Crossover: Monthly Character Templates in the Multiverse Chat Group — Chapter 91

Chapter 91: The Demon King Encounters a Foreign Agent

Frez touched down on the barren earth with Ho’olheyak close behind. The moment her boots hit the dirt, the Feathered Serpent’s expression tightened into a grimace.

She had anticipated Kazdel to be a wasteland, but the reality before her defied even the lowest expectations. It barely qualified as a mobile city. Urban planning was a foreign concept here. The skyline was a chaotic mess of illegal structures stacked haphazardly upon one another, riddled with structural errors and choked by jagged Originium clusters sprouting from the very foundations. Calling it a city felt like an insult to the word.

Yet, amidst the architectural disaster, a strange order prevailed. There were no corpses bleeding out in the gutters. No gangs brawling over scraps. Heavily armored patrols of the Royal Court Army marched through the winding streets, their presence enforcing a strict, brutal peace. More, the faces of the pedestrians lacked the hollow, dead-eyed stare of the doomed. There was a faint spark in their eyes. A glimmer of hope.

Scaffolding climbed the sides of newly erected buildings. Workers hauled materials back and forth, shouting over the din of construction. Not a single one wore a hard hat. The sheer volume of safety violations on display would have given a Columbian inspector an instant heart attack.

“At least it doesn’t look entirely hopeless,” Ho’olheyak remarked, brushing a speck of dust from her shoulder.

“It is still a disaster,” Frez replied, his gaze sweeping over the bustling work sites. “If I hadn’t brought Siracusa to heel and drained the vaults of their mafia families and corporate elites to feed Kazdel, this place would be a graveyard.”

As they handled the uneven streets, the vitality of the Sarkaz people became even more apparent. It was a stark contrast to the suffocating despair Frez had witnessed upon his first arrival.

The massive civil engineering projects provided more than just infrastructure. They provided wages. They gave the Sarkaz the means to purchase food from the newly opened grain shops, all fully stocked with imports from the Yan Empire.

Frez’s strategy was simple and ruthless. Priority one was filling stomachs. The construction sites offered both meals and lodging. Once the factories were operational, the employment rate would skyrocket. A working populace was a stable populace.

Labor guaranteed a baseline of human dignity. With a reason to wake up in the morning and food on the table, the Sarkaz would naturally shift their focus toward building their lives rather than stewing in ancient hatreds.

Having absorbed the general state of the capital, Ho’olheyak followed Frez into the towering structure of the Military Committee.

The instant she crossed the threshold, the temperature in the room plummeted. Dozens of hostile eyes locked onto her, the sheer bloodlust in the air causing a cold sweat to prickle at the back of her neck.

Duq’arael stepped from the shadows, his crimson eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. “Your Highness. You brought a Feathered Serpent into our halls?”

“I did,” Frez answered, his tone perfectly level. “This is Ho’olheyak. She will be acting as my assistant.”

“You chose a Feathered Serpent?” The Sanguinarch’s voice dripped with aristocratic disdain. “Her ancestors commanded the wind and lightning. They scorched our fields, swept our forefathers into the sky, and watched them plummet to their deaths.”

Frez took his seat at the head of the table. “Tell me, Duq’arael, how many capable administrators exist among the Sarkaz? Look at the nations of this world. Aside from Yan, which of them has not bathed in Kazdel’s blood?”

The Sanguinarch fell silent. It was an obvious truth. The Yan Empire had never launched an offensive against Kazdel. During the era of wandering, Yan had been crippled by the catastrophic battle to suppress Sui. Following that disaster, they had sealed their borders, focusing entirely on internal recovery and ignoring the endless wars consuming Terra.

Even Higashi had taken a piece of the Sarkaz. The God-kin Overlord of that eastern land was the very traitor who had turned against Quilon, only to be cut down by him in the end.

“Capable minds are indeed rare,” Duq’arael conceded, his tone stiff. “And while Yan has not invaded us, they currently occupy our ancestral lands.”

The ancient Vampire’s hostility toward foreign races remained as potent as ever. The fact that Ho’olheyak belonged to a species with a blood feud against the Teekaz only deepened his disgust.

