NOVEL NEXT Volume 2 – Chapter 12
[STATUS]
Level: 200
Title: Abyssal Lord
HP: 999,999,970/999,999,970
MP: 450,000,001/450,000,001
EXP: 1,000,000,000,000
STR: ?
DEX: ?
CON: ?
INT: ?
AGI: ?
CHA: ?
LUK: ?
Skills:
Locate
Cleanse
Couture
Conceal Aura
Reveal Aura
Death==Evolution (passive)
Stop
Start
Master Chef
???
[…]
Title skills:
(Abyssal)Command
(Domain)Create
(Eye)Corrupt
(Re)Construct
(Re)Coalesce
Alignment: Abyssal True Evil
Contract: Elissa (Demon Lord)
Subcontracts: Ao (Mimic)
The Demon Lord Council, and the Pentagram was behind us. The meeting was adjourned, concluding in the enshrining of a new Demon Lord, Elissa. The old guard went to their respective castles. Except for Pandora, who didn’t seem to have one. She was a mystery to me.
We spent the next two days exploring the island together with Tomiko and Ao. The shock of what was revealed at the council was still lingering. Elissa could tell I was upset, but she said nothing. If it was me I’d be asking her what was going on, but I was glad for the space she was giving me. I was willing to keep the silence between us. At least for now. She didn’t ask any questions either. She was probably confused, but didn’t want to make me feel worse than I already did. My emotions were getting harder to handle. I thought I’d grown to be a selfish bastard in my previous life. But now, I felt like an entire iceberg was lodged in my heart. Everything seemed so distant. I’d never felt so numb. I just wanted to feel something other than that deep sadness. So, I focused my mind on the things around us. I had to get to know the world we had been dropped into. Even if it wasn’t forever, it was our home for now. I had to focus on what we could control.
The island of Rozpacz was roughly circular. It had a flatter “back”, and a more pointed “front” though. But that’s something only you could see with a bird's-eye view, or my Locate skill. Otherwise, the island was huge. It was like a large hill surrounded by an ocean of clouds. On the back of the island were a few flat plains, and a vast forest. We explored the eastern mountain and the flat plains on its sides first. That is where most of the Demon Lords’ homes were located, but we’d keep away from those lest we begin a turf war. We met several cat girls in main uniforms scattered through the island. They seemed to maintain the various buildings and what seemed to be an underground tunnel system. Most of them were pretty quiet, and simply bowed their heads in greeting when we passed by.
All of us except for Tomiko didn’t really need to sleep. When her ears would flow down and lower to the sides of her head we’d take brief breaks of a few hours to let her rest. It was quite fascinating seeing a cat girl’s ears emote like that. And they weren’t the only thing emoting. Her tail was always swaying from side to side. The temperature was always a perfect, balmy “warm, but cool”. I’m not sure how the climate control worked on this island, because as far as I knew from old life, at these altitudes we should be freezing. Luckily this wasn’t my problem, so I’d leave it to whomever was running the place. I could imagine a cat girl solely responsible for making sure the thermostat or some magic equivalent was functioning correctly.
Eventually, we headed back to some picturesque plains on the island. I wanted to test something.
As we were walking, Elissa broke the silence, “Hey, Hero?”. She was wearing her usual, cute expression. Except that she seemed a little less mischievous, perhaps from our meeting a couple of days ago. I felt a stab of guilt again. I was probably still feeling bad for getting her into all this. But I would not tell her anything. It wouldn’t help anyway. There was no point. I knew she was a Demon Lord doomed to suffer for all eternity, but I didn’t want to give her up.
“Yes?”, I responded.
“Are you upset at me?”, she asked, tilting her head slightly. She seemed sad. I felt even worse. It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I didn’t know what to say.
“I’m not upset with you,” I replied. It was the truth. I was upset at myself. For what I had done. I felt like I had to make amends. I had to do something. But what?
“If I did anything to make you angry, you can tell me. I want us to be together forever,” she said.
It was my fault that she had been caught up in all this. It was my fault that she was destined to suffer in the afterlife. It was my fault that she was a Demon Lord. But it wasn’t too late to change things. I was an Abyssal Lord. If anyone could do anything about her fate, it was me. I knew what I had to do now. It would take a while, but I’d make it work. It wasn’t fair to her to have her dragged down into this. I would save her. Somehow. Even if it meant destroying this world. No, even if it meant destroying everything. I’d do anything. I’d become one of the old Gods, and bring Hell itself to this world and to the goddesses. Even if I was doomed to suffer for eternity afterwards. But only alone.
“You didn’t do anything Elissa...”
“Here’s the spot oh Splendorous One!!”, Ao suddenly interrupted.
Normally I’d consider murdering him right there and then, but the timing was convenient. He was pointing at a large clearing surrounded by tall grass with his tongue. We walked through the grass and into the clearing, Tomiko trailing behind us. The sun was bright and the sky was clear. The tall grass was gently swaying in the wind. Elissa looked at the flowers around us, and ran through them, giggling happily. The sight of her running around carefree like a child made me smile a bit. She looked so happy. It made my heart warm up a little. It was a good sign. She was enjoying herself. She was alive. She deserved to live a happy life. She deserved to be free of all this. Free of the pain that awaited her. I was determined to do what I had to.
