Balor turned himself invisible as he ran away, screaming into the night. Hovering above the castle, he watched the impact of his actions, which was as minimal as he expected. The guards weren’t too surprised to find Grodal dead in the bathhouse.

  He thought about getting rid of Rakina as well, intending to recreate her and letting her go. She had lost months of her time and would be completely disoriented to find herself in a completely different kingdom. Recreating her in the castle didn’t seem like a good choice. That would be a second weird incident to have happened this night.

  He decided to use her to secure the next assimilation, a high courtesan.

  He hovered over the castle for a few weeks, spying on the overall activity in the location that he wanted to infiltrate.

  Haelbrad the Vaalthorenian king kept his royal courtesans in a separate section inside the inner castle district. The pleasure sector was guarded by the same elite warriors that the King used for his own protection. The area was strictly prohibited for men.

  Recruits were screened once every six days. Young women attended these selection rituals, presenting themselves in their best appearance, optimized with hominid fertility markers. The failure rate seemed to be quite high. The rare ones that got selected were given positions as maids for the existing courtesans, living in a separate set of buildings, as they learned the skills of their trade.

  There were distinct tiers to them. The young recruits engaged in pleasure-related activities as directed by the more established courtesans, while the high courtesans who were claimed by nobles were more involved in politics than pleasure. It was a game of maintaining influence while providing an irreplaceable service, a perfect machine for the Vaalthorenian king to keep his nobles in line.

  Finding a high courtesan by themselves proved to be a difficult thing. They were always surrounded by maids and other courtesans while inside the pleasure sector. It was even worse outside the sector, as they were always in the company of some noble.

  He had to create a situation to isolate one long enough to assimilate. He considered ambushing one in the bath or in the latrine. Women were prone to emit shrill screams more readily than men. He had to make sure to wear a non-threatening disguise.

  After observing the inner workings of the pleasure sector for a few more days, Balor turned into Rakina. He gave her an appropriate outfit, a light green silky dress with quite a lot of skin on display. His plan was very simple.

  He wanted to ambush a high Courtesan in the bath. The latrine was a bad idea because it seemed to be a purely private affair. Barging on anyone during that activity would result in a shrill scream, whether woman or man. The bath was easier to infiltrate as a maid.

  He couldn’t wear the disguise for long because everyone knew everyone else in the pleasure sector. It was only a matter of time until Rakina was detected as someone who shouldn’t be there.

  He picked the youngest of the high courtesans, the one Carther occasionally wanted for his personal matters. He didn’t summon her frequently. It only happened once every few weeks.

  The plan worked fluidly as he planned. He found the high courtesan named Vercessa in the bathtub when he brought her a new dress to wear as a maid girl. This time, he bolted the door shut before he started. Varcessa didn’t notice the difference in her maid.

  He walked up to her, grabbed her by the head, and drowned her in the paralyzing blue light. This assimilation was the cleanest yet, hidden behind a locked door in private quarters.

  Varcessa’s memories and life experience provided a lot of information about Vaalthorenian nobility that was invaluable. Carther had been using her to spy on other nobles, creating an underground faction within the pleasure sector, a network of trusted courtesans.

  Balor got out of the bath as Varcessa after dispersing her soul matter around him. This disguise was going to take a lot of time. Carther’s plan involved the imminent conquest of Karatoca and all the settlements.

  He’s planning to create the largest possible army for Haelbrad. This will be interesting.

  It was going to take years.

  Luckily, Balor could always sleep.

  Six years passed before Carther’s plan came to fruition. Balor set the parameters of his slumber only to wake up in Varcessa’s body during meetings with Carther or Haelbrad. There were 734 instances of those during the six years.

  Each meeting served as a status report to Balor, who got to witness plans, their failures, and successes. Carther used more nefarious plots than bandits to bring Karatoca down. He sowed seeds of rebellion in the settlements, sparked religious disputes, and heightened ethnic tensions.

  At the end, Haelbrad marched into Karatoca with a quarter of his forces, annihilated the nobility and their loyalists, and claimed every settlement for himself. Balor only saw the invasion through the eyes of a high courtesan, which limited his perspective.

  He was more focused on the Dark Lord angle and how this point in the Veilthorn story resulted in the ghost serpent’s death.

  The first hint of an answer to this question emerged as a training exercise ten years after the conquest of Karatoca.

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  Haelbrad had multiplied his forces tenfold by recruiting young men from the settlements. Carther advised him to use the young woman as well. They established a separate school of long-range archery for female hominids.

  A different type of school came about when Haelbrad employed his scholars to research the effectiveness of magics in the military. So far, the use had been limited to augmenting weapons with elemental effects. Channeling ghost serpent’s magics required concentration and discipline, two aspects that weren’t easy to cultivate in hot-headed young men.

  Carther came up with a school of magics that had no implicit restriction of genders. Significant resources were invested in research and development of magics and new ways to use them in warfare.

  Haelbrad was willing to trade such research with the distant kingdom of Petrah, under a mutual agreement. Carther was a key figure in getting the hermit king of that kingdom to agree. This accelerated the progress tremendously. As it turned out, Petrah had been relying more on magics than muscles behind the closed gates of their kingdom.

  An elemental system was established, and the school of magics began producing individuals who used magics instead of weapons.

  Balor had lain in slumber inside Varcessa for the majority of those ten years. Having served both Carther and Haelbrad, she had climbed to the highest political echelon and had become nobility herself.

  He woke up abruptly at a huge event. Varcessa was sitting alongside Haelbrad and Carther, overlooking a training ground with a thousand recruits. Balor’s soul matter quickly flooded him with the necessary context, painting a full picture from the background information.

