Sovereign of the Karmic System

The battle was coming to a conclusion. Most of the monsters that had been attracted by Sewah’s power had already perished, while the rest were still struggling to put an injury on his massive and extremely resistant body.

Injured, but still alive, the demons looked on without any intention on helping out. Sewah’s attacks were too powerful, and in their eyes, there was no reason why he would be able to distinguish them from the monsters, the moment they would join the fray. So, after finishing off all of the monsters left, the large number of demonic cultivators approached the area where Sewah was fighting, and formed a circle around him.. Helping only if required, but in the end, aside from killing one or two monsters that were sent past the barrier of demons, no help was required.

After a few minutes of fighting, the last of the monsters was killed, leaving Sewah alone, and standing on an area of which nothing but dust and the corpses of the monsters remained.

The sight of him standing in his berserker state for a good minute after the end of the battle, was enough to give a scare to the many demonic cultivators, who wished all but to face him while in the state he was currently in. Their worries were set aside, however, after Sewah’s body began to shrink back to his previous size, and his eyes became clear once again.

Now sane, Sewah turned to look at his surroundings. He was new to the skills of the owner of his body, and he wanted to make sure that he hadn’t killed anyone he shouldn’t have killed.

Standing around Sewah, was the commander of the forces of the faction of the beastmasters, along with the young woman, her wolf companion, and the chief of the aerial division.

When the first factions of hell had decided to leave to explore their former home, a war between factions had started. The two coalitions were made-up of the factions who wanted to keep hell as an isolated world in which no powerful group from the outside universe could set foot on, and the factions that had grown arrogant enough to claim that there was nothing to fear in the powers of the outside universe, and that their arrival to hell was a gift that had allowed for their people to evolve into a superior species, which was made to be stronger than the weak humankind of which they were once part of.

Part of those who wanted to preserve hell, was the faction of the beastmasters. Their main worry was that the powers of the outside universe, due to their massively larger amounts of resources, could have been able to progress faster than they did.. and that if they opened hell to humanity, they would ultimately end up being once again kicked out of their home, just like their forefathers had been, uncountable years before.

Amongst the numerous factions who wished to challenge the universe, were the Law of Mimicry, the Church of Damnation, and a faction called ’The Ungovernable Bunch’.

The Ungovernable Bunch was a faction made out of all of the groups and families of raiders, isolated tribes, and overall rowdy groups of demons. Naturally, the Oni tribe was part of this faction.

At the time of the war, The Ungovernable Bunch and the faction of the beastmasters had engaged in battle more than once due to the proximity of their territory. To this battle, had taken place both the commander of the army of the beastmaster faction, and Ro’ah.. Commonly known as the leader of the Oni tribe.

The two had never truly engaged in battle, but they had been aware of each other’s presence for the whole duration of the war, which had ended only after the appointed leader of the Ungovernable Bunch had been slain by the Demon Lord that lead the beastmaster faction, and her companion, a legendary demonic beast who the entirety of hell’s inhabitants knew as ’The Lupa’.

The war came to an end when the leaders of the numerous factions agreed on keeping hell closed, but only under the condition that, the faction who wished to leave, would be allowed to.

After the end of the war, the beastmaster faction had been given the role of guarding the gates of hell. The death of the demon lord of the Ungovernable Bunch, on the other hand, had caused for the faction to disband, only to regroup once every hundred years to participate to the signing of the demonic pact as a single faction.

A very long time had passed since the war, and thanks to the meeting that happened once every hundred years, the beastmasters and the former members of the ungovernable bunch had managed to find a way to erase their enmity.. And that way, was to ignore each other’s existence.

For the commander of the beastmaster army it was a great surprise to hear that the leader of the oni demons had decided to walk the pilgrimage alongside them, but since the representative of the Cruga family had vouched for him, he had allowed it.

However, what was an even bigger shock to him, was the power that the Oni Demon possessed. Only a hundred years had passed since their last encounter, and while he knew that the Ro’ah he once knew had become powerful enough to kill one of his rivals in duel, he certainly did not expect that his power could have grown so wide.. To a point where he believed that the only demon more powerful than him within the convoy, was the demon lord himself.

The young demoness quickly noticed that the commander was in a state of shock. So she took the initiative, and stepped forward. On her face was a polite smile which matched the gracefulness of the words she pronounced "Oni Leader Ro’ah, we greatly appreciate your help in this battle. We don’t know how many more would have died if you had not intervened." she said with politeness.

