The Occupation Pt5

Nobody said anything for a while after that and I started to feel like I had crossed more than one bottom line with that last statement.

However, it was true! Duality would have been wiped by Bygones Were Bygones and Fallen Monochrome working together if not for me! If not for my being used as a threat against the other clans, they could have rushed to the end of their territory lanes and left us behind while we were farming our lanes. Hell, I even handed the first place position for the territory aspect to Thirteenth Incorporated!

Even if they did not want to listen to me, they owed me. Whether they liked it or not, there were only about two hundred of them overall and all I needed were Hermes and Cweeper at my side to wipe a clan camp of hundreds. If I really wanted to, I could take off the velvet glove and show them what an iron fist looked like.

"Leo," Go says suddenly, breaking the awkward silence that followed my previous words. "Just because you're right doesn't mean you have to be like this. People learn best from their mistakes, if you don't let them make mistakes then they will not learn."

"Why should I risk my quest for the sake of educating others?" I ask bluntly. "The only reason we're working together like this is for old times' sake. Unlike old times, I'm not some piss ant with a rank in their army. I have my own people, my own clan, and my own priorities to worry about. What if another clan comes in, sneaks through, and goes straight to the manor? Pretty much everything will have been for nothing after that happens."

"That's still no reason to shit on your friends," Little Thirteen says darkly, growing slowly but surely more frustrated or angry as the conversation continues.

I almost let fly with some choice words about 'friends' like him who send assassins after people in the middle of their field operations as a joke. However, I kept it in check and said, "You guys do what you think is best and my party will support your efforts. I, however, will do what I think is best on my own. Is there a problem?" I ask flatly, meeting Mr. Thirteen's gaze levelly.

"As long as we're still working toward the same goal, sure," he replies, turning around and briskly walking away. "For old times' sake."

Glancing over at Donna who could really only stand there and glare daggers at me as if looks could kill while black static continues flickering about her body, I say, "Ivana, take Donna somewhere to recover. The rest of you are dismissed, do your own things. I'm going back to work."

Saving my mana now that I no longer had to hide my activities, I grow out my wings and fly up into the air before leveling out into a glide toward Outpost C. Using my wings, the trip to this outpost took less than half the time as B even though I landed while only half of the way out. If I simply flew right over, I would obviously be seen.

Of course I had to use my shadow and darkness element to hide myself after landing, even if I could not see any demons keeping watch it did not mean that there were none. In fact I was fairly surprised after landing that there were no reactions from C. Even if the underground was incredibly dim and dark away from the outposts, it would not be hard to miss my gray-blue or whitish armor materials as well as the reddish-gold sun eagle wings I used.

After a full minute of waiting outside the outpost for the reactions of any demons, I released the first pulse of spiritual energy through my staff and wait once again. After a full thirty seconds of waiting, I started putting out pulses at a normal rate of every few seconds. None of the demons seemed aware that I was here so why not get it over with quickly?

Despite my plan to get things over with quickly, I stood there 'pulsing' for almost two minutes before my mana ran out and I was forced to stop and rest.

Curious as to why I had yet to receive a response, I decide to test my skills and run the risk of alerting the demons by expanding my awareness through my mana. The progress was slow at first but after taking one more of my dwindling supply of regen potions I was able to spread my senses more than a hundred feet out behind the outpost wall.

After coming into contact with the first buildings, I was hesitant to go any further and had to prepare myself to fly off in an instant. Once I worked up the courage, though, I came to a startling realization. The first few buildings turned out to be completely empty and then so did the rest of the camp.

Suddenly dreading the lack of enemies in the area rather than being relieved, I quickly flap up to the top of the outpost wall and take a look around. Nothing. There was simply nothing in sight or sound.

Flying up above the outpost and circling around, I look out through the middle no-man's-land surrounding the manor as well as the next closest neighboring outpost. There were no large gatherings of demons on the move or any signs of movement at all, the outpost was simply empty. Even the dusty and rocky terrain around the outpost was undisturbed.

Going straight to the central headquarters of the outpost, I dive down into the open roof of this almost conical structure and land quickly but roughly on the ground floor. I even lost a few dozen HP but this loss was less than two percent and completely negligible. I barely even felt any pain in my knees or hips upon landing.

While the ground floor was divided around the edge as if meant for housing a large number of creatures with different kinds of walled cubicles and living areas, there were no occupants in the cubicles. However, there was a single entity sitting on the ground not far away from where I landed.

'Stronghold Commander Orion LVL200' floated above their head when I inspected the enemy, giving me a brief chill when I saw the enormous level value that was more than twice my own.

Orion was a large humanoid creature with an incredibly dark green body that was tall than me even while sitting with their eyes closed. Like the Lesser Taurian demons, this figure had four arms each folded over his torso at rest despite having a normal bipedal lower bow. For a face, the demon had two sets of eyes on either side stacked on top of each other and instead of a nose between them there was a simple thin seam.

