Devil’s Temptation – Chapter 36

As he strolled across the garden, Felix eyed the windows on the second floor that he knew belonged to Alfie’s bedroom. He noted that the curtains were closed, and the room was dark, which was as he expected.

Once he passed Alfie’s room, Felix continued toward the south wing where the military department resided.

As he approached the building, there were soldiers heading in that direction as well, at this early hour of the morning, and they saluted him as he passed. Upon entering the grand foyer, more soldiers greeted him, and as he headed toward the back to the elevator that’d lead him underground, he met Caleb and Geoffrey.

Wearing his warrior garments, Caleb nodded at him in greeting. Geoffrey, wearing his rarely used black garment instead of the white, said, “Morning, Felix, Caleb. You two are early as usual.”

As they entered the elevator, Felix said, “I’m a bit frustrated today, so I need a good workout.”

Caleb nodded. “Me, too.”

Felix wondered why Caleb was frustrated. Was it sexual? Or just simple frustration? If it was sexual, did it have anything to do with Alfie?

“Sure,” he said.

Once the elevator’s sensor registered their dark qi, buttons to different levels below ground appeared for them to choose. There were nine floors in total, from B1 to B9, and Geoffrey choose B7, which was where the mock battlefields were located.

The elevator door dinged open a split second later, and the trio walked out into the foyer. In silence, the lords headed down a corridor which contained a series of huge double doors on each side with names displayed in the Aurora language at the top, such as Barren Land, Rocky Mountain, Wild Forest, Snow Land, Dark Woods, and many more. They chose the last door, which had the display name of Wild Meadow.

Caleb logged in by writing out his signature, using his dark qi on the available magic screen residing to the right side of the door. A single beep was released, indicating that he had successfully registered into the system. Then noises of machines and gears unwinding echoed from the door, and a moment later, it opened wide, as if welcoming them.

Geoffrey said as they walked in, “I’ve contacted the others. In case they want to join in the fun.”

Caleb nodded.

Felix said, “The more the merrier.”

On the other side of this door was another world of its own. Stepping through the door into the meadow, they took in the fields of green and wildflowers stretching endlessly beyond the horizon, along with the clear blue sky above. In the distance, there were mountains and woods, and now and again, winged creatures, ranging from the small and innocent to the large and predatory, flew across the sky. This was very much like an actual open wild meadow, with the smell of fresh, clean air and grass, along with the cool breeze brushing against their skin.

This was one of the kingdom’s many mock battlefields, where the hall was magically designed and created to be as close as possible to the actual environment outside. A mock battlefield was where the demon lords trained their soldiers, not only in battle and weapon usage techniques, but in taking advantage of their raw environment as well.

Every morning, the warrior lords Felix, Caleb, and Aaron would meet up and have their battle practice before training their own soldiers. The other lords would join them if they felt like it or when it was scheduled, which was once a week on a Monday, if they didn’t happen to be out in the field working or visiting other kingdoms.

“All right,” Felix said. “Let’s begin.”

Instantly, black smoke full of dark qi rose in the distance across the meadow, and an army of zombie soldiers magically appeared, fully armed to the teeth with various types of nasty, deadly weapons.

The three lords started off by stretching their bodies, and once they were warmed up, they began charging toward the zombie soldiers that were mindlessly heading their way.

As they sprinted across the field, the lords gathered their dark qi and summoned their weapons out of thin air—Felix, a kickass double-edged sword; Caleb, a pair of fearsome twin sabers; and Geoffrey, a majestic crossbow. All three lords’ weapons were encircled in dark qi, and as they confronted and combated the zombies, the dark energy within the weapons contracted, expanded, and exploded, thus killing their targets.

Felix’s fighting style was powerful, rough, forceful, and brutal. He swung his mighty sword to his left and then right as he released his dark qi, expertly and effortlessly slicing the sharp magic blade across the zombies’ bodies, killing about thirty to forty cleanly in one go. Meanwhile, Caleb gracefully swung his two sabers, one in each hand, and beautifully killed about twenty to thirty zombies in quick, successive moves that one couldn’t possibly see clearly. There were just shadows of swords and dark qi swiftly moving this way and that, and the horde of zombies surrounding him was killed within an instant.

