Scourge of Pride

For the past few days Jack and his band of demons had been pushing forward ever deeper into Terra from the begining point of the southern forests. And at this stage it didn't look like there was much that was going to be stopping them. He had been taking each of the villages survivors, no combatants and had been having small groups of the fear scouts lead them back to the temple of Obstinancy in droves. Thus far they had met no resistance, and the ones at the temple would already be more than enough to guard them. But Jack was no fool. He knew that demons escorting large groups of human prisoners was not going to go unnoticed. Particularly by the worst of his enemies. Iskra. He looked down on the dirt as Ceila spent her time talking to the rest of the troops who were at this stage having a merryc good time eating a few of the humns that Jack had allowed them to do so. He wouldn't have rape in his camp. That produced enough weakness in the demonic blood line. There was a but of a chucke from the man behind the doro as he thought this. And you'd be one to teach them about that wouldn't you Jack. It was odd. That had beeen the first time that the man behind the door had ever refered to Jack by his actual name as opposed to just hwo Ceila did it. In a paraphrased manner that gave some kind of childish idea behind it. The Lord of Pride wondered why. But there was no answer to be found.

He had taken each of the prisoners in hand before and interrigated them about Sera. But they had no answers for him about that. Clearly the girl covered her tracks better than he had thought. Right now the rest of the group and himself included were just waiting on the return of the fear scouts from escorting the prisoners to the temple. Once that was done. They'd be moving onto their next capture point. A slightly larger village to the north. And they would likely be more well prepared for an assault. Keeping something like a demon horde bum rushing through the map of Terra wasnt easy. Particularly when you were making sure non combatants wern't going to be killed. It allowed people to slip away. And as effective as Jack was, even he could not stop everyone that tried to run. Still from a tactical stand point them knowing about the army coming proved to be both positive and negative. Whilst they would be more prepared for an assault. Whether or not they could do anything but delay the inevitable was another question entirely. Jack knew that most humans didnt like the idea of fighting toe to toe with a demon. THus the idea of a large group of them coming this way wasn't going to inspire much to stick around and fight it out. Moral would likely be low. And if it wasn't yet. It would be.

A rustling in the bushes. As several purple eyed human shaped demons walked out of the underbrush. Jack picked up his canesword. Time to march.

EXP: 575
PWC: 541

For the most part Jack wasn't taking part in these battles. He was mostly walking in on the aftermath. Although, that wasn't to say he wouldn't jump in if things wern't going well. But it wasn't the job of the general to jump into the fray with his forces, better he stick around at the back and watch everything and direct the battle as opposed to putting himself at risk. Moment the general went down, the whole army fell apart. And although Jack doubted that there would be any human that at this stage could stand against him, he wasn't a fool ad knew that numbers in combination with several unknown factors such as hybrids, mercenaries (etc) was enough of a reason to stay back and just let Ceila lead the group into the fight. She had done well thus far. Despite her small frame she was a deadly force on the battle field. And now knew why Jowan had feared the demons of madness sos much. Despite being below Pride demons in the food chain of pysche demons the demons of madness had a power that Jack could both respect and well. Fear. Madness, insanity was normally something that peopel did not like. It was something tht people would fear becoming themselves. And feared that they were and just didn't know it. The madneess demons knew they were mad though and they didnt fight against it rather they embraced it. Their powers allowed them to make use of all their bodies potiental. As if they didnt really care about being hurt.

Normally in humans and in demons there were specific limits that were put in place by the body. Limiits that were kept in there for safety purposes not allowing them to be beached just in case the body damaged itself. These limits oculd be bypassed in certain situations but poverall they were hard to move past. Madness demons though didn't seem to have these limits perhaps it was a part of their body being mad as well as their minds. Or perhaps it was the poinnt that their minds were so mad that the limiters just didnt kick in. Regardless Jack knew that Ceila was capable of taking a lot of hits without going down. And it began to make him suspicous. Jack had fought Ceila over the court of madness and what to do with it once they had defeated the glutton. After all such a thing allowed Ceila to create more madness demons, and Jack already knew that this was a threat. But the way he had seen her fight these battles was entirely diffferent to how he had fought her there. She seemed to be far more ppowerful in these battles, was it the numbers or was it that she simply let him win their battle in the underground? It wasn't entirely impossible. SHe had tricked him on several occassions. Of all his officers. he was the most dangerous. Jonha was silent deadly and hard to predict. But Ceila was a madness demon. Worse. An intellegent madness demon. This made her impossible to predict. Her mind might see things differently from his. He knw that she had a plan. And as she gave the order for the rest of the demonsto start getting ready to march. She looked over at him and grinned. He wondered. Just what was her plan?

