Chương 160: The Sanctuary in the Sky (9)

The Forbidden Keep proved worthy of its name. Bound to the celestial island stairway by a colossal chain too big to have been crafted by human hands, it floated high under the rising Windmoon's greenish glow. The blueness of the heavens had long since given way to the darkness marking the limits of Brimir's atmosphere.

Built from dark grey stone and metal on an island of blackened manalith, the fortress was a frightening sight: a massive structure of steely barbed walls, mutilated gargoyle statues, and clustered buildings dominated by a massive clock tower that touched the very edge of the Sanctuary's barrier. Simon could taste the miasma in the air as he flew his dracozombie over the stony staircase leading to its towering front door.

"It is a wicked place," Simon informed Anaximander, Belzemine, and Queen Zeal, who had all accompanied him on this journey; with the first two riding at his back. It felt so strangely good to no longer have to hide his Overlord armor. He had almost missed it.

"Our kind never ventures so close," Queen Zeal admitted. While she had served as their guide through the celestial stairway, she had been constantly on edge since they approached its upper islands.

"The creatures here are not edible, and cruel."

"The demon's seal is located in the inner keep past the clock tower, so we could avoid most of the opposition inside by flying straight to it," Anaximander warned him during their approach.

"However, is this truly necessary? The seal should hold until Abraxas' return."

"I would rather secure the site early," Simon insisted. While he was mostly sure his actions would prevent Casval or the Cobweb from getting anywhere near this place, he couldn't entirely dismiss the possibility.

"I was able to claim a similar Dungeon in the past, so I should be able to assimilate this one too. This should give me control over its occupants, let me reshape its layout, and transform this place into a training arena for our champions rather than a meat grinder."

Moreover, Anaximander had told him observing the edge of space would help with his astromancy lessons, and since the Forbidden Keep was located at the barrier's thinnest edge, it would let Simon reestablish communication with Shabram without returning to the surface. Simon's dracozombie quickly flew over the clock tower and sighted an inner keep linked to it by a metal bridge.

A sound began to echo in his mind as they approached it; a droning noise, half a scream and half a dreadful symphony carried by miasma itself. Merely hearing it inside his skull gave Simon a slight headache. Is Nodens singing to himself? Simon wondered. He recognized the demon's voice from his encounter with Casval in Cocagne, yet he sensed no attempt at communication. The demon appeared engrossed in rehearsing some sort of symphony. Could he be trying to break the seal from within like Exodeos?

An infernal hiss and the rattling of chains in the void interrupted his thoughts. A massive form the size of his dracozombie appeared from the back of the clock tower like a bird leaving its nest, wriggling and screeching at the intruders. The creature was one of the foulest Simon had ever seen, a pallid, four-legged fiend of bones and ragged flesh draped in chains, hooks, and spikes. Its form reminded Simon of a wingless dragon, except its sinuous neck ended in a lamprey-like maw of fangs devoid of eyes.

A secondary mouth opened up within its torso, its black tongue slithering between spear-like teeth, and the barbed tail snapped like a whip. Simon immediately recognized the creature as a racker, a vile major demon of pain whose power neared that of a level fifty-plus Class user. It was a dangerous enemy and way beyond the power of anyone in the Sanctuary save Vayan, and probably only kept in check by its reliance on miasma. Queen Zeal hissed and unrolled her whip.

"We must retreat!"

"I recognize this guardian," Anaximander said with unease, "Lady Alcyone repelled it during our last visit. It is quite dangerous."

"To you, maybe," Simon replied. This would be an excellent occasion to test out his new mount's prowess in battle.

"I'll deal with it. The rest of you, secure the keep and the crystal." Simon had his dracozombie hover over the bridge so his allies could jump down. Belzemine put on her Healer outfit and Anaximander activated his new Scholar one, then moved into the inner keep alongside Zeal while Simon flew back to confront the Racker. The creature crawled down the clock tower's surface like a lizard.