  This was the last training exercise, the culmination of Carther’s entire life’s work up to this point.

  It wasn’t the grandness of the event that woke him up from his decade-long slumber.

  It was an item.

  “…this is the key to our success?” Haelbrad asked, inspecting a red stone on a silver tray. It had been brought here by a group of scholars from the school of magics, who were kneeling before the king.

  “Yes, my king. This is the key to everything,” Carther said proudly. “Extensive research has been conducted with this material; it surpassed all our expectations.”

  Balor gazed at the red crystal. It made him uneasy. The stone’s interior structure shifted as light filtered through it. There was something about it that screamed danger, and he had to know what earthly crystal could make a serpent feel that way.

  “Pardon me, lord Carther, but what is it?” he asked, fanning his cleavage as he gazed apprehensively at the crystal. “I’ve never seen a gem like it…”

  “Ha! gem?!” Carther laughed. “That, my dear Varcessa, is the most dangerous gem in the world. I’m pleased to inform you that we’ve discovered a mine shaft full of it. My king, allow me to demonstrate,” Carther said, snapping his fingers at the scholars.

  The servants rolled a wooden table with a lot of rodents packed in a fine mesh cage. These rodents looked rabid, already cannibalizing each other.

  Balor let out a feminine gasp, acting his part as Varcessa.

  “This better be worth it, Carther, don’t tell me you dirtied my floor with this abomination… for nothing,” Haelbrad said, leaning in with an indignant smile.

  “You’ll be pleased, my king,” Carther said with a confident grin. An old scholar brought an apparatus that looked like a lantern with a bigger shard of red at its center.

  “These creatures before us are all the Dark Lord’s manipulations. We found them in the outskirt settlements, a sign of his growing influence across the river,” Carther said, waving his hand at the cage of rabid rodents.

  Balor could see a purple sheen to the blood oozing from some of the creatures. They were like the Zartiga he killed with a bow. The rodents would’ve been used to spread diseases or to destroy crops, another vector of pressure by the ghost serpent.

  The old man carrying the red lantern brought it closer to the cage.

  Rodents went haywire inside the cage, screeching like sirens as they tried to claw and bite their way out of the cage. The creatures gathered as far away from the red lantern as possible, killing each other just to escape faster. The old man brought the lantern to a corner where one rodent lay dying. He placed the lantern right next to it, and the rodent bubbled up and exploded with a pop.

  “Now that is interesting,” Haelbrad said, leaning back on his chair. “It repels Dark Lord’s magic? What is it called?”

  “The locals who discovered it call it bloodstone. Scholars called it Ingium. They tried the same thing with a Zartiga. Stabbing the creature with a shard caused a much bigger explosion. It killed two students, along with the said Zartiga.”

  What is that crystal made of? Is it part of Ghost Serpent’s magics?

  Balor gazed at the small rock on the silver tray in front of him. He wanted to dissect it with his soul matter, but it felt dangerous. The crystal had exploded another serpent’s soul matter upon contact. There was no reason for a serpent to introduce a mineral that could kill it. That didn’t serve a world-making goal that Balor could think of.

  “This seems to be its most rudimentary use case,” Catrther continued as the old man tormented the rodents to death with the red lantern. “We’re uncovering new uses for it every day.”

  “Good work, Carther. The school of magics continues to be the greatest investment. With this blood stone in our hands, we may defeat the Dark Lord once and for all!” Haelbrad said cheerfully.

  Saying this, the king reached for the small crystal on the silver tray.

  “I’d advise against touching it, my king,” Carther said, putting his hand over the tray. “It is said to induce nightmares and strange whispers.”

  “How is it mined then?” Haelbrad asked, puzzled.

  “Effects take time, and we cycle through men. Just to be on the safe side.”

  “No harm in just inspecting it, surely?” Haelbrad asked, reaching under Carther’s hand and picking the stone.

  “Be quick, my king. I don’t want you to take such risks.”

  “Don’t worry, Carther,” Haelbrad laughed, holding the crystal against the light. He inspected it for a while with great interest and placed it on the tray. “Craft my own weapon with this material. I’ll sleep better knowing Dark Lord’s tendrils can’t reach me.”

  “I’ll see it done as soon as we find a safe way to integrate it, my king.”

  “Pardon me, Lord, my king. May I inspect the stone as well? I find it fascinating.”

  “Feeling brave today, Varcessa?” Haelbrad asked with a smile.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Carther said, presenting the tray. He had no reservations about letting a courtesan touch it. He was only concerned with the safety of the king.

  Balor rubbed his fingers together and touched the stone in an elegant grip.

  In a split second, his world turned upside down. He felt the ground collapse under him as red clouds burst in his eyes. Innumerable visions and whispers passed through him, ripping through his consciousness like a sea of exploding stars. His fingers twisted and bubbled, skin cracking up his forearm, revealing the starry soul matter underneath.

  Haelbrad leapt off his chair as his guards dashed forth to protect him. Carther fell down the stairs. He screamed in pain, fully turning into Varcessa for a moment, his mind numbed.

  He saw eyes glaring at him through the red clouds, unblinking, malicious. The many eyes of something much larger than a serpent. Something older, deeper, and more corrupt than anything he’d ever imagined.

  A voice thumped in his head, uttered in the language of serpents.

  EAT. EAT. EAT.

  The red fog cleared, revealing a twisted shape that the eyes belonged to. A shape that horrified him to the last particle of his soul matter.

  A dragon curled up into a ball the size of a moon. It had many mouths with rows and rows of teeth. Each mouth uttered the same word over and over again.

  EAT. EAT. EAT.