It wasn’t Simon’s first time being caught in the middle of an exploding Domain, but it was the first one he survived.
Borsh was no Helel, and while the shower of magical sparks that engulfed Simon was indeed potent, a combination of his Darkbound-enhanced bulk and summoning his dracozombie as a living shield at the very last moment let him endure the destruction. He should learn to treat his mounts better, but necessity was his only law right now.
Lightning, fire, frost, poison, mythic… nearly every type of damage was represented in Borsh’s final attack. The runes blasted his poor mount-shield to pieces and then struck him from all sides. He gained a few new smoking holes on his armor for his trouble, yet when the Domain collapsed and reality finally reasserted itself, it was Simon alone who stood victorious.
He found himself standing within the arena’s ruins, a giant whose head reached all the way to the fortress’ outer walls. Borsh had shrunk back to his original size in death, his body torn to pieces, his metal skin now transformed back into patches of rune-carved skin, and his heart reduced to a shattered crystal. He left behind no soul gem, either because he had killed himself or there wasn’t much of a spirit remaining to harvest.
He had been no eternal Zodiac Fiend.
Experience flowed into Simon with his victory. He had unfortunately already slain Borsh in a previous reign when he was much weaker, so he only received a smaller share from the demon half of the creature he had become.
Still, a level was a level. It alleviated some of Simon’s frustration at losing an important lead.
Level 73 Overlord Perk: All-Seeing IV (Active): You can change your coronation date by sitting on your Crimson Throne and personally writing the current date in your Abyssal Chronicle. You will begin new reigns on that date rather than the moment of your predecessor’s demise. This action cannot be undone, though you may overwrite the chosen date with a new one down the line.
Simon read the notification twice. He… He…
He could move forward the starting date of the reigns? He could decide to no longer wake up at the exact same hour and date, or relive the same day he could now almost sleepwalk through? He could potentially solve the civil war and set the outcome in stone without having to redo the grueling process of brokering peace between factions over again?
This could change everything.
Simon wondered if any of his predecessors had used this ability. His father probably did, since it would explain how Norbelle was born in multiple reigns as a Darkblooded Visionary, and having to rebuild his hoard multiple times would have driven Gargauth insane… or at least more insane than he already was.
This ability was extremely interesting, but Simon didn’t think he would make use of it anytime soon. The fact he couldn’t undo his choice and the risk he would lock himself into an impossible situation before the Zodiac Parade began was too great a downside.
Still, he could look forward to securing a better future one day. Maybe once he had defeated the archfiends and started having children…
Simon banished those thoughts from his mind and looked around the quarry. Hordes of demons and slaves alike gazed upon his titanic frame, spotted their late master’s corpse, and then at his slayer. Thoughts of treachery likely crossed many minds.
Simon put their minds at ease by squashing the nearest group of fiends with his hand, splattering them into a bloody smear and soul gems. His Deathmastery Perk immediately healed his wounds by feeding on their lifeforce and smothered the hopes of the ambitious.
“Are there any among you who would like to challenge me?” Simon inquired. “Or are you smart enough to know your place?”
When so well-taught, people always found wisdom.
They all knelt and bothered him no more.
Simon shrank back to his original size with a thin smile and then summoned his Dungeon core. The crystal took root like a seed now that the previous master of the place lay dead, and the Overlord’s power claimed the entire fortress as his own territory. This fortress would serve as an excellent forward operating base for the time being.
Simon didn’t intend to tarry long. Word would probably soon reach Mithras of the takeover, and he wasn’t looking forward to a Zodiac Fiend ambush. He was merely looking for answers and crafting infrastructure for now. He had soulbound equipment to forge, and a rune-carved pelt to harvest off of Borsh’s corpse.
“Did the late Deathmonger have an aide-de-camp?” Simon called out to the kneeling demons and slaves after floating out of the pit with Darkflight. “An assistant or second-in-command, perhaps?”
One fiend dared to fly towards him to offer her allegiance; the very same demoness who had so happily slouched on Borsh’s lap a few minutes ago. The statuesque beauty had curved horns jutting from her brows and holding back her long black hair, large leathery wings sprouting from her back, and a sinuous tail coming out of a gown of diaphanous red and black silk.
