CHAPTER 632: 632

Ikenga and Keles exchanged a long look, silent understanding flashing between them. In Zarvok’s plight, they saw a reflection of their own. His path was no different from theirs.

He pursued strength to preserve his realm and they fought for strength to preserve their own home.

"Why are you so willing to tell us all this?" Keles asked at last. Her voice was low but sharp, her eyes fixed on him. She had spent enough time in Zarvok’s presence to know, he was not a man who parted with his truths lightly.

Zarvok turned his gaze to her. For a moment, silence stretched, broken only by the whisper of the abyssal winds curling through the palace hall. Then he spoke.

"Because I require your help," he said plainly. "And in turn, I hope we can build an alliance."

Both Ikenga and Keles stiffened, surprise flickering across their features. The idea of a Demon Lord, an ascended sovereign of the abyss asking for allies was something both has not yet entertained or thought of.

Zarvok raised his hand, and with a wave, the world bent. The palace shifted with them, rising higher, until they stood suspended in the sky. Below stretched an endless land the goblins’ planet, spread out beneath their feet like a map painted across the abyssal canvas.

"It all returns," Zarvok said, "to what I told you before. The loss of the River Styx. With it, I lost the endless tide of soldiers, millions of demons born with each swell. That army is gone".

He gestured toward the goblin lands below.

"But it is not as simple as snapping fingers, the abyss, while stripping me of its gifts, also left me another one last boon. The power to create demons myself. But for demons to be forged, I require fuel."

His gaze hardened "Souls. Countless souls."

He spread his hands, as though presenting the world below them. "A Demon Lord is a farmer. And the conquered worlds are my gardens. Gardens where souls grow, are harvested, and remade. That is why I spared them. That is why I kept Rattan and his people alive. They are not fodder to be spent in a single war, they are soil. They are seed. They will live, procreate, fight, and die within my abyss. And through them, my garden will expand, my harvest will never cease, and my demons will be born anew."

His words echoed through the palace sky, cold and matter-of-fact, as though he spoke of tending crops instead of lives.

Zarvok’s eyes settled on Keles "Lady Keles," he said, his voice steady, "as a goddess of death, you should know this truth better than most, the uniqueness of souls. Souls are the only true limitation in existence. No matter how strong one becomes, no matter how vast their reach, a soul cannot simply be willed into being. It cannot be forged from nothing. Only beings like the abyss itself holds that secret."

Keles’s lips pressed into a thin line. She nodded slowly, for the words struck at a wound she carried. Souls were the one mystery she had never pierced. She could guide the dead, sever the mortal thread, even usher spirits into silence but the origin of a soul, its essence and connection to death itself, remained veiled. What are souls? Where do they come from? Why do they endure? These were questions she had yet to answer.

Zarvok’s voice pulled her back.

"To me," he continued, "souls are more than mysteries. They are foundations. To a Demon Lord, a soul represents talent, potential, and the ceiling of growth. A demon born from a feeble soul will claw at the dirt and rise little. But one forged from a strong soul... will climb higher, with fewer chains weighing them down."

He lifted his hand, and between his pale fingers two orbs of pale light shimmered into being, pulsing faintly with an inner rhythm. They were not mere fragments—they carried weight, history, essence.

"These," Zarvok said, almost reverently, "are the souls of sixth-tier mages I faced in battle. When I reshape them, when they are reborn as demons, their climb to kingship will not be an if, but a when. With time and resources, they will rise to Demon Kings. Only then will they strain against the boundaries of their souls."

Ikenga’s eyes narrowed as he studied the spheres, but Zarvok only smiled faintly.

"After you both depart," he said, closing his hand and letting the soul-lights fade, "I have long years ahead of me, years to cultivate, to plan, to shape this abyss into fertile ground for growth. The world I have assimilated carry potential seeds, yes... but not enough. Not nearly enough." His tone hardened. "So I will force it. I will create an environment where strength is not an option, but a necessity. Where survival demands growth, and growth expands the soul’s capacity. When they die and they all will, those souls will return to me, greater than they once were, and their deaths will be the fuel for my future legions."

For a moment, silence filled the high abyssal hall. The weight of Zarvok’s vision got them stuck.

Ikenga’s jaw tightened as Zarvok’s words settled into him. Where Keles recoiled inwardly at the cold pragmatism of treating souls as fuel, Ikenga found himself against his better judgment, acknowledging the logic.

To Ikenga, it was not cruelty but clarity. He had just seen the cycle of a world, the rise and fall of a civilization, the endless spiral of conflict that demanded strength at every turn. Zarvok was not inventing a new cruelty, he was just giving structure to what had always existed.

Ikenga’s eyes flicked to the vanishing soul orbs, then back to Zarvok.

"So that is your plan," he said, his tone low but even. "You would forge an abyss where struggle itself breeds the kind of souls you need. A garden of suffering to harvest stronger fruit."

Zarvok inclined his head with a faint smile, neither confirming nor denying, as though Ikenga had already spoken the truth aloud.

Ikenga let out a quiet exhale. "I will not say it is right, nor will I say it is wrong. It is. The strong demand growth to hold their place. The weak resist, and in resisting, they feed the cycle." His hand brushed absently along Keles’s arm, steadying her even as his thoughts turned inward.

He understood it because it was no different from his own struggle. The gods of origin were not so far removed, they too fought for strength, to preserve their homes, their people, their place in the cosmos.

"Souls are the reason why I request for your help and alliance," Zarvok said, his voice calm but carrying the weight of inevitability. "I no longer have the resource to let demons grow in their natural way. Devouring each other’s souls to advance."

His gaze drifted to the world below them, then back to Ikenga and Keles. "Now, I no longer have souls to spare. But Lady Keles does. Your world still has souls or at the very least, access to souls with potential vast enough to bring my legion strength to a whole new level" His words lingered, deliberate, probing both gods for their reactions.

Keles’s lips pressed into a thin line, though she remained silent. Zarvok took her silence not as refusal, but as contemplation.

"I do not make this request without offering something of equal measure in return," he continued. "An alliance with me would mean more than words, it would mean that your world will gain access to my abyss layer’s strength when you face other worlds. My armies, my dominion, my abyssal power itself all lent to you."

He spread his hands, palms upward, as if offering the vast sky itself. "When your world finally emerges into the great race of the cosmos, you will not stand alone. You will face countless realms, countless predators, each seeking to devour or assimilate your existence. In such a race, even gods stumble and fall."

Zarvok’s smile returned, faint but confident. "But with my strength bound to yours, the chance of survival tilts in your favor. That is what I offer. And in turn, I ask for the only resource you possess that I cannot create nor steal souls with the potential to grow."

"With my understanding of origin gods," Zarvok said, his voice smooth as though he were reciting a truth already written in stone, "their birth world is where they hold the greatest power. And with Lady Keles... souls from other worlds serve not as her path of growth, but as curiosities, something to play with, to research, to study. Meaning there will be countless souls left scattered, drifting without purpose."

Keles’s eyes narrowed at the implication, and for the first time she cut in. "I could drag those souls into my realm if I wished. I have heralds who serve this very purpose. They gather, they guide, they preserve. I do not let them go to waste."