A/N: My life had been busy the last few weeks with the death in my family, looking for a new job and apartment, and it will continue to be that way for the coming weeks as well. This chapter and the next one will be a bit of an info dump since I had a down phase for some time and couldn't come up with a better way to convey some of the information than outright telling. It's still okay in my opinion, but it could have been better. Hopefully, I will be back on track soon. Anyway, enjoy the read.
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The group looked shocked when they saw us appear, but decisively separated to run away. I aimed my palm into the sky and released several ki blasts, which I controlled to home in on each demon.
Several were instantly killed while the general demon that had guided us to Lust had survived. Not an unimpressive feat, since my strength was multiplied by 20x. Of course, it wasn't without consequences. His torso was severely burned and his arm from the elbow down was gone. Half of his face was burned off as well.
It all made him look like he was just moments away from dying, but like most demons, it appeared that he had a tenacious vitality. I telekinetically moved him in front of us. Just as we were about to question him, he exploded, releasing a ton of demonic energy.
I shielded us with a ki barrier. The demonic energy crashed into it with ferociousness. After the explosion settled down, we saw what he left behind. His body was blown into bits of flesh and blood all over the place. His pieces of flesh glowed for a moment, only to merge with the realm below us.
A look around at the weak demons I had blown up showed similar signs of fusing with the ground. I questionably looked at Raven, who shook her head, not sure what had happened just now.
Did the realm voluntarily absorb these demons, or was it a ploy of Neron? After vowing to do our best to keep future demons alive to question, we decided to not think about it too deeply and headed to the other sins. "So, in the end, you want to use this realm's powers, right? Didn't you say that the realm could only influence you if you let the dimension empower you?"
"Yes, that was the reason I hadn't used the dimension to resist my siblings' ambush back then. At that point, I hadn't fused with my demonic side and I was susceptible to being influenced. Now I can resist it long enough to take my sibling's territory. My demon side is taking in the emotions of Lust in a stride. At this moment, I am already converting Lust's territory to pure power to enhance myself with the spell I modified to suit me. With my spell, I am not using the realm. I am putting it in the shredder and using its crumbs to empower me. With this, I will grow stronger, while Trigon and this realm will grow weaker. His healing will stop and when I converted this realm to pure energy to enhance my abilities, I will take him down."
Her words made it sound simple, but I wondered what it cost her to do this. Would the realm just let her feed on its energy? Trigon was still out and hopefully will remain this way, but what would happen once the other siblings weren't using their powers to keep him from resting? What would happen if Neron noticed what was happening?
I looked at her blush that hadn't receded since she absorbed Lust. I wondered if she could handle the influence of this realm before she converted its power to her own while Trigon was corrupting her.
"So, you mentioned you will be able to take over Wrath and Envy easier. Why is that?" I asked to chat with her as we flew to our first, technically second, target.
"Well, Wrath first, since I have experience with suppressing my anger for years now, having attributed the emotion to Trigon's influence the most, it became a focus for me to suppress it. As for Envy... I had gained some experience recently."
"... Will that be enough? I mean, if you absorbed everything in this realm?" I asked. Although she seemed to have grown significantly stronger after having absorbed Lust, his demons, and his territory, I wasn't sure if that was enough to take on Trigon.
"I am not sure. To be honest, the energy I gain from absorbing the created demons and territory will not grant me strength higher than if I took this realm over and cultivated it like my siblings are doing, but at least now Trigon's can't influence me through the realm. So, even though I may only gain 1/10 of the total energy, it's worth it. And cooperating with my siblings is impossible as well, so this is the only way for me."
I nodded. Although it appeared that she was working at a loss, even ignoring the fact that her siblings weren't the best people one could cooperate with, if only one person used the energy it would be more effective than if several people use the same energy albeit a bit more, especially against someone like Trigon.
It reminded me of my ki attacks. Although a ki attack that spread out would be better for weaker opponents and to destroy the environment, one needed an attack that was united/concentrated to deal damage to someone stronger than one was. Just this point alone would reject the idea of working with the others.
