Leon's back cast his wings as he flew forward, on his back the symbol of a knight, their helmet, appeared in light writing and soon a demonic armour was summoned, every bit the size of the Knight puppet masquerading as Pierre and wielding the Bloody Moon sword: The Black Knight of Fanoss. Pierre's lance roared like an engine, the spike rapidly pistoning into and out of the base of the weapon as Pierre made every effort to stab into Leon's own armour even as he parried his blows.
"Should I try another experiment?" Leon muttered to himself as he let Vandel work.
"Focus." The old man's familiar voice echoed out. Vandel was a literal shadow of his former self, his power in battle had survived his transition but Leon's bloodline made sure he was loyal. "Get ready to destroy the puppet in one hit." The Pierre puppet charged again lance forward and shield blocking, a solid formation but one that Vandel's torn through thousands of times. The Armour shifted to the left, past Pierre's lance arm with an upwards slash, hacking the arm off along with the weapon. As the puppet was turning around Vandel had already curved the momentum from his first attack to his second, catching the shield as it was turning around and ripping it off. Then the Black Knight's armour disappeared and in it's place was Leon floating in the air.
"Sky Clear Conquest!" Leon's body transformed, taking on the form of a cape wearing Knight with a familiar black blade. The Knight drew a magic circle in the air and with a single downwards swing a massive black beam of energy destroyed everything in front of Leon, including 'Pierre' down to the last scrap. "Your 'Master' is dead, traitor!" Leon shouted as he returned to his standard human form, his hair having formed wings on his back in lieu of the coat as he gestured threateningly with his blade. "I demand your immediate and unconditional surrender or you shall share his fate!"
At once the weapons the castle had been spewing out death with rescinded, the doors stayed open long enough to let the monsters it had released return. Leon flew over and landed on the deck, soon finding the familiar 'Mutilated Eldritch Horror' shaped door called the Traveler as he entered the Castle and arrived at the main dining hall, where the familiar form of Bernhard's puppet avatar was waiting for him.
"Good to see you again young Master, I trust time with your fiances has done you well?" The Puppet pulled out a chair at the head of the table for Leon to sit down in.
"I came to hear the hell you've been doing block head!" Leon sat down in the chair with more force than necessary.
"Certainly!" The Sycophantic Puppet gestured and a blood portal appeared, pushing out a stack of documents. "A visual aid, if necessary." And then the puppet started his explanation. "I took the initiative, for your own sake Young Master, unless the Fievel family understood clearly what the consequences for crossing you would be in the future they would continue to antagonise you. After that it was a relatively easy task to lure the brat back onto the ship..."
"This had better be as good as you promised, or I'll use you as Fire wood!" Pierre, fresh off of having finalised his extremely petty victory with the office of registration, had been guided into a certain infamous wing of the castle. "Oh I assure you it is Master! Holfort's exclusive servants are legendary across the world, you will not be able to see what you believe!" Which would be true, the demon noted.
Pierre was led into a room, one that appeared to be vastly bigger on the inside than it was on the outside but that little tidbit of information paled in comparison to what he was seeing. Various women had been gathered together on various pillows in a pile, tanned skin wolf girls, grey skinned elf women, hour glass figures with large breasts and wide hips Pierre wouldn't be able to hold in one hand either flat out naked, barely hidden behind see through lingerie or struggling to break free of micro bikini's.
"Remind me to conquer Holfort with this thing when I get the chance!" Pierre smiled lecherously as he picked through his targets.
"I shall remember when it comes up." Read: Never gonna get the chance.
Pierre ignored the chattering puppet as he zeroed in on his target, a species of demi-human he's never heard of before, horns like a cow but a long thin tail ending with a spade. Pierre was drawn into her, losing his clothes along the way before he eventually sat down in her lap.
"Do I look pretty to Milord?" The demoness asked as she looked into Pierre's eyes blinking seductively.
Lust: Also known as a Succubus or an Incubus.
Among the Denizens of Inferno, few beings have ingrained themselves into the human psyche as much as the Lust has, with a female known as a Succubus and the male known as an Incubus. These creatures are born from the darkest desires of humans, the ones that you know you should not have but do anyway, as such a Lust can look like anything and nothing, their exact appearance shifting from individual to individual. They are no masters of illusion though, a Succubus will always appear to be a female demon and an Incubus a male demon, they are limited to altering their general features to appear to be more enticing but usually that is enough.
