Chapter 615: An Unexpected Variable.
"A weapon used by a mediocre human, a weapon made special only by taking the life of the son who was most loved by my Father… Jesus."
"The only weapon capable of killing Heavenly Father's creations."
"The Spear of Longinus…"
"The First of The Fallen, Lucifer. This is the perfect weapon to be used on you." Diablo started walking towards Lucifer. With each step he took, the earth around him shuddered at his presence.
"No matter how much you whine, no matter how much you deny it, you were created by him."
"As was Lilith."
"…but…" Pausing in front of Lucifer, Diablo grabbed the Spear's shaft as he looked into the man's face.
As proclaimed long ago, Lucifer was handsome, the most handsome in Heaven. He had blackish-blonde hair, sapphire blue eyes, and white skin. He was the spitting image of Heaven's Angels. Even after he had Fallen and become a Fallen Angel and later a Demon, that image had not changed.
"I am different."
"He did not create me; I am an amalgamation of all the Sins committed by his creations. I was born of Sin. I am a Primordial Demon."
"Heh… All this villain talk, and for what? Just do what you came to do."
"...." Diablo narrowed his eyes and stopped what he was going to do.
"No." He stopped holding the Spear and walked away.
"...." Lucifer just looked at the Devil silently.
"Arrogance and recklessness are the secrets of failure."
"I know you very well, Lucifer."
"....."
"You don't plan a riot in Heaven and nearly kill Heavenly Father if you're stupid; I refuse to believe you are such an existence."
"Not to mention… There's the question of you being missing for a long time and no one hearing from you. I refuse to believe you've been loitering for so long."
A moment of silence fell around. The Primordial Demon and The First of The Fallen stared at each other; both gazes were calculating.
This stalemate ended when Lucifer made a move.
"…Haah." Lucifer visibly sighed, and his entire pained face turned into an amused expression. He touched the Spear and pulled it from his chest:
"This is why I valued you, Diablo. You are too smart for your own good."
"I was so close to eliminating you; I just wish you had pulled the Spear."
Lucifer smiled a condescending smile, a smile that Diablo and every Demon who once interacted with Lucifer knew well.
"The only beings capable of surviving this Spear are beings that Heavenly Father didn't create."
Diablo narrowed his eyes, "What did you do?"
"You already have your answer, Diablo... I've become something my Father didn't create."
"I became different… I was completely reborn… I became something better…." The white sclera of his eyes Lucifer darkened, and his eyes gleamed a golden hue.
"... Elder Gods."
"Tsk, you know that too."
"I see… It makes sense now. I've always wondered where you were; I've searched every Faction in existence, I've searched every Pantheon, and I could never find you. Someone like you can't go too long without causing chaos; I found your lack of presence disturbing..."
"But if you were with those Beings that even Vlad doesn't know very well, everything would make sense..."
"Yeah, Yeah, congrats, you have a brain the size of my dick. I really hate that about you… Always so annoying, always so astute..." Lucifer's body shook several times in fury, his expression distorted, but as if someone had clicked a button, his face returned to the smiling one from a few seconds ago.
"That's why I like you; it's always interesting when you're around."
Diablo remained silent. His brain was much more focused on thinking about the current situation than entertaining the bipolarity of Lucifer.
"Haah… This was a waste of time." Diablo sighed and just turned his back:
"Come on, Lilith."
Lilith's body began to move like a doll. She lacked subtlety, looking like a rigid robot.
"…Are you just going to ignore me?" Lucifer narrowed his eyes.
"Now that you have lost your status as The First of The Fallen, I need another ingredient. Your heart is no longer useful; you are useless to me. Therefore, fighting you is unnecessary."
"…And I just complimented you on your intelligence… Are you stupid? Or has arrogance gone to your head?" Lucifer was feeling quite amused now, the Demon just tried to kill him with a death trap using his ex-Wife, but when he found out that he was useless, he just disregarded everything and ignored him.
'For this Devil, it was like-...' Lucifer's expression grew even worse.
'It was like it was just business for him to deal with me, a bothersome matter not worth his attention... This piece of shit!'
