Round 44: Chronicles of the Demon

Tartarus, the All-Knowing One, the King of the Deep Abyss.
What does Mekansuth mean? Morriel silently processed the information inadvertently revealed by the Queen of Demons, trying to dispel the shadow that had quietly descended upon his mind, dark and hazy.
Long before recorded history, the primal form of the Bottomless Abyss was even more terrifyingly vague than it is now. The River of Darkness, which ruled everything, was even more capricious, often overflowing and submerging entire planes in endless waves of corruption, turning them into part of the abyssal ocean. From this infinitely deep evil filth, various primordial demons were born, each with a distinct form… Tartarus was one of them. It wandered alone in the deepest depths of chaos, lurking with unparalleled patience, observing everything. It witnessed the earliest groups of demons rise to the surface of the Bottomless Abyss, saw those first lords rise and fall from prominence, observed the emergence of life beyond the abyss, watched as these beings fell into the abyss, and saw their chaos and evil reshaped by the abyss—thus witnessing the birth of the first Tanar’ri. It has experienced every era of the Bottomless Abyss; even the cataclysms that nearly shattered it failed to reach its strangely ugly form deep beneath the waters. Over such vast stretches of time, it simply drifted with the currents, observing and reflecting, accumulating forgotten knowledge from the multiverse… until today.
But is it truly as desireless as Mekansuth claims? A demon that may be as ancient as the Bottomless Abyss itself… How much of its goals can humans possibly know?
Perhaps it’s not just Tartarus. Currently, Tartarus’s lair is located in a mysterious layer of the Bottomless Abyss known by demons as the “Sea of Shadows,” a place not marked on any plane maps at all. But according to Mekansuth, to enter the Sea of Shadows, one must first pass through another realm, its “sea surface”—a place well-known to anyone who has studied the lower realms.
The air was damp and cold, carrying a bitter salty taste to the lips. The lead-gray sky seemed to be slowly descending, and after breathing for a while, one felt a dry, cracking sensation in the throat and lungs, as if the plane, composed almost entirely of vast waters, was actually an endless desert, coldly, slowly, and methodically draining every drop of liquid from one’s body.
Layer 88 of the Bottomless Abyss: Saltwater Swamps.
Although the climate was by no means comfortable, this place seemed somewhat “friendlier” than the Ironflow Plains and the deep, mysterious Great Abyss. Vast areas of aquatic plants grew and spread, competing yet interdependent, flourishing with astonishing tenacity, even forming a dense forest layer above the saltwater areas. Saltwater flowed through network-like channels among the jungle, and seasonal winds blew through the treetops, causing the various branches, vines, and leaves to ripple together like waves… It was a world full of life, where untamed primordial mysteries unfolded, evoking a sense of awe and melancholy in those who came from ancient times or the present.

Morril wasn’t deceived by this seemingly peaceful illusion. She expanded the range of her perception spell as much as possible, and the results that came back truly surprised her.

“Don’t worry, Morril,” the succubus, sensing the female mage’s thoughts, explained like a guide. She hadn’t stayed by the Queen of Succubi, seemingly intending to serve as a long-term spy. Morril didn’t have the time to worry about it for now—there’s a saying that too many lice don’t bite; it’s an unshakable truth.

“Under the protection of Her Majesty… there may be more demons living in the Saltwater Marshes than in all other planes combined, and their species are countless. Even the most conservative Tanar’ri scholars admit that what we know now is probably less than one-tenth of what exists. So it’s impossible to completely avoid them. Trust Her Majesty Mekanshut—how could she harm us? …Look! Abyssal Sea Snakes!”

On the distant horizon, several ribbon-like creatures appeared out of nowhere. They were a darker gray than the sky, swaying gently and seemingly harmless, until such creatures appeared in the waves closer by. Their tightly packed gray scales rose silently, with wavy fin strips on either side of their round bodies, extending all the way to their unremarkable triangular nostrils. The Abyssal Sea Snakes looked rather plain, hardly worthy of the name “Abyssal”—unless compared to the Giant Insect Night Shadows, which could truly be considered mere insects.

The snakes seemed sluggish in movement, but that was just an illusion caused by their size. Another snake emerged from the water, as if a small island had appeared out of thin air, forcing Forty-Seven to dodge around it. The waves it created were barely noticeable, completely disproportionate to its massive size. In the blink of an eye, the sea snake soared into the clouds, and a very low-frequency infrasound wave reached Morril’s ears as it moved—neither harsh nor harmful, but the female mage quickly realized that this sound wave completely bypassed her magical defenses. If those sea monsters changed to a different frequency, only heaven knew what would happen.

“It’s rare to see Abyssal Sea Snakes courting!” the succubus exclaimed excitedly. “At any other time, they wouldn’t gather like this. If they happen to meet by chance, they’ll fight to the death until only one remains. Now is the safest time—nothing would dare provoke them by disturbing so many Abyssal Sea Snakes. With just their roars, they can boil and destroy everything within hundreds of miles. Let’s go… Lord Forty-Seven, please be a little gentler when you enter the water.”

