Mind Demon's Path of Domination

Two surprising things happened. All A-rankers had fled—the task group had been called to retreat. Bale and Reema did linger around for a while but facing the Boss alone was nothing less than suicide if the demon in the skies decided to kill them, too.

They were unsure whether Hailen really had any connection with the demon.

How could they risk their life so fearlessly?

But the A-rankers were not totally fools, either. On their path to escape they killed as many demons as they came across and the skies of the Hunter World began turning more and more golden. Bale and Reema didn’t kill anyone, nor did Tiger and Leon. They just retreated with confusion all over their faces.

...

For once, Mark descended to the ground and let Yuri dismount from his grasp. She nimbly placed her toes on the land and firmed her steps before looking in front of her with a slightly thumping heart.

The Boss Demon—a giant of a creature up against humans—kneeled before Mark with a calm expression. Kneeling, it didn’t seem bigger than Mark.

By virtue of the Boss’ connection to the Minotaur, it also stood to the side rather tamely.

I should get the True Name of the Minotaur, too.

Mark smiled.

Being in his main body, his senses were vivid, unlike the Heilan days. He could smell the petrichor left behind from yesterday’s rain, hear Yuri’s unusual heartbeat, and see her eyes flitter back to him again and again.

His skin could feel a slight chill in the air, and overall, he felt calm.

An hour had passed since the main battle took place and all the Hunters were scattered. There was no way he could hunt them all before they killed enough Demons to summon Angels—even if he had the help of the Boss and the Tier 2 Minotaur.

"Why did you ask Choi Sung to kill all those animals?" Yuri asked, curious. He had brought her out of the Mega-Dungeon (because phone calls just didn’t work well inside it), and then made her call Choi Sung—she told the C-ranker to kill all the animals in the lab except for the hamster which she herself liked as a pet.

Mark had asked her to call Choi Sung, to tell the Hunter to do that.

But why?

Mark sighed. "They are useless to us."

He had once planted (100) Dungeon Heart Seeds on (100) different animals as an experiment to rule the entire world by planting a Seed in thousands of similar dumb creatures, but he had hit the limit when he hit (100), and they had mostly become useless.

It was easy to get such creatures’ loyalty and plant a seed but he only had 100 seeds, and now, he planned to use one of these seeds on the Boss Demon. Since the Boss was a Dungeon Demon, Mark wanted to see what would happen when he planted a Dungeon Heart Seed on it.

But he had to remove some existing baggage to free up his limits again, after all.

"Choi Sung is killing them already," Mark said, amused. "That guy’s fast at least."

After a while, he was sure he could plant exactly 98 more Dungeon Heart Seeds on others. Two of the rest—one was inside his Little Dona, and the other was inside the Hamster.

Feeling some anticipation, he looked at the Boss’ semi-towering figure again.

[Dungeon Heart Seed: Plant a Seed in creatures who are loyal to you, and the space 5 meters around them will become your Dungeon. Meanwhile, your own fleshly heart will be your Dungeon Core.]

[Only works on creatures who are submissive to you at heart.]

[While inside your Dungeon, you will be hidden from the World Wills of the Other Worlds.]

Of course, knowing the True Name of the Creature, he just had to tell it to be submissive and it couldn’t reject him.

Face emotionless, he said, "You are my slave from now on, and shall not have any sort of ill intention towards me. See my orders with absolute reverence." He had no slave master complex, that wasn’t his thing.

The sheer value of the creature and the benefit of it being his slave was more evident to him than anything else and making it know its place was just as important.

He touched the beast on its coal-black head and began working the magic of his demonic trick. As long as the creature was submissive to him at heart, this could work on them even if they had a way higher level of defense.

Dungeon Heart Seed!

Mark felt the whole mega-dungeon tremble ever so faintly. The dark dungeon core clutched in one of his palms became hot and he felt a strange sensation wash over him. Suddenly, the Dungeon Core of the mega-dungeon vanished and Mark took a deep breath in.

Inside his Soul Space, a new Dungeon Core had appeared and Reol’ran looked at it curiously. At the same time, the Boss trembled and Mark understood that the Seed had been planted. He curiously looked at the creature.

But quickly, his gaze moved to see the world around him.

