Demonic Conqueror [LitRPG, Isekai, Progression]

Simon felt the intangible weight of over a hundred pairs of eyes turning to look at him.

He was only concerned with one. Duke Helmund's unnatural stare rooted him in place, more suffocating than a hand clenched around his throat.

"Do not make me repeat myself." Helmund's sickly countenance didn't detract from the near-overwhelming dread he inspired. His voice rang painfully inside Simon's head, each syllable a physical attack. "We have matters to discuss. And if I detect you channeling so much as a hint of Fell mana, I will deliver this gathering of sinners unto oblivion."

Somehow, Simon found the strength to walk forward. He approached the Duke with slow, steady steps, like he was a condemned criminal heading towards the executioner's block. The street was eerily quiet as he went, silenced by a palpable sense of anticipation hanging in the air.

Yet despite his heartbeat going a mile a minute, and despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins, he felt calm. There was a certain serenity in knowing that you didn't have many options – it let you concentrate on what was important.

Helmund possessed enough power to eradicate the Hurricane with a flick of his wrist. It was a miracle he hadn't already. He had every motivation to scour them off the face of the Severed Isles, to rid himself of the rebellion's loathsome existence...

Except for some reason, he wanted to talk.

No, this wasn't an execution – this was a hostage negotiation. One wrong word, and everyone here would die. They had no choice but to appease Helmund until the situation hopefully changed.

If he wanted a talk, then Simon would give him one.

"You arrived sooner than expected," the transmigrator began, stopping when he'd reached the front of the crowd – yet still as far away from that thing as possible. "We thought we were being quick."

"I've known of your organization's interest in Mana Harvesters for some time."

Duke Helmund seemed mildly pleased with himself, appreciating the opportunity to gloat. "You've targeted strongholds containing Harvester records on plenty of occasions. It was a simple matter to set up a network of expedited messengers to swiftly warn me if you trespassed upon a repository. I even stayed right near a Waystation Crystal to ensure that I could respond at any given moment."

He was camping out at a Waystation for the past several days? The sovereign of the Severed Isles sacrificed creature comforts to guarantee he would catch us?

Yeah, he's pissed.

The transmigrator took note of two critical details. First, Helmund had warned that he would start blasting if he sensed Simon channeling Fell mana. He thought that the Demon might try teleporting to safety like in Caelryn. It meant that he was unaware of Subjugate Territory's limitations.

Or that Marlene's escape Artifact was currently gathering energy, hidden out of view in the center of the crowd. He would've said so if he knew – or more likely, destroyed it outright.

That was their victory condition. If they could keep Helmund busy for long enough, let the Artifact finish charging, it would transport everyone back to Hurricane HQ.

Second – while the Duke had sounded amused at the beginning of his explanation, his mood rapidly declined after just a few sentences. He was already growing bored with this conversation, even though he'd been the one to initiate it.

And when tyrants grew bored, heads rolled.

Have to keep him entertained. Be surprising. If he thinks that he's got my number, that I'm predictable, he could decide that I have nothing to offer him.

Anything is better than playing into his expectations.

"You're a more reasonable man than me," Simon professed. "I would've struggled to have a cordial chat with the assassin who murdered my son."

A shared gasp rose up from the Hurricane, contrasting with how Duke Helmund went very, very still. His aura of power worsened by a hair, invisible fingers tightening around their throats.

"If this was shortly after you slew Piers, I wouldn't have given you the time of day," he admitted. "Never in many decades have I been so furious. I raged, I screamed, I plotted vengeance. He was my only heir – I'd dedicated no small amount of mana and care to his upbringing. But then my head cooled, and I realized..."

His face twisted into a grotesque parody of a smile. "I can always make another."

Simon gave him a wry smirk in return. "Apologies for ruining your investment. Suppose you infused Piers with the mana you drained with the Harvesters? Same as you did for yourself. I'm curious – how much of Valtia's stolen lifeblood does it take to endow one royal family with godhood?"

"So you've uncovered that truth?" Helmund chuckled. "It is an open secret among the upper nobility. Did you know that some of them balk at what I've done to the Severed Isles? They whisper how I've robbed them of trees, wildlife, rainfall."

His smile deepened. "Of course, if they wished to stop me, then they've missed their chance by several generations. I've only grown more powerful as the centuries go by. The land's rich bounty of mana has fed me well."

