”

Victor crossed his arms and looked away. “Well, I suppose in your eyes I am an idiot, then! What will you do about it? Slaughter me?”

Kelly stared at Victor. “You learned cruel lessons in Blackheim, didn’t you, Victor?”

Victor glared through the window. “I learned the way of the world in Blackheim. There is no good in the world. Only evil and cowards. I will not be hurt. I have to display my power or I am weak.”

Kelly stared at him. “You don’t want to be weak?”

“Do you think I should be weak? You want me to fall into the traps of those who die?” he snapped. “No. I will survive. Forget everyone else. I am the only person that I am responsible for. I would never risk myself to preserve anything.”

Kelly patted Victor’s shoulders. “Okay, okay, Victor. I believe you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Shut up, please,” Kelly said sternly. “Believe what you’re told. That’s the best way to live life.”

A hush fell upon the two. Kelly’s eyes drifted out of the window. Victor surveyed the rapidly gathering clouds marring the impeccable blanket of blue.

“Seer City.” Victor cleared his throat. “It was Annihilated, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Kelly said.

“And...and Madeline?” There was fear in Victor’s eyes. It was not an expression that commonly crossed his features. It fit him poorly, like a glove torn at the opening.

“She is alive. Marquitta recovered her.”

Relief spilled over his face like a glass of water knocked over a sheet of pages, distorting any expression that lay beneath.

“Of course she survived,” Victor said abruptly. “I would not expect someone like her to die so easily. She is strong. There was no way that she would have died there.”

Kelly nodded. “Yes. I think she would blow up the city before letting it kill her.”

Victor chuckled. “She would stab herself in the chest before letting a meager demon slice her open.”

“She would rather have sex with a demon than be incapacitated by one.”

The two shared a brief spell of laughter before the conversation once again lapsed into silence.

Kelly crossed her arms. “You will be fully recovered in two days.”

“I love ethreallic magic,” Victor sighed. “Why not faster, though? Aren’t these professional nurses more proficient at ethreallics?”

Kelly cast Victor a stern look. “Yes, ethreallic magic would heal broken bones within a day or less on humans.”

Victor blinked.

“You are no longer human,” Kelly said. “Remember?”

Victor fidgeted with the bandages wrapped around midriff. He noticed the black streaks peeking out from beneath the wrapping. While a majority of the seal was obscured by the cloth, the characteristic markings of a demon seal were recognizable by any practitioner. Even a child studying practitioning in elementary school would recognize the markings.

“I didn’t want you to know about that,” Victor muttered. “I didn’t intend for that to happen…”

“You didn’t intend for what to happen?”

Victor blinked, suddenly confused by his own choice of words. “Oh. I’m not sure where I was going with that. I contracted a hell demon to help me become the best daemonic practitioner in the world and, thus, the best supervillain ever.”

“That is, quite frankly, the most stupid, ridiculous, and bafflingly selfish decision you have ever made,” Kelly said. “But it’s not a decision you can take back.”

“The contract won’t terminate for a while,” Victor reassured her. “It will be a while before I become the most powerful daemonics practitioner in the kingdom. In fact, you probably will die before that happens, since you are over a decade older than me!”

Kelly stared at him. “But if you overuse your power…”

“I will not overuse my power!” Victor declared. “I will use the demon’s power only enough to supplement my own skill. Get myself used to the burden of maintaining that level of ability.”

Kelly just continued to stare at him, cold eyes devoid of feeling.

Victor looked away and returned his focus to the window.

“Where will you go now?” Kelly said.

Victor did not respond immediately. “I didn’t expect Seer City to be Annihilated.”

“So, you don’t have a plan?”

Victor shifted uncomfortably. “Like I said, not even great and powerful beings like myself

can predict all events…”

“But some you can predict?”

“Well, of course,” Victor said. “Some --” He paused and glared at her. She returned an

innocent glance, batting her eyelashes.

“You won’t trick me into admitting I can see the future!” Victor exclaimed as Kelly’s impassive lip twitched. “I don’t! I cannot forsee anything! Rosearics are a subject so primitive I am unable to comprehend --”

“Enough, enough. If you say another word about this I’ll staple your mouth shut,” Kelly

said, rising to her feet.

Victor blinked. “Where are you going?”

“I stayed here to check if you woke up yet. And you have. So, I’ll let you rest now.”

Victor scratched the back of his neck. “Well, yeah. That makes sense. There is no reason for you to stay here any longer.”

“You need to figure out what you’re going to do from now on,” Kelly said. “Seer City is gone. You can’t return to it.”

“I’ll find another city to go to,” Victor said, though there was a strange note in his voice, something reminiscent of fear. Disbelief. “I’ll rebuild my reputation somewhere else. I’ll start anew.”

