Mind Demon's Path of Domination

"Now, no one can beat my pace in growing stronger. Just watch, you will know why I am so sure," Mark said.

Reol’ran was energized by his words, but she still felt suspicious. If he wasn’t arrogantly confident in his plans, he would have asked her opinion about it. Thus, he was confident and sure about what he was doing.

To outmaneuver the River of Destiny itself, just what was his plan?

Why did he need a sheep transformed to be similar to the Dungeon Demon for that plan?

As the demons ran at him from the distance, Mark remained in the distance, not opening his mouth no matter what they said. Instead, he secretly released that sheep-transformed princely youth into his hand and hid it from his enemies by keeping his fist folded.

He had shrunk the man into the size of a fly and that made hiding it easy. He couldn’t shrink his own body by that much—it became harder to shrink beyond a level of size when he had so many molecules inside him.

Yet, he grinned inwardly.

Even though he had brought the Sheep Prince out, the creature didn’t get burned like the earlier one did. Instead, it was safe and secure. Even the Demon World only burned non-natives, and now, the sheep had the same molecular structure as a native demon.

To the demon world, the sheep was a native now.

Finally smiling, Mark said loudly to the demons running towards him: "Hey, I have a lot of Portal Keys in my hand. But I am not gonna sell them all, I have only nine that I can sell but I would sell if I get a good price!"

That was a big fat lie—he only had one and he wasn’t selling that.

The Succubus’ eyes lit up. "Indeed you have a lot, you sneaky and handsome rascal. What do you want in return? I am ready for a fair trade!"

"I want one too!" the winged humanoid shouted.

The humanoid with the aura of a blade said calmly, "We have 49 demons here. The strongest gets priority!"

A fat dwarf of a demon, with the head of a lion, laughed. "Strongest, my ass. You can’t use your powers and when we are chained, we cannot hurt each other. Anyone with the highest trade gets to buy and the others shall remain here."

Mark smirked. "You get me!"

The blade-aura man scoffed. "Fine!"

"But wait a moment," Mark said. "Let me get ready first!"

He hoped none of them could figure out what he was about to do but if they did, that was also fine in a sense. He used some sneaky demonic tricks and mentally manipulated the sheep-turned-man to become a complete yes-man.

He even gave the sheep a dream in life with Dream Input—it could be used that way on naive beings—and the creature gained a simple dream. He even gave it a name: Ryan Marcus.

Then, he looked around as if curious to see the grand scenery.

So... I shall begin, he cackled inwardly.

Suddenly, a wild golden light began to light up from within Mark and the demons all looked at him with a frown.

Demonic Trick—Dream Gambler’s Mortal Puppet!

He could only use this ability once in every World since it used the World Will as a catalyst for activation. But he had never used it in the Demon World before. Why?

Because the demonic trick only worked against creatures without any existing supernatural abilities. It only worked on purely mortal beings. And all demons were born with Soul Devouring or a demonic bloodline, thus the ability was intrinsically useless against them.

But now, the sheep was a demon without any powers in a sense and he was using the Trick on it. The Will of the Demon World descended and Mark felt that inner horror of sensing a creature far, far superior to himself on a fundamental level.

The light lit up the entire area and Mark felt a ’gaze’ descend onto them.

A contract appeared between him and the sheepman in the form of a fiery paper.

===

* As long as the Ephemeral Dungeon Heart Demon, Marcus, can fulfill the Nonblood Demon, Ryan’s dream, he can ask for any one thing from Ryan and take it for himself. (Anything other than the Human’s life or his feelings).

If the Demon fails to achieve the said dreams, the Human can take any one thing from him in return.

===

Mark smiled inwardly at the sight.

Nonblood demon, was that what they called it?

And...

How can he fail without a time limit? The time limit naturally was the sheep’s lifespan in this scenario. Only if it died can he fail to fulfill its dreams.

The light of the ability activation, golden and heinously bright, had always been an irritation for Mark. But today, that light hid him from the eyes of the enemies before him as the Trick worked its wonders.

"Accept the gamble," Mark said calmly.

