"The Demon King has decided on world domination," Sara said.

The words fell into the room like stones dropped into still water, ripples spreading outward, touching everything, changing everything.

The voice echoed through the meeting hall, killing every conversation before it could begin. The captains who had been leaning forward, ready to speak, ready to argue, ready to plan, they all went silent.

Elga smiled.

It was not a warm smile. It was the smile of a soldier who had been waiting for a war and had finally been told the war was coming. "Finally," she said, her scarred face lighting up with something that looked like hunger.

"The demons have decided to start revealing themselves."

Erika nodded, her sharp eyes gleaming. "So we can have our own revenge," she said, looking at each captain in turn.

"We can finally hit back. We can finally make them pay for everything they have done."

Fiona said nothing.

Erika noticed.

Her gaze settled on the Phoenix captain, her brow furrowing.

"Why are you so quiet, Fiona? Don’t you feel excited? Don’t you want to kill the demon who killed your father?"

Fiona looked at her.

Erika leaned forward, her voice dropping to something almost conspiratorial.

"I know you are excited to take revenge on Akuryu Zanki."

The name hit Fiona like a physical blow.

Akuryu Zanki.

Upper blood demon from Japan. Under the control of Demon King Allen. The one who had killed her father.

The one who had been the main target of her revenge for years, the face that haunted her nightmares, the name she had whispered in the dark when she thought no one was listening.

Her blood boiled.

Her hands clenched beneath the table.

Her jaw tightened until her teeth ached.

She said nothing.

Sara’s voice cut through the tension like a blade.

"I am not done with this meeting."

The captains went silent.

Sara’s violet eyes swept across them, cold and absolute.

"Hold your conversations later. Raven has something important to share here." She paused, letting the weight of her words settle.

"Raven is here to reveal the most horrifying thing we have ever heard. And I want you to understand that this reality of demons, even I did not know until Raven explained it to me."

The other captains swallowed.

Their mouths were dry.

Their hearts were pounding.

"What you are about to hear," Sara continued, "is the full concept of how demons really work. The truth behind the contracts. The truth behind the Missing children. The truth that has been hidden from us for centuries."

The room went cold.

Fiona felt something crawl up her spine, not fear, but something worse.

The realization that everything she thought she knew was about to be shattered.

---

Raven bowed to Sara. "Thank you, Chief, for making the situation in control."

She turned to face the captains.

Her crow mask caught the light, the red glow of its eyes pulsing slowly, like a heartbeat. Her voice, when she spoke, was low and steady, the voice of someone who had seen things that could never be unseen.

"Our unit has been tracking demonic activity for almost 177 years," Raven said. "Generation to generation, we passed down information, shadows following shadows, crows watching from the darkness. We collected fragments. We pieced together clues. We waited for the moment when we would finally have the full picture."

She paused.

"Until one day, we did."

The captains’ eyes widened.

They had always known the Shadow Crow unit was ancient, that they had been watching demons for longer than anyone could remember.

But hearing the number, 177 years, made it real in a way that it had not been before.

Generations of hunters, passing down their knowledge, waiting for the truth.

And now they were here.

The mission was complete.

Raven’s voice dropped, becoming softer, more serious.

"What I am about to say is the most horrifying truth I have ever uncovered."

She activated the display.

The screens flickered to life, casting cold blue light across the polished wood of the meeting table. Diagrams, footage, and photographs, captured over generations of Shadow Crow surveillance, flickered across the monitors, each image more disturbing than the last.

The captains leaned forward, their eyes fixed on the displays, their faces pale in the glow.

Raven stood beside the screens, her crow mask gleaming, her voice low and steady.

"This is how the demonic world truly works," she said. "And it is the most horrifying thing we have discovered."

The other captains tightened in their seats.

Elga’s massive hands pressed flat against the table, her knuckles white.

Erika’s sharp eyes narrowed, the usual fire in them dimmed by something that looked like dread.

