The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

The inner gate slammed shut with the sound of a landslide.

Dark walls grew up around the Hollow Crown, cutting the expedition off from the northern road. The portable ledger line held, but only with struggle. White root marks flickered under the scribes’ hands as inner road wardens emerged from the crater floor.

Sable was on the other side of the black walls, visible through every horn-shaped opening.

"One of you takes the seat," she called. "Or everyone inside watches the witness line fail."

The road wardens came on.

Veyra held the central path with her blade. Rin weaved between the roots, snipping command threads before they could reach Lia and Mara. Maelis and Sarielle protected the scribes, using fire and silver light to keep the portable root from being swallowed by black smoke.

Austin Veyron and Calder faced one another at the two candidate marks, back-to-back.

The dark symbols on their wrists throbbed together.

[CONTEST OPTIONS AVAILABLE.]

[CANDIDATE ONE ACCEPTS.]

[CANDIDATE TWO RELEASES WITNESSES.]

Calder looked at the white route line floundering behind them.

"It is offering a trade," he said.

"It is offering a chain," Austin Veyron replied.

A warden punched through Veyra’s guard and hooked the portable root tube. The scribes were dragged across the stone. Lia ran to help, but the black wall flung her backward toward an empty candidate circle.

Mara caught her hand.

"You told me I could refuse," Mara said.

"You can," Lia answered.

The two of them said their names into the white root.

The present-choice line strengthened.

The black circle beneath them cracked.

The road wardens screamed as the crack spread through their command crowns. Rin used the distraction to free the scribes. Veyra snipped the hook. Maelis burned the broken command paths before they could heal.

Sable’s face shifted.

"The children cannot break a sovereign ritual," she said.

"They are not breaking it alone," Calder answered.

The candidate seat swiveled to face him.

A future unfolded before Calder: the portable route breaking, Austin Veyron being dragged into the throne, Lia and Mara devoured by the inner gate. All he had to do was take the crown for one moment.

Calder stepped forward into the vision.

Austin Veyron caught his shoulder.

"Witness me," Calder said.

Austin Veyron understood. Calder was not asking for permission. He was asking to be seen while he made his choice.

"I witness you," Austin Veyron said.

Calder faced the black throne.

"I refuse the source."

The ritual hit him with a wave of hunger. He went to one knee, but the black symbol on his wrist did not transform into a crown.

Austin Veyron turned to the seat as the second future appeared around him.

"I witness you," Calder said through clenched teeth.

Austin Veyron raised his hand to the black chair.

"I refuse the source."

The two refusals echoed across the crater.

White light burst from the portable ledger root. The inner gate split from floor to ceiling. The black walls trembled as the witness route pushed outward through the siege.

Sable screamed a word none of them understood.

The Hollow Crown answered.

A shape rose from behind the sealed gate, bigger than the road wardens, constructed from black roots and the faces of every feeder the team had destroyed.

The Hunger Emperor had sent an avatar.

It stepped through the broken gate on four root limbs, tall enough to scrape the crater ceiling. Its chest held a black mouth ringed with white teeth. Faces moved across its shoulders—civilians from the flooded district, hospital patients, road wardens, even the false echoes from the origin vault.

It spoke in all their voices at once.

’REFUSAL DOES NOT END HUNGER.’

The portable witness route buckled.

Veyra attacked the avatar’s left leg. Her blade split black root flesh, but the wound healed around the steel. Rin darted beneath the creature and found command lines buried in the crater floor. Maelis poured ember fire into them, forcing the avatar to shift its weight away from the scribes.

The creature reached for Lia and Mara.

Austin Veyron moved first, but the avatar’s chest mouth opened and showed him Grand Meridian burning again. The image was pressed directly against the Devour seed.

[CONSUME AVATAR CORE.]

The core pulsed behind the mouth. It was big enough to feed Austin Veyron for days. It was also connected to every living black mark still active on the Crown Road.

If he devoured it recklessly, the remaining marks could explode through the city.

Calder saw the same truth. "We cut the lines first."

The two candidates divided without separating. Austin Veyron held the avatar’s attention, using white root chain to snag its arms. Calder sent resonance pulses through the floor, tracing the network strands connecting the core to the outer road.

The avatar yanked one arm free and struck Austin Veyron across the crater. He hit the black wall hard enough to crack stone.

Sable watched from beyond the gate. "Take the core," she called. "You are losing people to your principles."

Austin Veyron stood, blood running down his side. "No. I am losing time to your trap."

He looked at the witness line.

"Lia. Mara. Can you keep speaking?"

The girls clasped hands over the white root.

"We are Lia and Mara," they said together. "We are here by choice."

The avatar staggered.

Every borrowed face on its body flickered. The present-choice signatures did not free the memories, but they disrupted the way the Emperor used them as ornaments for hunger.

Rin cut the first outer command line. Calder severed the second. Veyra pinned the avatar’s leg. Maelis burned the third line clear.

The avatar’s core exposed itself.

Austin Veyron reached for it—not to consume it, but to devour the command that made it a messenger for the Emperor.

The black mouth screamed.

The avatar collapsed into a rain of broken roots. The inner gate burst apart under the pressure of the witness route.

The portable ledger line stretched north again.

But beneath the crater, something laughed.

The avatar had been only a finger.

The real Hunger Emperor was still waiting at the First Feast.

The crater went still after the avatar died.

No one celebrated. The broken roots kept moving beneath the stone, carrying the last echoes of the creature back toward the northern road. The portable ledger root held, but its light had dimmed to a thin white thread.

Nahlia studied the route map through the relay. "The avatar was using the witness line as a measuring tool. It knows how much pressure the Freehold can distribute now."

"Then it knows we will not break alone," Calder said.

"It knows that," Vharra replied. "It will try to make you break each other."

Austin Veyron looked at the black contestant mark on Calder’s wrist. It had stopped burning, but it had not faded. The Emperor had registered him as an option in the ritual, and every future fight would carry that danger.

Calder saw the look. "Do not start treating me like a second problem to manage."

"I was thinking about how we keep witnessing each other," Austin Veyron said.

"That is better."

Outside the crater, the black road began to peel away from the Hollow Crown. It was not retreating. It was opening deeper into the north, toward the ground where the real First Feast would take place.

Sable’s voice drifted from the empty gate.

"Eight nights," she called. "Bring your witnesses. Bring your refusals. The Emperor will show you how small they become when hunger finally arrives."

Lia stepped beside Mara at the portable root. "We will still be here," Lia said.

The white line brightened.

The siege was broken.

The war had only changed shape.

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