Enemy of the Inferno (Disgardium Book #8): LitRPG Series

by Dan Sugralinov

  “By devouring latecomers?”

  “What?” Citri choked on his ale, set the barrel aside and started wiping his eyes. He finished, stayed staring off to one side, rumbled: “Oh, I see. You spoke to that feathered idiot Voley. That shithead is the only one who scares the recruits with me.”

  “My mistake, Centurion Citri! I’ll wait for the blue fire, Centurion Citri! Permission to ask a question, Centurion Citri? Where do I go and what do I do when the sky lights up, Centurion Citri?”

  “What do you do?” the demon echoed. “Fight the enemy! Where do they recruit you idiots?”

  Judging by what I’d seen today, total chaos reigned in the legion. I wanted wholeheartedly to give up my life for the legion – well, tiefling Hakkar did, anyway, – and nobody wanted to so much as see me! What, were we going to fight in a big line? What about strategy, tactics? They could have at least told me who was my direct commander. Who even led the Thirteenth Legion, anyway? Not that I cared much, but the demons’ delinquency amazed me.

  Citri grabbed the barrel again, gulped at it greedily a while, then finally condescended to look at me. What he saw surprised him:

  “Hold on! A pike-bearer?! So you’re today’s first instiga of the Thirteenth Cohort! Finally! At least we have one volunteer. I thought I was going to have to appoint someone myself!” I wouldn’t have said that his voice contained notes of respect, but his interest in me certainly rose. And now he started to look at me with open approval. “Where are you from, little one?”

  I answered. The town’s name told him nothing. I think he was only asking for the sake of it anyway.

  “Hear my command, recruit…”

  He saw my name – NPCs could see profiles too, – but paused, and I named myself:

  “Hakkar, Centurion Citri!”

  “Hear my command, recruit Hakkar! Instigas have a special place in the Legion. They have no commanders but the centurion. You will be under my command. Stay nearby and await further orders!”

  “Yes, Centurion Citri.”

  “What?” he snarled, shaking his head. “I hear no enthusiasm, recruit!”

  “I heard from the other recruits that instigas always go to their deaths.”

  “Not always,” Citri barked. “There are fools who want to give away their chao dramatically, like heroes. Those blockheads think it an honor to be killed by the foe or the protodemon! Oh, an elf with them! It makes no difference how you die and disincarnate. There is no honor in it, especially when the fate of the Legion depends on your victory! I hope you are not one such fool.”

  “No, sir!”

  “Excellent,” the demon murmured. “Finally one good thing after so many defeats. My loins are already aching for a demoness, but where can I find worthy ones here? Those I desire are only in the Ruby City, and losers aren’t allowed on leave! Nether!”

  Citri swore profusely on Azmodan’s ass and Belial’s member, then sat down and took a long swig of his barrel. I swore along with him – my mission to get the Coals was dragging out!

  He drained the rest of the barrel, then scratched his belly and belched. Fetid flame burst from his mouth.

  I stood nearby for some time, awaiting further orders. I had to wait quite a while – Citri seemed to have forgotten about me, and when his murky gaze did find me, he demanded:

  “Who are you?”

  “Recruit Hakkar! First instiga of the Thirteenth Cohort, Centurion Citri!”

  “Await the trials, recruit Hakkar. When the sky burns blue, that is your signal that…” he began, and then repeated everything he’d already said. “Stay nearby and await further orders!”

  “Yes sir!”

  Sighing sadly, I found a place by the wall, leaned back against it and settled in to await ‘further orders’ and the beginning of the trials.

  * * *

  “Glory to the Dominion!” the Thirteenth Cohort of the Thirteenth Legion roared, clattering its weapons. My cohort.

  “Glory to the Dominion!” the Thirteenth Cohort of the Twelfth Legion answered. Our enemy of the day.

  I stood precisely between them. A darkening sky shimmered above my head – it glowed blue like the sky on Earth to signal the foe’s arrival, but now the color darkened, turning grayer with each passing minute.

  A motley mass of troops teemed behind me from at least ten demonic races, if not twenty. There was no discernible order to the crowd. That said, the foe looked no better – green recruits just like us, black and white striped cloaks like ours. It was a good thing at least that the princes had placed an edict, as Centurion Citri explained it; allies couldn’t deal damage to one another, roughly like how members of the Destroying Plague couldn’t hurt each other. And it wasn’t a formal edict, but as chaotic as they come, so no matter how much one wanted to, there was no way to stab a fellow cohort member in the back…

  The first of the enemy’s instigas stood right before me – a craggy satyr with two white stars, outfitted in fancy armor, frowning at me and nervously beating his tail against the ground. My… uhm… that is to say, Hakkar’s tail, which I hadn’t yet figured out how to use, hung relaxed, its tip touching the ground. From what I’d seen of the demons, movements of the tail usually spoke of the owner’s mood. If that was the case, then I was expressing total calm. That might have been what bothered the satyr, who had celebrated when he first saw me, thinking me easy prey.

