Plugged In: Reincarnated As A Demon Lord (Now I'll Conquer The World)

Serenith jerks back hard, startled out of the moment, and Lucien blinks, something soft and thoughtful starting to surface on his face just before the next wave of chanting hits his chest and knocks it loose entirely.

He grins, falls into the rhythm without a second thought, and leans toward the beet-red angel beside him.

"This reminds me of a party I went to once, in Geneva." he whispers loud, hips already swaying, "Might’ve been a cult, actually. Best night of my life. Naked bodies and animal masks. Very primal."

"Of course." Serenith laughs, breathless, halo flickering unsteadily as she fights to recover from whatever just passed between them. "Of course you’re enjoying this!"

The bonfire ignites in a single violent flash, sending heat rolling across the clearing, and the entire crowd erupts into full chant, the sound rattling straight through Lucien’s bones and into his very soul.

And he loves every second of it.

Then the ring of beast-kin holding hands around the fire drops their clothes in one fluid, breathless motion and breaks into a wild, spinning dance, chanting and howling, growling, chirping... every species contributing its own particular flavor of noise to the chaos, fur and feathers and scales catching the firelight as they spin, tails lashing in time with the beat, horns tossing back and forth like the whole ring is one great, many-limbed creature moving as a single animal.

Lucien gasps, long and devilishly delighted, face lighting up like the bonfire behind him. He points excitedly between Serenith and the dancers, too overwhelmed to even string an actual sentence together for a full three seconds.

"This... holy shit, this is exactly like the cult party. This is bringing back so many memories. Woohoo!"

Serenith just laughs properly now, face gone warm and soft, watching him light up like a kid seeing a fair for the first time.

She laughs harder as he starts mimicking the dance moves, badly, but very enthusiastically, throwing in a howl of his own that comes out closer to a dying goose than any beast-kin battle cry.

"You’re absolutely ridiculous!" she calls. "I’ve never seen anyone enjoy their own execution this much."

"If I’m dying," he calls back, grinning far too wide, "I’m doing it properly! Balls out!"

He rips off his own robe and flings it aside, joining the naked dancers with the same unrestrained, chaotic enthusiasm he’s brought to literally everything else since arriving in his new life.

Somewhere in the crowd, Valgereth lets out a booming laugh that ripples through the clearing, igniting a fresh, even louder, series of chants.

The energy spreads like wildfire. Every villager in the clearing starts imitating Lucien’s increasingly unhinged dance moves, the chant swelling louder, faster, the whole of it dissolving into gleeful, chaotic mimicry.

An elderly tortoise-kin man does his own creaking, deliberate version of Lucien’s goose-honk howl.

A pair of fox-kin twins spin each other in dizzy circles, shrieking with laughter every time they stumble.

Even the mayor, his snacks long since abandoned somewhere in the grass, is caught mid-hip-thrust by the firelight, looking entirely too pleased with himself for a man who tried to organize an execution a few hours ago.

"You’re, officially, the craziest mortal I have ever met." Serenith doubles over laughing, wiping tears from her eyes.

Then reality tore open.

Above the bonfire a swirly vortex of night sky folds into itself.

The bonfire flares, a massive column of sparks erupting skyward, lighting the surrounding forest for miles and the entire crowd goes dead silent in its glare.

Except, Lucien, who is still dancing. Barking out a goose-cry as he goes.

"STOP!" Serenith hisses.

He freezes mid-motion, looks around at a clearing full of wide, unblinking eyes all staring at the portal above the bonfire.

"I was really getting into that." Lucien pouts.

A large figure erupts from out of the portal, and falls directly into above the bonfire.

The portals snaps shut.

Every soul in the clearing holding their breath for what comes next.

Which was a massive, flaming hand, exploding out of the bonfire.

Fingers taller than Lucien, each one a coiling pillar of white-hot, magical flame, closes around him before he can so much as flinch, yanking him entirely off his feet and disappearing into the burning wood a moment later.

He doesn’t even get a scream out.

The entire fire snuffs out a heartbeat later, plunging the clearing into sudden, ringing darkness, the afterimage of the hand still burned into every set of eyes present.

The crowd gasps as one.

Serenith drops straight out of the air, hands clamped over her mouth, his name breaking out of her throat in a small, cracked whisper.

"Lu... Lucien?"

The crowd’s silence quickly grows into frantic murmuring, others looking for their torches in the dark.

Kamiko puffs her pipe, and after a long, mournful sigh, she turns to leave.

Until, out of the darkness, Serenith’s holy aura violently ignites.

It erupts outward from her halo, blazing sun-bright, forcing every eye in the clearing shut against the glare.

Then, an implosion.

Holy light burst out from the smoking remains of the bonfire, before reality itself folded the entire wreck inwards. Logs, ash, embers, all of it compressed into a single point-like sphere of holy light no bigger than a coin.

For one suspended second, nothing happens at all.

Then it detonates outward.

A pressure wave that rips through the clearing, snuffing every remaining torch, tearing loose robes and blankets into the air, and flattening every single person present onto their back like a great invisible hand swept the whole village flat.

Except Valgereth.

When the light fades and the dust finally settles, every eye still open is fixed on the angel, Serenith.

Fully, brilliantly visible now, hovering exactly where the bonfire used to stand, wings spread wide, halo blazing bright enough to throw hard-edged shadows across the whole clearing, robes rippling in a wind that isn’t actually blowing anywhere.

Several people faint on the spot.

Val only shakes his head, finding the whole spectacle mildly amusing.

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