First Demonic Dragon-Chapter 1275: The Cruelest Trickery

Bayle chewed happily on the dead body of a man in gold.

Occasionally, he would take a piece of meat between his teeth and rip it free, tossing the morsel in the air for him to catch like a prized dolphin.

Bayle looked toward the woman on his back.

Izanami smiled in earnest, clapping her hands. "Good boy. You’re very talented, sweetheart."

Izanami’s gentle warmth transcended the boundaries of different species. Her praise made Bayle almost as happy as the corpse at his feet.

The lizard extended his stretchy neck to gaze at the nearby soldiers who were guarding a group of around twenty humans.

Beady black eyes stared holes into them impatiently.

Glancing at each other, the soldiers buried their weapons in the snow. They clapped for the overgrown lizard as if they were seeking a swift encour.

As Bayle went back to entertaining (eating), Izanami finally slid down from his back and floated to the group of humans.

The Shinto goddess was one of the shortest members of her entire family. As a result, she wasn’t seen by many as being very intimidating.

However, humans were another matter altogether.

To them, there was very little that could have been more intimidating than an actual goddess of death. Izanami was the reason billions of Japanese natives had met their ends before they were ready.

That kind of aura usually tends to linger on a person. She may as well have been the Grim Reaper to them.

It did not help that she hadn’t smiled at them once since arriving, and her stare was dull and uninterested.

"Desperate or foolish?"

The humans shuffled among themselves, confused and terrified.

"U-Umm... None of us speak Japanese." A man murmured fearfully.

"You will address the empress with greater respect!" A nevi’im raised his fist to strike him.

"It is fine." Izanami said coolly. "It occasionally slips my mind that not every species understands language through intent."

Izanami fashioned a chair for herself and sat down in front of the humans. She repeated her earlier question in English.

"I-I don’t understand what you mean...?" The woman questioned.

"Your souls are tethered to you, but they aren’t inside of you. They’re keeping you alive and conscious, but they are in the possession of another until you naturally expire. Such a thing only happens when one has sold their soul to a demon. So I ask you, again, was it desperation or foolishness?"

"W-We didn’t have a choice..!" A woman shrieked. "She told us that giving up something was the only way we could get power to defend ourselves!"

"I really hate guessing games when they’re not coming from the mouths of my young children or grandsons, so I’m going to give you one final opportunity to tell me your story without theatrics before I pull the information I need out of your mind myself. And yes, it will be excruciating."

The ebony-skinned woman’s eyelids fluttered before she collapsed face down in the snow. Izanami genuinely had no idea what she had done wrong.

"...Well, who else would like to try their hands at explaining?"

Unsurprisingly, none of the humans looked like they were all that thrilled to speak.

"Damn, babe. And I thought I was supposed to be the intimidating one."

Izanami turned her head in delight as Sif waltzed over to her. Floating above her head were the unconscious bodies of the four heavenly kings, all nestled on top of each other in one big dog pile.

They were bound in chains of ice and strands of Sif’s golden hair. Even when they woke up, they likely wouldn’t be able to do anything but spit and complain.

Izanami gushed at the sight of her wife after battle. Despite the snowy conditions, a clear sheen of sweat could be seen draped over her iron-like muscles. The fabric of her sports bra clung to her chest just enough for Izanami to barely make out the details of her breasts.

Her face turned an unhealthy shade of scarlet.

"You can probably leave these guys alone for a bit. I bet you’ll have better luck over there." Sif hooked her thumb over her shoulder.

With some difficulty, Izanami forced her eyes to peer past Sif to the site of their destructive battle.

No mortal would ever be able to tell that anything was wrong. But for Izanami, the scene was almost impossible to miss.

Thousands of souls billowed into the air, gradually losing their light and shape with every passing second. They weren’t ascending. They were breaking down.

"It seemed as though they were not overly thrilled about being interrogated... I think they would have changed their plans if they knew exactly who we were."

Sif wrapped her arm around Izanami’s waist and pulled her in close. "Or rather, I should say if they knew who you were, my beautiful little death flower."

Izanami had to temporarily remove all of the blood in her body to stop herself from getting a nosebleed. Sif’s body heat, in conjunction with the smell of her bitter sweat, was almost enough to make her lose all semblance of decorum.

*A-Ahem* "It’s not like you or the men couldn’t have found what you needed."

"True." Sif shrugged. "But it’s much easier for you, and besides... I like watching my love in action."