Next to her was her four legged companion, whose mane burned like hellish fire, and whose eyes remained pointed at Sewah’s body. Its size was bigger than when Daniel had saw it the first time, but smaller than it was during the fight. Now, it was standing at the height of a young demoness.

It was not the first time for Sewah to hear the name of the demon whose body he had possessed. The first time, had been when he had shown up to the borders of Animalicus, when one of the patrols had recognized him, and called him by his name. It then took a really difficult and awkward conversation with Eken, to find out that Ro’ah was the name of the leader of the Oni Tribe.

Not interested in other people’s gratitude, Sewah waved his large hand casually, and said, "No problem." He then turned to look at the massive spherical storm that was enraging a few hundred kilometers away from the convoy, before setting his gaze to the top of the volcano that was relatively closer to their position.

Since Sewah had no intention of having a conversation, the young demoness turned to look at the commander, and the leader of the aerial division. She then asked, "What kind of monsters were they? Anything that you have ever encountered before?"

These questions were finally able to wake the commander up from his distracted state.. But instead of responding, he turned to look at the demons grouped around, and said with a commanding tone, "Go back to your caravans, and make a death count. Report to me as soon as you finish." He then turned to look back at the young demoness, and added, "No, milady. These monsters were part of our forces.. Something caused them to transform into these hideous beings after their deaths. The closest I have ever seen to this was the puppeteer faction, but they are our allies, and their controlling of dead bodies never caused them to transform like this."

"What did my gra-The Demon Lord say about this?" Asked the young demoness after spending a few moments in confusion. Her experience was nowhere comparable to that of the commander, so she was the least one of those who could have an explanation for this.

As if remembering something extremely important, the eyes of the commander flashed with worry, before turning to look at the massive spherical storm that was taking place far away from their position.

"The moment I have reported what was happening, the Lord informed me that two demon lords had appeared. He and The Lupa went to encounter them.." He said while trying to find out what was going on in the middle of the storm.

A battle between four beings at a demon lord level, if it took place in the outside universe, would be enough to cause the destruction of a solar system at the very least. However, due to the odd restrictions of Hell, the area of destruction around these four powerful characters had been blocked to the shape of a sphere, inside which the four fought with enough power to turn the whole area into sphere of destruction and mayhem.

The young demoness looked at that direction in worry. Not only because she was worried that the leader of their faction and the demonic beast that accompanied him could lose this fight, but also because he was her grandfather.

However, a strange detail caused her to turn her attention from the spherical storm in the distance, to the standing figure of the oni leader. What was strange was that he was not looking at the battle between the four beings at the demon lord level, but instead, was looking at a volcano a few kilometers away.

"Oni Leader Ro’ah, do you have any idea of what might have happened to them?" She asked with curiosity. For some reason, she had a hunch that Sewah might have known something more than they did.

Of course, Sewah had already recognized the monsters of the parasitic faction. After all, he had spent more than a month stuck in a spaceship with Daniel, Der, and Jerigh while their tried to survive the strange attack.

Nevertheless, he had no intention of spilling the beans. Be it because he was not sure whether revealing this information would hinder Daniel’s plan, or because there was no way for him to explain his encounter with these parasites, without recounting everything else. So he said, "Something tells me that you will know soon.."

Sewah’s words did nothing but deepen the confusion that was clouding the minds of the three demons. It was only after the wolf turned to look at the volcano, that the three demons turned as well, and noticed seven small platforms float in the air.

These seven platforms were slowly moving towards the convoy, and the closer they came, the clearer what they were carrying became.

While five of these platforms were simple slabs of constructed space that were carrying something, the remaining two were cages of dark essence.

One second after the other went by, and along the passing of each of them, came a change in the expression of the three demons. Curiosity, surprise, shock, horror, and sheer confusion could be seen take one the place of the other for a long minute, when finally, the seven platforms landed on the ground in front of them.

Four of the five spatial platforms were carrying the remains of just as many different cultivators, two of which were demons, and two were the carcasses of what looked like a massive worm, and a small ball of mush, both of which were made with what felt like the power of a human cultivator.

The two cages, on the other hand, were carrying a woman in red clothes, and a demon who resembled a walking medieval steel plate armor. Both of them appeared extremely scared, and couldn’t help but take short peeks at the last platform.

Sitting with his legs crossed above this last platform, and with his head resting on his own fist, was Daniel.