Just for a moment, Simon considered casting Landmine and turning the Duke's legs into red confetti.

The temptation was strong. Based on what he'd learned, any attack consisting of Fell mana should be as effective on Helmund as it was on Piers, crippling his self-healing. And with the entirety of the Hurricane here as well, maybe they could press their advantage, rush the bastard before he got his bearings.

It wouldn't work. Armand Calloway had dodged the first Landmine that Simon tried to tag him with, and he was a speck compared to the Duke. Additionally, Piers' self-healing hadn't been completely nullified – just severely inhibited. Even a sliver of Helmund's regenerative capacity still functioning would render him virtually unkillable.

But the temptation was strong.

"Your prattle has led us astray." Duke Helmund's mirth evaporated, his flesh bulging and squirming with barely-restrained power, the mana writhing underneath his skin like parasitic worms. "You will tell me what I wish to know."

Simon spread his arms wide. "By all means, ask away! I'm an open book. A more honest man you'll never meet."

Helmund snorted. "Naturally. To start with – how long have you spent skulking within my borders like a coward?"

"About a month."

"Careful, Demon. I am not one to suffer jests or falsehoods."

"I'm serious. I've been here for a couple weeks, give or take."

The Duke narrowed his eyes. "You're claiming that you located the rebellion, usurped its leadership, and used these vermin to help assassinate my son...in a single month? Or less?"

He thinks I'm in charge of the Hurricane? Sure, let's roll with that. "I'm not the type of person to rest on my laurels," Simon declared. "If I see an opportunity, I take it. Simple as that."

Helmund frowned, clearly disliking what he was hearing. "I thought that the Queen and I had reached an understanding. How many other Demons has she sent to plague me?"

"Again with the Demon Queen. Piers assumed that too." Simon shook his head. "No one sent me. I'm here of my own volition."

"Preposterous. Now you contend that you aren't a saboteur acting on Queen Ashora's orders?"

Wait, the Demon Queen is named Ashora too? Queen Ashora of Ashora? Duke Helmund may be a tyrannical despot, but at least he wasn't gaudy enough to name the whole Severed Isles after himself.

"She and I aren't on speaking terms right now." The transmigrator let out an aggrieved sigh. "Even if she had ordered me to come here, I would have refused."

Pretending to be a foreign infiltrator would've fit too neatly into Helmund's expectations. Wasn't likely to hold up under scrutiny either. Conversely, admitting that he didn't know anything about Ashora would end the conversation too soon. This was a safe middle ground – hinting at a storied past, while leaving room for Helmund to ask more questions.

Simon breathed an internal sigh of relief as he saw the Duke's expression scrunch up in confusion. "You shouldn't be able to say such things. Queen Ashora's binding Contracts don't allow for mutinous actions, let alone mutinous words. Unless she loosened your restrictions to let you play the role of a–"

*Thunk.*

It took Simon a moment to realize what he was looking at. It took Helmund a moment longer to realize what had happened to him.

Both of them paused, staring dumbfounded at the crossbow bolt protruding from Duke Helmund's left eye socket.

Panic surged within, and it required every ounce of Simon's willpower not to let it show on his face. Arrow– Where– Who– Kat?

Thankfully, that last frantic thought was quickly proven wrong. The real culprit was a lone rebel woman standing off to the side, having taken advantage of Helmund's lapse in attention to sneak around and score a pot shot.

Her expression was borderline feral as she loaded her crossbow again. There was no concern for her own safety, or even a glimmer of triumph at having injured him; only a desire to inflict more harm on the creature she hated most in the world. She opened her mouth to scream, taking aim and–

"I detest interruptions."

A pillar of mana engulfed the woman. Her scream was drowned out by the street being torn asunder, rock and debris scattering as if a volcano had erupted from underneath.

Just like that, she was gone.

Simon grit his teeth as a shockwave swept through him and the Hurricane, knocking some of them off their feet. Duke Helmund lowered his hand, dispelling the pillar almost lazily. Nothing remained where there had once been a person – not even flecks of dust.

"Embarrassing, isn't it? To be caught off-guard by an insect." Helmund ripped out the arrow without flinching, his wound healing in an instant. "Too much power can be burdensome at times. I am capable of sensing every mote of mana in this city, every individual life scurrying about...yet that is precisely the problem. It all melds together. Can scarcely focus on any one of you."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He put on a rueful smirk. "I'd call you fireflies, but at least their light manages to cut through darkness."

