Chương 70: The Season of the Minotaur (19)

A month and a half passed in relative peace. Simon split his time between Cassandra and his other duties, like a married man dedicating his days to work and his evenings to his wife. He spent weeks perfecting his spells and experimenting further with his crafting. He assisted Duchar in completing the alchemical fire production and had their pots sealed in hermetically closed chambers across the Halls of the Minotaur.

Should anything go wrong, a single use of his Lord of the Demon Castle would cause the entire Dungeon to turn into a funeral pyre for its corrupted manatree. Simon hoped he wouldn't have to resort to this, but he would rather cover all his bases. His alchemical experiments were going well too. He could reliably create sentient slimes bound to his will using materials from the Darkwood, alongside alchemical fire, poison, and buffing potions.

The Paladin Crestone's constant attempts at escaping his Inventory greatly complicated things, but he had quite the supply of items to call upon in a pinch. Otherwise, attempts at coaxing out more information from Satine's soul proved near useless. Duchar tried to bind her to a wand like he did with Lorimor, but her spirit held sufficient willpower to resist attempts to interrogate her.

Duchar mentioned that a high Charisma stat influenced resistance to mental control or magical effects, and that Cleric Vassals Classes usually had plenty of those. They were more or less stuck unless Simon fed her soul to someone like Gourmand, who was unavailable anyway. He would keep the gem on him until he and Duchar figured out a way to extract her knowledge. Days faded into weeks that nearly lulled him into complacency.

The fourth sacrifice would be a believer willingly martyred, and they had no shortage of candidates. So many cultists put themselves forward as volunteers when Simon informed them one needed to perish in the Muse's name to save Whispermire that they had to run something of a contest just to pick one. In the end, it was Dorian—that sacrifice-obsessed creep—that the Muse picked for the Winter Solstice. News from the outside world continued to trickle in.

Odette had begun exploring the Uyo jungle with the Cobweb's help and would report to Simon as soon as they located Rhapta. The War Party had reached Marthrone and had begun to besiege it while Lord Paimon was pinned down trying to retake the Berwick Islands and Norbelle repelled all the way back to Cocagne. Everyone was talking about how this'War of the Triad' would end soon, that Louis would soon defeat Euphemia and climb over Vouivre's corpse to reunite the empire. They were probably right. All was eerily quiet…

until that fateful night between the 26th and 27th of Frimaire, a few weeks short of this reign's first anniversary. The night when the Black Comet showed up in the sky to bring the world to ruin. It began with a dream of the Dark. He dreamed of drifting stars in a cold sea of black ink, of baleful lights dancing across an alien sky. He dreamed of a great serpent coiling around a dark figure, eating its own tail into an eternal symbol of renewal and infinity.

He dreamed of a woman in shining armor looking upon a great black dragon from atop a silver spire and weeping tears of blood, for she knew her people and land would burn. He saw his father striding across mountains of corpses, laughing to himself in maniacal conquest. He saw the man Elios Magnos had been and the lich he would become, past and future becoming one. He saw trees shake under the hooves of a great centaur with vicious horns and a great bow whose every arrow he fired drew a scream from the hunted.

Men, women… Odette's. Her final wail woke him the same way Shabram's demise had done in previous reigns, with Simon nearly falling off the bed and waking up Cassandra next to him.

"Simon?" his lover asked with concern.

"Simon, what's going on?"

"I…" Simon looked up to the window, a chill traveling down his spine.

"I feel it on my skin." He sensed something warming up the Dark within him, like bright sunlight nourishing blooming summer flowers. A force that filled him with otherworldly vigor and cleansed his body of fatigue. It was a mere shadow of the immense surge of strength that had allowed him to break the elves' seal back in his Valne reign, or rather, an appetizer of the flood to come.

"I think I do too," Cassandra whispered, a frown forming on her face.

"Something in the air…"

"Something in the sky," Simon replied as he moved towards the nearest window and looked through it. It was there, blazing across the heavens; a bright purple mote surrounded by a ring of fire and whose crimson trail faded into the darkness. Its radiance eclipsed that of any star. Its glow magnified that of the Archer's constellation it had begun to cross, heralding the beginning of the Zodiac Parade. The Black Comet had come at last. A tremor suddenly shook the house as if to herald the disasters to come.