Like their appearance a Lust's power tends to vary, usually with the time since they last had intercourse and the power of the individual in question, for this reason Lust's can often be found spending their spare time engaging in group orgies with the various beings they've put under their control while sending out select members to lure more back to their nests.
Excerpts from Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons
"By the way Milord, I forgot to mention." The Succubus gave Pierre a kiss as pale light came into the room. "This room is designed to concentrate moonlight in large quantities from the ever present moon in the sky, except for when I want some 'fun' with the girls."
The glamour dropped, clothes were torn and fell off as the beast girls turned into humanoid wolf monsters and the pale elves transformed into humanoid bat monsters complete with wings growing out the back. Before Pierre could even comprehend the terror he was being subjected to he was flung through the air by one of the vampire's wings and slammed against a wall, already his sacred crest fixing his body.
"Ah I forgot to mention." Bernhard piped up at this time, as if only having just thought of something rather important. "They are also absolutely ravenous, and human flesh happens to be their favourite!"
"Call them off!" Pierre was already scrambling to stand back up.
"Now why would I do that after all the effort I took to lure you here? I admit that angel blood has a certain appeal to it but few things are as satisfying to a vampire than fresh human, except of course the thrill of the hunt of course."
Before Pierre could bite in with a comment he was thrown through the door leading out of the room, the werewolf's doing, nearly rolling over the ledge that led him to the room in the first place. It was very different from the hallway he remembered, it was old and dilapidated, words were written on the walls in an ancient language as screams and curses flew through his ears. And there was blood, lots and lots of blood, there was an entire lake of blood in the middle of the massive room so deep Pierre had no way of comprehending how deep it really went. And the creature that put him in that precarious position was advancing.
"Get Wrecked!" Pierre threw out his right arm, sacred crest ablaze, from the right of him a huge magic circle appeared from which a giant tree root appeared and dove towards it's prey, the massive lake of blood in the middle of the room. Pierre stared awkwardly as the usual saviour of his life/enforcer of his whims completely ignored his commands and instead opted to go in the opposite direction.
"Well that's enough of that." Bernhard thus knocked Pierre out with a single blow to the back of the head. "Take him to the ritual chamber, we're on a time table need I remind you all."
"Naturally you waited until after Pierre summoned the freaking Sacred Tree into the castle before you rounded him up. Well done." Leon made a show of clapping his hands together as sarcastically as possible, the furthest thing from impressed. "Since this is Inferno that's probably a Qliphoth he ended up summoning, and unless you remembered to remove it immediately I bet drinking your blood has bonded it to the castle as well."
"That is more or less what happened." Bernard actually looked sheepish.
"Which means that now you've gotten me in shit with Celine now too. In the future when I give you orders you will wait until I am ready to discuss the finer details of the plan before you execute them. Is that clear?" Leon wouldn't pretend that this wasn't his fault, his aunt had already chewed him out on how much of a bad idea it is to leave something with the resources, knowledge and power of Bernard to it's own devices after-all. "Crystal. Speaking of which shall we resume the talk of Pierre's demise?" Bernard asked as he went through a selection of foods in his mind to try and put a dent in Leon's sour mood.
Ritual of the Wendigo. A Wendigo is a cursed creature native to the North American continent, born when a human consumes a large amount of human flesh while in the midst of the cold of winter.
A powerful curse over takes the body. The subject is mutated to reflect the inhumaness of their actions, the severity of their changes reflecting the atrocities that they have committed, a desperate survivor who eats a dead man with whom they had zero involvement changes minimally their body growing thinner to reflect their starvation. One who actively hunts and kills their fellow man for food on the other hand will have a stronger reaction, growing in height while a deer's skull and antlers overtake their head.
For those who were especially inhumane, the faces of their victims appears on their form, inflicting upon them the same suffering that they had inflicted upon them for all of the creature's miserable existence.
