CH: 145: OddBall Demon Teammate

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{Chapter: 145: OddBall Demon Teammate}

As the introductions wrapped up, Dex took a step back and surveyed the room. Bones littered the floor, some bleached white, others still fresh with meat. Strange lights flickered in the depths of the tunnel. Despite the madness, the noise, and the danger—it felt strangely familiar.

He smiled faintly. "We peace-faction demons are really… talented."

Hart grinned wide, sharp teeth glinting. "Damn right. You don't get to be a [Middle-level Demon] without some serious creativity—or at least a very enthusiastic body count."

Dex turned toward the group and extended a clawed hand in mock formality.

"Then allow me to introduce myself."

After that, Dex stepped forward with a composed yet theatrical air, his clawed feet pressing softly against the cracked ground. He raised both hands above his head, then clapped twice—sharp, deliberate, echoing loudly through the open space like the signal of a general announcing the beginning of an assembly.

The sound caught the attention of every demon present.

Twisting heads, glowing eyes, and otherworldly limbs turned toward him. The group was a gathering of grotesque forms and bizarre shapes—creatures both fearsome and foolish, majestic and malformed.

Dex straightened his back slightly, tilted his head as if greeting a crowd on stage, and spoke in a calm and charismatic tone. "Greetings, everyone. I am most pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Dex, and I am a mutant fire demon Balor. I specialize in three things: killing, arson, and punishing both the good and the wicked—without discrimination. I look forward to our time together. Please take care of me."

He smiled mildly after his introduction, exuding confidence. His voice didn't shout, yet it carried clearly, imbued with a strange charm that demanded attention.

The silence that followed was broken by Halt, who stepped up with a dramatic wave. "Very well said! Let us all welcome our new brother!"

The gathered demons, who until now had seemed bored, sluggish, or suspicious, erupted in cheer.

It was a bizarre, almost musical celebration.

The demon with dozens of spindly hands and percussion-like claws began slapping the ground, clapping against its own limbs, and even drumming on its bulbous belly—creating a chaotic yet rhythmic beat, as if an eldritch symphony was beginning. Others joined in with howls, screeches, and yelps of joy.

For a moment, it felt more like a deranged festival than a meeting of infernal entities.

Laughter echoed in the distance. Several demons were already roughhousing, others hugging each other awkwardly with too many limbs. One sprouted confetti-like spores from its back with each clap. Another produced smoke that spelled out nonsense phrases like 'FREE MEAT' or 'KILL ME I'M BORED' into the air.

Dex, amused by the absurdity of the scene, smiled faintly.

'With so many oddballs all around,

In their chaos, joy is found.

I won't be bored, that's for sure—

Watching them live is my amusements' cure.'

He folded his arms, surveying the odd gathering. One demon was licking a rock passionately. Another one was trying to teach a bat how to read. Dex's mind wandered.

'Life here's a blaze, chaotic, loud,

A foolish crowd beneath a brightened shroud.

Who knew amidst this mad delight,

I'd find some laughter in the night?

Or perhaps I'm losing hold of mind—

Yet losing it might not be unkind.'

He chuckled darkly to himself.

'Though sunlight burns and warmth I scorn,

This wild madness I've newly borne—

A twisted thrill that feels so right,

A wicked dance within the night.'

---

Three Months Later.

Time, slippery and strange in this realm, passed swiftly amidst the aimless wanderings and mutual nonsense of the demons.

It had been three months since Dex had first joined this little band of misfit fiends, and the so-called "Peaceful Demon Association" had become his new home. Despite being thrown into a foreign world with unfamiliar laws and suppressed powers, the group had made it work—sort of.

Unlike most of the demons present, Dex had several unique talents that made him resilient to this world's suppressive energy. His power recovered faster than most, his flames steadily rekindling without the need for sacrifices or rituals.

The others weren't so fortunate.

Due to the world's natural resistance on demonic energy, and the absence of willing sacrifices or blood rituals, most demons could only regain their strength slowly—agonizingly so—like starving beasts surviving on crumbs. They could not leave this area freely without triggering purifying reactions from the world itself, so they lingered, tolerated each other, and hoped to recover enough to one day break free.

That was the real reason this bizarre group stuck together. Shared weakness bred a desperate kind of camaraderie.

Some demons who had arrived earlier were already shackled by ancient contracts, forbidden to kill their own kind directly. But that didn't stop them from setting up traps, provoking accidents, or pushing their weaker brethren toward self-destruction.

The truth was simple:

Demons love murdering teammates.

They just prefer not to do it themselves when there's plausible deniability involved.

During those three months, Dex quietly observed everyone in the group. He began categorizing them.

About one-third of the demons, he concluded, were clinically insane.

The rest were perverts, degenerates, or cowards pretending to be one of the former.

There was the fat demon who had squatted in a poison puddle for the entire three months, slurping sludge with delight. His skin had turned a beautiful shade of rotting green. He barely spoke, his face always slack-jawed. Dex was certain his IQ was around 60. He once tried to teach the demon basic arithmetic by drawing in the dirt.

The poor thing memorized one times one for two weeks and then promptly forgot it the next day.

Then there was the giant—towering and muscle-bound—who had more than ten heads and enjoyed beating himself up. Literally. His heads argued loudly. His fists slammed into his own body with devastating force. Every day, every hour, he fought himself in increasingly complex martial displays.

At first, Dex thought he had multiple personalities. But using his demon vision, he saw clearly that only one soul resided in that hulking body. No split consciousness. No illusion. Just one demon pretending to be many.

He admired the dedication.

'To beat yourself so convincingly that you believe it? That's true chaos.'

Eventually, however, the act became so immersive that even the giant began to fall for it.

The more he played the part, the more convinced he became—and then, somewhere in the second month, he slipped into genuine schizophrenia. He created new names for each head, arguing with himself at night, and sobbing when one of his "brothers" got knocked out during battle.

Dex would often stare at him from a distance and think:

'This guy… he might be a genius. Or the saddest bastard I've ever seen.'

And that was only two of them.

In this little group of twenty-five demons, Dex discovered four or five who were so deranged, so imaginative in their self-destruction, that he felt humbled.

Here, in this strange corner of the world, filled with misfits and failures, a strange energy lingered. It wasn't strength in the traditional sense—but it was potential. Madness has its own kind of power.

Dex sighed as he stood at the edge of their crude camp, watching one demon trying to seduce a tree while another attempted to arm-wrestle a phantom limb that only he could see.

'This place has good feng shui. No wonder all the talented freaks gather here. If I weren't already twisted, I might've lost my mind just watching them.'

He glanced at his own clawed hands, flexed his fingers, and whispered to himself, amused:

'And I haven't even started playing yet…'

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