As for using the energy of the realm, if she could use it safely, then that would be better than having a bit more power. Of course, it also ignored the fact that she was 'destroying' her foundation.
If she took over a realm and cultivated it instead of 'putting it in the shredder', then she would grow stronger, faster, but knowing whose realm it used to belong to, it was wiser to destroy it and use what one could get without getting greedy.
"We will not approach this the same way we did with Lust, will we?" When I asked this, I pulled at the collar around my neck.
"No, but I like the look." She teased as she glanced at me with a smirk on her face, which made me promptly rip apart the collar.
As she was now, she was far more emotive than usual. It was a bit weird to get used to and the idea that absorbing this realm was changing her to become more 'evil' while Trigon was actively trying to corrupt her was also in the back of my mind, but there wasn't much I could do. I feared that if I knocked her out, Trigon would have an easier time influencing her.
Talking her out of it didn't seem to be possible as well, not with the determination and murderous desire she showed when she glanced toward Trigon's resting place. All I could do now was to monitor her and make sure she could handle conquering this realm.
Honestly, I hadn't expected to go this route, being this passive with this encounter. I thought I would end up killing Trigon on my own, and to be honest, I felt I still wanted to do it, but now I was helping Raven get stronger, so she could help. It was probably the better way for her to involve herself with putting an end to him, to her father. After all, I had no real emotional investment in Trigon's death, but Raven certainly had a reason or two...
After a while, we turned up at Wrath's castle which wasn't that different from Lust's castle beside the noises the inhabitants made. Shouts, growls, and sounds of fighting could be heard from high above.
We directly flew inside and after passing the demons on patrol, they turned into dust as she absorbed their powers. It was honestly a pretty intimidating sight, with everyone dying that was just in the vicinity.
I wondered if her siblings could feel them disappear. After all, they had created these demons with the excess energy they siphoned from Trigon. Raven also mentioned that they grew stronger with the size of their territory and the number of demons they commanded. So, it only seemed logical that they would notice their decline of power after Raven stole their energy.
I raised my hand and exploded the window with the pressure of the invisible kiai. As soon as we entered the room, we could hear the cursing of Wrath, who turned to us with a snarl on his face.
Just when he saw us, his expression froze. He took several steps backward before he shouted at the door, "Guards!"
"..." We just stared at him.
"You imbeciles! Your master is being attacked!" He shouted again and like before, he didn't receive a response.
"Don't bother, 'brother'. They are already gone." Raven said before sitting down on a lavish chair. Quite theatrically. The demonic energy that seeped through the walls and ground like water with a will of its own, just to be absorbed into Raven, made the sight even more intimidating for the demon.
I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as I saw him straighten his back with a forced smile on his face, about to say something, but was interrupted by Raven. "I heard you are absorbing father's power..."
Raven continued to question what they have been up to, what their goals were, and what Neron was planning. To my surprise, Wrath looked - dare I say it - reasonable. He glanced at me nervously from time to time, but he kept his composure as he laid everything on the table.
There wasn't much we didn't already know. Their plan was simple: absorb Trigon's power and replace him. Neron's goal was unknown to Wrath or rather he hadn't thought about it since they had been desperate for Neron's method, so they could heal and grow even stronger.
Sure, Wrath and the others had plans to betray Neron as well, but that was all in the future, when they had recovered and grown stronger.
Raven took Wrath's method of absorbing Trigon's power and signaled to me that there were some differences to the one from Lust. After we had everything we needed, Raven raised her hand, but before she could kill him, I separated his head with a short ki blade. His detached head looked at me in disbelief, having moved to kill him even though he gave us everything.
"Should have just stayed dead." I said before a ridiculous sight occurred in front of me. Wrath grabbed his own head and placed it back on his neck. His neck muscles wriggled and tried to reconnect with his head.
His aura rose and extended like a red flame around him and breathed heavily as white smoke seemed to be released out of his nostrils. He looked like he was going berserk. It's like his inner anger was empowering himself. In the next second, I had already pierced his entire body with a hundred ki spears, turning his body into Swiss cheese, before smashing his head open like a watermelon.