Excerpt from 'Cult de Ghuls' by Professor Lin Jie
Pierre had been brought out to the village, or to be more accurate an Infernal retelling of the history of Wygol Village. The Village that bordered the edge of the castle had an especially unpleasant history as basically a blood farm for the Vampires of the Castle, and occasionally new vampires too. It was the worst in the winter, where Vampire hunger remained the same but there was less sun light chasing them off and fewer supplies to help recover from the Vampires feedings. Thus Wygol was in a state of perpetual winter. Bernhard had Pierre silenced earlier on when he grew too annoyed about his whining and pathetic threats.
"Would you cease your pointless resistance already?" Bernhard asked as he pushed a cart full of his tools into the empty hut. The Lost of Pierre's vocal cords to a hot iron had been unfortunate, as Bernhard wouldn't be able to hear him scream in pain anymore, but it was a small sacrifice he was willing to make. "It has been literal thousands of years since I've had high quality material like you." Bernhard grabbed the still defiant Pierre by his chin as he held him face to face. "I am hard at work to make use of every last inch of you miserable wretch, the least that you can do is appreciate that someone has found a use for a worthless pile of garbage like you!"
Pierre didn't look appreciative in the least, but none the less Bernhard pulled out a rather large knife and went to work on Pierre. The 'Great Nobleman' couldn't scream any more but he could grunt loudly in pain. Bernhard had been employing the Flesh Cutting Technique, a method of torture native to China which involves removing the muscles from the bones of a human as slowly and painfully as possible piece by piece. Bernhard had a few innovations that he added to the technique, a support spell that enhances pain receptors, a healing spell that can regrow severed limbs at the cost of a huge amount of the bodies nutrients, and of course 'Butch' the Castle's Chef.
Demonic energy was born of negative human emotions, the grotesque creature has a unique talent for fire magic that sears the flavour of the greatest atrocities in human history directly into the food, he even added a special ingredient at Bernhard's request. If his reaction was any indication Pierre had a rather low opinion of the dish, which was ironic since he was the one 'generously' providing the meat for it, Pierre ended up having days to 'enjoy' the dish but only because Bernard can tamper with the flow of time in the castle. Then Pierre got to 'enjoy' the fruits of his own labours.
"Welcome to hell!"
Pierre was many things, 'serial rapist' and 'mass murderer' were only the start of the descriptions of the horrors he inflicted on the people of Alzer. At all hours of every day Pierre had a audience following him around, a massive collection of people who had been torched, drowned, electrocuted, drained by the Sacred Tree, tossed off of the edge of Alzer for shits and giggles, beaten to death, run over, shot the list went on and on, and those were just the lucky ones. Most of the time Pierre likes to have 'fun' with his victims before he kills them and the ones that he takes a 'liking' to? Those were the unlucky ones. Every day this audience from hell grew bigger, each of them waiting for the chance to have revenge upon Pierre, and finally their time had come.
One by one each ghost passed through Pierre, each time leaving behind the ghostly silhouette of a distorted screaming face, each time Pierre got to experience what it was like to be on the receiving end of his day to day activities. Within moments the village had turned into a forest as Pierre continuously summoned more and more demonic trees trying to save himself, in futility, as unlike the Sacred Tree of Alzer these miniature Qlipoth had no interest or investment in him. Within days of accelerated time Pierre got to know what it was like to beg for mercy from the bottom of his heart. The longer the torture went on the less human that Pierre looked. First his hair fell out, then his flesh fell from his face his eyes replaced by two glowing red points in his sockets. Then Pierre's screaming voice was finally allowed to echo out, his bony limbs growing taller as his face distorted into the shape of a deer and antlers grew from his head, whether your voice box works or not doesn't matter to the Undead.
"Damn you! Damn you! Do you Know who I am!?" Pierre had started the day chained up like the animal that he was, and the only thing growing to be nine feet tall had accomplished for him was prompt Bernhard to tighten his chains. "I'll kill you! I'll Kill you!" Pierre had been begging for death before, however having been warped to the point that he was as ugly on the outside and the loss of what passed for sanity for him as he was on the inside had managed to come with the return of his back bone it would seem.
"I hope you aren't telling me that you have a Wendigo hiding around somewhere that you haven't told me about." Leon would not be fond of the idea of forming a contract with Pierre, even indirectly only as a result of being bound to Bernhard.
