“Hello?” Ashtoreth shouted as she flew through the metal buildings of the nexus bastion.

  She’d warped in almost a minute ago and began to head toward the center of the vast, artificial complex. Strangely enough, she hadn’t seen a single infernal. The bastion should have had armies upon armies worth of guards, but instead she found only empty streets and shadowed, quiet windows.

  “This isn’t good,” Dazel said.

  “They probably figured out I was coming,” said Ashtoreth. Raising her voice again, she called out, “Set? You around?”

  “That your sister?”

  “Yeah, she might be around.”

  “Might?”

  “Set being here was the plan before we left,” said Ashtoreth. “But it’s probably best to think of the plan before we left more as ‘what everyone wanted the others to believe was happening before they made their real moves.’”

  “Reasonable,” said Dazel. “After all, that’s what you did, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  You guys busy? Frost asked through the telepathic bond.

  What’s up? Ashtoreth asked.

  We got Yama, said Frost.

  Great! said Ashtoreth. We’ll see if the others fall for the same trap. My sisters are the most likely candidates for the election, so the more we get, the better!

  Only three more to go, then, said Frost.

  With luck, it’ll soon be two, said Ashtoreth.

  “This is definitely a trap,” said Dazel, looking out at the empty buildings around them.

  “Yeah, but I can’t figure out how,” she said. She jerked her head toward the massive tower at the center of the bastion. “Listen, if Set’s in there, you run counterplay on whatever her plan is.”

  “Sure, boss,” said Dazel. “By my calculations, the levels here shouldn’t exceed 200. If they saw you earlier, they might have just abandoned the place and rigged it to blow. Maybe we should leave.”

  “If they destroy the bastion, that’s our objective,” Ashtoreth said.

  “Also our lives.”

  “Most of the cast time of [Runic Warp] is due to distance and accuracy,” said Ashtoreth, recalling one of the things she’d learned from the many spellcasters she’d eaten. “If the demiplane suffers collapse, we can probably get out in time by casting ourselves into the void.”

  “‘Probably.’”

  “We can’t just leave this bastion here if it’s functional.”

  They were approaching the tower, now, and as they did Ashtoreth felt something strange. “Huh,” she said, raising an arm. Her infernal-detecting armbands were pulling her toward the top of the tower, but sensed only one entity. “I guess she wants to talk.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She’s waiting for me instead of ambushing us.”

  Her armbands led her through a cavernous hallway and into a gigantic, domed chamber at the top of the tower. The floor was covered in a thin layer of water, beneath which Ashtoreth could see tens of thousands of square-cut crystals.

  Set floated in the center of the room, looking much like she usually did.

  {Archfiend Set — Level 202 Elite}

  Glowing lines covered her body, all of them straight and often bending at forty-five degree angles to give her a strangely patterned, synthetic look. She had snow-white hair in a ponytail that fell past her waist, and her white-and-black clothes, which had been designed for flyers and not for walking around, trailed off her body in many places to hang below her like ribbons.

  “Well,” she said. “You found me.” She spread her arms and rotated in the air to face Ashtoreth. “Here I am. I don’t know if you’ll care at all to hear this, but… you got here faster than I thought you would. You worked out the warping rune sequence faster even than I could have.”

  “Of course I care to hear it,” said Ashtoreth. “But the real credit goes to my cat. He’s a genius!” She gave Dazel a light squeeze. “And he loves compliments!”

  “I hate you,” he whispered.

  Set sighed. Then, as Ashtoreth drew closer across the vast gulf of darkness, she scowled.

  “You’re level 300?” she asked. “How is that even possible?”

  “Uh… cheat codes,” said Ashtoreth. “I just told the system that there was no secret cow level and, well, here we are.”

  Set blinked. “What?”

  “Nah, I’m just kidding,” Ashtoreth said. “I transferred to a private server with a hundred times experience, then transferred back.”

  Set growled. “Now, Ashtoreth? You’re gonna be like this now?”

