The club quieted slowly.
The last echo of neon flickered across the empty stage; the pulse of Lust Ring softened to a sleepy, restless glow.
Behind the curtains, my four new recruits Liza , Dreg, Skit, and the quiet imp curled into their makeshift beds.
Exhausted.
Hungry.
Hopeful.
They weren't soldiers.
Not yet.
Just demons who had finally tasted safety for a single night.
As their breathing steadied, Alastor stirred in my mind like a shadow sharpening its shape.
"They'll sleep soundly," he murmured, amused.
"You've given them a sense of shelter they've likely never known."
I stayed quiet.
He continued regardless.
"Now then… what shall we do with them?"
I blinked.
Train them.
Strengthen them.
"Physically?"
"Yes."
A low hum vibrated through my skull curiosity, not certainty.
"Hmm… and how, pray tell, do you intend to make broken, underfed Lust-demons strong?"
We train. Day after day.
I push them. I guide them. Their bodies adapt.
Alastor made a soft sound half laugh, half thoughtful crackle like gears turning in an old radio.
"Training alone?"
Yes.
Static thickened.
"Not enough."
I looked up mentally.
…what do you mean?
Alastor didn't answer at first.
He paced through my thoughts, measuring them like an engineer inspecting a new machine.
"Something happened earlier today," he said.
"When you recruited them."
My brow tightened.
What happened?
His grin sharpened in my mind's eye.
"Your resonance… shifted."
I froze.
Resonance?
You mean the Rings?
"No, no," he chuckled.
"Not the Rings themselves. Not their usual deep thrum.
I'm speaking of something subtler… finer… a faint wave you released without noticing."
I didn't feel anything.
"Of course YOU didn't."
Another amused hum.
"You were inside the ripple. I was observing from the outside."
I straightened.
What kind of ripple?
Alastor finally stopped pacing.
And his voice lowered.
"The kind that reacts to living bodies."
Silence.
A chill crawled across the back of my neck.
…explain.
"Gladly."
He clasped his metaphorical hands together.
"Your resonance call it Echo if you prefer already strengthens you when you direct it inward. Yes?"
…yes.
"Then why," he asked slowly, "shouldn't it be possible to direct it outward?"
My breath caught.
He continued before I could speak.
"You see, dear boy, when those four demons stood before you… your resonance twitched. Just a flick. A nudge. A tiny, instinctive response to their fear like your energy was adjusting to their emotional state."
…and?
Alastor smiled wider.
"And that means it can be guided."
A pulse ran down my spine.
Guided?
"Projected."
I stopped breathing.
You're saying I can… strengthen them myself?
"Potentially."
A careful word.
Measured, deliberate.
"Think, boy. Your resonance reorganizes your body. Your muscles. Your nerves. Your circulation.
Why should it not encourage similar adjustments in others if focused properly?"
I stared into the darkness.
Alastor's voice grew excited not manic, not certain intellectually thrilled.
"It may not transform them. Not yet. But with discipline, direction, and consistent exposure to your active resonance…"
He tapped his mental foot.
"…they could adapt faster."
"How much faster?"
"Hard to say."
Static flickered. who knows until we try, but instead of several hundred years of training and acquiring the right energy, for example the energy of desire for the subcube, you could shorten this time to a few years
if your resonance strengthens with more Rings. But even basic training would become more efficient with your energy stabilizing their biology."
So I have to resonate at them during training.
"Exactly."
And that wasn't happening before?
"No," he said sharply.
"The ripple I sensed earlier was accidental uncontrolled. Instinct, not technique."
A pause.
"But controlled resonance?"
He chuckled.
"Oh, that could become quite the tool."
My heart beat faster not from fear, but from understanding.
…I didn't know I could do that.
"Of course you didn't."
Alastor teased.
"Your system is new. Untested. Unmapped. It behaves like cultivation but it is not cultivation.
It behaves like sin but it is not sin.
It behaves like energy but it is not exactly energy"
And you figured this out from one flicker?
Alastor smirked inside my skull.
"I've spent decades manipulating sound, radiation, emotion, and fear.
Your resonance is another flavor of the same orchestra."
I swallowed.
So to strengthen them, I need to:
train with them,
guide them,
and resonate through the training.
"Precisely."
And if I don't?
"Then they grow at the speed of average Lust-ring degenerates."
I huffed.
"So slow."
"Painfully."
A long silence passed between us before Alastor shifted again.
His voice softened not kind, but committed.
"This is the beginning of your foundation, boy.
Physical strength.
Discipline.
Resonance-based conditioning."
"And what comes after?"
Alastor's smile became maddeningly ambiguous.
"Who knows?"
A soft laugh.
"You've created something unprecedented. Even I cannot predict its peak."
A beat.
"But for now… teach them to breathe, teach them to move, and learn how to guide your resonance.
You will need every ounce of strength you can build before the future arrives."
I exhaled slowly.
The sleeping demons in the back felt suddenly heavier
not as burdens,
but as the first stones in the foundation of something enormous.
When I stood, Alastor's voice followed:
"Rest. Tomorrow you begin… forging."
I looked at the dim dance floor, the neon glow, the sleeping forms.
Tomorrow, we begin.