"Oh Inferno no." Bernhard replied more amused by the concept than anything else. "The Wendigo transformation was merely a stepping stone. A way of training Pierre's soul up to the level of minor divinity, and by assuming the form of a beast he could be subjected to further rituals."
Oh yeah, because that idea was so much better!
Inugami: A beast subjected to ritual torture and Slaughter.
An Inugami is one of the more vicious beasts to emerge from the Asian Occult community. The process of creating one is relatively simple though incredibly inhuman: first bury a living dog in the ground up to their neck, then leave them there for at least three days until they are literal moments away from dying of thirst, at which point in time the head must be lopped off. Death is far from a mercy however, for at this point in time the head must be buried underneath a well used trail and subjected to foot traffic by horses until the tortured soul of the beast can take no more and explodes from the ground. From here, to be kept loyal the creature must be treated with great respect unless it turns against it's master.
Excerpt from 'Cult de Ghuls' by Professor Lin Jie
It was hard to imagine what worst horrors that Bernhard could inflict upon Pierre by this point in time that could be worse than what had already been done to him, but Bernhard's knowledge had few rivals. A hole was dug and the creature that used to be known as Pierre was forced into it by a pair of Dark Knights before he was buried in it, just to make sure Bernhard compacted the dirt that surrounded Pierre's body into stone. Then Pierre was left there, Wendigo's had something of a rarity among the undead, hunger, the need to eat to survive, probably because eating was how they had been turned into their present state to begin with. Regardless Bernard took the liberty of parading a veritable parade of delicacies before him.
Bernard's puppet body did a mocking dance, the succubus and her harem had a orgy in the middle of the courtyard, several vampires had a feast on tables they brought over. The Wendigo was reduced to howling like a animal as the feast of all of it's vices were paraded in front of him, all the while still being subjected to the endless horrors that he himself had created as the ghosts continued to torment him. Pierre had died once when he was turned into a Wendigo, 9998 more times from the various ghosts of his victims that were passing through his body and on the third day of being stuck in the hole, he hit 10000 when a scythe blade was used to lop off his head. But Pierre's torment had not ended yet. The deer skull was being taken to the castle's stables, where one of the most recent additions had been allowed to roost.
Geryon: An ancient Breed of Demon Horse as old as History itself.
It is said that the first Geryon was a horse used by the ancient hero of Babylon Gilgamesh. The beast fought against one too many demons alongside his master and was ultimately dragged down to hell after death, where it became the favoured pet of Madama Khepri, learning her skill for manipulating time in the process.
Sadly the beast's descendants have not fared as well as their progenitor. It is said that to slay a Geryon is to gain their power over time, and while few are willing to fight a Madam in Inferno she only has so many stables to keep her pets in, and fewer still she is actually fond enough of to actually keep. So many a Geryon are left to run free in the wild where they are vulnerable but in exchange gain the chance to grow stronger.
Excerpt from Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons
After Pierre's head was buried the Geryon's were allowed to run wild over it, their time manipulating power meant that years were going by in the afternoon that they had been allowed to run wild, and Pierre was feeling every moment of it. Finally the Horses reached the point where they avoided the ground where Pierre had been buried, which was now glowing with rather distinctive red glow which was being considered a sign of something truly awful ready to be born.
"Prepare the containment field, let us not let our prize be snatched away people!" A cube of Magic circles appeared around where Pierre had been buried, and soon the ground erupted, out from which came thousands of wailing screaming voices from thousands of ghostly faces all attached to the severed head of a dear skull, which would be impressive if the entire thing wasn't immediately trapped, wrapped in chains and then nailed to the ground with 2 story high pillars.
"I hope you aren't expecting me to contract with Pierre." Leon rephrased his earlier statement, there was still the possibility that Bernard had turned Pierre into some other kind of cursed abomination so asking about a Inugami specifically would do more harm than good.
"Oh no my lord. Once a worthless Wretch, always a worthless Wretch. He is merely the sacrifice to achieve our true goal." Meaning that they had summoned something even worse than the Pierre-Wendigo-Inugami combo. Lovely.
The Ritual of Offerings calls for multiple ingredients and steps.