  Ashtoreth laughed. “I’m pretty much always like this!”

  Set held up a hand to signal Ashtoreth to halt. “Listen, okay? Can we talk? Just talk? I’m not stalling you or anything, my plan is already ready. I can fight you if that’s all your here for.”

  Set shook her head. “But I don’t want to fight you, Ashtoreth. Please, just listen.”

  Ashtoreth stopped floating closer. “Okay, shoot.”

  “Hold up,” Dazel twisting in her arms to look up at her. “Are you serious? ‘I’m not stalling you,’ is not a trustworthy sentence, boss.”

  “I might change her mind!” Ashtoreth whispered back.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “You’re letting her set up her assault!”

  “My [Defense] is over 9000, Dazel.”

  “That’s—” Dazel stopped, then winced. “Okay, while technically true right now, the way you phrased that has me worried that you’re not taking things seriously.”

  “Huh?” Ashtoreth said. She blinked. “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t even realize I memed for a second, there. That one’s an oldie.”

  Dazel sighed. “Just make it quick with your sister, okay? For my sake?”

  She looked back at Set, who was waiting for them to finish with an unamused expression.

  “What’s up?” Ashtoreth said.

  “First, you know I know you, right? You’re not going to get me to let my guard down by acting silly and stupid.”

  Ashtoreth flashed her sister a grin.

  “Second, have you actually thought this through, Ashtoreth? To its conclusion?”

  “What makes you think I haven’t?”

  “The fact that you’re doing it.”

  “Okay, fair,” Ashtoreth said. “But yes, Set. Yes, I’ve thought it through.”

  “Ashtoreth,” Set said, her voice sounding almost pleading. “Make me understand, then. Because it doesn’t matter how noble you think your cause is if you lose. Where do you think this ends?”

  “Noble cause?” Ashtoreth asked.

  Slowly, her smile faded. “We’re supposed to genocide humanity because our father asked us to,” she said. “Is it noble if you reach out in the dark, touch a disgusting heap of rot, and pull your hand away? Do you have to have a plan in mind before it’s reasonable to recoil when you sense the slime, the stink, the wrongness? I’m done, Set. I won’t do it.”

  Set was shaking her head before Ashtoreth finished. “You’re not going to change anything, though. If you stayed with us and won the Earth from our side you could make it a little better for them—I know how much you like them. But you can’t fight Hell, Ashtoreth. You can’t. You might as well declare war on the system, or the Authority of Heaven.”

  “They didn’t make me do the things that dad did,” Ashtoreth said. “But you’re wrong, Set. You know better than anyone how much work father put into this invasion. You think he’s throwing everything he has at the humans because he’s invincible? He’s doing it because somehow, they’re a threat to him.” Her smile returned. “Don’t you want to find out why?”

  Set closed her eyes. “Ashtoreth,” she said tiredly. “You’re thinking you can make war on Hell? With just humanity?”

  “That’s up to them,” she said.

  “You really will just chase your dreams as far as they take you,” Set said.

  “Set,” Ashtoreth said chidingly. “Come on. Apollo can’t even think for herself, let alone the both of you.”

  Set let out a laugh that was half-sob. “I hate you,” she said. “It was all going to be perfect—I had it all worked out. I wouldn’t be close enough to Earth to warp there for another week… but once I was….” she trailed away.

  Ashtoreth smiled a little. “Let me guess. You had a plan to come out on top over the rest of us?”

  Set flashed her a dark look. “A good one,” she said. “I’ve been working on it for almost a year, now. The only way it would fail is if the rest of you managed to suppress almost all of the humans and one of you came out on top, which by my calculations was completely impossible.”

  “Uh, excuse me,” Ashtoreth said. “Let’s not underrate my potential performance.”

  “Even if one of you could have done it, you’d have to contend with me at my full power,” said Set. “And I can assure you, I made sure I’d have what it took to take on all of you, not just one.”

