Nyx's glaive sparked again, fury flashing in her silver eyes. "Farming is peasantry!!" she barked, voice echoing off the walls. "We are lords of nightmares, conquerors of realms. We are royalty...not dirt-scratchers with whatever tool used!"
Selene gave a sharp laugh. "She's right. Do you truly expect me to sully my hands with mud, my lord? A queen does not pull weeds."
Cerberon's left head snarled agreement, flames dripping between its fangs. "We devour. We burn. We rule." The right head muttered, "Not farm." The middle one rumbled thoughtfully, "…unless farms can be hunted."
Malrik's tome rattled in chains, its pages twisting as runes burned across them. "Royalty reduced to manure spreaders! This is mockery of our station, a curse upon our legacy!"
Lumi froze for a moment under their scorn then suddenly puffed up indignantly, wobbling with surprising confidence. "It's not peasantry!" she squeaked, jiggling like a furious jelly. "The farming I'm talking about isn't just poking dirt with a stick! There's something called… modern farming!"
The Council blinked.
Lumi bounced higher, swelling with smug pride. "That's right! Machines, irrigation, crop rotation! It's not for peasants it's for royal farmers! The kind that can feed nations! Think about it vast fields of pumpkins as far as the eye can see, barns full of grain, herds of livestock marching like armies. Farming is power!"
Erevan chuckled darkly, violet eyes gleaming as he leaned forward. "Royal farmers, is it? Hm. I must admit, little slime, you do have a flair for theatre. Feeding nations… controlling supply lines…" He smirked. "Starving enemies without a single blade raised. Now that is very much like us."
Valentine arched a brow at him but didn't comment.
Nyx growled, pointing her glaive toward Lumi. "Feeding nations is conquest. Dirt and seeds are not. This reeks of weakness."
Lumi puffed up even larger, wiggling proudly. "You're just jealous because Master likes my ideas better than your stabby-stick war stuff!"
Nyx's silver eyes flared with outrage, and sparks crackled off her glaive. Selene's smile sharpened again. Cerberon barked, all three heads in unison. Malrik's candles erupted in furious flame.
Valentine groaned and slouched deeper into his throne, muttering, "…why do they always fight?"
"Aside from that, slime, tell us this...how do we even begin? You prattle about 'modern farming,' but the Abyss has no 'tools' you so cheerfully babble about. Will you conjure them from puddles? Or shall the lords of nightmares stoop to hammering shovels in a forge like peasants?" Malrik said.
He leaned forward, candles burning with furious light. "Speak, blob. How does one sow turnips in a realm where the soil itself screams?"
Lumi froze mid-bounce, goo trembling. "Uh… w-well, I mean… we could… um…" She bobbled, wobbling in a circle, trying desperately to look confident. "We'll just… make them! Yeah! Abyssal farming tools! Super scary, really spiky… with skulls on the handles!"
Erevan laughed low and smooth, shadows curling like smoke. "Skull-handled hoes. Now that I'd pay to see."
Cerberon's middle head tilted curiously. "…If the plows are spiky, can we stab things with them?"
Selene rolled her eyes with venomous grace. "So now we are blacksmiths and farmers. Truly, the fall of an empire."
Nyx slammed her glaive against the stone, sparks leaping. "Tools or not, this is still weakness. I say it again let me prove our worth through war, not soil!"
Valentine groaned, dragging both hands down his face. "…Lumi, explain quickly before I allow Nyx to use you as a whetstone."
Lumi puffed up again, determined despite wobbling. "Okay, okay! No machines? Fine! We'll start simple raised beds, irrigation trenches, crop rotation..."
"...Translation," Selene purred with venom, "sweating in the dirt like peasants."
"BUT!" Lumi bounced furiously. "But! When we harvest the crops, you'll see! It's power you can eat!"
Valentine's head thunked against the throne's backrest. "…Power you can eat? ."
Valentine's fingers drummed against the throne, his expression carved from exhaustion. Lumi, however, quivered with sudden inspiration.
"Wait!" she squeaked, bouncing in place. "Master...we don't need mortal tools! You have the dungeon core!"
The council stiffened. Malrik's candles guttered uneasily, his tome rattling its chains. "The dungeon core is the heart of the Abyss itself. With it you forge traps, summon armies, weave curses. And you would… waste it on farming?"
Lumi wiggled indignantly. "Not waste! Repurpose! If it can make death-scythes, it can make sickles. If it can make boulder traps, it can make millstones! Farming gear as super scary, Abyss-style!"
Valentine groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You want me to turn my weapon of nightmares into a cabbage machine."
"Yup!" Lumi chirped. Then, bouncing to the edge of the dais, she called brightly, "But first we gotta go outside! You can't farm in a throne room, silly!"
The Council stared in collective silence.
Finally, Valentine rose with a long, weary sigh. "…Fine. Let's go."
Outside, at the blasted plains beyond the fortress…
The dungeon core hovered, pulsing with abyssal light, as Valentine placed his hand upon it. Dark runes spiraled outward across the ground.
"Conjure… a plow." His voice dripped with skepticism.
The runes blazed. A massive obsidian construct erupted from the ground ten feet tall, blades spinning, dripping molten fire.
