At precisely eight o’clock, the first prototype exploded.
Not the target, unfortunately.
The prototype.
I watched pieces of metal rain down across the testing ground as a particularly telling silence settled behind the safety line.
The soldier who had fired hadn’t moved.
Part of the weapon was still smoking in his hands, but his magical barrier had absorbed the few fragments thrown in his direction, and he was now waiting to find out whether he should continue the exercise or throw away what remained of the device.
I slowly turned my head toward the engineer in charge.
He stared at the remains of his invention for several seconds before checking the data displayed on his tablet.
“The pressure inside the chamber exceeded our estimates by thirty-seven percent.”
“I had noticed there was a slight problem.”
My lieutenant, standing to my right, studied a piece of the prototype embedded in the ground several meters away.
“The ejection system works remarkably well.”
The engineer looked up.
It took considerable effort to keep a straight face.
“Lieutenant.”
“Commandante?”
“Don’t encourage them.”
His wide, tooth-filled mouth barely moved, but I knew perfectly well that he was pleased with himself.
The engineer had already gone back to examining his data.
“We can reinforce the chamber and slightly reduce the charge.
The concept remains viable.”
That was an answer I greatly preferred to a lengthy attempt at explaining why the explosion wasn’t technically a failure.
I looked back at the soldier.
“Injuries?”
He shook his head.
“Very well.
Switch weapons and continue with the next model.
This one goes back to the laboratory before someone decides to find out whether it can explode even harder.”
Several technicians recovered what was left of the prototype while the soldier rejoined his section.
The day was off to a good start.
The Dominion’s main testing ground covered several square kilometers away from the most important industrial facilities.
We had expanded it several times over the decades, mainly because my researchers had a worrying tendency to interpret the words “minimum safe distance” as an invitation to discover whether it was really necessary.
Today, however, the tests were relatively conventional.
Well, they were supposed to be.
Some of the first equipment ordered from Carmine Industries had arrived the previous day.
This wasn’t yet the major increase planned under our new contract, merely a batch intended to allow our engineers and several selected units to evaluate different configurations before we decided which ones deserved more serious production.
Several dozen soldiers were participating in the tests.
Infantry.
Reconnaissance.
Specialized marksmen.
Close combat.
I had deliberately requested men from several different units rather than a single homogeneous section.
A weapon that performed excellently in the hands of a specialized marksman could become completely useless when handed to someone expected to crawl through mud, climb a wall, or use it as a blunt object when the enemy got too close.
The laboratories measured performance.
The soldiers discovered whether the weapons survived the real world.
Both were necessary.
I walked over to the table where several models were waiting their turn.
My personal pistol was there as well.
Carmilla had manufactured it according to my specifications long before our latest transaction, and I’d carried it often enough to know its balance.
I rarely used it in serious combat since my magic allowed me to instantly create almost any firearm I needed, but its composition gave it a utility my ordinary creations didn’t possess.
I checked the magazine before joining one of the firing lines.
Several targets had been prepared at different distances.
Some were nothing more than plates intended for ballistic measurements.
Others combined multiple materials, artificial magical barriers, and masses of demonic flesh grown specifically for testing.
Charming.
An engineer gave me the signal.
I raised the weapon.
The first shots were deliberately slow.
I then switched targets and gradually increased my rate of fire until the magazine was empty.
The impacts appeared on the screens behind us.
I lowered the pistol.
“The recoil is slightly stronger than on the previous version.”
The engineer in charge checked his data.
“Three point eight percent according to the sensors.
Carmine Industries reinforced several components.”
“It isn’t a problem for me.
It might be for someone switching from a conventional weapon to this one without an adjustment period.
Add it to the training program.”
He immediately noted the remark.
I reloaded.
A reconnaissance soldier had finished a series of tests a few firing lanes away and was examining his bayonet.
The angelic section was intact.
The mounting, much less so.
He walked over to one of the engineers and handed him the weapon.
The engineer examined it.
“How did you do that?”
The soldier simply pointed toward the armored dummy he’d just used.
An entire section of its protection had been ripped away.
The engineer looked at the dummy.
Then the bayonet.
Then the soldier.
“You weren’t supposed to perform a lateral movement with that much force.”
The soldier remained perfectly still.
I walked over.