Just what was that little demon up to?

EXP: 626
PWC 574

Now they were on the march and Jack was watching his little blonde haired officer like a hwk. He didn't trust her at the best of times but after coming to that conclusion back there, he had began to trust in her even less. In fact he was almost convinced that she had some kind of alternate plan to deal with him. The she was leading him into a trap and that she was really just the one pulling the strings on this one. That after all was the usual way of it, install a puppet controller and then influence them with subtle manipulations to make them do things that you wanted them to do Was Jack falling for something like that. Was it all Ceila? Now whos mad?. The man behind the door. Annoying but right. This paranoia was dangerous. FOr now he'd just have to keep an eye on the girl and put in his own plans to see if he could lure her into a trap and spill the beans about just what she was planning. It was going to be quite the little game of thrones he imagined. For now the village was up ahead. Well less a village and more of a small topwn. On all sides there were woooden ramparts and walls. Quite impressive if Jack didn't just see it all as firewood. The demons lined up and thunder began to call out over head. Rain fell. Jack enjoyed the rain. But it wasn't going to stop the burning of this place. A man stood upon the ramparts and began running his mouth at the group of demons. SHouting about how they would never conquer this place that had apparantly been blessed by some bitch in Mare Maris. He wondered if he ment the queen?

To the pride dmeon it didn't much matter though. he was going to shatter their resolve andd their defences in one fell blow. Jack looked over to Ceila and gave his order. " Attack when I give the signal?". She tilted her head lightly. Those yellow eyes of hers curious as to just what he was planning. " You'll know it when you see it". Said the Lord of Pride, a moment later. Vanishing [Devilspeed]. Jack had moved inside the town, behind the walls. And was about to unleash absolute hell upon them. First he was going to overwealm them and crush their morals and resolve. There was going to be no pity. No mercy. All that was this town was going to burn. At this stage most of the people were still inside their homes. Jack ran a few calculations through his mind knowing that the walls of their homes would likely be enough to protect them from the majority of the blast. But not all of it. Some would die. But it was imore densly populated that the places he'd been burning down lately. So he could afford to take the losses in stride. Jack unleashed his transformations. His body changing. [Ripper+Dread Wolf]. The power of the transformation left Jack as he was in human form. Only surrounded by a blood red aura, and malevolent glowing red eyes. He stepped out into the northern section of the town. The nearest point to where the demonic group now stood Raised his arms and then. Fire.

Hell fire to be more precise. 150 feet of the town was engulfed by the flames that emerged from Jack's standing point. They struck the wall and blew it away along with every other soldier that got in the way of the blast. Burned and cursed. The tell tale call of demons as they rushed in. Roaring. People began to scream.

EXP:659
PWC: 627

The resistance asn't much but Jack had to give it to them for effort. Being the first of the demons in the town, he ws the primary focus of their attention. Yet as much as they had numbers on him. Jack's sheer power was just far too much. He was standding among them in his fully transformed state, his skin hard enough that not an arrow could pierce. And those who enetered into what was effectively his kill radius would be overwealmed by the power of his presense like a powerful gravity was pressing don upon them. And this was jus tthe effects of being around him. Those who move din first and got caught in this field of almost magical gravity would be the first to face against Jack's power over blood magic. He ripped the blood from their veins and restored upon himself the energy that he had lost in casting his first and most prodominant spell. The power of the blood magic would also keep him sustained whilst he was in his transformed state, as powerful as it was that power had to come from somewhere and that somewhere just so happened to be Jack's magical reserves. And he was feeling every moment of it. But he had been developing the technique lately making it less draining upon his body. And by comparison to that time he had fought Iskra. It was now much easier to manipulate the power of this form. He drew his cane sword. And those brave and strong enough to overwealm the gravity and the phantasmal wolf head that surrounded him at this stage would be met with a swift end at the edge of his blade.