“Better to destroy ten temples than ruin one marriage—do you think I don’t understand?”

Forty-Seven lowered his altitude and dived downward. The whirring rotors stopped spinning, their blades folding back together to form a steel-like fin, while the engine’s structure was adjusted for different mediums. The futuristic armed helicopter prepared for deep-sea travel. The armored cabin enclosed the passengers in a mysterious, flickering red light.

“I think I’m evolving into a Hexapod… Hmph, I don’t like that traitor.”

Morrill ignored him. An overwhelming sense of oppression suddenly struck, as the magical power within her surged uncontrollably. Almost instinctively, she reacted by guiding rather than suppressing the chaotic waves of energy. Countless spells emerged from her mind at once, tangled together in disarray. The female mage had to sort them out immediately; otherwise, their random collisions could lead to unpredictable consequences. She focused her mind, untangling them step by step, drawing upon all her talents and knowledge—rearranging the spells into new combinations that unleashed magical energies never used before. It felt like a long time had passed, but in reality, it was but a brief instant. Morrill’s gaze swept past the ladder-like sea snakes, through the dense jungles, over the gloomy sea surface beneath the dark clouds, toward the deepest, unreachable parts of the saltwater swamps.

She saw a palace. Twisted, serpentine towers reached into the clouds, with even more of them winding beneath the lightless waters. Sea beasts such as giant sharks, bottom-dwelling demons fish, giant octopuses, and ferocious smooth-toothed dragons swam among the ruins of countless destroyed cities, using the remnants of civilization as their homes and battlefields.

Morrill also saw, behind these scenes, two pairs of eyes—calm, mad, cold, fiery, focused, empty, blazing, or lightless—also watching her.

The waves submerged Forty-Seven, and the mage’s gaze returned to the curved steel inner walls. An epiphany struck her. The demons’ schemes couldn’t be understood through logic; trying to deduce their goals was futile. Confusion was not only a mist that obscured the mind but also material for weaving deceptions—essential even for the demons themselves. The demon lords admired and encouraged chaos; plans without variables were intolerable, and expected outcomes were unacceptable.

The demons always believed that any unforeseen complication would turn things in their favor.

The instruments showed a sharp increase in pressure.

They had entered the deep sea.

After a brief tremor, Forty-Seven had fully adapted to his role as a submarine, resembling a leisurely steel hammerhead shark. He reopened the armor covering the portholes, allowing passengers to admire the bizarre, bottomless ocean landscape. Turbine engines on both sides and at the rear left long trails of steam behind them, while the targeting beams of the ship’s weapons scanned the surrounding water. Yet the sea wasn’t completely dark. Most of the light came from bioluminescent plankton and algae, with tens of thousands of creatures gathering together, emitting spiral-shaped or silk-like, ethereal light bands. When the light was strong, the deep ocean resembled a night sky filled with auroras—but it would vanish suddenly without warning, swallowed by some massive, shifting darkness, leaving an even more sinister void than the deep sea itself, suggesting that the immense water pressure might just be the simplest danger of the Shadow Sea.

An invisible current brushed past Forty-Seven, and Morrill immediately sensed something amiss.

“It seems an old friend has come to visit us.”

This time, before she had to remind him, Forty-Seven turned his guns and ignited their deadly energy.

“Kid, is that how you greet your old lady? Look at you—getting uglier by the day!”

The water waves oscillated, as an arrogant female voice filled with arrogance poured into everyone’s ears. The seawater swirled back and forth, changing density, converging, and crystallizing to form two points of deep green light. The face of the Water Element Princess appeared below them, with massive pools of ink-like black water surging and spreading, reducing the range of Forty-Seven’s illumination while making her lips stand out even more sharply.

“Ahah, it’s always pleasant to meet an old friend in a strange land. What brings you here?” Forty-Seven’s head was mounted at the bow of the ship, its eight red eyes flashing alternately.

“Shut up, idiot! I know why you’re here.” Olydra remained hostile: “Say one more word, and I’ll throw you out right away—don’t even think about seeing my husband.”

“Your Highness, you…” Was the Water Element Princess actually the lover of the King of the Deep Seas? The female mage had never heard such a secret before.

“Hm.” Olydra sensed the female mage’s voice and forced herself to calm down. “I’ll give you a warning—stay away from that sly wench, Mekanshute. Whether male or female, anyone who gets involved with her ends up in trouble. Don’t be too confident; this is the bottomless abyss, full of endless horrors waiting for you.”

“I really feel sorry for Comrade Dagun. How many times does the grapevine in their backyard fall down a day?” Thankfully, the Tin Man said this to himself, avoiding the risk of Olydra losing her temper.

