CHAPTER 83: THE DEMON KING’S SECRET CLUBHOUSE

The air in the throne room was thick with a new kind of tension.

It wasn’t the frantic energy of an impending battle, but the quiet, simmering excitement of a conspiracy.

We had found a secret. A breadcrumb trail left in the digital wilderness, leading to... what? An alliance? A trap? A support group for Demon Kings with bad backs and existential dread?

I had to know.

"Pixia," I commanded, my voice low and serious.

"We are responding to this message.

But we will do so with an abundance of caution and a healthy dose of paranoia.

I want plausible deniability. I want a digital ghost."

"Understood, my Lord," she squeaked, already buzzing with a flurry of activity.

"I shall procure a disposable, untraceable communication device from the human world.

And I will establish a secure, encrypted connection through a series of offshore proxy servers routed through a defunct pizza delivery app’s network.

The probability of our location being traced is less than 0.001%."

"Excellent," I said.

"Now for the fun part. We need a burner email address. Something that screams ’I am a totally normal and not-at-all-suspicious entity’."

I looked around the room.

"Kevin!" I yelled.

My new intern, who had been trying to blend in with a crystal pillar, jumped with a startled yelp.

"Y-yes, my Lord?"

"I need your creative genius. We need an email address. Something... cool. Something that reflects the dark, brooding majesty of our cause."

Kevin’s eyes lit up. This was his moment. He puffed out his chest.

"I have the perfect name, my Lord!" he declared, his voice filled with a passion I hadn’t known he possessed.

"It is a name that whispers of ancient sorrows and a power born from the abyss! It is... VoidDragonSorrow666!"

The room was silent for a long, painful moment.

I stared at him.

Isabelle stared at him.

Chloe looked like she was actively contemplating the most painful way to make him stop existing.

"It’s perfect," I said, my voice deadpan. "Pixia, register the account [email protected]."

Pixia looked like she wanted to argue, but my expression told her this was not a hill worth dying on. With a pained little sigh, she did as commanded.

The response was drafted. It was simple, elegant, and just as cryptic as the original message.

We translated the word ’Friend’ into the same numeric cipher and sent it off into the digital void.

Then, we waited.

The next hour was agony.

I paced the throne room, the swishing of my coat a constant, rhythmic sound of my own impatience.

"This is taking too long," I grumbled.

"Maybe their dial-up is slow.

Maybe they’re using a carrier pigeon.

This is no way to run a secret evil organization."

Isabelle, ever the voice of reason, watched me with a calm, steady gaze.

"Patience, my Lord," she said. "If they are as cautious as you are, they will not rush a response."

"Patience is for monks and people waiting in line at the DMV," I retorted.

"I am a Vampire Lord. My entire existence is a monument to poor impulse control."

Just as I was about to suggest we pass the time by having Grunt and Fenris engage in another structurally-damaging wrestling match, a soft ’ping’ echoed from Pixia’s holographic console.

"We have a response, my Lord!" she announced.

I was at her side in an instant, peering at the screen.

The email was short. Terse. Automated.

It contained no text. No greeting. No secret handshake.

Just a single, underlined string of characters.

A URL.

"A website," I breathed, a thrill shooting through me. "Of course. A private server. A members-only club. These guys are professionals."

"The security protocols are... impressive, my Lord," Pixia murmured, her tiny fingers flying across her console.

"Multiple layers of psychic and magical encryption. It is tied to this specific device.

Any attempt to access it from another location would trigger an immediate system-wide lockdown and self-deletion of all data."

"So no sharing the password," I said. "Got it. Take us in."

With a final few keystrokes, Pixia bypassed the login screen. The website loaded.

It was called {Laplace}.

The design was minimalist and deeply intimidating.

A black, star-filled background.

Text that glowed with a soft, ominous silver light. The navigation tabs were labeled with single, cryptic runes.

And at the top of the screen, a welcome message.

Welcome, user 114514. Your temporary handle is: Saburo.

My eye twitched.

Kevin’s real name was Saburo.

The universe was a cruel, cruel comedian with an excellent sense of timing.

"I’m stuck with his name," I whispered, my voice a dangerous growl.

"It appears so, my Lord," Pixia confirmed, trying very hard to sound professional and not like she was about to burst into a fit of tiny, pixie-sized giggles.

Grumbling under my breath, I began to explore the site. It was a forum, a message board for the damned.

The threads were a goldmine of information, paranoia, and sheer, unadulterated incompetence.

I saw thread titles like:

[HELP] My True Core is a lava lamp. Is this normal?

[DISCUSSION] Best way to clean hero blood out of a white carpet? Looking for tips.

[COMPLAINT] My Ghouls have unionized and are demanding better dental coverage. What are my legal options?

It was a beautiful, chaotic mess. But then I found it.

A locked, members-only sub-forum.

The title was simple, elegant, and sent a shiver of pure, ambitious greed down my spine.

The Upper-Class Demon King Lounge (50+ Sectors Required)

"Pixia," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "Get me in there. Now."

"The system seems to have automatically granted you access based on your domain size, my Lord," she replied. "You are already cleared."

I clicked the link.

The page loaded, and I saw a list of active members.

There were no names. Just temporary handles like my own. ’Oni-Hime’. ’Beast-Lord’. ’Golem-Master’.

And a number.

Active Members in this Lounge: 37

Thirty-seven.

Thirty-seven other Demon Kings, at least, who were as powerful, or even more powerful, than me.

I was not the biggest fish in the pond. I was just one of many sharks, circling in the dark.

I looked at the forum threads, at the casual discussions of conquest, of absorbing rivals, of the "human problem."

And then I saw it. The fine print at the bottom of the page, a disclaimer from the anonymous site administrator.

Information shared here is not guaranteed to be accurate. Trust no one. The Game is afoot. Caveat Emptor.

Let the buyer beware.

A slow, dangerous smile spread across my face.

I had found it. A new weapon. A new tool. A new source of information in my war for this world.

But it was a poisoned well. A den of liars, rivals, and monsters, all sharpening their knives in the dark.

This was no alliance.

This was a hunting ground.

And I couldn’t wait to get started.