“King…”

Lumina visibly struggles to wrap her head around it. Her thoughts are ever clear to me, and for the first time I understand the true nature of Nil’s power as a Demon. [Greater Cognizance] allows me to peer through and glide across a wave of moods, chemical and electric translations often tainted with mana beyond a veil of something as abstract as consciousness.

Lumina is an open book.

She want’s Nil to be here, to be the Demon she’s looking up at. The creeping dread of a trap bites and bubbles just under the surface as her eyes snatch about, looking for a possible lifeline to grasp—something that’ll tell her it’s not over, that she didn’t release a Demon into the world.

My smile stretches and I think to give her the good news. “Don’t worry Lumina, I am no Demon, not any more than any other monarch, am I right?” My enchanted laugh rouses a nervous chuckle from her, and she relaxes. “With Nil away, you’re safe from the true Demon, trust me. But we ought to halt the introductions, Lumina, we’ve still got unentertained company.”

I stop to glance at the still battalion, what’s left of it anyway. There are still a good hundred in that batch, although they reek of fear and confusion. I can’t blame them. The majority of the upper brass, the chain of command was in that first pursuit—the one they watched me decimate in no less than ten minutes.

A feat I’m exhausted from. Nil hasn’t built this body to withstand the things I need it to do to survive—I’m far from the ideal conditions for combat. Although, the physical prowess Nil’s built and the Demon’s nascent senses make for a rather interesting work around. I’m primarily a Mage.

I don’t see myself carrying out any of Nil’s savage mimicries except, of course, to make the proper adjustments. I was never a busty woman, and my memory’s only exemplar with magic and battle, so these adjustments may be a tad off.

Trait [Full Mimic] Attained!

Look at me go, doing Nil a favor. I let myself shrink down to a comfortable height—tall enough to stare down the middle of Lumina’s head. She takes a step back and shudders at my hips narrowing.

“When do you think Valery’s going to show up?”

“Huh?” she stutters, still entranced by me. I’ve drowned under suitors and had several partners and admirers. Poets sung and wrote of me, but only my enemies and servants called me beautiful. She sees something else in my face, my shape beneath the shredded dress clinging against my skin.

“They won’t stay still for long, and we don’t exactly have the resources to fend them off.” I could raise all the corpses, monsters, and Humans as undead to defend us, but that won’t be much more than a buffer. It takes work, preparation to create a worthwhile undead. We don’t have the time for that now.

There are a slew of [Spells] I can employ to snatch our safety. [Teleportation], I have to have been there. Being underneath Nil doesn’t count, and even if it did I don’t have the mana. I could summon other Demons if I wished, other beings and creatures to plough through the battalion, but again, preparation, time, and work. All the things I don’t have in this thick, high-strung demonic body.

For all its incompetence at the moment, I’m grateful to have it. How long has it been since I could see? Taste? Hear and feel the wind. Best part is the immortality, easy, no need to find a work around for it. The Essence dependence sucks, so does the tie to Reais.

An unfortunate adjustment. Reais. Now I’ll have to rule from there no matter what.

I’d hoped to leave the savage place behind, but that will never be the case.

“She’ll be here.” Lumina says, done speaking to Valery through the enchanted ring on her finger—a common com-ring, a device she long since stripped her Prince of. The man stands bare, a terrible scowl strewn across his face but not one of remorse at his lost wife or his slaughtered guests.

“Lumina, think this through, Demon or not, you can’t fight my father, you can’t fight my Empire.”

“Oh, it’s your empire now, is it? Never seemed to be your empire when you and your fucked up family of slavers forced me to execute my own people for menial crimes!” She’s been at the edge for a time now, and the glowering battalion waiting a click away doesn’t help either.

I may have pressed the matter, but she’s keenly aware of what’ll happen if they attack early. If Valery arrives with the rallied kingdom and she’s on her knees begging the Prince’s forgiveness… well, freedom is always an all-or-nothing affair.

Something I’m also struggling with. I had Nil form this pact for the security it’d bring should Lumina be successful. But as it stands, I’m weighing my options. Without my tools I can’t fend off the rest of the battalion all on my own. Lumina herself is out of mana from manipulating the palace security.

She yells and screams more of the Prince’s failures, and he yells back with talk of responsibility, of power and intrigue and connections. None of which will matter now anyway. His base of power is shattered completely by this attack, and it serves him right—what idiot hosts his anniversary in the palace of the angered race he’s enslaved?

I hum at the thought and shrug. It’s something I would do, but only if they’d been neutered, and the Elves clearly haven’t been neutered. Which brings me to the most tempting option of the very few I have on hand.

Snatch Lumina and make a run for it.

They’ll never catch us. If there’s something Nil’s done right, it’s make this body fast, extremely so. Combine that natural talent with my [Spells] and we’ve got a smooth escape, may as well be a regular journey.

“Nil.”

“King.”

She shakes her head, “Right… how long do you think you can hold them off?” she nods at the battalion.

