The room was not meant to be found, well not like any human could currently.
No windows. Stone walls carved smooth by something that wasn't tools. Eight high backed chairs arranged around a round table made of black wood so old it had stopped looking like wood entirely. Candles mounted on the walls burned with a flame that was just slightly the wrong color, not orange, not red, something between the two that made the shadows behave oddly.
Eight cloaked figures sat around the table.
Then the one at the center reached up and pulled his hood back.
Middle aged. Sharp jaw, sharper eyes, the kind of face that had made decisions that couldn't be undone and had long since made peace with that. A single horn rose from the right side of his forehead, jet black, tapered to a point, the unmistakable mark of their kind. He carried himself with the particular stillness of someone who hadn't needed to prove anything to anyone in a very long time.
One by one the others followed. Hoods came down around the table.
The facial features gave an undeniable yet shocking identity.
Eight devils.
They placed their right fists over their hearts simultaneously.
"By darkness undying, we serve."
The candles flickered once.
Then settled.
The leader placed both hands flat on the black table and looked around at each of them in turn.
"I hope all preparations are ready," he said.
The first figure rose.
Broad shouldered, two short horns curving back from his temples like a ram. He straightened and addressed the table.
"The mana circles in the Demon continent are complete," he said. "All twelve. Positioned exactly where you specified. Once activated they'll open stable portals directly to our realm." He paused.
"Getting them in place was easier than expected. The locals assumed I was one of them. Nobody questioned anything."
The leader, Malgros, looked at him.
"Good work, Drevak," he said.
Drevak sat down immediately, rubbing the back of his neck. "Thank you, my lord. That's, well. Thank you." He said it like he wasn't entirely sure what to do with the praise.
The second rose without being prompted. Thinner, older looking, three narrow horns in a row along his brow. His report was short and precise. The Beast continent. Mana circles complete. No complications.
Malgros nodded.
The third. The fourth. The fifth.
One by one they stood and gave their accounts. Each continent accounted for. Each set of mana circles in place, hidden, ready, waiting for the word.
The Elf continent. Complete.
The Dwarf continent. Complete.
The Vampire continent. Complete.
Five continents. Five reports. Five nods from Malgros.
Then silence.
Five sets of eyes turned slowly toward the end of the table.
Where two figures had not yet spoken.
The two devils responsible for the human continent sat very still under the weight of everyone looking at them.
Malgros looked at the end of the table.
"Veth," he said. "Coryn."
The two devils in question straightened immediately with the energy of people trying very hard to look like they hadn't been hoping to be skipped.
"My lord," Veth said.
"The human continent," Malgros said. Simply. Flatly.
"We've been—" Coryn started.
"You've been," Malgros repeated. "The two of you. Assigned the most strategically significant continent on this list." He let that sit for a second.
At this point, the other members had smug grins on their faces, afterall despite the fact that they were two individuals assigned not only to one continent, which in it's own is contradictory to what and how they were assigned, the continent was supposedly where the weakest of the races inhabited.
These two weren't even strong to start with, they only had their brains going for them from the beginning, yet they failed ? It was laughable.
"Beastglade alone. Do you understand what complete control of that forest would mean? The sheer number of beasts inside it. The monster hordes it produces. If we owned that forest we could reduce the human continent to rubble before they finished deciding who to send." He looked between them. "And yet here we are, or rather here you are."
Veth opened his mouth.
"Perhaps," Malgros said, "we need two people there who can actually deliver."
Both of them shot upright so fast their chairs scraped.
"My lord wait—"
"We can explain—"
"Then explain mongrels" Malgros said. "Quickly."
Veth and Coryn exchanged a look. Then Veth straightened and started talking fast.
"The mana circles. Half of them are already placed. Positioned along the outer ring of Beastglade and two points in the interior." He pulled out a folded map and pressed it flat on the table. "We also distributed the control pills. The weaker beasts took them without resistance, they're already responding."
Coryn leaned forward. "And it's not just the small ones. We have the goblin kings. The wolf alphas, the kobold chieftains, the stone trolls." He paused, then said it plainly. "We have the beast leaders, my lord. The ones the others follow."
The table went quiet.
The five who had already given their reports looked at each other.
Their expressions had been doing something between satisfaction and smugness ever since Veth and Coryn had started squirming. That was gone now. Replaced by something considerably less comfortable.
Because if what they were saying was true.
If they actually had the beast leaders.
Then the two most useless members of the table had quietly built the most dangerous piece of the entire operation while everyone else was busy feeling superior about it.
The five stared at Veth and Coryn with expressions that could not decide whether to be impressed or furious.
Malgros looked at the map.
"Then what," he said quietly, "is taking so long."
Veth straightened and began.
Coryn meanwhile dragged something from the corner of the room, a projector, old looking but functional, running on a dim mana current. He set it up without a word and clicked it on. A map of Beastglade appeared on the wall, detailed, marked up, clearly the product of serious time spent in that forest.
"The forest," Veth said, pointing. "We assumed going in that it operated like any other monster habitat. Territory, hierarchy, the strong dominate the weak, standard." He paused. "It doesn't."
Malgros looked surprised at this
"Explain," He said.
"Beastglade runs on multiple mana signatures," Veth said. "Not one. Not two. Several, spread across different zones of the forest. Each signature is distinct and the beasts within each zone feed on whichever one surrounds them." He traced the zones on the projected map. "That feeding is what drives their evolution. Different signature, different evolutionary path. It's why the forest produces such a range of creatures. They're not just strong. They're specifically strong. Shaped by what they've been absorbing."
The room was quiet for a moment.
"Strange," Drevak muttered.
"Very," someone else said.
"Strange indeed," Veth agreed. "Which is also what makes it complicated."
Malgros leaned forward slightly. "If the evolution follows the mana signature then the apex creatures would be clustered around the strongest signatures. Find those points, find the apex beasts, tame them. That simplifies everything considerably."
Veth opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then opened it again with the careful energy of someone choosing their next words very deliberately in front of someone they respected and feared in roughly equal measure.
"My lord," he said. "With respect. It isn't that simple. It isn't even possible. Not directly."
Malgros frowned "Why"
Coryn clicked the projector.
A new image appeared on the wall.
The room went still.
It filled the entire projection. A snake. Calling it large would have been an insult to the word. The Vaskareth, ancient, a creature so massive its body had reshaped the geography around it over centuries, its coils wide enough to encircle a city block, scales black as deep water with faint luminescent markings running along its length that pulsed slowly like a second heartbeat. Its head alone was the size of a building.
The image had been taken from a distance and it still barely fit the frame.
"That," Veth said, "is one of them."
The five around the table looked at it.
Nobody said anything smug.
"There are others like this," Veth continued. "Different species, different zones. All apex. All operating at a level that makes conventional taming methods irrelevant." He kept his voice even. "We considered it. We assessed it from every angle we had available. There is no room for negotiation with these creatures. They don't negotiate. They don't respond to incentive or communication. They speak one language."
"Strength," Malgros said.
"Only strength," Veth confirmed.
Malgros was quiet for a moment. Then he straightened in his chair.
"Then perhaps," he said, "I should go to the forest myself and—"
"My lord." Veth raised a hand.
The table looked at him.
Raising a hand to interrupt Malgros was not something anyone at that table did casually. Coryn looked like he was considering whether to physically distance himself from Veth on principle.
"Please," Veth said, holding the hand up. "We aren't finished yet."