  We waited for the signal of the start of the battle – the sky was supposed to flash blue again. My Centurion had perked up and happily answered questions about the Great Game, explaining that when the sky lit up for a third time, the battle would end regardless of whether there was a clear victor, and then nobody would be able to deal damage to anybody else on the battlefield.

  There was also a time limit to the battles – no more than three hours to either kill all the enemies or capture the opposing Wager, put forward by each Prince, of six hundred and sixty-six million chao. If neither win condition was met, then a draw would be declared. Such was the sport of demons.

  I also learned that our legion had recently destroyed some of Lucius’ troops, which was an accomplishment unheard of – the victor had gained a scrap of land on the continent, if it could be called that…

  “I will eat your heart! I will cut out your liver and kidneys! I will drink your blood!” the enemy instiga snarled, distracting me from my thoughts.

  “What about the brain?” I asked.

  “Brain?” the satyr asked. “Why eat your brain?”

  “I had some zombie friends that liked brains the best.”

  “Zombie..? I’m no zombie!”

  “Yeah, I see you’re a satyr. A live one. For now.”

  “I will bite your face off!” he resumed, sounding less confident now. “I will wrap your guts around my pike!”

  His tail was plowing up the ground, trying to drill into it, reminding me of my Diamond Worm Crash. Any moment now, the sky would flash blue and then…

  “Apart from me, there are two huge demon instigas in our cohort,” I lied. “So say goodbye to your chao, buddy, you won’t survive the day!”

  “I will eat their hearts!” he growled.

  In actual fact, Citri had assigned as the second and third instigas a tiny imp and a skinny demon who fell into despair at the news. Like me, both had one white star each. I feel no pity for such vermin, the Centurion had snapped, choosing his instigas on the basis of sifting the wheat from the chaff.

  The satyr went on threatening to do unnatural things with the kidneys and livers of the other instigas in our cohort, who were to emerge if I lost. Then the sky lit up blue. The combined roar of two demon cohorts screaming for blood deafened me.

  “For the Thirteenth Legion!”

  “For the Twelfth Legion!”

  The satyr didn’t get to hear the “Glory to…” and “For Prince Belial!” parts. I stabbed him with my pike as he went on about all the faces he planned to eat off, and then it was all over for my enemy instiga. Impaled on the blade
, he collapsed into ash, which blew away and left behind only a little chao. I picked it all up down to the last crumb.

  “Hakkar!” my cohort roared behind me, shaking their weapons.

  The clamor of support for me seemed to shake the very pillars of creation: the fabric of space twisted, electricity crackled on my skin and I felt myself gripped in an unkind attention. I backed off reflexively, holding my weapon before me, but the unpleasant sensation soon passed. Something similar had happened at the Ordeal, when the gods had been watching convicts fight.

  “Second instiga!” the enemy centurion declared. “Radobreus the devil! Three white stars!”

  “Radobreus!” the enemy cohort screamed. “Finish the tiefling!”

  A large demon split off from the teeming mass and darted toward me, spitting threats. I surged forward to meet him, dodged a hit and ran around a little, making like an agile and treacherous tiefling, then put myself in front of a strike… so I could strike out myself. The devil instiga expired.

  For an instant, silence hung above the battlefield, then my cohort exploded in another roar of triumph.

  “Go on, Hakkar!” Lerra the succubus’s voice rang out clearly in the crowd.

  Chaos’s attention came again, agitated the fabric of creation, scanned me even more insistently… and held on this time. Suddenly, it felt as if a thousand sharp hooks dug into my skin and started pulling. Nether! Had Chaos discovered the particle of Order within me? This looked bad. It wasn’t a given that I could defeat the protodemon sent to destroy me. But even if I achieved victory, there was no guarantee that more wouldn’t come for me.

  “Third instiga!” the enemy centurion boomed. “Demon Kro’Shargh!”

  I cast a quick glance across the battlefield: my cohort was frozen, fearing to move a muscle. Our second and third instigas must have been rooting for me hardest of all; their lives depended on me winning this. Citri the demon’s jaw hung open in surprise as he hovered above the recruits. Nobody expected a one-star loser to be a good fighter.

  “Kro’Shargh! Kro’Shargh! Kro’Shargh!” the enemy chanted.

  “Hakkar! Hakkar! Hakkar!” the demons of the Thirteenth Legion roared.

  The third instiga looked like Kerass from Tiefling Nest – well-built, but clearly fed on chao not won in battle. He roared and clanked his armor, cut through the air with his pike with a whistle, but couldn’t hit me once.

  To avoid raising questions, I had to develop a reputation as a tiefling of furious speed, so I danced around the demon.

  Giving the audience a show, I sped up a little, dove between Kro’Shargh’s legs, jumped up, turned around sharply and drove my spear into the back of his head. The strike was fatal.

  Mayhem broke out in my cohort; the demons howled, roared, beat their chests and danced, and only the enraged centurion’s roar brought them to their senses. Our opponents watched on glumly and silently.

  “Not bad, instiga Hakkar!” Citri rumbled after settling down his subjects.

