*Ariel’s Perspective*

“How could you know all that?!” I shouted, but my daughter laughed at me, as if I was an idiot.

“Mommy, didn’t I tell you before? The handsome boy, the fiery angel and the perverted snake always teach me lots of things when I sleep. Michael, Anael and Leviathan…”

“Don’t say that bastard’s name!” I unconsciously yelled, but immediately regretted lashing out at her.

Angelica smiled wryly, then asked “What if I am ‘that bastard’, Mommy?” Before I had the chance to even respond, she giggled and told me “Don’t worry Mommy. No matter what happens when I awaken completely, you’ll always be the mother who cared about me the most. I had other mothers, but they never treated me like a person. Just a tool to use to advance their political agendas. A potential whore to use as they saw fit. That’s why I had to get rid of them. I might be a kid, but I ain’t stupid.”

I took a deep breath, then calmed myself down. Before opening my eyes and whispering “I love you. No matter who you become or what you do, even if you kill me, you’ll still be my Angel. I’ve actually had other children too… But most of them died. There should still be one left though. A boy named Ethir. He was the only other child besides you that I cared about more than my own life or power. I’m sorry for yelling earlier. I… I was still clinging to the past.”

She giggled and shook her head, “I know you love me, and I love you too. That’s all that matters. When I first met you, I felt sorry for you Mommy. I knew you weren’t like the other goblins. You were aware of your situation and knew that you were basically a sex slave or toy for my Daddy to play with. But you didn’t cry or even seem to mind. When you finally learned how to speak and told me your name was Bariel, that’s when something clicked inside my head. And when the dreams started to get a lot more intense. I felt like I had known you before, a long time ago… I remembered a young girl named Ariel. A beautiful angel… And I think she was my daughter in the dream world I saw back then. Weird how I would think of my Mommy as my daughter, but Michael says that’s just how reincarnation works.”

At that moment I suddenly felt my heart sink. And I started crying… I asked “Why does it feel like I’m never going to see you again after tonight?”

“Don’t worry Mommy.” Angelica smiled, seriously saying “Even if we both die tonight, we’ll still see each other again… Eventually. But don’t worry. I don’t plan on dying any time soon! I’m still just a kid! I wanna live to be at least a million years old…”

I chuckled and then hugged her tightly, whispering “I don’t know what that number means, but I hope I do too…”

Yeah, I really didn’t know what the world million meant. Mainly because she used a language I had never heard of before, but also because we never really learned how to count that high in Black Mithril. It was more knowledge that Angelica learned from her ‘dreams’.

I carried my daughter in my arms, as my tentacles swiftly brought us over to the wall surrounding the palace without much time or effort. Then I climbed onto it and we got struck by lightning.

It happened so fast that I had no way to prepare for it or avoid the ‘attack’. Yet, we were fine. We both wore some leather armor that we salvaged from the armory, then made some adjustments due to our small size and my extra ‘limbs’. When the bolt of lightning hit us, it seemed to ignore me and strike Angelica’s outstretched left glove. Oddly enough, there was no damage, as if the terrifying amount of energy vanished into nothingness upon touching her hand…

“Are you okay?!” I screamed as my tentacles carried us down the other side of the wall, into a wide-open field that surrounded the giant pyramid.

She giggled and explained “It’s fine. It’s super easy for me to turn electricity and heat directly into mana. But we should still be careful, because I can’t do anything if it hits you before it reaches me…”

For the record, turning energy into mana is absurdly difficult. It’s definitely not something a human child with no prior experience controlling magic would be capable of, but I wasn’t about to interrogate her at that moment, because I thought that we were going to die if I didn’t hurry up. I probably should’ve known better, after dealing with Alicia for so long.

When we finally reached the side of the pyramid, I could feel a nauseating sensation. As if the mana in the air was poisoning my body. Burning my lungs… And I wasn’t a weak, human girl. I looked down at my daughter and noticed that she seemed perfectly fine, as if the absurd pressure and heat didn’t even affect her at all.

My maternal instincts were screaming at me that something was wrong, and even logic would dictate the same, but she told me “We don’t have much more time. Hurry up and bring me inside. I need to reach the central chamber and repair the runes…” Then she started coughing violently and I felt something sticky splash onto my face. For a moment I wanted to stop, but then there was something inside of me urging me forth, as if my body was no longer under my control.

