After nearly a week of walking, the blade reached a floor where the stairs would go no lower. It was the basement's basement, and aside from storing long, empty kegs, it served no purpose.

-787 Life Force.

The blade then knelt on the floor with its wielder, holding itself at the ready as it stood there statue-still. This was for two reasons: the first was to ensure that its jailer was well and truly bored. The second was to allow it to peer deep into the threads that made up this room and the surrounding shell.

For days, the blade had been silently walking and mapping energy flows. Now that it was still, it could see to the heart of the giant beast, so far below it. Despite the fact that its shell had been repurposed, the great demon was alive and somewhere, nearly a hundred feet below it, its heart beat a beat that was just as slow and steady as its plodding footfalls.

The blade tuned its entire existence to the steady rhythms of this strange place. It listened not just to the beast below it, but the sprawling half-infinite palace above it. Then, it waited until dinner time, and during the dancing that followed, it moved to the spot in the floor that was thinnest, and with the most powerful blow the blade could muster, it slashed twice, cutting through feet of shell with its vorpal strikes in a giant X before shattering the floor with its metal boot.

-200 Life Force.

The cuts started to heal immediately, but the blade had been ready for that, and even before they'd had the chance to do more than start, it shattered the floor, and then it was falling into the darkness below. It had plunged into an abyss, and as soon as it did, it saw the strands of the world around it go taut.

Prince Cerirvall is trying to delay me, it whispered to itself, but he is much too late for that. He can only slow me. He cannot stop me.

It should have taken only a few seconds to fall from the shell to the behemoth that wore it. The demon prince stretched that out for minutes, then hours, but even so, the blade could see the endless expanse of reptile flesh slowly rising from the distance. It was not as close to the heart as it would have liked to be, but it was close enough to the spine, and that would do for now.

-58 Life Force.

Sometime, nearly twelve hours later by the blade's count, it reached the bottom and slammed into the fleshy ground beneath it hard enough to dent it. There was a distant groan, then, but that was not enough for the blade. It stabbed deep into the flesh, to see if it would heal as fast as the walls and floor had, and when it did nothing but ooze black blood, the blade smiled to itself.

The prince controls everything in the palace, but here? Well, it seems I have found his weakness, the weapon thought triumphantly. Had the dolt not bragged about his strength, the Ebon Blade might still be upstairs trying to trash the place, but here it could get all the way to the heart of the problem.

That was literal, not metaphorical. First, the blade attacked the spine, just to see what sorts of defenses it might trigger. Rather than using Vorpal Strike again, it hacked through the bone vertebrae like it was a felled tree. This was both to replenish its flagging reserves and to see what the reaction was. It wanted the prince to have all the time in the world to see what it was doing now and try to counter it.

+492 Life Force.

The blade expected some kind of demonic attack, but even when the turtle bellowed distantly, or when its back legs failed and the entire world turned at an angle, no one came. It seemed too good to be true, but no one sought to stop it. It was messy work, and when it was done, the beast could no longer work; the weapon stopped, and observed the crater of flesh it had made, looking for signs of miraculous healing. There was some, but it was very slow. It was nothing like the powers of the Hag it had battled through.

Perhaps that's why it wanted her soul, it thought as it started scaling the slick, sloping body toward the heart.

The idea that one demon could steal, or at least mimic the powers of another, was interesting, and not something that the blade had considered before. It wondered how that might work, but decided the only way it was going to find out was going to be to rip the knowledge from the soul of Prince Cerirvall. It had not wanted to taint itself by touching such powerful demonic souls, but this interested the blade too much.

All those thoughts vanished, though, when it reached the heart, and the weapon noted that fear had quickened it. The prince had been so proud and haughty up until now, but now it was afraid, and the weapon took a moment to appreciate that before it started hacking into the gap between two bridge-sized ribs.

+211 Life Force.

In all of the Ebon Blade's existence, it had never thought that it was too small of a weapon for any task. Over time, it had grown to be a gigantic claymore that dwarfed nearly any human wielder. Today, though, it felt like a scalpel, and as it cut through layers of muscle, gristle, and fat, it tried not to think of the next step too much.

It was one thing to taste the poison flesh of the monster and drink in its tainted Life Force, but for the next step, it would have to actually go inside of it; striking a blow deep enough to be mortal was impossible from out here.