"Submit to me or be destroyed!" Simon warned the creature. The monster answered him with a soul-screeching wail of pure pain and agony, filled with the voice of hundreds of tortured victims. Terror negated by Indomitable Crown!

"Suit yourself," Simon replied as he mentally ordered his dracozombie to fire at the beast with its wretched breath. His dragon unleashed a putrid stream of smoke at the Racker that melted stone and rotted glass on contact. The racker quickly climbed down the building with unnatural speed belying its immense size, then counterattacked by opening its main maw. Fiery chains erupted from its gullet like a flurry of tongues, each half a hundred feet in length.

Simon's dracozombie deftly avoided them by circling the tower, but the projectiles bent corners as if animated by a will of their own. One caught the undead dragon's leg, barbed spikes erupting into its diseased flesh. Simon immediately detected magic coursing through his mount and him, trying to mark him as prey unable to flee. Quarry status negated by Anathemic Secrecy! Anchor status!

"Do you think I'll run away from you?!" Simon snarled back, his eyes burning with unholy flames. Hellfire Gaze. It was Simon's first time trying out this new Perk, and the results were suitably spectacular. The very flames of Hell burst out of his eyes in two fiery rays that illuminated the shadowy skies and struck the racker, immolating it. The beast screeched in agony as unholy flames consumed its exposed flesh, melting it.

Unfortunately, the pain demon proved regrettably resistant to mental torture and pulled the chains towards itself. The dracozombie and the racker engaged in a brutal tug-of-war, but while Simon's new mount was a cut above his phantom steed in terms of power, it didn't entirely match a living dragon like Casval. The racker pulled the undead close enough to grab it with its fiery hands while its burning body began to melt into its own shadow.

Simon knew from his diabolism research that this sorcery allowed rackers to drag their prey into their nest to torture them at their leisure. Unwilling to suffer this fate, Simon quickly cast a newly developed spell." Darkmoon Attunement." Anaximander had taught Simon quite a few things about astromancy since he arrived at the Sanctuary. As per its name, this branch of magic revolved around exploiting celestial phenomena and objects like the moons, meteors, constellations, planetary alignments, and the sun itself.

For example, Simon knew that each of Brimir's four moons—the Windmoon, Firemoon, Earthmoon, and Watermoon—dominated a season's sky for three months of the year, but according to the elven astrologer, their names were very literal: each moon was connected to the eponymous elemental force and slightly empowered its related magic for a season. The effect was so faint that most sorcerers never noticed, but Astromancers could tap into that power more effectively to strengthen their spells.

The normal Moon Attunement spell worked by aligning the caster with the season's dominant moon, but Simon's miasmic variant of it worked in reverse: it attuned him to all the moons that weren't visible in the current season. Earth, Water, and Fire damage boosted for ten minutes! He stared at the racker, and it could no longer withstand the fury of his glare.

His Hellfire Gaze had transformed from mere beams to an ocean of fire that illuminated the darkness and melted the flesh off the racker's bones, leaving its miasmic spirit naked and shriveling. The dracozombie completed his master's work by tearing the demon in two with its claws, killing it instantly. Learn your place, Simon thought as the monster dissipated into miasma, though it didn't leave a gem behind from its lack of soul. He would be lying if he said part of him didn't enjoy a good battle.

Simon turned his dracozombie around towards the inner keep's bridge, only to spot Queen Zeal there. The harpy must have witnessed his fight.

"I told you to help the others," Simon scolded her as his beast landed.

"I wanted to see you fight," Queen Zeal admitted.

"That beast sent many of my sisters to a cruel death, and you destroyed it like it was nothing."

"I told you I could wipe out your entire race if I wanted to." Simon climbed down from his mount.

"You told me your Class is Tamer, if I recall? A Vassal of the Ranger specialized in taming a single creature?"

"I tried to tame that one once," Queen Zeal admitted gruffly.

"I abandoned the idea when it cost too many of my sisters their lives."

