Chapter 258 The Nine Domains of the Demon Lords
For the first time in a long while, Harker was aware that he had been dreaming and could remember the dream perfectly even when he woke up. Which was very much surprising, and also now annoying when he realized…..
That he learns much, much more if he could just remember these kinds of dreams.
He was sitting in the middle of a floating rock, perched over what seemed to be a hellscape full of lava, exploding geysers, and rumbling volcanoes. There were 8 people in total, and they sat in a circle, legs crossed and wearing ancient Chinese attire.
And they were not human.
Harker was sitting right in the middle of them, but they didn't seem to notice him.
One of them was someone he recognized very well. It was a woman with flame for hair, and wearing lavish red robes as she sipped a cup filled with pure lava.
"And you just decided to bring his remains in my domain for….. what, exactly? I do not see the point besides wanting to insult me." She said, looking less sadistically evil and more forlorn.
A rough looking man replied to her. He was ginormous, and his muscular body was filled with scars, and only wore his pants. There was something in his gray eyes that reminded Harker of a big bad wolf. His hair was spiky all over his body, and his fangs were long enough that they protruded from his lips.
"Demon Lord of the East, you are the one who presides in the domain of destruction. It is only right that you dispose of his body." The man sneered.
Another man chuckled at this. He was….. a little more difficult to describe.
Actually, Harker had no idea what he was looking at, besides that it was meant to be a man sitting. But it hurts to look at, and everything about him was placed in the wrong spot. He keeps phasing in and out of Harker's vision like the colors of a kaleidoscope, and everything's shifting so fast that you start to doubt if you're even seeing them at all.
"Demon Lord of the Southeast, do not test her patience. You know better to avenge your rejection from Lady Li than to present her with the remains of the Omniscient One."
The Demon Lord of the Southeast scoffed. "This is where we convene anyway, right? So whatever my intentions were, it does not matter. We'd all want to talk about his Death eventually, Lord Xun."
He turned to another one of them who was sipping the lava tea. "Wouldn't you agree, Lord Qian?"
Lord Qian had eight limbs like a spider. He also had eight eyes, gracefully half-closed as he sipped his lava tea. His clothes were made of the finest silk that was so thin, smooth and shiny that it might have been woven from gossamer. His skin was dull gray, and his mouth had appendages that looked like pinchers, no doubt strong enough to chew through bone.
"I agree, Lord Gen. But I do admit, it's quite tacky to convene with that….. thing in place. Which part of him is it, Lady Kun?"
"His heart." A woman's voice said.
She was sitting on the opposite side of him, her eyes red like she had been crying. But it was also pure white and so was her whole body. Endless pools of water flowed through her blind and hazy eyes, and her body was that of a corpse that no amount of make-up or luxurious robes could ever fix.
"The heart of Darkness is truly something else to behold." She pointed in the middle, where Harker was sitting.
On the opposite of the Fire Lady, Lady Li, was a man. He had nine tails of a fox and the legs of a goat. There were two horns on his head, and yet even with his bizarre appearance….
He exudes this sense of seduction in his movements. Something carnal and desirable.
"Poor Quan Zhi… I have always been fond of the man, despite his rather one-track mind. But then again, I have always been fond of those with a one-track mind, only following what they want and aim to get." He said, throwing a furtive glance at Lord Gen, the Demon Lord of the Southeast.
Lord Gen seethed with anger. "Get your lecherous eyes off me, you animal. You just want anything and everything."
"Of course! That is my nature after all. Lady Li's domain is of pain, and mine is pleasure."
Another woman laughed. She looked like a doll, her skin too smooth to be real. Even her way of speaking feels too fake, and she covers her face with a bright red fan….
Once she closes it, it reveals that her face was just painted and she was indeed made of porcelain.
"Hahahaha! Lord Shou is always a hilarious one. It's like seeing a rabbit flirting with a wolf. The predator does not know how to respond when its prey fawns over him. Hahahaha!"
Lord Gen growled again. "Stop laughing before I break your pretty fraudulent face, Lady Dui. And why is the animal sitting in the West seat!? He has no seat before, happy enough to just roam around our circle."
"He takes the mantle for the West, turning it into his domain of beasts and monsters. It's much more fitting in my opinion, as he had pointed out that pleasure is the direct opposite of pain rather than darkness." Another person said, sitting in the south west.
He was a thin and very pale man that barely showed emotion on his face besides mild amusement. His hair was floating against gravity, and he had the stars across his face. His light blue robes reminded Ren Jidian of the infinite blue skies that surrounded him while he climbed the spider's thread.
The incomprehensible man whose colors hurt Harker's eyes, the one they called Lord Xun, guffawed at this.
"Why must we always follow the rules of duality in seating arrangements when everything is not real, anyway?" Lord Xun asked.
"I agree to disagree, Lord Xun." The blue sky man said. "But I already expected from your nature not to follow the rules. You even used the form of a man instead of a woman just to prove a point, rendering our formation into an imbalance."
Lord Xun chuckled. "I take those as compliments, Lord Zhen."
Harker did notice that everyone sitting opposite each other in the circle were man-woman pairs except for Lord Xun and Lord Zhen. But then again, Lord Zhen looked androgynous enough to pass as a woman, an elderly and a child, an animal and a human, and everything all at once. It thrives in confusing the eye.
But other than that, they all seemed to contrast each other not just in genders but in what seemed to be their domain. Lord Qian in the North, Lady Kun in the South. Lord Quan Zhi in the West, now replaced by Lord Shou, and Lady Li in the East. Lord Gen in the Southeast, and Lady Dui in the Northwest.
Harker rationalized what they represent this way, following the rules of duality:
Lord Qian was the spider, weaver of his destiny, and his name meant 'Heaven'. Lady Kun was death, the loss of all things, and her name meant 'Earth'.
Lord Quan Zhi was the darkness, but also the Omniscient One that knows everything.
Lord Shou presides on the desires of the flesh, and Lady Li the pains of the soul.
Lord Zhen was, from what he could tell, presided over the vast infinite reality of the cosmos. While Lord Xun was the vast infinite delusions of the human mind.
And finally Lord Gen was the hunter, the one that chases. Lady Dui was the deceiver, the one that hides.
Nine Demon Lords. Nine Domains.
Harker felt like he had been peering into a peephole his whole life. Trying to make sense of the small images and movements behind the door. Then, just for one moment, the door opened and everything he saw in the small peephole finally made sense.
These forces, these beings….. They had been present all his life. Even before he became a Demon Lord.
They were present in his father's life, his mother's life, the lives of strangers he didn't know yet walk the same soil as him, and they were present in his subconscious mind as concepts that we have in our lives. Concepts like death, destiny, delusion, deceit... They were always there.
Lord Qian reached out to Harker, and his hand passed through right on his chest. He then pulled something, the one they call the 'Heart of Darkness'.
It was a pure black heart full of... eyes.
Eyes that were still gaping wide open and blinking even though the owner was dead and had perished.
"I suspect that the An Xin sect will attempt to have a new vessel for this heart. If their ritual had been successful once more, then Quan Zhi will rise again above us all. None of us would want that. Even you, Lady Li."
Lady Li looked at the heart and nodded. "I suppose so. We all want to be the one above all else."
She then took the heart…..
And burned it until those eyes melted and could not see anything anymore, rendering them blind.
She tossed it to the pit of lava, and yet Harker could see…..
That though it was burned and blinded….. It was not destroyed. It disappeared.
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