However, my tentacles couldn’t work right anymore and slumped down onto the ground behind me, as I took slow and pained steps toward that huge arch. Lightning and rain fell down around us, but whenever a bolt was about to strike me, it moved to Angelica’s right hand. Although they kept vanishing, I could see that she was in agony just by looking at her cringing face.

When we finally made it inside, I felt like my body was going to collapse and fall apart… But I didn’t have time to worry about that, because we weren’t alone.

***

*Ariel’s Perspective*

“Hmmm~, who do we have here?” There was a huge pale-skinned man, with blue eyes and long blonde hair. His face was completely devoid of hair, while he was wearing shiny silver armor and had gigantic white dove-like wings stretched out behind his back.

Then there was a black-cloaked female mage, who had withered and bony hands. She was using magic to inscribe some runes onto the walls, before turning to us and shouting “Ew, demons! Quickly exterminate them so we can finish opening the portal!”

“Heh~, fine~!” He reached over to the hilt of the silver longsword on his right waist and pulled it out, then wielded it with both hands as he charged toward us. Those giant wings flapped and propelled his body forward, but he didn’t even make it three meters from us, before Angelica reached out her right hand… Launching a massive bolt of lightning out of her palm, which seemed to melt a hole through the chest of that knight. Then it continued onwards, striking the unprepared sorceress in the back. She let out a shrill scream, but it was drowned out by the deafening thunder that caused me to temporarily lose my hearing.

“Mommy… I have to go now.” Yet, even with my ears not working, Angelica’s soft and pleasant voice echoed into my mind. While I fell to the ground, she easily stood upright and stretched her body out. Then she turned to look at me and the ‘illusion’ she had cast on my finally vanished. The child in front of me had charred black skin on her left arm, with spider-like black and red veins all across that side of her face as well. The armor was burned and falling apart. However, those green eyes had turned white, while wings were sprouting from her back… Wings of lightning.

She sighed, before smiling at me and whispering “I love you Mommy, but I have to go…” Then she walked over to the area where that dead mage was laying, then plunged her right hand into the corpse and pulled out some bloody crystals from the torso. After that, she plucked out the crispy eyes and crushed it all together in her hands, while the lightning wings shot out into the walls… Swiftly inscribing new runes and erasing some of the ones that were already there.

“No, where are you going? Don’t leave me! Take me with you!” I screamed with all the strength left in me.

“Mommy…” She murmured into my mind, “You’re too weak. Your body was improved a bit, but you’re still too weak to even survive that little bit of mana-radiation outside the pyramid. If you come with me, you’ll die the moment we arrive… In Hell.”

I shouted “Why?! Why do you have to go there?!”

“That woman had originally inscribed some runes to open a portal from ‘Heaven’, to this world. I don’t have enough time to turn this pyramid back into a shield generator, so the best I can do is change the portal destination… To somewhere a bit safer than Heaven: Hell. I’m sorry, I don’t really have time to explain anymore than that. Mommy, I gotta go now. I love you… And if you really wanna go to Hell, then, go back home. To where you came from. You’ll be able to get stronger there and eventually, you’ll find me or I’ll find you.”

At the center of the massive cubic room, a huge pentagram appeared on the floor around Angelica. Then she giggled, before vanishing in a stream of bloody red light. I was actually pushed out of the pyramid by the air pressure and saw the crimson beam shooting up into the dark, stormy sky. It even seemed to disperse the clouds and stop the storm, for a moment. And then the lightning and thunder returned, far more powerful than before.

There was a huge vortex of mana shooting out of the top of the pyramid, into the skies, while the temperature dropped rapidly. Then, for the first time ever in the history of Southern Alfirin, it started snowing. Then it started hailing, as clumps of ice the size of cabbages started raining down onto the city.

I somehow managed to move my weary body back to the palace, in order to take shelter there. But the snow and hail showed no signs of stopping, while the roof of the palace wasn’t built to withstand that kind of bombardment either. So we needed to leave, while relying mostly on luck to avoid the giant balls of frozen death that fell around us. Obviously most of my minions died, but at least one human and a couple dozen Pink Goblins managed to make it out of the city before the real trouble started.