Is that why he can't sense Marlene's Artifact? It's being obscured by the Hurricane's collective mana?

"I'll accept that you aren't an agent of Queen Ashora, Demon," Helmund said, turning back towards the transmigrator. "If only because the company you keep is so unlike what she prefers. Yet the question remains – why have you trespassed upon the Severed Isles? Why kill my son? I will have the truth from you. Now."

This...wasn't ideal. Simon had been hoping to string him along for a bit longer. He desperately wanted to ask Marlene when her Artifact would finish charging, but in lieu of that, all he could do was keep stalling for time.

Thoughts racing, he drew on a week-old memory for inspiration. If Helmund wanted the truth, then he would have it – mixed with a healthy seasoning of lies.

The most convincing stories often were.

"You must understand," Simon began, with a sardonic grin. "I'd love to tell you the details, but the last time I saw someone make a prophecy in public, they were dragged off by guards to be thrown into a dark hole and never seen again. I'd rather avoid that fate for myself."

"...Prophecy?"

"Yes, yes. Gruesome sight. Screeching, weeping, lamenting doomsday."

He recalled watching someone having a breakdown in the middle of Caelryn City. "IT'S COMING", the inconsolable man had proclaimed. "I SEE IT! A MILLION EMPTY GRAVES! NO CORPSES LEFT TO BURY! JUST THE VOID, THE HOWLING, CAVERNOUS VOID! IT'S COMING! IT'S HERE!"

Simon could never forget it – although the Valtians seemed inclined to. They had ignored the man's outburst until he was dragged off by Helmund's soldiers, and then went back to their daily lives.

"A friend of mine called it a sickness," he continued. "Said it happens every now and then to some poor souls. Their minds have been broken by delusions of the world coming to an end."

He let his grin fall away. "Except they're not delusions, are they?"

Duke Helmund was quiet, his face unreadable.

"One year." Despite the circumstances, Simon felt a strange tension leaving him as he spoke secrets he'd kept locked inside. "That's all the time Valtia has left. In one year, everyone in this world will be dead. I witnessed the visions myself – suppose that makes me a prophet. A madman, were I to discuss it openly...yet I cannot deny what I've seen."

As a transmigrator, he was Sworn to Secrecy. 'The existence of other worlds, and the transmigration process in general, cannot be revealed in any capacity to the natives of Valtia.' He couldn't reveal how he'd learned of the impending apocalypse.

But that didn't prevent him from revealing what he knew.

"It starts with you."

Simon took a step forward, fists clenching so hard that his fingernails drew blood. "You, who turned the Severed Isles into a barren wasteland. You, who robbed these people of their future." There was no need for acting here – his voice filled with genuine hatred, the sincerity of his fervor shining through. "You're the cause. I don't know the exact reason, or what it sets it off, but I know for a fact that it's because. Of. YOU."

Silence reigned, capturing everyone in a vice grip.

If Simon had eyes in the back of his head, he probably would've seen a hundred stunned faces as the rebels stared at him. While the rebels had many reasons to take up arms against Duke Helmund, none of them believed that Valtia's doomsday was imminent. Perhaps in several decades, when the land's mana deprivation crossed a threshold of no return, but within the next year?

The transmigrator knew full well that they thought he was either lying, exaggerating, or crazy – they were just deciding which. More than a hundred people here, all wearing the exact same expression...

Except for the one that mattered.

Duke Helmund's gaze had turned sharp as a blade and cold as winter. Even accounting for his distorted appearance, the change was chilling in its severity. He almost seemed like a completely different person, or a creature that had discarded its veneer of personhood. Simon couldn't imagine trading banter with the thing standing before him now.

Although it wasn't a gaze of anger, per se. Helmund wasn't planning to blast Simon to smithereens as punishment for his impudence.

This was more...inquisitive. Analytical. Calculating. As if trying to discern why–

Oh.

Simon flinched like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on his head. He felt struck by one of those singular moments where your implicit beliefs were re-contextualized. Where some questions were answered, and many more were raised.

Duke Helmund was trying to discern why this new 'prophecy' was so accurate – because none of it had been a surprise to him.

He knows.

