The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

Chapter 33 — Chain- Core Wound

He wanted both.

Austin stood from the black stone with three chains still burrowed into his body. Green burns blazed along every point of contact with his skin. The chains didn’t just wound him. Malrec spoke through the wounds. Words dipped in the barest touch of authority lanced directly into his nerves.

Kneel. Yield. Be counted.

Austin laughed through blood.

Malrec leaned against a pillar across the challenge ground. His chest wound was closing slowly, damp curls of green wrapping back onto his chain- core. ”You hear it, don’ you? That is what power sounds like when it knows your name.”

”It sounds desperate.”

The lord reached out with his free hand.

The chains buried in Austin’s neck and leg bent at once. Root armor sprouted from beneath his skin, straining to weave around the metal knots, but Malrec’s authority was keeping the barbs alive. Everywhere they touched hurt too much to think.

[Critical damage detected.]

[Regenerative Mass insufficient.]

[Optional evolution: Root- Graft Overdrive.]

[Estimated humanity loss: 4.7%.]

The hunger whispered come down. Accept his gift.

It painted the future: the skeleton of the evolution taking shape beneath his ribs, black roots drinking blood on the ground where he knelt, every laceration blooming into another mouth. He would be harder to kill. He would be closer to victory.

He would also be closer to Malrec.

Austin dug his claws into the stone until his fingertips broke skin.

”No full evolution,” he whispered to himself.

Malrec heard him anyways. ”You know you’re just begging the point now?”

”I have direction.”

Austin cracked DEVOUR open around Malrec’s chain in his side.

He didn’t take it whole. Instead he slid into the link.

Contract sense pulled his awareness through the burning wound, past the instinct to pierce and archive and into the central command core that drove every chain inside Malrec’s body. It felt alive; broken and burning bright enough to light his way to the green pulse protected behind the lords ribs.

Malrec’s eyes sharpened.

”You tracing me?” He asked.

”Seemed rude not to.”

Austin let himself get pulled.

Malrec clicked his fingers. Links exploded into the space between them. Austin hit the closest wall shoulder- first. Root armor flaked away where he hit. Chains wrapped around his arms, throat, and waist trying to pin him against the wall.

He accepted a taste of the evolution.

Roots burst from beneath his skin and punched through the gaps left between links. Enough to gain leverage. Not enough to cover him completely.

He ripped forward,links slicing his arms open.

[Root- Graft Overdrive: initiated.]

[Humanity: 84.1%.]

The number blinked at him.

Malrec punched him in the face.

Austin staggered backwards, rolled on the ground, and came up with one eye swollen shut. The lord was on him already. Chain armor sprouted over Malrec’s forearm faster than Austin could see it reform. At Malrec’s wrist, spear points emerged where his fingers should have been.

”You think pretending to choose makes you special?” Malrec asked through razor teeth.

Austin gripped that blade between both of his claws. Twisted metal screamed. The lord pushed through the first inch with relative ease.

”You keep people around because they’re afraid of you,” Austin spat out.

”Fear’ lets honest.”

”You keep them around because you can’t force anyone to stay.”

Malrec paused. That bite went deeper than the blade.

His expression twisted.

”Eyes front.” Austin said, before shearing one claw free. He bit down on the chain- blade near its base. Command Bite activated on reflex.

”Open.”

The blade snapped apart.

Forced himself into Malrec’s gut.

Green life poured free from the wound in both their chests and spilled across the black stone floor.

His focus drifted to the core. Every piece of authority between him and Malrec narrowed to the small point of light kicking at the end of that pulsing chain. Austin could feel it calling to him now, screaming through the laceration in his side to BE CONSUMED MAKE HIM STRONGER.

Malrec roared somewhere behind the clouds of color eating Austin’s vision. Six chains burrowed into his back. Anchor chains. They dropped him onto both knees.

Your welcome.

Become him. Eat everything.

The voice screamed inside his head. Fight it. Resist.

Austin did neither.

