Heroine Creation: All My Summons Are Custom Made

Chapter 253: Do Not Fear The Demons of Purgatory

The moment the Demon Lord appeared, the Head bowed low, the ugly shape of his body folding with unfathomable loyalty and submission.

"Lord Baal," he said.

Baal did not waste time on ceremony. "Braavas. What is it?"

The Demon Head — Braavas — lifted his head just enough to speak. "The humans are attacking the half-citadel," he said with some hesitation.

Baal’s eyes narrowed, the glow deepening by a shade. "Attacking?"

"Yes, my lord." Braavas’ jaw tightened, and the scarred growths along his raised shoulder flexed under the strain of his frustration. "It seems to be Awakeners. Organized and powerful enough to clear more than sixty percent of the claimed land in just twenty minutes."

For the briefest instant, the Gloom in the room stilled.

Baal’s stare sharpened. "So the humans have suddenly cultivated such effrontery. I know them to be persistent worms clinging to a world destined to be ours, but this is another level. Even for them."

The Demon Lord grunted, moving its cow head to the side. "Hmmmm. Braavas?"

"Yes, Lord Baal?"

"Have they discovered our plot?"

Braavas’ face twisted, a grotesque thing of snarling bone and muscle and irritation. "No. They cannot have."

Baal said nothing.

Braavas hurried on, the words coming faster now under the weight of that silence. "The truce line was maintained exactly as planned. The corruption remained stable and we made sure to remain as falsely quiet as possible. There is no way they would have noticed anything.

"I did everything to perfection, my Lord Baal. Everything."

’Everything’ rolled out of its mouth like a grumble in a cave.

"And yet," Baal spoke, "they are inside it."

Braavas fell to his knees and bowed with a greater display of fear and submission. "Yes, my Lord Baal."

Baal’s red eyes moved slightly. The Demon Lord was considering not just the immediate failure but the chain of consequences behind it.

"Explain."

Braavas swallowed whatever pride a demon like him possessed and forced the report out. "They must be rogue Awakeners, my Lord Baal. They think to clear an inactive Demon Break so they can grow stronger with less danger. They may not even know what they have walked into."

Baal’s expression did not change, but the air around the screen grew heavier.

"I promise you, my Lord Baal, they have not discovered the plot," Braavas said more sharply than before. "They cannot have. We hid everything perfectly."

Baal’s nostrils flared slightly.

"Perfectly," he echoed.

The word sounded almost amused, but only almost.

Braavas tensed.

Baal continued, voice low and deliberate now. "You have no idea how thin the line becomes when humans begin noticing the wrong things. They are not clever enough to understand the whole design, but they are persistent enough to ruin it if they touch the right thread."

His red eyes burned a little brighter.

"This is important for the destiny of Gehenna, Braavas."

Braavas lowered his gaze. "I know, my lord."

"Do you?"

The question carried a deathly aura that Braavas felt through the screen. The Demon Head was pushed back by the demonic aura, causing him to stumble and fall on his back.

Baal leaned forward through the magical surface, making the screen ripple around his face. "The Warning Gates are coming, Braavas. Now is not the time to make mistakes. Deathrock must be ready to become a portal for Hellfyre!"

Braavas hurried up to his knees and listened in silence now. The only thing more dangerous than Lord Baal was an angry Lord Baal, and the Demon Head knew silence was his only way of getting out of this alive.

Baal’s wings shifted behind him in the dim red of the throne chamber.

"The Awakeners have decided to stir the wound early," he said. "Then we shall answer them with something they were never meant to see."

Braavas’ brow ridge tightened. "My lord?"

Baal’s eyes gleamed.

"We shall unleash one of the fragments of Purgatory on these Awakeners."

Braavas’ face soured visibly, the grotesque features tightening with a mixture of fear and awe. "Purgatory?" he repeated.

Baal gave the smallest nod. "You understand what it is."

Braavas did understand. Every demon worth its corruption knew the stories, even if they had never been close enough to see the place itself.

Purgatory was not a realm in the usual sense. It was a prison-stratum, a nightmare repository of Demons too horrible to be called Demons.

