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

by Dan Sugralinov

  “Xavius is the lousiest general of the lot,” Abdu continued, stroking the succubus’s head; apparently, in trying to catch me in her net, she’d lured the demon in. “With him we had nothing but defeats. The Dominion lost almost a third of its size!”

  “It says it all that we started losing even to Lucius,” Lerra harrumphed. “It’s a damn tragedy, is what it is. But Abaddon let the prince down too. He lost against some puny mortals for the first time in history! Although he could have brought us a decisive victory, led us back to the homeland!”

  “Yeah…” the demon sighed. “How come Belial didn’t disincarnate him in rage?! I doubt I coulda held back.”

  “For one thing, Abdu, you’re a long way from even being able to talk like that,” the succubus sniped, then looked back at me. “After weighing it all up, first the prince gave Abaddon a dishonorable discharge, but now it seems he’s thawed and decided to give him another chance.”

  “By naming him legatus of his worst legion?”

  “Exactly right, Hakkar,” she nodded. “If all this is true and our new legatus is to be Abaddon, then this is your chance. With no knowledge of his soldiers’ merits, he, or rather his prefect, will question the common legionaries, ask for their opinion before promoting centurions. The whole cohort will vote for you, Hakkar, rest assured! Abdu and I will take care of that!”

  Chapter 20. Ruby City

  “THANKS, LERRA,” I answered the succubus. “And you, Abducius,” I added, looking at the demon.

  He punched me in the shoulder, but I didn’t twitch:

  “Glory to the Dominion, Decanus Hakkar! Looking at you makes it easy to believe in miracles, and with your leadership our cohort will be the terror of the whole Inferno!”

  Maybe, I thought. Only is it safe to be near Abaddon? I remembered the final boss’s long, tentacle-like arms rooting around on the floor of the Pitfall. Could they root out my secret? I wanted to back off, lay low, but I had to act.

  A signal interrupted my thoughts – a long and deep roar booming out over the camp, announcing it was time to rise.

  “Let’s go eat!” Abdu said, dancing on the spot and rubbing his hands. “And then – leave time! The Ruby City! I know a bar there called ‘The Limping Marilith,’ ha-ha! It’s a real dive, but the food there is delicious and the ale drinkable!”

  “Show us!” Lerra rose and clapped him on the back. “But better to eat our fill here. It’s a little expensive in the city.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s more than a little!” Abducius cried. “I’ll be happy if we have enough for drink! We didn’t get any prize money!”

  Apart from chao, the legion had earned money for the victory – demonic gold, which, as I now understood, was a metal corrupted by chaos. Only it wasn’t given to the new recruits – it was believed that they weren’t likely to have been of much use in their first battle, which meant they got nothing. That meant that all our money was what Lerra and Abdu had brought from home. They shared it with me with strict instructions not to waste it – there was no more.

  We headed unhurriedly for the dining hall to have a quick breakfast and be among the first through the portal. I felt rising anticipation. Ruby City was a huge step in my path to defeating the Destroying Plague. As long as those who now replaced the fallen Legatus Philotanus and Prefect Sargatanas made good on the old officers’ promises.

  My fears turned out groundless. Strangely enough given the heavy dose of treachery and falsity in the demons, in the Inferno it was important to keep one’s word – the portal to the Ruby City was opened for us. There was only one entrance, which everyone rushed toward all at once, but it had a bunch of different exits at different spots in the Ruby City, so that we didn’t all crowd in one place and upset the locals, who, according to my comrades, weren’t especially welcoming to tourists. Especially legionaries, famed for harshness, crudeness and an inexplicable passion for bathing in the lava fountains.

  “Hold hands,” Lerra told us. “Otherwise we’ll have an elf of a time finding each other! It’ll split us up…”

  “Oh, what a shame the others didn’t live long enough for this!” Abdu said piteously. “Rupert dreamed of seeing the Ruby City!”

  “So did Karakapanka…” Lerra added, then led us decisively through the portal.

  An instant in the great nothing… My heart clenched in anticipation. Imaginary scenes of a city of demons flashed before my eyes: lava fountains, megalithic structures, fetid fumes, cauldrons of sinful souls, the screams of the tortured…

  But the world blinked and we fell onto a wide asphalt pavement.

  “Watch yourself, country boy!” A shrill demoness pushed me in the back. “Damn tourists! The city doesn’t stretch, ya know!”

  “Sorry,” I said to the local woman’s back.

  I watched her go – she walked away hand in hand with a succubus, apparently her girlfriend, dressed in a short black dress, her tail decorated with chaos-metal rings that tinkled as she walked. Um… Wasn’t I supposed to be in hell?

  Something rustled nearby. I turned to the source of the sound. I looked around and jolted up – there were… cars! Flying past us at incredible speeds, boxy, fume-belching, smoking, but moving under their own power! The traffic streamed down five lanes like a river! And it was all reflected in skyscrapers made of glass, chaos metal and concrete! An aerial crowd of winged demons flying above the street added to the strange medley.

