Chapter 132

Jaldabaoth was more than pleased with the response of his master, it took time even for him to explore the vast and now empty city. He left the stone charred black in his wake, dark and heavy footsteps that would mar the stone to the end of all ages. All over the city he walked, and while he left his mark indelibly on the unfortunate place, his summoned demons worked tirelessly. Every scrap of treasure belonging to the frost dragons, every single bit of ore or resource he could find down to the last tenpenny nail was ripped free.

Well before it was even done, there stood a pile of treasure and resources so high that it rose like a mountain under the mountain. He tilted his head back and exhaled a burst of flame along with his satisfied noise. Nearby, the demonic summons tilted the last bowls and baskets into place at the base, the clink of coins and metal ingots, as well as abandoned jewelry, rings, cups of silver and gold, plates and statues, even the coal and heatstones.

'A good haul, particularly with the contents of the treasury.' The [Gate] appeared when he called for it, and the many winged and walking minions began emptying the great open area before the treasury.

The tumbling sound of the materials did wonders for his temperament. 'If I show Lord Ainz what I've done, how hard I have worked, he will realize how much we care… then perhaps he'll never…' He could not finish the thought.

'Foolishness. He's said many times he won't leave.' He thought, 'And if he does, it will be purely our fault.'

Which led back to the dreadful thoughts from before, 'The others don't understand as I do, it means it was all our fault the other Supreme Beings left… we failed somehow, 'I' failed somehow. If only we knew the ways we let them down… but we don't. So we must, 'I' must work even harder for the One Who Stayed.'

When the mountain within a mountain was removed, all the way to the shelves of the emptied warehouses, all cast through to be sorted in the arena and added to the resources of Nazarick, only then did he move on.

Not in search of treasure. But in search of pleasure. 'As Lord Ulbert said, all work and no play is unhealthy.' And with that, he followed the trail of life carried on the lightest of breezes, substantial light filled the area thanks to the earlier hole that Olasird'arc made when he was cast through the mountain to his death or… slow death.

Now it was dark again, and he had somewhere to be. The dwarves and quagoa were still fighting elsewhere. 'I wonder how long the dwarves would last if my master had not seen some value in their one craft? Not long, months, another year?'

It was as difficult to say as it was unimportant, but the quagoa did not offer much value beyond their unique mineral consumption skills. 'Perhaps we can selectively breed the strongest through mineral consumption, equip them with runic weapons and armor, and make a truly useful fighting force. At least useful by this world's pathetic standards.' Demiurge thought more about it, the more it made sense. 'We can't rule everywhere. Local forces are vital for keeping order when spread thin as we are. Have I stumbled upon another part of my master's plan?'

It seemed a likely scenario, the sort of thing only a truly Supreme Being could come up with, and again he sighed, 'I'm so very far behind… if I don't prove myself and at least get a proper glimpse of the summit of his genius, he may leave…'

Demiurge forced the thought back, and instead, he refocused it. The frustration, the rage, the anguish of Lord Ulbert's departure, the impotence and inability to speak. 'Why were our tongues bound back then?! Why couldn't we even speak? We were like statues that moved, silent watchers of greatness… if only I could have told him 'thank you'. If only I could have said, 'father' if only… if only… if only…'

The recriminations rampaged through him all the way to his destination, where one of the last dwarven outposts that still held out against the quagoa.

"Burn!" He bellowed as he came into view, cresting the stone rise and his view of the combatants. He pointed toward the pathetic worms and fire came down from on high as if shot straight out of the stone itself.

Before him, a wall of stone held dwarves who wielded lightning enchanted weaponry, great crossbows and heavy axes. Their thick armor clanked and clattered as they killed or wounded the advancing quagoa, here and there a dwarf fell into the mass of the dark furry creatures where he was torn apart. The armor meant to preserve his life instead preserved his agony, dragging out the moment of his death.

The wall of the outpost was not large, no more than two and a half meters tall, but it was dotted with towers with lightning charged weapons. By contrast, the quagoa came on unarmored, relying on their thick pelts and natural resistances to secure them against damage.

The weight of the quagoan numbers made the outcome a foregone conclusion, with several towers cracked and broken, but it also revealed quagoa foolishness that Jaldabaoth could only feel contempt for. 'Stupid fools, they bit and tore at the stone from their side… the towers landed on their own warriors…'

He chose to punish their stupidity first and foremost, with fires over four thousand degrees incinerating the quagoa in temperatures far greater than their resistance allowed for.

The crashing booms of flame and the dying screams of those whose lungs burned inside their own bodies for just a moment before death blessed them with the end of pain.

Jaldabaoth gave them time to experience the horror and despair of his coming, a towering demon of fire and stone, with great broad wings and a maw filled with undying flames that gouted past his lips with every word he would speak. 'True despair is not mere hopelessness. It is the feeling of hope dying like an infant in its mother's arms…'

He gave that to them, then added his words to the silent moment of raw terror. "You fools may have trapped me once in the long ago… but I am free… and I will make you pay… army or no army… you will suffer!"

He brought his arms up, and then flung them down towards the forces of both dwarf and quagoa alike. The fire streaked toward both, the flame that hit the quagoa cut through their ranks like a dread scythe, leaving only little piles of ashes in its wake. The ball of flame that struck the dwarven wall exploded, and dwarves were sent screaming as the wall burst, hurtling them with such force that they were dashed against the sky of stone to stain it with a deep red that would last until the mountain became dust.

Others simply burned or were crushed by the flying stones that landed on them with a sick, disgusting squelching thump of stone to stone. Fleshy bodies popped like grapes and their armor protected them against death not at all.

Panic set in en masse, the dwarves abandoned the walls and fled for the exit, and the quagoa, realizing they had only two choices… to try to withdraw 'through' Jaldabaoth, or after their enemies, chose the latter option. The rout of the dwarves, the aim of the quagoa, became a shared defeat as both sides fled in the same direction, and neither one cared what race ran beside him.

Not as long as the demon was left far, far behind.

'A good start.' Jaldabaoth thought with satisfaction as he went within to plunder the outpost the same way in which he'd plundered the former capital.