Lord of the Truth

Young Sector 101 — Planet Verilion

step step

Sakaar walked slowly, his movements calm yet imposing, through a seemingly endless corridor. The passage was wide, the walls polished to a reflective sheen, built with such precision and craftsmanship that one could almost believe it had been designed for kings and emperors to tread upon.

Though no sunlight could ever reach this deep underground, and not a single torch or lantern lined the way to provide light for travelers, there was no real need for such things... for none who dwelled here possessed eyes to see with in the first place.

"Marshall."

Several demons, clad in heavy crimson armor from head to toe, immediately dropped to one knee the moment they noticed Sakaar's presence. Their posture was rigid, their discipline clear, as though kneeling before him was not merely duty but instinct carved into their very bones. When he passed, they rose again without hesitation and resumed their march, falling back into the shadows of the grand tunnel.

step

With every steady stride, Sakaar perceived his surroundings with absolute clarity. The massive main corridor seemed to pierce straight into the very bowels of the planet. Countless branching tunnels split off from it, boring deep into the crust for miles upon miles in every direction. In the distance, vast chambers stretched out like subterranean cathedrals, cavernous halls filled with heaps of corpses beyond counting... an ocean of the dead piled into their eternal rest.

By his uncompromising orders, this underground city had to expand for tens of kilometers downward, and stretch for hundreds of kilometers horizontally. The first reason: to store the relentless flood of corpses arriving every day. The second reason: to safeguard their survival. Should they be bombarded or assaulted from above, not all would be lost — their home and their precious reserves of flesh and blood would not vanish in a single strike.

Of course, such a colossal endeavor was far from simple. A project of this scale could never be completed in just seven years — not even by the relentless efforts of demon emperors and their legions. And so, the work continued tirelessly, day and night, stone and blood carved into the earth with no pause, an eternal struggle of claws and willpower.

step

Sakaar pressed onward, his presence filling the dim space, and inspected the care chambers. Within, a number of females — demons who had reached the peak of the Martial Emperor Realm— tended to dozens of squirming, newly born cubs. Their guttural growls and strange, high-pitched noises echoed throughout the chamber.

Sakaar himself had chosen the ratio: out of the two hundred individuals under his command, a significant portion were to be female. The reasoning was simple and cruelly efficient. What could be more effective than ensuring constant breeding from the strongest females, producing offspring with sturdier bodies, sharper claws, and an even greater hunger for blood than before?

The cubs born from such unions had no ordinary lives. They were the primary laborers, bred for one purpose: to dig.

They followed intricate maps of the subterranean network, clawing through earth and stone, while being fed preserved flesh and blood stored for them. It was a strange and twisted existence, something utterly unnatural for demon cubs — the offspring of the dreaded Red Plague should have been hunting and tearing prey apart, not laboring in silence.

"Whraaa!!" One of the cubs in the adjoining room shrieked, the sound sharp and wild, like a feral boar desperate for freedom, craving the chance to hunt and kill as instinct demanded. That was what demon cubs were meant for. That was what every demon was created for.

They were beings born for destruction, for slaughter without hesitation, for mindless annihilation. This was their true essence. This was their authentic voice.

But...

BAM

A heavy slap rang out. His mother had struck him hard across the face, driving him into the ground. She stood over him, merciless, gripping one of his horns tightly as she roared, "Use the hearing-and-speaking technique granted to us by the Lord if you want to eat!!"

The cub, deaf to all but vibrations, lifted his head and roared back, exhaling streams of foul scents from the nostrils embedded in his neck. "Gaa… giii… raaaawr--!!"

BAM BAM

"NO!" she snarled, smashing his face against the stone floor again and again, never loosening her hold on his horn. "I will not answer you in the old scent-language! Use the new techniques of hearing and speech! Repeat even a single word of what I say, or I'll kill you myself and breed another to take your place!!"

"G– g–..." Terror overwhelmed the cub, fear swallowing his defiance. Against every instinct in his blood, he struggled to force his throat to form the strange sounds. "An–other… you..."

"Good." His mother yanked him upward by the horn, dragging him like a sack of flesh to the side. Without hesitation, she tore an arm from one of the piled corpses, shoved it into his mouth, then tossed him aside like garbage. Turning with a sharp glare, she barked, "Next!"

Sakaar observed silently, then gave the slightest nod to himself before continuing on his way.

"Hmm?"

