A Demon's Core

It takes a while for the humans to organize themselves, but eventually they are slowly winding their way up the stairs in single file. The fools should have done that from the start. Unfortunately, the stairs are not as effective a deterrent as I had originally hoped they would be. As long as there is a mana sensitive human to guide them it becomes little more than an inconvenience. But it does function well as a delaying tactic, which makes it easier for me to organize a proper response. Perhaps I should expand further down the stairs. If I go all the way to the ground floor, maybe some humans will just give up due to the sheer tedium of it.

There are more humans than I expected. This is already the largest group I have had to deal with so far. As the twelfth human steps into my perception, I ask Violet to take my core to its hiding place. I do not intend to let these humans reach our floor, but it is still better to be safe.

There are twenty-five humans in total. By the time they have nearly reached me only half of them are between the landing and my floor. The other half are still below the landing so they will likely not get hit by the shock wave, or at least not the brunt of it. But seeing their companions in the front come crashing down might be enough to make the ones in the back reconsider continuing forward.

As I compress the mana there does not appear to be any reaction from the human in front until a moment before I let it go. Maybe this one was not as prepared as the one from the last group, because they were knocked down along with the rest of them. I gain plenty of mana as thirteen humans fall down the stairs, each of them falling through my domain at least once.

To my surprise this is not enough to make them leave. They actually start making their way up again. I am not going to wait for them to get close this time. As I compress the mana for another shock wave they actually do stop moving. This time when I release it, all the humans manage to hold their ground.

Interesting, not only do they have the means to block the shock wave, but it can cover more than one person. As I prepare the next wave, the lead human actually takes a step forward. When the next wave hits them, they all stand firm. They take another step as I compress mana once more.

It takes around two seconds to compress the mana enough to make a decent shock wave. If they can defend against it and manage to take a step forwards every time, they will reach the top of the stairs eventually. As long as whatever they are using for defense can hold out. So how to stop them? I could try using more mana to put more force into the attack. But I think I have a better idea. I would not try this anywhere else in the building, but the stairwell seems to be made primarily of concrete with metal for the railing.

Noctis would you like to help me in dealing with these humans? I receive confidence and eagerness in return. Good. Bring the other three. We are going to turn up the heat.

I keep up my attacks to slow them down as I wait and soon the four hellhounds are standing side by side on the top step. Violet is also here standing next to Fuzzy.

What are you doing? It is dangerous here.

“I want to watch.” Whatever, I do not have time to worry about that now. At least she brought her shield.

The hellhounds let out a stream of fire that is wide enough to cover the stairs completely. The humans stop advancing under this fiery assault. But they are not retreating. Are they waiting for the hellhounds to run out of fire? Can they even run out of fire?

I move down the stairs to get a better look at the humans, but before I reach them I am stopped by what feels like a solid wall. I can not see anything but there is something in my way. I put my hands on the wall and I can feel it. It is made entirely of mana. A defensive barrier constructed of mana covering the full width of the stairs. It is actually stopping the hellhound’s flames. How fascinating, I will have to tell Rose about this. She did want to use a shield, maybe she can learn to make her own.

I doubt something like this could possibly be easy to maintain though. I wonder how long they can keep this up. As I have this thought the shield falters and the flames rush forwards, engulfing the humans. Not long apparently. I can hear the screams of the humans closest to me. Those still below the landing and the ones who moved down when the hellhounds started spewing fire at them began to flee. Some of them did not even bother to follow the path of my domain. They just ran.

The humans who were injured were much slower in their retreat. I could sense Noctis’ desire to chase them down and finish them off. I allow it and the four hellhounds and Violet bound after them.

A total of eleven humans died. I gained snippets of memories from several of them. Tiny broken fragments without context; none of them useful. The mana I gained will be though. I did not gain as much mana from those who were not strictly within my domain when they died, but I still gained some. Is simply being close when they die enough for me to benefit from their deaths?

But now I have to deal with the bodies again. There are even more than last time. But I also have more hellhounds. I am sure they will enjoy the feast. First I will have the imps gather the human’s weapons and anything else they might have had on them that could be useful. These humans were similarly equipped to the first group that attacked. I had their weapons stored in Room 7, these ones can go in there as well.