“Is an enemy contractually obligated to attack only from the angles specified in your testing protocol?”
The engineer at least had the intelligence not to defend his argument any further.
“No, commandante.
I’ll redesign the mounting.”
“Do that.
If a soldier can break it during a controlled exercise, it doesn’t deserve to enter production.”
I looked at the soldier.
“Repeat the test with the Carmine model.
Same movement.”
He collected another weapon.
A few minutes later, the mounting held.
The engineer sighed.
Applied research could be cruel to the ego.
I liked it very much.
The morning continued like that for nearly two hours.
Some prototypes performed remarkably well.
Others had apparently been invented by people with a personal hatred of simplicity.
One proposed system did provide a measurable improvement in firing stability, but required three different tools to properly disassemble the weapon.
I asked how long complete maintenance took.
Fourteen minutes under ideal conditions.
I put the weapon down.
“No.”
The engineer responsible started explaining that the additional accuracy could reach almost six percent at long range.
I asked how long maintenance took on a comparable conventional model.
Less than four minutes.
The discussion ended there.
I had nothing against sophistication when it provided a genuine advantage.
My artillery portals certainly weren’t a model of simplicity, and some of the magical systems developed by my laboratories would probably have given a human engineer nightmares.
But an infantry weapon needed to work.
In mud.
In rain.
After being smashed against a wall.
In the hands of a soldier who had neither the time nor the desire to solve a mechanical puzzle while someone was shooting at him.
In the end, the model that achieved the best results was almost insultingly simple.
A sturdy weapon designed around components already mastered by Carmine Industries, without any spectacular mechanism or revolutionary improvement.
It used a reasonable amount of angelic material, endured abuse, and could be quickly disassembled.
I saw the expressions on several researchers’ faces when the final results appeared.
“Don’t look like that.”
They looked at me.
“A weapon that works properly is a success, even if it doesn’t have enough moving parts to justify a scientific publication.”
One of the engineers muttered something about several months of research.
“Your work wasn’t wasted.
You’ve just discovered four particularly expensive ways to manufacture something less reliable.
That’s useful information.”
He didn’t look particularly comforted.
I smiled.
“Welcome to research.”
I returned to the central table.
There was one experiment left that I wanted to conduct personally.
An experiment whose outcome already seemed fairly predictable.
But there was still a difference between a reasonable hypothesis and a conclusion.
The difference was experimentation.
I picked up my Carmine pistol and examined it for several seconds.
Then I extended my other hand.
Magic answered immediately.
A mass of dark red energy gathered around my fingers before taking shape.
Barrel, slide, grip, trigger, magazine: the components appeared one after another with a precision that several decades of practice had made almost instinctive.
A few seconds later, I was holding two apparently identical weapons.
My lieutenant approached.
“The copy appears exact.”
“Visually, yes.”
I handed the summoned weapon to one of the researchers.
“Analyze it.”
He used several instruments before even dismantling part of the mechanism.
The result wasn’t surprising.
The copy possessed the physical characteristics I had reproduced.
Weight, dimensions, mechanism, and balance matched the original closely enough that an ordinary user would probably have had difficulty distinguishing between them.
But the material wasn’t angelic steel.
It had never been angelic steel.
It was nothing more than a manifestation of my magic taking the form I imposed upon it.
I fired several shots with the copy.
It worked perfectly.
The impacts were those of my usual weapons.
Powerful, precise, and completely devoid of the particular properties we observed with Carmilla’s genuine equipment.
I had tried.
It didn’t work.
Fine.
I allowed the copy to disappear.
One of the engineers looked at me.
“We could perhaps try incorporating—”
“No.”
He stopped.
I placed the real pistol on the table.
“I’m not spending three months trying to convince my magic that it knows how to manufacture a material it clearly doesn’t know how to manufacture.
If it can’t reproduce the property, then we work with what it can do.”
I looked at my hand.
A small red flame appeared above my palm.
Magical energy had been natural to me for so long that I no longer needed to consciously think about most manifestations.
Creating a weapon, reinforcing a barrier, or detecting a magical presence was almost a reflex.
But that energy had changed since my arrival in Hell.
And so had I.
I no longer used exactly the same magic I’d possessed in my previous life.
It had gradually been influenced by this world, fed by my demonic nature and by the souls that now contributed to my power.
