Adam stood on the warm, dirtied floor of the half-finished dungeon.
The silence was a stark contrast to the brutal chaos of the battlefield from moments ago.
The only sounds were the distant snores of the injured slumbering, and of the rhythmic, hard pounding on stone as the last of the working demons labored away.
He had given his orders: Roh, with the aid of the two flame demons, was to oversee the three hundred newly captured demons from the outer horde.
The rest of the workers were to finish the dungeon as quickly as possible.
Adam gazed at his prisoners, their hanging bodies tightly packed like sacks of meat and steel.
His mind, no longer clouded by rage, was now a cold and emotionless.
The humiliation he felt earlier was not gone; it was simply a tool, a source of fuel for his ambition.
As well as a reminder.
The berserkers were not just captives; they were the very embodiment of his failure.
Their cunning had nearly cost him everything, and now he would return the favor with a meticulous, agonizing precision.
He strode over to the workers, who were still trying to remove the abyssal steel from the berserker's bodies.
"Leave them," Adam commanded, his voice low.
The demons flinched.
"I'll handle this. I want to be alone with… with these toys~"
The workers, confused and scared, but obedient, bowed their heads and shuffled out. Their footsteps echoing as they disappeared up the ramp.
Adam was soon alone with his fourteen prisoners.
They hung limply from thick, thorny vines attached to the ceiling, their heavy muscles strained against the vine's natural hooks that dug into their flesh. Some of the more energetic demons had dug an inch or so into their flesh with the serrated vines.
Streams of dark blood dripped onto the stone floor below, a steady, rhythmic 'plink, plink, plink' rang out. The air, thick with the stench of blood and sweat, suddenly felt heavy with anticipation and dread.
He moved through the hanging brutes, his eyes emotionlessly assessing each one.
These weren't mere rank 1 demons: they were Kaelgor's elites!
Honed by years of hellish conflict and gruesome training, their physical resilience and combat instincts were legendary, while their minds honed into steel fortresses.
If put on earth, they would a calamity that could only be taken down by extreme measures.
Adam knew that if he wanted to understand his own influence and the nature of his power, he would have to break these bundles of muscle. He would have to pry open their minds and souls to see what made them tick, to see what made them so formidable.
He stopped before a particularly large berserker; its shape more on the wider side than anything. A quick glance to his sides allowed Adam to distinctively tell that these berserkers were all different; even if they had the same bloodline.
After all, there was differences even among humans, much less hell's residents.
Ignoring the thought, Adam placed his palm against the demon's armored torso, as a pulse of his refined mana, no longer the wild, chaotic energy of before, flowed through his hand.
He was no longer just a conduit for mana to pass through; now it was completely under his control.
He had spent his time since the fight observing his own mana, its properties, and its limitations.
He had a theory, one he needed to test.
A fine, shimmering layer of demonic energy began to coat Adam's hand; red glimmers darkening as his affinity with flames slowly grew.
He ran it over the surface of the demon's body, the abyssal steel armor had been his greatest obstacle thus far. The armor, impenetrable to most forms of attack, felt like solid mountain.
Adam's brow furrowed in concentration.
The mana from before could not penetrate it, but his new mana was different; more viscous, more focused.
He poured more energy into his hand, and with a slow, grinding effort, the mana began to seep into the microscopic cracks of the abyssal steel.
The metal hissed in protest, as a faint, dark steam rose from its surface.
The berserker remained unconscious, but a pained groan escaped his lips as Adam forced the mana deeper. The demonic energy worked like a microscopic acid, dissolving the molecular bonds of the metal from within, turning its unyielding, rigid strength against itself.
Either bend, or break!
After several seconds of concentrated mana poured into a single spot, Adam watched a thin crack appear on the armor's surface; a tiny victory.
He continued to push, to carve his will into the very fabric of the metal.
"Chreee!"
"CRACK!"
The crack widened, a spiderweb spread across the berserker's chest plate, before it finally gave way. The piece of armor fell to the floor, exposing the red, pulsating flesh beneath.
The chest section of the armor had partially melded with the demon, explaining the reason as to why the armor was so hard to remove.
Adam pulled his hand back, observing the exposed wound with a satisfied glint in his eyes.
With a groan, the berserker slowly started to wake up.
Adam watched its eyes flutter open, its crimson orbs instantly focusing on him.
The demon's face was a mask of confusion, then terror, as it saw the shattered armor and the cold, predatory gaze of the devil before it. Adam met the demon's gaze, a chilling, sadistic smirk spreading across his face.
"Don't worry," Adam whispered, his voice as soft as silk, "The real test hasn't even begun."
Adam stood in the dim, blood-scented air of the dungeon, the steady drip of crimson from the hanging berserkers was a morbid symphony; a pleasing, gentle melody to Adam's ears.
His gaze, cold and analytical, swept over the fourteen prisoners. They were his now.
His to break.
His to understand.
Demonic mana was not merely a tool for destruction; it was an insidious force, a living extension of hell's will.
It could invade, corrupt, and shatter. It could bend the weak-willed to its purpose; reshape flesh and spirit with its dark prowess.
At higher realms, legends spoke of devils twisting the very fabric of reality with a thought, but even here, at this nascent stage, Adam held a spark of that terrible potential.
His power was a physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual poison, and he was about to learn its recipes of infection, of contamination on these living subjects.
His eyes settled on a berserker, one whose abyssal steel armor had so stubbornly defied and withheld against his blows during the earlier battle.
A flicker of frustration surfaced.
In the heat of battle, breaking through that armor was impractical, as it would take too long.
Though, a strategy formed in the back of his mind: focus his mana on a single point, with a constant injection of his mana, slowly wearing the enchanted steel down like acid on stone.
To repeatedly attack a single point over the duration of a battle; only then would he have a chance against this fearsome armor if it was worn by an equal.
A tactic for future encounters…