At this rate I will soon have proper armory. Though unfortunately, many of the humans' weapons are too big for my imps to be able to wield effectively, even for Violet. So it is mostly just knives and daggers that are usable. Violet could use a short sword or machete if she gives up her shield, but she does not want to do that. and anything that requires two hands for a human to use is completely out of the question for my imps.

There is also the gun that was left behind by the first group. I do not think any of my imps would be able to hold it properly in order to use it safely. Even if they could, I am not sure if I would trust any of them with a gun. Rose maybe, but not the others.

This battle has shown me that I can not get complacent though. They do have the means to defend against my shock waves and the fire from the hellhounds. I wonder if that was the doing of the one who was mana sensitive. Unless we can find some sort of tool or device capable of emitting that shield, then that is the most logical conclusion. If they can all do things like that, then that makes them extremely dangerous. What else might they be capable of?

Their shield fell apart before I had much time to think about it, but with it being made of mana, I might be be able to weaken it by absorbing that mana. Doing so could also serve to weaken whoever is creating the shield, further weakening their assault.

Also of concern is their numbers. This group was more than twice the size of that first group that attacked. If they keep increasing their numbers like that, we may eventually be facing an army. But is a dungeon core really valuable enough to be worth that much effort?

I think I need to know more about humans and what they know of dungeon cores and how far they might be willing to go to take mine. The easiest way I can think of to find out is to capture and interrogate one. But for that I would also need to figure out how to communicate with them. Well, capturing comes first. I will try to do that next time. I wish I had thought if this before I allowed Noctis to kill the ones who were too injured to flee.

No matter. For now I have other things to focus on. Like what to do with all this mana that I gained. My core and all of my crystals are at capacity now. I think a few more crystals might have even grown. The first thing I will do is finish growing my decoy core so that it is the same size as the real one. Maybe I should even make it bigger than the real core. If they do find the actual core maybe they would be more inclined to believe that the bigger crystal is the real one. Actually no, that is a silly idea. If they did manage to find my real core, there is absolutely no reason why they would not just take both. Do not waste mana on unnecessary things.

Even when the decoy is the same size as my core it does not hold the same amount of mana. Even at full capacity, it only contains about half as much mana as what my core can hold. Which confirms a theory of mine that my core and the mana crystals are not made of the same material. I had suspected as much due to the static colour of the crystals compared to the shimmering, changing colour of my core. But this now confirms it.

I use some of the mana to continue my expansion. I am making great progress in the hallway, having claimed about a third of it already. I can see some of the barricades that my imps tried to build before. They are not very good. Though I did not expect them to be given that all they had to work with at the time were mostly tables and chairs, some of them broken. Maybe that is something else we can work on.

I will also put a little bit towards extending further down the stairs. If nothing else, it does amuse me a little seeing them have to wind their way back and forth as they make their way up. I will not make it my main focus, but I will claim a little bit more of the stairs each day until I reach the ground level. When the humans have to climb those steps, I hope they hate every moment of it.

But the most important use for my mana is summoning. The crystals I reserved for summoning are also full. I could immediately summon two imps with that and still have some left over. If I get two more males today then that will even out the gender ratio. I am not counting Calla since she is still a child. If I can maintain a fifty-fifty ratio of males to females, that will, hopefully, ensure that everyone will have at least an opportunity to find a mate.

I will have the hellhounds stay in Room 3. Noctis is disappointed, she wants to stay and watch, but I do not want a repeat of what happened last time. Calla chooses to stay with the hellhounds. The rest of the imps are waiting by the rift.

The first summoning goes well. The imp appears, receives some clothes and a knife. When asked about a name he confidently replies that he is called ‘Sneak’. The story behind that name being that he is apparently skilled at stealing from the larger demons without being noticed. Though I do not approve of stealing, knowing how to get around without being noticed is a valuable skill to have. I hope he can put it to good use in a way that does not involve theft.

Perhaps I should dedicate more mana towards summoning. A new imp every two and a half days does sound good in theory, but if the human attacks are going to keep escalating, the imps may need to get more involved in the defense. For that, they are going to need a lot more strength than they currently possess.

Things go a little awry when summoning the next imp. The first thing I notice is that it takes more mana than imps usually do. Not a lot more, but enough for the difference to be noticed. When this new imp appears he does not look like the others.