Their eyes were currently closed but it did not take a genius of skills and powers to know that somebody had just barged into their home. The seam going up from the very bottom of their chin to the very top of their forehead suddenly squirmed a bit before a small parting opened between its stacked sets of eyes in the middle of either side of its face. Shiny black fangs could be seen closed together within the seam opening.

"You are here alone," a calm and intelligent voice states, being produced from this alien lamprey style mouth. "Are you the strongest among your cohort?"

"No," I blatantly lie. "There are a few among them who could whip me like a child. Although, I'm usually strong enough for the likes of you. Where are your subordinates?"

Nodding their head one slow time as if appreciating my answer, the demon commander named Orion opens his upper left eye to reveal a solid black orb within and says, "I sent them away. The only subordinates I had left were the chaos minions, which we both know would have not been of much use to me anymore. Why have you come to this place?"

Deciding to continue this back and forth, wondering if each answer would open an eye and eventually start the boss fight, I say, "I have a quest that requires me to go to the manor. I feel like, if I were to go there, every demon in this cave would step up to stop me. So, I'm here to stop the demons from stopping me. How did you find out about my abilities? Both times I converted the chaos entities were roughly a mile from here."

Opening its upper right eye after my answer, Orion says, "Demons naturally become more powerful just by aging, a sign of our survival. After you survive for as long as some of us have, you can even sense the world outside of this cave by pure accident. I have been watching you, though, as the strongest among your people. As well… it seems you and your people are at odds. What could cause this disharmony between the masses and the powerful?"

He has been watching me?! That is TOTALLY not creepy at all, right? If he can see outside, then he obviously knows about my fight with the original Trollbone.

Doing my best to remain calm despite the sudden stiffening from the shock of realizing most of my cards were long since on the table, I truthfully say, "My group is the second smallest group here, and the two larger groups have their own plans for biding their time and reacting defensively in a conservative fashion. My leaving on my own and the way I handle enemy forces upset them since killing makes us stronger the fastest. They're not kids, though, so they don't need a babysitter."

"Babysitter?" Orion asks with the opening of his third solid black eye. "This… I understand killing makes you stronger as it does us all, but are you not human as well? People call us monsters because we eat children but you sit on them?"

"Yeah, I bet you swallow children," I say with a faint smirk under my masked helm, unable to help myself after the demon had created such a perfect opening.

As if he understood my not-so-subtle Earth innuendo, Orion's last eye opened up and he surged straight up to his feet with his arms out and to the sides as if about to rush me. However, he simply remained standing there while narrowing his gazes at me. "I can now understand the disharmony among your group, with one of the leaders being such as yourself. Did you come here to capture me as you did Reptor?"

"If you're already open to the idea, why bother fighting at all?" I ask curiously, outright smiling even if he could not see it under my mask. "Come, swear your allegiance to the Monarch of Plague and I can make you one of the few remaining leaders left in my armor. I would offer you a position in the larger force under my title of Infected Emperor, but that is mainly an army for conscripts while my monarchy is served by an elite honor guard. I'm not human, my values are purely to serve my purposes so I do not doubt that you will fit in among my people."

I did not think it worth mentioning that my infected army was also not available until I found a way to meet this game's emperor figure.

Narrowing his gaze further, Stronghold Commander Orion says, "What could you possibly have that would tempt me to serve a mortal of my own free will? I, who has survived the depths of hell itself for over three thousand years and earned my rank among the Upper Demonata. I, who have survived and slain countless figures far more important or just plain more powerful than you. What makes an ant like you think yourself worthy?!"

For a brief instant, I was no longer standing in the Outpost C headquarters. I was on my hands and knees and staked to the ground while a massive skeletal face loomed over me and filled my entire field of view. 'You. Are not. Worthy'.

In the next tenth of a second, everything went dark and I felt the faintest sensation of weightlessness before a sudden and explosive impact noise shocked me awake. I found myself standing in a side stance with my entire body thrown forward and my arm stretched and twisted outward like a released spring. My hand was open and my fingers flexed back, exposing the heel of my palm first and foremost.

At the end of my arm was a blurred body flying backward and crashing through crude stone walls toward the far side of the headquarters. It only took me the rest of that single second to figure out I had lost my shit and initiated the fight with what was subconsciously my strongest strike in reality. It also only took the rest of that second for Orion to crash outside.

Mentally checking my status and skills, I quickly realize that all but five hundred points of my mana was gone while Quick Step, Force Strike, Spirit Eruption, and Air Cannon were all on cooldown. I was even self-enchanted purely in Endurance and Strength for one hundred and then fifty points respectively. Obviously, my inner demons meant business.

"Out of everything you could have said, you just had to go there," I say darkly while walking forward and halving my wingspan. "I offered you the world right from the very start! Do you really think you and yours are strong enough to succeed in this place where you've already been trapped for hundreds of years? I bet you think yourself old and wise, having seen everything the world has to offer but you don't even know the half of it. Everything this world has to offer, including YOU, was made specifically for US."

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