Warlock of War: My Ares System

"Despite how much I hate him, I can't say he was a bad teacher. Contrary, he was an incredible teacher and was very intelligent. His training was harsh and inhumane, and as he taught me new skills, I could feel the disgust within me shining towards him slowly rise… but I still can't help but respect his teaching skills… though he's still a shitty person," Cy chuckled before finally moving his queen.

As his queen practically moved to the center of the board, I looked up at him and decided to just castle my king in the corner of my board.

"You were going to tell me about demons, right? How about we stop circling around the topic and get to it," I muttered.

"Well, first of all, demons are ranked by how big their horns are. Some demons may be weaker than you, but if they have bigger horns, that means they're of a superior evolution. Beezlebub said that trait is most common among demonic royals and nobles who reside within the capital of Tartarus,"

"Capital of Tartarus? There is such a thing?" I asked before Cy finally made his next move, but as his rook moved practically all the way across the board, so many openings were created that I began to think he was trying to lure me in.

In just a few seconds, I comprehended all the paths possible that would lead me to a win but also created all the paths that might lead me to my doom.

"Smart…" I chuckled before moving one of my rooks.

"The Capital of Tartarus is called Hade. Not Hades, but Hade. It's just Hades without the 'S.' And basically, it's where Hades resides and where most of the powerful demons who control this netherworld live. It's supposed to be a pretty nice place, but there is tons of slavery… like a lot," Cy muttered before squinting his eyes at the board.

He saw my light smile stretch across my face, and this only made him warier as he knew how smart I could be.

Though, I was sure… he already knew that.

"God dammit…" He muttered under his breath before moving his queen backward, so it wasn't taken, but as I had actually pinned the rook behind, I immediately followed through with my next move.

But, that pin which I had followed through with also led to a check that put Cy's king in danger.

"Check,"

"When did you see this move?" Cy asked, his black eyes beginning to swirl once more as they looked up at me with a suspicious glare.

But, the only reply I gave was a small shrug, causing Cy to shake his head a bit with a light smile that slowly spread across his expression.

He picked up his rook to go block the attack since if I ate it, the king could just follow through and eat my queen.

"Oh, are you sure you wanna do that?" I asked him, making him hesitate just a bit before looking up at me.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm talking about how pitiful your next move will be if you put your rook there… take a broader look at the board," I muttered, and Cy's eyes widened as he saw the suspicious placement of my pieces.

"I'm not falling for your bullshit," Cy muttered, his resolution becoming even stronger than before and eventually placing his rook right where I wanted it to be.

Tuck… Tuck… Tuck… Tuck… Tuck… Tuck… Tuck…

The room was silent as the rest of the game continued in just a few seconds… with me eventually moving a single pawn to end the game.

"Checkmate," I muttered with a large smile, and as we both shook hands, he clicked his tongue in disappointment.

"What could I have done better?"

"Take a longer look at the board and attempt to see further into the future… also, don't let my words reinforce or discredit anything next time. That was probably one of your biggest mistakes," I said before sitting back down on the wooden chair and staring up into the endless rows of books.

"Tch… Anyway, we should continue our conversation on demons now,"

"Agreed," I muttered before relaxing a bit and letting Cy explain pretty much everything he knew, and despite him continuously saying that his knowledge was limited to this subject, he clearly learned a lot from Beezlebub.

"Alright, let's move onto the domains of different demon lords," Cy muttered before using the chessboard as a kind of example. "Satan has the biggest territory that expands for quite a long time, but it only has the capital and a few surrounding towns. It is somewhere close to the center of Tartarus, somewhat near the Capital of Tartarus: Hade, that I'm sure you're already aware of,"

"Is there anything else on his domain?"

"There are a few caves that you could call dungeons since they hold tons of demonic monsters and actually a solid boss, but they aren't within the system, so the only thing you'll receive is experience points… which, I guess, isn't too bad, to be honest,"

"Hmmm… is that all?"

"Pretty much. Now, let's move to Beezlebub's territory, which is always on the move. You'll never find it in the same spot every couple of centuries since he moves it every time Hades complains about his curse, which diseases the land spreading further into the roots of the plants in Tartarus. Tartarus may be hell, but it still has its own ecosystem that most of the inhabitants rely on to eat, drink, and have fun,"

"Seriously? There's an ecosystem down here?"

"Yeah, pretty funny, right," Cy slightly chuckled. "But, it's not for the survival of demi-humans and demons, but more like the amusement part,"

"Amusement? Like everything they do is centered around them having fun?"

"Exactly. They may not participate in the deadly ecosystem that continues to claw away at the lives of thousands of monsters, but they still reap the benefits… besides that, Beezlebub's territory contains various unique monsters due to the continuous adaptation of the near-immortal monsters,"

"Any dungeons?"

"Nope, not really. Now, we finally have Bella's demon… Asmodeus, the Palace of Lust. It is one of the few domains that have a city capital with a name so widespread that its territory is normally just called The Palace of Lust,"

"And I'm assuming all the succubi are from there?"

"Yep… and, you can just call the place a massive brothel. Even the surrounding cities and towns are thriving from protstiution, but that is mainly because all that are born here are affected by Asmodeus' curse, or you call a blessing. It radiates through the air and grants any newborn a flawless body, skin, face, beauty, or handsomeness that would be unparalleled in any other territory,"

"You wanna visit there next?" I jokingly asked but to my surprise, he actually nodded in agreement.

"I feel like we should go there to have Bella meet Asmodeus. He is one of the demon lords most active with the one they've possessed, and I feel like he would be a good mentor to Bella… though, I'm sure Bella might go through some seductive training or something…."

Cy cringed at the thought of such a thing, and I could only chuckle lightly as I imagined Bella being overrun with handsome men and beautiful women.

"Now, is there anything else?"

"Well, there are a few places that you could consider dungeons, once again, but in the end, it's just a pyramid of prostitution. The rankings are fucked, and as you would expect, it is insanely corrupt, yet the demon lord has no intention of making it fair or reasonable,"

"Hmmm… okay… then what's the next?"

"Okay… next we have Belphegor, a demon lord known for creating illusions so powerful that they could even make gods go to sleep at the will of his mind. His territory isn't very special, but it does have more outer cities than Satan's territory, with the capital being relativity weak. He is probably one of the strongest, if not the strongest, demon lords out of the bunch since he is capable of turning entire armies made up of hundreds of thousands of soldiers against their own people,"

"That's pretty overpowered," I lightly smirked.

"Yeah, it very much is, but it really depends on whether Belphegor is willing to do something since he is mostly sleeping all the time. Usually, his loyal servants do everything around the kingdom while he sleeps and sleeps and sleeps, only waking up if a demon lord visits his territory or he is summoned by Hades himself… but, besides that, there is nothing very special about his territory. Though this next one is the complete opposite of that… Leviathan, the demon lord of destruction. He is definitely one of the strongest demon lords, and his territory can only be called a massive fortress of destruction. No demon lords dare to invade part of his territory since the losses on not only the opposing side but their side would be immense… and Leviathan never holds back. He is the type to always go all out, even if it means both sides losing immense amounts of men,"