“Ever think about getting a job? How did you pay for your expenses in Seer City?”

Victor crossed his arms. “Simple. I hijacked an abandoned building, enchanted it, and that was the end of that. I fixed the plumbing.”

“And for food?”

Victor cracked his knuckles. “Well, sometimes you need to sacrifice your sense of morality and self-respect to pay for necessities.”

“What kind of sacrifice are we talking about? Betting on illegal dragon fighting? Prostitution? Thievery?”

Victor pressed his fingers together. “Well, I did...favors.”

“Favors?” Kelly pressed. “What kind of favors? Sexual favors?”

Victor wrinkled his nose. “Absolutely not. Sex isn’t real. I am talking about real favors.”

“Give me an example.”

“I…” Victor drew a deep breath, shame bubbling beneath his skin. “Well. I posted a bulletin...for if anyone required the services of a practitioner.”

“Is that so?”

“I would do odd jobs,” Victor said with a sigh. “Fixing things, helping build things. Madeline contributed to the food expenses as well. During my failed attempts to spread chaos and evil, I would sometimes get compensated for my failure.”

Kelly blinked at him. “That’s basically a job. You were helping people.”

“I know,” Victor exclaimed, an anguished expression appearing upon his face. “I know. I told you, sometimes to make ends meet, you have to result in terrors you would otherwise never dare to pursue.”

“You’re very spoiled, Victor,” Kelly said. “To think that you consider that a sacrifice of your morality.

“Call me spoiled if you want,” Victor said with a shrug. “But I am expressing the truth behind my motivations and feelings…”

“Why do you talk so pompously?” Kelly said. “You’ve always speak like a grand wizard or something.”

“Because that’s what I want to become!”

Kelly stared at him. “So are you going to become a dark wizard or a daemonics practitioner?”

“Come on, there is hardly a difference,” Victor snapped. “I was just messing around anyway. I have no interest in being a wizard...they don’t even use crystallics. I do not understand them in the slightest!”

“I don’t care about what we’re talking about right now,” Kelly said. “Now that we have the Cessation Sword, we need to start eliminating the Devil’s Fragments.”

Victor scowled.

“We will send Marina, Madeline, and Rohan to destroy the Fragments.”

“Wait, Madeline?” Victor said, eyes wide. “Why would you send Madeline as well? She isn’t part of the Cupcake Inc?”

“Yes she is,” Kelly said. “How did you not know that?”

Victor drummed his fingers against his thigh. “I guess there are many things of which I am still unaware.”

“That does seem to be the case,” Victor said. “Did you retrieve the Cessation Sword from Rohan?”

Any inkling of an expression in Kelly’s face drained. “Yes.”

Victor took note of the shift. “Did you like the form that it took?”

Kelly’s eyes acquired a faraway quality to them. “It was an ingenious plan. I, for one, never wanted to see it again after I saw it for the first time.”

“That’s the reaction that most people seem to have when they behold the splendour of the Cessation Sword’s ingenious design.”

“But regardless, they will to go after the Devil Fragments in Caloriopolis. Myself, Marquitta, and Prince will take care of Sanctuaria. We will then meet in Glasyacia to deal with the situation there, which will be more difficult. ”

Victor counted something on his fingers. “What about Blackheim and Gravelys?”

“We already conquered the demon in Gravelys,” Kelly said. “No further action needs to

be taken there. As for Blackheim...that is a special case.”

“Special case?”

“Have you ever heard of the Ender demon?”

Victor furrowed his eyebrows in thought. “Ender demon? Are you talking about the legend of the first demon to ever be created?”

“Yes, I am,” Kelly said. “What else do you know about it?”

“Well,” Victor said, a befuddled expression upon his features. “According to legend,

killing the Ender demon will cause the apocalypse.”

“Precisely,” Kelly said.

“But...that is merely a legend, correct?” Victor said cautiously. “The Ender demon cannot exist. Just logically, that is not possible, correct? I am not so much a fool that I would believe a farce like this.”

“Well, for once I can say that you’re right not to believe it,” Kelly said. “There is no proven existence of the true Ender demon. However, the name has been adopted metaphorically by many processes and spells in daemonics.”

“That is true,” Victor said. “Media is filled with Ender mythology and interpretations.”

“Yeah. But, in the concept of devil fragmentation, the term ‘Ender’ is used to refer to the last demon that must be slayed before the devil can be killed.”

“Why does the Ender demon have to be conquered last?” Victor asked. “Is it the most powerful?”

“Yes and no,” Kelly said. “The Ender demon is both the weakest demon and the strongest demon.”

“Thanks for the clarification.”

