Darkness.
Not the kind you find when you close your eyes. Not the peaceful nothing before sleep. No—this was something ancient. Heavy. Dense. A void that devoured sound, light, and time. A pressure pressing in from all sides, thick as drowning tar, eternal and uncaring.
And I was aware within it.
I wasn't breathing. I had no body. No limbs. No heartbeat. Just a floating thought drifting through nothing. Trapped in the hollow between death and life, identity and oblivion.
Then—pain.
Not sharp, but total. Like my entire being was compressed into a burning speck and thrown screaming into existence. Something cracked. Something ancient.
THUMP.
The sound echoed through the void. A pulse, deep and slow, like the heartbeat of the world itself. A vibration that shook the silence.
THUMP.
A second pulse. Louder. Hungrier. The darkness cracked.
I felt heat. Fire licking at invisible flesh.
Cold. Ice down a spine I no longer had.
And then—awareness.
I saw something. A reflection?
No. Not a reflection.
A core.
Floating, blood-red and pulsing with violent light. A sphere of molten mana and screaming intent.
I was the core.
> [You have been successfully summoned.]
[Designation: Demon Core. Status: Incomplete.]
[Warning: All summoners deceased. External threat level: Extreme.]
A scream tried to tear out of me, but I had no throat. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, but my consciousness spun like a storm trapped in crystal.
Then the memories hit me—memories that weren't mine.
Hooded figures, chanting. A summoning circle of blood and bone. The screams of dying priests as something went wrong. A backfiring ritual. A tearing of dimensions. Burning books. Eyes melting in their sockets.
They were trying to summon a Demon Lord.
Instead, they got me.
> [Host soul assimilated. Compatibility: 63%. Subconscious override complete.]
[Initiating emergency lair stabilization.]
I pulsed, and the world around me responded.
Runes carved into obsidian stone lit up in a wave. Lava surged through open veins in the rock. Crystalline formations of raw mana hummed to life. The walls curved upward into a black cathedral of stone, twisted and jagged. This place—this forgotten subterranean throne—was mine now.
And then the air shattered.
Something roared.
A monster tore its way into the chamber, its flesh stitched from beasts long dead: ogres, wolves, lizards—fused by foul magic into a single grotesque body. Jaws within jaws. Claws the size of boulders. Its frame was hunched, armored in broken bone. One eye glowed with hatred. The other was missing, leaving only a hollow pit that dripped rot.
> [Apex-Class Mutation Detected. Classification: Corpse-Stitched Abomination. Threat Level: Cataclysmic.]
[Deploying emergency spawn...]
From beneath me, black ichor oozed up from the glowing runes. It twisted into shape—goblinoid creatures with obsidian claws and molten eyes. Winged imps with fire dripping from their jaws. Bone-serpents slithering into formation, their vertebrae clicking with hunger.
They didn't speak.
They simply turned to face the monstrosity and charged.
The battle lasted twelve seconds.
The goblins were crushed under its claws. The imps were torn from the sky with a roar. The serpents wrapped around its limbs, gnawing desperately—but were incinerated by a breath of noxious green flame.
I felt them die. Each one a piece of my energy—my essence—lost forever. It was like watching blood leak from your own arteries, unable to stop it.
> [Core Integrity: 62%. Incoming threat: 6 seconds to impact.]
It was coming for me now. It saw through the ritual chamber. Past the destruction. Into the red glow that was my being.
It knew.
And it wanted to destroy me.
> [Emergency Evolution Available.]
[Cost: One Soul Fragment. Success Rate: 42%. Proceed?]
No time to think. No time to question.
Yes.
The moment I accepted, agony erupted across my entire consciousness. Like a blade tearing through my soul, peeling back layers of thought, memory, self. The pain was not physical—it was existential. Every regret, every memory, every shred of identity flayed open.
> [Soul Fragment Burned.]
[Forced Evolution Triggered — Path Unlocked: Infernal Sovereign Core]
[Core Authority Expanded. Sub-Core Interface Activated.]
Light exploded through the chamber.
From my pulsing red heart, energy surged into the earth. New runes etched themselves in burning lines across the stone. Lava bent at unnatural angles, coiling in mid-air like serpents of white fire. The very laws of nature warped under my influence.
I felt it—new powers, like limbs I'd never had before.
And with them, I created.
From the cracks in the ground, three entities clawed their way into existence:
—A creature of magma, its armored frame steaming with fury, eyes burning like twin suns.
—A shadow-beast, all smoke and slithering threads, its mouth a grin of whispering madness.
—A massive arachnid with a pulsating egg-sac, its movements silent, its black eyes glistening.
They knelt before me as if it were instinct.
> [Named Spawn Created.]
[Designations: Vel'Zhar, Nyxilith, Sil'thir.]
They rose.
They attacked.
And the abomination screamed.
Vel'Zhar met it head-on, horns glowing molten red, smashing into it with volcanic might. Nyxilith vanished into smoke and reappeared atop its spine, seeping whispers into its skull—thoughts that fractured what little mind it had. Sil'thir dropped from above, fangs piercing flesh, venom pumping with surgical precision.
This time, it wasn't a massacre.
It was war.
And I was winning.
The battle shook the chamber. Stone split. Lava splashed. Shadows twisted into claws. The Corpse-Stitched Beast flailed wildly—but it was surrounded, outmatched, out-evolved.
Vel'Zhar roared and drove a molten spike through its core. It shrieked—no, begged. Then it collapsed.
> [Hostile Terminated. Apex Essence Absorbed.]
[Territory Claimed: Ashen Hollow. Core Integrity Restored: 84%.]
[Named Minions Loyalty: High.]
The air went still.
The abomination's body crumbled into ash, its final breath a fading curse.
My named monsters stood, bloodied but victorious.
Vel'Zhar turned toward me, knelt once more. His voice rumbled like an approaching volcano.
"Your will, Sovereign?"
I didn't speak. Not with words. Not yet.
But I knew.
I had been summoned by fools who sought to bind a demon to their will. They didn't realize they had cracked open the foundation of another reality.
They sought to command a demon.
They created one.
Not a servant.
Not a lord.
A Core. A Sovereign. A seed of annihilation.
And I would not just survive.
I would conquer.