Demonic Devourer's Development

The Master of Sin disappeared, teleported by Pest far away from this city, where he will be safe from gods' attention at least for a short time—enough for him to hide better or to strike again, whichever he chose. They had better things to bother with than him…

I glanced at the bodies under my feet and grinned. They didn't even have time to call for reinforcements, but the time it gave me ended now. I had to leave again.

While Pest worked on the teleportation spell, I picked up the corpses—couldn't just leave them be!—and sent out my mental projection. I wished I had more time, but as it was, I couldn't do what I wanted and check on the team Sin used as distraction personally.

While I sneaked under the ground and while I chatted with him later, I got a lot of information from his head. Things he did—I was sure they will gather a nice reaction from the gods, if they didn't already. Too bad that I read from their minds that they didn't come here because of it—no, they searched for any demonic signatures, and homed not on the temple, but on the Master of Sin himself.

But that meant that my cultists were mostly safe from them right now, and my projection confirmed them. They ran away, quickly and purposefully, and the guards that ran after them, completely sure that they were following just a simple bunch of hooligans, had no chance of catching up. It was only a matter of time until the guards lost trail.

Then Pest finished his spell, and my mental projection dissipated because I returned to Hell.

Eating gods gave me more EXP to put into my abilities, but the time I spent on that gave me an opportunity to think more. And the more I thought, the more I was sure that my safe place won't be safe for much longer.

Me, demons, teleportation—it was only a matter of time until they decide to check it. Still, it was the best chance I had in making them lose the trail, if only for a short while. After this, they will want to check Heaven too, just in case. Then what other dimension will be left for me? Heavenly Judgement? Or straight out the Wheel of Reincarnation?

In frustration, I ran my hands through my hair. 'Pest, can you teleport me to the Wheel of Reincarnation?'

'Is this a strange way of asking if I can kill you? Master, if you mean straight out teleportation, then no! If there's a way, I don't know how… Should I try to find out?'

'No. Keep focusing on quickening the teleportation. You are using pre-made spells, why does it take you so long?'

'The spell is pre-made, but I have to calculate the coordinates from the scratch each time! It's intense work—I even raised a few INT points from that!'

I tsked. 'Then work harder,' I threw at him, but without much zeal. I knew he worked the best he could, or he'd lose these few points of stats from the contract that bound him to me. That the process of losing stats was immensely painful and possibly lethal was the only thing that stopped him from becoming my doom long ago.

After this I did as I told to the Master of Sin and ordered Pest to teleport me to where I earlier sent Enforcers.

It was a fine city… once. But it wasn't the city itself that was the most important, but the people that inhabited it. According to what God of Rogues told me once, here lived a chosen adventurer of Goddess of Warlocks, now in retirement, but still under her blessing—a part of which was an exclusive right to keep the power he gained even though it was a while since he last killed a monster.

Enforcers, like Wendigo, made a good job or razing the city and its surroundings. Now I wondered if Goddess of Warlocks came here to stop them yet, and if she did, was she still around—and alone. But I doubted that after Goddess of Rangers' death the gods will risk splitting apart.

When I got closer to the city, I saw that the attackers of it were already defeated. Corpses of humans were gathered in rows, and those of demons—throw into a pile. Healers cared for wounded in overflowing hospitals; guards together with adventurers, searched for any demons who ran away from the fight to hide in some dark place.

With my mental projection, I already detected a few that hid where they could, hoping to run away later. This "later", with any luck, was going to happen soon—the sun had almost settled, and the patrols were going to stop. People were tired as they were. Too tired to look up and spot me in the sky, for one thing.

From their memories and those of the demons, I gathered a picture of what happened. It wasn't different from the fate of Wendigo's squad. At first, demonic army destroyed everything they could, and even when the strongest adventure of the city came to stand against them, Enforcers killed him in a devastating show of brutality and team tactics.

Then, humans' prayers were answered, and the gods descended. Goddess of Warlocks, and with her—Goddess of Sorcerers. They quickly destroyed Enforcers and the main troop of demons, then spared some effort on finding and killing the rest, before teleporting away.

From the time I suggested it was when I attacked Goddess of Rangers.

So now there was not a single god in the city… I paused in the air and thought what to do next. Three of them were non-combatants now, basically. God of Monks was dead for good, and God of Rogues… Would be nice for him to fight on my side, but I couldn't rely on that. In total, eight gods. I wasn't sure I will be able to take them all at once if they came. But I stood a chance now.

The least thing I can do was preparing a little if I got time.

I turned and flew like an arrow away from the city and towards one of the surrounding villages—the nearest one, the smoke from which I could still see in the darkening sky. Sent ahead of me, my mental projection already confirmed that there were a couple of demons who were still having their fun with the villagers' things. Too much fun, in fact!

Not Enforcers, but some meat to throw at the enemy's blades. A distraction for them—who knows, maybe I will manage to repeat my previous surprise attack. It was so effective!

When I dropped from the sky to the village's main square, the demons were so busy throwing pumpkins at each other, that they didn't even notice my approach. Then a pumpkin hit one demon right in the forehead, making him fall, and the other laughed, holding his belly.

A single sniff was enough to tell that they already got into the village's stash of moonshine. I also noticed that, while they killed a few villagers, much more had time to run or hide while the demons robbed them of their possessions and enjoyed their trophies.

"You two!" I shouted, feeling my blood boiling.

At my voice, the demons froze, then slowly turned at me. "M-master…"

"What kind of childishness is that? You job isn't done yet—if you finished here, you should've went to destroy the next place!" I walked up to the demon that still had pieces of pumpkin stuck to his face and gave him a slap that sent him to the ground and left four deep claw marks in his red skin. This would scar. "Not get drunk! Now you are even more useless than you were before!"

The other demon fell to his knees to join his comrade in dirt. "Forgive us, Master Devourer! Forgive us! We are sorry! We won't do it anymore! At all, we swear!"

I grit my teeth together, then forced myself to make several deep breaths. Hot head wasn't good for thinking. My soldiers were drunk, and though still somewhat steady on their feet, the truth was that they were nothing next to the gods either way.

Maybe there will be more use in their idiocy.

"Stand up!" I barked. "And bring more moonshine!"

The demons jumped to their feet, but looked at me in confusion. "Moonshine?"

"The thing you drank that burns throats. Drink more, then return here and keep playing. You have my permission to do whatever you want as long as you don't leave this place."

"Wh-what? But…"

I gave the confused demon a look that made him choke on his words. "Keep talking instead of doing, and your pal will have to do everything on his own, while you will play again only in Hell!"

This made them shut up and ran to the pile of their pillaged goods.. Meanwhile, I spat some web on my palm and began to weave. While my demons forget the awkwardness of having their boss at a party under the influence of alcohol, I will make some web traps…