The frame of the defensive wall was taking form.
Its appearance akin to a jagged black scar across the terrain; separating the inner sanctum from the expendable outer slums.
Demons hauled massive chunks of volcanic rock with their muscles bulging, steam rising from their hides, furs, scales, or what ever held their body together, in the perpetual heat.
Everything was orderly.
The random in infighting and killing had been reduced massively; forged by Adam's silent, imposing will.
High above the working demons, seated within the hollowed peak of the obelisk, Adam was contrastingly calm. The room, carved around the attack rune's core, was peaceful.
A simple stone slab, layered thick with the supple, dark hide of a powerful demonic beast, served as his bed and throne.
He sat upon it, legs crossed, and eyes closed.
His body was still, but the air around him vibrated with concentrated power.
He was refining his strength, consolidating his place as a mid-tier lesser devil. Each breath drawing in the thick miasma and refining it into a more potent energy within his core.
Pressed against him on either side, like two exquisite, supple support pillars, were Blair and Agri.
Their naked bodies were seduction manifest; their true nature as seductresses of hell taking form.
Agri, her wounds now faint silver scars thanks to Adam's welding, leaned heavily into his side, her head on his shoulder, one hand possessively tracing the faint outlines of the new horns on his temple. Her eyes glossed as she was mesmerized by his beauty and strength.
Blair, her pride still wounded from being saved by her rival, was more elegant in her approach. She sat straighter, her back arched, with one pale-red hand resting on his thigh. Her touch light but filled with hidden desire.
A low, non-audible hiss passed between them; a sound more felt than heard.
Maybe a silent language only know amongst women?
"Your claws are digging in, shadow-rat. He doesn't need you clinging to him like a parasite," Blair's mental voice was a disgusted whisper.
"This parasite saved your life, dog in heat. Perhaps if you were less concerned with how you looked serving him and more with actually doing it, you wouldn't have been about to have your head stomped in," Agri shot back, her mental voice dripping with a smugness that made Blair's skin prickle with fury.
Their competition was a constant back and forth.
Yet, unbeknownst to themselves, they weren't all too different.
They were two sides of the same sinful coin, each desperate to be the one that landed face-up in their master's palm.
Or face down under his body…
Blair's pride was acutely injured.
Every glance from Adam that lingered on Agri was a fresh insult. The knowledge that she owed her continued existence to this… this creature was a poison in her veins, was a constant torture to her mind and pride!
She needed to reassert her superiority, to prove her value was greater than mere brute stupidity.
The question was, how?
As their silent spat threatened to boil over into something physical, Adam's eyes snapped open.
The effect was instantaneous.
The hellish embers of his gaze, now burning with a deeper, more controlled light, swept over them.
In a flash, the rivals transformed.
Their postures softened, their expressions melting into masks of coquettishness and devotion. They sat up slightly, their movements synchronized as they started to rub against his arms and sides; their earlier tension replaced by a purring and a desperate need for his attention.
The warmth of his skin against theirs was a drug.
It sent shivers of profound, inexplicable satisfaction through them, a feeling that settled deep in their cores and soothed the chaotic edges of their demonic spirits. A satisfaction that surpassed physical, and stroked the spiritual.
It felt like belonging; it felt like purpose.
They didn't know this deep, addictive contentment was not a natural result of his presence. It was a calculated, conscious effort.
After his experiments in the dungeon over the past couple days, where one of the fourteen remaining berserkers had tragically failed to withstand the process of having its soul forcibly reforged, Adam had been perfecting his technique.
Now, every touch, every moment of proximity, was infused with a subtle, insidious energy. Everything was now done in a more conscious manner.
He was actively branding them, weaving the faint, unique signature of his will into the fabric of their very souls with deliberate actions.
Their competition, their desire to please him, their very need for his approval: it was all being carefully cultivated, turning their fierce rivalry into yet another tool for his amusement and control; and for his satisfaction.
Adam looked from one beautiful, devoted face to the other.
A silent architect admiring his living, breathing handiwork; their desires aligning with his.
Of course, given enough time, demons would naturally form something akin to a bond or dependence for their devil masters.
The unspoken truth, a fundamental law of hell.
For female demons like Blair and Agri, service to a devil wasn't a subjugation; it was an aspiration. It was the best possible outcome in a brutally harsh existence defined by violence and a desperate, clawing struggle for power and survival.
As they pressed against Adam, their movements were not merely acts of seduction or competition; they were acts of profound, instinctual self-preservation.
They had been plucked from the chaotic, terrifying fray of demon kind. They were no longer just potential prey for a stronger demon or a mindless cog in a savage horde.
They had been chosen.
Blair, with her pride, knew that her beauty and refined control were assets, but they were assets that were worthless without a discerning master to appreciate them.
To be ignored by a devil was to be condemned to a life of being fought over by brutish, lesser demons as her value reduced drastically.
Here, with Adam, her pride was not crushed; it was elevated. It was given a purpose. His approval was the only currency that truly mattered, and earning it was the highest calling she could conceive.
Agri, whose existence had been one of survival through cunning and opportunism, saw in Adam not just a master, but a fortress.
His strength was her shield.
His ambition was her desire.
In the savage pecking order of hell, attaching herself to a devil was the ultimate strategic move. Her loyalty, once a fickle thing given to the highest bidder, was now fiercely, singularly his because he represented survival and ascension.
To serve him was to thrive.
This innate willingness to submit, this deep-seated understanding that a devil's favor was the pinnacle of a demoness's fate, made Adam's branding all the more effective.
A natural primal, instinctive desire for females of hell; to latch to the strong!