“Even if it’s a D-tier Demon, my damned battalion is made up of B-tier, war-hardened Warrior-Mages! You’ll be dead before you hit the ground!” Deran yells, kicking a rock off the side of the stairs.

Ignoring him, I say, “About the same time it took to clear the first batch,” I lie through my teeth. I wouldn’t last more than three minutes, not if they’re anything like the first. I need to recover my strength and get my bearings in this body. I’m tempted to leap into the scattered and frightened population and steal some four dozen hearts. At least with that I’ll open a rift to Reais and absorb enough Essence to get the Seeker Blade to tier 2.

Lumina wouldn’t like that.

Ah…there you are, figured out your way around my old home so quickly. I’m impressed.

Nil doesn’t say anything after that, but I’m not hurt at the silence, I understand the struggle to get through all too well.

“If you can manage it, hold them off,” Lumina says. It’s a desperate plea to wait a while longer, to hold off until Valery comes so all this death isn’t in vain. So she hasn’t soiled her ancestral palace with blood spilt over a lost battle.

“I’ll do my best, but I think I have a better idea than sending me off to face them all on my lonesome.”

“What? Are you scared, Demon? You should be. We use the likes of you for training.” Deran spits at my foot. I raise the foot up to his crotch and double while he’s doubled over, smacking the back of his head.

He flops over unconscious.

Lumina doesn’t say anything. She stares at the crumpled body of her once-lover and betrothed. I figure she’s been expecting me to do something like that.

“You’re fortunate I’m not Nil, Queen Lumina.” I chortle and hoist Deran by his collar.

“Am I? You aren’t Nil, even the connection I feel with you… him? Ugh, Nil isn’t gone, but I know I can’t control you as well as I would him.”

I smile and she asks, “Why haven’t you killed me yet? Why not hand me over and make a deal with the Empire?”

“Why not betray you?” She nods. I tuck the hair in my eyes behind my ears and set a hand on my hip. “As a King, it serves me well to honor my alliances, even more so when those alliances are worth honoring.”

“What does that mean?”

Walking away, I tell her, “It means I’m very much invested in our pact.”

I set out toward the battalion before she can ask another question. The truth is that Lumina and her Elves have the same potential to rule over continents just as I did some thousand years ago. I’ll need that kind of territorial power if I’m to pick up where I left off.

Where we left off, Nil corrects.

My heart quickens and I nod. So you remember then, you know I’m not your enemy, we are allies… more than that even.

They’ll smite us again.

We’re a Demon now, Nil. We’ve got the body… the immortal soul needed to survive them, to challenge them even, and they gave it all to us on a platter.

Wall of Deaders… not that secure a prison.

I chuckle at that and warmth spreads through me. No, it isn’t. Kept us still for a few thousand years but… that’s all past now. I doubt Teir or Reinmer are even still Gods. They squabble just as much as any mortal.

Still… they will remember. They will act. We will fall.

Not if we get things right this time. Being mortal rushed me, rushed us. We’ll take it easier now, and if things get difficult we can always fall back to Reais; Deities have a hard time surviving there.

After this. My body.

At that my mood sours. Nil, I’m the wiser of the two of us, I bet you haven’t even recalled most of your Abilities, your Necromancy, your brilliant magic. And even if you did, it pales in comparison to mine anyway, doesn’t it?

My body.

Annoyed, I shut Nil out and pick up the pace. Before long I’m a few meters away from the Warrior-Mage they’ve sent out to meet me in the thick suburbs of Hescaria’s capital city. If they knew I had a Demon’s body they’d have sent more, surely.

The Warrior-Mage rides a large, brown, scarred, one-eyed salamander clad in dark, heavy armor that sheathes and enhances the beast’s natural claws. It watches me warily, eager to retreat, but it’s nothing more than a mule to the man seated upon it.

Armored not in metal but in magic, this man wields a large staff with a bright green gem at its curved crux. He reeks of magic—this one I’m wary of. If only for all the possible enchantments he’s thrown onto himself—the Seeker Blade as it is now won’t penetrate his defenses.

“You have our Prince,” he says after examining me for a long while.

“If you could call him that.” I make a point of letting Deran’s head fall on a rock. He flinches and I smile and take a step. His mount makes a noise, but he reins it in to stand his ground. Arms out, showing little opposition save the floating blade behind me, I say, “You can take him back to his father, but only if I escort you out past the border.”

“Border? There aren’t any state lines around these territories as far as I can tell.”

“You’re mistaken then. The kingdom… or duchy, I’m not sure what it’s called now, but you’re standing on the sovereign lands belonging to the monarch, Lumina au Hescaria.”

“Hescaria.” He seethes the name out, hissing at the air like he’s spat poison. “I’ve always known that name would turn a blade in the Prince’s back.”

“Then you should know it’s still lodged in deep. A twist here or there and it’s over for your little Prince.”

He sneers and looks back to his men. His mind is a fortress, much like the others who came before him. But unlike Nil, I don’t need [Greater Cognizance] to tell he’s weighing his options.