“Just listen to me.” Kelly’s eyebrow twitched with frustration. “The Ender demon is proportionally powerful to how many devil’s fragments are active at one time. The Ender demon decreases in power with every fragment put out of commission. Do you understand that?”

“I’m listening…”

“So, attempting to tackle the Ender demon first is impossible. In fact, the way that this demon works, it is impossible to destroy the demon even if there is only one other remaining. You will be instantly killed. However…”

“However?”

“The Ender demon will not attack you if you manage to destroy the rest of the demons,” Kelly said. “They will allow you to destroy them at that point. But not before telling you something you don’t want to hear.”

“Something I don’t want to hear…?” Victor clenched his fist over his lap.

Kelly, mild surprise marginally shifting her expression, said, “I suppose you see the problem with that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Victor muttered. “You’re talking about psychological warfare, yes? Oh what a foolishly intelligent concept. A clever trick that can only be broken by the strong of heart.”

“The problem is that from what we’ve seen, this Ender demon isn’t actually deceptive,” Kelly explained. “There isn’t psychological warfare...its an objective expression of truth. In fact, the key point is that the Ender demon will not lie to whoever arrives to them. They know things that we are better off not hearing. The problem occurs when you encounter the truth.”

“How do you even know about that?”

Kelly didn’t respond immediately. Once silence passed between them, heavy and uncertain, she said, “Many people have tried to destroy the Devil Fragments. People have been successful to varying degrees. The problem is that more Fragments can be generated after about a month after the death of the original Fragment.”

“So...the mission is time sensitive, I see. We need to kill them all in quick succession. So you’re telling me that the people who’ve tried to kill them before told you about Ender?”

Kelly nodded.

“So...there have been people that killed all the other demons, encountered Ender, and chose not to kill Ender?”

“Correct. Very few people have met Ender. I could probably count on the fingers of my hands, how many people found her, and the fingers of one hand to count how many people encountered her after killing all the demons. But nobody has killed Ender. ”

Victor seemed baffled by this concept. “Why the hell not? Why would people stop after going this far?”

Kelly shook her head. “I couldn’t tell you. Well, I mean, they couldn’t tell you. After encountering the Ender, they refused to kill them and refused to tell anyone anything about Ender. Many of them committed suicide after the encounter.”

For some reason, this caused relief to flood through Victor. “Oh, there is a very simple

solution to that, then! There’s no mystery at all!”

“Really? You think you’ve figured it out?”

Victor nodded enthusiastically. “As you know, hell demons can produce madness in people, right? All kinds of terrible, disturbing imagery and feelings and hallucinations.”

“Well,” Kelly said, “yes. I mean, you have to know we’ve thought of that.”

“So,” Victor said. “These courageous heroes bested the most difficult trials, sanity dripping from every orifice--”

“That sounds repulsive.”

“-- until they met Ender! But Ender was the most powerful mental manipulator of them all. Ender inflicted the heroes with such a tremendous spell of Despondency that their efforts seemed futile and unnecessary. So they stopped, went home, and killed themselves.”

Victor’s Basics of Practitioning

Anti-Enerium Survival Basics

Despondency: A condition similar to clinical depression brought on by the ability of a demon to inflict negative emotions and madness upon a victim. While Despondency can used to describe any demon-produced negative mental effect, this term (especially written as ‘clinical Despondency’) typically refers to prolonged exposure to many demons living in close proximity. Left untreated, Despondency does not go away on its own, and in some cases, the effects may be permanent. Enerium and enerium-neutral beings living in Blackheim often experience Despondency.

Kelly crossed her arms. “I mean, yes, that’s a possibility. You really think we didn’t think of that already?”

Seeming somewhat hurt, Victor pursed his lips and looked away. “Well, I don’t know what you’ve already reasoned out. But if that’s the case, then that shouldn’t be too big of a hurdle to overcome.”

Kelly nodded and said, “Well, for you it wouldn’t be. You’re pretty immune to Despondency since you were born in Blackheim and lived there for your early childhood.”

“That’s right,” Victor said. “The humans who live in Blackheim who don’t get killed or kill themselves become fairly immune to the madness.”

“So, if that’s the case, then the situation with Ender would make sense and wouldn’t be too bad.” A note of hesitance trailed after her words.

Victor noticed. “You don’t think that’s the case?”

“I don’t know. But I guess your explanation is the one most commonly arrived at. It would make sense that the people who come to Ender are overwhelmed by Despondency.”

“Great then,” Victor said, clapping his hands together. “Then I will be the one to kill Ender and destroy the Parasite once and for all!”

Kelly’s eyes widened. “And why would you do that if you’re so interested in destroying the world?”

“Well, obviously, I don’t actually want to destroy the entire world,” Victor said, rolling his eyes. “I only want to be known as the best daemonics practitioner of all time, you know? To be known as something, well, there have to be people there to know about me, right?”