For just a moment, the blade worried that all of this was part of some elaborate trap, and that as soon as it dove into the body of the titan to probe for its heart, the wound would seal up behind it. That was largely paranoia, though. It shouldn't even be possible with my Path of Blood powers, it reminded itself.

+197 Life Force.

There was nothing here to indicate any kind of problem. Still, just to be sure, the blade blasted the wound with hellfire, cauterizing before it dove into the ooze and began to crawl toward the most important organ of all: the heart.

+286 Life Force.

-60 Life Force.

The blade could see it now, at least the outline of it, hammering and trembling before it. It was larger than the blade's wielder by a fair margin. It was probably larger than a cottage. The blood burned at the soulsteel that made up the most important parts of its wielder. The weapon could feel the prince trying and failing to fumble for control. Unlike Prince Voltrim, he had not built it and had no way of knowing how the strange contraption operated. So, none of those efforts were ineffective.

All that the demon prince could do was grip as tightly as possible, but he could not stop it. The blade might hate the taste of black blood that frothed and flowed around it, but it was also nourished by it, and the longer it was forced to squirm through it, the faster its reserves refilled.

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+661 Life Force.

If Prince Cerirvall's power worked here, he would have made the blade crawl for hours. Fortunately, it didn't take that long, by the time it reached the huge, pulsing organ, the blade's reserves had been nearly filled. None of that saved the demon, or the turtle, or whatever it was. Truthfully, the blade didn't know for sure that this would kill the prince, but it knew it would drastically curtail his powers.

That was fine. If needed, it could go back upstairs when this was done and kill him a second time. All that mattered was that after perhaps five hours of crawling through an ichor-filled nightmare, the blade reached striking distance and sliced through the pericardium with one long slash. That was enough to set itself free from the grip of the prince's magics.

The Ebon Blade could see how thoroughly the man, or at least his beast, was lost to terror then as the heart practically doubled in speed. Still, it wasn't over until the weapon sank six feet of steel in the giant muscle and began the long, laborious process of cleaving the impossibly sized organ in two.

+584 Life Force.

The blood flowed out of it under pressure then. It spurted like a geyser and would have knocked the blade's wielder off its feet had it not already been pinned to another organ.

Somewhere distantly, it heard the sounds of pain intensify. The thing wasn't dead yet, but it was dying, and the weapon was happy to help it along. It continued to hack away at the heart until it was split in two halves. Several times, it added hellfire to the mix, but only to stop the nascent regrowth it had noticed.

+874 Life Force.

-84 Life Force.

It didn't stop until the thing stopped moving. Even then, though, it didn't get the soul expected. Instead, it received something stranger.

+1 Demonic Dragon Soul.

The blade hadn't even realized that something like that existed. It was far stronger and more powerful than a greater demon soul, and only a little weaker than a demon prince soul. The blade studied it for a moment, but then, it set about crawling free of the slimy, claustrophobic nightmare it was embedded in and made its way toward the wound that would be its exit.

That exit took minutes, and leaving the shell through the whole at the neck took another twenty minutes, but it wasn't difficult either. No one stopped it, or even tried to. From there, the blade made its way onto the shell and back up it. That took a long time, but only because of the height, the sheer surface, and the fact that it was still dripping with oily blood, which slowed everything down and made its already deliberate movements that much slower and careful.

When it reached the first balcony this time, the weapon entered it without hesitation. It knew the prince's tricks now, and it was quite certain that the man was dead or dying. It was obvious from the first glance.

Up until now, the vast shell palace had been a work of art, and only the lowest, emptiest floors were in disrepair. Even if the blade rampaged through an area utterly trashing it, a few hours later, it would be as if it never happened, but now the place was falling apart.

Shelves were rotting, linens were decaying, and paint was peeling off every wall it passed. As it made its way toward the throne room, it sometimes felt the world around it stretch in an attempt to hold back its implacable strides, but these efforts lasted only seconds before the puppet master's grip slackened again and its strides once more carried it the proper distance.

As a delay, they were less effective than the strange sights that the blade saw along the way. While the finery of the palace was collapsing, the decorum had failed completely. Demons, still dressed in the ragged shreds of their finery, had reverted to their true nature and were brawling with each other and hunting down the remaining souls of the damned wherever they could find them.