“This is a wonderful spot indeed your Lordship-meow! It is equidistant from Demon Lord Justus’ and Demon Lord Mellow’s own-meow”, added Tomiko.
“Indeed. Thank you, Tomiko,” I replied, sticking my tongue out slightly, “You did a good job finding this place.”
Tomiko blushed profusely and bowed with her ears perked up.
I turned to Elissa. “What do you think?”
Elissa beamed at me. “I love it!”
“Excellent. It’s decided then. “
I had to do something for Elissa, something to make up for what I had done.
(Domain)Create, a skill that creates a living abyssal dwelling made of flesh. As per the status info, size and appearance depend on how much MP the user sacrifices.
It wasn’t time to hold back, I’d use all 450,000,001 of my MP.
(Domain)Create!
The whole island shook. Flocks of birds and wildlife fled from the area in a panic.
Sprouting out of the ground, like a fungus growing in fast-forward, was a living edifice, an organism made of flesh. It was swallowing up everything around the front of us like a giant building sized organ. It was covered in spores and the surface was pulsing with its heartbeat. It just kept on growing. I was surprised by how big it was getting. It was growing much larger than I had imagined. In fact, it was growing bigger the other two castles put together. Soon enough, it was swallowing up a sizeable portion of the island. I was so glad we decided to do this in a clearing. Otherwise we’d have to explain what happened to all those expensive-looking Romanesque buildings and infrastructure!
Before us was a building made entirely of meat, like some kind of hellish protrusion, adversarial to the beautiful landscape around it.
It truly was a grotesque mass of flesh and bones and muscle and sinew. It was a living organism, and yet it was also a building. The stench of death and decay filled the air (it was a pleasant kind of death and decay). The whole thing pulsated and oozed blood and puss. It looked like a gigantic, living, breathing cancerous tumour. In the centre of it was a giant hole, and a staircase leading inside. The castle was roughly 500 feet in height. Its base was as wide as it was tall.
Well fuck maybe I over-did it.
A point of light suddenly shone from Mellow’s crystal tower, followed by an explosion to our right. Out of the smoking crater came out Mellow herself.
“Holy shit! I didn’t expect you to build a Demon Lord’s castle this quickly Eli!”, she announced, her beautiful iridescent blue-purple-pink eyeballs wide open.
“It wasn’t me, it was Hero”, replied Elissa with a flat face, “and the name is Elissa”.
“Well what do you know, Eli!” said Mellow, disregarding Elissa’s correction, “this thing is fucking huge, and so fucking ugly! I love it! Justus is going to lose his mind, can we go inside?!”
“Go ahead, the entrance is over there,” I said pointing to the giant hole, “Elissa, Ao, Tomiko – let’s go.”
I could feel their gazes on me. It was too embarrassing. I felt like one of those guys with big cars who had to make up for their… shortcomings. I swear this wasn’t what I was going guys!
We stepped inside. It was like walking into the innards of an animal. It was dark and damp and smelled like rotten meat. It was also quite warm, and felt comfortable, like you would if you were in your own bed. The walls were breathing, and there was a constant pulsating sound, like the beating of a heart. It was almost like being inside someone’s body. It was... comforting? As we walked further in, there were large openings, like the nostrils of a nose. They were letting in fresh air from outside. We eventually arrived at a large room, which seemed to be an audience chamber of sorts? There was something resembling a throne in the middle. It looked like brain tissue with countless folds and spinal cords thrown in for, I don’t know, embellishment.
“Well this seems to be throne room! The heart of any Demon Lord’s castle,” Mellow announced. I guess she was the expert. She jumped on the throne. It was stimulating seeing a beautiful naked slime girl sitting on a piece of flesh that looked like a brain, her legs spread open... It was like something out of a surreal painting. Ao and Tomiko were looking around the room, trying to figure out what exactly this place was. Elissa looking up at the massive citadel ceiling. Embedded in it was a beautifully gruesome panoramic rendition of every sin imaginable, with a spotlight on ‘lust’. It was hard to describe in words, it was just that good. I couldn’t believe I made this.
“Hero, this makes me so happy, this is our home right? And it’s so beautiful, thank you!”, Elissa said with her arms wrapped around her stomach, my face. She was staring down at me with a teary smile. I hugged her back with my tongue, coiling it around her back. I had made up my mind. I would find a way to free Elissa.
“Ao, what do you think?”, I just had to know. He was unusually silent. It was almost making me suspicious".
“OH MASTER!!! ...”
I regretted my decision immediately. What followed was about half an hour of pure worship and praise. Eventually Ao had gotten so worked up he collapsed.
“That’s a good boy, now go watch the entrance for visitors“, I said, “Tomiko, can you make sure Ao doesn’t die from excitement?“ Tomiko nodded, then started dragging Ao’s body away. I could tell this was a lot for her to take in. She had remained a very distinct shade of pale every since we entered out new home. Mellow had gotten off the throne and was exploring the room, feeling up the walls with her hands.
“You know you can’t have Tomiko and Ao running this huge place alone? Although I suppose it’s likely self-cleaning at the very least...” she said.
She was right.
“How about the girls from the guild?!”, Elissa piped up.
I could feel the unique sensation of blood pumping like a rushing river to her Holy Land.
“Fine.”
(Mind)Communicate
Ao, tell Tomiko to bring the three guild girls back into the castle. But not before she explains everything to Justus.
Yes, my Master!