Not even a moment afterward, his life force dissipated, indicating that he had been slain. Raven hadn't even time to react and just looked at me hesitantly before she siphoned all of Wrath's dead body's power until there was nothing left of him besides a pile of dust.
Her aura grew tremendously almost instantly, and I had to restrain her for a moment as she lashed out in all directions. The room was crumbling, as Raven's energy seemed to corrode the walls at a visible speed. Though this time she quickly calmed down, after she sat down cross-legged with closed eyes to meditate.
I leaned against a deteriorating wall and watched her violent aura decrease rapidly before she contained it all and opened her eyes again. I glanced at the pile of dust and wondered about how he had managed to boost his strength and escape his own death, even if it was just for a second. The next time I should kill them more thoroughly.
Afterward, we flew into the sky and she stretched out her hand at the ground before a large landmass turned black as she was converting this landmass into her own power.
I didn't want to disturb her, so I only asked after she looked in the direction of Envy. "Should we wait until you have converted all the energy? I couldn't help but notice that most of the landmass isn't the territory of your siblings."
Although the landmass that now turned dark was massive, it couldn't compare to the entirety of what we could see. It was obvious that their speed at 'dethroning' their father would have taken a while.
She shook her head without hesitation. "We will only stop after we took over Envy's part of this realm. The others are stronger than these three since they are still recovering from their deaths, but Greed, Gluttony, and Sloth should be stronger than the others. I also have little affinity with Greed and Gluttony, so I can't overpower them and siphon their strength directly."
"Right. You mentioned the requirement of being stronger to siphon energy. That won't be a problem. Just let me kill them first before you siphon their powers." There were two reasons I wanted to do that.
First, it was to lessen the emotional burden once we were out of the realm and if she saw her actions in a different light, it would help if I carried some of the blame. At least for her mixed siblings, the other demons were pure demons. Evil was in their nature. Another reason was to get a feel for these demons. Just that 2-second fight against Wrath gave me some insight into what Trigon could be using.
Just like before, the demons that didn't seem to belong to Trigon escaped out of Raven's territory. This time, the demons didn't escape as a group, but fled in different directions from the moment Raven took over.
"Take care of that big guy." I pointed at the one that differentiated from the rest and then turned my attention to the generic demons. With a wave of my hand, I released several ki blasts at them.
Their strength and speed were pitiful, so they barely extended their lives with the escape attempt for a moment before my attack hit them, detonating as if I fired missiles at them. However, this time, the attack wasn't particularly strong, just strong enough to paralyze them.
I gathered the demons towards me and threw them onto the ground. Raven followed suit, throwing the big dark gray demon into the pile. "Tell us, what are you here for?" I asked the disoriented demons. My questions seemed to rouse them as they insulted me. Spit flew out of their mouths as they hissed and spoke of heinous things they would do to everyone I loved.
"Lovely." As I finished speaking, a blue laser burned through the chest of one demon before its torso exploded into a thousand pieces. "Raven would you?"
She nodded, "My pleasure." Before she extracted the demon's pure energy into herself. The minor demons lacked an upper half of their cranium and were basically just mouths with sharp teeth and a nose cavity, but I felt like their eyes had widened when Raven granted the demon a permanent death.
They tried to skitter away, but I had long caged them with a telekinetic barrier that surrounded them. The bigger demon had a snake's tail as its lower half, while having a human male torso with little wings on its back. Horns grew on the side of his cranium and his red eyes spoke of its intelligence.
He looked at Raven cautiously while only glancing at me after I had killed the minor demon. Even though I was able to take them all out by myself, I couldn't make them fear me. It's as if I didn't truly pose a threat to them. If they could all resurrect, then that made sense why they only feared Raven. After all, she used a modified spell that was supposed to siphon Trigon's power and grant them a true death. It wasn't something these generic demons could resist or escape from.