There was a portal to Hell in that pyramid, and it was still wide open, spewing out monstrosities of absurd power. My heart felt like it was frozen after being cast way by my daughter, but the only thing I could do was move forward… Or backwards, if you consider that I started in Lorthon Forest in the first place.

***

“Okay, that’s better. A pretty decent ending, if I do say so myself, hehehe~…”

Are you satisfied now?

“Hah~, hell no! I’m never satisfied! But ya gotta know when to stop! Anyway, I’ll be back with the bounty in a few years, but by then, I’ll be getting around to your part in the story again. So I hope you’ll be prepared to give another interview…”

Fine, whatever. Just make sure she stays alive. I don’t want that bitch escaping so easily.

“You know, I haven’t seen Crissy in ages. It’ll be nice to catch up and you know, interview her for my stories… Though I’m not sure if anyone would actually be interested in that. Besides, next is Trixie, then Ehtir…”

You should have written a whole book from my son’s perspective, instead of that annoying woman!

“Oh calm down~, people love Raelin! Even Ethir told me to do it from her perspective instead of his because, well, I mean… You know how shy that kid gets. He did promise to do an interview soon though, I have him scheduled after Trixie. Didn’t I just say that?”

Be careful out there, Michael. And say ‘Hi’ to Silvia for me. Tell her to come visit sometime soon.

“Ariel, or should I call you ‘Warden’ now? You know how much she hates coming to this place. Always complains about how fucking hot it is… And it is really damn hot, holy shit. Why didn’t they name this planet ‘Hell’? Besides, your inmates are the scum of the Solar System. Maybe you should let your protege take over for a few years and go back home? Trixie and Mike are off fighting that war in the Kuiper Belt, so it’s not like anyone else would give a damn if you returned home for a bit. It’s not like you gotta hop on a ship or anything, just go through your portal. I’ll take you on an adventure myself, hehe~…”

Maybe after I’m done torturing Asmodeus and Belial. But Michael, this is my home, no matter how hot it is… And I like the heat. Being on Mercury helps me train my Fire Affinity a lot faster than anywhere else. It’s the closest I can get to Sol, without needing any spells or equipment to protect my body.

“Well, whatever floats your boat. Personally though, I prefer wandering around on my ship, fucking shit up wherever I go… Writing books about my adventures and keeping all kinds of historical records from histories throughout all of existence. But yeah, New Orcheim is probably always going to be my ‘home’, since that’s where my daughter always stays.”

*Author’s Note*

Wow, okay then. I honestly didn’t expect this particular story to be so long or important to the grand scheme of things. I mean, I even included some dialogue with ‘The Author’, who isn’t the author of ‘every’ story I’ve ever written, obviously… And he usually does biographies by taking interviews, like it was explained here. Also, he’s a character in one of my other stories.

Phew~, this is probably going to include some spoilers for my other novels, so don’t read it if you don’t wanna know things. However, I feel like people are going to ask a ton of questions, so I’ll give the answers now.

First of all, Hell has been talked about in “Questing”, my other story that takes place in this same universe and time-period as “Immortal Soul”. Questing follows Coffee, his girlfriend and two of his close friends as they go on an adventure into the desert to the east. While also getting involved with Luna. 

Hell is basically just Venus, while Heaven, is just Mars. However, you have to keep in mind that these planets are not dead rocks, but have plenty of mana and some even have souls like Terra/Luna/Sol. Which means that, while the surface of Venus and Mercury might not be as hospitable as Terra, they could still have an artificially created atmosphere, along with plenty of strange plant-life/animals. 

Aside from that, you might be interested in who Angelica really is… And if you’ve read my other stories or even this one, Iris Angelica Healy is a commonly used character. Green Irises, orange/red hair, pale skin, usually Irish ancestry but, she’s also a monster. By monster I mean a person who greatly enjoys torturing and killing people, though she usually is considered Chaotic-Good, if you know what I mean. 