The Dungeon itself had expanded by a bit just now. So, 5 meters of space was added from the Dungeon as the center—so, the Dungeon was somewhat like the body of the Boss itself. And now, it was ruled by Mark. This was his territory.

"If you had an ability to create Wills, you could create a Dungeon Will," Reol’ran said. "A mini version of a World Will. You will be able to see everything that happens in the mega-dungeon like it’s the back of your hand. Of course, it’s a super cheap copy of the Will of the Worlds, not at all a comparison in terms of power."

Mark nodded in thought.

A haze of violet flickered before him.

[Mission From the Demon World’s Will]

> Create a Dungeon spanning the entirety of a Nation in the Hunter World, and hand over the authority over the Dungeon to the Demon World Will. Are you willing to hand over the authority of the Dungeon?

[Reward: Seal of Destiny (1), Portal Key to an unconquered World (1)]

’If I accept the deal, would the Core vanish from my Soul Space?’ He wondered, then shook his head. He had no plans to give it out to the Hunter World. He had bigger ambitions in this World.

Yes, accepting the deal, taking the rewards and obediently going back to the Demon World with Dona and Yuri seemed like the safest choice since Angels were en route to being summoned, but Mark knew that place was not anything good.

It was a very chaotic world where one couldn’t predict if they’d breathe tomorrow.

Moreover, he had Sufferings awaiting him just a year away and he had to get all the benefits when he could. And he was not going to let the Angels come into this in the first place.

"Tell me again, Reol’ran. How does a Dungeon Demon expand their Dungeon’s size?"

"By killing the natives of course. The more natives that die while inside the Dungeon, the faster it would grow bigger. The Hunters never understood that and kept letting other Hunters, animals, and birds come in and die on a daily basis inside the mega-dungeon."

"So, as long as I kill a lot of native creatures of this World inside the dungeon, I can make the mega-dungeon expand and cover the entire world, right?"

"Indeed. But do you think you can do that before the Angels come?"

"If shit hits the fan, I have a Portal Key. I could escape, but I’d need to get Dona back with me, first, though. And I think I have a pretty nice idea on what to do to easily get this place to expand enough in a single day,"

An hour later, a MeTube video went viral. It was the first time that Humans encountered a demon talking on their social media and the dead bodies of A-rankers—Siddique and Franklin who had been killed in the main battle and subsequent skirmish—were enough to prove his existence. Prove that he was no fake.

That video even made the berserking A-rankers still scattered around the Mega-Dungeon come to a halt from killing the demons. Maybe, bringing Angels to save the World was not the only way.

The video went like this.

Mark sat amidst A-ranker corpses, flanked by the Boss and the Minotaur. Yuri sat by his side, cleaning his feathers and looking into the camera.

"I am Mark," he began. "A demon, as you all Humans of this world can understand with a glance. And I am here to give you all a fantastic offer."

That alone shook everyone’s heart. They were hooked.

He continued with a lie. "I now rule all Demons of this world and I am just a part of the bigger picture. Demons bigger and scarier than me would be here the moment your savior Angels are summoned, so I won’t do something so foolish unless I want to turn this world into an eternal battlefield for Angels and Hunters. Bet me, my soul, you Humans wouldn’t even be a major part of it, you will just be some afterthought some years into such a grand battle."

Now, the Hunters didn’t want Angels anymore. Most atleast.

Ordinary citizens were just alarmed.

"But my offer is different. Simple. I will wait three days from now near the Abandoned City Raqal, an entry-point into the mega-dungeon. Anyone who arrives there with atleast five different animals will be allowed to sacrifice an animal’s life for their own. If you let the animals you bring get into the mega-dungeon, and allow it to be eaten by one of my demons, that is equivalent to saving your own life.

"And when my dungeon expands to cover the entire World, I shall keep you alive."

It was a simple offer. An offer to let them live on his land.

"And A-rankers. Why are you so violent?" Mark asked calmly. "We are all rational people. So why don’t we all talk and come to a Contract? A Contract where all of our benefits are met. I am in the advantage, but I won’t bully you."

Of course, he was ready to sign a super strict Contract with them. Of course, he was.

They would help him conquer their own World!

In an hour more, all A-rankers and the new internet moniker, Laughing Red Demon came into a conference. All of them had a weird face and a rather heavy heart. Mark was ready to take advantage of them all—after all, with Reol’ran on his side, Contracts didn’t work on him.