Ingredients: One human who in life served as a example of an embodiment of Greed, 1 potion of Corruption, one pot of boiling water.
Tools: one stick, one cauldron large enough to fit the sacrifice, one large stick, one razor for shaving, one scalpel, one set of meat hooks, one altar dedicated to your deity of your choice, one pair of gloves, (optional) six small sticks (four optional).
Instructions:
To begin, shave all the hair from the offering's body, puncture the Saphenous veins in the feet (see diagram) and hang the body by the neck, collect all the blood drained out of the body in a container, mix with water and salt, wait for the blood to condense then it can be frozen for use in future rituals.
Once cleaned place the offering into the cauldron of boiling water, lightly beat the belly of the sacrifice with the large stick.
Slice open the belly from groin to neck and allow the organs to spill out into a separate container. At this stage you may slice off a section of the Sacrifice's meat, pin the four corners with four small sticks and wrap the sticks with the Sacrifice's intestines to complete a smaller ritual to improve luck.
Once the organs have been removed they may be spiced using the Potion of Corruption, which may be fed to the summoned creature to pacify it. To complete the ritual stab the meat of the main body with your remaining two sticks and allow a gate to form to summon the entity that you have prepared for into this world.
Excerpt from 'Cult de Ghuls' by Professor Lin Jie
A gurney was rolled out to the field, on it had the methodically prepared body of Pierre, shaved, gutted, drained and strapped to a stone altar that was some how more grotesque than the headless monster that was on top of it. Pierre recognised his own body and growled out something along the lines of a demand to give it back, unfortunately for him it had already been spoken for.
"With this we complete the ritual of offerings and summon our God into this mortal plane!" Bernard made that announcement as he stabbed two chop sticks into the body of Pierre.
The altar rumbled as it was transformed, from Pierre's headless corpse was absorbed and transformed, two large trees grew up into the air and bonded together forming what you'd be forgiven for mistaking for a pair of legs as something resembling a portal opened between them. Then something came through, a hard to describe thing that chilled Pierre to his core and every fibre of his warped being told him to be afraid of, and this was after spending the better part of a year being physically and mentally raped, tortured, fed his own flesh, starved decapitated and then trampled on. The simplest way to describe the thing would be a mass of tentacles, no hands, no eyes, teeth feet, just tentacles mounted on top of tentacles. The barriers broke with the ease of someone parting water with their hands and Pierre screamed and begged as the tentacles pulled him into their embrace, ending his existence for the final time.
With the highly relevant question of 'the hell did you summon' the conversation moved to Wygol Village, where the creature was still sleeping off its meal.
"Presenting the Demon Lord of Lost and Forbidden Knowledge Nyarlathotep!"
Nyarlathotep: The Lord of the Lost and Forbidden.
Few things in life are as tempting or as terrifying as the unknown, and Nyarlathotep has a monopoly on it. While lacking in power compared to most Demon Lords Nyarlathotep is an invaluable teacher and counsellor of the dark arts and a master of spycraft. Any information that someone does not want someone else to have or has been forgotten to the sands of time can be yours, provided you are willing to pay the price. Keep in mind that Nyarlathotep is not especially fond of the Wilfully Ignorant, which means that the majority of those who summon it may receive a soul destroying curse instead of a secret to ultimate power.
Excerpt from Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons
"This is a fine mess you have created Bernhard!" Leon snapped eye twitching and vein on the verge of popping.
"I should point out that if you try to get rid of it at this point after having summoned it the end result will likely be... not pretty." Oh fantastic! Leon just let out a sigh as he climbed onto a nearby roof top so that he could stand face to presumed-to-be face.
"You are the 'Young Master' I presume?" A voice that was neither male, feminine or had any inflection of any kind to it echoed out from the mass of tendrils.
"Yes I am." Leon stated simply. "First allow me to apologise for my subordinate's actions if they had taken you by force. I know how inconvenient it is to be summoned out of the blue."
"I accepted the offering, it was high quality goods." So Leon keeps getting told. "With the soul of a minor divinity I am able to split off my existence and increase my influence." Which also means that there was no convenient way to get rid of it either. Might as well make the most of the situation.