Anyway, Angelica isn’t Iris though. She’s actually another incarnation of Michael called Raijin. I would’ve used Thor or Zeus, but those are a bit too overused in my opinion. Besides, there are other lightning-related characters in my stories and I might want to use Zeus or Thor as their names, so there should be a differentiation. Raijin is a character that was somewhat talked about in The Dao of Eros, but you probably haven’t read that chapter yet, so I won’t say anymore about it.

How did Angelica know about Heaven and Hell? Well, she might have been told by her other incarnations, or Helel could have paid her a visit… There are a lot of possibilities and it really isn’t that important anyway, but I was pretty sure someone would bring it up regardless.

As you might have previously noticed from the way everything is worded in “Immortal Soul” chapters, all the events of the story take place in the distant past from when the stories are being told. So basically, some characters might have inconsistencies due to the way they remember things, though most of the events have already been written down in other formats over the years or recorded in various ways. Some people like that, others hate it, but it’s just the way I decided to write this series. “The Dao of Eros” and “The Vanilla God” are similarly written way after the events in their stories happen.

Why did I decide to write a story about Bariel, when no one even remembered her anymore? Well, because it was necessary. It was a story that has a pretty powerful impact on the rest of the series. It also explains some things that will happen in the next chapter of Volume 5. I actually already wrote out some bits and pieces from Ethir and Beatrix before deciding to do Bariel/Ariel, but I was having writer’s block, probably because it wasn’t time to write those chapters yet.

By the way, Ariel is a pretty common character in my stories, in case you haven’t read any of them before. But I didn’t originally plan for Bariel to be Ariel, even though their names are absurdly similar. Hell, as I was writing the ‘Villains’ episode, I was like “Wait a second… Isn’t Bariel just Ariel with a B attached?”

Anyway, I should end this “Author’s Note” before it turns into an entire episode. Thanks for reading!

*Ariel’s Perspective*

There are some obvious benefits to having thousands of new minions. Many more hands to deal with menial tasks, like gathering food, building treehouses, creating simple tools… The obvious problem though, is that Angelica and I needed to manage everything ourselves, since the goblins were too stupid to know what to do on their own.

I’m not sure if this is fortunate or not, but those five male humans I captured were pretty useless. Rather than knights, they were only squires or well, slaves of the knights. They couldn’t fight and they weren’t really much smarter than the pink goblins. They could talk to a certain extent, but they couldn’t count, read or write. They were however, pretty good at taking care of horses. And we did gather a couple dozen horses, while the rest either died or ran away.

Horse meat tastes good. Something I never knew before then. As far as the human meat went, I didn’t partake. Just something about cannibalism that always disgusted me. Not sure why? Maybe it’s a bad habit from a life I can’t remember?

I didn’t ‘need’ to eat people like that anyway. I could literally suck the life out of them, if I needed mana. If I was hungry or thirsty, I could just suck them off or use my tentacles to absorb their life-force directly. Though I didn’t have to do any of that, since I had fish, nuts, berries and boar meat to choose from.

Enough about food. My ‘work’ for the next few months after the massacre was basically just converting all the Green Goblins into cute pink demons. Well, not all of them. I only converted the adult females. I don’t fuck kids or babies. I just don’t. It’s one of my rules.

Speaking of babies, those eggs hatched really quickly. They weren’t like bird eggs, but closer to the roe of a fish. Squishy and soft, but strangely, they grew larger over time. After the first week, each of the hundred eggs had gone from the size of my pinky nail, to bigger than my fist. It was also possible to see the little embryo growing inside. By the second month, each egg was half a meter in diameter. The creatures inside were Pink Goblin fetuses, each about the size of a newborn Red Goblin.

Since they looked like they would be born any moment, I was pretty excited. The idea of having a hundred new cute little kids to raise… Well, my expectations were crushed after a few days. They didn’t stop growing. They went from babies, to toddlers, then by the end of the week, they were full grown adults and bursting out of their giant bubbles.

“Mama~!” And they all considered me their mother. Or at least that’s what I thought. It turned out that it was one of the only words they spoke, and with different inflections, it meant different things.

It’s fine though. It was better that way. Since they weren’t babies and I didn’t have to raise them myself, I could be heartless and it didn’t bother me as much when they died. And they died way too often.

