"BWAHAHA!!... look how the bitch is begging now!"
A huge, green-skinned demon slammed his massive tankard on the table, spilling ale everywhere as he roared with laughter. His companions joined in, their brutish voices echoing through the shitty open-air tavern.
In the center of their circle, a small, terrified female demon was on all fours, getting fucked from behind by the demon who slammed the tankard. Her body trembled with each violent thrust, her eyes squeezed shut, tears mixing with the dirt on her cheeks.
No one paid me any mind as I slipped through the crowd. I was just another faceless brute in a stolen red cloak. My incubus male form, with its broad shoulders and simmering darkness, drew a few wary glances, but nothing more.
Here, strength was currency, and I looked like I had plenty to spare. Plus, being a man in this shithole made it much easier to be invisible. If I were still in my female form, I'd be the one on that table—and not for drinks.
90% of the "free" demons here were men, and they were not the type to treat a woman with respect.
In just five minutes of walking, I saw things that made my hero's experience against the Demon King and his army look like a playground fight. This place was a real-life hellhole.
The amount of gore mixed with depravity was a feast for the senses.
Blood-splattered walls. Dismembered limbs scattered in corners like discarded toys. Chains bolted to every pillar with half-naked bodies still dangling from them—some still twitching, some long gone, most of them female.
Fuck, I even saw five demons that were, in my opinion, the most cruel and twisted. They were purple-skinned and had two long horns on their heads, and at first, I couldn't figure out their real gender. They were not men or women, but something in between.
Like my Nephalem form, which had both male and female reproductive organs and one breast, but these demons were different. They were a fusion of both genders in a twisted, grotesque way.
Some had two dicks or more… some had like four breasts with dicks instead of nipples… one of them had a vagina for a mouth… and they were all gang-raping a poor human slave woman while laughing and singing.
And after they were done with the woman, one of them pulled out a dagger and removed the woman's breast and swallowed it.
Then, after like four seconds, a new breast grew on his right side, making him have three breasts.
The others howled with approval, slapping their grotesque cocks against their thighs like applause. One of them—his mouth still glistening with the woman's blood—leaned down and ate her vagina with a single, ravenous bite, then moaned as a perfect, glistening slit opened up on his belly.
I felt my stomach churn, a cold knot of disgust tightening in my chest. Even as a former Hero who had stared down legions of all kinds of demons, this was a different level of depravity. This wasn't a conquest. This was a sport. A twisted, endless banquet of suffering.
'These… things,' I thought, my jaw tightening. 'They aren't born that way. They're biological scavengers. Patchwork horrors built from the pieces of the weak.'
I kept walking.
Kept my face blank under the hood.
Kept my breathing even.
Inside, though?
Inside, I was cataloguing every single one of those purple-skinned fuckers. Every horn ridge. Every extra cock. Every mismatched tit and dripping slit. Every face twisted in ecstasy at another's pain.
I would remember them. Their fate will be the worst.
In my stomach.
...
I approached the crude bar, a long slab of some dark, petrified wood stained with rings of who-knows-what. The bartender, a demon with a face like a smashed pumpkin and one arm that ended in a rusty cleaver, glared at me.
"What?"
I slid a few of the copper coins taken from one of the members of the red-cloaked squad sitting next to me.
"Whatever's cheap. And keeps me upright," I grunted, keeping my voice low.
The bartender grunted, snatched the coins, and sloshed a murky, brown liquid into a chipped horn. He slammed it down in front of me.
I ignored it for now, just nursing the feeling of the cool horn in my palm. My eyes scanned the place again. The center stage was taken by another group of demons. They were playing a game where they tossed small imps into a circle, and a big demon with a huge club tried to smash them. The other demons bet on how many imps would survive.
A crowd of onlookers, mostly men, gathered around, cheering and jeering.
'Good,' I thought. 'A good place to start something.'
I raised the horn to my lips and took a long sip. The liquid was vile. It tasted like piss and rotting meat. I nearly gagged, but forced it down.
'It's time.'