  My first impression of the Ruby City was: I’m in real life! But a hundred years ago! It was like I was in a forest of skyscrapers! Neon signs shone above stalls and stores, luring in customers with bright colors. Advertising clips flashed by on giant screens attached to the skyscrapers: half-naked succubi smiled alluringly, advertising items, while the ideals of male beauty were powerful old demons with large horns and fiery breath. One of those on a large banner hanging opposite me advertised a mouth spray that added a blue tint to fire breath: A sign of strength and power.

  Smaller screens by what seemed to be a public transport stop streamed the highlights from the latest battles in the Great Game. All just like in real life, except for the grotesque characters crowding the stop, dressed in entirely human clothing. A satyr in a leather jacket, white shirt and pleated pants yawned loudly, breathing out a small cloud of smoke. A succubus dressed in a shimmering, close-fitting pantsuit was leafing through… a magazine! An older demoness with horns like the withered branches of twisted trees limped past me. The developers must have been reminiscing over the twentieth century when they made the Inferno like this!

  A young devil scurried among the waiting passengers, his trousers rolled up and tied at the waist with rope. He cried:

  “The Dominion Times! Unexpected victory from our Thirteenth Legion! Azmodan’s Sixth Legion has been defeated! Celebrate! Who will win the next battle of the Great Game? Comments from General Xavius! An interview with Horhor, the first instiga of the losing side!”

  A yellow star shone on the devil’s horns. At an early age, both imps and devils looked like the ones in fairytales, but as they matured, they came to look more and more like monsters out of a horror film: their cute snouts transformed into noses with inside-out nostrils, their sharp teeth into fangs.

  “Would the gentlemen legionaries like to buy a copy of the Dominion Times?” the little devil bleated, shaking a stack of papers and staring me in the eye. “Just five gold!”

  Abducius made a fearsome face and stamped a hoof:

  “Get outta here, pipsqueak!”

  Just before the little devil ran off, I stopped him, took a paper, counted out five gold. I touched the pages – chaotic leather! Wow. Paper had apparently never caught on here – must be all the fire everywhere…

  “Huh?! Hakkar, that money coulda bought us two cups of first-class booze!” Abducius complained, staring angrily at the newspaper. “What the elf did ya do that for?”

  Lerra stroked his cheek with the tip of her tail, said sweetly:

  “Come on, Abdu, don�
�t be angry… Our decanus has never been to the big city before. Ain’t that right, Hakkar?”

  “Right!” I nodded, looking all around me.

  “You like it, don’tcha?” she asked. I left the question unanswered. “Of course he does!” She clapped her hands. “He loves it.”

  “So much,” I said.

  She was kind of right, but my excitement was diluted with a hefty dose of confusion. The Ruby City wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I struck the sidewalk with a hoof – definitely asphalt. Or something like it!

  If I remembered what I’d read in Teland’s book right, they’d invented steam engines. Throwing my head back in search of some flying machine like an airship, I saw nothing. But I did see the local public transport arriving – just like an omnibus from the century before, only not on wheels: a bug-eyed caterpillar-like creature carried it on its back, long, with deformed horns that crackled with branching electricity.

  The demons all squeezed inside, and when the ‘omnibus’ jerked into motion, some little imps ran along behind it, jumped onto the footplate and started making faces at a many-armed marilith. The snakewoman just barely fit inside the packed bus.

  This capital was like New York City from the nineteen fifties overlaid on modern steampunk with a generous dash of the mystical.

  “I bet my right fang Hakkar hasn’t seen steamers before!” Lerra laughed. “Right, Hakkar?”

  “This is magic! How do they… um… what moves them?” The machines, or steamers, careered along at a speed that would have been considered high even in my world. “Steam?”

  “Steam and chao particles. It’s called fuel,” Abducius answered condescendingly. And repeated it for the tiefling bumpkin: “Fu-el.”

  Turning my head, I found the source of light. High, high up on the spire of a tower scraping the sky at least five miles up, a bright white point shone with blinding light. If there had been clouds here, the spire would have been hidden behind them.

  “That’s the Coal of Hellflame, Decanus,” the demon rumbled in satisfaction. “Somewhere a little lower in that same building lives our Prince Belial, glory to the Dominion!”

  My first instinct was to fly up and grab the Coal, but I thought better of it. Even if I got to it, what then? Could I break a piece off? How would I claw my way out of here with the whole Inferno and four princes howling for my blood?

  While we were down below, I could watch, question my subordinates about the Coals, maybe come up with some plan.

  “Are we going to just stand here, Hakkar?” Lerra whisper in my ear. “Let’s take a walk! We can buy some souvenirs, then head to the bar. And if you even think of sneaking off to a brothel, I’ll get mad – I’m all you need, handsome!”

  “Enough flirting!” I barked. “Tell me what else is around here.”

  “I see you’re curious about everything here,” Abdu said as we walked. “But stare less, or we’ll get into trouble. I don’t know how you do things in the sticks, but here personal space is a prize possession, so we tend not to stare at each other like that.”

  “Everyone knows each other out where I’m from. We all say hello in the street,” I muttered, glancing up at the skyscraper with the Coal, which we were walking towards.