***

By the end of that month, I had managed to convert nearly two-thousand goblins. Although I couldn’t get them pregnant, I was able to accelerate the process. Sorry, not pregnant. But whatever it’s called when people lay fertilized eggs.

Normally, I girl would lay about ten or twenty every month… And there were thousands to start off with. It didn’t take long before we couldn’t stay in the forest any longer. There were just too many mouths to feed and besides that, I needed to get to ‘work’.

My Pink Horde swept across the Western Plains of Alfirin like a terrible plague. Minas Kingdom was renamed Gurgaran Kingdom after I was done with it. Most of the capital burned to ruins and was infested by my goblins. They were exceedingly vicious and cruel, though that was to be expected coming from Asmodeus.

I’d like to say that the humans deserved everything that happened but… Those bastards didn’t even spare the children. Men, women, even animals were raped, tortured and massacred. I had no control over them at that point. Aside from a thousand or so women, Mary and Johnny, none of the others really listened to me anymore. They just spread. A terrible pestilence of vermin.

To the northwest, there was a kingdom along the coast called Baul. When the Pink Horde had devoured all of Minas, they went there to have another feast. Supposedly, that was where humanity first made their way to Alfirin from their island off the coast. Above that was a huge mountain range that no one could pass, though it was possible to go around it via the ocean.

Wait, sorry. The real starting point was above Baul, a kingdom called Delebem. It’s been so long that I actually forgot what Alfirin was like… 

Joseph went down south to Mael, then Uthales Kingdom, at the very southwesternmost part of Alfirin. It was there that he started his own vampiric empire, but I never saw him again. I just heard about what happened from, well, ‘you’. Which is why I don’t understand why you’re making me tell you all this.

“You’re really fucking up the immersion here Kid. Let’s get back on track, okay? There’s one last thing I need to hear about from you personally, before I switch over to Trixie again. What happened to Angelica? I mean, I know what happened to her, but pretend like I don’t.”

I really don’t want to talk about that…

“Don’t be such a pussy! People wanna read about all the fucked up shit that happened back then! For fuck’s sake, I need some tragedy! Otherwise why would I ask for you shitty story in the first place?”

Very well… It happened when we arrived in Minas, the capital. That’s when she woke up. And I lost my daughter.

***

The Great Wall of Minas was almost a perfect circle on any map I had seen before then, but in person, it looked like shit. From the stories I heard, it was usually covered in a protective magical barrier in times of crisis, but there was no reaction when my army of a hundred thousand Pink Goblins arrived.

Minas City was a little over a hundred miles in diameter. It was absurdly large. The population was similarly vast. Once upon a time, it had even been a kingdom of its own, but they eventually conquered the lands to the south of their ‘bubble’.

The walls that hadn’t collapsed already, were over fifty meters high and a hundred meters thick… Made out of white stones, that had turned grey over the centuries. The population was over ten million before the plague, but half of them fled to the Baul Kingdom to the northwest and the Amrun kingdom to the east. Of that remaining five million, I estimate that most of them died from the plague.

Two million might sound like a massive amount of humans, but when spread out over nearly eight-thousand square miles, it wasn’t much. Their actual military was less than fifty thousand and without ‘real’ walls to protect them properly, they weren’t able to stop the pink tide that flooded through the streets. Those goblins instinctively went into houses for cover, went through the filthy sewers to reach strategic locations and specifically targeted soft targets like schools and churches. They didn’t care about material wealth and only focused on acquiring weapons, while raping any people they found in their path. They didn’t even mind if their victims were plague-ridden or dismembered corpses. Those filthy mongrels would fuck anything, especially horses.

It made me disgusted, but I just focused on ‘our’ safety. Angelica and I traveled fifty miles to the palace, in order to ‘pay tribute’ to the scumbag who started me on my path to Hell. However, he had already fled to Amrun with all of his most precious valuables, including his harem and huge Royal Imperial Army.

Obviously the palace wasn’t empty, since there had to be plenty of people left behind to tend to the dying city. They were mostly just bureaucrats, lesser officials and lower nobles. It was from them that I learned that King Minas the Eleventh had gone to Amrun.

“Mommy, I feel weird…” That’s when it started. Right after we cleared out the palace and started moving into the luxurious royal chambers. Angelica told me “I’m fine now. I guess I just felt sick from all the blood and annoying people screaming all the time.”