Simon looked down to see cracks spreading across the nearby street, followed by a telepathic howl of triumph.

"Rejoice, Beloved!" the Stone Muse sang with boundless joy.

"I am watered, fed and strengthened! The Dark's power courses my gnarled branches and wriggling roots!" Her roots? Simon finally realized why tremors had shaken the world. The manatrees' roots formed a network beneath the world's crust that stretched across seas and continents, to the point that the Green Mother could learn of events happening an ocean away. They formed a vast network of fossilized manaliths seeding the earth with magic.

The Black Comet's power had brought a great imbalance to this stable equilibrium, destabilizing the manaliths in a way that had thrown islands flying into the sky during the Doom. The earthquake was thankfully brief and less intense than the one that followed the third sacrifice, but many frightened locals had been woken up. They poured into the streets and caught sight of the comet, pointing fingers and gasping at this dark miracle that would illuminate the sky for a whole year.

No doubt many doomsayers would begin to preach in the wake of this incredible event.

"Duchar!" Simon telepathically called out to his retainer.

"Duchar, are you and Hector safe?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," the warlock answered.

"The Halls shook a bit, but it was thankfully more worry than harm. Our enchantments held."

"Good. Good…" Simon stared at the Darkwood, whose shroud of miasma seemed to have thickened.

"What of the seal? Has it shattered? Do we need to proceed with the back-up plan?"

"Thankfully not." Simon suppressed a sigh of relief at the news.

"I believe it should hold until the end of our ritual, though not too long after." So the Muse would escape soon after the comet's arrival if Simon didn't intervene. The Minotaur being sixth in the Zodiac Parade led him to believe she would break out then, but it seemed she could do so months early on her own. Not good. And that dream of Odette… she was dead, he was sure of it. He had felt her last moments through the Brand of Sloth. Same as with Lorimor, whose corpse had followed her to Uyo.

The memory of that monstrous centaur bowman's shadow flared in his mind. Simon only had to take a look at the constellations above his head to figure out what had likely happened. The Archer Zodiac Fiend had woken up in Uyo, which meant the lost city of Rhapta almost certainly held its crystal.

"Shabram?" Simon called out to his spymistress.

"Do you have agents in Uyo?"

"I had some, until Vouivre's takeover forced them to either flee or hide," she replied almost instantly. Simon detected a hint of fear in her voice beneath her usual composure. Although he had warned her of the comet's arrival, seeing it with her own eyes was probably something else altogether.

"Does Your Majesty need spies there?"

"Yes. I suspect a great evil has risen there, something that threatens us all. I had ears on the ground, but I just lost contact with them." Shabram took a moment to answer, which took Simon aback.

"Is something the matter?"

"I will do what I can, but Prince Louis had me focus most of my resources on the Church Party and Marthrone in preparation for its siege," she replied.

"Moreover… I had to isolate myself and avoid direct interaction with multiple agents to avoid catching the Rageplague sweeping through the shifter population, which causes complications."

"The Rageplague?" Had they finally given a name to that rabies-like disease infecting the shifters?

"The Brand of Gluttony I bestowed upon you should protect you from any disease."

"I have faith in Your Majesty's gift, but this disease has overcome individuals with items and Classes that should have protected them. Lady Lauriane is currently studying victims at the Goetia Research Center and believes this may be a supernatural affliction rather than a typical plague."

"A supernatural affliction?" Simon squinted.

"An artificial one?"

"Most probably, and though I suspect the Church Party created it, I have not been able to identify its source. Considering the risk it might affect me and cripple my intelligence apparatus, I thought it wiser to limit any risk of exposure."

"Yes… I understand." Simon made a mental note to investigate the source of this Rageplague in the future, either in this reign or the next.

"Take care of yourself and keep me informed as things develop. I am almost done with my work in Whispermire."

