"Fuck... Fuck... FUUUUUCK!!"
Standing at the edge of a huge crater, a figure in a red cloak looked down at the destruction below, his face twisted in a mix of rage and frustration.
The Red Baron.
His real identity is Gregor von Virellion, the heir of one of the six great demon houses in the Unspoken Realm. A royal incubus.
However, at the moment, none of his 'royalty' could be seen; he cursed, trashed, and kicked the ground like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
"DAMN IT! DAMN IT ALL!" he roared, his voice echoing through the empty wasteland. "How could this happen?! Who did it?!!!"
How could he not be angry? His secret base, the one he spent decades building and perfecting, was gone, just like that. One moment it was there, a fortress of sin, blood, and pleasure, the next it was a smoldering crater.
The ritual site that he and his eleven masked 'friends' had been preparing for years to summon a being from the void beyond the stars was destroyed.
Like poof! Gone with the wind.
And the worst part? He didn't know who did it.
"An explosion of this magnitude..." he muttered to himself, his mind racing. "It can't be... dwarven explosives? No, not this scale... Holy magic? Maybe..."
He was trying to find an explanation, any explanation that would make sense. But he knew, deep down, that it was something else. Something much more dangerous.
Sniff sniff.
His nose picked up that greasy, familiar scent.
"Fucking... gnomes."
It was a gnome's magic bomb. Those little pesky creatures, their love for making all kinds of things blow up is unmatched.
"My lord," suddenly a timid voice spoke behind him. "We..."
"Spill it out." Gregor didn't even bother to turn around. He was on his last nerve.
"We found no survivors," the demon, a lesser incubus who served as a bodyguard, said, his voice trembling.
"What about the Lamia priestess? Was she...?" Gregor's voice was cold.
"Her body was not found among the dead, my lord," the bodyguard said. "She might have escaped."
"Escape?" Gregor's laughter was harsh and humorless. "No... she was erased from existence."
He turned and focused on the crater, ignoring the bodies, blood, and rubble.
"The center of the blast..." Gregor pointed at the center of the crater, a gaping hole of blackened earth and glass. "It was exactly where she was. No trace, no blood, no ashes... nothing."
"Even the damn ritual circle was wiped out completely," he added, his eyes narrowing. "This was no ordinary explosive. This was..."
He took a deep breath, calming himself.
"Last time I witnessed an explosion this powerful, it was during the Great War." Gregor's mind went back to that day, a memory he tried to bury for centuries.
The day when a 'certain someone' shoved hundreds of magical bombs into the belly of a great beast before sending it flying into the enemy's fortress. The explosion was so powerful that it wiped out an entire army and a mountain.
Gregor shivered at the memory. He was one of the few survivors.
"..."
Silence prevailed once more, heavier this time, as if the wasteland itself feared to breathe.
The Red Baron stood motionless at the crater's edge, red cloak flapping lazily in the dry, ash-laden wind. His golden eyes, usually half-lidded with lazy seduction, burned with something far colder than rage.
"Fucking gnomes," he snarled now, spitting into the crater. "Always the gnomes."
The bodyguard shifted uneasily, his horns twitching.
"My lord, what should we do? The other houses will hear of this. Your father's wrath—"
"Shut your hole!" Gregor whirled, eyes blazing crimson. His incubus aura flared, making the lesser demon stagger back, knees buckling under invisible lust and terror. "My father is the least of my concerns right now!"
He turned away, pacing like a caged panther. His boots crunched on scorched bone fragments. The ritual site wasn't just a project; it was the culmination of decades of careful maneuvering. He'd needed it. He needed the power it promised to finally... finally...
"Everything is gone," he breathed, a fist clenching so hard that blood welled in his palm. "The circle. The artifacts. The 'seed'."
His anger was still there, a smoldering volcano deep inside, but the fear... oh, the fear was the more pressing issue now.
How should he explain to eleven powerful, ancient demons that the plan they worked on for centuries was now just a giant hole in the ground?
How should he explain that the ritual node he was supposed to protect was destroyed, and the lamia priestess who was key to the ritual was... gone?