"Heiress of Trigon. Wrath had found me useful. I am sure I can be of use to you, too." He asked as he carefully slithered toward us before stopping just a few meters away. His body was close to the floor as if he was bowing to us, or rather to Raven.
"What possible use could you be?" Raven asked with a sneer.
"I know how to create more subordinates for your Majesty. With them, not only will your power and territory grow-"
"I already know how. Anything else?" Raven asked, disinterested as she raised her palm and pointed it at the demon to threaten him.
The demon was flustered but didn't forget to blurt out, "No! I can also show you how to create other demons, not of this realm. Demons that only belong to you!" Seeing Raven unimpressed, he continued to grasp at straws. "I know more! Arcane secrets! I can even tell you Nerons' plan-" Before he finished speaking, he exploded into a cloud of bits of flesh, surprising Raven and me.
The other demons were completely out of it and just threw out profanities and made weird noises before they too exploded. Raven reacted quickly this time and the energy they left behind was partially absorbed by Raven while most of it still merged with the realm. I blankly looked at the empty ground.
"The next time, we will kill them instantly to prevent them from merging with the realm." Raven nodded at that. Although we didn't know why they merged with the realm, I doubted it meant anything good.
I noted that the territory that Wrath had occupied and was taken over by Raven slowly extended towards this place.
She wasn't idle and extended her influence as she absorbed the realm bit by bit. "Are you sure that Neron's spell is safe?" We already knew that Neron had some ulterior motives, and seeing how the foreign demons' energy merged with the realm again rang my alarm bells.
"The spell isn't too complicated and is even better than some alternatives I already knew. I already made some modifications to it, but the core remains the same. The absorption only gathers part of the energy while destroying the rest that might be problematic disperses."
"In what way problematic?"
"The energy that has an inseparable connection to its host, which could be used to resurrect the host. Honestly, it's a spell targeted at evil beings that could possess your body because you took in their power. Neron surely wants to prevent Trigon from resurrecting through his offspring. This spell is only powerful if one checked both its requirements of being stronger than one's opponent and having an affinity for the energy's core attributes. It's also why I can't absorb these foreign demons' power as easily as I can with my siblings and this realm's demons. In fact, I only absorbed 1/100th and destroyed the rest."
I had no clue how to cast magic and even after throwing a glance at the spell on the scroll and getting her explanation, I was almost as clueless as before, but I think I got the gist of it. Demons owned energy, which is their source of power. Raven severed the connection, stole it, and digest what she could while destroying the rest? She continued her explanation.
"Lust's energy/power was fueled by the emotion of lust. When I took it for myself, it remained fueled by that emotion, but Lust himself was annihilated in the process, which is why he won't be able to resurrect himself with this realm. The higher one's affinity, the easier it is to absorb it, which is why these foreign demons are harder to absorb. Though somehow they manage to merge with this realm rather easily... I wonder, maybe that was why Neron hadn't come personally yet."
I just nodded, not knowing if her conclusion was correct, but her explanation gave me some clues about what Neron was planning, and it seemed like he was playing the long game.
We didn't rest and continued with Envy. His domain looked lavish, even more than his brothers did. There were sounds of conflict in his castle as well, but it was mainly vocal than physical.
We didn't waste any time and directly headed for him. Our approach was the same as we had done with Wrath, though there weren't as many who opposed our entry. Envy was easily enticed by some promise to ransack the others and quickly told us everything he knew.
His information differed little from the others, except for some extra information about why they were looking for her in the first time. Why they had initially ambushed her. Neron wasn't even in the picture before the ambush.
At that point, they 'only' wanted to free Trigon and invite him into our universe to conquer planets, and so on. The usual stick of universe domination. Raven was the key to giving Trigon a way in, but I had prevented their initial 'invitation' and killed them instead.
It was only then that they were contacted by Neron, who could transfer them into Trigon's resting area without Raven. Enticed by the opportunity and Neron's sweet talk, they betrayed Trigon to siphon his power for their own use. It was only then that they realized they needed Raven regardless, since their progress with absorbing Trigon's power halted.
