Mind Demon's Path of Domination

Mark entered through the portal and immediately felt a sense of stifling pressure. It was as if a mountain had been suddenly placed over his head, as if a giant was squeezing his neck.

He knew immediately that he had guessed right. His luck wasn't the only bad thing; the World wasn't on his side. He didn't enter the calmer parts of the Demon World—the Demon Cities—through the portal.

In but a second, he was standing under numerous stone walls that towered massively to the heavens. Vicious clouds roiled in the gray skies. And as Mark stared up, he felt the color drain from his face.

"What is that?" he asked.

Before him stretched an endless expanse of stone chains winding through rusty red plains, a network of iron links that twisted and wound through the landscape like a metallic serpent.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The chains clanked and groaned, their rusted surfaces glistening with dried blood. He followed the chains with his sight and was stunned to find giants themselves bound by the chains. They moved, listless and dead, holding up a giant castle in their backs.

"A new demon!" someone shouted and Mark whirled around to see another sight.

In the distance, there was a solitary tree. A tree with heads instead of leaves growing from it. Tens of demons were stuck on the tree with smaller chains than the ones binding the giants, and seeing the demons, Mark's spine tingled.

All of them were Tier 3 at the very least, some being so strong he couldn't come close to gauging them. And all of them were moving toward him at immense speeds, even though their speed was hindered greatly by the chains.

"YOU!" a demon with the aura of a blade shouted. "Do you have a Portal Key? Give it to me and I will save you from this hell!"

Mark flapped his wings and distanced himself. But he was trapped, surrounding this area—there were giants. And Mark was deadly cautious of the chains.

The demons screamed as they ran faster, but the chains still made them slow. But if this went on, he would either have to move close to the giants or the demons tied to the tree would reach him—both felt like a bad ending to Mark.

"That Portal Key is mine!" a grey-winged humanoid creature said, trying hard but not being able to fly. "I can feel it, this guy is a Maverick, even though he feels so weak. He will surely have a Portal Key or two.

"You bunch, let me escape now and I will come here with others to save you!"

The other demons sneered. "Yeah surely!"

"I am willing to bind myself in a contract!" the grey-winged demon shouted. "Give me that Portal Key and let me leave, I will send help! Please!"

Mark stared calmly.

From among the bunch, a giant, naked woman growled. A succubus. "Are you all fools? Can't you stay silent for a moment? What if that kid runs away using his Portal Key himself?" Find your next read at empire

Then, she immediately shouted: "Young man, don't use the Portal Keys in your hand and give one to big sister. I will give you Seals of Destiny or anything I can in return! It doesn't matter if the Portal leads to a weak Tier 1 World, I just need the Key!"

The Demons all grew silent as they ran closer to Mark. On the other hand, Mark's head was spinning. These people all seemed hungry for a Portal Key, and he could guess only one reason: They wanted to use the Key to escape this place.

But they were tier 3, 4, or 5 level beings, can they even use the Portal Key that a weak demon like himself might have?

"This place gives me the creeps!" Reol'ran said. "You should use the Portal Key and escape to the World of Star Fever—you should have listened to me when I said entering the Demon World was risky. Insane, this is insane!"

"Now we know for sure that the River had trapped us. It wasn't just us being over-cautious, and I am lucky enough to not have died immediately upon entry. And I have a plan now."

If the entry situation was too bad, he had planned to use the Portal Key and his demonic tricks immediately, but he didn't have to. This was a better scenario than he expected.

With a flourish of his hands, Mark brought out a sheep from his World Space. Immediately, before he could even react, the sheep was turned to dust by the World Will of the Demon World. He cursed himself inwardly and landed some distance away, still safe from the demons in the chase.

He entered his World Space.

Immediately, he moved towards the sheep herd and chose a healthy one for his plan. His Soul Sense scanned the Dungeon Demon in the distance, making sense of its molecular structure with a simple quick over, and then transformed the sheep to be similar to the demon.

In a few seconds, the sheep transformed into a humanoid shape and its molecular structure was the exact same as the Dungeon Demon. But instead of being coal black and badass-looking, it looked like a pale prince with white hair and silver eyes.

With a simple rock as material, Mark also gave the young man elegant clothing that suited his princely style.

It looked like a frail young man with conditioned elegance.

Then, he used the Alchemic Shapeshifting ability to make the young man smaller and smaller. Soon, it was as small as a fly, and smirking, Mark opened his eyes to the real world.

Reol'ran couldn't help but wonder, what was his plan?

"I don't know what the chain binding them does," he said. "But I can't feel any of their Soul Senses. I can also then assume that their soul sense is sealed—otherwise, they could have used it as telekinesis to crush me."

"Indeed, you noticed," Reol'ran said. "A bit more bad luck and you'd be a corpse by now."

"I knew the risk when I entered this world, but the other two choices were also just as risky. But I still entered here and not the other two places because I know what I am doing—I am going to have some great advantage on my side now.

"Now, no one can beat my pace in growing stronger. Just watch, you will know why I am so sure."

In his plans, Mark was confident.