I let the Seeker Blade reveal itself so when he turns back to his Prince the stakes are instantly higher. He nearly launches a spell when he sees the blade leaning against the Prince’s skull.

“You don’t have much of an option.”

“You’re only one woman. A Demon by the looks of it too, and you may have taken out our commanders, but I know well enough that you’re not strong enough to take on the rest of us, so there’s no use bluffing your way to security.”

“Then you must also know that with each passing second the number of Warriors I’ll kill before defeat goes up, and worse, you sense that cluster too. That’s an army.”

“We can kill you and escape before they get here, call for reinforcements, and have your Elvish rebellion crushed before it even starts.”

“You’ll sacrifice all the men in your battalion for that?”

He doesn’t say anything; the salamander is stubbornly retreating. It serves well to have a natural oppressive aura.

I shrug and let the the Seeker Blade break through the Prince’s soft skin. Blood dribbles out and I take a lick with my finger. “Mm, Human really is delicious. I think I get what the fuss was all about now.”

Turning an eye back to the disturbed man, I say, “His blood is just like yours, I bet it doesn’t taste any sweeter either. But the Emperor won’t be happy to see his son dead because of a mere Elvish rebellion. Don’t you think for all the Empire’s might the little territories of Hescaria will a mere training day to the elite troops? Heck, why even bother the Empire’s elites with Elves, ey?”

His sneer deepens. “You can’t trick me, Demon.”

“Can’t I?”

“Hescaria wasn’t conquered, it was bought and paid for by the head of its previous Queen.”

I frown and crouch beside Deran’s bleeding neck, wetting my fingers with his blood and taking savory licks. “So you’re afraid? Don’t want to see what little old Hescaria was hiding beneath her skirts?”

“I see it now, don’t I? A Demon, a single D-tier, but enough to present a threat.”

“You flatter me.” I laugh. The salamander shrinks away, and I pout at him. “Aww, you’re that scared? Alhak za.”

Employing Nil’s favorite spell with a single chant, the dome snaps in place and the Warrior-Mages hidden in the homes and stores snap out at enemies’ unseen. The Seeker Blade zips out, breaking through windows to lodge into the throat of the only one who resisted the spell.

The man, unlike his mount, remains unfazed at his sinister plan unraveling beneath his feet. I call the blade back and take the bloodstained blade to my tongue. “Mm, I was wrong. Some blood is simply tastier. Now I’m curious how yours will compare to the Prince’s. Maybe the Emperor is right after all—you should die for his sake.”

The Seeker Blade snaps at him, but he raises a defense and exclaims, “Enough! Enough already, you’ve made your point and I’ve made the minimum effort. The best I can do now is return with the Prince unharmed.”

“Oh, is that what you were doing? Giving the minimum effort expected of you. Hmm, well, so the Emperor takes you seriously and perhaps even graces you with splendor and honor for rescuing his son… don’t you think he can’t come back in one piece?”

His brows furrow, but my foot is already on the Prince’s good arm. With little effort behind it, the bone cracks and Prince Deran lets out a terrible shriek, moaning at the agony of a broken arm.

“I said that’s enough!”

With the Seeker Blade at my call, I give the Prince mercy and cut it off above the elbow. He falls back asleep immediately afterward.

“Now it’s enough.” The man buckles and gulps at me but nods anyway. I kick the Prince over to him. With the bleeding there’s little time to waste fighting me.

The spoils.

What a scavenger you’ve become. I roll my eyes at Nil and bother myself with snapping the necks of the Warrior-Mages still trapped under [Minor Illusion].

Their equipment—what Nil’s hungry for—isn’t anything exemplary. There’s a fine black coat bejeweled with gems that protect against minor debuffs, something Nil suffered against Lumina and Valery. I pick that up and discard the shredded dress in favor of rings, shirts, and trousers all enchanted with some kind of magic.

Satisfied?

Base. Body.

Yes, a base to keep all our items, a place to work toward our goals. You’ll get your turn eventually, but first let me set things up. Trust me in that at least.

Nil doesn’t have to say anything for me to know he doesn’t trust a lick of what I’ve said. Good, we’ll need that paranoia where we’re headed.

You never much wanted to rule, did you? Too bad. If we’re ever to become Gods… if we’re ever to get vengeance on Reinmer, Anera, and even Teir, we’ll need kingdoms.

Calridian. Vark. Queen of Ticks.

All potential allies and enemies. You catch on quick, I forgot how much of a quick study you were.

With the first battle won, we return to Lumina and find Valery and her men have made it at last. Now the fortifications begin, now the war begins. Except their war is just another battle in our ambition for a better world.

We’re going to make it, Nil. Trust me or not, I’m going to make sure it happens. A perfect world, one without neglect, without injustice and the falsehoods of Gods.

We’ve already mothered the first inhabitants of this new world, thousands of years ago. With the Gods aware, we’ll have to be careful, but now we know it’s more than possible.

And whoever gets in the way will kneel, one way or another.