"…That is a siege engine," Nyx said flatly.
"…Close enough," Valentine muttered. He clenched his fist, reshaping it. The fire-belching horror shuddered, crumbling into a jagged but recognizable plow.
Lumi bounced with delight. "See?! Perfect! A plow of nightmares extra spiky!"
Next came a sickle instead of a death-scythe, a millstone from what was once a crushing boulder trap, and even an irrigation system that looked suspiciously like a network of blood channels. The Council stared, some unimpressed, others faintly intrigued.
Erevan smirked, swirling shadows lazily between his fingers. "Well, little slime. You have your toys. What now?"
Lumi froze mid-bounce, goo trembling. "Uh… right. Next step." She puffed up proudly. "We need to fix the soil!"
"The soil?" Selene asked, one brow arched in venomous disbelief.
Lumi bobbed like a lecturing pudding. "Of course! This soil is all… yucky and corrupted. Nothing grows in screaming dirt. So we have to make it farmable! Step one...Purification! Step two...Enrichment! Step three...Microbe Awakening! And step four...Magical Infusion!"
The Council blinked.
Malrik's candles flared, dripping wax like blood. "You speak madness. What microbes would dare awaken in this cursed dust?"
Cerberon's middle head tilted. "…Do microbes scream?"
Valentine groaned, dragging his hand down his face. "…Lumi, if this ends with me pouring holy water on dirt, I swear..."
Lumi jiggled proudly. "Don't worry, Master! By the time we're done, this land will be perfect for pumpkins!"
Nyx's glaive crackled, her patience visibly shredding. "So how long is this ridiculous scheme supposed to take?"
Lumi puffed herself up, wiggling like a professor about to give an exam answer. "Considering our landmass? Mmm… let's say… a year and a half!"
The Council erupted.
"A year and a half?!" Selene's wings snapped wide, her venomous beauty marred by disbelief. "You expect me to waste centuries of glory toiling in mud for a year and a half?"
Malrik's candles guttered violently. "The Abyss shall wither before I endure eighteen months of this drivel."
Cerberon's left head barked, "Too long!" The right head snarled, "I'll starve!" The middle one muttered, "…unless pumpkins scream."
Valentine slouched, green eyes narrowing in thin exhaustion. "…I can't wait a year, Lumi."
"Exactly!" Lumi bounced, goo gleaming with sudden smug inspiration. "Which is why I'll hire my slime people to start the purification!"
Valentine pinched the bridge of his nose. "…You're forming a… slime workforce."
"Yup!" Lumi chirped proudly. "Slime Union Local #1!"
The Council groaned in unison.
The next day, the blasted plains writhed with motion as hundreds of slimes squelched across the ground, leaving trails of shimmering essence behind them. Wherever they oozed, the screaming, cursed earth went silent. The corruption dimmed, the stench of rot faded, and the soil softened into a strange, neutral gray.
Malrik stared, appalled. "You've reduced my battlefield to… pudding."
Lumi beamed. "Neutral soil! Step one complete!"
Valentine raised a hand, summoning the legions of the Abyss, Bone Beasts rattled from their graves, Shadow Wolves slunk from the dark, and Gargoyles unfurled from their perches. Instead of marching to war, Lumi waddled in front of them like a tiny foreman.
"Okay, everyone! Compost time!"
The Abyssal horrors froze.
"…Compost?" one Bone Beast rattled in disbelief.
"Yes!" Lumi chirped. "Bones for calcium, ashes for potassium, and corpses for organic matter!"
Valentine buried his face in his palm as the legions of nightmare were herded into piles of fertilizer. Erevan laughed so hard he nearly fell apart in shadows.
Once the enrichment spread, Lumi puffed up, glowing faintly. Tiny, invisible spores released from her jelly slime-microbes, drifting into the soil like motes of light. They dug deep, binding the dirt together, forming a living network that began to hum faintly with vitality.
Selene sneered, though her eyes betrayed the faintest flicker of intrigue. "So… the dirt is alive now."
Lumi jiggled proudly. "Yup! Healthy soil has friends toommtiny little helpers!"
Cerberon's middle head tilted. "…Do the microbes scream?"
Lumi hesitated. "…Maybe?"
The three heads grinned in unison. "Good."
At last, Valentine stepped forward, placing his hand to the soil. Abyssal mana poured from him in rivers of shadow, threatening to devour everything. But Lumi bounced beside him, channeling and reshaping it—twisting death into life, corruption into leyline fertility.
The gray earth shimmered, then bloomed green. Strange glowing vines sprouted instantly, curling with eerie blossoms. The land itself pulsed with abyssal magic, fertile beyond mortal comprehension.
Valentine stood silent, staring at the newly-born farmland. "…I just turned my nightmare kingdom into a vegetable garden."
Lumi sparkled with triumph, puffing up proudly. "Yup! Welcome to the first Abyssal Farm!"
Selene pinched the bridge of her nose, Nyx snarled, Malrik ranted in curses, Cerberon drooled, and Erevan… laughed himself breathless.
Valentine groaned, sinking back against the half-dead soil. "…The day I conquer cabbages is the day heroes finally leave me alone."