Barely managing to contain my hostility, I bowed my head before the hatefully beautiful demon lord seated upon the throne before me. Like most of them, this particular demon lord was fond of preening over the supposed superiority of his race.
I listened to his pointless monologue, waiting for him to get to the point of why he had summoned me. I was already fully aware that I was the lowest-rated core under his domination, so there was no need to berate me further. However, this one never missed an opportunity to remind me of my uselessness and how it smeared his otherwise good name.
There wasn't much I could do about it anyway. I was bound to a girl who was weak at heart, far too broken and apathetic to come out for this or any other summons, even upon pain of death. So, naturally, I took the brunt of the lords' displeasure for her. She might have been content with the slaveholder killing her and assigning me a new master, but I refused to let her die. I would fight with every meager tool at my disposal to save us both.
Admittedly, freedom was just a dream, and that girl had long since despaired of dreams. But I, on the other hand, held more than enough hope and will to fight for both of us. I would do whatever menial jobs were required of me, lick whatever boots needed to be licked, to keep the hope of our freedom alive. After all, once she died, all hope would be gone. I felt it deep in my core. A chance would come one day, and when it did, I would grasp it with every ounce of my power.
Finally, the tall, slender being seemed to have mostly spent his rage railing at me and, by extension, my incompetent master. I never betrayed my true feelings, thus escaping physical punishment this time.
They must have needed me to do something more important this time. Rarely was I summoned without suffering pain for some failure or lack of decorum. I fully realized some of that was my fault. I had a tongue almost as sharp as the pointy ears of my captors. Even if I carefully muttered something under my breath, those hateful, long ears would hear it, and swift reprisal would come. Their massive egos would brook no insult, no matter how quietly said, to escape notice and punishment.
While letting his vain vitriol wash over me, I wondered how such attractive creatures could be so vile on the inside. I couldn't decide whether their success at conquest had inflated their egos, or their egos had driven them into pursuing those conquests in the first place. Either way, as far as I could see, their fatal weakness was they were utterly incapable of working together. Their over-sized egos found the very concept of cooperation loathsome, being far more interested in asserting dominance over one another via infighting and backstabbing. After all, taking care of the dirty work is why they had underlings and slaves like me.
Some worlds were able to resist due to this stupidity. If more than one demon lord were to invade at once, then any world would surely fall in no time at all. However, these raging egomaniacs could not tolerate sharing. A world, any world, was not big enough for any two of them to rule it together. They would as soon fight each other as be seen doing something as lowly as cooperating. How such ego-driven creatures managed to breed and rear children was an utter mystery to me.
And, of course, there were children. I had seen them on several occasions. Oddly enough, the children were the only members of their race tolerated, perhaps one might even say venerated, by adult demon lords. Of course, that treatment only led the small ones to be all the more tyrannically narcissistic. I had learned the hard way that if you saw a demon lord child, the only wise thing to do was flee the area as quickly as possible.
Snapping out of my musings, I responded to the latest prompt, "Yes, my lord. You are correct, as always."
Seemingly disappointed about not getting a rise out of me today, thus missing an excuse for some torture, he sighed.
"As if I needed an incompetent ingrate like you to tell me the obvious."
Like most of what this windbag said, no response was needed or wanted. I just had to patiently wait until he tired of hearing his own despicably melodious voice.
"Yes, well. As incompetent as you and that wretched succubus whelp are, we are brilliant enough to make use of you, nevertheless. Your sisters are all assigned to more significant tasks, so the insipid final assignment falls to you, as is fitting.
You shall arrive at these coordinates, attacking any vessel you come upon, exterminating all inhabitants, and destroying all evidence. No survivors and no outgoing communications are to be allowed. I'm confident that this task is simple enough for even you.
Failure will result in immediate termination of your little pet succubus. Am I understood?"
I found my breath catching my throat, despite not needing to breathe, "Yes, my lord. I will accomplish all to your satisfaction."
A smug smile spread on his face, "Good, good. Furthermore, you will receive the name 'core 00976' as a reward for completing this mission. Be sure to use it when reporting your success."