"Well, you may have another opportunity before long," Simon replied. He stepped towards the inner keep with the queen following after him. The mansion inside the larger castle held a single, cathedral-like chamber of towering gear columns surrounding a massive glass and gold coffin carved with ancient runes of power. The Goatfish crystal pulsated inside the device, its miasma and vile energies kept in check by it.

Anaximander and Belzemine stood nearby, next to the remains of two iron golems burned and shattered to pieces.

"How many Scholar levels did you get out of this, Anaximander?" Simon inquired out of curiosity.

"Fifteen," the mage replied calmly. The answer filled Simon with envy and nostalgia. It had been so long since he could gain multiple levels from a single action. Each new level was becoming a greater chore to acquire, especially if he didn't pursue wholesale slaughter or conquest. Would I surrender this Class if I could, Eole? Simon wondered as he summoned his own miasma crystal and placed it in the cathedral, his will extending to overtake the structure like a seed extending its foul roots. I tell myself I would…

but part of me knows it's a lie. How could he go back to being weak again after having tasted such power? For all the anguish the Overlord Class put him through, Simon struggled to imagine a new life without it. You have claimed the Forbidden Keep as your Dungeon. Simon basked in the buffs provided by his new Dungeon, while Anaximander winced a bit.

"Your shadow has fallen upon us, Simon," he muttered.

"It is almost fouler than the demon's own."

"Everyone inside this keep should realize it has a new master," Simon explained as he focused his senses.

"Most monsters will fall in line, and we'll slay those that don't." Lord of the Demon Castle's benefits applied to the Forbidden Keep, so Simon could project his mind through its rooms to observe them. This would let him find places Alcyone had missed and loot the place for any valuable treasures, or a good place to set up a laboratory to pursue experiments the Sanctuary's inhabitants would object to…

"The barrier has grown thinner," Belzemine noted.

"Your divination spell should work."" Star Contact is not a divination spell, Lady Firewand, but an astromancy one," Anaximander replied.

"All divination spells draw their information from the Worldsoul and the Light. Star Contact interrogates the stars for their wisdom." This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. And my own miasmic variant of the spell will probably contact the darkness in-between, Simon thought. Anaximander believed it would open communications with some kind of otherworldly cosmic intelligence, but he couldn't tell which kind or at what cost.

He would try to contact a more down-to-earth one for now.

"Shabram?" Simon called out through the brand,"Can you hear me?" The answer came swiftly.

"Your Majesty?" Shabram's relief was palpable.

"I have been trying to contact you for weeks!"

"My apologies. The place I've been in blocks all divinations." Simon wasn't sure if he had to thank his new Dungeon for strengthening him or the thinning barrier for correcting that problem.

"I pray that you handled things well so far."

"I have done what I can to keep the empire in one piece, in spite of the war." The lack of 'civil' didn't reassure Simon all that much.

"It has been difficult." Simon proceeded to grill Shabram on what happened in the three months since he arrived in the Sanctuary. As expected, the Oracle's bombardment struck Frightwall on the 30th of Nivose, though Shabram ensured casualties were kept to a minimum. Having decided that preserving the empire mattered more than anything, she skillfully blamed both the attack and Balzam's death on the elven conspiracy by using the captured Malphas as a scapegoat.

The High Council thus declared war on Illusea and all of its allies, including Lore. However, letting the attack on Frightwall go through had put the empire in a much worse position than in Simon's previous reign, since it caused Valne and Lore to mobilize earlier rather than be taken by surprise.

Louis had been forced to bring his secret airship fleet to the negotiation table with Euphemia and burn Valne's ports to prevent an early fleet launch, which only helped Voltobauta raise more undead ships to harass Endymion's coasts—Alcyone apparently having roped him into the White Unicorn conflict.

Cocagne had apparently refused to provide any military help to Endymion, though Norbelle and Verdis were still on track to marry, and Vouivre had fomented a rebellion in Scaland after having been expelled from Telluria. In short, Endymion was both internally unified and at war with the entire world. Simon couldn't tell whether he should call it a good or bad turn of events. House Magnos had managed to pull through against Vouivre and Lore in his last reign, though they had been in a better starting position.