He halted abruptly. His face was hidden under the heavy helmet, yet the slow, deliberate swiveling of his head in every direction betrayed his suspicion. He was sensing something, searching.

At last, he lowered his head, focusing at the ground beneath his feet for several long seconds.

"Leon," he muttered, his tone quiet but edged, "didn't I tell you not to fix your focus on us?"

Rrrrrrr

The earth trembled faintly, its texture warping as though it were melting, until the ground itself split open and gave way. From within rose a small girl, her steps weightless, her frame delicate. She wore a thin, light dress that clung to her form like woven mist, and circling her head was a radiant halo of flowing aura, a crown-like shimmer belonging to the spirit of the planet itself.

Her gaze locked onto Sakar, burning with restrained fury, her words trembling with the effort of suppression. "Tell me—have you ever seen a human ignore his own illness?"

"If that illness happens to be the very thing that keeps him alive, then why not?" Sakaar tilted his head slightly, his voice calm, detached. Without slowing his pace, he resumed walking with steady, deliberate steps. "If I recall, we've spoken about this matter more than once already."

"Spoken?!" Leon's voice cracked with frustration. Her form rippled as she dashed after him, her bare feet pressing into the earth as though she and the land were one. "Am I supposed to simply erase the thought from my mind? To pretend it doesn't exist? Right now, there is a core of the Red Plague festering inside me, burrowing through my essence. Do you have the faintest idea what will happen if your infestation is discovered?!"

Her voice rose higher, trembling with fear hidden beneath anger. "You harbor a nest crawling with dozens—no, scores—of world cataclysms. If word of your presence spreads, the academies will not hesitate. They will seal off the entire starfield that I inhabit, they will descend upon me with all their might, and I will be besieged, broken, and annihilated—all because of you!"

Sakaar's reply came flat, unshaken, like stone unmoved by storm. "And isn't that already your fate? Even now, you're a single step away from total ruin." His tone carried no sympathy, only raw certainty. "Tell me, Leon—didn't we shield you AND your owner since the day we set foot here? How many wars have we fought in your name? How many lives have we torn apart just to preserve yours?"

"....."

Leon faltered, her jaw trembling. Her luminous eyes stayed locked onto the back of Sakaar's helmet, burning with unshed fury. She looked as though she wanted to explode, to unleash her rage and scream her lungs empty—but something held her back. She swallowed the howl, biting it down, holding her silence like chains on her own throat.

Sakaar noticed, and a faint hum slipped from him. "Hmm. Let's put aside what we've done to defend you," he said, his hand making a lazy gesture through the air, as if brushing away a fly not worth noticing. "Perhaps you're too close to see it. Perhaps you don't even realize the danger gnawing at you. Tell me, didn't our presence lessen the pollution that once poisoned your surface? Before, your lands reeked with diseases birthed from mountains of rotting corpses, the air was choked with mists of blood, and your rivers had turned into streams of scarlet decay. But now? Now we consume everything. We bury it, erase it utterly. In a mere seven years, your suffocating crimson skies—the ones that warned of your impending apocalypse—have shifted. Your climate itself has been altered because of us. Will you deny that?"

Leon turned her face aside, her lips pressing tight, unable to answer.

Seeing her silence, Sakaar pressed forward, his voice steady but edged with a subtle undertone of scorn. "One of my generals intercepted a covert strike launched by someone at the rank of a world cataclysm. Had that strike pierced through, it would have wiped one of your largest surviving forests clean from existence. Another of my commanders faced an entire campaign drilling into your crust from the far side, attempting to tunnel down to your very core—and he slaughtered them all before they could touch it. And another—"

"Enough!"

The planet's soul threw up her hand, her aura flaring with sharp brilliance. Her voice echoed through the tunnels, resonating like thunder in the stone. "Enough, I admit it. I acknowledge it. Your presence, as cursed and vile as it may be, has spared me countless losses. You have helped more than I want to admit."

Her shoulders trembled as she lifted her gaze upward, the faint halo around her hair pulsing like a waning star. For a moment, her tone softened, though disbelief threaded through every word. "But still... there's something I cannot begin to understand."

"What is it?" Sakaar asked, a smile curling unseen beneath his mask, his voice low and taunting.

Leon's fists clenched, her eyes flashing like stormlight. "Why, in the name of all the hells, is a Red Plague speaking to me with courtesy and reason?!"