"And then, Your Majesty? Will you retake Frightwall?" Shabram sounded almost hopeful when she asked that, and why wouldn't she be? This reign had shown Simon just how terrible life would become in Endymion without an Overlord to keep the peace. Balzam Magnos had constructed a house of cards he alone could keep from collapsing in on itself. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

He would have to find a way to keep the peace between the political parties in a future reign. Too many lives would be lost otherwise, and only the likes of Vouivre or hostile powers would profit from the chaos.

"You will see soon enough," Simon replied before cutting off the telepathic communication. Everything would be decided in the coming days.

"Are my father and brother alright?" Cassandra asked after putting the bedsheet on to hide her nakedness and joining him at the window.

"Yes, they are," Simon replied as she took his arm, her tail slithering around his leg. They looked up to the sky together.

"Quite the frightful sight, don't you think?"

"Is it? I find it beautiful." Cassandra rested her head on his shoulder, her eyes focusing on the comet's tail.

"It is appeasing." Although that sounded disturbing… Simon felt the same. Perhaps it was the Overlord in him basking in the rising of the Dark, or the sinister beauty of the comet itself, but he found something mesmerizing about it. A strange mix of awe, fascination, and the comfort of familiarity swelled within his heart. Familiarity? Simon wondered as he stared at the great harbinger of destruction above him, this Second Doom. Why does it feel familiar? Why did it feel like home?

Four days of darkness followed all the way up to the Winter Solstice. The comet's arrival resulted in a surge of new monster spawnings in the Darkwood, but they remained weak enough that Simon could force them to heel. He ensured that no troublesome incident would reach the War Party's ears to ensure they remained focused on their own conflict and didn't feel any threat would befall the Goetia Research Center. To his surprise, the comet's arrival didn't result in massive worldwide catastrophes all of a sudden.

The earth didn't shatter beneath his feet, the skies didn't spit fire, and while reports of monster sightings or related incidents remained common, those had become the norm by now. The horrific disaster he had witnessed in Valne seemed like a far away nightmare. At least, until he received news from Uyo.

"Uyo…" Simon struggled to find his words when Shabram reported to him again.

"Split off from the continent?"

"Yes," Shabram confirmed, sounding shaken.

"Our airships said the earth split apart across many miles, and water flooded in to create a growing river separating Uyo from the mainland. The earthquakes and floods caused immense damage, with a death toll that is likely… unfathomable." Uyo and its jungles covered nearly a sixth of the eastern continent. What kind of cataclysmic force did it take to dislocate such a massive piece of land from the rest?

"Any info on what's happening there?" Simon inquired.

"No. Flocks of wyverns and monsters assaulted our recon airship when they attempted to cross the new river, and we have lost contact with settlements there… if they are even still in one piece." Was that the result of the Archer archdemon awakening from the comet's power? Did its mere presence cause the earth itself to expel Uyo so the creature would be trapped in a monster-infested island? If so, then what would happen to areas housing the other Zodiac Fiends?

Simon had escaped the elven seal when the comet reached the Serpent-Bearer constellation, so nearly twelve months into the Zodiac Parade. The Second Doom wouldn't be a sudden apocalypse, but a year-long series of escalating disasters that would bring civilization to its knees. He needed to interrogate the Minotaur, to learn how to stop this terrible cataclysm or at least mitigate the impact.

Realizing an earthquake more terrible than any other beforehand would strike the region once the Stone Muse finally escaped her prison, Simon had his cult and patsies evacuate most of Whispermire in the preceding day towards the more remote farmlands. His followers had basically taken control of the town by now, so the order encountered little resistance. And the fateful date finally arrived. On the night of the Winter Solstice, Simon gathered his followers in the Muse's sanctum to witness the final ceremony.

Hundreds of hooded cultists, gargoyles, fiends, toadmen, walking plants, and other creatures had gathered today to celebrate the Muse's freedom and Whispermire's salvation. All except for two.

"Is everything ready, Duchar?" Simon asked his retainer through telepathy.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Then proceed." Simon glanced at the audience of monsters and masked men surrounding him.

