Imagination Incarnate (Custom Made Demon King remix)

A Demon's Promise

Akros hummed contently, laid upon a large flat stone with monster hide covering it. He had made a bed by slicing it with Hellreaver, then using bull hide as sheets of sorts. He didn't sleep, as he was in the open. Sleeping in the upper and middle Abyss without being hidden well was suicide. 

His domain in the middle Abyss was a field of stone and ash. Bone-like plants grew upon the ash, so the bull monsters he preyed on would never go far. He held the entire field, about 4 square miles of land to himself. Any intruders who didn't want to leave were killed and eaten, not always in that order. The only exception to this rule was a succubus who tried to seduce him. Rather than kill her with Hellreaver, Akros tested his shadowflame upon her body. 

Her cries of agony as she burned were a bit much, even for him. He noticed how her soul wasn't left when she died. Curious, he killed one of the bull monsters this way, finding out that the flame burned the victim's soul away, but it depended on the soul's strength. The succubus, which was many times more powerful than the monster, took several minutes to finally become ash. The bull monster was cinders in mere seconds. 

With that, Akros made a mental note to only use shadowflame on those he truly wanted dead. Once a being's soul was gone, there's no coming back. The body may be resurrected, but it's only a husk without a soul.

Akros was loving his sword, Hellreaver. It had grown heavier, but his strength was enough to wield it without strain. After consuming at least 2 dozen souls of middle-rank demons, the blade grew to be 6 feet long, the hilt being a tad shy of 2 feet long. The hilt was a whole foot wide now. He doted on it very much, both by treating it to many souls and bodies and by trying to improve it. 

As his stomach settled from his meal, he took out Nightfall from his inventory. He studied the black metal, thinking. He knew that middle-rank demons and above would smelt Abyss iron to forge weapons with hellfire, but he didn't know what shadowflame would do. That, and Nightfall wasn't made from Abyss iron. He knew he could mine it in this level of the Abyss, but he wanted to try something else first. 

Besides, Hellreaver was a good example of why stronger materials weren't always necessary. The sword grew larger, heaver, and most importantly more durable with every body and soul it consumed. The blade's material was of no matter, as the magic behind it was so powerful that it bypassed the limits of the material. 

Done with his doubts, Akros planted Nightfall into the ash. He created a ball of shadowflame and dropped it on the head of the mace. The fire quickly spread to the rest of the metal, denying the scientific laws that he knew. He was astonished and relieved to see the metal melt into a puddle. He touched it with his finger, vacuuming it into his inventory. 

Akros had created an item, which he dubbed the "Conversion Cube" that performed a special task. He would insert a number of souls until the Cube had enough to produce two high-quality souls, a fallen and a noble soul. Each high-quality soul cost 50 souls to produce, which Akros thought to be quite the steal. The only issue was that he used 2,000 souls to procure the cube itself.

He then converted his last 800 souls into 8 fallen and 8 noble souls. He knew being dry on souls was a bad idea, but here in the middle Abyss he was relatively safe given his level of power for this realm. Only upper-middle-rank demons could keep up with him, and even those who encountered him fled at the sight of his Abyssal Tremor. As fast as he was, there were demons who could escape with magic or pure speed. With that in mind, Akros was careful not to leave his territory that he had worked hard to maintain. 

It cost him one full noble soul to create the skill "Vacuum Pick Up". It essentially sucked up any liquid that he touched, storing it in his inventory. The reason why it cost an entire noble soul was due to its max capacity being 1,000 gallons of liquid. He didn't set a limit, so Lyra used up the entire soul. She explained coldheartedly that if he was so careless as to not set a limit she would take as much as she wanted. Fortunately for him, she had enough reason to not use a second high-quality soul to enhance the effect further.