She looked every bit like the average succubus at first glance, yet Simon noticed a few details that made him doubt his first assessment. Her clothes were relatively more… chaste than the corsets and nakedness the rest of her kind preferred, with many enchantments woven into the fabric and a grimoire strapped to her belt. Her red eyes were coldly calculating rather than lurid, and she carried herself with aristocratic grace befitting an archdemon rather than her common kin… which she was. Simon could feel the raw miasma in her heart.
And finally, her face resembled Cassandra’s a little too much.
“My name is Agrat, Second Nightqueen,” she introduced herself, her voice so similar to her daughter's it unnerved Simon. “It is an honor to meet the Lord of Dark in the flesh. My kind thought itself bereft of your presence forever after your long disappearance, Overlord…”
“Belias,” Simon replied. He was slightly wary of using his true name, especially now that he knew the likes of the Weavers were still around. “I see you demons didn’t wait to turn my lands into Hell in my absence. Are you Cassandra Honorius’ mother, perchance?”
“Have you encountered that project of mine?” Project. The flat way she spoke of her daughter—without any emotion nor caring whatsoever—sent a shiver down Simon’s spine. “Is she still alive? I lost track of her long before my return to this plane.”
“I am not sure. I’ve slept for a very long time.” Simon wasn’t even certain any human remained in this desolate world at this point. “Are you loyal to Mithras?”
“I am my own mistress. The Lord of Runes contracted me to serve as his… private advisor in return for sharing his knowledge on runes.” She pitilessly glanced at Borsh’s corpse. “This deal has obviously expired.”
“Obviously.” Simon sensed an opportunity and conjured a Brand of Sloth. “If it is the power of runes you seek, I can provide it.”
She didn’t bite. “I will pass on your poisoned gift, but I will gladly record your experiments with other volunteers. I recall that you sought answers to certain questions. I can trade my knowledge for yours.”
“Very well… but deceive me at your peril.” Simon stored Borsh’s corpse into his Inventory for future skinning. “You’ll start by showing me around my new fortress.”
“With pleasure. Would you like to start with your predecessor’s harem, or the torture chamber?”
“Aren’t they the same thing for your kind?”
“No.” Agrat’s calculating smile reminded Simon of Duchar’s. “But one usually leads to the other.”
—------
After enslaving all the soldiers and demons who hadn’t already fled, and turning the rest into undead, Simon found himself the proud owner of a fortress, hundreds of demons, and ten times that many slaves.
He branded the soldiers that bent the knee, slew those who did not or tried to escape, destroyed all the doors to ensure none could serve as an Attic secret entrance, and held off on freeing the slaves until he learned a little more about his current situation. On the one hand, he learned that some humans and shifters endured in this terrible world; on the other hand, he found that out after finding a handful of them enslaved in Borsh’s harem.
Some of them were pregnant and clearly not happy about it.
“They are quite happy to be here,” Agrat ‘kindly’ informed him once he visited that part of the fortress, which only fueled Simon’s ire. “A boudoir is a lot more comfortable than the fear camps.”
“The fear camps?”
Simon immediately regretted inquiring about that when Agrat provided the details. “To protect the Tribes of Brimir from extinction, and to ensure Lord Mithras’ troops can enjoy steady rations of souls, mortals have been gathered in internment camps where the young can safely reproduce and the old properly processed.”
The more Simon listened, the more determined he became to wipe out the Zodiac Fiends from the face of Brimir. “Are they transformed into Helel’s angels?”
“No, they are sacrificed to the Light Megalith and their bodies repurposed for combat. Lady Helel remains sealed for the time being… which is a shame, as she would likely turn the tide against the Destroyers. Lord Mithras follows her guidance and leads the Dominators in her absence.”
Simon considered the information. If Helel remained trapped in the Light Megalith four centuries after the comet passed, then Valravn never found Anna or she perished before he could learn of her true importance. It meant the Oracle’s belief in the Maiden’s seal was in fact warranted. She had failed to break out even with Abraxas’ power at her disposal. She would rot in her cell so long as she never found a host.
However, imprisonment didn’t stop her from issuing orders to her allies among the Zodiac Fiends or answering Prayers. Her thralls had been hard at work weakening the seal with human sacrifices over the last few hundred years, and Agrat sounded convinced the Maiden’s escape was only a matter of time.
