Dark Parasyte

After the Arbiter's departure, silence hung in the hall like the echo of a drawn blade. Corvin turned to Vaelorin and Laevior, his tone clipped and final. "I will be occupied for the coming week with private matters." His words left no room for argument. With the cold efficiency of command, he left the chamber and made his way to his study. There, he gave instructions to his maids: Valyne, Kaelyn, and Sythara were to be told the same. They were to disturb him not at all. Once his orders were delivered, he simply vanished, the air trembling and rippling with the silence of his teleportation.

In a heartbeat he reappeared south of the docks near the shore. His form blurred, cloaking himself in a shroud of invisibility. He walked unhurriedly into the sea, the salt water rising past his waist, then to his chest, cold waves crashing softly around him. His body shifted, bones lengthening, flesh reshaping. Scales rippled into existence, gleaming faintly, and a long tail coiled with strength enough to whip through the tides. In moments his legs were gone, replaced by the sleek tail of a merman. With a surge he cut into the sea, swimming at unnatural speed, currents bending aside as if to ease his passage. For nearly an hour he moved with relentless rhythm, a blur of power beneath the surface. The ocean hissed behind him as he passed, predators scattering from his aura. At last, he shifted again, breaking the surface and casting himself into the air. His body reformed, still cloaked and in his Elven form. With a thought, he chained his teleports high above the waters, leaping from horizon to horizon, tearing open the firmament with each burst of space. His course was fixed: Nefrath.

Corvin's quarry was the Archdemons themselves.

Already Wrath had fallen to him, slain by his hand in battle. Envy was consumed by Pride. Two of the seven were gone. Yet hunger gnawed at him. At least three more must die, their Demon Lords alongside them. Perhaps caches of Aether Crystals lay hidden, treasures hoarded by those tyrants as Fyrgax had done. If not, their essence alone would be enough. Archdemons were each the equal of a Planarch; with their Demon Lords standing at the same rank. When Combined, he would harvest at least ten adversaries of transcendent strength. With such power he might not equal an Arbiter, but he would stand near enough.

When the blackened shores of Nefrath rose beneath him, Corvin's lips pulled into a predator's smile. His first prey: Uzaruk, the Slumbering Plague, Archdemon of Sloth.

Uzaruk's dominion sprawled across the southwest like a rotting wound. Vast swamps stretched to the horizon, their waters stagnant, their air thick with algae and the stench of centuries old decay. Legions of demons lay half buried in the mud, armor rusted to ruin, their eyes glowing faintly in the mist. They slumbered always, awaiting only the will of their master to rise. Uzaruk himself was the embodiment of Sloth. An unmovable mountain of flesh, his titanic body sagging under its own weight, rolls upon rolls of putrid meat quivering with every sluggish breath. His sunken eyes were half lidded, his exhalations clouds of soporific spores that lulled lesser beings into torpor. For centuries, he had moved little, yet when he stirred, his power was like a continent shifting: whole armies rose and fell with a yawn.

Three Demon Lords knelt in the muck nearby, their forms grotesque parodies of warriors, their swords corroded, their limbs heavy with lethargy. Four Dark Sovereigns kept vigil, though their eyes were dulled, their power wasted away in endless stillness. This was Sloth's dominion. A realm where time itself seemed to sleep.

Corvin descended like judgment.

Firestorms split the silence, incinerating slumbering legions before their eyes could even open. Ash rose in pillars, blotting out the skies. Bolts of lightning cascaded downward, rending demons limb from limb, their curses never leaving their lips. Uzaruk groaned, a sound like mountains grinding together. He raised a single arm swollen with fat, the gesture birthing plague winds that tore forests from their roots and scattered entire marshlands. His voice followed, deep and droning, resonant waves of sound that pressed upon Corvin like invisible chains, dragging at his limbs, trying to drown him in exhaustion.

Corvin's runes flared, his Law infused will cutting through the bindings. With a thought he shattered the chains of Sloth. His movements surged with purpose and fury, his aura burning away the heavy fog. The Demon Lords who lumbered toward him fell one by one: the first had its skull crushed by a hammer of conjured ligthning and fire, the second impaled through its abdomen by a jagged spear of shadow and ice, the third impaled by metallic shards that tore its body. Each one was ripped from its husk and absorbed, their screams echoing across the mire.