  At a crossing, we stopped behind some other demonic pedestrians, waited for a signal – although I didn’t see one anywhere, – for the cars to stop, then the pedestrians flooded across the street. Another group of pedestrians started toward us from the opposite side. When we drew even with them, the groups started jostling with each other and screeching, and a devil youth holding a bag wormed his way into the fray, jabbing Lerra with his horn as he passed. She squealed, swore, tried to kick him in the rear, but wasn’t quick enough.

  “Thief!” someone shouted in the crowd.

  “My bag!” a feminine voice cried.

  “And mine!”

  “Catch him!” someone else shouted, now in our group of crossers.

  The demons from the opposite side rushed toward us, a fight broke out, someone fell, someone else swore. I was pushed away from Lerra and Abdu, and realized this was a chance to pretend to get lost. I could head for the Coals and find out whether I could make off with them.

  I backed away, returned to the sidewalk, slipped into the crowd of babbling demons trying to catch the thief, went into Stealth, then Clarity. I hid for a moment, making sure nobody had seen me, checked to make sure my shadow wasn’t too obvious – everything was fine. I looked around, saw Abducius frozen, open-mouthed. Lerra was nowhere to be seen over the heads of the locals, but the succubus wouldn’t lose her head; she was a feisty girl.

  Mentally praying to the Sleepers, I flew along the skyscraper, looking down at the rapidly disappearing twisted faces, then, my heart beating fast, I shot toward my target – the spire gleaming with the Coal of Hellflame.

  I thought while I flew. It did seem better to just break a piece off if I could. If I took away the entire Coal, then the local NPCs would die…

  What? I was starting to think like a demon again! Nether, was Chaos somehow infiltrating my mind? Of course, I was full of chao, after all! Not just the tiefling Hakkar, but me, imitating him! But I still needed to think of a way to return the artifact to the Inferno after it fulfilled its function. The demons were sentient just like anyone else, and Disgardium was their home. Sure, from a mortal’s point of view, the creatures were creepy and nightmarish, with all their strange customs and rituals, but by and large they were no crueller or stranger than any of the dark races. Ogres, for example, were in the habit of eating their weaker children.

  In the meantime, I was nearing my destination. Suspecting that Belial’s residence was guarded and might have something like a torch of True Flame burning near it, I stopped, flew all the way around the detached skyscraper in Clarity. No guards? Was it that easy?

  Where was the catch? Maybe there were no guards because the locals would never dream of stealing the Coal. It was like stealing the sun – you’d be no richer for it! That might be why they weren’t careful about it. Same as the barracks while the soldiers slept: Diablo, Belial, Azmodan and Lucius weren’t out to hurt each other, but to make their armies as strong as possible, leaving only the best of the best.

  So maybe there was no catch. Looking around once more, I came out of Clarity and set off again, flying toward the spire slower this time. It felt like the light was going to burn out my retina. I screwed up my eyes and still had to shade them with my hand.

  Bang! I hit an invisible forcefield. A powerful shock knocked me back, pulling me out of Stealth. Reflection bounced the damage back, but the invisible field withstood it, rippling with flames. The building’s walls began to vibrate. An alarm signal started to go off somewhere inside.

  Damn… It looked like someone was about to spot one curious flying tiefling. It could be Prince Belial himself, for all I knew!

  What now? My goal was so close. Holdest was just a step away! But it was foolish to expect such an important artifact to be undefended.

  I had to back off, look for other options.

  I sped myself back up and headed back down to my squad before the guards could arrive. Lerra and Abducius had probably barely had time to get their bearings. It had been less than a minute for them. But a moment was enough for Belial’s guards to raise the alarm. The air hummed with the drawn-out signal, slowed and distorted.

  I dropped down in the same place I’d taken off from, pressed to the wall. By then, the crowd had only just crossed the street. A little devil stood next to me, wide-eyed and dragging a sack, apparently full of stolen handbags. Without coming out of Clarity, I grabbed his loot, went back to my spot and reappeared.

  “…kar!” Abdu’s roar ended. “Where are you?”

  “Hakkar!” the succubus shouted.

  I looked for the young demoness who had shouted about her bag, poured the contents of the sack out at my feet – two purses, four bracelets, – and shouted:

  “Hey, glory to the Dominion!
” Everyone turned their heads and I pointed at my feet. “I got the thief. Come take what’s yours.” And I slipped to the side, letting the owners of the items grab their things.

  My allies ran to me.

  “I thought you got lost,” the succubus sighed. “Or trampled.”

  “Or taken by the Cursed Inquisition!” Abdu added. “Or the pacifists. They aren’t fans of legionaries.”

  “Everything’s fine,” I shrugged. “I went after the thief. And caught him. It was easy. He’s over there…”

  The grateful demoness who got her bag back ran over and stared at me with a mix of surprise and gratitude in her eyes:

  “Thank you, tiefling! I wanted to reward for your bravery and offer you…”

  Huge hellish wyverns clad in armor flew by above us, flapping their wings. Those wings could have overshadowed an entire legion. I watched them go, saw that they were headed for Belial’s residence.