Mina and Kala drifted lazily over the forest, finishing their daily patrol. Mina, as was her habit, played with a small, bright green vine that coiled around her fingers like a living creature. When the plant tightened too firmly on her forearm, the succubus snorted and carelessly tossed it away, shifting her gaze to her companion.
"You know, Kala, your sentry technique is so boring that I'm actually starting to miss the company of those brainless skeletons," Mina remarked with a provocative smirk.
Kala didn't even look at her, her wings merely slicing the air with more force. "My technique is effective. Yours, on the other hand, consists mainly of checking if your own reflection in puddles is still just as irritating."
Mina let out a pearly laugh and dove sharply, attempting to grab Kala by the waist, but the latter dodged with childish ease. In one agile movement, Kala pinned the smaller succubus against the trunk of a tree they were flying over. "Too slow, little one," Kala murmured, dominating her with a gaze.
Instead of sulking, Mina snuggled deeper into her older companion's gargantuan breasts, mumbling something about how "this was exactly the kind of closeness she was looking for."
After this minor incident, they took to the sky again, exchanging a few more biting remarks until the walls of the Valley of Eternal Darkness appeared in the distance.
Mina was just drawing breath to respond to Kala's next comment when she suddenly froze mid-word. Her mouth remained open, and her wings stopped beating, causing her to begin a slow descent. Kala also went still, braking sharply in mid-air.
Both fixed their eyes on the center of their domain. Where only a stone altar had stood that morning, a massive, black structure now towered.
"How... how on earth did that get here?" Kala choked out, her voice trembling with disbelief for the first time.
Mina didn't answer. She felt her body suddenly tingle, as if her blood were flowing faster and every muscle had become harder. She instinctively summoned her stats menu and let out a shrill cry. "Kala! My stats! Everything has increased! What is happening?!"
Kala immediately checked her interface. Indeed - her strength, agility, and magic energy pulsed with unnatural power. They looked at each other, then back at the Gothic obsidian castle, which seemed to suck the very gloom from its surroundings.
"It's that building..." Kala whispered. "It must be the cause."
Mina didn't wait for further explanation. With an excited shout, she folded her wings and shot forward like a projectile, with Kala racing right behind her.
The effect was electrifying, and it didn't just affect them. Within a thousand-meter radius, the entire Valley of Eternal Darkness came alive with new strength. The skeletal soldiers on the walls straightened up, their bones gaining a metallic sheen. The group of goblins working in the fields suddenly began to dig at triple speed, feeling no fatigue.
The Demon King's Castle had become the heart of the territory. With a 25% increase in total stamina and a powerful stat-boosting aura, the valley had ceased to be a mere settlement. Thanks to the gargantuan range, the fortress's magic covered almost every corner of their kingdom, making it nearly impossible to conquer.
Mina and Kala landed before the main gates, looking up at the soaring towers with expressions of absolute wonder.
The heavy, obsidian gates of the castle swung open without the slightest creak, revealing a dark, majestic interior. Lilith and Lysandra stood in the threshold, bathed in the soft glow emanating from magical torches. Lilith, with her hands on her hips and a confident smile, looked at her stunned companions.
"Cool, isn't it?" she remarked casually, though pride rang in her voice.
Kala just stood with her mouth open, her eyes wandering over the gargantuan gates and soaring vaults. She nodded, still unable to utter a word. Mina, however, needed no invitation. With a joyful squeal, she ran inside, the echo of her quick footsteps carrying through the corridors.
"Oh my! It's so big! Look at those carvings! Is that real marble? And where do those stairs lead? Lysandra, did you see this?!" Mina babbled incessantly, running from wall to wall like a clockwork toy.
Lilith laughed quietly, feeling a rising excitement. This castle was worth every gram of gold and every potato seed. As the Demon Queen, she felt her own power pulsing within these walls - her regeneration had doubled, and her senses had grown sharper. No Hero who dared to enter would stand a chance against her on her home turf.
The structure was a powerful fortification. A three-level design with a single, easily defensible path to each level made the castle an impregnable fortress. Most importantly, the Abyss Altar was now safely "encased" in the deepest, best-protected part of the structure. Lilith finally felt relieved - she and the girls no longer had to pull nervous watches, trembling over the fear that someone might destroy the heart of their domain by surprise.