Yet, his loyalty to the Demon King superseded his personal prejudices. If Frez commanded it, the Sanguinarch would obey.

“You performed exceptionally well during the strike on Laterano,” Frez said, shifting the topic. “You crippled their power structure exactly as planned. I have been considering an appropriate reward for your efforts.”

Frez had initially considered gifting Danso’s relic to the Sanguinarch, but decided against it. Duq’arael might interpret the gesture as a veiled provocation.

Before Frez could finalize an offer, Duq’arael bowed slightly. “I require no personal reward, Your Highness. However, if you truly wish to grant me a boon, I ask for a position. I wish to recommend an outstanding junior from the Sanguinarch Court for your service.”

“A position?” Frez leaned back. “Explain.”

Duq’arael’s crimson gaze flicked toward Ho’olheyak, a mocking smirk playing at the corner of his pale lips. “I harbor deep doubts regarding the competence of an outsider. Therefore, I request you accept a second assistant, one of our own Vampires. You have my word, Your Highness, she has received the absolute finest education our court can provide. Her talents in intelligence gathering are unmatched.”

‘And she is beautiful,’ Duq’arael added in his mind.

By the exacting aesthetic standards of the Sanguinarch, the young woman from his clan was a rare prize. The elders had nurtured her carefully. While she rarely took to the front lines, her work within Kazdel’s intelligence network, the Rose Riverside, had been instrumental in feeding information to Babel during the civil war.

In Duq’arael’s eyes, Ho’olheyak’s skills were highly suspect, though he admitted the Feathered Serpent possessed a certain exotic beauty. She was likely just a passing amusement for the Demon King.

A supreme monarch was entitled to his pleasures. As far as the Sanguinarch was concerned, His Highness was merely playing with his food.

But a true King needed a proper Sarkaz queen. Wiš’adel was entirely out of the question. The moment that explosive-obsessed woman picked up her launcher, her brain ceased to function.

His Highness was of age. Placing Entelechia by his side would allow a natural bond to form. Even if romance failed to blossom, the Vampire girl would serve as a perfect countermeasure to keep the foreign agent in check.

Duq’arael was terrified of history repeating itself. The tragedy of Theresa haunted him.

In the beginning, Theresa had been a wise and capable King. Despite her mixed-blood origins, her mastery of Originium Arts and her political acumen were obvious. But as time passed, it was as if a slow-acting poison had rotted her mind. She became obsessed with outsiders, alienating her own people.

The civil war should never have happened. Theresa’s blind faith in foreigners had practically shoved the Sarkaz populace into Theresis’s waiting arms. She should have purged the outsiders, or at the very least, exiled them, focusing all of Babel’s resources on elevating the Sarkaz. Babel had existed for years, yet they had produced a pitiful number of native talents. Even if the Sarkaz were viewed as uncivilized brutes, they surely had enough potential to raise a few brilliant minds in the decades since the fall of Gaul.

Instead, the true prodigies all hailed from the Royal Courts, completely detached from Theresa’s ideals.

Duq’arael would not allow Frez to walk that same doomed path.

“Very well. Have her report to me later,” Frez said, breaking the Sanguinarch’s train of thought. If the Vampire wanted to cash in his reward for a simple staff appointment, Frez saw no reason to refuse. “But if all you want is a desk job for a subordinate, doesn’t that make your efforts in Laterano a bit of a waste?”

“How could it ever be a waste, my respected King?” Duq’arael offered a terrifying, blood-chilling smile. “Delivering absolute punishment to our enemies and traitors is my life’s greatest desire. I savored every second of that hunt. I must thank you for allowing me to stay behind. Simply snapping the necks of those Laterano whelps with my bare hands would never have satisfied my thirst.”

“Suit yourself. I will take Ho’olheyak to get acquainted with the administrative work. Send your candidate to my office when she is ready.”

“As you command.”

Duq’arael dissolved into a swirling shadow of blood, vanishing from the Military Committee in an instant. He materialized leagues away, stepping out of the crimson mist directly in front of his chosen candidate.

He looked down at her, his voice dropping all pretense of aristocratic politeness.

“Entelechia. I want you to assist His Highness, and you will fulfill every single one of his wishes.”