The other demons were also making this quite a lot of fun. The rage demons seemed to be rather perplexed with the idea of the armour that the humans were wearing. To make one understand a rage demon is a large creature with an extremely thick hide to the equivalent of an elephant. It has very little need for armour. And when it saw these people wearing the armour, well. Its common knowledge that armour is very little good against blunt force impact. In fact if anything solid armour actually makes said impact worse. Bending inwards with the possibility of creating a rupture wound on the body. And these soldiers were being treated like canned food by the demons of rage. As for the fear demons. They were staying at a distance with magic. And Sloth? They were his base infantry. Where the rage demons had trampled and left their path of destruction and chaos. Sloth swept in and cleaned up any survivors. It wasn''t what you'd call a pretty job. But at least with Jack they didn't have to do that. Jack made sure that everything that came his way died. When everything around them was burning. And the walls of the small town acted more of a cage to the people. Jack gave the orders for Sloth and fear to start rounding up the non combantants for transport to the Temple of Obstinancy for bleeding. He needed their lood and he would make sure that he got it for appropriate testing.

Jack looked upon this as a mere collection trip. Much like a herbalist would go out into the forest to gather ingriedients. This was Jack's version. ut before they were shipped off. He needed to start asking questions. And they wouldn't be willing to answer unless he gave them an indication of what would happen to those who didnt cooperate. One would think that what happened around their homes would be enough. But no. It wasn't. Soldiers died. That was part of the natural order. He had to do somehting particularly cruel that would have a lasting effect on them. One they would not soon forget.

EXP: 706
PWC:650

Jack lined up several of the villagers that had been captured. He walked over to one of them and began that process that would loosen the lips of the others. To know that something horrible might happen to you. Well that usually did. However Jack was known as a somewhat imaginative demon , and that combined with the total lack of morals that came with become a demon. Well. That was something that made it all too dangerous a combination. He struck his hand out enhanced by the strength of his transformation. Penetrating the skin of the targt and moving through into its flesh. They screamed as the fear demons hel it in place. Jack had already put on his own binding magic on the human but even then the pain of doing this seemed to be enough to kick in that survival instinct beyond the loss of pride. He grapsed a hold of what he was sure was the large intestines , and ripped them right out, . Amusingly they looked like little sausages, but that thought didn't stick in his brain long enough as he wrapped them around the neck of the human who was at this point beyond saving really. He looked up at a sign post for one of the towns shops, and threw the length of the intestines over the post. Which was then grasped by one of the demons of sloth. The sloth demon then pulled, and the fear demons let go.

The human was being strangled. Hung. By his own inards. He gestured to the man, his legs kicking in the air. " I am looking for someone. A kami by the name of Sera". He then proceeded to describe her to the locals. They seemed distracted though by the facide going on in front of them. Jack grabbed a torch from one of the soldiers. And set fire the the man. More screams broke throughout the village. " Now. If someone doesn't start telling me if they've seen her. I'm going to start doing that to 1/10ths of all of you and then move onto the next town, and the next and the next. Before I find an answer". There was a gasp of horror as the intestines snapped under the pressure. Spilling blood and excrament all over the poor flaming man. Sending him dropping to the ground upon which point the nearest rage demon grasped his arm. Put a foot on the corpses chest and ripped up taking off the arm. And began to have its lunch. A voice broke out from within the crowds.

"...I think I may have seen her...".


Another then another. Each began to tell Jack multiple different stories. This was the danger. They were all too willing. And he didn't know which was the truth or which could be her. But it was a start. Orders were given for fear to start sending them all to the temple. When the scouts got back. He would send them out to investigate these rumours. It wouldn't be long now.

EXP: 543
PWC:515

The member 'Jack' has done the following action : Dices roll

'10 (aka Steal) Roll' : 2