  Before I could pick up the demon’s chao, darkness smothered the world. The air vibrated as if we’d been placed in some huge microwave oven. It lasted no longer than an instant, and after it ended, some unimaginable, nightmarish creature stood before me.

  A mass of claws, tentacles, horns and fangs, formless and three times the height of a man, it surged toward me. The beast kept changing shape, moving in blinks faster than the eye could track. I couldn’t even make out the label above its head.

  Dodging a strike, I went into Clarity.

  Djubbukleraieoiedlet, Wave 5 Protodemon

  Emissary of Chaos.

  Impressively useless information, but what had I expected? It made sense that the plane of Chaos had none of Dis’s levels or the stars of the Inferno.

  Throwing away the spear hanging in the air a few feet from me, I got ready to calmly work the protodemon with my fists, but the creature, until now frozen in motion, attacked first – six tentacles shot out from it. They grabbed me by my head, limbs and tail and started pulling in different directions. A normal tiefling would have been torn apart, but I twisted out of their grasp and jumped away. Path of Equanimity from Resilience saved me from the damage.

  I glanced at the two armies, saw they were still frozen. I was still sped up. So the protodemon could speed up too? Well, what about this..?

  Hurricane Ferocity! The enemy slowed. It didn’t stop, but now it was moving as if through jelly.

  I fired a Combo into it, thinking I’d have to hit the megaboss for a long time, but the Emissary and Protodemon of the Fifth Wave, whatever that meant, folded up from my first strike and burst, covering me with fountains of concentrated chao.

  Chao particles: +9,000,031.

  Against the settings, the particles didn’t go into my inventory, but were absorbed immediately! The effect was staggering!

  Second white star earned!

  +5% to all base stats!

  Third white star earned!

  +5% to all base stats!

  …

  Tenth white star earned!

  +5% to all base stats!

  My body twitched in convulsions, savoring every particle absorbed. I was tossed and turned, thrown from side to side. My muscles and bones grew, my clothes tightened around me, my horns lengthened, and another nine white stars appeared on the left one.

  I was overwhelmed. It took more than one try to emerge from Clarity.

  Then the thunder of the crowds hit me, despairing from in front and exultant from behind – my entire cohort had gained Chaotic Frenzy!

  “Fight!” the centurions of the cohorts rumbled in unison. “Glory to the Dominion!”

  “Forward, fresh meat!” Citri added hungrily, pointing at the enemy.

  Turning around, I saw my frenzied allies careering towards me. I picked up my pike, shook it in the air and shouted:

  “Thirteenth Legion! Fresh meat! Follow me!”

  Chapter 17. Glory to the Dominion!

  A HUGE INFERNAL running ahead of its allies at the speed of an airtrain became my first victim. It threw its demonic body against us like a battering ram burning with green fire, and I met it with my pike. The spear was ripped out of my fingers, and I flew ten yards backwards and crashed to the ground. From the combined damage of my weapon and Reflection, the infernal exploded into pieces that pulsated on the ground, slowly darkening.

  While I lifted myself up, the warriors of the Thirteenth Cohort streamed past, spurred on by my victory. The huge red-faced demon Abducius, one of Lerra’s groupmates, saw me as he ran by:

  “Keep it up, instiga!” he shouted, clapping me on the shoulder. “For the Legion!”

  I picked up my pike and ran after him.

  I’d been in epic battles before, especially counting the skirmish that never happened in the Lakharian Desert, but practically never in fights like this, with equal opponents on both sides, apart from the meatgrinder on the floor of the Pitfall during the Demonic Games.

  The battle was fast-paced; everyone fought with everyone else, and in the few seconds it took me to run to the enemy, thick in the thrill of battle, half the fighters had fallen. And then more, and more.

  The air was thick with roars, clanking metal, wails and the groans of the wounded.

  Breaking through the fighters without telling friend from foe, pushing aside anyone I ran into, I rushed forward toward the Wager. I thought that if I could grab it and stop the bloodshed, I’d make a huge leap up the military career ladder.

  Although this training battle was as deadly as any real one, its Wager was far lower than in the Great Game: no chao, just a red flag with the black crest of the legion on a mound. The task was to grab it and take it to our own Wager – practically the same rules as the Battleground in Lisher Hollow. Naturally, as soon as I grabbed the flag, the enemy would drop its entire might down on me. No problem – I’d tested myself in combat and was sure I could stand against them.

  Enemies rose up in my path, but in the chaos of battle I stopped
hiding my strength and just waved them away, crushing skulls with Hammerfist and impaling bodies on my pike. The dead collapsed into ash, and despite my loot settings, the chao from the opponents I killed was absorbed automatically.

  I broke through the epicenter of the battle where the main mass of enemies was concentrated, then slowed for a moment, turned my head and found what I was looking for. Protected by at least forty of the strongest enemy soldiers, the scarlet flag stood on a small hill, tongues of flame running down its flagpole. There was nobody to bar my path to the heavyset demons surrounding the Wager thirty yards ahead. I ran straight at them.