On the other side, Geoffrey did a great somersault, and as he used his dark qi to support him in midair as a stepping stone, he fired his crossbow with the arrow—robed in powerful dark qi—twisting this way and that across the field and then magically striking his targets in quick succession, one after another. With a magic arrow, he could kill about twenty or so zombies in one strike.

The lords continued practicing, honing their skills, using all six senses to destroy their targets no matter where the zombies were or what these feral magic dummies were capable of with their deadly weapons. The trio was halfway finished with slaying the army when Aaron, Felix, and Victor turned up.

Victor clapped, impressed, as he watched them, while Aaron said sourly, “They always start so damned early in the morning.”

“And I’m still slightly hung over,” Ethan said sourly, rubbing his temple. “Why the fuck should I be here?” He turned to stare irritably at Victor. “You should have just left me alone to nurse my headache. And for fuck’s sake, at least give me a blue pill or something when dragging me out of bed.”

Victor chuckled merrily. “No can do, Ethan. Didn’t bring any with me.” He turned to the chaotic scene before them, with Felix going all out and releasing so much of his dark qi that his usual dark-brown hair now turned crimson red and flowed down his back, indicating that he had tapped into level two of hidden power.

“Wonder what has gotten into him,” he said. “His fighting is very aggressive.”

Ethan said worriedly, “I hope it wasn’t because we dragged him out. And now he’s fucking pissed that we wasted his night.”

Aaron said, “You can say the same with Caleb. What the fuck is wrong with these two?”

On the other side of the meadow, Caleb had also tapped into his level-two hidden power, with his dark hair now even darker, if that were possible, and longer, too, with the length flowing down his back while his body was surrounded by an orb of dark energy that was pulsating.

Aaron asked, “Shall we get going?”

Victor nodded enthusiastically while Ethan groaned. Aaron and Victor charged in while Ethan sighed, looked heavenward, and then followed them.

The three lords gathered their dark qi and summoned their weapons from thin air—Aaron, a deadly curved sword; Ethan, a devilish scythe; and Victor, a wicked rifle. All three lords’ weapons were wrapped in dark qi.

Aaron, with his quick, deadly moves, swiftly sliced and decapitated fifteen feral zombies in one go. Then he jumped high and landed cleanly on the grassy ground, and as he did so, his sword cleanly cut about ten more zombies in half, thus killing them. Meanwhile, Ethan screamed loudly because he was irritated and because he had a headache as he swung his scythe; the sharp blade at the end mercilessly killed ten zombies in a row. Whereas Victor, on the other hand, grinned in amusement as he fired his rifle, the bullets cloaked in the dark smoke of qi hitting his targets repeatedly. Within a few seconds, about twenty were down and dead.

Thus, the lords had a good workout, killing zombie soldiers as morning battle practice, and an hour later, it came to an end.

They had killed ten thousand zombies in total, with Felix taking the top-ranked seat at two thousand eight hundred heads. Caleb came next with two thousand five hundred, followed by Geoffrey sitting at two thousand, and Aaron at one thousand seven hundred.

Ethan and Victor’s head counts were sitting at five hundred each that morning, which were pathetic numbers. But, of course, this was because Ethan decided that he had enough after fifteen minutes. He left and, as punishment, dragged Victor out with him after purposely snatching Victor’s rifle and wrecking it with his dark qi.

“Good job, everyone,” Geoffrey said to Felix, Caleb, and Aaron. “Good battle practice, as usual. Now then, let’s have some breakfast.” And thus, they left the mock battle hall, which once again magically cleaned itself up, the ten thousand dead zombies disappearing in a puff of black smoke. The place returned to the peaceful and quiet scenery that was the meadow.