I thought she was just getting used to the hell that followed us, but I was wrong. Anyway, the palace was huge and rectangular. There was also a massive amount of land between the palace and the rest of the city, including a pretty intact grey wall. Thus, so long as we secured it properly, my ‘minions’ would have been unable to get inside. My actual good minions, the few thousand of them who weren’t uncontrollable, lived inside the palace with us and… There was plenty of room. In fact, there was too much space for us to properly use.

There was a moat, with lots of edible fish living in it. Along with random animals being raised within the wall, probably as emergency food. Aside from that, there was a massive grain store in one of the many basement chambers. As for treasure, even though all the best shit was taken by the King’s group, there was no way for them to carry that much gold, silver and random artifacts.

Unfortunately, even if we were rich and living in a palace, the money had no value and the city was overrun by brutal monsters. Even if they couldn’t directly hurt me, I was still afraid of them. It was good that they were too stupid to understand the significance of the palace. It was probably just another building to them.

For about a month or two, we stayed in the palace without much trouble. We had enough food to last the thousand of us for a year or so, maybe longer if the livestock were raised properly and the fish were included. There was an inherent problem with the Pink Goblins though: They couldn’t stop reproducing. Even without males, the females who had already lost their virginity would continue to reproduce until they died eventually due to the stress it put on their bodies.

Even the virgins would die from not having sex for too long though. I had a similar condition, though it wasn’t quite as severe. I needed to keep mating and basically draining the life force from whoever I was fucking. It was fine if I spread it out across hundreds or even thousands of those goblins, but if I only had sex with one, it would die before I could orgasm once.

I still had those original human squires, but I also picked up some other servants on my way to the capital. A lot of women and children, yet there were still plenty of men. Farmers mostly, since we passed through plenty of fields. Of course, they were actually more like slaves before I found them, so becoming my servants was sort of a step up in status. Besides, they were allowed to have sex with me, so their luck was obviously greatly improved.

However, I did notice that I had an aura of sorts. It would make everyone around me hornier, sure, but it also made them healthier. Humans who were near me never got sick, while the ones that were ill or injured, healed quickly. They wouldn’t regrow limbs or anything like that. Normal wounds though, would recover swiftly.

It meant that the mana my body emanated had the ability to accelerate regeneration. It also meant that I was unintentionally corrupting everything around me. Including my daughter.

“Mommy, can you feel it?” On that day, Angelica had green eyes and orange hair. She was only a child, but I could already notice the resemblance. She smiled at me and asked “Haven’t you noticed that there’s a lot of mana coming from over there?”

She pointed out the window, towards a large grey triangular pyramid to the north of the palace walls. It was very similar to the one in Black Mithril, but supposedly, instead of activating a teleportation rune, it could create a giant protective barrier around the entire city. It made me wonder, “If they had such a powerful magical device, why would they ever leave?”

My daughter giggled, telling me “Isn’t that obvious Mommy? With mana-radiation that intense, normal humans would have no way to survive. The bacteria, viruses and parasites within their bodies would grow more rapidly than their antibodies and immune systems could handle. They’d also have a much higher chance of getting cancer, and once that started, it’d be over in a matter of days.”

***

“Who taught you that?” I started at the little girl for a few moments, before sighing and murmuring “Alicia?”

Angelica giggled, then shook her head. Explaining “Nope, it was this big and strong man. Hmmm, he was wearing black armor, like a knight. But he was gigantic! I see him sometimes in my dreams. There’s also this lady with fiery wings coming out of her back. She’s really beautiful. Then a green snake with crystal blue eyes, that always talks about pervy stuff. Umm, oh, and sometimes there’s this handsome guy, with a fluffy kitty cat tail and scary red eyes. He’s only a little older than me, but he almost looks like an adult now! Mommy, why are you looking at me like that?”

“No, it’s nothing. I’m fine.” I sighed and didn’t ask for any more information from the cute kid. Even though I had a hunch that I knew what was wrong with her, there was nothing I could do… She was falling onto a path that I couldn’t follow.

“You mean she was awakening as your arch nemesis?”

