"So what do you want to do about the stray devils?" Ruval asked, "Obviously, we can't move them today, and I know you'll be mentally drained from the party tomorrow, so do you want them at the usual spot, say, the day after?"
I thought for a moment and shook my head.
"No, I don't think I'll be needing strays anymore. Get rid of them." I said, slumping back into my chair, "Oh, but keep the rumour going for a while before you 'raid' the safehouse. It'll keep the image of that hope alive and keep the suspicions off us, the next time we need to catch some."
Ruval nodded and leaned in, elbows over the desk.
"I take it you've finished that spell."
I smiled, and lifted a finger. Instantly, a thimble-sized crimson-orange flame the colour of the setting sun sparked to life at the tip of it. But if you looked closer, you could spot the faintest outline of a pale, cyan-blue at its edges.
Soul-burning Hellfire. A flame that leaves the vessel untouched and burns away the soul itself.
"Amazing!" Ruval exclaimed with joy, slapping the table in excitement, "I'm so proud of you, Riser."
"Thanks." I smiled cockily, "I'm really proud of myself too."
Ruval laughed and ruffled my hair.
"Precocious little brat! You really are something…." He let out a sigh, his expression shifting to somewhere between nostalgia and sourness, "And so much faster than me too. Took me till I was twenty eight to even conceive of the idea, to even think to look into the nature of our hellfire."
"Well, I didn't do it all on my own. Without your help getting the strays, it would've taken at least another year. "
"Another year. So 11 years old. You damn overachiever." He snorted, "So what is next for our resident genius?"
I looked up at him, and gave him a curious look.
"Human experimentation, mostly death row inmates and particularly vicious criminals. I want to see if I can get the flame of punishment and flame of sin to work."
"You made up the theories?"
"Oh I made up more than just theories." I scoffed, and crossed my arms over, leaning back into my chair, "So…when were you going to tell me?"
"What are you talking about?" Ruval asked, confused.
"Oh don't play coy. You know what I'm talking about….the true origin of our clan!"
His tensed up for the slightest moment before he hid his expression behind a mask of ignorance.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"That's how you're going to play it? Alright, how about this. I'll start talking and you tell me when I'm wrong." I cleared my throat with an *ahem* and he leaned back amused.
"Enlighten me."
"Ok, so, magic is an imitation of our demonic power. And our demonic power is an imitation of divine magic, miracles at work. It is the power of imagination because our creator, Lucifer was the first to imagine a world beyond his own creator's instructions.
The deals we make in exchange for a price…how are they different from say, a genie granting a wish in return for release, or the gods answering prayer in return for sacrifices or even the miracles that heaven bestows upon those who keep faith. It is an imitation of the same old ritual. Give and take." I paced about as I spoke.
"The reason we can fly despite our wings being too small to generate enough lift for creatures our size. The principle of 'I have wings, therefore I can fly', the imitation of flight. We speak all languages so we can communicate with, make a deal with everyone, just like how gods possess allspeak, so they may spread their faith without borders. An imitation of divine communion."
"I see you've mastered advanced magic theory." Ruval commented.
"Uh, huh." I nodded, and went back to pacing around the room as I spoke, "So imagine my surprise when I got to our clan's traits and something didn't quite add up.
'Our flame that is just like a Phoenix's' we brag to everyone. 'Immortal like a Phoenix'.
And yet we also have things a phoenix doesn't, something curiously missing from both the Phoenix and the Official Guide to Devil Society's chapter on clan traits, almost as if has been purposely obfuscated.
Our ability to manipulate wind. On top of that, for creatures so aligned with fire, the biting winds we summon carry with them an ominous chill, almost antithetical to the heat of flame."
"And?" I could see the faintest hint of a smile on Ruval's face.
"I couldn't quite square this circle for a while there, until I remembered Ravel's birth. Why was it that Dad went in alone to assist Mom in the birth? How come we didn't get any midwives…so secretive. And when I got into the room after, what do find, or rather, don't find. Eggshells. No trace of them. No shells, no yolk. Nothing.
You know how humans sometimes keep a piece of umbilical cord from their children…yet we are so careful as to wipe any traces of our births before anyone else may see it. That's when it clicked.
Why we can change our hands into talons, why we give birth to eggs despite being humanoid in form. Why our wings remain feathered and colourful, unlike the rest of devilkind's leathery wings."
Why I forgot my past life's identity at birth. Though this, I left unsaid. It was the lynchpin in my theory. It really tickled my DnD power gamer instincts. I just knew there was something hidden there. I just needed to roll that nat20 on the insight check. What, amongst all mythologies, causes one to lose their memories in their transition to a new life?
A lot of things, but it wasn't hard to narrow it down to one liquid, like the amniotic fluid filling my egg, that took on it's properties. Granny Meng's Soup.
"Our flames, they aren't just like a Phoenix's, are they? Not the western Phoenix at least. That one is a beast- sacred, yes- but just a beast nonetheless.
But there is a creature that matches those traits to the dot. A mythical bird that can transform into a human, who manipulates both flame and wind, though it's nature is beyond sacred. A divine bird. In imitation of which we wield the flames of Diyu, summon the black winds of misfortune; though ours never really match up to the original."
Ruval sighed.
"Fenghuang. The Ever Burning Glory of Huang Di, The Jade Emperor. King of all Birds, Lord of Ceremonies. He who ushers in violet winds from the east, laden with blessings." He whistled, half defeated, half proud, "You really figured it out."