Lysandra walked up to the stunned Kala and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Looking at the number of chambers, at least a thousand people could fit here," she noted with a smile.
"Finally, we have the roof over our heads you wanted so much."
Kala exhaled with a deep, happy peace. "A roof... and what a roof. Finally, we won't be sitting under the open sky like wild animals."
At that moment Mina, who had already shifted into her human form, ran up to Kala and jumped onto her back with childish energy, landing astride her shoulders. "Let's go explore! Move it, Kala! I want to see the highest tower!" she shouted, waving her arms.
Kala tried to maintain a shred of dignity and restrain this outburst of enthusiasm, but Mina was unstoppable. Her excitement was infectious. "Alright, alright! Let go, you're going to choke me... We're going on this cursed tour," Kala grumbled, though a shadow of a smile flickered at the corner of her mouth.
Lysandra watched them with amusement, like an older sister looking after unruly siblings, and nodded them on their way. Mina, however, couldn't wait to start. "Faster, come ooon!" she complained, beginning to impatiently kick her heels against Kala's ample bust as if prodding a horse into a gallop.
"Hey! Stop kicking me in the chest, you little maniac!" Kala snapped, suddenly regaining her vigor out of irritation. "Or I'll drop you right now and you can go back to playing in the mud!"
Mina didn't listen to the threats at all, laughing at the top of her lungs and urging her companion deeper into the dark, safe corridors of their new home. Lilith watched them go, feeling that for the first time since arriving in this world, she was truly beginning to build something lasting.
Lilith leaned against the cool, obsidian wall of her new castle and fell into thought for a moment. Her mind went to the still-empty stretches of fields, which were practically begging to be cultivated.
She quickly summoned the interface and found the familiar icon with green vines in her contact list.
Lilith: "Are you there?"
Forest Fairy Izera: "Of course! How is my favorite client? Need more seeds?"
Lilith: "Yes. I want 10,000 Giga Potato seeds. Right now."
After sending this message, a dead silence fell. A minute passed, then two, and the chat window remained empty. Lilith furrowed her brow, feeling a sudden pang of unease.
Did I offend her? she muttered under her breath.
I thought we had a pretty good relationship, but maybe that quantity sounds like a joke to her?
Suddenly, another, much worse thought occurred to her. Her fingers flew across the virtual keyboard.
Lilith: "Hey! Just don't tell me you don't have them?!"
Forest Fairy Izera: "I have them! Yes, yes, I have them! Calm down! It's just... that's quite a lot, even for my powers. I need time to prepare and pack it all for transfer!"
Lilith: "How long?"
Forest Fairy Izera: "Let's do this: I'll give you 3,000 seeds now that I have ready in storage. The rest, the 7,000 pieces, I'll send to you within the next three days. I need to 'boost' them with flower magic."
Lilith: "Deal."
Forest Fairy Izera: "The VIP price stands - 1 gold piece for 5 seeds. For this batch, that's 600 gold. Is that alright?"
Lilith confirmed the transaction without hesitation. Although her pouch felt lighter again, she knew it was an investment that would pay off many times over. She set the exit point of the golden trade pipe directly next to the makeshift goblin camp.
And then the spectacle began.
In the very center of the camp, right over the heads of the resting goblins, the golden pipe materialized. With a loud whistle, a continuous torrent of brown seeds began to pour from it.
Graaz, who had been dozing in the sun, jumped to his feet as the first seed hit him right on the top of his head. He looked up and, instead of running away, fell to his knees, spreading his arms.
"A MIRACLE! ANOTHER MIRACLE FROM OUR LADY!" the old goblin roared, the seeds drumming against his back like hail. "Brothers! Sisters! Look! The heavens weep with the gold of the earth at her command!"
The other goblins, seeing their leader in ecstasy, immediately abandoned their tasks. A hundred green creatures lined up in a circle around the rising mountain of seeds, bowing so fervently that their foreheads repeatedly struck the hard ground. Some began to sing shrill songs of thanks, others collected seeds that had bounced off the ground and kissed them with devout reverence before placing them on the pile.
To an outside observer, it would have looked like the collective madness of some bizarre cult, but for the goblins, it was the most solemn moment of their lives - their goddess had fed them again, conjuring life out of thin air.