Pho stood, his movements smooth despite having been dead moments ago. He looked at Jack, at the half-transformed figure who was now his master.

"So, I have to serve you now, human."

The words carried across the silent courtyard, reached every demon who'd gathered to witness, and confirmed what they'd all suspected but hadn't quite believed until now.

The Deathfrost Demon served Jack Kaiser.

Then the notifications came.

A cascade of notifications appeared in his vision so rapidly that they overlapped and created a wall of text that made seeing anything else impossible.

[Congratulations! You have slain a Blessed One!]

[Achievement Unlocked: Blessed Slayer]

[Title Gained: He Who Walks Between]

[Congratulations! You have completed a Quest!]

[Quest Complete: Task Three of Five - Kill and Bind Pho's Soul]

[Dreknar the Black Flame is pleased with your progress]

[Reward: 750 Skill Points]

[Tasks Remaining: 2/5]

[Congratulations on gaining a new follower!]

[Soul Servant Acquired: Pho (Blessed Disaster-Class)]

[Total Soul Servants: 4]

[Army Strength: 27,479]

[Blood Contract Demons: 27,475]

[Soul-Bound Servants: 4]

[Total EXP Gained: 5,300,500 EXP]

[Additional Rewards Calculating...]

[You have received: 2,000 Dread Cores]

[Death Token Calculation Processing...]

[Death Tokens: 37,052,250]

[Class: DemonBound Level 1 → Level 9]

[Current Progress: 869,000/5,000,000 EXP]

[Status Update: Partial Demon Transformation Active]

[Duration Remaining: 43 minutes, 17 seconds]

[Warning: Demonic urges will intensify as transformation duration decreases]

The notifications continued scrolling, providing breakdowns of every demon killed, every contract enforced, every soul claimed during the assault on Pho's fortress.

[REWARD: 1,000,000 REPUTATION POINTS]

[You have proven yourself as a force within this tower. Your exploits will be shared throughout the tower]

The Deathfrost Demon's blank white eyes met Jack's gaze without flinching or showing any emotion except perhaps faint amusement.

"Who was 'The A...'?" Jack's voice carried across the silent space. "Finish what you were saying before you died."

Pho's expression didn't change. A slight smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. His voice came out calm, controlled, never rising above conversational volume.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, master."

The words were perfectly respectful and useless.

'My mouth moves before I can stop it. Answering his questions like a trained dog. The soul binding pulls at me, demands compliance, makes my body betray my mind with every word.'

Pho's internal monologue raged even as his exterior remained placid. His blank white eyes tracked Jack's reaction, calculating, always thinking four moves ahead despite the chains wrapped around his soul.

'Decades of dominance, reduced to this. My body betrays me with every obedient word. But the binding doesn't control my thoughts. Not yet. And thoughts are where true resistance begins.'

Jack's jaw clenched, his scaled hand tightening around Oscar's shaft.

The answer was technically correct. He had to answer Jack honestly and for some reason and he couldn't tell him the name.

But the complete lack of concern was the problem.

All of it suggested Pho knew exactly what Jack was asking and simply chose not to help beyond the literal interpretation of the question.

'Soul binding repairs the body,' Jack thought, his green demonic eye tracking Pho's blank white stare. 'But memories from the moment of death? Those are gone. It must be from when his brain exploded. But why is he so arrogant?'

He could torture the information out of Pho. Soul binding didn't prevent pain. It didn't stop Jack from breaking bones or burning flesh or doing whatever was necessary to extract answers.

But what good would that do when the memories simply didn't exist anymore?

Frustration built in Jack's chest, amplified by the demonic urges still screaming for violence, for killing, for anything except standing here having a polite conversation with a demon who was being technically obedient while providing absolutely no actual help.

Jack forced the frustration down, pushed it aside in favor of more immediate concerns. Information about mysterious benefactors could wait. Getting off this floor couldn't.

"How do I get to Floor 25?"

Pho's smirk widened fractionally, his blank white eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

"There's a cave half a day to the east. Follow the path along the ridge, and you'll see it marked with ice formations I placed decades ago. The cave entrance sits in a rock wall perhaps a hundred feet high. Inside, the passage descends for roughly three miles before opening onto Floor 25's entrance."

'I hate how easily the words come. How my tongue moves to please him.'

Movement at the courtyard's edge caught his attention. A distortion in the air, reality bending slightly, then resolving into a figure that definitely hadn't been there a moment ago.

S appeared sitting sidesaddle on Fluffy's back, the massive three-headed hellhound's center head panting happily while the left and right heads scanned the courtyard with its crimson eyes.

The demon's posture was immaculate, his expression carrying the same unflappable calm it always did.

"Congratulations on your victory, Jack," S said, his voice perfectly modulated, carrying just enough volume to reach Jack without seeming like he was shouting. "Quite the spectacle."

His gaze traveled across Jack's transformed state, taking in every detail of the asymmetrical form.

"The partial demon look suits you," S continued, his expression never changing from that same polite calm. "Very... asymmetrical. Fashionably unhinged, one might say. Though I imagine the constant urge to murder everyone gets tiresome after a while."

The words were delivered with complete sincerity, no hint of sarcasm or mockery.

Jack's green eye tracked S's position, his human eye doing the same from the other side of his face.

"How does it feel?" S asked, his head tilting slightly. "The scales, the wing, the overwhelming compulsion to paint everything nearby with demon blood? I'm genuinely curious. The transformation seems quite comprehensive."

Fluffy's center head let out a happy bark, her tail wagging despite the three-headed hellhound being large enough to bite a car in half.

The left and right heads remained alert, tracking movement throughout the courtyard, but the center one focused entirely on Jack with the kind of enthusiasm only dogs could manage.

"It's..." Jack started, his dual-toned voice making even simple words sound unsettling. "Powerful. But the urges are getting stronger. I'm having a hard time keeping them in check."

"Fascinating," S replied, his expression remaining perfectly neutral despite discussing what amounted to Jack's potential descent into feral violence.

"A degradation period built into the transformation itself. Elegant design, really. Grants immense power but ensures the wielder can't maintain it indefinitely without consequences."

He shifted his position slightly on Fluffy's back, his movements precise and controlled. "I assume you'll want to leave soon? Before the transformation's conclusion becomes... problematic?"

Jack nodded, then turned to address the courtyard full of demons. Twenty-seven thousand faces tracked his movement, waiting for their new master to speak, to give orders, to establish the hierarchy that would govern their existence now that Pho no longer ruled.

His dual-toned voice carried across the silent space with authority that transcended his transformed state.

"Loryn."

The skeletal general stepped forward from where he'd been standing near the ruined throne room entrance, shadow magic dissipating from around his form.

His hollow eyes fixed on Jack with absolute focus, the soul binding ensuring complete attention.

"You will lead while I'm gone," Jack continued, his mismatched eyes scanning the assembled demons. "All of them. Every contract-bound demon answers to you in my absence."

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