LIGHTNOVELONLINE Interlude: Within the Vault of Bones and Ashes
Vius Mak Ghiroth is very, very tired.
He has been running for his life for nearly twenty-four solid hours now; he has seen no sign of anyone following him, but knows all too well that that is not necessarily a good sign. He has spent nearly half of his MP and a good third of his SP on short-range teleports, the creation of blood clones to throw enemies off his trail, and the particularly ruinous expense of imbuing them with the ability to conjure their own blood portals; there is every chance that the bedlam in the Demesne will preclude anyone coming after him, but if Kholoth Rael Kheshnagon is anything like his father (whom Vius also served), he will be unlikely to either show mercy or leave loose ends.
Now Vius plunges headlong into the chaos of the emergent dungeon which is even now taking shape upon the site of the great, half-vaporized battlefield; already he can see the levels forming around him, building their emergent thematics of demonic and necromantic imagery, and he cowers to think of the strength of the Guardian which this will germinate. But he is not here to worry about the future, merely to take advantage of a rare opportunity; and so he desperately runs and vaults and weaves through the encroaching rock of the encysting stone as it grows, looking for any exposed tunnels through the earth which might lead to a passage into the world's heart. If he can just find an unmapped passageway, he can escape into the nest of honeycombed shafts which connect the upper and lower worlds, giving him a chance to --
But fortune is not with him this day (nor, indeed, many others), because he is quite unprepared for the huge, outrageously muscled and fur-covered arm which shoots out from a dark passage and grabs him by the throat. He is in little danger (because he is Level 743, despite all appearances), but it would be putting it lightly to say that he is not accustomed to physical altercations; he screams like a little girl and flails ineffectually as the arm drags him into the darkness.
As his eyes adjusted to the gloom and he saw his assailant more clearly, however, his hysterics subsided; almost immediately, his eyes narrowed and his attitude became significantly less embarrassing. "What the fuck are you doing here?" he spat, wriggling free and dropping to the ground with only a modicum of scrambling. "You're wearing your cover identity!"
"JYACT THE KING SPHINX IS A BEING OF MYSTERY," his tormentor rumbled, its earsplitting voice rattling all the stones in the passageway; Vius does not have to cover his ears (because demons' hearing, like many of their senses, is both precise and robust) but he winces anyway because it is so obnoxious and unsubtle. "DESPITE BEING WELL-LIKED ENOUGH FOR SOCIAL INTERACTION, HE IS ANCIENT AND COMES AND GOES AS HE PLEASES. MANY ADVENTURERS HAVE ENCOUNTERED HIM IN DUNGEONS. I AM NOT AN AMATEUR."
"No, you're a big stupid blunt object, who has never so much as glimpsed an original thought and would probably try to step on it if you did." Adjusting his outfit, Vius scowled upwards at the huge, tawny quadruped; despite bearing a man's regal face, its body was that of a massive lion with huge, muscled limbs and terrible great paws articulated in such a way as to possess both claws and opposable thumbs. "You are five hundred miles away from your post; what possible explanation can you have?" Vius knows well that the best way to avoid uncomfortable questions about your own treasonous malfeasance is to redirect the conversation to someone else's, a skill at which he is preeminently adept.
"AND YOU ARE A JUMPED-UP, SUPERCILIOUS BUREAUCRAT WHO SENDS YOUR BETTERS TO DIE TO COVER YOUR OWN FAILURES," the other demon agreed; Vius saw no need to respond to this accusation, which was both uncouth and completely accurate. "I AM HERE ON THE BUSINESS OF OUR LORD; I DO NOT REPORT TO YOU, REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU MAY BELIEVE." With incredible delicacy, the creature's great paw produced a tiny letter from somewhere within its fur; it held it out for Vius to retrieve, then dropped it just beforehand such that it fell to the ground instead. "OH, HOW EMBARRASSING. FINE MOTOR CONTROL WITH THIS FORM IS SUCH A CHALLENGE."
"Kiss my ass," Vius mumbled, snatching up the letter; opening it with one razor-clawed fingertip, he scanned it rapidly; his face had drained completely of blood before he was two sentences in. Aghast, he glanced up at his adversary. "This is fake, right? You're fucking with me?"
"IT MAY INTEREST YOU," the other demon rumbled, "TO KNOW THAT THIS TASK WAS ORIGINALLY ENTRUSTED TO GHELEC BHAYAM, THE EYE OF ADDICTION; IMAGINE OUR MASTER'S DISCONTENT WHEN HE LEARNED THAT HIS TOOL WAS SLATED FOR DESTRUCTION AT YOUR HAND." The huge, delicately-featured head of the King Sphinx smiled horribly; its razor-sharp teeth were the size of steak knives, and all the more unsettling to view due to their immaculate evenness and perfect cleanliness. "I HAVE BEEN DISPATCHED TO REMEDY YOUR PATHETIC INCOMPETENCE, AS USUAL."
"But this is impossible", Vius wailed, tossing the letter aside; it consumed itself in black flames the instant it left his grasp, leaving not even a speck of ash behind. "We can't do this, even if we worked together, and we especially can't do it all in an hour! Hell, I probably won't even live that long if our new queen keeps up her hunt for my head!"
"A FAILURE TO PLAN ON YOUR PART DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN EMERGENCY ON MINE," the other demon replied with evident relish. "NEVERTHELESS, I, AT LEAST, AM A PROFESSIONAL." It gestured obliquely, and a shimmering white oval of darkness shot through with twinkling, multicolored stars appeared behind it; though neither of the demons knew it, it was in fact the exact artifact -- Shi'alv, the Wandering Portal -- that Suzume Saiki's original plan had been guiding towards the nine hundredth level of the Infinite Dungeon before the apple cart of the war effort had been not so much upset as speed-rendered into applesauce. "THE MASTER'S PLANS ARE NOT FOR US TO KNOW; HE HAS MADE HIS WISHES CLEAR TO ME, REGARDLESS OF THE ACTIONS OF HIS QUEEN."
"Sure, right, he's a real inscrutable guy," Vius muttered back, sweating bullets; evidently Kalphegor Broxigat, Unyielding Fist Of Tyranny, has not been brought as deeply into their master's confidence as the current situation might imply. "Strictly speaking, though, you don't actually, like, need me for this part, right? I'm not exactly a front-liner. I'm more of a, you know, plans sort of asset."
Kalphegor sniffed. "YOUR COWARDICE WILL NOT BE TESTED THIS DAY, INSECT. YOU ARE MERELY TO BE PRESENT AND ENSURE THE LACK OF SURVIVORS."
Instantly, Vius straightened up; his brow eased, and his hands relaxed as he tucked them into his pockets. "Well now, that's a different story!" An easy, weasel-like smile spread across his face, and he stretched as though a heavy weight had been taken off his shoulders. "Killing people without a fight -- that's much more in my wheelhouse."