"Shall we discuss terms of the summons? I understand you've received payment after all but it's still wise to discuss your duties." Which was another way of Leon asking 'The hell do I even do with you?'
"If you have a Library I would like to curate it. Though if you are the future master of this castle then might I suggest assigning me to surveillance?" The glob of tentacles made a couple of off hand suggestions.
"What would you do in either of these positions?" Leon having demons running around, let alone a literal Demon Lord, without him knowing what they were up to had already bit him in the ass once.
"A wise question. Should I be left in charge of your library I will expand upon it's knowledge with details of the old world's technology and natural laws, my own impressive bevvy of knowledge of the magical arts, and the biology of the various creatures of this world." Which did sound good, though Leon was worried about possibly letting Olivia near this thing, Angelica too considering her love of anything related to dungeons and the old civilisation. "Assign me to surveillance, and I shall have a report to you on every secret everyone does not want you to know, and regular reports of everyone plotting your demise."
"Is both good?" Admittedly those were good sounding deals.
"Yes." The tentacles replied bluntly.
"One last thing: do something about your appearance please? I don't even know where to look to talk to you."
"It is a deal." A new sigil appeared on Leon's back, a Egyptian eye, at the same time the tentacle monster shifted around, tying it's body into knots and braids as it took advantage of Leon's hair to reshape their body, or rather her body.
"What in Sheba's name is with that appearance?" Leon asked looking rather confused.
The tentacles had reshaped themselves into a humanoid figure, braids forming limbs and a torso, each digit on the end of both 'hands' and 'feet' ending with a sharp claw. Going up the torso more tentacles had wrapped themselves over the legs to produce a pair of thick thighs and a long tail down the back, further up more tendrils had balled themselves up into a set of proportionately large breasts, cause she was still a giant, while the face was a black mass with the Eye of Horus floating in front of it and more tentacles mimicking a bob cut with cat ears. All of this suddenly shifted in a flash of light, the boneless figure now resembling a giant shapely cat woman with no face bar the floating eye symbol with green fur, lots of gold accessories including a hair ornament designed to look like a second eye and a 'little' black dress that Leon knew was made out of his hair.
"I adopted it from one of the adaptations people made of me." 'She' had complemented her transformation by adopting a sultry and seductive voice, which would be working a lot better if Leon didn't know that it belonged to a quite possibly insane tentacle monster. How in Khepri's name did they get 'giant busty cat woman' from 'giant mass of tentacles?' "I believe it was a... dating sim was-?"
"I've heard enough!" Leon swore that these Dating Sims were going to be the death of him, worst yet now he had to deal with the concept of 'who the hell is dating a giant tentacle monster cosplaying as a giant busty cat woman?' "Just... Just give me your Devil Arm while I go sort out the mess that I'm in. Please?" At once the 'Cat woman' disappeared into a flurry of hair, dropping a magical book that Leon could tell just by looking at it was full of bad news, party because it was full of so much demonic power his instincts were telling him to eat it but mostly because it was looking at him funny. With eyes!
Cult De Ghuls: The Book of the Lost and Forbidden.
A living book of spells combining natural laws and dark magic, capable of casting the rituals contained inside by itself with a mere flip and tear of it's pages. From within the depths of the book madness surges forth jumping from page to target and from target to target in the form of a bolt of lightning.
The book itself is a brutal, heavy but effective melee weapon capable of crushing most skulls with the sheer weight of it's knowledge.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapons Catalogue
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: True. You're probably thinking of Ace the Bat-hound, who is a Bat-hound in as much as Bruce Wayne is a Batman. You mean aside from well written, good character designs and an original plot? I've found myself quite charmed with a manga lately called Tyrant of the Defensive Game, a Tower Defence Isekai.
Dakota Bruder: So long as you don't mind spoilers for the Manga: In the second game, he was one of the potential romantic interests, widely considered to be the 'golden route' his ending was considered to give Alzer the best possible result. Unfortunately thanks to Lelia's meddling in his and Noelle's affairs he twisted into an obsessive lunatic who only ultimately treated Noelle as his property, it took a whole conga line of break the haughty moments before he approached anything resembling decent. The Collar plot was Canon too, it was Loic who implemented it in the light novel, I on the other hand exaggerated the details to their logical conclusion.