With a clearer picture of the chronic of the events and his version of the spell, I slayed Envy and the rest of the demons that resided in his castle, only for Raven to absorb their power and turn the territory into a vastness of darkness.
The idea of heading for Sloth, Greed, and Gluttony had long been dismissed since Raven needed some time to digest what she was absorbing. It would take at least a day until she had extracted enough power that the burden of the territory's influence had lessened.
I thought about heading to her other siblings to scout the area, but that would mean I would have to leave Raven alone and I had no desire for an accident to occur just because I wasn't there, so I stayed.
Raven sat cross-legged and meditated as I noticed the energy being attracted towards her. A dark current flowed towards her, only to disappear into her body. The flush on her face had increased slightly after absorbing Wrath and Envy.
...
Several hours passed with her meditating. The violent aura around her had calmed down and was added to her presence. It was as if she had become more than she was before, like her existence gained substance. It was hard to describe and I didn't even need to see her in action to tell that the increase in her strength was tremendous.
Her blush had receded somewhat before she opened her eyes and met mine. She rose an eyebrow, "Did you watch me the entire time?"
I smiled slightly. "Don't worry, I don't mind watching over you for hours."
She froze slightly before coughing into her fist, "H-how would you say it? Y-you finna make me act up."
"Pffft." I couldn't help but laugh out, especially with her awkwardness added to it. She joined in with a chuckle. It took us a while until we calmed down. Afterward, I sat down on a bolder next to her, still with a smile on my face. "You good?"
"Yeah, the power of the sins are mostly absorbed, but with the increase of territory the time for conversion is also extended."
"Why not halt the size of your territory and first absorb your siblings before continuing with the realm?" She nodded at my suggestion.
"That's what I have been thinking. The more of them I absorb, the more territory I can handle before converting it into my power, but I am not sure if I am strong enough to overpower them."
"If they were massively stronger than you, then they would have absorbed Wrath, Envy, and Lust, right?" It wouldn't make sense why someone like Greed would let them have a piece of the pie.
"I don't think it's that simple. Maybe they had made a contract with Neron and needed to keep them alive or they were using them to betray Neron, but from what I could gather, they have a lot more territory than the other three combined. Well, except for Sloth."
"What a surprise. Sloth isn't working hard to gain power." She snorted at that, but didn't disagree."So, if we took someone over then we ought to start with Sloth, right? Do you think they will be prepared for us? I mean, you did take over a considerable amount of the realm already. If you can sense their territory, they should sense the changes here."
"That should be the case, but..." She frowned slightly. "Didn't you find it weird how that foreign demon offered me how to create demons to strengthen the realm? It wasn't until I threatened him again that he continued his offer for other knowledge."
"Right. He did say that. What? Does the realm favor you or something?"
"Or something..." She shook her head before standing up. "Let's first see how the situation is with Sloth."
Without discussing further, we headed towards Sloth, who should be the easiest to deal with. Besides, with my help, even if the other two attacked, I could bring us away from them. To be honest, I could kill them all, but that would force Raven to absorb them. She clearly wasn't ready yet to take in the territory of all the Sins.
After a while of flying through the barren environment, we finally arrived at a simple building complex. The only demons that patrolled the area were the foreign demons. In fact, they seemed to make up most of this place. There were some realm demons, but they could be seen lazing around. We made quick work of the foreign demons that tried to stop us and headed directly to Sloth. Unsurprisingly, he lay in the bed, being hand-fed by a foreign demon.
Sloth's eyes only half-opened as he glanced at us. "Leave me alone and I leave you alone. Not interested in anything you offer." He simply said before closing his eyes again while the foreign demon fed him something.
My eyes met Raven's, and I wasn't sure how to proceed. I mean sure Raven's other siblings were all thriving for more power for their own reason and would do despicable things to achieve their goal, but I wasn't sure about Sloth...
The demon looked like he wanted to spend all his eternity like this and Raven seemed to know this too with the look she gave me. Not that Sloth was without sin. He had made dozens of people slothful to the point they were too lazy to even eat...