"Lucifer, that crazy bastard really managed to steal a Fenghuang from right under the Jade Emperor's nose, huh?" I ran a hand through my hair, "Do they know?"
"Of course they do. They're not idiots." Ruval said.
"Then why-"
"Do you really think the Jade Emperor would risk public humiliation by admitting that a foreign pantheon managed to steal his prized bird god? Those people are all about face. Respect, public image. The dignity of the mandate of heaven would be irreparably damaged if it got out. Which is also why we do everything we can to keep it secret."
"Including distracting people from the truth by comparing ourselves to the Phoenix." I snorted with a chuckle, "Our clan name itself is a red herring. And here I thought we couldn't name ourselves the Phoenix clan for the same reason we can't invoke HIS name."
"The Fenghuang is the ancestor of the Phoenix and the Vermillion Bird so it's not technically wrong." Ruval said, before adding, "That's why you should also realize what will happen if we fail to prevent it from becoming public knowledge."
"We'd be served grilled next to the banchan at his next celestial feast." I joked.
Ruval nodded gravely.
"He'd have to take action to save face. He'd claim ignorance, and demand justice; and the new government would gladly throw us under the bus. It's not that we are weak, but that the Jade Emperor's Court is just too strong. This is a fight we cannot afford."
"You don't have to worry about me keeping a secret." I assured him.
"I know." He sighed, "But it is my duty to warn you, as your older brother. Still, you could have waited until after the party to drop this bombshell on me."
"So when did you figure it out?" I asked, excited.
"I didn't." He said.
"What?"
"Mom and Dad told me, when I hit a wall in my training."
"So is it an Heir-only secret or…"
"Rigal doesn't know, if that's what you're asking. He barely even bothered to train to High Class, much less train the special aspects of our hellfire."
"On that note, I was wondering… our hellfire, if it is related to the flames of Diyu, couldn't we try for something more? Not flames of absolution, of course, that's too holy. I was thinking more um…flames of reincarnation?"
The 5th level spell reincarnate was one of my favourites to play post battle, reviving all of our fallen enemies as 5 foot nothing, busty cat girls. The DM hated me for that. I think at one point I had something like 23 DMPCs and big bads transformed into a tabaxi mini-army. That's when he quit playing for good.
"To strip your enemies of their powers?" He instantly figured out my line of logic, "Not to mention it's feasibility, the cost itself would too great. You'd need to match them pound for pound in terms of demonic power and then exceed that by an inch or two." He calculated, "How much is that soulfire costing you?"
"Almost a quarter of my demonic power for a flame the size of a candle." I replied, dejected, "But I'm still refining it. I think I can get the costs down as low as an eleventh of it."
"Still too costly to use in battle, but a great tool to have in your arsenal." He nodded appreciatively, "I tried something similar when I found out too."
"Which one did you try?"
"Flames of fortune."
"But wait that's, even element wise-"
"Yeah, it didn't pan out." He said, "Then I tried mixing tantric magic into the mix. There was this spell to avoid untimely death- I know, I know, we're immortal, hear me out- it was to create something similar to what Sirzechs does. You know how he turns himself into pure destruction?"
I nodded, and he continued.
"I tried doing that, but with hellfire." Ruval laughed, "It went about as well as you'd expect."
"Wow, you were really in it to win it, huh?" I chuckled.
"Well, I'd gotten into the top ten of the rating games and I thought, why not try for number one? Maybe even get to Satan Class while I was at it! Ah, the folly of youth." He spoke wistfully, "That Sirzechs really is something, being able to do that."
"You sound like an old man."
"Shut up." Ruval smiled, "You see, what I found from all those experiments, is that we can't tap into the true powers of the Fenghuang. We lack one crucial component of his physiology."
"Divinity." I guessed.
"Yes. Only divinity can match divinity. Since our version of the Fenghuang's powers are tinged with the essence of hell, we'd ideally need a blessing from an underworld deity."
"Is that why you used that tantric spell- praying to an underworld god to tap into that domain? Interesting, but pretty much impossible. Everyone hates devils. No way they'd bless one with anything."
"If I had half the sense you have Riser…I'm just telling you this so you don't repeat my mistakes." He unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it aside to reveal the faintest hint of a scar. It was barely visible- you wouldn't notice it unless you were looking for it- but there it was. A razor thin black line from his right pectoral to the center of his ribcage.
"Thanatos' scythe." Ruval spoke, almost wincing from the memory, "I charged Hades to demand a blessing, and Thanatos put me in my place. He gave me this, a reminder of the difference between us and them."
I reached out to touch and felt the chill of death coming from it.
"Gnarly~" I couldn't help but admire his courage. I wouldn't have had the guts to do something so patently stupid.
"That's not how you're supposed to react-" Ruval gave up mid-sentence, "You're smart enough to know not to do that."
"I am." I smirked, and I could see it grated on him.
"Arrogant brat." He said, when he noticed the clock, "We spent too much time chitchatting. Go and get ready, its time."
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Yes, I know. I said this chapter would have the party, but I got carried away with this conversation. Sorry.
In return, I will write the final part of Big Day today and give you a second chapter!
Also, tell me what you think of the chapter. Am I dropping too much lore and worldbuilding too fast? what should I change or improve?
I appreciate your ideas.
If it's not too much to ask, could you guys also leave good reviews on the fic. I'm in it to win it, just like Ruval Phenex! Let's win together!
Don't forget to donate your powerstones, add the fic to your library and come back in a few hours for Big Day part 4.
Thanks for reading.
Bye~