Demonic Devourer's Development

"I'm the master of the arena. I think I'm the one who decides these things here. You lost."

"No!" Wendigo protested, baring her teeth in a snarl. "Damn it!"

Despite her visible frustration, she wasn't so reckless as to charge at the Master of Sin again, though I could tell how much the decision hurt her. It didn't help that around, the crowd cheered for a fight to the death, their favourite entertainment.

I decided it was finally the time for me to interfere. I flew into the circle of the arena and landed between the two fighters, my presence alone forcing the crowd to quieten.

"Enough of that, Wendigo. The Master of Sin is right, and I need my warriors not weakened by their stupid deaths. You can rematch him later. I'm sure the pervert will agree at any time." I snorted. "But yes, congratulations to the champion."

"Congratulations to the champion! Our lord Devourer congratulates the champion!" The Master of Sin repeated after me for the crowd. He enjoyed appeasing it much more than I did, and I let him do that. He made a good ringmaster.

Wendigo, who at the sight of me was stunned at first, now dropped to her knees. "Thank you! Please, accept my servitude!"

It was like she turned one hundred eighty degrees from her attitude towards the Master of Sin. What a weird woman. She believed that by serving the strongest, only the strongest, she would gain the power to become the strongest herself. Then she wouldn't have to serve anyone. And she was very dejected to find herself weaker than one of my other servants.

I would have to be careful with that one—it wouldn't be impossible for her to betray me if she found someone she believed to be stronger than I am. Then again, what there was stronger than I that won't kill her itself?

"Welcome to the ranks of my army, Wendigo," I said, jutting my chin up. "Stand up and stand proud even in the face of death—just only as long as the death profits me."

⠀⠀

With Wendigo, the Master of Sin and Enforcers—who were grinding their lost on death stats like madmen—I had in total nine demons who were worth to be called "elite", though the other three were much less notable, weaker than any of the aforementioned, and I expected them to die first.

Besides them, I had a thousand demons that promised to do well enough in my future operation "Havoc". If comparing their strengths, I'd put them together with Yvenna, which meant that regular armies and low-tier adventurers would have problems dealing with them.

Not enough to wage war, but enough to sow chaos. The rest—too weak, too rebellious—were taken into Dis's city guard, became simple workers, were kicked out from the Fifth Circle or were turned into meat.

I separated this army into platoons. Enforcers—together, since they were too good of a unit to separate them—Wendigo, and the other three elite demons each took command of two hundred demons, which were in turn split into ten-demons teams led by demons who showed themselves to be the most cunning ones.

Picking the most cunning ones was performed by Wendigo and the Master of Sin. The latter made his half of the demons to solve strategy problems, while the former built a flamerock labyrinth and made her half play some deadly game there. Both achieved the same result in about the same amount of time, though Wendigo later swore that she finished a little faster and, therefore, was better than him.

She was also the most happy when I told that the Master of Sin won't be getting any troops under his direct command besides the guard that kept peace and order in Dis. But when I told that this was because he will have a special mission in the mortal realm, she was the one most curious to know what that was.

I told no details until the time was right, and the time wasn't right yet since not all the preparations were finished. There was still my ally in the enemy's midst to account for, all the while sharing as little of the vitally important information for him to steal as possible.

I didn't forget that he could spy on me with his calling mirror. There were some facts I let him on—like Pest's ability to use magic—because they were either already open, or inevitably would be. Others were different—like the existence and location of my cultists. That I will hold as far away from the gods as I could.

Thanks to our contacts with God of Rogues, I knew that while I was preparing, he has been greatly successful in giving the gods a wild chase. Some grew unhappy with his lack of results produced, but most were appeased by whatever tidbits he brought to them, all the while fruitless in their own, still continuing, search for any traces of me. They found and identified my sightings around the forest where I first appeared, back when I was just a kobold, but that gave them little ground.

They still didn't think I'd be so bold as to step into cities.

Now, it was time to finalise and polish the lasts of my brilliant strategic plan… Alright, I did it in collaboration. The Master of Sin helped, and so did Wendigo a little, plus we used a few fresh souls to get information about the geography of the mortal realm—something that I, until now, knew little about besides the small piece of land that I scouted.

Which wasn't so small, as it turned out. Compared to the one I was—reincarnated?—from, this one was absolutely tiny. It wasn't flat, but I was sure that it didn't LOOK as round as it should've been with its size…

I shook the thoughts about the strange geography out of my head, shifted more comfortably in my seat in the private office of Dis's palace, and called God of Rogues.