He had given it dreams and he had used Heart Input to give it thousands of thoughts. It was semi-intelligent due to that. Probably more intelligent than your average 5-year-old from Earth. And it was taught to be subservient.

"I accept the gamble," Ryan said from inside his fist.

Mark felt his own consciousness become like water. Ryan was a container and the water that was Mark’s consciousness flowed into him and turned him into a complete puppet. In a split, Mark felt his perceptions become two.

He could feel his hand squeezing and hiding the second ’him’ under a fist.

He was touching himself.

It was tinkly and weird. It was also very itchy and uncomfortable.

====

[The Dream Gamble—Ryan]

[Dream: Dance to some good music.]

[Conditions]

Successfully complete the Dream.

[Warning]

Do not let the Puppet—Ryan—die while the Dream Gamble is live, or the main body will also die.

[Success Reward: You can take any one thing from Ryan as your own]

[Failure Price: Ryan can take any one thing from you of his choice as his own.]

====

Satisfied, Mark smiled and gave the body some final touches. It was too weak as it was now—it needed some little advantages. He gave it retractable claws like a cat, and white wings like the black one on himself, and it also had incredibly sharp eyesight due to being coined after the Dungeon Demon.

He didn’t make Ryan drink the golden blood in his hand that could improve his bodily strength to Tier 2 levels. He had some plans for it. But just in case he decided otherwise later on—he quickly dug a hole into the ground and put two vials of the blood in there before hiding it with mud.

The light hid all of that from the demons in the distance.

Just before the light vanished, he also threw the tiny Ryan into the mud and hid him by making a small pyramid of mud. Only the nose and face were outside the mud and that part was facing the opposite side of the demons, so they wouldn’t notice.

Done, he waited for the light to start dimming and changed his own robes to a pair of flashy shirts and pants. He slowly walked away from the small fly-like puppet hidden on the ground.

He wanted to make all of the people here focus on him and lose their attention from the tiny puppet he had hidden. That was easy since he was a big target for them now.

When the light began dimming, they all looked at him, now looking different.

"I had to change my clothes and didn’t want you men staring at me weird, you know?" Mark said with a smile. "Would have been fine if it’s all women."

They were all suspicious but nothing special was in sight after the light vanished. Ryan was merely as big as a fly, and nobody would expect that!

Mark spread out his arms, flashily announcing, "So, the auction begins. I have nine Portal Keys, but all of them are Tier 2 Worlds, is that fine with you guys?"

The blade aura demon said: "Nobody expects a Middle Demon to have better. No matter how weird he seems."

Mark smiled and walked towards them, bringing their attention even further from the puppet. "I am not going to give it to you all for free, I want something in return. Remember you strong demons, as far as I understand, I am not selling you a Portal Key but a chance to live!"

Many of their faces changed. Indeed, if they do not escape from the chains in time, they will die. And Mark had figured it out by how desperate they were for a Key.

He didn’t know how a Tier 2 Key could be helpful for them, but they seemed to want it. He didn’t have to be bothered about anything else. And if he did this correctly, he might even be able to earn something unexpected.

But soon, he planned to leave using his main body to the World of Star Fever.

This place seemed way too dangerous. But of course, while he was away, his Puppet would live here and see if there was anything worthy. It would also try to move out of here to some other parts of the Demon World.

Or maybe even some other World.

Meanwhile, he would have to survive in the World of Star Fever and gain opportunities there.

Yes, this was his plan. He would enter as many worlds as possible from now on and leave a Puppet there, and he would make all of them grow stronger at the same time. If even one of the Puppets died, he would also die. But now, how could someone else match his growth speed?

But there were issues in doing this, too.

For one, once he enters the World of Star Fever, his main body would be stuck there until its mission gets completed. And most probably, that mission was going to be impossible to complete in the short term.

So he might not be able to leave for other Worlds.

But, even then, he already had two bodies—Ryan, and himself. When he enters the World of Star Fever, he could create another puppet and have three bodies training at the same time.

Mark spread out his hands even wider. "What can you all trade me for your lives, goodmen?"