Liquidation: From Big Boss to Bloody Demon Sauce Chapter 5: Chapter 5: A Hell Specifically for CEOs

Read chapter 5 of Liquidation: From Big Boss to Bloody Demon Sauce by Magic on NovelPedia.

"But fear not. As your... master, I must guide you. Or maybe, it's just my cruel amusement to see you struggle. You will evolve, little one. You will grow, adapt, and fail. Over and over again," she continued, a menacing undertone woven beneath her words. "Your struggle has only begun. Welcome to Xeenar, pup". As Luriel phased out of my sensory range, leaving me alone with the deafening silence, I found myself contemplating the ruthless logic of fate. In my human life, I had been a force to be reckoned with: Visthal, a name synonymous with fear and absolute power. Now, I was a feeble entity born out of a fantasy creature’s leftovers. My entire identity was now linked with a being whose nature was at odds with my core psyche. I had always marveled at power but loathed powerful women, and here I was, tethered to the essence of one. The conundrum brought forth a torrent of troublesome thoughts. It served as a driving force, though. I would not let this succubus dictate my path. The unfathomable depth of my fall only made my instinct to reclaim my power more profound. I was a shadow of my former self, but the embers of my resolve still glowed—a spark of transformation awaiting its catalyst. The first week was an exercise in pure, unadulterated boredom. If there is a hell specifically for CEOs, it is being a creature without hands, a phone, or a boardroom. I spent the first forty-eight hours simply trying to figure out how to move. In my human life, movement was an afterthought; you told your legs to go, and they went. As a puddle, movement was a conscious, mechanical effort of shifting my center of gravity. I discovered that by tensing—if you can call it that—the outer edge of my "skin," I could create a slight vacuum that pulled the rest of my mass forward. It was a slow, wet slither that left a faint, shimmering trail behind me. Squelch. Slide. Pause. I explored every inch of Luriel’s bedroom. The stone was cold, porous, and tasted faintly of ancient dust and ozone. Wait— tasted ? I realized my entire surface area was effectively a tongue. I wasn't just touching the floor; I was analyzing it. My form began to break down the microscopic debris on the stone. I noticed that I was steadily growing, albeit at a glacial pace. Crucially, I discovered that the moment I stopped moving, I stopped growing. At first, the correlation escaped me, but after observing the path behind me, I deduced the reason. The trail I left was clean. I was literally eating the grime of the castle. I was a high-powered executive reduced to a Roomba. The irony was not lost on me, but I had always been a man of pragmatism. If the only way to acquire capital in this world—capital being mass and energy—was to clean the floors, then I would be the most efficient cleaner this realm had ever seen. I began to map out the room in a grid, just as I would a market territory. I would start at the north wall and work my way across in meticulous strips. By the end of the first week, I had increased my volume by maybe ten percent. I felt denser, my red-and-white coloring becoming more vibrant. I also discovered the "Ether". Occasionally, I would roll over a patch of floor that felt... electric. These were small, invisible pockets of energy that had settled like dust. When I absorbed them, a jolt of pure, crystalline clarity would shoot through my consciousness. My sensory range would flicker from ten feet to twelve for a brief second. These pockets were the real prize. The dust was just filler; the Ether was the currency of Xeenar. As the second and third weeks rolled by, the isolation began to grate on my sanity. In the silence, I replayed my death over and over again. I thought of Hans—poor, compromised Hans—and the way his eyes had clouded over. The betrayal stung, but the logic behind it was sound. Luriel had identified the most loyal asset and seized it. It was a move I would have made myself. But seeing her in my mind’s eye—the way she looked down at me with that mix