They were too dangerous, too malformed, and too difficult to command that they had to be locked up in a millennia old prison called purgatory.

The Demons banished to purgatory were unusable. Or nearly so. Fragments of Purgatory was released whenever the Demon Lords were desperate, willing to risk rebellion to get what they wanted.

But in this case, it seemed Baal was not just desperate to stop the Awakeners in time for the Warning Gates, he also wanted to punish them by sending the most profane creatures in both worlds to slaughter them.

Baal’s voice softened into something almost ceremonial. "Do not fear the Demons of Purgatory, Braavas. They are useful when pointed properly."

He lifted one hand, and something small and hard-looking appeared in his fingers. Even through the screen, it looked like something dreadful.

It was not a simple key, but an artifact shaped like one—dark, angular, and etched with red lines that poured out smoke from unseen edifices. The head of it looked like a jagged shard of black bone wrapped in a ring of sealed metal. Tiny grooves and slots ran along its length, each one glowing faintly as if they were meant to open something older than a door.

"A purgatory key fragment," Baal said.

Braavas’ eyes widened.

Baal turned the object over in his palm. "The whole lock is not required for this operation. A fragment is enough. With this you will send a small pocket of the containment to purge the Awakeners. You will use it wisely."

Braavas’ expression sharpened with renewed attention. "My Lord Baal. This is my first time with such a task."

Baal’s mouth curved very slightly, but it looked too evil and distorted to be called a smile.

"The task is simple, Braavas. You will open the fragment chamber. Once you have opened it, the key will vanish and the fragment will disgorge the things locked inside it. Those Demons care for nothing and will kill anything with Grace in its veins. Anything with a pulse they can smell."

Braavas looked down at the key, then back up at the screen.

The Demon Head asked another question. "And after the Awakeners are dead? What then? What do we do with the Cursed Demons?"

Baal’s eyes squinted as though he suspected the Demon Head was questioning his competence. "I will suck them into the other fragments of Purgatory. They will not stay out there long enough to trifle our plans. Now, proceed."

Braavas immediately bowed again, lower this time. "As you command."

Baal’s gaze did not soften. "One more thing."

Braavas froze.

Baal’s eyes narrowed in a way that suggested he had recalled something. "Do not let them learn what you have released. If the humans understand the structure of Purgatory too soon, they will begin to prepare for our secret weapon. The fragments must be used as shock, not spectacle."

Braavas nodded once, stiffly. "Understood."

Baal’s expression remained fixed and severe. "And Braavas."

The Demon Head looked up.

The Demon Lord’s voice lowered, carrying the weight of warning and destiny in the same breath.

"If this half-citadel falls before the fragment is fully deployed, then you will not have failed me. You will have failed Gehenna."

Braavas went pale in the monstrous, twisted way only Demons could go pale. "I will not fail, my Lord Baal."

Baal stared at him for one long moment, then extended the purgatory key fragment toward the surface of the magical screen.

Braavas claimed the key from Baal’s deathly hand. When it touched the Head’s palm, an effect like sizzling left the steel as if it was boiling the flesh of the Demon. But Braavas felt no pain.

Baal’s image shimmered away from the screen and the Demon Head was now left on his own.

Braavas rose to his feet and turned with determination. He walked to the front of a wall, stopping 5 feet away from it and the window right across from him. Then, he drove the key into the air, and the space in front of him split with a sound like glass breaking under the sea.

A small keyhole appeared, but the actual effect was happening outside the old citadel building.

At ground level, some distance away from the base of the structure, a triangular rune with a round base like a hunted, crimson slice of pizza appeared in the air. Red light spilled through the crack as if something on the other side had been trying to breathe for centuries.

The air suddenly started to burn, warping like the space between embers of fire. The roots along the walls jerked and tightened. The corruption in the chamber began to pulse in time with something much deeper, much older.

Braavas, up in the citadel, twisted the key once.

The fracture crumbled and a strong crimson light blared into the town of Deathrock.

From within it came the first low, guttural noises of things that should never have been left within reach of the world.

A fragment of Purgatory had been unleashed.