The Water Element Princess’s expression fluctuated with the waves.

“Enough. Out of respect for our acquaintance, I’ll take you to see him, so we don’t have to deal with all these complicated distractions.” Olydra transformed her appearance, her long hair, outlined by the water currents, brushing past Forty-Seven as she dived deeper.

“Hurry up, kid. If you dawdle and get lost, don’t blame me for not waiting! …Hey, come here—don’t get close to those floating black spots! They can corrode even pure gold completely. Do you want to get sucked in and turned to slag?”

Forty-Seven carried his passengers through the vortex path created by Olydra, which indeed made things much easier. In less than a minute, they were already near the seabed. When the Water Element that helped with the transfer dissipated, what first caught everyone’s eye was a vast expanse of boiling clouds—dense clouds that roared like thunder from time to time, with flames breaking through, triggering violent tornadoes that swept over the jagged, abnormal mountains among the clouds.

They passed through a fragmented land cut by mountains and trenches. Olydra grew even larger, her skirt-like black currents clearly distinct from the seawater. Without her help, trying to navigate through the violent storm caused by the active underwater volcanoes would require pushing their limits to the extreme.

At the center of a basin surrounded by mountains, deep within the ruins of a city guarded by ancient buildings of bizarre styles and terrifying statues that pushed the limits of sensory endurance, an ancient great demon was quietly waiting for them.

Like a nightmare suddenly descending into darkness, the slime-covered, reflective body of the King of the Deep instantly filled Moriel’s entire mind. Not to intimidate the visitor, but the insane form of the primordial demon, far beyond what any observer could imagine, was beyond even Daggon’s ability to conceal—its shape, smell, sounds, and even the skin and tongue revealed an unimaginable corruption seeping into every pore, every taste bud, crushing the brain, tearing at the nerves, sucking out the marrow. Evil dissolved into the blood, emitting a foul stench, as the flesh rotted layer by layer from within; the heart pounded violently against the chest as if trying to escape the fear. A wet, unknown liquid churned in the stomach, like a miniature sea of shadows, within which Daggon’s tentacles, tipped with hooks and suckers, climbed up the esophagus toward the throat.

“It’s a shame this guy didn’t appear in ‘Extreme Deep Cold.’”

The female mage had just gathered her nearly shattered soul, driven away Daggon’s shadow that permeated her body and mind, and regained consciousness from the deep mental control when she heard Forty-Seven make such a comment.

“How much do you plan to pay him?” Moriel still had cold sweat on her forehead, but her abrupt reply strangely calmed her.

The King of the Deep’s head alone was like a small mountain—each tooth in his chaotic mouth was as long as a sailing mast. His skin had an ugly hue, trembling uncontrollably as if driven by Daggon’s chaotic, extraordinary thoughts, resembling a nest of rats, which was utterly terrifying. Countless writhing tentacles lay in the valleys around him, stretching as far as the eye could see. But his appearance had little effect on Moriel anymore; the barriers of her will had withstood the greatest test yet.

“My abode hasn’t had noble guests in ages… I welcome you greatly.”

It seemed as if hundreds of voices spoke at once, forming a wave of sound that shook the vessel of the soul.

“I know why you’ve come, and I’m willing to help you. Wait a moment…”

Daggon fell silent for a while, the magically charged seawater flowing around Forty-Seven, seemingly searching and assessing something.

“Mage… I need you to leave the protection of steel and come closer to me. Only then can you receive my revelation… You possess the power to use knowledge, while the hearts of those of steel are too hard.”

“Maybe you should try again. I’m not running any firewall right now,” Forty-Seven said reluctantly.

“It’s fine,” Moriel said, gripping her staff tightly.

The next moment, she stood before the King of the Deep. The glow of her staff surrounded her, warping space to create a powerful barrier like a bubble.

Daggon gently waved his tentacles, and the water lifted the female mage until she was level with his murky, indifferent eyes. In his tumor-like, bulging pupils flickered Moriel’s distorted shadow. Immediately afterward, torrents of fragmented knowledge poured into her mind like a breached river—Moriel understood why Mekansut said Daggon might recognize her. The secrets held by the King of the Deep were so vast that they could even affect the workings of the Magic Web—many spellcasters obtained forbidden knowledge through prophetic spells, which were actually just fragments accidentally revealed in Daggon’s dreams.

Targon revealed far more than Morriel had expected—it was by no means as simple as a portal or a direction… vague and uncertain. After countless centuries of accumulation, despite being nearly invincible, the demonic nature ensured that Targon’s collection could never be organized properly. It was up to the female mage to figure that out.
When it was over, Morriel bowed and returned to Cabin 47.
Good luck. I’m glad to witness how the multiverse will change from now on.
“Leaving without even saying goodbye? You little scoundrel, remember this—you owe me another favor!”
The Water Element Princess frowned and shouted at the Ironman’s tail flame.