“Her return grows more and more urgent,” Agrat admitted. “Shin-Drazil continues to raise sea levels, and Exodeos casts more lands into the void with each passing year. There will be very little left for her to rule at this rate.”
“I take it you are losing the war from your tone.”
She didn’t deny it. “The Dominators’ armies outnumber the Destroyers and are better organized, but the latter are individually more powerful… especially their leader, Asterion the Minotaur, who is said to rival Lady Helel herself in strength.”
“Asterion commands the Destroyers?” That detail caught Simon’s full attention. Had the Minotaur fallen back into his old ways after overcoming his depression? “Where is he?”
“The Minotaur lurks in a place called the Great Chasm far to the north of here. Your Majesty would have to fly past elven territory to reach it. A tall order, even for you.”
Of course the Oracle would keep making things difficult for him, even so far into the future… “I’ve heard you were fighting those elves, Agrat. Who leads them?”
“The muses,” the demoness answered, leaving her new master with more questions.
Agrat and other soldiers thankfully provided Simon with a pretty good picture of the current situation, literally. Borsh’s command center included maps of the region, including troop movements and certain key geographical information.
Study of the documents confirmed that the region used to be the Navarre-Magvolia border and that the massive firestorm in the distance was the result of Mithras-aligned warlords checking the Darkwood’s expansion. It appeared that the Stone Muse had escaped her seal alongside her brood, and spent the better part of the last few centuries expanding her territory.
“The muses worship the Minotaur and ceaselessly push their Darkwood infestation into the Borderlands,” Agrat explained. “Lord Mithras was successfully pushing them back until another party entered the fray.”
Why would the elves ally with the likes of Asterion? Simon wondered. It didn’t make any sense. “How can they survive in such a miasma-rich environment without wasting away?”
Agrat smiled mysteriously at him. “Your Dark Majesty has been away a very long time, have they not?” She called out one of the demon soldiers. “Bring my elven subject.”
Imps dragged a helpless and chained creature to him, the sight of whom gave Simon pause.
The leaf-ears and graceful body-shape would have identified the man as an elf—though many bruises and his missing leg marred his kind’s natural beauty—were it not for a few startling details. His skin was darker than onyx, and his eyes a crimson shade of red. He reeked of so much miasma that Simon almost mistook him for a Darkblooded individual at first glance.
“This is Solon, an elven thrall of the muses,” Agrat introduced him. “Our late Deathmonger granted him to me after learning everything he had to offer.”
They evolved… Simon studied the thrall head-to-toe. Elves were said to descend from the dryads’ fairy servitors, so the Stone Muse’s lineage could have easily spawned a miasma-adapted breed to serve them. “And the normal elves? Where are they, holed up in Illusea?”
Agrat shrugged. “I haven’t met a light-skinned elf in a very, very long time. I’m told that they left this world when we started claiming it for ourselves.”
“Left this world?” Simon struggled to believe his ears. “For where?”
“I cannot say. Their disappearance took place centuries before my return to the material plane.” Agrat glanced at Solon. “This creature and his kind are all that remain of the elven people.”
“A pitiful remnant,” Simon noted as he faced the elven scout. “Solon is your name, right? Why would you serve a group seeking to destroy you and the very world you live in?”
“Your people will never understand… so blinded by ambition and arrogance.” The scout spat at his feet, but missed by an inch. “This world is a prison for souls, created by a vile demiurge to prevent us from achieving a state of bliss! We live and die chained to the wheel of reincarnation! To plunge it into the Dark is to achieve freedom!”
His eyes were alight with fanaticism that would give Templars pause. Simon himself struggled to make sense out of such motivations. Had Asterion shared the secret about the reigns’ true nature with his followers?
“You would rather not exist?” Simon inquired.
“Destruction precedes reformation!” The scout smiled with the resolve of the mad. “We will achieve the complete rebirth of the world! For what the Dark destroys, the Light shall rebuild! A new universe will rise from the ashes of the old by the will of the Supreme Duality, cleansed of corruption, free to begin anew! Anew!”
“As you can see, a fascinating madness has taken hold,” Agrat said with the same detachment as Duchar. “I always found it quaint, this ‘faith’ mortals espouse. I have tried many experiments to shake this one’s resolve, yet he is proving extraordinarily resistant to reason.”
