"Mykel? You're still here?" Lyneth asked as she stood at the door of Mykel's office. "What are you doing staying here all night? I thought you went somewhere," Lyneth walked in and approached Mykel.
Mykel didn't respond to Lyneth's question as he kept nurturing his skills and watched the feed of Agnez and Jeanne. He had been staying up all night and didn't realize it was morning already because he closed all the curtains in the office.
Lyneth looked at Mykel and noticed that he looked anxious. She decided to not get too close to him because he was oozing an unapproachable aura around him.
"Do you need anything? Coffee or tea?" Lyneth asked.
"Anything is fine," Mykel answered as he leaned on the chair and rubbed his face. "Don't open the curtains," Mykel opened his right eye and saw Lyneth was about to pull the curtain.
Lyneth stopped and looked at Mykel as she sighed. She then left to get him something to drink.
The whole room was dark with not a single light could get through. Mykel stared at nothing, and suddenly a chill wind appeared out of nowhere.
"What a sight..." A voice could be heard inside Mykel's head, and he thought that it was his own voice but then realized it wasn't.
"What do you want?" Mykel asked as he pressed his hands together and put them in front of his mouth.
Lucifer chuckled mischievously. "Where did that smug on your face have gone to? Looks like you're having a serious problem," Lucifer asked back.
"You do realize that you just made a grave mistake by working together with her. I thought we had a deal," Mykel asked.
"What's wrong? It didn't go as you planned? You thought you can read me like a book like how you read those people that you manipulated?" Lucifer answered.
Mykel squinted his eyes and moved his eyes to the right as if Lucifer was whispering in his right ear.
"That's right, I know that you know about everyone and everything. You almost got me there, and your plan to use Luciel's anxiety isn't going to work anymore," Lucifer said.
"I took the risk and turned out it's worth the risk," Lucifer chuckled mockingly. "Don't worry, the deal is still on, but at this moment, it's not me that you should be worried about," Lucifer continued.
Mykel's head was throbbing because this time he was the one who got outplayed.
"What do you want, Lucifer?" Mykel asked as he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
"I just came to warn you that she allows me to do whatever I want inside the towers as long as it's to make you suffer, indirectly. You said that the deal is just between the two of us, right? So I can do whatever to them, especially those in Asmodeus Tower," Lucifer answered.
"You were smart to send your people with Asmond because you knew they would be safe, but then you made a mistake by sending the others on their own?" Lucifer said.
"You're going to send those demon lords down there to kill them? You should know already that I can bring them back to life," Mykel asked with his eyebrow raised.
"Of course, I know. I watched it with my own two eyes, and I'm amazed that you have something so powerful as that. Although you can bring them back to life, you forgot that I'm the sovereign of hell who tortured lives for eternity. You can bring them back to life as many times as you want, but they will die again and again if I brought them to Gehenna," Lucifer chuckled.
Mykel clenched his fists and slammed the table with his right hand. It broke into pieces, and he could hear Lucifer laughing so hard inside his head.
"This is your first warning, Mykel Alester," Lucifer said with excitement.
Mykel sent a message to Jeanne and the others to leave as soon as they cleared the seventeenth floor. He then realized they had just entered the eighteenth floor, and he was a bit too late.
"It's too late, Mykel, it's time to say goodbye to them," Lucifer said as he chuckled mischievously. "I wish I can be there to look at you in person, but this is enough for now," Lucifer continued.
"Oh, I almost forgot. The moment you try to interfere, she will bring you to her world," Lucifer said.
Mykel was about to activate the [Warp Space] skill, but then he stopped and gritted his teeth as he clenched his fists.
"Your biggest mistake was taking that skill with you, Mykel," Lucifer said.
Mykel loosened up his fists and teeth, and immediately furrowed his forehead with a puzzled look.
"What are you talking about?" Mykel asked.
"The skill that made you a God, the one that you took from her. If only you don't take that skill, she can't interfere with what you're doing," Lucifer answered.
"What do you mean by that?" Mykel asked and he got more confused.
"Since there's no use in hiding it since you will lose everything anyway, I will tell you about her Authority skill that can forcefully summon Gods to her realm when they broke the rule of the World Arcana," Lucifer answered.
"Don't you realize by now why she didn't summon you all this time? It's because you didn't interfere or broke any rules of the World Arcana. If you interfere now and broke the unwritten rule that she didn't tell the other Gods, she will punish them as long as the system accepted her reasoning," Lucifer explained.
Mykel was dumbfounded with his eyes wide open.
Mykel realized everything now, that all those times that he got summoned were because of a reason. First was stealing the [Semi-Deus] skill. The second was when he had been clearing towers as a Demi-God. Also, he stole another skill from her, the [Deus Obscisor] skill, and he thought that would be enough for her to summon him for the second time.
"The balance," Mykel said to himself.
Everything that had happened, manipulating the Gods, sending them to war against each other, and fighting Gods. He thought he was risking himself by doing all that, but it appeared that Mara couldn't do anything about it since it happened and only involved the Gods.
Mykel was still skeptical about the proofs that he gathered because if that was the case, Mara could bring him to her realm when he resurrected all those people back to life. That was enough to make things unbalanced, but why she didn't bring him to her realm, and that question bothered him.
Mykel looked at his status screen, and then covered his face with both hands when he saw his [Admin] skill.
"Maybe that's the case?" Mykel asked himself in his mind.
Mykel's [Admin] skill was a skill that allowed him to change everything, and that was why Mara couldn't do anything after she found out he could resurrect those people back to life. It was that simple, the answer was right in front of him that Mara couldn't interfere since [Admin] skill was Mykel's skill and nothing was imbalanced about it.
Mykel thought the reason Mara could summon him back then when he stole [Semi-Deus] skill might be because it involved her directly. That was why Mara could summon him, and that applied to the reason she could summon him the second time because of the unwritten rule that Lucifer said because he stole [Deus Obscisor].
Mykel started chuckling and then burst out laughing as he fell to his knees and put his head on the floor. He couldn't stop laughing because everything would be so simple and easy if he had known the truth about Mara's [Authority] skill.
Lucifer was watching Mykel from his throne, and he squinted his eyes and started to feel suspicious of Mykel's sudden change of behavior. He knew that wasn't madness or desperation, and he couldn't help but be bothered by what he listened to. He then stopped his connection with Mykel and started thinking about what had just happened.
Lyneth entered Mykel's office with a cup of coffee, but when she saw Mykel was on the floor laughing frantically and the broken table, she dropped the cup and ran toward him.
"Mykel?! What happened?!" Lyneth asked with a worried expression.
Mykel lifted his head and he was smiling so widely and happily. It was the first time Lyneth saw him make that kind of smile. He always showed his fake smile to anyone including her, but this time it was pure joy and happiness.
Mykel stood up as he giggled and sighed in relief.
"Nothing happened," Mykel kept smiling as he stared at the ceiling. "I was worried for nothing," Mykel continued and turned that smile into a smirk.