Why try to imitate something angelic?
I already possessed its exact opposite.
“Prepare a reinforced target.”
The engineer frowned slightly.
“What kind?”
I smiled.
“The expensive kind.”
The first attempt destroyed the weapon.
Not spectacularly this time.
The barrel simply cracked after the shot, and the magical construct disintegrated almost immediately in my hand.
The projectile, however, went through the first plate, the second, and part of the third before stopping.
I studied the results.
“Interesting.”
Around the impact, a blackish substance had spread in irregular tendrils.
It almost resembled burned veins running through the target.
A researcher approached with a magical detector.
“There’s still a significant energy concentration around the impact point.”
“How much?”
“It’s decreasing rapidly, but much more slowly than expected.”
I moved closer.
The infernal magic hadn’t simply dissipated after transferring its kinetic energy.
It remained firmly attached to the material, almost like contamination.
Now that was considerably more interesting.
The idea was simple.
My magical weapons normally created their own ammunition.
Part of my power was converted into the projectile, and the rest of the operation didn’t differ enormously from a conventional firearm, even if the magical nature obviously allowed for certain liberties with physics.
This time, I had condensed far more energy into a single round.
Far too much, apparently, for the weapon’s usual structure.
“Second test.
I’ll reinforce the weapon’s structure.”
The engineer looked at me.
“How?”
“I’ll handle it.”
I created a new weapon.
This time, I no longer tried to reproduce an existing model.
I directly reinforced the magical manifestation around the chamber and barrel, increasing the amount of energy required to create it.
The shape became slightly more massive.
Then I condensed the ammunition.
The sensation was strange.
Normally, creating a bullet required almost no conscious effort.
Here, I was deliberately forcing a much larger amount of power into a tiny space.
The projectile took on a dark red, almost black hue.
I raised the weapon.
Fired.
The recoil was considerably more violent.
The target partially exploded under the impact, and this time the weapon remained intact.
“Again.”
We repeated the experiment for nearly an hour.
By the tenth attempt, we had already learned several things.
First, I could indeed condense much more infernal energy into my ammunition.
Second, that energy caused considerably greater damage than my usual projectiles.
Third, it stubbornly refused to dissipate cleanly after impact.
On inert materials, that phenomenon was of limited interest.
On the demonic tissue used for testing, the result was much more spectacular.
The area around the wound blackened while dark red tendrils spread for several seconds before stopping.
The tissue’s regeneration was also slower.
A researcher placed the results in front of me.
“Recovery is reduced by approximately sixty percent in the initial samples.
We need to repeat the tests before treating that figure as reliable.”
I looked at the mass of demonic flesh behind the glass.
“Does the effect destroy its ability to regenerate, or only disrupt it?”
“For now, only the second hypothesis.
The tissue has already begun recovering.”
There was the limit.
I picked up my Carmine pistol and studied the weapon for several seconds.
Angelic steel could cause permanent death.
My new ammunition probably couldn’t.
It was considerably more powerful than my ordinary projectiles, caused a form of magical contamination, and dramatically slowed the recovery of a demonic target.
But it remained inferior to angelic steel in the very area that made that metal so valuable.
That was fine.
I didn’t need to replace every tool with my own magic.
I had simply discovered a new one.
“What are we going to call it?” one of the researchers asked.
I looked at the blackened impacts.
“For now?
Condensed infernal ammunition.
If you want a more impressive name for your reports, entertain yourselves.”
My lieutenant folded his arms.
“I’m certain the research department will find something sufficiently dramatic.”
“As long as they don’t put my name in it.”
Several researchers suddenly avoided my gaze.
I stared at them.
“You were already planning to put my name in it.”
Nobody answered.
Bunch of traitors.
Metaphorically, obviously.
My soldiers were incapable of it.
I picked up the magical weapon again and watched the faint red glow still running along the barrel.
Another question crossed my mind.
What would this energy do against something that wasn’t demonic?
I had no way of knowing.
Not yet.
The tissue here came from infernal creatures.
Our knowledge regarding the biology or magical nature of Exorcists was ridiculously limited, and I certainly didn’t have an angel tied down in a laboratory for testing.
So I refused to turn a hypothesis into certainty.
Perhaps this energy would hurt them more.
Perhaps it wouldn’t.
