Even while breathing his dying breaths, the boy barely managed to wheeze “daddy” out somehow.

Right then, something snapped within me. My bones shook; I walked backwards and pulled the boy away from the short sword his own father sacrificed him with, just to get to me. I immediately cast Chronoheal on the boy and put him to sleep with Sopor. Once I secured him on a healed, newly summoned Dreadhoof, in the double-defense of Aether Shell and Mana Shield, I turned my sights to Barnod.

“You fucking piece of shit!” I punched him so hard that my wrist broke. I mounted him, and spent copious amounts of time beating the life out of him. The anger in me transcended everything, but it wasn’t just anger anymore, it was the need to see him suffer. “What do you get in exchange for giving them power?” I asked Agares, the devil, after I summoned her.

“Their souls, until they are born again,” she said.

“What do you do with their souls?” I stood up and cast Clean on myself.

Agares remained with her head bowed throughout our conversation. “We extract power from them.”

“Yes, yes,” I rolled my eyes. “What I’m asking is, do you torture them? Is it hell? Do they burn and beg for mercy?”

Agares gave a creepy smile, that made even me, her superior, shudder. “We place the souls in self-healing vessels packed to the brim with the most sensitive nerve endings. They beg for mercy the minute their skin is touched by the gentlest breeze. So yes, Great One, their suffering is unfathomable.”

“I see.” I raised Barnod up with Telekinesis, in front of his clansmen. “Then, make sure this soul is well treated with excellent care.” I stabbed right through the center of his neck, turned my blade then swung out from the side, letting a river of blood flow.

“Understood, Great One.”

“I will summon you again soon. There are questions that must be answered. Dismissed.”

“Great One,” she bowed again and disappeared after we all witnessed her rip the soul out of Barnod. His scream was shrill, and his fear palpable.

The blood ring disappeared and I stood in the midst of hundreds of thousands of demons, yet I had no fear. But I despised and detested them. I knew I shouldn’t, because somewhere deep down, I hoped that such drastic measures weren’t necessary, but they were proving that notion wrong time and time again. So, it was time I put my foot down.

“Doomhorn clan! I own you now! Anyone who wishes to go against me,” I grabbed Barnod’s corpse by a horn and ripped the rest of his head off his body, “let this remind you:” brought a pike of earth up, “I am the Lich God!” and fixed his head onto it for all to see. I even decorated it with a Dawnlight to made sure they saw it.

I walked over to the servants. “Who’s second to the master of this clan?”

One of them, dressed in robes, put her hand up; she quavered just looking at me.

“From this moment forth, you will represent this clan as its master.” I opened a portal and gestured her to go in, then I sent in Dreadhoof and the boy. I had one last look at the cretins around me, dismissed all my combat summons in Nemus, then left through the portal.

“Your name?” I asked.

“R-Rayna Doomhorn,” she answered robotically. Her horns were curled just like Barnod’s. Her eyes refused to meet with mine, or my eye sockets rather. They occasionally glanced at the Barnod’s unconscious son who laid on Dreadhoof.

“What was your relationship with the, ex-master?” I asked.

She seemed to tremble even more. I could feel her mana being rather turbulent. “I, served as his assistant, mostly, and took care of everything that he wasn’t needed for.”

“And who is that child to you?” I clunked my staff to the ground gently. “Just to let you know, I can tell when people lie to me.”

“He’s, my son. T-thank you,” she tried her hardest to look at me, “for saving his life.”

Thought so. Guess that explains why she was trying to run in the blood ring too. I calmed down and cast Pacify on both of us. In truth, the Hellfire clan was on my list and didn’t suffer the same fate as the Doomhorn clan purely because they were farther away. My next objective was them, but since I had someone in front of me that could give me a lot of answers, I decided to postpone annihilating the Hellfire clan. I used Telekinesis to float the boy into her arms. “Come,” I gestured, “this isn’t the best place to talk.”

We spent hours chatting, because I decided to come across as Deidre and not the Lich God, but I still used my lich vessel. Even though she rambled on about Barnod and the things he did to her, their son, and generally her personal life, I still managed to get the information I wanted from her.

In order for a demon to mature, it needed mana. This maturing for them was fundamentally different from humans. Technically, her valorous son was already mature. It meant consuming enough mana to develop their intellect and magical capacities. Once it got to the point where they didn’t give off miasma uncontrollably, they were considered mature.

Those who hadn’t matured would be mentally afflicted by a psyche attack that simulated the underworld, the same pain that Agares described to me. I rubbed my head; it was a real problem. If a demon couldn’t mature quickly enough, before their psyche burned out, then, they would kill themselves. The pact they made with the devils of the underworld bound their entire elven race to this fate and turned them into such grotesque monsters. So you hold out as long as you can, but if you’re starved then you kill yourself because you can’t take it anymore. But after that, it’s even more pain in the underworld.

Their issues did make me a bit sympathetic to their cause, and a bit more open to Lilith’s option. When Rayna confirmed with me that Fyren did order the Doomhorn and Hellfire clans to attack Perseverance, it made me wonder if my sympathy was needed. Barnod attacking and sacrificing his own son evoked much the same thoughts. Were demons good or were they bad? Were they unwitting victims of a devil’s honeyed words or did they know what they were getting themselves into?

Isaac, what the fuck did I get myself into? I released a big sigh. Because demons were being born faster than their reserves could replenish, they would reach a point where they either allowed their children to suffer until death or they would prioritize the lives of their children over the lives of humans.

I cast Clean on Rayna and her son, Dion. “Get some rest. There is food and water there,” I pointed to a cupboard. “We will speak in the morning.”