  “Well it doesn’t matter anymore,” Ashtoreth said, shrugging. “Earth is for humans. The monarchy is mine.”

  Set laughed. “And those two things don’t sound like they’re at odds?”

  “Nah,” Ashtoreth said. “It’s a fighter’s job.”

  “I never minded you so much, Ashtoreth.”

  “Gee, Set. Thanks!”

  “But I’m the only one of us who ever deserved to win Earth.”

  Ashtoreth frowned. “Hold up. I like humans way more than you. Even I don’t deserve it?

  “None of you do,” Set said coolly. “Apollo just wants to win—she’d wear a clown costume if it gave her better chances. And Yama only cares about how she seems, which is why she’s constantly acting like she doesn’t care even as she tries to outdo you. Pluto’s stuck playing their game, Freyr is just… broken, and Haddad is too stupid to really feel the ambition that she pretends she does.”

  Set spread her arms, and a seemingly random collection of the square-cut crystals began to glow through the water beneath them. Multiple constellations of red spheres began to appear in the air around them, bathing them in light. As soon as Ashtoreth she saw the tower of disc-shaped topographies that represented the capitol realm of Hell appear behind her sister, she knew that she was looking at all the realms their father had conquered.

  “Every one of you lacks vision,” she said. “A plan for what we’re doing with all this war, all this bloodshed, all this domination! Our kind have grown complacent, Ashtoreth; I’ve seen it. Sitting in here, watching it all unfold, trying to make all our armies work in concert….” She shook her head.

  “Hell has a problem,” she said. “A true enemy, and it’s not humanity. It comes from within. Our people, our clan will never be safe so long as a single devil draws breath.”

  “That’s your vision?” Ashtoreth said. “After you’re done with Earth, you’re going to kill the devils? All of them?”

  “I’ll secure our family’s reign forever,” said Set. “After all the evidence I’ve gathered that they’re inherently untrustworthy, father will surely see things my way.”

  “It’s just another genocide!” Ashtoreth said, looking away and grimacing. “Set, listen to me: you’ve been turned into a hammer and now you see nothing but nails!”

  “And why would I listen to you, Ashtoreth? Given what you’ve chosen to do—what you came here for?”

  “Please, Set. I just… I don’t want this to go the same way it did with Pluto.”

  Set blinked. “You met Pluto? How?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Ashtoreth. “Yama and Freyr are mine now, but Pluto I had no way to bind. Same as with you. Please, Set—I don’t want this to go badly.”

  “But if it does, you’ll happily murder me,” said Set.

  “Not happily,” said Ashtoreth. Her voice softened. “Set—don’t you ever wish for a different life?

  “You don’t get it,” said Set. “You don’t get it because of who you are.”

  “Set—”

  “Listen,” Set said. Slowly, sadly, she shook her head. “Our father showed us something, Ashtoreth, but your eyes are too bright to see it. You see, it doesn’t matter what he did to us.” Her voice darkened. “Or what he made us do. We can never hurt him, and he’ll never get what he deserves. It won’t be fair, it won’t be just, but that’s the point. That, Ashtoreth, is what our father showed us—power, and what it means.”

  “I don’t want to do this, Set.”

  “Me neither,” said Set. “But you… you have to see the good in everything. You want everything to be nice, and everyone to be happy.”

  “Yes!” she said, her mouth a bitter line. “Of course that’s what I want!”

  “For all that he loves you most, you missed his most important lesson,” Set said. “You were never going to convince me to join you, but you had to try because of who you are.”

  “Set. Please.”

  But Set was floating back and away from her. She held out her hands and conjured two long, heavy blades made of pure, white light. “And because of who I am, I saw you coming a lot sooner than you might think.”

  Ashtoreth looked past her sister, at the inside of the vast dome behind her, judging distances. She conjured her sword, holding it loosely in one hand.

  “I hope you appreciate how much effort I put into my preparations,” Set said. “After all, I knew this wouldn’t be easy.”

  Set raised one of her swords, and the chamber filled with light.