"They are already there." It would be all about timing. Grimm and Gregory began to play drums while a chorus of wraiths appeared to sing an ominous dirge to open up the ceremony. Dorian the cultist was chained to the altar with much fanfare from the sacrifice himself.

"I can't believe I was chosen!" he rejoiced once Simon stepped forward with the black sacrificial spike.

"It is a dream come true!"

"Yes indeed," the Stone Muse concurred with glee, her haunting voice sharper than ever before.

"At long last, liberty is at hand! Freedom's spoils shall be mine and these rattling chains unbound!

"Your bravery and dutiful spirit shall be long remembered and honored, oh faithful soul," Simon complimented Dorian before turning to their audience.

"Now kneel before the chosen, and sing the Lady's praise!" The cultists and monsters alike obeyed the order, their knees hitting the ground in a rising echo. Words of devotion and murmurs of obedience rose into the room, tremors shaking the walls and lightning coursing through the air. The entire sanctum trembled as its shadows lengthened and the seal of stone holding the Muse prisoner began to mar and crack.

"Great trapped fiend, accept this final gift, sacrificed on freedom's altar," Simon chanted as he raised the spike high.

"A true believer willingly martyred, to celebrate the Winter of Liberation!" The sanctum immediately fell into chaos. Three, nay, four cultists all rushed at the altar without warning from all directions, screaming and flashing daggers. Simon quickly repelled them with a Chaos Wave to save his prize, only for Dorian's heart to explode on its own. An invisible blade tore into his chest and killed him instantly, right as the echo of a cackling laughter echoed through cracked stone.

A flash of baleful, unholy green light filled the room and the universe howled with an ear-piercing scream. The walls burned with arcane symbols, and the sky outside the Halls of the Minotaur thundered with lightning. All of time seemed to slow down to a crawl for an instant as if the forces of magic themselves held their breath. Then the seal shattered.

The stone that gave the Muse her cruel name exploded into a massive cloud of dust that spread across the room with such force as to toss almost the entire audience off their feet and onto their backs. Waves of poisonous spores filled the room with the stench of rot and death, while a dark cackle of triumph silenced the cult's song. A flow of notifications warning him of suppressed poison and disease ailments flashed in front of Simon's eyes. He turned and faced the Muse.

She had emerged from the seal restored in all of her horrible majesty, an eerie creature merging the dark beauty of a corrupted dryad with the foulness of a demon. Her upper body was that of a beautiful woman with lustrous purple skin, full breasts, lascivious features, and a face gifted with golden eyes. The black miasma crystal of the Minotaur pulsated on her forehead, where two great bull horns grew out of cascading hair of mycelium and lichen. The lower part of her body, however, looked far less appealing.

A pulsating mound of rotting fungi grew from her hips down alongside tentacled roots blooming with poisonous vines, fanged carnivorous flowers, and tumorous bulbs. The very earth shook from both her weight and the tremors that followed her unshackling. All of her mouths opened all at once to utter two simple words with the singing voice of a woman and the deep howl of a monstrous demon.

"I live!" And as her words echoed into the sanctum and her audience bowed to their reborn goddess, Simon felt a rush of power course through his veins. Almost as much experience as he received from his share in slaying Frea and Alphonse, rewarding him for both the ritual's completion and his true secret triumph. Level 44 Overlord Perk: Unquestionable Ruler III (Passive): Lower-level subjects of your empire instinctively see you as a figure of authority to be obeyed.

Level 45 Overlord Perk: Lord of the Demon Castle V (Active): You can target anyone stepping inside Frightwall with a Phantasm Curse, tormenting them with occasional hallucinations while awake and nightmares during their sleep. Simon glanced at the invisible figure near the altar, whose outline was now caked in dust and spores. He had grown familiar enough with her body shape to recognize her even before she opened her mouth.

"Muse of the woods, your freedom for a wish I trade," Silk said, her dagger still red with Dorian's blood.

"You shall serve the Prince of Spiders and Cobweb in all things for all eternity." Simon suppressed a smirk. The Muse squinted in brief confusion at the invisible woman, a faint and wicked smile stretching across on her pale lips.

