Imp to Demon King: A Journey of Conquest-Chapter 439: The Ascent

The Screaming Peaks earned their name honestly.

As Adam’s fingers found purchase on the jagged obsidian that formed the cliff face, the wind struck him like a hail of blades. It didn’t simply howl—it shrieked with the voices of every soul that had ever been torn apart by its fury. The sound burrowed into his skull, seeking to shatter his concentration and send him plummeting into the abyss below.

But Adam had spent months in a deeper abyss than any wind could threaten him with. These screams were nothing compared to the silence of absolute despair he had endured.

"The handholds are exactly where our informants said they’d be," Luna called out, her voice barely audible above the wind’s fury. Despite the hellish conditions, she moved up the cliff face with inhuman grace, her succubus nature allowing her to find purchase where none should exist.

Behind them, Thane grunted with effort but kept pace, his massive frame surprisingly agile as he navigated the treacherous stone. "Remind me to thank whoever mapped this route," he growled between labored breaths. "Assuming we survive to deliver our gratitude."

"Survival is the plan," Adam replied, hauling himself up another few feet. "Dead martyrs don’t get to enjoy their victories."

Above them, Vinéa’s castle grew larger with each agonising foot they climbed. The twisted spires seemed to lean outward, as if the very architecture was trying to push intruders away from the demon king’s sanctum. Flickering lights moved behind stained glass windows—guards making their rounds, servants going about their duties, all blissfully unaware that death was scaling the walls they thought impassable.

Adam’s hand closed around a particularly sharp outcropping, and he felt the stone slice through his palm. Golden blood—the mark of his ascended nature—dripped down the cliff face, each drop hissing as it struck the obsidian below.

How much will you sacrifice for your revenge?

Luna’s question from three days ago echoed in his mind as he climbed. The answer had seemed simple then, carved in stone like the commandments of some vengeful god. Everything. He would sacrifice everything for the chance to stand over his enemies’ corpses and know that justice had finally been served.

But now, with Luna’s warmth beside him and the knowledge that his choices would shape not just his own future but the futures of everyone who followed him, the answer felt less certain. More complex.

More human.

"Movement below," Thane rumbled quietly. "Krix and the others have reached their position. Give them another few minutes, and this place will be crawling with confused guards."

Adam nodded, forcing himself to wait despite every instinct screaming at him to move, to act, to finally claim the vengeance that had sustained him through years of torment. Patience was a luxury he had learned to appreciate in the abyss—sometimes the difference between success and failure was simply knowing when to strike.

The sounds of distant commotion began to echo from the lower levels of the castle. Shouts, running feet, the clatter of weapons being drawn in haste. Krix was earning his place in whatever new world Adam was building.

"Now," Adam whispered, and they resumed their climb with renewed urgency.

They reached the battlements just as chaos erupted in the castle’s depths. The timing was perfect—almost too perfect, but sometimes the universe acknowledged good planning with a moment of grace.

The breach itself was almost anticlimactic. A single guard stood at the battlement they needed to access, his attention focused on the disturbance below. Luna’s magic wrapped around his mind like silk, sending him into dreams of peaceful sleep. The heavy door that should have barred their way yielded to Adam’s strength with barely a whisper of protest.

And then they were inside Vinéa’s castle, breathing air thick with the scent of incense and decay, their feet silent on carpets woven from the hair of conquered enemies.

"His private chambers are two levels down," Luna whispered, consulting the mental map their informants had provided. "But at this hour, with all the commotion..."

"He’ll be exactly where his arrogance demands," Adam finished. "In his throne room, directing his forces to deal with what he assumes is a minor intrusion."

They moved through corridors lined with portraits of Vinéa’s victories—conquered territories, subjugated peoples, tributes offered by those too weak to resist his will. Each image was a vivid depiction of the demon king’s cruelty, a reminder of why Adam had climbed impossible cliffs to reach this moment.

But they were also something else: proof that power without purpose was nothing more than elaborate brutality. Vinéa had built an empire on fear and maintained it through violence, but what had he created? What legacy would survive his death beyond these painted testimonies to suffering?

Nothing.

That was the difference between them, Adam realised. Vinéa ruled through terror because terror was all he understood. But Adam... Adam was building something that could survive without him. Something worth the sacrifices it demanded.

The massive doors to Vinéa’s throne room stood before them, carved from black wood and inscribed with wards that pulsed with malevolent energy. Beyond them lay the demon king himself—and the first real test of whether Adam could keep his promise to be better than his enemies.

He placed his hand on the doors, feeling the wards recognise his power and recoil in confusion. They had been designed to keep out lesser demons, not something that had transcended the very categories their magic recognised.

"Whatever happens in there," he said quietly to Luna and Thane, "remember—we’re not here to prove we can be more brutal than our enemies. We’re here to prove we can be better."

The doors swung open silently, revealing a throne room lit by flames that burned without heat, where a demon king sat in arrogant splendor on a glistening throne built upon mountains of bones and rivers of blood, completely unprepared for the judgment that had finally come for him.

The age of divine puppets was ending.

The age of earned sovereignty had begun. ƒreewebɳovel.com

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