Lily’s pale fingers curled around the edge of her chair, her knuckles bloodless.

Fiona sat frozen, her heart pounding, her mind racing, her throat dry.

"As you know," Raven continued, "demons have always made contracts with humans. We have known that for centuries. But we never knew why.

We never knew the purpose behind the contracts, the reason demons bother with humans at all when they could simply kill and destroy as they pleased. But Today, you will finally understand how they actually work."

She paused, letting the weight of her words settle like stones dropped into deep water.

---

The Salesman Demons

Raven pointed to the first image.

It was a photograph of a man, or something that looked like a man. He wore a black suit, perfectly pressed, without a single wrinkle. A white shirt so bright it seemed to glow. A formal tie, deep red, the color of dried blood.

His hair was slicked back, oiled and gleaming. His shoes were polished to a mirror shine. In his hand, he carried a leather briefcase, worn at the edges, held together by straps that looked like they had been repaired many times.

He looked like any corporate salesman, the kind who knocked on doors, offered deals, smiled too brightly, and left before you could ask questions.

But his smile was wrong.

It was too wide. Too white. Too still. It did not reach his eyes, those eyes that were black, completely black, no iris, no pupil, no white, just two voids in a face that was trying very hard to be human. His teeth were too sharp, tiny points hidden behind lips that never moved.

His face did not change expression. He looked like a mask wearing a man, like something pretending to be human and doing a poor job of it.

"The Salesman Demons," Raven said. "A special division within the demonic hierarchy. Their sole purpose is to find humans willing to sell their souls. They operate in every major city, every country, every corner of the globe. They work beneath the surface, invisible to human eyes, appearing only to those who are desperate enough to see them."

She switched to the next image, a photograph of several such figures standing in a dark alley, their briefcases gleaming, their smiles identical, their black eyes reflecting the dim light like oil on water.

They stood in a perfect line, shoulder to shoulder, their heads tilted at the exact same angle, watching something beyond the frame.

"They are spread across the globe, working under the shadow of a cult known as the Tenebris Circle."

The name hit the captains like a physical blow.

Tenebris Circle.

A cult that operated underground, its existence whispered about in the darkest corners of the intelligence community.

An elite group with enormous influence, political, financial, and supernatural. No one knew who led it. No one knew where it was based. No one knew its true purpose.

There were rumors, always rumors, of meetings held in catacombs beneath luxurious cities, of rituals performed in the light of black candles, of members who had not aged in decades.

And now Raven was confirming that this elite, powerful, mysterious organization was controlled by the Demon King himself.

Fiona clutched her fists beneath the table, her nails biting into her palms hard enough to draw blood. Just how powerful and wicked is this demon? she thought. How deep does his influence go? How many people have sold their souls without even knowing it?

Raven’s voice remained steady as she continued, though the weight of her words made the air inside the room feel tighter with every passing second.

"The Tenebris Circle makes the contracts," she said.

"They use specific rituals, blood rites, binding oaths, and ancient words spoken in languages that predate humanity itself. The moment a human signs the contract, they are marked. A demonic seal appears somewhere on their body, behind the ear, on the inside of the wrist, over the heart."

She paused briefly, her eyes still fixed on the screen.

"They become property. They become fuel. They become food."

At her final words, the display on the screens shifted.

An image appeared.

A human arm.

On the inside of the wrist, burned deep into the flesh like a permanent brand, was a symbol, two circles nested within each other, jagged lines radiating outward like fractured light. It resembled a sun at first glance, but something about it felt wrong, unnatural, almost alive in its imperfection.

The skin around the mark was not healing. It was not even reacting.

It was dying.

The edges were blackened and charred, as though the flesh itself had been erased from existence. Pale veins spread outward in faint, sickly lines, suggesting the corruption was not confined to the mark alone.

No one in the room spoke.

The captains stood perfectly still, their gazes locked onto the screen as if looking away would make it more real.

