The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

The expedition left Grand Meridian before dawn.

Austin Veyron was not escorting everyone.

That was argument one.

Freehold had eight nights before the First Feast and an entire city of routes that still needed protection. The Hollow Crown was north of the old industrial limit, and every scout mark left beyond that wall was guiding the construction of the Hunger Emperor’ road. Every fighter wanted to march north. Every route keeper wanted the expedition protected. Every shelter in Grand Meridian had good reasons to beg Austin Veyron not to go.

He asked the ledger teams how many they could spare.

They offered volunteers, not promises extorted through force.

Marcus would protect Freehold routes with Elena and Nahlia. The hospital route team would remain behind to anchor the portable roots in place. Former wardens would hold down the inner gates until the barricades for the city limits were obsolete. Austin Veyron would lead the expedition north with Rin, Veyra, Calder, Vharra, Maelis, Sarielle, Seven, and a small group of scouts willing to travel beyond city limits.

No one was obligated to volunteer.

The edge of town revealed the first black road slicing through the pavement beneath an abandoned overpass.

It was stoneless. A single trail of dried hunger coated with horned crowns pressed into the asphalt like guideposts. Parallel to it ran a white portable root path, two scribes carrying its ledger between them while scouts kept watch behind.

”The Crown Road,” Vharra said.

Calder pointed at the black crowns stamped into its route. ”It is trying to funnel us.”

”Then we avoid it,” Austin Veyron replied.

The road answered.

Black roots pierced through the concrete under their feet, pinning half a dozen civilian trucks between pillars of the overpass. Civilians. Outsiders. Families from northern blocks fleeing south when settlement marks began twisting across Freehold districts.

The Emperor used them for bait.

Rin surged into action before anyone else moved.

Veyra swung at exposed roots while Maelis carved a clear path across the street with ember blades. Sarielle flung silver fire at the convoy to distract the black growth long enough for Rin and Veyra to cut its tie into the Crown Road. Austin Veyron and Calder sliced the feeding tendrils apart, weaken them without devouring the mass at its heart.

Civilian drivers accepted evacuation routes along the white portable root and fled south of the city.

”Avoiding them isn’t an option,” one of the scouts called from the overpass. ”They’re bringing more people from the north.”

Austin Veyron watched them do it again: destroy the anchor beneath the road, devour its power source, and erase the route in seconds.

He refused the easy fight.

”Move them south,” he said. ”Our job is to hold this line until the road is clear.”

The convoy advanced.

The road attacked.

Massive eight-legged mouth sprouted beneath the street, hungry enough to swallow one of the trucks whole. Veyra stabbed her sword through its upper jaw. Rin cut the roots tethering it to ground. Calder punched its command knot with a seed blast focused small enough to obliterate it without hurting the civilians packed inside, and Austin Veyron tapped into DEVOUR minimally to mark every person who crossed their point of no return.

The road beast exploded into ash.

The last of the trucks passed over the overpass.

One of the drivers leaned out of her passenger window. ”Why did you stop for us?”

Austin Veyron stared down at the white route line still pulsing beneath the road.

”Because you asked for help.”

The convoy disappeared south.

Ahead of them stretched the Hollow Crown Road.

Marker after marker painted the black trail with Sable’ hunger sigil: her horned crown stamped into stone. Beside it lay the shattered remnants of a silver bracelet bracelet too small for an adult wrist.

Seven pulled up its metalwork signature.

”Potential candidate residue,” he muttered.

Vharra froze mid-stride.

”The Emperor isn’t waiting just for Austin Veyron,” she whispered. ”He is gathering another seed.”

Something dark loomed ahead of them on the road north.

Past the old industrial containment line, Sable carried another potential candidate into the Hollow Crown.

The bracelet’ corrupted data guided them through the overpass and into a train yard littered with collapsed freight cars. The Hollow Crown Road cut directly between two of the train tracks, but it was hardly the only path available. White root markers from the portable ledger blazed a service trail between them, a narrow path hacked through wreckage.

Austin Veyron took it.

The black road sensed his movements.

Road wardens sculpted from hunger manifestations attacked from abandoned freight cars. They weren’t predators this time, just flesh and stone shaped into weapons to funnel the expedition back toward Sable’ intended destination.

”Don’t let them divide us,” Austin Veyron ordered.

Every turn cascaded into the next. Rin ghosted through cargo cars, shouting path of retreat through the chaos. Veyra held off three wardens at a time while Maelis forged ember cages to redirect the hunger manifestations away from the portable root line without boxing in her teammates. Sarielle protected the scribes, whose route maintenance was rejuvenating the white trail by rewriting their markings every time a black incursion copied them.

Calder found the warden command trail hidden amongst the train tracks.

”It’s not guarding the road,” he said. ”It’s trying to trap us.”

Their target was still nearby.

Austin located the girl trapped inside the train wreck using the silver bracelet’ location signature. She sat curled beneath a network of black roots with her eyes clenched shut, and though she was positioned perfectly to be cocooned by more road wardens the potential candidate tether had not broken containment.

His Devour seed ignited with purposeful recognition.

’POTENTIAL CANDIDATE DETECTED.’

The girl peeked through her prison. ”Are you the monster they told me would find us?”

”No,” Austin replied, crouching next to the trapped child. ”I’m here to help.”

Sable hovered above them.

”You can’t save her without disturbing the road,” she warned, stepping through the roof of the cargo car. ”Cut into her cocoon, and every warden in this quadrant will tear this place apart. Devour her, and you will scar her with your hunger.”

Austin stared into Lia’ eyes.

Indoctrination was ownership either way, but sparing her this fight meant accepting the easy answer.

”What’s your name?” he asked.

”I- I don’t know,” she stammered.

”Do you want us to free you?”

Her response came in small breaths. ”Yes.”

The portable ledger consumed her answer.

White roots exploded through the floorboards, and Nahlia’ voice echoed through the team relay from Grand Meridian, carried by the route they shared. ”Choice acknowledged. Devour took me when I was ten, and I will not allow that to happen to another child.”

”This is Lia,” Austin said. ”Create a path, and we’ll work our way out before the wardens swarm.”

Her choice affirmed, Nahlia burrowed into the structural devoured root beneath their feet faster than they could walk. The train yard erupted around them. Wardens converged from every angle.

Veyra and Rin defended their ingress and egress while Calder sliced through the command webbing entrapping them. Maelis burned away the black Crown Road anchored to the cargo car. Austin sliced through Lia’ cocoon of roots, feeding not on DEVOUR but the white route Nahlia conjured to free her.

Lia collapsed into his arms.

It didn’t matter. They were already too late to warn her.

The portable route flared above them and the sheer force of Lia combined with the scribes threw them south and towards safety. Every expedition member retreated backward through the rail yard so the black road could never trap another child curious enough to follow willingly.

On the opposite side of the rail yard sat Sable beneath a halo of light sculpted into a crown.

”You’ve delayed the Feast,” she said. ”But you’ve also shown the Emperor what you hold dear.”

Before Austin could step forward, she vanished.

They might not be able to protect every child promised to the Emperor in one fight.

But they could walk. They could keep walking until he took another child and branded their future without asking.