He gestured to a group of slaves who were in the process of dissecting a demon corpse on a large stone table.

Their movements were practiced, almost surgical, as they worked.

"The weak must serve the strong," Loryn said, walking closer to observe their work.

"Even in death, a Vile-rank demon can contribute to something greater than it ever was in life. Its essence, properly refined, becomes the foundation for a Dread-rank warrior."

Jack watched as the slaves extracted the demon's core.

They placed it carefully in a container filled with some kind of preservative liquid, then moved on to removing the heart.

"Every part has value," Loryn continued, his hollow eyes gleaming as he explained.

"Cores contain the purest essence of demonic power. Hearts hold the life force and emotional resonance.

Blood carries the physical attributes and magical affinities. Even bones and organs can be rendered down for supplementary materials."

Another table showed the results of this processing.

Demon cores were arranged by quality and power level, their light ranging from barely visible to slightly bright.

Hearts in preservation tanks, still beating through some magical process Jack didn't understand.

Massive vats of blood, separated by type and carefully labeled.

"This is the foundation," Loryn said, his skeletal fingers gesturing across the organized horror. "Raw materials waiting to be transformed."

One of the slaves stumbled slightly while carrying a container of demon hearts. The collar around his neck flared bright red, and the slave immediately froze, his entire body going rigid.

Loryn pulled a crystalline orb from his robes, no larger than an apple, that pulsed with the same red light as the slave's collar.

He studied it for a moment, then made a dismissive gesture. The light faded, and the slave carefully set down his burden before resuming his work with even more mechanical precision.

"A simple but effective system," Loryn explained, noticing Jack's attention. "The collars respond to my commands through this control orb. Any deviation from assigned tasks, any hint of rebellion or inefficiency, triggers a warning. Continued disobedience?"

He made a casual gesture, and the slave's collar flared again, this time bright enough to cast shadows.

"Results in immediate execution. The explosion is quite thorough. Removes the head and upper torso, leaves nothing that could potentially be reanimated or healed."

The slave had gone rigid again, his empty eyes staring straight ahead while Loryn demonstrated his power.

When the light faded this time, the slave returned to work without any visible reaction, as if the threat of death was just another part of his routine.

'The orb stays on him,' Jack observed, watching as Loryn returned it to his robes. 'It controls everything down here. Without it, the slaves might revolt. But they're too broken to even consider it.'

"Follow me," Loryn said, moving toward another stairwell. "The real work happens above."

They ascended, passing through the lower level and into what Loryn called the refinement chambers. The atmosphere shifted again here, becoming more clinical.

'This looks like a mad scientist evil lair.' Jack pondered.

Massive vats dominated the space, each one easily twenty feet tall and ten feet across.

They were filled with blood that churned and bubbled through some magical process, gradually changing color as impurities were removed.

"Purification," Loryn explained, stopping beside one of the vats. "Demon blood contains power, but also chaos. Conflicting essences, incompatible magical signatures, all the randomness that comes from natural life. I found a way to remove all of that."

He gestured to a series of magical arrays carved into the floor around each vat. They glowed with pale blue light, pulsing in rhythm with the churning blood.

"It takes days sometimes. Filtering out everything that doesn't serve the final product. By the end, what remains is pure concentrated essence."

Another section held demon cores in crystalline containers that spun slowly, suspended in some kind of magical field. As Jack watched, one of the cores began to crack, its light intensifying as the crystal shell broke apart and the essence within started to condense.

"Seventeen Vile-rank cores," Loryn said, his voice carrying pride that bordered on reverence. "Refined down, their essences combined and concentrated, produce enough material to create five Dread-rank demons. The mathematics are precise. The ratios must be exact. Any variation ruins the batch."

Slaves monitored each station, adjusting magical flows according to readings on crystalline displays. Their movements were synchronized and automatic, responding to changes before Loryn needed to give commands.

"Demon creation used to be an art," Loryn continued, walking between the vats and containers with the air of someone giving a tour of his life's work.

"Unpredictable, wasteful, dependent on luck as much as skill. I made it into a science. Every variable is controlled, every component measured precisely, and every outcome is guaranteed."

He stopped beside a preservation tank that held dozens of demon hearts, all still beating in eerie synchronization.

"These provide the life force. The spark that turns raw materials into something that lives and thinks and obeys. Without them, I'd just be creating magical constructs. With them?" He smiled. "I create soldiers."

Jack studied the setup, noting the precision required at every stage.

The purification arrays, the containment fields, the preservation tanks, all of it connected through a network of magical channels carved into the floor and walls.

'One disruption could cascade through the whole system,' Jack thought, observing how the essence flowed from station to station. 'Break the wrong component, and everything fails.'

"Pho may control this fortress," Loryn said quietly, his hollow eyes fixed on the churning vats. "But I created his army. Without me, he'd have nothing but mercenaries and wild demons. Unreliable forces that serve only for gold or fear."

His skeletal fingers traced patterns in the air, and several of the vats responded, their contents shifting color.

"The demons I create? They're loyal from birth. They don't question orders or demand payment. They simply serve."

He turned to look at Jack, and something in his expression suggested he was seeing more than just another soldier.

'This one could be perfect,' Loryn thought, studying Jack's armored form and remembering the cold violence in the barracks.

'The raw power, the absolute ruthlessness, the clarity of purpose. If I could shape him, mold him into something even greater than he already is... He'd be the closest thing to a perfect demon I've ever encountered. Better than my experiment, because he already understands discipline. He already follows rules, his own rules. Imagine if those rules served me instead.'

'But, if I break down his body and use it I could probably create something to kill Pho outright.'

"Come," Loryn said, breaking his own reverie. "Let me show you the end result."

They ascended again, climbing toward the factory's upper levels. The sounds changed here, a rhythmic pulsing that seemed to come from the walls themselves, as if the entire structure was breathing.

The creation chambers were vast, circular rooms with pools carved directly into the floor. Each pool was perhaps thirty feet across and filled with blood that swirled and churned from currents inside the pool.

Magic circles surrounded each pool, carved so deep into the black ice that they looked like they'd been burned rather than etched.

They glowed with power that made the air shimmer, creating visible distortions that bent light and made distances hard to judge.

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