Raven did not look at them. She did not need to.

The silence that followed was heavier than anything she had said so far.

---

The Sin Harvest

Raven switched to the next image.

It was a diagram showing a demon standing beside a human, connected by threads of dark energy that pulsed like veins, like arteries, like the roots of some terrible tree growing between them.

The human’s face was blank, empty, their eyes staring at nothing.

The demon’s hand rested on their shoulder, possessive, claiming.

"Once the contract is signed," Raven continued, "a demon is bound to the human.

This demon appears to be a servant, it follows the human, protects the human, does the human’s bidding. But in reality, the demon is a manipulator.

Its true purpose is to encourage the human to sin, to give in to lust and greed and wrath and sloth and envy and pride and gluttony.

It places temptations in the human’s path, whispers suggestions in the human’s ear, creates opportunities for the human to fall. And the human, already desperate, already corrupted by the contract, already carrying that black mark on their skin, takes those opportunities again and again and again until their soul is filled with nothing but darkness."

She paused, letting the weight of her words settle.

"The demon feeds on the human’s darkness," she said, her voice dropping lower.

"It watches as the human commits sin after sin, and each sin strengthens the contract, each sin fills the soul with corruption, each sin brings the human closer to the day when their soul will be ripe for harvest. The demon does not need to force anything, it simply places the temptation in front of the human, and the human chooses to fall. Again and again and again. Until the contract is fulfilled."

Lily’s voice was tight. "What happens if a soul is completely filled with sins?" she asked.

For a moment, the room felt even heavier than before.

Raven slowly turned her masked face toward her. The red glow behind the visor pulsed faintly, steady and slow, like a heartbeat that did not belong to anything human.

Here’s a cleaner, more impactful version of your line while keeping your tone:

"...You are Lily, right?" Raven said calmly. "What I am about to show you will not remain as information. It will become fear."

She paused for a moment, her gaze steady.

"And you are still the youngest captain here."

Lily did not look away.

Age, rank, none of it mattered to her in that moment. Her gaze stayed fixed on Raven.

"What I can handle or not has nothing to do with my age," she said firmly. "I am still a captain. And I want to see everything."

A brief silence followed.

Raven studied her for a second longer, then slowly turned back toward the screen.

"Very well," she said quietly. "Then your answer is on the next slide."

She switched to the next image.

---

The Sin Extraction

The screens showed an image that made Lily press her hand against her mouth, a human head, a man, middle-aged, his eyes closed, his face peaceful in death, a number carved into his forehead deep enough to reach the bone, the edges of the wound black and burned as if the flesh had been cauterized by something that was not fire.

"Once the contract is fulfilled," Raven said, "the demon marks the human’s head with a number, the extraction day, the date when the sin will be harvested from the soul. The human does not know the date. They cannot see the mark. It is invisible to them, hidden beneath their skin, waiting for the moment when their soul is finally ready."

She switched to the next image, showing a small piece of black paper covered in ancient symbols, the talisman, the demonic artifact that made the harvest possible.

"This is a sin talisman," Raven explained, her voice steady despite the horror of what she was describing.

"It is a rare demonic artifact, a single piece of paper that is placed on the head of the contractor before they are killed. The talisman absorbs the sin as the soul leaves the body, drawing the darkness out of the human and into the paper."

She pointed with her laser to the top of the head in the diagram.

"When the victim is killed by their own butler demon," she continued,

"they are beheaded, the demon’s claws are sharp, the cut is quick, but the death is not painless because the demon wants the fear, wants the agony, wants the last burst of sin that comes from a soul realizing it is about to end.

The head is preserved in a jar, floating in pale liquid, and the sin is collected on the talisman paper like meat marinating in a sauce, soaking into the paper, turning it darker and darker as the sin absorbs."

