The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

The expedition approached the border settlement as dawn cracked over black crowns spilling from every window.

They had not arrived a moment too soon: word of the Hunger Emperor’ rectal offer spread.

All the black marks in the settlement lit up at once. A voice rolled through the street, a calm monotone that almost sounded benevolent.

’ACCEPT THE SOURCE. THE OUTBREAK ENDS.’

People coughed up black water from inside the houses. Their marks no longer drained fear from the settlement. They were draining time.

Austin Veyron saw the settlement’ underlying core below the square. One strike from Devour could erase it. One acceptance would end every crown simultaneously.

The seed displayed the solution in bright red blood.

[SOURCE ACCEPTANCE: TEMPORARY MERCY AVAILABLE.]

Calder could feel the same hesitation brewing in Austin Veyron’ stomach. "Temporary?"

"The next payment would come later," Austin Veyron said.

Sable stood atop the roof of the courthouse, her black crown etched against the sunrise.

"I accepted the mercy." she yelled. "My village was dying. I accepted, and every fever stopped. But no one thanked me when the Emperor came back to collect on what he was owed."

Austin Veyron looked at her. "Then let’s stop him."

"I can’t." Sable said. "Not yet."

The outbreak propagated.

The portable ledger root could not reach every house fast enough. There were no pre-planned routes for this settlement. No trained scribes. No time. Choosing slowly was unthinkable.

Lia stepped out into the street. Mara followed her stride for stride. "We can start marking a route." Lia said.

"You do not know these people." Austin Veyron replied.

"We know they need to choose."

They knocked on the first door.

A woman answered, trembling with black fever. Lia offered the white root from her sling.

"You can come with us." Lia said. "We can’t promise its going to be easy. But you do not have to accept his deal."

The woman looked at the black crown etched on her window. Then she took the root.

A white line shimmered into existence.

The next door swung open. And then another.

Veyra and Rin led the sick towards the route center. Maelis burned crown roots off roofs. Sarielle held a shield over the evacuation path. Calder interfaced with the core’ command threads so the outbreak could not home in on individual houses.

Austin Veyron remained in the square, holding the main root line away from the black core beneath the cobblestones.

The Emperor shoved the temporary mercy against his mind.

A future where every resident was healed, every crown removed, no screams.

Then he showed Austin Veyron the cost. Austin Veyron on a black throne, source accepted, because the settlement was his and the Emperor’ to save.

He swallowed down the offer.

The black core exploded out of the ground.

Sable fell from the courthouse roof and punched it with her crown. The strike did not destroy the core, but fractured the line connecting it to the residents.

"You will never forgive me for this."

"If you keep helping us choose." Austin Veyron replied.

Together they held the core apart while the last of the residents joined the white route. The portable ledger fed on the strength of every decision made. One by one the black crowns began to fracture across the settlement.

The Emperor’ voice cooled.

’MERCY WITHDRAWN.’

Austin Veyron devoured the command that tethered the core to the people. Not the core itself.

The outbreak imploded.

The settlement lived.

Sable stood in the smoke, heaving. For the first time she’ crown felt small on her head.

The earth beyond the settlement cracked open.

A road of black roots poured north towards the Hollow North.

The First Feast had begun a night early.

The black road did not wait for the expedition to march into it. It pulled at every remaining scout mark across the northern districts, turning abandoned streets into rivers of root and hunger. The settlement’ white evacuation routes had worked, but the new road was bigger than anything Austin Veyron had ever mapped.

Nahlia yanked up the common ledger from Grand Meridian. "The early arrival is drawing stress from both the Hollow Crown and the city at once. If the road connects to the outer routes, it can turn every marked survivor into Feast ground."

Residents of the settlement had gathered around them in the square, spent and terrified. Some eyed Sable with anger. Some eyed Austin Veyron as though he held answers he didn’ know.

Sable stared at the black road snaking towards the north. "This is what acceptance costs you." she said. "It grants you one battle. Then it teaches the Emperor where to send the bill."

"You saved us from the core." Lia said.

Sable looked down at her. "I gave him more time."

"Then give him more." Mara encouraged.

The Herald did not answer, but the black rim of her crown darkened.

Austin Veyron called the expedition to attention. The premature Feast had altered their purpose. They could not infiltrate settlements quietly anymore. Every route they created would need some way to present residents with a choice to evacuate before the black road found them.

"Grand Meridian will send more portable roots," Marcus said through the relay. "But the city will be vulnerable if we strip all the route teams."

Austin Veyron hated that they even had to choose. Every solution had a price paid by someone’ safety. The Emperor designed this war to force him to reduce people to numbers.

He was not going to accept that.

So he put the choice back in the hands of those who would carry its weight.

The settlement volunteers chose to fortify their own evacuation route and send two runners with the expedition. The hospital routes chose to send root supplies. Former wardens of Grand Meridian chose a delayed perimeter so another portable team could journey north.

The common ledger tallied the choices one by one.

The black road trembled beneath them.

It could not comprehend why anyone accepted risk unless it owned them.

Sable watched the white lines stitching themselves across the map. "He will consider that weakness."

"He can say that." Austin Veyron replied. "We are still winning."

The expedition stepped into the opened road.

Ahead, the Hollow North shimmered with black morning. In its center, the First Feast ground was already preparing seats for Austin Veyron, Calder, Sable, and every prospective champion the Emperor could coerce onto the field before the last route sealed.

The road was no longer a means to reach the war.

It was the war.

They walked until the lights from the settlement faded behind them. Every few minutes the black road tempted them with another shortcut: a trail around the next deserted district, a pathway straight for the Feast ground itself, visions of Grand Meridian already burning if Austin Veyron hesitated.

They refused every shortcut that could not verify itself.

At the first hill beyond town, Sable halted. Her crown was spilling black light into the world.

"I will be summoned back to him." she said. "Ignore him long enough and he will use this crown to take my body."

Veyra raised her sword. "Then we remove it."

Sable almost smiled. "If that were an option, I would have done it years ago."

Austin Veyron looked down at the crown, then at the white route snaking through the expedition. "Will you choose to keep walking with us?"

Every head snapped toward him.

Sable’ eyes darted back to the black road. The Emperor’ roots wrapped tighter around her neck. For just half of a breath she looked exactly how she had in the origin record: young, scared, and begging for a promise she couldn’ ever be left behind.

Then she stepped away from the black road.

"I choose to stall him."

It was not absolution. It was not redemption.

But her crown dimmed again.

The portable ledger documented the choice.

Far off, the Hollow North responded with the sound of thousands of roots scrapping against the earth. The First Feast ground was waiting and the Emperor had begun tallying up everyone who chose not to belong to him.

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