Sif’s large hand gripped Izanami’s butt hard enough to leave a bruise. A myriad of unholy thoughts ripped through her mind all at once.

"S-Sure thing..."

Izanami unfurled her trembling hand. In the middle of her pale palm, a small flicker of amethyst light appeared.

The more energy she fed the amethyst, the larger it became until it dwarfed even the heavenly kings.

The amethyst took the form of a demented oni. It unhinged it’s jaws and inhaled deeply, pulling in gusts of wind and lost souls equally, devouring them with great satisfaction.

When the souls were consumed, Izanami’s irises briefly flickered violet. Color returned to her face.

"Oh... I see."

Sif was barely paying attention as she stared at her wife’s exposed cleavage without bothering to hide her gaze. "See what exactly...?"

Izanami held out her hand and brought one of the golden men’s masks toward them.

"These are warlocks... They belong to that Raciel woman."

"Who...?"

Izanami pursed her lips at her wife. "The witch our husband told us about. The one of four who are using his name to inspire legions to follow them. The one whom he promised to tear limb from limb before turning her skin into chicharron?"

Sif’s stomach grumbled. "Fuck, I wish Mateo had never gotten me hooked on that stuff... I’ve gone through like four bags in just this week."

"..."

"Okay, okay, not the point, I’m listening."

Rolling her eyes, Izanami pointed toward the trembling humans.

"These humans belong to her. They’re a part of her scheme."

"You sound annoyed."

"They’re how she can avoid the gaze of Lailah and other magic gods. She isn’t using standard magic, or magic of any kind, really. She’s coaxing humans into selling their souls by promising them power. It seems... she has amassed quite the collection."

Sif felt a migraine coming on. "Are you saying..."

"What she gives them is barely anything. I’d be shocked if any of them could set a garden on fire. She and her coven are getting the real benefits. The little fools are powering an entire army, and they don’t even know it."

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I rarely beg you guys but please read this message even if it’s long!

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Okay, okay, okay. I know I’ve been a little wobbly on update frequency. That’s my bad. I have had a lot going on in my professional and personal life so really I just haven’t had the time. But I am sorry. Genuinely.

That said.... I guess you could say the end of fdd is fast approaching. And since yesterday while I was thinking of how to wrap everything up, I thought about how much of a shame it was. I just felt like I was still leaving so much meat on the bone and if I could do things over again I would tell a much better story.

And then it kinda hit me that I still can.

So... Book two is in the planning stage. I say book two but it’s more like part two because you’ll still be able to find everything under the first demonic dragon page so think of it like how some other authors break their novel Chapters into arcs (fancy right, I know, I should be doing that.) you’ll just scroll up and be able to find book two there.

I guess this is my way of creating a story that potentially will attract dropped readers and new ones. Since they won’t need to have read any of Book 1 to understand book 2.

You might be wondering why I don’t just go and create a whole new separate book again and the answer is... cutting through some of the fat to get noticed on WebNovel is a lot harder now than it was like four years ago when I started. I don’t want to have to build from the ground up again if I don’t have to.

But basically the idea is that the end of the main story will be the beginning of a new one. And I will be able to tell a great story that every single one of you deserves. I want to get my quality up, get my lore concise and make the world building memorable. Most of all I just want to use this to show people who didn’t stick around how far I’ve grown.

It won’t be a full tie in thing, more like Easter eggs every now and again, and some very noticeable changes to the characters, but don’t worry they will still be insane and loud and won’t lose personality, the story will still be focused on love, family, children, ruling, sensuality, and most importantly- DRAGONSSS.

Pretty much, the whole idea is that if new readers read the early Chapters of book one and they’re like "Wow I hate this" (which, to be honest, entirely justified. ) I can put like a note in the synopsis explaining that book two is separate, better, and slightly different, and hopefully urge them to give that a chance.

I don’t wanna give away too much just in case somebody is worried about spoilers so if you want more info please message me in the discord.

But I want- no, I need to hear from you guys since you are my most loyal. Tell me what you want to see. Tell me what you don’t want to see.

Tell me any concerns you may have about continuity and all of that and I will do my very best to assuage you of any worries you may have.

But please... if you’ve just been lurking this far and you’ve never said a single comment, let this be the time you say something. Maybe this is crazy and it won’t work but I really think I can do something big here... I just need to know if you guys think it would yield fruit.

Any feedback is good feedback. Right now I’m just a nervous amateur author trying to make a dream come true, you know? And I need your help to figure out the best way for me to do that.

Thank you for your time. Goodnight, y’all.