The screens showed an image that made Fiona’s stomach turn, rows and rows of jars, floor to ceiling, stretching into darkness, disappearing into a distance that seemed to have no end, each jar containing a head, each head preserved in pale liquid, their eyes open, their mouths slightly parted, as if they were still trying to speak.

Raven’s voice remained calm. Too calm for the things she was describing.

"Over time, the sin is completely absorbed into the Sin Talisman," she said. "The demons preserve the victim’s head, and when the paper becomes black... completely black, so dark it almost seems to drink the light itself..."

She paused.

"It means the extraction is complete."

No one in the room spoke.

"The process is similar to marination," Raven continued quietly. "Like how humans leave meat soaked for days so the flavor fully enters it. The demons do the same thing. They leave the head sealed with the talisman for weeks, sometimes months, allowing the sin to slowly seep into the paper."

Several captains visibly stiffened.

"The jars are stored beneath demonic syndicates and underground fortresses," Raven said. "Vaults stretching for miles. Endless shelves filled with preserved heads... thousands, tens of thousands collected over centuries of contracts."

The room grew heavier with every word.

Some captains had stopped writing entirely.

Others were breathing harder without realizing it.

Then Raven spoke again.

"And when the demons decide the talisman has absorbed enough sin..."

For the first time, her voice slowed.

"That is when the true nightmare begins."

One of the captains finally broke the silence.

"...There’s more?"

Raven looked at him.

"What I’ve explained so far is only the surface of my research."

The room fell silent again.

A silence filled not with confusion

but dread.

Raven lowered her gaze to the documents in her hands.

"As I was saying... after the sin extraction is completed..."

She paused.

"And then..." she said quietly, "...they use the children."

The room fell into silence immediately.

It was not the clean silence of attention or focus. It was heavier than that, almost suffocating, as if the very atmosphere had thickened around the words she had just spoken.

Up until this point, the briefing had dealt with contracts, demons, corruption, and adults who had willingly or unknowingly stepped into darkness. But beneath all of that, hidden in fragmented reports and incomplete investigations, another pattern had emerged one that had been almost ignored at first.

Children were disappearing as well.

Not only contract-bound humans.

Children.

Erika’s expression changed first. Her brows tightened slightly as she leaned forward. "Why are they taking children?" she asked, her voice sharper than before.

Fiona followed almost immediately, unable to keep the tension out of her tone. "And what happens to them after? If they are being kidnapped, there has to be a reason. No system like this operates without purpose."

Across the table, Elga’s grip tightened around the armrest of her seat. The wood creaked faintly under the pressure. She said nothing, but her silence was different now. It was no longer calm or observant, it was restrained, as if something painful had surfaced just beneath her control.

Lily had gone completely still. Even her earlier determination to witness everything did not feel enough to push another question out of her now.

At the head of the table, Sara raised a hand slightly, her voice calm but firm as she cut through the rising tension.

"Slient," she said. "Do not jump ahead. Captain Raven will explain everything in order."

Her gaze shifted toward Raven.

"Continue."

Raven gave a slow nod.

"Thank you, Chief."

She turned back toward the screen, but the atmosphere around her had changed. The steady authority in her voice remained, yet something beneath it had grown colder, more restrained—as if even she did not enjoy what came next.

"What I am about to explain," she said slowly, "is not just another discovery. It is the most horrifying truth we have uncovered so far."

The words settled into the room without resistance.

No one interrupted her.

No one moved.

Only silence remained, stretching longer than before, as every captain waited for the explanation that none of them were ready to hear.

To be contuined...

Author Note:

Please remember that all demonic acts, rituals, organizations, and events shown in this novel are completely fictional and part of a fantasy world created from the author’s imagination. They have nothing to do with reality.

This story is simply the result of the author’s delusional world-building and creativity, so please enjoy it as fantasy fiction only.

Thank you sincerely for taking the time to read my world and follow this journey.

Also, I am always open to feedback and criticism so I can continue improving as an author and give you better Chapters in the future.

Thank you again.