Six perfect links wrapped themselves around his own limbs, pinning Austin onto the ground. The temptation screamed inside his head. Take. Accept. Yield. Become less human so you can have more of him.

He almost listened.

Elena’s hand on his sleeve. Seven soldiers, staying because they were ordered to, or perhaps because they still chose to. Rin kneeling before him without need of chains or pain. How to stand in the gap between a faction and hostages.

Austin could turn himself into a monster.

He would never let himself become Malrec.

His own hands found one of the chains drilling into his back. He twisted it free, ignoring both pain and principle and buried it in Malrec’s ribs.

Malrec hesitated.

Root armor crawled up the chain slow enough for Austin to watch.

The blood pumping through it was his now. The devil followed in its wake.

[Evolving: Territorial Defiance.]

[Fused authority tag: Malrec’.]

Malrec snarled, ”What the hell are you doing?”

”Mapping my territory.”

With that, Austin let Malrec’s chain reel him closer. Hands against the base of Malrec’s throat. The lord raised his own arms.

Six clouds of chains ripped through the air to crush Austin in their center.

Austin was faster.

His claws slashed through Malrec’s core- shell. Pain exploded up his arms. Heat. Green light. Malrec tried to claw him away with scream choked through barbed bonds: arch, obey, do not kill what belongs to me.

Austin answered with nothing.

He didn’t consume Malrec’s core. Not whole. Just enough to survive. A shard small enough to fit in a human heart. Austin squeezed that bite of life into the emptiness inside him.

The ground trembled.

Malrec came apart screaming.

[Territorial Defiance acquired.]

[Lords authority now under adversary evaluation.]

[Challenge interrupted.]

Every chain underfoot relaxed. Warriors embedded into the stone paused mid-motion, claws mid-air. Austin staggered backwards on blood- drunk legs. The core fragment tucked tight against his ribs pulsed at the center of his chest. Malrec stumbled backwards the same way, both hands out at the shredded ruin beneath his ribs.

For just a moment the lord looked broken.

The world split in two.

A message crawled across the sealed floor, bold letters wide enough for even the lowest soldiers to read across the boundary.

[Territorial Claim Override: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.]

[Mandatory Condition: Core Involvement.]

[Noncompliance: forfeiture of hierarchical claim.]

Demons screamed beyond the seal. Beyond where even Austin dared to look. The crowd had stopped watching a territorial dispute. Everyone inside arena could feel the new rules restructuring the challenge from the inside out. If Malrec lost, his authority would shatter with him. Entire sections of the district would become un-chainable.

Malrec saw it. Saw his own weakness spattered across the ground between them and understood why he still clung to scraps of life that Austin could swallow whole. Demons poured into the arena moving as one to stand against the healthy enemy at the center of it all.

He had to build them a home. Keep fighting until they forgot why they followed him at all.

Austin forced himself upright. The remaining tendrils of Root- Graft burrowed under his skin where he couldn’t see but he shoved them clear of his throat and face anyways. The crowd would have more than enough reason to reject him. Beasts did not carve victories from their benefactors’ chests.

”You paved this city with contracts,” Austin yelled, voice barely carrying over the chaos around him.

”You promised to keep them whole!”

”I promised to keep them inside. Obey and you live. Disobey and we bury you where you fall.” He kept his voice down when he spoke this last part. Only Malrec needed to hear it.

The wound around Malrec’ core slammed shut.

”I suppose now you’ll demand they adore you from their graves.”

Green light flooded the arena.

Malrec charged.

The first tide of black roots recoiled from Malrec’ footsteps. Second wave hit from every corner of the crowd, pulling soldiers out of formation and into rallying points across the floor. Malrec brought the war home. Entire divisions dragged from across the district to surround Austin’sPosition-E. Only Seven remained within arms reach of where Austin had fallen.

Territorial Defiance surged beneath Austin’s skin. Gift from a god. Six demons pulled him into their camp with fingers scrabbling at his ankles.

Home.

He was home.

[Devour inactive.]

[DEVOUR cannot accept further input until stabilized.]

Austin didn’t move.