At last Uzaruk stirred fully. His titanic form heaved itself upright, sludge and mud rolling from his hide, boils bursting to release rivers of stagnant filth. Forests crumbled under his swat, mountains shuddered as he drew breath. His exhalation birthed a plague of despair and slumber, a miasma that rolled across miles. Yet Corvin cut through it, his flames devouring the air, his ligtning and metal unraveling every mote of corruption.

He surged forward, his runes blazing brighter than stars. Fat, rot, and lethargy split apart beneath his attacks until the heart the size of a fortress stone, sluggish and black, beating once every minute. With a roar of agony that hearth was ripped free of the archdemon. Uzaruk groaned a final time, his colossal body collapsing upon itself, sinking back into the swamp in a tidal wave of filth. Corvin, activated his absorbtion and claimed the dominion of the demon. Sloth ended in silence. Within thirty six hours upon his arrival to Nefrath, Uzaruk, his Demon Lords, his Dark Sovereigns, and every demon tied to him were erased as though they had never been.

His next target: Aisha the Broodmother, Archdemon of Lust.

Aisha's lair lay in caverns to the west, a hive of writhing debauchery. Flesh coated the walls, slick and glistening, and the air was heavy with musk and rot. Spawn slithered over one another in tangled heaps, their moans a constant chorus of agony and pleasure. The air trembled with enchantments that bent will to craving, drawing weaker beings into ecstatic servitude.

Aisha herself was a grotesque parody of fertility. Her swollen body sprawled across the cavern like a living palace of flesh. Her skin, purple and veined, quivered with each breath. Eight vast breasts hung heavy upon her chest, dripping streams of foul milk that pooled into spawning pits where larvae writhed and gnawed. Her lips were forever parted, her voice an unending moan that seeped into the mind, enslaving any demon who heard it. Four Demon Lords knelt close by, their bodies exhausted, enslaved utterly to her enchantments. Their eyes were glazed, their souls drowned in her aura of lust.

Corvin descended in fire and fury.

Breeding pits ignited, flames consuming thousands of spawn before they could draw breath. Metal lanced outward, piercing Demons in mid embrace, their corrupted release ending in death. Aisha shrieked with ecstasy and rage, her flesh convulsing as she rose like the embodiment of corruption she is. Her claws lashed out, slick with ichor, shattering stalagmites and cleaving stone like a sharp dagger through flesh. Her screams grew louder, vibrating through the cavern, waves of madness and desire that cracked the very rock. The Demon lords were not even aware they have been killed and absorbed among the carnage. Corvin's Death affinity rose like a black tide smothering Aisha's aura, corroding her enchantments until silence pressed against her song.

Demons of every rank rushed him in waves, their will collapsing under her compulsion. Corvin answered with annihilation. Flame scythes swept through hordes, frost chains froze masses before they shattered into fragments, lightning bolts tore apart those who stumbled too close. Step by step, he advanced, carving through endless waves until he leapt upon Aisha's bloated chest. His blades ripped through flesh, each strike splitting her further as his blades finaly found her hearth. Her eyes, rolling in feverish terror met his own.

With a single, merciless plunge, he crushed the last echoes of life and started the absorbtion. The essence roared into him, burning through his veins with dark hunger. Aisha convulsed, her colossal form collapsing inward.

The moans ceased. Only silence remained.

When the echoes died, Corvin stood amid the ruin, triumphant. His Death Affinity flared, once B-rank, now surging into A+, a dark light weaving seamlessly into his arsenal. Shadows dancing like flames as power radiated from him. He inhaled, the taste of corruption lingering on his tongue, his mind already calculating the next hunt.

Archdemons were no longer his equals. They were prey.

And Nefrath was full of prey still waiting for him.

--

Demon Arbiter Malzarek was having the worst time of his existence. From his throne within the Void Expanse, he felt the tremors of catastrophe reverberating through Nefrath. Reports came in waves, each one more disastrous than the last. In less than a month, three of his Archdemons, pillars of Demon race's power, embodiments of demonic dominion were gone. Erased.