The blade did nothing to intercede, and merely devoured those souls itself where it could. It slew those demons that barred its way as well, but its reserves were brimming with power, so there was no need for the weapon to go out of its way as it made its way toward its destination with a pace that was implacable.

+79 Damned Souls.

+19 Lesser Demon Souls.

+22 Demon Souls.

If he's smart, he'll have fled to the next level and sought refuge with the ruler of the sixth circle, the weapon told itself, trying not to get its hopes up as it approached the throne room. While it was sure that those relations weren't exactly cordial, the odds of survival were dramatically higher than what it would give the man.

However, it turned out that he hadn't run off after all. The blade found him sitting on the throne, and he'd entirely changed since the two had last set eyes on each other weeks before. Before, he'd been such a pretty man that he'd looked like a woman, but that long blonde hair was gone now. His hair had gone gray, and he was half bald now. His flesh had shriveled too, leaving him old and feeble.

Whatever magics he'd used to control the beast that was his realm had left him wasted and useless, taking away most of his strength and all of his beauty. The blade took some small satisfaction in that, but did not pause to gloat or appreciate the moment. It just marched up the stairs, ready to execute him and be done with this.

"Make a pact with me and-and I'll—" the frail demon prince gasped.

"Pass," the Ebon Blade interrupted. It was done trying to be reasonable with this man. It already knew the way forward, and it had already detained it long enough. So, there was no reason not to take his soul and leave.

Still, it hesitated, and instead of killing the prince, it set its blade on his shoulder, just touching his neck, and said, "Tell me of demon souls and I will grant you a quick death," the weapon told him. "Otherwise, I will make you suffer for as long as you left me to wander your foul palace."

The prince smiled weakly and said, "I don't expect you'll get much mileage from torture in my current state. Without my pet, I'm so weak that one of my servants might smother me in my sleep."

"A hot blade does not cause blood loss," the weapon continued. "We can go joint by joint, digit by digit, and limb by limb." It was a bluff, of course. The smallest cuts would make the man bleed out, and it would drain his Life Force completely in seconds as his organs desiccated and his flesh shriveled.

The man sat on the throne considering the offer, and while he weighed his own mortality, the blade's wielder stood like a metal statue, waiting to see what would happen next.

When Prince Cerirvall finally spoke, it was with a rueful shake of his head. "I can't believe that you've come all this way… that you're nearly halfway through the nine circles of hell and you don't know how demon souls work."

The blade did not respond to the taunt. It was certain the demon prince was attempting to bait it into killing him swiftly without getting anything from it, but it was not so easily moved.

Eventually, the prince continued. "I told you that there was always a bigger fish in the Ocean of Despair. That was true, but it's true everywhere else, too. Lesser demons devour the souls of the damned and grow stronger. Slightly stronger demon souls devour them in turn. It's a very harsh environment, but we all grow stronger for it."

"So you wanted the Hag's soul so you could take her powers for your own," the blade answered.

"I would never taint my soul with her filth," the demon prince clarified. "I would have fed her to Qyxandrian, the beast who carries the world. You slew him, but with her powers of regeneration, he would have lived forever."

The blade was glad to see that its earlier guess had been confirmed. It agreed completely. The demon prince might well have become impossible to defeat if his vessel were as strong on the outside as it was on the inside. Still, it let the man brag. While he was loath to answer the blade's questions, he was quite happy to brag and went on at length about the process by which one could consume a powerful soul while refining only a signal attribute from it.

"Such choices are normally instinctual, though lines of demons can be bred with great effort," he explained. "A hog-demon, or a fire soul, does not choose which part of their prey to keep; they just devour the entire thing, and add strength to strength, but with something as large as the soul of a prince, well… I would not like to see my sister born into the body of my domain."

The blade listened for some time, until it became clear the man was simply stalling for time as it considered the implications of what it had learned. Then, the blade raised itself high before bringing its edge down in a powerful two-handed chop. The blow split not only the prince, but the throne he was sitting on in two. The blade studied the corpse for a moment to ensure there was no trickery, but when it received the man's soul, it started down the stairs.

+39 Life Force.

+1 Demon Prince Soul.

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