Perhaps less.
Perhaps it would do absolutely nothing unusual.
We would only find out if the opportunity ever presented itself.
I allowed the weapon to disappear.
The day had nevertheless become considerably more productive.
After a lunch break short enough to make several researchers complain, we resumed the conventional tests.
The results ultimately confirmed what the morning had already suggested.
There was no reason to immediately equip the entire army with angelic steel.
Even assuming Carmilla could supply the quantities required, which wasn’t guaranteed, the cost would be absurd, and the majority of my soldiers would never need such a weapon in their daily duties.
A specialized approach made far more sense.
I gathered my lieutenant and several officers around a table near the testing ground.
The maps were replaced with personnel charts.
“I want a permanent unit,” I explained.
“It doesn’t need to be enormous at first.
A company will be enough to establish doctrine and procedures.”
One of the officers examined the test results.
“Fully equipped with Carmine models?”
“When they need them.
Not every day.”
I slid several sheets toward them.
“The soldiers will train with conventional equivalents matching the real equipment’s weight, ergonomics, and maintenance procedures as closely as possible.
The genuine equipment remains in the armories whenever no mission justifies its use.”
It wasn’t a question of trust.
The soldiers around me had no personal ambition that could drive them to turn their weapons against their creator.
Their loyalty wasn’t a virtue they chose each morning.
It was part of their very nature.
They were my creations.
Betrayal simply wasn’t part of the equation.
But permanently distributing a rare and irreplaceable resource to men whose duties could usually be accomplished with ordinary weapons would have been logistical stupidity.
“What mission do we officially assign to this company?” another officer asked.
I considered the question for several seconds.
“Intervention against extremely high-level supernatural targets.”
That was broad enough.
The Exorcists were obviously one possibility I kept to myself.
But they weren’t the only beings against whom angelic steel could provide a decisive advantage.
Pentagram City already possessed an appreciable number of extremely powerful creatures.
I was one of them.
The others were called Overlords.
At present, I had no reason to wage war against Carmilla, Rosie, Alastor, or any of the city’s other powers.
I vastly preferred commercial relationships, territorial arrangements, and the form of cautious coexistence the Overlords had developed over time.
A war between us was expensive.
But hoping that war would never happen wasn’t a strategy.
If an Overlord ever decided that the Dominion represented an acceptable target, I wanted a response capable of going beyond simply destroying their forces.
I wanted the ability to kill them.
Permanently.
Not because I currently intended to.
Because the possibility needed to exist.
“This unit won’t be dedicated to a single category of target,” I continued.
“If we encounter something that conventional means can’t properly neutralize, they intervene.
The rest of the time, they operate as a normal elite company.”
My lieutenant nodded.
“I can select the initial personnel from the sections already participating in the tests.”
“Do it.
Prioritize experience and adaptability.
I don’t care if a soldier achieves three percent better accuracy on a firing range if he becomes incapable of thinking the moment the original plan stops working.”
Selection would be quick.
My soldiers learned fast.
The longest part would probably be developing doctrine flexible enough to prevent the unit from becoming nothing more than a stockpile of expensive weapons waiting for a catastrophe.
We had three months.
More than enough time to begin.
I finally left the testing ground in the middle of the afternoon.
My uniform smelled of gunpowder, several strands of hair had escaped from beneath my cap, and I had probably spent far too much time personally firing weapons when a dozen soldiers could have produced exactly the same data.
I regretted absolutely nothing.
I liked days like this.
Weapons worked or they didn’t.
Numbers rarely lied when you knew how to read them.
And when an idea exploded in a soldier’s hands, it generally became rather difficult for its designer to claim that it only needed a few theoretical adjustments.
Barely had I arrived at the command center when I discovered that the small territorial war had also undergone an interesting development.
My lieutenant placed two proposals on my desk.
“Both sides have discovered we’re supplying the other.”
I removed my cap.
“I imagine they’re delighted.”
“Not particularly.”
I sat down and opened the first file.
No threats, no ultimatums, not even a complaint addressed directly to me.
The two Overlords apparently possessed enough survival instinct to understand that they had no right to demand that the Dominion abandon a commercial contract simply because they disliked seeing their enemies enjoy the same privilege.
So they had chosen a much smarter method.
Money.
The first was offering an exclusivity contract for our ammunition shipments.