The Duke wasn't leading the world astray through happenstance or willful ignorance. Whatever calamitous event was about to befall Valtia, whatever catastrophe could be so apocalyptic that it wiped out all life in a matter of months...Helmund knew what it was.

A spike of mana flared behind Simon. He heard a distant cracking sound as Marlene's Artifact shattered upon activation, covering the Hurricane in a shimmering ripple of blue radiance.

Aside from a brief widening of his eyes, Duke Helmund didn't react. He merely kept his gaze fixated on Simon, fierce and unblinking, observing him until the very moment that the transmigrator vanished.

--

Most of the Hurricane collapsed once they were back at headquarters. Helmund's oppressive aura had worn them down, as if their souls were being slowly ground into a fine paste. Only a small number of higher-Level combatants felt steady enough to stand.

Simon waited patiently for his interrogation to commence. It didn't take long for the usual suspects to approach him – Katarina, Bastian, Cyna, and Marlene.

"Is what you said true?" Cyna urgently asked, cutting in before anyone else could speak. "You saw visions of the world in ruins?"

"Yes." Sort of. Did it count if he was just going off what Voice-In-The-Sky had foretold?

He considered how to respond, then chose an excuse they would accept. "It's why I'm here. Stopping the Duke is in all of our best interest."

Marlene crossed her arms. "I remain skeptical. Not of your intentions, but the veracity behind them. Everyone afflicted with prophetic dreams has invariably lost hold of their sanity. Can the words of madmen really be trusted? And even if we were to heed their ravings, none of them ever mentioned the Duke being responsible for what they witnessed."

Simon didn't bother pointing out that she was basically calling him insane. That went without saying. "I'm surprised you're not jumping on the chance to blame Helmund for more crimes."

"The truth is the truth. I only believe what I can verify."

She paused. "Although it might make for a strong rallying cry nonetheless. Wish I'd thought of it earlier."

Bastian shuffled uncomfortably. "Never gave much thought to the prophets," he mumbled. "Dismissed them from my mind. Was too preoccupied with assisting the Hurricane – no, that's an excuse. Regardless of whether their visions are real or not, what's been done to them is inhumane. I should have made an effort to protect them from the Duke."

Cyna put a hand on his back. "You aren't at fault there. Duke Helmund is guilty of many wrongdoings; we can't possibly address them all."

"Still, I should've–"

"Did you remember more of your past?" Katarina abruptly asked Simon. "You mentioned to Helmund that you weren't on speaking terms with Queen Ashora."

"That part was a lie to keep him talking."

"Ah. Figures."

There was a lull in their conversation as the five of them processed what they'd learned. From what Simon could tell, Katarina seemed close to believing him about Valtia's armageddon – little surprise there – but so was Cyna, for reasons he couldn't quite understand.

The tentative quiet didn't last long. Less than a minute later, Victoria came barging into the room like a wrecking ball in human form. "What happened?!" she exclaimed, eyes darting around. "I have an Artifact that can track Helmund's location, and it detected him at–"

Relief flowed through her when she caught sight of the assorted pile of mana-containers, including Simon's grand prize. "Excellent! Phenomenal! We're all set for tomorrow."

Her offhanded comment snapped the transmigrator out of his rumination. "Tomorrow? I thought Marlene said we'd be ready to go by the end of the week."

"That was before Duke Helmund saw you employ a one-of-a-kind Artifact to emulate a Waystation Crystal," Victoria explained. "It teleported over a hundred people and your ill-gotten gains from the repository. Who else but me could have invented such a marvelous device?"

Her enthusiasm deflated slightly. "And once the Duke realizes that, he'll come to investigate my abode."

Marlene sighed, drawing herself up. "Lady Victoria is correct. Before today is over, Helmund will return to his castle in this city to contemplate matters – it's a pattern we've noticed of him. Soon after, he will make a decision. The time in-between him arriving at his castle and barging into Victoria's estate shall be our chance to act."

She turned in a circle, eyeing the exhausted rebels and the sizable collection of mana-containers. "Tonight, we rest. Tomorrow, the name Helmund shall be wiped clean from the Severed Isles."

Which meant that Simon only had hours to convince one of the most resolute, determined people he'd ever met to change her mind. Someone who had long since made peace with the concept of her own death. Someone who openly called her ultimate master plan the 'Last Resort'.

Someone who was downright eager to inject herself with stolen mana.