Chapter 206: Chapter 206: Seven Fingers Mountain

The red rift swallowed Adonis Kingsbane entirely. The transition was not smooth like a teleportation gate. It felt like being dragged through a grinder of jagged glass and boiling blood.

The ambient mana of the living world was completely gone, replaced by a thick, suffocating miasma of rot, despair, and ancient hatred.

​He fell from the burning red sky like a dark meteor. The clouds parted around him, revealing a desolate, nightmarish landscape below.

Rivers of liquid fire carved through valleys of black obsidian. In the distance, massive winged shadows circled above erupting volcanoes.

​Adonis crashed onto the summit of a towering, jagged mountain peak.

Boom!

The impact shattered the black stone beneath his boots, sending a shockwave of force down the mountainside. He stood up slowly, rolling his shoulders as he surveyed his new hunting ground.

​"So this is the base of the 7 firmaments," Adonis muttered to himself.

He brushed a layer of grey ash off his black imperial robes.

"It lacks a certain elegance."

​[System Notification: Entering the 7th Firmament.]

[Environmental Hazard: Extreme Demonic Miasma Detected.]

[Status: Chaos Aura actively repelling corruption.]

​Adonis looked down the steep, treacherous slopes of the mountain.

The terrain was crawling with movement.

Swarms of lesser hell spirits, resembling floating skulls wrapped in blue fire, drifted aimlessly through the ash storms.

Packs of feral, multi-limbed demons scrambled over the rocks, tearing into the remains of massive, decayed beasts. It was a realm governed entirely by primal violence.

​His living aura was like a blazing beacon in an ocean of darkness. Already, a few of the lesser spirits at the base of the peak had stopped their wandering and turned their hollow eye sockets toward his position.

​"If I start slaughtering them right now, the noise will draw the entire continent to this mountain. I came here to find the source of the anomaly, not to waste my time swatting insects. I need information first."

​Adonis closed his eyes. He tapped into the dark, chaotic properties of his system. The Primus of Death had mentioned that the rogue souls manifested physical forms based on their sins.

To blend in and gather intel, he needed to look like he belonged in this wasteland.

He activated chaotic physique to alter appearance.

The majestic, vibrant violet light of his Chaos energy retreated deep into his core, replaced by the freezing, hollow energy of the grave. His black imperial robes frayed at the edges, transforming into tattered, floating shrouds. The flesh on his hands turned a sickly, translucent grey, with the bones faintly visible underneath.

His violet eyes darkened into burning pits of spectral green fire.

​He no longer looked like the radiant, tyrannical Dragon Emperor. He looked like an ancient, high-tier Death Spirit, a terrifying entity born from the deepest pits of the underworld.

​"This will suffice," Adonis said.

His voice was no longer smooth and commanding. It came out as a raspy, echoing whisper that chilled the air around him.

​He stepped off the shattered crater of his landing zone and began his descent down the jagged peak. He moved with absolute silence, floating just a few inches above the sharp obsidian rocks

. The lesser hell spirits that had been staring at him suddenly lost interest.

To their primitive senses, he was just another terrifying predator of the underworld, one they should instinctively avoid.

​Halfway down the mountain, Adonis heard the sound of squabbling voices. He slipped behind a massive, twisted spire of rock and peered into a small, sunken ravine.

​A group of five Imps was huddled around the glowing, half-eaten carcass of a winged serpent.

The Imps were grotesque little creatures. They stood about three feet tall, with bright red skin, leathery bat wings, and oversized heads adorned with curved, yellow horns.

They were currently fighting over a large chunk of meat, tearing at each other with dirty claws.

​"Give it to me, you stupid runt!" the largest Imp screeched. He kicked a smaller Imp in the ribs.

"I saw it first! The marrow belongs to me!"

​"You lie, Snark! I brought it down with my fire spit! You just hid behind the rocks until it stopped twitching!" the smaller Imp spat back, clutching his bruised side.

​"It is my kill!" a third Imp, with a broken horn, snapped angrily. "If I did not bite its wing, it would have flown away! I demand the heart!"

​"You can have the intestines, Krek," Snark laughed cruelly. "The heart is for the strongest. And I am the strongest here."

​"All of you shut your mouths!" a fourth Imp hissed, glancing nervously up at the red sky. "If you make too much noise, the Hell-Hounds will hear us. Or worse, one of the King’s patrols will find us hiding out here. Do you want to be thrown into the soul-furnaces?"

​Adonis stepped out from behind the rock spire. He let a small fraction of his death-aura leak out, causing the temperature in the ravine to plummet to absolute zero in a single second. The glowing carcass instantly froze solid.

