It was a fairly long trek through the thick woods, even with how quickly I could move. Yet even from this distance I could hear the distant rumblings of something or other exploding.

  Damnit, I really don’t have much time.

  The only thing I could be thankful for is that flimsy divine barrier. It would probably shatter if I so much as touch the damn thing, but it would certainly hold off weak younglings like these demons for a good while. It definitely covered Diane, so she’ll be fine within it.

  I scowled, as I jogged through the trees, passing at least a dozen at a time. So much had been happening lately that it’s been hard for me to keep track. Then there were things that kept bringing forward more and more doubts… things that needed answers. Answers which I had no idea on how to pursue. Answers which I presumed could wait. Answers which… at the very least, I presumed, would have little impact on anything other than myself.

  And… well, that was the case until earlier today. Since that moment, I had been questioning a great many odd things that I, perhaps, glossed over too soon.

  I presumed the demons that Diane mentioned yesterday would have been Sayomi and Orion… maybe even that demon masquerading as guild leader of the adventurer’s guild, Baal. But did that really make sense?

  Plus... I am fairly certain Baal never left the city. So, for demons to pursue the other demons… that would have had to have been more than just Orion. So why would there have been more here, when I didn’t bring them myself?

  Then there’s been the other problem I’ve been running into… like the one where I keep falling asleep. One that I had just assumed had to do with my contract. It made sense, right?

  Or did it? Since when the hell did I ever need to sleep?! Sleep is as wasteful of an activity as eating, and I just wrote it off. Explained it away and moved on.

  So many doubts raced through my head as I finally arrived back at Brown rock Mountain. The place full of the damn hornets, and now, clearly, a great many worse things. The forest ended much sooner than I expected, and turned into a vast field of stumps, with scattered logs laying across the ground.

  A vast array of structures rose from the earth, built with advanced construction techniques. Several central buildings rose as high as four stories tall, and a flurry of activity streamed through the former hornet nest tunnels.

  There were, easily, hundreds of demons rushing about. Most of those cretins looked like some strange, bastardized version of myself. Misshapen, missing horns, extra arms or perhaps short on appendages, and with great variance in their height.

  Fuck.

  It seemed like I had been right about one thing, though. At least a hundred of the demons here were forming into large squads beyond the edge of the buildings. They had lined up straight in my path… facing towards the city.

  Another round of firm rumbling in the distance gently reminded me to hurry onwards. Sayomi and Orion, the first demons I made here… I needed to confirm my doubts with them, and there was something I needed to resolve with Sayomi in particular. I strode onward, the swarm separating itself ahead of my path. They greeted me with a quiet murmur, as they stood aside and dropped to their knees.

  I repressed a shudder as they began to chant… those pathetic accidents that should have never come to exist in the first place.

  “Glory glory for our Lord,

  Whose flames abound ‘cross rock and fjord.

  Destruction is our rightmost hand,

  Our mark is left across the land.

  Though dark and grim we bring the night,

  To end this everlasting blight.

  To tear the gods from their lofty thrones,

  We’ll wage war until they’re bones.

  For our Lord o’ Destruction’s right,

  For our Lord, we’ll end their plight. ”

  They even began to stomp in unison as they chanted. I bared my fangs at them… well, teeth in this form. I hated the bastards almost as much as I hated the gods. Almost.

  I hadn’t gotten much past them before the crunch of soil was replaced by firm, paved concrete. It wasn’t long after entered into the newly minted town before I had my next surprise.

  A hooded demon in a large, thick red robe rushed towards me. “My lord, ahh, my lord! Please, accept this one’s apologies… we weren’t expecting you this night!”

  I stared incredulously. The fuck is he doing here?!

  “Baal.”

  “L-Lord Dagon, as you can see, we have everything prepared to execute your plan.” Baal wrung his hands nervously, and bowed his head as he spoke.

  … My plan?

  I waved my hand towards the buildings around us, and continued towards the center of the town.

  “And this?” Some of my disgust must have leaked through, because Baal absolutely cowered at the simple question. It might also have been somewhat related to him struggling to keep up with my pace, but I doubted that.

  “W-w-well, you see, my L-L-Lord, I had planned a much grander citadel for you here. But that impertinent bitch, well, she argued that I must have misunderstood the extent of your orders, my Lord! She was adamant that you would find such a thing extreme! And I— hiiek!” Baal squealed slightly as I shot him a cold glare.

  I had a problem. I had a really, really big problem. And I was having a really, really hard time keeping calm about it.

  We had arrived at Sayomi’s house. There was an abrupt end to the concrete near the center of the city, and fenced in the middle of it all was a wood log house. It was also the only building currently emitting light.

  Out front, Orion was putting a host of children through various fitness drills. It seemed they were quickly rotating through various fitness stations and combative stations.