Lucifer clenched his fist and felt the shaft of the Spear... Wait, Spear?
He quickly looked down at his hand and saw that the Spear was nowhere to be seen.
He looked at Diablo and saw the Spear in the Primordial Demon's hand.
Veins bulged on Lucifer's head, and he appeared in front of Diablo with a dark flash, kicking toward the Devil's head: "Don't ignore me!"
Diablo just raised his hand and held off the attack from Lucifer as if it were nothing.
Lucifer opened his eyes wide.
"Why are you so surprised?"
"....."
"You said it yourself. You were reborn into a completely different species." Diablo held the leg of Lucifer and, with his grip, shattered the bones of the appendage and threw him forward.
Lucifer flew towards the wall, and a cobweb-shaped crater formed from the impact
"I don't know how long ago you changed your Race and were reborn, although I have an idea what it might be..."
"If you think of Elder Gods, you can think of only one ability that would catch the eye of even someone like you… the Immortality of the Soul."
Lucifer's blood-covered face froze for a few seconds.
'Does he know about this too? Just how much does he know about the Elder Gods?'
"You've always been greedy. You've always wanted to become a Being close to your Father in level of existence. With an Immortal Soul, you can much more easily cultivate an Energy that Mortals must be very wary of touching. You can cultivate Energy that only the most talented of Beings can achieve."
"You can cultivate The Spark of Divinity and the Concept that embodies it."
"...."
"But… even if you have awakened that Divinity… It's useless in front of me."
Lilith, next to Diablo, raised her hand in the air, and a sword appeared, a sword that Lucifer knew very well.
"After all, my subordinate has a sword capable of killing a God."
"..." A hush fell around the room.
"Haah…" Diablo sighed again for the time wasted plotting against this man: "This is useless. You lost thousands of years of instinct created by the body. You lost the habits you created with your original body."
"I see you have trained and perfected your new body, but Lucifer... To fight me, training alone is not enough."
In the meantime that Diablo spoke, the body of Lucifer completely healed, and he fell to the ground.
"If you had your original body, I would have taken you seriously… But now? You're just pathetic. You've become weak. You're not worth my time."
Lucifer's face distorted even more.
"…But even though I feel that way, I really thank you for deciding to change Races."
"After all, I feared that when you returned, the Demons under my command would choose to serve you." Speaking about his fears was not shameful for Diablo. He recognized the threat of Lucifer, the man who was once an Angel was a Being to be feared.
Diablo's devilish smile grew: "… But now? Even if you decide to go back, they won't respect you. They won't fear you. After all, only a Demon can rule over others Demons."
"I came here with the aim of killing you and taking your heart, but even though I didn't accomplish that feat, I managed to get rid of one of the biggest concerns I had."
"… As the Heavenly Father once said, you are indeed foolish, Lucifer."
That was the final straw for Lucifer; his power exploded into the sky but suddenly stopped.
"Waiting for the enemy to get stronger is foolish, and I don't have time to entertain your anger."
"… Huh?" Lucifer's vision blurred, and soon he found himself falling to the ground. For a few seconds, he saw the face of a Demon, a Demon he knew very well. 'Agares...'
"Devil King." Agares knelt before Diablo.
"Let's go."
"What do we do with the body of Lucifer?"
"... He's not dead."
"Huh…?" Agares looked at the lifeless body of Lucifer.
"Lucifer is truly Immortal now. There are no ways to kill him. He will always come back to life. The only way to kill him is if that Being wished it." Diablo rolled his eyes in irony.
'The Being who craved freedom the most ended up being chained due to his own greed and arrogance.'
"…that Being?"
"The Leader of the Elder Gods."
"..." Agares just looked solemnly at the man he once called King.
'How low have you fallen, Lucifer.'
"Should we seal him?"
"That won't happen either. The Elder Gods won't allow one of their own to be sealed away."
'And if I do that, I bet I'll have one of those Beings at my doorstep in less than a few days. Even though we're allies through Niklaus, those Beings are unknown for now. I must end this war before I think in approaching those Beings.'
Agares was speechless: "… Just what was the purpose of him coming here?"
"Who knows? To act as a clown, maybe? After all, that's what he is now."