The war was yet too recent for a clear outcome to appear on the horizon. A major deviation from previous reigns was the factions' reaction to the existence of the Zodiac Fiends. Shabram had convinced the High Council to seize and secure demonbarrows like the Darkwood and the Kish Palace, while both the White Unicorn and Remedia had apparently dispatched spies hunting down the Cobweb.

As for Mastemo, the White Unicorn had made his 'possession' public in an attempt to discredit him, but the empire's propaganda machine suppressed the information. Both Louis and Euphemia had apparently decided that alienating the High Confessor at this critical moment was simply too much trouble.

"We need Your Majesty's guidance," Shabram implored him.

"The empire will be bled dry whether we succeed in our wars or not." Simon hesitated. Although he had decided to leave the surface to its own devices after sharing what he knew with individuals he deemed most wise, he still felt a responsibility to his family and Endymion's citizens. Knowing that Lauriane, Anna, and many others were safe so far assuaged him, but he kept wondering if things would have truly been better with him in charge.

"I cannot return yet, Shabram. There is still something I must finish here, and a threat I have to take out." Besides the fact Simon wished to protect the Sanctuary's people without inviting nations to pillage or enslave them, taking care of the Goatfish would also spare Endymion much destruction in the future.

"Nonetheless, I believe you have done very well. You were most worthy of the knowledge I entrusted you with."

"Your Majesty flatters me, but knowledge is often wasted when coming from a shifter spy's lips," Shabram replied.

"I fear I may have only delayed our empire's collapse, not halted it." Simon scowled.

"You think we'll lose the war?"

"Does it matter, when the victors are certain to turn on each other?" He could almost hear her sigh on her end of the telepathic call.

"Please return soon, Your Majesty." Simon cut the communication off with a brief pang of guilt and then turned his telepathic attention to the Forbidden Keep. The fact that the various factions were going after the Zodiac Fiends was both troubling and perhaps a blessing in disguise. Having the Noble Class users take out those demons early might prevent civilization's collapse. Let us see how the world handles this threat without me, Simon thought while he completed Alcyone's map of the Forbidden Keep.

It shouldn't be up to the Overlord of all people to save the world. Surely someone will step up. Like Bert's house, the Forbidden Keep place was closer to a giant mechanical contraption than a castle, with gears and pipes hidden in every wall. It almost reminded him of the inside of a steam pipe organ or a body the size of an estate.

"Alright, I will rearrange the layout so we can destroy our most problematic troublemakers one after another," Simon informed his allies as he reshaped his new base with a wave of his hand.

"Are you up for a hunt, Your Majesty?" What followed was a gruesome extermination of the Forbidden Keep's most undesirable population. While most local monsters submitted to Simon without issues, one kind proved the exception: the demons of pain and suffering born of Nodens' miasma and malice. Those were either too devoted to their creator to accept another master or too vicious to behave. They had to be purged.

After trusting Belzemine and Anaximander with cleaning out a wing of the castle, Simon took Zeal on a grinding expedition, which mostly involved him demolishing their foes and then letting Zeal inflict the coup de grace so she could receive the experience. In many ways, it wasn't so different from the way Simon had earned his first levels by executing prisoners, with one major difference: since he had to incapacitate the enemy in the first place, he continued to receive a portion of the exp.

And eventually, massacring dozens of dangerous demons yielded a bitter fruit. Level 65 Overlord Perk: Devil Brand VII (Active): You can forcefully mark anyone you deem inferior to you with the cruel Brand of Pride. Applying the Brand of Pride requires physical contact and a contest of will; if you win it, you enslave the target by marking them; if you lose, you suffer a terrible psychic backlash. Individuals marked by the Brand of Pride cannot harm you unless you order them to, and cannot disobey your orders.

