Two years later, Cyrian lounged in a cell the size of a small room. The runes were carved cleanly into stone, and the spell no longer required refreshing.

  Virgil rested his forehead against his desk. He was so close, he could taste it. The trouble was, every solution required a demon to be found and sequestered in Grimora; that meant he couldn’t control the flow of demons into Grimora, it would require constant monitoring just to know when one came through, and then there would be time in between arrival and capture when the demon could wreck havoc on whichever poor soul accidentally summoned him.

  He straightened up. The summoning! That was the key. If he could control the summoning itself, nothing else mattered.

  Virgil swept his arm across his desk, scattering notes and books to the floor. He spread a fresh sheet of parchment out in front of him and furiously sketched a new kind of rune.

  Cyrian perked up. He leaned forward to the edge of his cell, straining to see what Virgil was doing. There was a change in energy that was undeniable. Even from a short distance, he could feel it.

  For the first time, the demon lord was afraid.

  Virgil set the sketch aside and started fresh, this time drawing it ten times larger. He would need multiple sheets, but the details mattered; to make this work, it couldn’t just be a collection of runes in the way a sentence is a collection of words. It had to be multiple runes all connected in a kind of runic cursive — a dark script he would have to invent himself — so that the runes, once completed, made up a singular sigil.

  Virgil worked for days in a feverish passion. He ate at his desk and only stepped away from his work when his body demanded it.

  Until finally it was complete.

  Blackscript

  A forbidden form of magic written in a language that actively dislikes being read. Reading Black Script aloud may grant you immense power—or a nosebleed, a minor possession, or an eldritch lawsuit. Side effects include spontaneous prophecy, uncontrollable cackling, and the slow but certain erosion of your moral compass.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Virgil accepted the skill but otherwise waved it away. The description was meaningless to him. What mattered was that he had successfully combined his runic knowledge with his infernal energy. He’d had to break down the runic alphabet into its base parts, to understand how each character related to the basic nature of the universe, and then twist that nature with infernal energy; the best way to control the infernal was with the infernal itself.

  That had been his biggest breakthrough. Since the infernal realm was quite literally a different realm, infernal magic slipped like oil against water when he used any of the baser elements.

  Only through the use of his own infernal affinity, which felt like tar beneath his skin, was Virgil able to twist the magic against itself, until at last he unveiled his summoning circles.

  For now, they were no more than a sketch. But he had no doubt that it would function as intended. The materials would be important. There had to be cohesion. It had to be durable. Stone, or marble. Something that would resist the flow of time and would weather every storm. If the runes corroded over time, the magic would be lost.

  So. He would carve them from a mountain. Every circle would be hewn from the same rock, so they remembered each other. They had to be linked, or it wouldn’t work. Then he would carve his runes into the stone and cast every protection spell to prevent erosion.

  When that was done, it wouldn’t matter how many demons made their way into Grimora; they would all be funneled through the circles, and so long as the circles were guarded, Grimora would remain protected.

  Virgil leaned back in his chair and pressed his palms against his eyes. His head pounded.

  Insanity Debuff +1

  Virgil swiped the notification aside as if it were a buzzing fly. Yeah, he knew the System thought he was crazy. What was new? Maybe he was. Or maybe it was a self-defense mechanism, since the System itself was what he sought to destroy.

  His level didn’t matter. His status didn’t matter.

  All that mattered was his plan. It was going to work, but it was going to be so difficult to manage. The logistics… and who could he trust, who would work with him? The circles would have to be installed at the same moment, at key points across the kingdom. How could he manage such a venture when so many mages still called for his execution?

  He eyed Cyrian. If he couldn’t trust his own people, perhaps there was another option.

  “Can you communicate with other demons?”

  The demon lord eyed the scholar warily. He didn’t want to answer, but as a contracted being, he was compelled. “As a demon lord, I can.”

  An idea began to take shape. “Across what distance? Can you communicate with other demon lords as well? How instantaneous is this communication?”

  The demon lord, however reluctantly, answered every question. The feverish light returned to Virgil’s eyes.

  It would be difficult. But with an army of demons, it could be done.