"... Well, at least the love he feels for Lilith is real. After all, he came to rescue her."
"Lucifer is self-centered, arrogant, lustful, and thinks everything around him belongs to him."
"Love? Such a word is very kind to The First of The Fallen Ones. He doesn't feel it. He just feels a sense of possession."
"....."
"I bet he came here just to 'show some of his strength'. He wanted to act high and mighty. He wanted to show off his 'new self'."
"… Your Majesty understands it well."
"I have spent millennia observing and studying Lucifer."
"I probably know him better than himself now."
"As expected of Your Majesty." Agares bowed in pure respect.
Suddenly Diablo and Agares stopped walking and looked straight ahead.
As if someone had cut space itself, a dark hole appeared, and from that tear in reality, a being emerged from its deep darkness.
He was completely pale white. He had no eyes and no nose; he just had small 'holes' where his nose should be and a mouth that contained sharp teeth.
'A messenger of the Elder Gods.'
"Did you like the present, King Diablos?" A distorted voice was heard as if two or more people were speaking.
'As expected, he was allowed to come here deliberately to give me a message.' Of course, Diablo had already suspected this the moment he found out that Lucifer was an Elder God. After all, those Beings did not leave their territory of their own accord. They were an isolationist group.
"He cannot be considered a gift. He is just a clown."
The smile of the Being in front of him grew wider:
"As expected, it looks like you understood everything."
Not wanting to prolong this conversation, he spoke: "Where can I find a heart equal to those of The First of The Fallen Ones? You wouldn't appear before me if you didn't have that information."
"The quality of the heart of The First of The Fallen Ones can only be rivaled by The First Three Created Angels."
"Michael or Gabriel..."
'Haah, this just got even more complicated. How can I make the fairest and most loyal Angels fall naturally? They cannot fall artificially, or the heart will not have the same quality...'
"Your little project intrigues our Leader... He wishes you great success on your journey, and this is a gift of goodwill from him." The Being put his hand into the 'darkness' behind him and took out a vial containing a dark liquid.
"Have one of the brothers drink this liquid, this liquid will 'boost' the Being's dark thoughts, and they will fall naturally."
"Angel or not, to be light or not, we all have our darkness."
"Although Angels have a lesser amount of darkness, that darkness still exists; after all, balance is necessary."
Diablo narrowed his eyes. He wasn't a fool to blindly trust something given to him.
"Hahahaha." The Being's distorted laughter was heard all around: "I understand your concerns, but understand that we really don't hold any grudges against you. On the contrary, our Leader just wants to support your rise to global power."
"What do you want?"
"Glad you understand quickly. Our wish is simple."
"Keep your group away from our home. Forget our lands exist." The Being's voice changed as if only one person was speaking, and even though it was through a messenger, Diablo could sense that Being's 'power'.
"When you rise to power and become a Ruler, I hope that promise will be fulfilled... But if it isn't...Well, I wonder how you would fare when fighting an Immortal Army… An army that even with the 'new' state of your body at that time, it won't make any difference." The messenger's smile grew.
Diablo's face darkened. 'Just how much does he know? And how does he know that? I never spoke out loud my real goals.'
"Now, what is your decision, King Diablo?"
"...." The area was silent for several minutes easily. It was clear to the messenger that the Devil was thinking.
"I accept."
"Good... Now, take it." The messenger threw the vial toward Diablo, but instead of the Demon King who caught it,
Lilith was the one who took it.
"So careful…" The messenger muttered. It was apparent that the Demon King had ordered Lilith to catch it.
"I don't despise that attitude. You truly deserve your Title of King." The messenger looked toward Lucifer and suddenly appeared in front of the man and picked him up like a sack of potatoes.
The messenger disappeared again and reappeared in front of the hole he came out of: "A little advice."
"Pay more attention to the 'host'." Soon the messenger turned around and entered the hole.
Diablo narrowed his eyes at this. He let the creature's words sink in and thought about it:
'Who is he talking about?'
"My King...?"
"Ignore what you saw. Come on; we have work to do. I need to talk to Asmodeus."
"As you wish, My King."
.....