The second wanted priority access to our fuel and spare-parts stocks.
I read both offers.
A smile gradually appeared on my face.
“They really want to pay more for priority?”
“Both of them.”
I looked at my lieutenant.
“And why should we choose?”
His tooth-filled mouth stretched slightly.
That was why we’d worked together for so long.
“I’ll prepare two counteroffers.”
“No exclusivity.
We continue selling to both sides.
If they want logistical priority, however, we’re perfectly capable of selling them that priority.”
I quickly reviewed the figures.
“Raise the margin on emergency deliveries as well.
If they want their ammunition before the next assault, they pay for the risk and the scheduling changes.”
“What percentage?”
I gave him a figure.
He remained silent for a second.
“They’ll protest.”
“They’re free to wait for the normal delivery.”
Problem solved.
Or at least it would have been, if the second file hadn’t contained an additional request.
I read it again.
“They want to buy angelic steel.”
“Yes.
A limited quantity to start.
They’re offering almost twice the current average price.”
I closed the file.
“No.”
This time, there was no need for negotiation.
“Tell them the Dominion doesn’t sell it.
If they offer three times the price, the answer remains no.
Ten times, still no.”
My lieutenant nodded.
“I assumed as much.”
“Then why ask me?”
“Because it’s your steel.”
Perfectly correct answer.
I handed the documents back.
“Let them kill each other with ordinary bullets.
I’m not distributing a strategic resource simply because two minor Overlords decided their neighborhood dispute deserves an escalation.”
More importantly, every kilogram sold today was a kilogram I wouldn’t possess when I actually needed it.
I had no intention of making that mistake.
That evening, for once, I didn’t eat alone in my office.
Several of my senior officers were at the domain for the tests and a meeting scheduled for the following day.
We therefore used one of the manor’s secondary dining rooms, large enough to accommodate a dozen people without making it feel like a diplomatic banquet.
The meal wasn’t ceremonial.
Jackets were opened.
Several files remained stacked in one corner of the table.
A bottle began making the rounds after the food was served.
I had taken a seat near the center with my lieutenant while conversations gradually spread around us.
The officer responsible for the underground facilities made the mistake of mentioning his railway project.
I immediately put down my fork.
“No.”
He stopped.
“I haven’t asked for anything yet.”
“You had the look of someone about to ask for money.”
A few laughs traveled around the table.
The officer shook his head.
“The preliminary study shows that a connection between Depots Two and Five could reduce transportation time by twenty-two percent.”
“There.
You’re asking for money.”
“Technically, I’m presenting an investment opportunity.”
I looked at my lieutenant.
“Since when do they talk like salesmen?”
“Since you started rejecting expenditures more easily than investments.”
I pointed my fork at him.
“You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am on your side.
That’s precisely why I read the reports.”
The laughter resumed.
I sighed and returned to my meal.
“Give me the budget tomorrow.
I’m promising nothing.”
I had lost.
Again.
The conversation then shifted toward the morning’s tests.
Several officers had already heard about my new ammunition, once again demonstrating that no interesting piece of information survived more than a few hours inside a military organization.
“I heard you punched through three reinforced plates with a pistol,” one of them said.
“Two plates and part of the third.”
“The story’s already improving.”
“By tomorrow, I’ll probably have destroyed a bunker.”
My lieutenant raised his glass.
“By the end of the week, a mountain.”
I gave him a dark look.
He drank calmly.
Impossible betrayal or not, he occasionally abused his professional security to a dangerous degree.
The conversation continued in an atmosphere I would have found difficult to imagine during the Dominion’s early days.
We weren’t a family.
I had never tried to build one.
A military organization that pretended to operate like a family generally ended up discovering that feelings were no substitute for competence, discipline, or a clear chain of command.
But these officers had worked with me for a long time.
They knew their responsibilities.
They knew an honest mistake wasn’t betrayal and that a reasoned disagreement wouldn’t put someone in front of a firing squad.
They also knew that repeated incompetence had consequences.
When someone had a good idea, I didn’t care whether they were a general or a technician.
Halfway through the meal, the conversation naturally reached a less amusing subject.
“Three months,” one of the officers said.
Nobody needed to ask what he meant.
The Extermination.
I put down my glass.
“Yes.”