​"Who is talking about soul-furnaces?" Adonis asked.

His hollow, echoing voice washed over the Imps like a bucket of freezing water.

​The five Imps froze in terror. They slowly turned their oversized heads toward the towering, shroud-wrapped figure. When they saw the spectral green fire burning in his eyes and the terrifying death-aura radiating from his tattered robes, they immediately dropped their food and fell to their knees.

​"Mercy! Mercy, Oh Great Spirit of the Abyss! We are just humble scavengers! We have no valuable souls to offer you!" Snark, the largest Imp, squealed in absolute panic.

​"Please do not eat us! We taste terrible! We are mostly bone and gristle!"

​Adonis floated closer, hovering just a few feet above the cowering demons. He crossed his arms beneath his grey, tattered robes.

He projected an aura of absolute boredom mixed with lethal intent.

Adonis stated coldly,

​"I have no interest in eating garbage. I seek information. Answer my questions quickly and clearly. If you waste my time, I will pull your spines out through your throats. Do you understand?"

​All five Imps nodded their heads so violently that their horns nearly scraped the ground.

​"Yes, Great Spirit! Ask us anything We know everything about this miserable wasteland!"

​"First, Tell me exactly where I am. What is the name of this territory?"

​Snark looked up in confusion. "Where you are? Great Spirit, did you just wake up from a deep slumber? You are standing right on the middle joint of the Seven Fingers Mountain!"

​"Seven Fingers Mountain," Adonis repeated the name slowly.

.

He looked at the surrounding peaks. Through the thick, red miasma, he could now see that the mountain range was shaped exactly like a massive, monstrous hand reaching up from the earth, with seven distinct, jagged peaks acting as the fingers.

He had landed on the middle finger.

​"Yes, my lord! It is the tallest peak in the entire ash-valley! The very center of the Northern Wastes!"

​"I see," Adonis nodded slightly. "And who claims ownership of this territory?"

​The Imps suddenly shivered. Even the mention of the local ruler seemed to fill them with a dread that rivaled their fear of Adonis.

​"We belong to the territory of Demon King Sirius," Snark whispered, looking around as if saying the name aloud would summon the devil himself.

"He is the absolute master of the Seven Fingers and all the burning valleys below. He is a tyrant, Great Spirit! A monster among monsters!"

​"Demon King Sirius," Adonis mused, testing the name on his tongue. "Is he a native demon of this firmament, or is he a rogue soul from the upper firmament?"

​"He is a rogue soul!" the smaller Imp answered quickly. "He arrived here a few centuries ago. He refused to enter the reincarnation forge. He gathered the strongest rebel souls and absorbed thousands of native demons to build his power. Now, he commands an army of a million twisted spirits!"

​Adonis smiled beneath his shadowy cowl.

The Primus had mentioned that the rogue souls were organizing and building empires. It seemed he had landed right in the middle of one of their territories.

This Demon King Sirius sounded exactly like the kind of anomaly he was sent here to subjugate.

​"What kind of power does this Sirius wield?" Adonis questioned, leaning closer to the shivering demons.

​Snark swallowed hard. "He wields the power of absolute despair, Great Spirit! He carries a blade forged from a thousand screaming souls. When he swings it, the very fabric of the firmament tears open. He commands the Hell-Hounds. He commands the Bone Giants. Nobody can challenge him in the Northern Wastes!"

​"Where is his fortress? Where does this Demon King reside?" Adonis demanded.

​Snark pointed a trembling claw toward the base of the massive mountain range.

"At the very bottom of the Seven Fingers, Great Spirit! There is a massive fortress carved into the obsidian cliffs. It is called the Howling Keep. You cannot miss it. The sky above the Keep is always black with the smoke of the soul-furnaces. He burns the weak souls to forge his weapons."

​"He forces souls into weapons?" Adonis asked, his spectral green eyes flaring with interest.

​"Yes, my lord! He defies the laws of the underworld. He refuses to let anyone pass to the next life. He traps everyone here to serve in his army or burn in his fires. It is said he is preparing for a massive war against the other 99 Demon Kings of the firmament!"

​"Other 99?" Adonis chuckled, "So there are 99 of these rogue kings playing at being gods in the basement. This is going to be incredibly entertaining."

​Adonis had all the information he needed. He knew his location, he knew his target, and he knew the scale of the rebellion.

He looked down at the five cowering Imps. They were evil, twisted little creatures, but they had served their purpose efficiently.

​"You have been useful," Adonis declared.

​"Does that mean you will let us go, Great Spirit?" Snark asked hopefully, a disgusting smile spreading across his jagged teeth.

​"I will. But I think I will keep this mountain for myself. You should probably run."

​