At first he thought the news a lie, some ploy whispered by rival courts. But the silence in the aether was unmistakable: Wrath's roar had been cut short, Envy's poison unraveled, and now Uzaruk the Slumbering Plague and Aisha the Broodmother... gone. No lingering essence, no fractured husk, not even the faintest whisper of their Demon Lords nor Dark Sovereigns remained. Entire dominions wiped clean, leaving only scattered, broken legions without command.

Malzarek's claws dug into the armrests of his obsidian throne, rending grooves into the stone. His eyes burned like collapsing stars, his wings shuddering with fury. "Impossible," he hissed, the word echoing across the void. "Erased. All of them, erased."

The thought clawed at him: No Archdemon dies so utterly. Not without trace. Not without echo. The only explanation was that another Archdemon had done this. Devoaured them. But which one? None possessed the strength to leave nothing behind. None could consume essence so completely that even their names were extinguished. The mystery festered in his mind, gnawing, refusing peace.

He snarled, his voice shaking the abyss. "Find the culprit. Tear Nefrath apart if you must. No Archdemon may kill another until the invasion is finished. None!" His decree rang absolute, carried by demons who bowed and fled into the void to deliver his command. Every surviving Archdemon would hear his will: the bloodletting among themselves would cease at once. Not a single demon life was to be squandered until the demon legions returns from the Planar Invasion.

But within his fury simmered obsession. Whoever had done this, whoever had stolen his forces, erased his Archdemons, and mocked his dominion would suffer. He would find them, tear their essence apart piece by piece, and imprison what remained in agony for ages unending. Malzarek's rage seethed outward, filling the Void Expanse like a storm. The Arbiter of Demon race had been challenged, and he would answer with torment.

--

On the fifth day of his relentless hunt, Corvin pushed himself from the blackened western shores of Nefrath all the way to its far eastern wastes, traversing a continent scarred by centuries of demonic dominion. The land he crossed was a vision of torment. Blistered plains stretched endlessly, where the earth itself bled tar and sulfurous fumes bubbled from gaping wounds in the soil. Forests had long ago perished, reduced to twisted bone like stumps gnawed by unseen hungers, their skeletal branches reaching toward the sky like clawed hands begging for release. Valleys once rich with rivers now lay as cracked scars, barren gulfs that whispered with the dry sighs of starvation. Above, the skies hung red and swollen, suffocating with ash, black smoke, and drifting fragments of burning stone. Swarms of carrion winged horrors circled endlessly, feeding on corpses that somehow never rotted, suspended in perpetual decay. The ground itself groaned beneath his steps, as though Nefrath's body was alive and starving. It was a land bereft of life, shaped and consumed by hunger and it was here that Corvin sought his next quarry: Salvamud the Starved, Archdemon of Gluttony.

Salvamud was ancient, perhaps the oldest Archdemon in Nefrath, a grotesque monument to endless craving. His body was a half skeletal ruin. His abdomen yawned open as a hollow cage, ribs jutting outward like the bars of a prison, showing nothing within but a void where his stomach should have been. Strips of skin sagged across his frame, torn and hanging loosely, stretched tight over bone in some places and bloated obscenely in others, as if his very flesh could not decide whether it was devouring itself or rupturing. His skull was long and hideous, its jaw serrated with enormous fangs that clicked together hungrily. His eyes glowed pale and hollow, eternal flames of famine that had never known satisfaction. His dominion mirrored his form: a wasteland where every scrap of sustenance had been consumed ages ago. Trees stood as ashen skeletons, their branches twisted skyward in desperation; beasts had vanished, leaving only bones chewed to splinters; even the air itself was devoid of nourishment, carrying no moisture, only the rasping gasp of famine that gnawed at lungs with every breath.

But Salvamud was. Soon, he would be no more.

The clash erupted with apocalyptic violence that shook the silent wasteland. Salvamud lunged forward, skeletal jaws gaping wide enough to devour fortresses whole. His three Demon Lords rushed at his sides, bearing jagged weapons carved from their own bones, each dripping with foul, corrosive ichor. Their hunger was palpable, they snarled and gnashed as if eager to swallow Corvin alive. Yet Corvin stood unshaken. His Death Affinity, honed now to S- and radiating like a black sun, laced through every element he wielded, transmuting his magic into weapons of inevitability.