  “This is far too much!” I hissed coldly, and glared at Baal. “This world isn’t ready for anything of this scale yet! How the hell is there any meaning to slaughtering them all like helpless children?!”

  The demon stuttered for a moment, as his eyes contorted into various odd shapes. His utter confusion was palpable. Yeah. I think I had my answer. A very, very problematic answer.

  “What I want,” I resumed methodically, “is for them to struggle desperately. I want to see the strength of their resolve, their will— and to get a taste for their ideals. I want them to become strong enough to give me a fight worth my time. Understand?”

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  From the look on Baal’s face, it was pretty damn clear he didn’t quite get it.

  “Y-yes, my lord. I will do my best. So does this...” He motioned towards the city again.

  “No, this doesn’t change my plan. Just make sure to follow my intent correctly.”

  I waved him off. I had enough of an answer, although how this will play out… I guess I’ll just have to see.

  Then, a thought struck me. “Ah, one last thing. Tell me, who am I to you?” I tried asking as nonchalantly as I could.

  Baal turned back towards me, and bowed, barely concealing a quizzical expression on his face. “You are, of course, our Lord of Despair, Sendrien Dagon.”

  He tilted his head up towards me, with a raised eyebrow. I waved him on. If it’s just demons of their level… then they’ll just make a damn good mess of things. It would still be a devastating level of force, to be sure, but it will make for a far more interesting fight to watch.

  Still…

  Lord of Despair… Lord of Destruction… fuck.

  How could I even describe this feeling? How does one describe the moment when they realize that they’ve gone insane? The demons I’ve never seen before worship me as the Lord of Destruction… and Baal called me the Lord of Despair. But I never gave Baal these orders? I never met that bastard either… so does that make me the Lord of Destruction and the rest of me beyond the wall the Lord of Despair?

  But… that doesn’t make any sense either?

  I grimaced, as more rumblings thundered in the distance.

  “Lord Da- ah, Thistleman!” A suave, feminine voice called out to me.

  “Sayomi.” I gave a curt nod to the feminine demon leaning out of the second story window to the house.

  Good. I’ll just need to confirm my answer then.

  She hopped out the window, unfurled her wings and glided over to me. “Are you here to check on the orphans? I did as best as I could to deal with them, as you requested, my lord. Have I done well?”

  As she spoke, Nina replaced her in the window. That little girl made a wide smile when she looked at me, although… something about it didn’t seem quite right? I felt like I was getting used to how humans smiled, and hers looked more like some of my bad practice rounds.

  Then, the child tossed a giant cockroach out of the window, which plopped lifelessly on the ground. A quick glance was all that was needed to tell that its innards had all been scooped out.

  OH… oh… shit.

  I DID tell Sayomi to “deal” with the orphans, didn’t I? So then… she should be a good control test?

  Sayomi seemed to pick up on some of my confusion, albeit incorrectly, and started going off about the roaches. She seemed almost genuinely ecstatic over the damn things.

  “Ah, that is a fascinating research subject! We encountered them recently, my lord! Their energy is the same as ours, but they won’t listen to myself, Baal, or any other demons. Plus, mmm, they swarm anything other than themselves on sight. I’ve seen a swarm clean a whole deer, bones and all, in under a minute!”

  …

  …

  What?

  “Do you… happen to have a live one?” I asked, slowly.

  “Ah… unfortunately no, but we have all the parts. Why don’t you… come in and see?” The demoness smiled, then used a single finger wave to usher me inside.

  Orion looked at me, and by his expression he looked prepared to shout an order to the other children. All of them were shooting glances my way, although none seemed willing to risk breaking their training cycle.

  I shot that accident a sharp glare and shook my head, and he slunk away like a rejected puppy.

  The entry hall of her house was… reminiscent of my trophy hall, albeit much shorter and far more graphic. She had certainly been busy since I last saw her. Various creatures had been… embalmed along the hallway. All of them had endless amounts of stitching holding them together, and their faces twisted into grotesque expressions.

  There was a particularly large ogre mixed in the bunch, next to a somewhat familiar human with a silver plate. Their taxidermied bodies had far more stitching on them than any of the others, oddly enough. Plus, it seemed they were in rougher shape… filthy and ragged, as if they were sometimes used as training dolls.

  At the end was a set of doorways, sans any doors, and adjacent to a staircase, which lead up to the second floor.

  Sayomi hummed pleasantly as I followed her, chattering about her trophies. She certainly seemed much more practiced at the role I originally designed her for… batting her eyelashes about and all those other strange, human rituals.

  I only responded with “Hmm” or “I see” any time she seemed to want a response. This… was such an absolute mess. A demonic roach? What the hell is the deal with that?! And why make something that doesn’t listen to anything?

  It’s definitely better than the unlimited, sickening levels of devotion from all these other demons. Still… it’s just… why?