It's the same Devil Brand Mardok and his successors had placed on Belzemine, Simon thought grimly once the rush of the new level-up faded. And the most cruel of them all. On one hand, the Brand of Pride was the only one he could forcefully apply rather than requiring consent, which meant he could enslave enemies by force rather than trickery; on the other hand, it was also the only one with a risk of backfiring on him. Would the backlash kill him on the spot, or would it simply damage him?

What disturbed Simon the most was that there were no positive aspects whatsoever for the wearer, unlike the other Brands. This was the ultimate slave tattoo, domination embodied into a Perk. It would horrify Eole.

"So many torture chambers…" Simon complained as they advanced. They hardly found a single room without a horrific device of some sort.

"This had to be Nodens' own fortress once."

"It is said that Nodens the Wicked delighted in inventing new torments, whether they were machines or spells," Queen Zeal replied.

"He shared his inventions like gifts to evil men, teaching them vile secrets for the mere promise that they would put them to use."

"How generous of him," Simon replied dryly.

"Our final target should be in the treasure room, right after this stairway." The harpy walked after him into the keep's depths, runes and lines shining with power filling the pathway with otherworldly red light. They descended into a deep vault plated in sheets of copper carved with hideous and horrifying scenes of the ghastliest torture. Various treasures lay inside glass containers kept within the hands of mutilated statues of shifters missing eyes, fingers, noses, and more.

A racker rested in the center, before rising and hissing upon detecting the intruders, its chains rattling on the ground.

"You can tame a single creature by force, no?" an unintimidated Simon asked Zeal.

"If it is of a lower level than me," the harpy queen replied, her talons gripping her whip.

"Otherwise, it must accept to serve."

"It will." Simon activated his Devil's Arm spell without warning, extending his limb and grabbing the racker by the throat." Devil Brand." He flayed the demon's spirit. There was no other way to describe the sinister psychic battle that uttering those words initiated. Simon's soul connected with the racker the same way his other brands bound him to willing retainers, but there was no subtlety in this; only a brutal and unexpected assault of the will.

The shadow of his purpose waded past the miasmic flesh and seized the spirit of his victim, violating its essence. It fought back, of course.

The black shriveled thing that served as the demon's 'soul' wriggled and scratched and hissed, like an animal pinned down by a predator. There was no words exchanged, their blows traded in disdain, hatred, aggression, pain, and fury; their existence was reduced to its basest form, of one will assaulting another. The racker was well-versed in agony, in torture and anguish, but Simon was fresh off destroying one of its kindred.

His contempt fell upon the demon's will like a falling hill and crushed it under the weight of his smugness, of the certitude born of unshakable confidence. He smothered the racker's will and crushed it within his hands until it became an extension of his own ego, the rush of his triumph coursing through his soul. The contest of wills lasted less than a handful of seconds, and the proof of the racker's defeat became physically manifest in the markings on its body.

Simon gasped with pleasure heightened by the demon's whine of surrender. A sensation of victorious bliss traveled down his spine, as addictive and intoxicating as a new level-up.

"You are now an instrument of my will," Simon declared." Kneel." The brand glowed and compelled the demon to submit in abject surrender, its free will replaced with the Overlord's law. The pleasure of this triumph reminded Simon of the day he had set the Attic ablaze. I had missed this, Simon thought with glee, only for doubt to creep in. The rush faded away, and he returned to reality. Did I?

"You shall serve my companion here as a trained beast," he ordered his new slave without even sparing it a glance.

"You are to obey her every order." He could feel the demon's hatred through the brand, though it was drowned in those two bottomless wells men called fear and shame. Simon ignored it and focused on the treasures in the room. Most of the artifacts kept in glass were various mechanical contraptions, from spheres of folded metals to wayfinders and hourglasses filled with pale blue mist. One of the objects that caught Simon's attention the most was a large, gold-bound grimoire of beaten copper pages.

It reeked of miasma the same way Lorimor's treatise on fear had, and Simon could feel it calling to him.

'The Scream of the Soul,' Simon read the title written in abyssal runes as he seized it and flipped through its pages. They consisted of highly and horrifically detailed drawings of human and animal brains, followed by observations on the impact of music on pain receptors. Did Nodens write this?