He was dead. He was so unbelievably, spectacularly dead.
"I need to think of a way out," he said, more to himself than the trembling bodyguard. "Or the White Baron will have my head for this."
Think. He needed a scapegoat. He needed to redirect their wrath, their immense, reality-bending fury. Someone to take the blame.
But no matter how much he thought, he kept coming up empty. No one would be stupid enough to accept the blame for this.
Moreover, the other barons would 100% hold him responsible for this failure, and 'The White Baron' would never forgive him.
"..."
Gregor clenched his fists until his claws drew thin rivulets of ichor from his palms, the metallic tang mixing with the acrid smoke still rising from the crater. His mind whirled like a storm of hellfire—scapegoat, scapegoat, scapegoat. The word pounded in his skull, a mantra against the doom creeping closer.
"My lord," the bodyguard whispered, trying to regain some semblance of dignity. "Perhaps we could claim it was a sabotage from the Upper Heavens? A localized strike by the Angels? They have been active on the borders of—"
"Don't be a fool," Gregor snapped, his voice cutting through the ash-heavy air. "The Council isn't blind. They would smell the gunpowder and gnome-grease from a realm away. Holy magic leaves a lingering scent of ozone and self-righteousness."
"You," Gregor snapped, whirling on him so fast the lesser demon yelped. His golden eyes locked on, aura pulsing with that signature incubus haze—lust laced with lethality. The bodyguard's knees hit the dirt again, his breath hitching as forbidden heat flooded his veins.
"What's your name, worm?"
"M-My lord... it's..."
"Too slow," Gregor snarled, lunging. He didn't draw a blade—too brutish. Instead, he grabbed the demon's throat in a grip that crushed bone as easily as overripe fruit. "Listen closely, because your worthless hide depends on it."
"The other Barons will come sniffing. The White one especially," Gregor hissed, claws digging in until the demon's eyes bulged, face purpling. "They'll demand answers. Blood. And I'll give it to them."
"M-my lord?" The bodyguard blinked through the haze, confusion cutting the lust-fog.
"You know what... I changed my mind," Gregor said. "I'll use you for a different purpose."
Before the demon could question further, Gregor's free hand shot out, claws gleaming like obsidian. He made a single, precise slash down the lesser demon's chest. Not deep enough to kill, but enough to spill a torrent of steaming black blood across the ashen ground.
"AH! M-my lord... what—"
Gregor didn't care. With surgical precision, he pulled out the demon's core, killing him instantly—a pulsating, marble-sized stone of black energy. Then, without hesitation, he ripped his own left arm out with a sickening crunch of bone and tearing of flesh, spraying blood across the wasteland.
"AAAARGH!" Gregor roared, stumbling back, golden eyes wide with shock at his own action. The pain was immense, but the desperation was greater.
Clutching the severed arm, he threw it into the crater along with it before swallowing the demon's core whole.
Crack! Crack!
Within seconds, Gregor's appearance and aura shifted, matching exactly the one of the dead demon.
The transformation was agonizing. As the dead bodyguard's essence melded with his own, Gregor felt his noble stature shrink, his skin graying into the dull, mottled hide of a servant. The regal curve of his horns blunted into stubs. He was no longer a royal of the Unspoken Realm; he was a footnote, a nameless shadow in a world of monsters.
His plan was simple.
Fake his death and get the hell out of the Unspoken Realm.
The failure this time was too big, too costly. He wasn't stupid; he knew that the other Barons would never forgive him. The White Baron would have his head, and he didn't want to die.
The power and influence he built over centuries would be gone, but at least he would live.
"Filthy disguise," he muttered, voice a gravelly rasp that wasn't his own. He flexed claws that felt blunt, wrong. Survival first. Revenge second. But oh, how the second burned hotter.
"Goodbye, Gregor von Virellion." Gregor looked at the crater one last time. "Hello... nobody."
With that, he turned and walked away, leaving behind a legacy of failure and a crater full of secrets.
His new mission?
First survive, then find the one responsible for this mess and make them pay.