Lightning that once gleamed silver and purple now shattered the heavens as void black spears, thunder echoing like the death cries of entire cities. Flames erupted darker than midnight, silent and oppressive, erasing flesh so thoroughly that only shadows lingered where bodies had stood. Spears of ice jutted from his palms, each jagged shard black as obsidian, carrying not just chill but the numb certainty of the grave. Earth rose in jagged upheavals beneath his feet, yet wherever his death affinity spread, stone blackened and crumbled into brittle tomb rock, stinking of old crypts. Winds screamed through the air, dry as the rasp of mummies, every gust withering flesh and draining moisture until skin cracked like parchment. Water conjured from his will turned to rancid sludge, stagnating into black pools teeming with rot. Plant magic, once vibrant with green, twisted into husks and thorned skeletons that drained every living thing they touched. Even light itself dimmed at his command, bending sickly around his aura, flickering as though terrified to shine upon him. Every strand of aether bent to his command, and every strand was threaded with decay.

The Demon Lords fell swiftly. One was obliterated by a void lightning strike that shattered its body into fragments of smoldering bone. Another was impaled by a spear of shadow frost, its carcass frozen solid waiting to be absorbed, the third followed his kin in frozen fashion.

Salvamud fought on, skeletal limbs thrashing with hideous strength. His cavernous jaws snapped, teeth grinding against each other in a frenzy, seeking to crush Corvin as though he were a morsel of bread. He vomited torrents of black bile, each wave eating through stone and soil, leaving yawning craters filled with hungering voids. Yet Corvin's storms answered: fire and lightning laced with death ripped across the battlefield, turning legions of lesser demons into fragments of ash and smoke. Every step Corvin took carried ruin, every gesture deepened the battlefield's descent into oblivion.

The land itself seemed to cry out as Salvamud's dominion buckled under the weight of Corvin's onslaught.

At last, Corvin struck the fatal blow. He hurled himself into Salvamud's skeletal chest, plunging his hand between ribs that jutted like the bars of a cage. This abomination forever caught on the verge of death but never allowed to die. With a growl that shook the air, Corvin activated his absorption. Salvamud screamed, not in anger, but in the eternal cry of hunger unfulfilled, pain of eternal suffering the wail of desire forever denied. His immense body collapsed in on itself, bones turning to dust, flesh evaporating into silence.

As Corvin absorbed the Archdemon, he realized something strange. The familiar surge of growth he always felt when consuming powerful foes, the swelling strength he had tasted with Wrath, Sloth, and Lust was absent. No rush of might filled him. Only emptiness. Silence. Salvamud's ancient essence offered nothing new, only the hollow echo of hunger devoured. His power did not swell.

And yet, he had already taken much in this single week. Thirteen Planarch level demons consumed. Fifteen Dark Sovereigns devoured. Uncountable legions of lesser spawn obliterated. His Death Affinity had ascended to S+, its tendrils woven into every aspect of his arsenal, embedding decay into flame, shadow, frost, lightning, earth, wind, water, plant, and even light itself. His every spell was no longer a tool, it was inevitability made manifest. Winds blew hollow and dry. Water curdled into filth. Light bent away in terror. Even the brightest flame carried darkness at its core. Corvin no longer summoned the elements of Verthalis, when he used Death affinity, he summoned the end of them.

Behind him marched an army born of ruin. Ten thousand demons he had slain rose again as Covenant Undead, bound to his will, their corpses reshaped and perfected with virutic strains of PHS 1.0, MAG 1.0, and ASC 1.0. They moved in chilling unison, tireless, fearless, their eyes empty save for the compulsion of his command. Their weapons dripped with residual death, their armor fused into their bodies. With these abominations added to his living host, Corvin's forces swelled to forty thousand strong. A tide of death vast enough to blacken horizons.

Three weeks remained before the Pioneers returned. With his prey exhausted, his arsenal overflowing, and his dominion swollen, Corvin turned from the eastern ruins of Nefrath. He would return to Raven's Nest. He carried with him not only the silence of consumed Archdemons, but the shadow of endless slaughter, and an army of death waiting for his word when the storm finally broke.