novε)lb-1n
Ragnarok feels that he doesn't even need to be selfish and greedy to reject becoming the vessel of a demon god. Being smart is more than enough reason for him to refuse.
"I'll think about it." That's what he said to her.
But he has thought about it for long enough and his answer will remain no.
"That is good enough for me," It said. "I can't ask for more than that."
Ragnarok thought to himself in jest, "You can but I will say no all the same."
The two of them finally made it to the devil's pit.
"Welcome to my humble abode," the vampire said to him.
They have crossed the lip of the crater to its center. The two of them are looking down at the gaping maw of the pit that leads to the underground. The crater seems to have been formed by a meteor or a large rock hitting the ground. It has a wide lip but the pit itself wasn't formed by the resulting explosion. It is too smooth and narrow to be something created by chance.
"It seems to be drilled like a well," he said to the voice in his head.
"Yes, Emperiti dug it herself. It was dug during the first war of the encroaching darkness when the Vampires from the underground invaded the surface. Emperiti wanted to come out from the Underdark at this point, but a Sovereign of law had other ideas. The sovereign dropped something very big on her to stop her. It was spectacular."
"I'm sure it was." He said before returning to inspecting the pit.
There is a band of metal at the very edge of the pit and what appears to be cylindrical columns of metal around the walls of the pit that look like the supports used in walls to stop them from collapsing inwardly. It makes the devil's pit look like a very large reinforced well.
He complimented his host, "It looks nice. The top-grade origin artifact support system is a nice touch. I heard the creation of the devil's pit was full of spectacular events."
The Vampire accepted his compliment, "Yes, it was. I was very young back then when it happened. I have grown much bigger since then. The Devil's Pit has been a very important landing stage and point of invasion into the upper plane ever since its creation. The snobby wood elves have tried their best to take it away from me, but I have always thwarted their plans."
He nodded. "So I've heard. I can see why too." He said as he looked at the sleeping army of the primogenitor.
The walls of the pit are lined with rows upon rows of sleeping Vampires. This is nighttime so they are not sleeping because they have to. They are sleeping because they are not needed.
"There must be millions of them here." He said to his host.
He tried to sound appreciative but he is not. He is a little intimidated by the sight. The pit is about a kilometer in diameter. There are steps that lead down to its depth. Those steps occupy a small portion of the inner wall of the pit. The rest of the wall is covered with sleeping Vampires. They reach farther down the pit than his eyes can see.
The vampire nodded and looked proud of itself. "It is something, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is." He managed to say.
The sight of all these vampires reminded him of why the Emperiti Primogenitor is considered weird and is feared by other Vampires. This vampire that he is talking to is both the primogenitor and not the primogenitor. It and the others that he saw earlier are also very similar in features to the millions of vampires that he is looking at right now. Even without the knowledge he has of her, he knows that it is highly unlikely that they were born that way.
The thousands of vampires guarding the devil's pit are mostly weak. These sleeping ones are the real backbone of the security of the devil's pit. There are tens of thousands of Dukes among them. Those are the equivalent of Sovereigns of law. As for Marquises and the rest, they are too much to count.
This is not an army. It is a horde. It is not a wonder how the primogenitor has been able to defend the pit all by herself. Vampires call her the Emperor of the Undead, the Abominable Plague of Undeath, or the horde of ghouls. Some of those titles are used as compliments while others are used as slurs.
Vampires of her lineage are called ghouls because they behave like ghouls, and she multiplies herself the same way that ghouls spread themselves. Other Vampires need to bite a living person to turn them. As for her, a single scratch from any one of her Vampires will infect a living being and turn their body into a Vampire in her image.
The Vampires that she creates will also be mentally dead unless she actively gives them orders. Otherwise, they will either run amok or stay asleep if she wills it. That's why they are likened to Ghouls. They are not real Ghouls though. Real ghouls are more terrifying.
"This is an unrelated topic, but where are the Ghouls?" He asked the Vampire.
There are always ghouls whenever Vampires appear in a plane. He realized he hadn't seen them at all.
The Vampire replied, "They have all been eliminated."
"That's good." He said.
He is actually impressed that they managed to eliminate the Ghouls. But he is not surprised that they managed to do so. The Vampires have the help of the demon god after all.
"Let me take you to where you will be staying for the foreseeable future," the vampire said to him.
He followed it down the steps in the pit. They didn't go all the way down. The steps branched out left and right at several intervals into the surrounding stone. They took one of those branches and entered a large hollowed-out space. The space is so large that they managed to build a very impressive-looking castle into it.