"Overlord Simon," Queen Zeal said, her eyes peering at Simon's back.

"Yes?" Simon replied absentmindedly as he kept reading.

"Put an egg in me." Simon remained still a second as he wondered if he had heard right, then peeked over his shoulder at her.

"What did you just say to me?"

"Put an egg in my womb," Queen Zeal replied with no subtlety, no shame, and no hesitation.

"I can birth a powerful daughter worthy of you. Many of my sisters are fertile too, and will welcome your seed." What the—what kind of demand was that?! Did harpies know nothing of foreplay?! Where was the romance?!

"Where is that coming from?" Simon asked, more taken by surprise than anything. Did Unquestionable Ruler brainwash her or something?

"You are a powerful prophet capable of enslaving the very gods to your will," Queen Zeal replied bluntly.

"Your blood will strengthen my tribe, and your daughters will rule the sky."

"Do you want to rule the skies?" Simon closed the book.

"You didn't want to enslave a demon for mere status." She didn't deny it.

"The Sky-Father forbade us from killing the intruders in our territory, yet he was too weak to protect us."

"So were you," Simon replied bluntly.

"Yes. I see that now." Queen Zeal scowled in frustration.

"Which is why we must become stronger, so we can take care of our problems and protect our lands ourselves. Relying on others to defend us is a weakness."

"Then why do you beg for my power?" Queen Zeal grunted.

"Once it passes on to our daughters, your power will be our power." Simon squinted at her.

"So it's not just Crestones you seek."

"It is a sliver of your true strength." Her stare reminded Simon of an eagle.

"You could give us more, like the power the Sky-Father is afraid of. Dark magic the others are too weak to seize. The strength we need to destroy the fiend."

"What do you know of strength and weakness, you who beg for my gifts without offering anything in return?" As Simon suspected, she had the shortsighted ambition and foolish boldness of an untrained leader.

"What do you have to offer me besides your flesh?" Zeal let out a small grunt.

"We have a god of our own. An eidolon who is not scared of power."

"You would have me betray Vayan's and Junon's trust, after they freely welcomed me?"

"It is no betrayal. The Sanctuary will be better protected." Zeal straightened up.

"I wish the Sky-Father and Junon well, but any advantage we do not seize is a weakness outsiders will exploit. Their hesitation endangers us all." Simon struggled to hold his tongue. The more he listened, the more convinced he became that this fool would do something stupid if he denied her. Zeal would grasp at power she wasn't ready to seize or make a foolish mistake. She chafed too much at her fellow islanders' inactivity to stay idle forever.

He needed her on a tight leash for the sake of everyone in the Sanctuary, her own included. Why are there always people like her, or Louis, or Verney, causing friction and strife when the greater good calls for unity? Simon wondered. Misplaced egos are a festering disease. Should he tell the others? It would likely cause a conflict when what the Sanctuary needed most was unity. There was, however, a very simple way to kill such foolish plots in the cradle.

"Kneel," Simon said. The harpy queen's expression turned into a snarl of fury.

"I ref–""Do not make me repeat myself." Zeal tensed like a bowstring, fear overwhelming her pride.

"I'm through with schemers and traitors," Simon said as he caused the racker's brand to go invisible.

"If you wish to leave the paradise you have been living in, where your voice is held as equal to others in mutual respect, then you will enter a world where the weak are the vassals of the strong. Make peace with this fact."

"I offer–""Nothing that I cannot take. If this is the world you want to live in, then kneel, and I will bestow power onto you as my vassal. If you would rather retain your pride and the freedom to coexist with others…" Simon's eyes burned with hellfire.

"Then learn your place." The harpy queen hesitated, but she only had to take a look at the racker to see the fate of those who craved the Overlord's power. Servitude was their only commodity, and it frightened her.

"I thought so." Simon opened the book back up and returned to his reading.

"Go to the council, swallow your empty pride, and come clean. I won't ask twice." And he didn't have to. It was so much easier when people behaved.