I cast a glance at the controlled red-cloaked demon who was sitting in a corner close to the barrels that contained whatever the shitty drink was.
I sent a mental signal, and from under his cloak, pink worms started to crawl out.
Lust Worms from my skill, Hive-Queen.
They were small, about the size of my thumb, with slick, pulsating pink bodies and no visible eyes or mouth—just rows of tiny, writhing cilia along their underside that allowed them to move with disgusting speed.
I prepared them before we departed on this mission. If Beatrice didn't use her charm, I was planning to use Lust Worms to control the demons.
And it appeared that now was the time to make use of them.
I had sent ten of them, two at a time, to crawl into the barrels. The controlled demon leader made it look like he was just leaning on the barrels to rest.
Once inside, the worms would shrink a little to make it easy to be ingested. But once inside a living body, they would grow again and take full control of the host.
Too bad my Hive-Queen skill was only level one, or the worms would have the ability to lay eggs and multiply. But that's for later.
The barrels weren't the only thing I had the Lust Worms target. I had also sent a few of them to crawl into the food—which was mostly raw slave meat—and some of them directly toward the demons who were busy fucking and would not notice a tiny pink worm crawling into their ass.
I needed widespread chaos. One that would allow Beatrice to make her move. And what's better than a sex-fueled riot?
It would take a few minutes for the worms to reach the right place and start doing their job, so I waited. I sipped my drink and watched the imp-smashing game.
"HAHAHA! TAKE THAT, YOU LITTLE SHIT!" the big demon roared, bringing his club down with a sickening crunch. The imp exploded in a shower of gore and black blood.
The crowd roared with laughter, some throwing coins at the winner.
"HERE, YOUR TURN," the big demon said, taking a step back, allowing another demon to take his place.
The other demon was as big as the first one, with a face like a smashed crab. He raised his club and was about to swing.
SPLASH!
And that's when I activated the Lust Worm in his body, causing the swing to go wide, and instead of the imp, he smashed the other demon's head.
"WHAT THE FUCK!" the demon who got hit roared, stumbling back, holding his head, which was now bleeding.
"YOU! YOU SON OF A BITCH!" the big demon, who was supposed to be the next one to play, charged at the demon with the smashed face.
And of course, it only took one wrong swing to turn a friendly game into an all-out brawl.
As the two demons started to fight, the Lust Worms in the other demons began to activate.
I watched with detached satisfaction as the chaos began to unfold.
A demon who was busy fucking a slave suddenly screamed and threw the slave across the room, his cock now rock hard and pointing at a random demon, his eyes filled with lustful, predatory hunger.
Others who were busy drinking suddenly latched onto each other, choking and clawing.
The whole place was turning into an orgy of violence and lust. And since the tavern was open and connected to the main courtyard, the fun quickly spread.
"Is this enough, or want to make it bigger?" I asked the controlled demon. With his mind connection to Beatrice, she could hear and respond to me.
"Hehehe… " It's a good start," her voice echoed in my head, a mix of amusement and impatience. "But let's turn up the heat. Burn the whole damn place to the ground."
'Sigh… she is a bit of a pyromaniac,' I thought, but I couldn't deny the appeal of a good fire.
I looked around and spotted the barrels of "alcohol," the ones I infected with the Lust Worms. I didn't need to act on my own; all it took was a little "push" for the worms to do the rest.
Soon, the entire place was on fire.
What started as a brawl turned into a full-blown civil war. Demons were fighting, fucking, and burning everything in sight.
My command to the Lust Worms was simple:
Create as much chaos as possible.
"Come on, let's go," Beatrice spoke through the controlled demon's mind again. "While they're busy with each other, we need to make our move."
I nodded, and we started to move toward the building that led to the labyrinth.
And just as I was about to take a step, a familiar ding echoed in my head.
[New Quest]
[The Secret of the Crimson Bastion]
[Objective: Infiltrate the Crimson Bastion, uncover the secrets hidden deep within its labyrinth, and deal with the 'Red Baron'.]
"Oh… a new quest?"