Demonic internment camps on one side and a death cult on the other… this era’s inhabitants are stuck between two different hells. Simon’s hands clenched into fists. This only happened because I couldn’t act.
He had to ensure this bleak future never came to pass.
“How many elves are protecting the Darkwood’s border?” Simon asked Agrat.
“Hundreds, with many more corrupted treants and fae to call upon. Our departed Deathmonger had some luck pushing them back until Algozoa the Archer showed up, at which point Lord Mithras ordered the border put to the torch.”
Nice to put a name on that one, Simon thought before asking out loud, “Which side of the dispute is the Archer on?”
“Neither,” Agrat replied, smiling. “The Archer hunts both sides.”
Interrogating the demoness and Solon gave Simon a pretty good grasp on the Zodiac War. The Dominators, led by the currently sealed Helel and the Lion Mithras, included Valravn, Nodens, and Hashtur the Ram. The Two-Tailed Fish, Tiamut, had allied with them a century or so back out of self-preservation after the Destroyers sank her lands.
Meanwhile, the Destroyers included Asterion, Shin-Drazil, Exodeos, and Isfet the Scorpion. Lotan had claimed the ocean as his domain and attacked anyone who ventured into it, but was otherwise content to stay in isolation and did not actively assist the Destroyers. The two groups mostly stayed clear of him after he kept rebuffing all offers of alliances.
As for the Archer, he had taken a neutral stand and preyed on both sides of the dispute. He had taken a fancy to the Darkwood after supposedly hunting the last few remaining true dragons to extinction and showed no hint of moving on anytime soon.
“Valravn runs the fear camps?” This didn’t surprise Simon, though it solidified his hatred for the Twins. “Where is he ruling them from? Valne?”
“Valne, Valne…” The name rang a bell for Agrat. “I recall it used to be a human nation once.”
“It used to share a continent with Lore, where the Light Megalith should be.”
“Lady Helel rules from an isolated island,” Agrat replied. “The lack of remaining manatrees to bind continents and the rising sea levels have caused the continents to shatter and drift apart. This planet’s face might be unrecognizable to Your Majesty depending on how long you have been missing.”
Agrat had no knowledge of any other side in this global conflict, whether from an elven nation like Illusea or any other remaining countries, though she had heard rumors of an enclave of sentient golems to the very far west. Perhaps it was a remnant of Muse, or a mere fable. Vouivre’s name conjured no memory, and the last true dragons had either perished or mutated into miasmic monsters like most of the world’s fauna.
Simon had considered freeing the slaves and allowing them to flee to a safer place, but there seemed to be no such thing on Brimir anymore. The only ‘manatrees’ that remained on this side of the world belonged to the muses and spread toxic miasma instead. The Noble Heroes had faded into myth, if they hadn’t outright vanished with the elves.
Frightwall might actually be the only demon-free sanctuary left.
There was still some hope. The Darkwood’s borderland had grown over one of the sites that used to house one of Operation Deepground’s vaults. Simon could unearth it for supplies and further answers on what happened to the elves, if not his fallen empire.
Is this the future you envisioned, Oracle? Simon wondered in his heart. A crumbling ruin of lost glories and fading embers? Or did you miscalculate again?
Either way, this terrible timeline wouldn’t come to pass. It couldn’t be allowed to pass again. Simon would never allow it.
No matter the cost.
“Set the forge ablaze,” Simon ordered Agrat after reaching a decision. “I will be busy crafting for some time.”
Reaching Asterion’s base would be a long and perilous journey, so he would equip himself properly for it. He would cross the border, make a pit stop at a Deepground vault, and then find his way to the Minotaur. And if the Archer dared to hunt him, or if anyone got in his way, then Simon would mount their heads on a wall.
He would carve a path with blood and bones.
A/N: merry wishes from Denver! This chapter should hit at the same time as usual if I've calculated time zones right, but you tell me XD
Otherwise I slightly edited last chapter. My intention for the fight was that Borsh provided a decent challenge (as befitting a 400+ years old werewolf automaton bound to an archfiend), but the brawl was still decisively in Simon's favor rather than anything close. Seems it didn't come across this way XD