Why do you bother asking me to tell you the story if you’re just going to keep interrupting me? You never did this for any of the other biographies…

“Nah, I did the same for them too. It’s just that I usually edited it out. But now… Now I’ve run out of fucks to give, because it’s almost time for the most important part of this story! Me!”

Do you want me to finish talking about what happened to Angelica? You already know what happened, so why do I have to say it myself?

“It’s more authentic if I do it this way. Besides, I’m also recording your voice for the audio book and potential VR movie deal. Goblin History Month is next month, so I was planning to at least have your biography ready by then. Do you prefer Bariel or Ariel now?”

Ariel… And I didn’t even know there was a Goblin History Month. What’s the point in that? Do ‘real’ goblins even exist anymore?

“Okay then Ariel, well… I mean, just like all holidays, the purpose is usually to make money. Just like how we still have Human History Month, even though humanity went extinct a long time ago, people with small amounts of human DNA left in their system still like to celebrate it. Even if goblins and humans don’t really exist anymore, they’re still in games, movies, books and porn. Anyway, I’m planning to call your story ‘Ariel: Emissary of Lust’. Or maybe ‘Birth of a Demon Lord: Ariel’s Ascension’? Anyway, you can get back to your story now.”

Do whatever you want. Just remember to give me what you promised once I’m done.

“Sure thing. I can bring it to you alive, but not in one piece.”

That’s fine. I don’t mind if she suffers a bit before I get my hands on her…

Anyway, I’ll start where I left off. Or at least, a month and a half after that.

***

It was a dark and stormy day. Lightning crackled in the sky from time to time, but it was mostly just raining. Most of the Pink Goblins who could walk, left the city in big hordes in order to search for more prey to devour. The rest simply killed and ate each other. Of course, not before satisfying their other desires.

At that point though, there weren’t only Pink Goblins. There were also Purple Hobgoblins and deformed monstrosities. In case your audience doesn’t already know this, a hobgoblin is basically the result of a goblin and human successfully mating. Under normal circumstances, it’s nearly impossible for a Green Goblin or Red Goblin to breed with a human. 

However, the Pink Goblins were different. They could reproduce with just about any other animal they could fuck, that wouldn’t die in the process. Hobgoblins weren’t born from eggs though. Their mothers needed to give birth to them the ‘normal’ way. There were also Goblin Chicks, the hellspawn of a goblin and a chicken, which were absolutely disgusting creatures. Same with the hideous Gobmares and Gobstallions, which had the heads of goblins and the bodies of horses… Most of them died before maturing though, for obvious reasons.

The most disturbing aberrations were the result of dozens of Pink Goblin eggs fusing together into a single creature. The resulting demon usually looked like a centipede of conjoined goblins or just a blob of flailing limbs if they were unlucky.

“Do you hear that song Mommy?” My daughter’s green eyes were glowing in the darkness of that stormy night, as she started humming along to a melody I couldn’t hear. Then she whispered “One more body for the devil… One more enemy will bleed… One more life, in the shadows… They should’ve never met me at all…”

“Where’s the music coming from Honey?” I asked her, and she pointed towards the giant grey pyramid that was constantly being struck by lightning.

She explained “It’s probably only being relayed through the macro manawell over there. Umm, the big pyramid shaped magical device is basically dormant right now, but it’s charging up and about to start working again. Once it becomes active, it’ll create a giant bubble of pure mana around this whole ruined city. Either that, or it’ll explode because the automatic release runes were probably damaged over the centuries. If it blows up, it’ll probably destroy this whole side of the continent… So, we should probably stop that from happening.”

“What?! Then we should get out of here!” I screamed, but she just giggled and shook her head while smiling.

“Mommy, don’t be naive. Even if we started traveling by horse right now, we’d never make it to Lorthon Forest or the ocean before the explosion. No, even if we escaped to the other side of the continent, one Mana Calamity usually triggers another one somewhere else. This whole world is like a giant web of mana veins and arteries. Mana is being sent inside to the core and released back out into the atmosphere constantly.” She sighed, looking back over at that pyramid and whispering “The lightning is probably accelerating the charging process. I can feel the mana fluxuations getting stronger in waves. If we don’t do something now, it’ll be too late to make a choice by tomorrow.”