Chapter 217: The Master of Sin and strategy

I watched the fights in the arena—a simple circle of rocks—that the Master of Sin arranged to build. A couple of demons fought. One used a crude stone club, while the other had nothing but claws, teeth, and sheer ferocity that was, though, enough to tear into his opponent time and time again.

He was decimating him, but it was not because he was so good, but because his opponent was so slow. He'd be better off throwing that heavy club away, but if he was too stupid to realise that, then he had no place in my army.

"I can see from your face, lord, that these candidates do not inspire you," the Master of Sin spoke. "You think they would be so useless in the actual fight against the gods?"

"Yes. But maybe they will have other uses…" I kept staring down at the fight and the crowd of observers outside the circle of the arena. I had a splendid view from above, and so did the Master of Sin, who carefully balanced on one of my flight devices.

Though I had to hold him by a string of web or a gust of wind could push him away from the spectacle.

"May I ask you the details, lord?"

I hummed, lazily flapping my wings. Maybe the Master of Sin would have an idea for me—he had brains on him.

"The problem with gods… They can just call for help if anything happens with one. It would take them a minute to cast the spell, and, say, God of Monks did not have a minute—but some others have it differently. And if there are two gods at once, I'd have to prevent one of them from moving aside and, again, asking for help. In other words, it's easier to divide them first, then strike."

The Master of Sin inclined his head in understanding. "I see now. You understand that these demons won't make a decent distraction in a battle, so you want them to be a distraction out of it? Strike at the gods' most important points, create chaos amongst mortals and maybe even impersonate you."

"Impersonate me?" I blinked. "I thought nothing like that, but that's actually a great idea. Hm… Maybe I should sort these demons by ugliness instead of strength."

The Master of Sin laughed. "Come on, Devourer, you aren't so bad. That transparent skin is something one needs to get used to a little, but you have magnificent hair unlike, say, me." He ran a palm over the mass of long needles that grew from his scalp. "Add your ability to morph your body into the mix, and I would've been curious to explore that small joy of the underworld with you if I wasn't afraid that you'd kill me for even offering it."

I turned sharply and stared at the Master of Sin, dumbfounded. How did I miss it? Did I not read his thoughts enough? Was I too distracted by other things?

Now I dug in and, yes, he wasn't joking. Him and me? The idea made me cringe, and I thought about really killing him for that—but Hell and beyond, that won't stop him from thinking, unless I open up about being able to read thoughts, which meant—

The Master of Sin laughed again. "Forgive me, lord Devourer! I couldn't resist. Kill me if you must, for it WAS awfully impudent on you to joke this way, but the boring existence of Hell made me unable to stop myself when it comes to entertainment. By why so surprised? Did you think I called myself the Master of Sin for nothing?" He smirked slyly. "Men, women, male demons, female demons—they are all beautiful and disgusting in their own ways, and I. Love. All. Of. Them." He made a show of slowly licking his lips with a tongue that was too narrow and too long for a human.

I snarled at him and looked at the arena again. The weaponless demon won and was already fighting the next opponent. "The most disgusting one is you. Throw this out of your head."

"As you wish, lord. We are all have our preferences, and you have the strength to follow them instead of grabbing what there is or having nothing at all." The Master of Sin's smirk turned into a distant smile. "And we should really return to the business at hand so no one steals that right from you."

To give him credit, his thoughts really moved back to thinking about strategic uses of a demon army instead of tentacles. I went back to our original topic, too.

"It does sound like a great idea, to make some of them pretend they are me. Add some costumes—the gods know I have wings, at least sometimes, and there are other details that are easy to copy. That would make them run around a little." I grinned at the prospect of sending them off to a wild chase.

"By sacrificing enough demons, we can lower their vigilance, too. After a dozen or two of false alarms, they will treat the genuine alarm as false. Even when you show to them, a lone god searching for others might not realise their mistake until it's too late."

I bit my lip. "Yes. But that will only work once, and won't even kill that god for good. But maybe we can go a step further with this strategy… Hm…" After all, after the time I spent in Hell, Pest finally did the one thing I needed him most to do—found the spell of teleportation to Heaven in the Goddess of Wizards' magic tome and swore to me he was positive he could use it.

I didn't think I'd use it on that stage of things, but… I grinned. "We can bring the fight to their home turf and still distract them in the mortal realm. It will be a reign of complete chaos, and in this chaos, they will be divided and ready to be eaten—just like I want them."