"You have messed up somewhere, child. Your words bind me not, and I shall suffer orders from no peasant." Her gaze lingered on Simon.

"Nor any lord, Overlord or otherwise."

"Oh? You wish to divorce me so soon, Beloved?" Simon scoffed at the sudden and entirely expected betrayal. He glanced at the cultists he had knocked down before. He supposed the monsters had been too cowed by Unquestioned Ruler to dare backstab him.

"No doubt those traitors were yours, deluded fools eager to gain your favor?"

"And reward them for their faith I shall." The Muse raised her hand at him.

"Did you truly think I would let you enslave me without a fight?"

"Yes," Simon replied bluntly.

"Then you will die a fool. Tera –" The Muse's voice died in her throat, her magic fizzling out in her hand. A look of disbelief and terror chased away her arrogance.

"What?" Simon burst out laughing. It was a dark laugh of pure malice and triumph, so cold that demons and cultists alike seemed troubled to hear it. Silk's own body language betrayed her unease, and the Muse's aristocratic sneer turned into concern.

"You feel it, don't you, Beloved? The chains on your soul that shall drag you plummeting into the Abyss if you disobey me?" Simon taunted the Muse before pointing a finger at Silk.

"Now, catch that gutter trash." The enslaved Muse was compelled to wave her hand at Silk, whose hand immediately reached into a dust-covered pocket in the blink of an eye. She disappeared a second before vines burst out of the ground and nearly entrapped her.

"A teleportation gem?" Simon cursed and immediately contacted Duchar.

"The Cobweb disabled your anti-teleportation wards or found a way to bypass them. Overhaul them once we're done here."

"As Your Majesty wishes. Hector and I shall be on our way to the sanctum soon."

"As for you four," Simon said, his gaze lingering on the four cultists who had tried to kill Dorian ahead of schedule and free their mistress.

"Your dead friend will be a lesson in faithfulness; and yours, one in betrayal."

"Wait!" one of them, whose voice Simon recognized as that of Edward, attempted to beg for his feeble life.

"Wait, master, plea–" Simon activated their Brands, draining them of their lifeforce. Their screams echoed out into the sanctum, startling the humans in the audience and delighting the monsters. He sucked the life out of those traitors dry until they turned to dust in empty hoods and clothes.

"I do not understand…" the Muse muttered to herself.

"Did you think your foolish attempt to betray me would work?" The only surprise was that the Cobweb and the Muse plotted behind his back independently rather than together.

"The Seasonal Key ritual demands a sacrifice of a believer willingly martyred, and that is all. It doesn't say it had to be on this altar, or even in this room." Simon waved his hand at the audience.

"All of this is a mere pomp."

"It had to be here!" The Muse all but shrieked.

"Here, at my altar!"

"Yes, your altar. Any of your altars. Like a stone slab in a morgue dedicated to you at the last second, bathed in the blood of a cultist sacrificed five minutes before our dearly departed Dorian." Simon heard footsteps ascending up into the sanctum and glanced at the stairs. Duchar walked up alongside his son and a new undead cultist with a hole in his chest.

"Did you bring it, Duchar?"

"Of course, Your Majesty." Duchar presented the Muse with the thirty-five-page contract that now bound her.

"Here is the document I have wished for you to abide by as a reward for completing the final sacrifice."

"We paid several lawyers to draft this. They were very thorough in covering all possible loopholes and clarifying our intentions to leave you with as little wriggle room as possible." Simon moved to nonchalantly sit on his black throne.

"In short, it prevents you from harming me and compels you to obey any of my orders for all eternity." The silence in the audience was finally broken by the familiar laughter of Grimm and Gregory, followed by the creaking of the Muse's teeth grinding against each other.

"You… you wicked…" The Muse choked in outrage, disbelief, and impotent anger.

"You rotten little… from the start… from the first day, you plotted this treachery!"

"Haven't you heard of that piece of timeless wisdom, Beloved?" Simon dispelled his Fiendmask and revealed his armor for all of his followers to see.

"Even demons should beware of bartering with the Overlord."