  Lost in thought, I hadn’t noticed much else as we ascended the stairs and entered Sayomi’s dissection room. Various parts of things were neatly stashed in watertight containers about the room, and the scent of blood mixed with various other animal and insectoid smells to create a rather… unique experience.

  “Ah, here it is!” Sayomi smiled cheerfully, and picked up one of the buckets near one of the many tables in the room. The tables were all mostly wooden as well, and placed within large glass tubs, which seemed to serve as a catch for any blood and viscera which fell off her tables.

  I… didn’t even need to use a spell. I could just… feel it, emanating from that bucket. That amorphous pile of bug parts was definitely emitting waves of my godforsaken mana.

  I flatly couldn’t catch any of her excited rambling, as I was quietly reeling from the absurdity of it all.

  And then it hit me. This damn thing was another accident! How many times have I just dumped my miasma out and about? Or maybe… my blood? That shit seems to pack a ton of miasma too… and if I didn’t make it with a clear intent, then maybe? No, no, I can’t just write this off. That’s how I missed so many thing already… but…

  I held up a finger to stop Sayomi’s babbling, and at some point she had gotten to a bucket of some demon parts on the other side of the room.

  “I want you to test something for me.” I closed my eyes, and then shook my head. Split thought. Soul shadow. Greater Illusion. Greater Mimicry. Realm Divide. Telepathy.

  Sayomi grimaced, as she was drug into an opaque mimicry of her dissection room. The conversation on the other side continued, albeit deeply muffled.

  “M-my lord?!” She looked back and forth between her body, my body, and illusory body.

  I ignored her confusion. Or, rather, even with these counter measures, I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to explain. Everything was off. I was off. I mean… would this even work if I didn’t even trust myself? At least, from what I have seen so far, the things “I” know can be separated, so if I minimize unnecessary instructions…

  “First, I need you to answer a question. Who am I to you?” My voice shook a little, but not of nervousness or fear. No, it sounded almost paranoid, even to my own ears.

  I watched the illusory demoness take a deep breath to recompose herself, and then drop into a well-practiced curtsey. “You are my lord, my world, and my whole reason for being. Whether you want me to address you as Thistleman or Sendrien, you will always be my king.”

  …

  King.

  I… hadn’t expected that. It wasn’t like I ever felt particularly settled about what I was, either… if anything, I had felt resigned to having become a demon lord of some kind. It offered an almost strange reassurance, of a kind I couldn’t quite pin.

  “Does Lord of Despair or Lord of Destruction mean anything?”

  “Should it, my lord?”

  I simply nodded in response. “Second, for that test. I want someone to stand in for me, to play my role. I want an independent, proxy demon lord. And… now that I think about it, I have a good idea for how this actually works.” I smiled nice and wide, and remembered that goblin.

  Goblin Rok. I turned him into a demon, didn’t I? And he still swore to kill me one day?

  My body on the other side retrieved an empty bucket from Sayomi, and then cut its finger to poor some blood into it. I had no idea if it worked, but I sure as hell channeled as much mess shit up thought energy as I could, while dumping that blood in there. “We will confirm if intent matters. Find a good host to use that with.”

  Sayomi nodded slowly, although she couldn’t fully conceal how on edge she was. Not that it mattered, at this point.

  She had no time to react before I stabbed my physical, bleeding hand into Sayomi’s chest.

  “You are the only one I ever intended to make, and you were made for one purpose, and one purpose only. Nobody else interfered with that purpose… nothing was changed about you at all. I needed you to help Diane where I couldn’t. But you… it seems to me that you just didn’t understand that. You put her in danger. You didn’t help her. You even thought to try and punish her, didn’t you? No, no… none of this will do. She is your reason for being! This… this is your punishment for tormenting my little Almas!”

  Before I knew it, I had devolved into a howling mess. I was shaking with rage.

  “I don’t give a damn what you have to do or how you have to do it, but you will dedicate your existence to my little girl. You will die for her if she demands it. And you will figure out how to become completely independent, so nothing can ever change this order.”

  I tore my hand out of her chest, as a thick stream of black blood and miasma poured out of it. I had no idea how much I had pumped in to her in my moment of rage, but her body dropped and writhed on the ground.

  I didn’t even bother to give it a second look. I thought I would be… calmer than this.

  I’ll probably be coming back here again, so it would be a good idea to connect it to my network of doors. I’ve also been gone for far longer than I’d like, but from some of the spells I put on that sword I got her as a birthday gift, everything still seems fine around her. Because of that divine barrier, I couldn't really feel my connection with her.

  “Gate.”

  Fuck. If I’m a king, and I was right about the Lord of Destruction… then who the hell is the Lord of Despair?!

  And… FUCK. Did I… I gave her the sword, right?