“I can’t argue with that.”

“The Parasite is going down a dangerous path,” Victor said. “It one day will swallow the kingdom whole. We need to stop it.”

“So that you can destroy it yourself?”

Victor rolled his eyes. “If you want to use such a crude term for my efforts, sure.”

“That settles it then,” Kelly said, walking toward the door. “I will put you on the team with Rohan, Madeline, and Marina.

“Excellent. And that is what I’ll do next, now that Seer City has been destroyed. I will have to stock up on new crystallics...Damn it. I lost all of mine.”

“That can be arranged. For now, stay here until you recover. After that, we will see how we’re going to proceed.”

“Alright. I can do that much,” Victor said, leaning back into bed.

He wouldn’t admit it, but the upright position he maintained during the conversation was extremely draining and difficult to hold. Pain had been shooting through his body with every breath he took, but he almost didn’t notice it. He had grown accustomed to the pain inherent to his field of pursuit.

Victor spent the rest of the day reading through daemonics grimoire and receiving visitors. Marquitta returned and informed him that Madeline had unfortunately been safely retrieved. Victor was happy to hear it.

Marina came to visit him too. She grinned at him in her characteristically disconcerting way that made Victor wonder for a moment whether she planned to hug him or to kill him. It ended up being the former option, and she threw her arms around him and enveloped him with her softness.

Victor returned the hug and told her that he was happy to see her repulsive, disgusting self back in his presence.

She commented that he has never looked worse, and they shared a moment of laughter. They spoke for a while, but soon after, Rohan appeared at the doorway, scolding Marina for interrupting Victor’s recovery. Rohan asked how Victor was doing, and Victor responded in a dramatic, poetic way that caused Rohan to insist that Victor shut up.

Victor then loudly announced to Rohan that he was going to join them to help destroy the Parasite, to which Rohan replied:

“Absolutely not. I would rather slather my balls in butter and shove them into a toaster than spend one more second with you than I need to.”

“If you put your balls in butter and then put it in the toaster,” Marina said, “butter will fly all over the goddamn place! And you don’t want that, do you? Toaster first, then butter.”

Rohan was overcome with rage at this statement and spent the next few minutes scolding Marina while Victor began illustrating a plan of action in vivid detail in the margins of his textbook.

“What are you writing?” Rohan snapped.

“I am illustrating a plan of action in vivid detail in the margins of my textbook,” Victor muttered, tongue between his teeth as he scribbled.

“You aren’t coming,” Rohan insisted. “You’re staying on your ass right here.”

“In the hospital? Forever?” Victor snorted. “Come now. You must know that I cannot confine myself to this wretched space for all time.”

“Well, I don’t care what you do,” Rohan growled, “as long as you keep away from me. I’m done interacting with you! You are forbidden from coming and that’s final.”

Rohan whirled around, but Marina grabbed him by the arm. “Yelling at everyone and storming off is a very smart way to handle conflict. Why don’t we sit down and actually discuss this?”

Rohan tore his arm away from Marina and stormed out the door.

Victor crossed his arms and snapped, “Why does Rohan think I am the absolute scum of the earth?”

“Because you are?” Marina suggested.

“I can’t be the scum of the earth if you’re the one who fulfills that role.”

Marina pounded Victor on the shoulder and said, “Yeah, he definitely hates you and is totally not trying to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?” Victor muttered. “I mean, I don’t answer to him. He is not my god. I answer only to the Lord of Hell.”

“Lord of Hell? That sounds very fake,” Marina said. “Just like contentment.”

“Just like contentment,” Victor agreed. “I mean, Kelly told me I could go. She and Prince have the highest authority here, right?”

“No,” Marina said. “I do, actually.”

Victor snorted. “No, my fat cock has the highest authority.”

“I only answer to Prince’s left testicle.”

“Well, you better start picking up the phone to my right nipple.”

“But actually,” Marina said, waving him off. “You probably shouldn’t join us, but I kinda missed your bullshit, you absolute sack of shit.”

“Same here, same here,” Victor said. “Do you want to hear something strange?”

“No.”

“I don’t actually remember why I left,” Victor said, staring at his calloused hands. “I knew that you were all going to take down the Parasite...and I know I didn’t want any part of it. But I can’t really remember my justification for leaving. I had a reason.”

“Probably because you didn’t want to help people, right?” Marina said. “Looks like now you understand that in this situation, helping yourself unfortunately helps other people too.”

“That’s right...that’s right. But unfortunately I need to do what is best for me and that means destroying the Parasite. Well, regardless of what that fool desires, I shall accompany the team and there is nothing anybody can do to stop me from claiming what I rightfully deserve!”