“Current protocols only call for first-stage readiness six weeks before the usual date.
With the schedule moved forward, several units are asking whether we’re maintaining that delay.”
That question deserved more than an automatic answer.
Our procedures had been refined over the course of many Exterminations.
The Dominion had reinforced shelters, routes allowing evacuation from the most exposed areas, and specific protocols designed to limit movement during the hours when Exorcists roamed Hell.
So far, it had worked.
But until now, nobody had ever moved an Extermination forward by six months without providing the slightest explanation.
“We begin general preparations now,” I decided.
“Shelter inspections, medical stocks, generators, secondary communications, and evacuation routes.
I want every essential installation checked before the end of the month.”
Another officer quickly consulted his terminal.
“And the combat units?
We can begin partial mobilization as early as next week.”
“No.”
I shook my head before elaborating.
“Three months of mobilization wouldn’t make us more prepared.
It would tire the men, disrupt normal training, tie up resources, and cost a fortune just to wait for an event whose date we already know.
Logistical preparations begin now.
The alert level will increase progressively as we approach the deadline.”
Several heads nodded.
“I want an army that’s ready when the Extermination arrives, not an army exhausted from spending three months waiting behind fortifications.”
It was a distinction many leaders seemed incapable of understanding.
Fear made you mobilize too early.
Arrogance made you mobilize too late.
Preparation meant doing things at the right time.
I wasn’t afraid of what would happen in three months.
That didn’t mean I intended to ignore it.
The meal continued for some time after that.
We discussed supplies, tunnels, new units, and a factory whose production had fallen nearly a week behind because of a breakdown someone had attempted to describe as “an unpredictable technical incident.”
After discovering that an employee had ignored three maintenance warnings, I decided the incident was considerably less unpredictable than advertised.
A normal day in the Dominion.
It was late when I finally left the manor with my lieutenant.
I had no particular reason to go outside.
I’d simply spent almost the entire day between a testing ground, a command center, and several meeting rooms, and a few minutes of fresh air seemed preferable to immediately returning behind a desk.
We walked along one of the elevated roads overlooking part of the complex.
The Dominion stretched below us.
Lights illuminated factories and depots.
Military vehicles moved between buildings while figures in gray coats stood guard along sensitive installations.
Farther away, the outer fortifications gradually disappeared into the darkness.
Almost nothing remained of what I’d possessed in the beginning.
A few buildings.
A few men.
Insignificant contracts.
A small piece of territory that stronger neighbors could have absorbed if they’d believed the effort worthwhile.
Decades later, the situation was slightly different.
The Dominion had an army, industry, infrastructure, agents inside Pentagram City, agreements with several Overlords, thousands of souls, and enough military power that most reasonable people preferred trading with us rather than discovering exactly how many artillery barrels I could make emerge from the sky.
I was satisfied with the result.
That didn’t mean I could afford to believe it was permanent.
“How long until the specialized company is operational?” I asked.
My lieutenant considered briefly.
“With conventional equipment, immediately.
To properly master the new models and develop specific procedures, three to four weeks should be enough.”
“Good.”
We continued walking.
Until now, every Extermination had been handled according to the same principle.
Avoid the Exorcists, protect the facilities, and limit casualties.
Now, I knew that belief was false.
I had no intention of declaring war on Heaven.
I had no desire to provoke a celestial army to satisfy my ego.
But if the situation ever forced me to fight, I didn’t want to discover my options when the enemy was already standing in front of me.
That was the difference between looking for a war and being prepared to fight one.
My lieutenant walked another few meters before taking out his terminal.
“Your schedule for tomorrow has been changed.”
I looked at him suspiciously.
“Why does that sentence worry me?”
“The budget meeting has been moved up to nine.”
I stopped.
“It was already at nine.”
“It was originally scheduled for nine-thirty.”
I resumed walking.
“Fine.
Have the projections ready by eight-thirty.”
“They already are.”
I turned my head toward him.
“Of course they are.”
His tooth-filled smile widened slightly.
I looked one last time at the lights of the Dominion before heading back toward the manor.
Angels could die.
My weapons could become more powerful.
The other Overlords remained potential threats, and the Extermination was slowly approaching.
But some laws of the universe seemed truly immutable.
Even in Hell, nobody escaped fucking budget meetings.