[Cough... Ugh.]
A desperate scream left his mouth.
Malphas's eyes had rolled back into his head, and he had collapsed and was trembling on the ground.
Saliva dripped from his mouth, and black blood poured out of his body.
"Haa."
KangWoo stretched out his arms as if he were feeling refreshed.
"I'm finally feeling calm."
It was as if the annoying feeling had disappeared from his head.
[Th-the maximum value of n(B)...]
"What, you haven't figured out yet?"
KangWoo laughed at him.
It wasn't a question he was hoping to get an answer to.
Living for a long time didn't mean you knew more things.
Demons weren't interested in anything besides fighting.
There were a few that were exceptions, but overall, they were very dumb.
'Well, in reality…'
KangWoo also didn't know the answer to that question.
He'd searched for a math problem with his smartphone and had said it without thinking too much about it.
He was an orphan, so academia was something he had never really had the time for.
"Ah, it was a productive hour."
He seemed satisfied.
Things would've been more serious if he couldn't get rid of the sense of annoyance.
'That was dangerous.'
It was hard to compare.
You couldn't compare it with when a human felt annoyed.
KangWoo was a demon, and a demon's body craved strong desires and emotions.
Demons could fight to the death just because their shoulders touched each other.
'That time against Mamon… it was really close.'
When Balrog almost died, his anger became quite intense.
'At that moment...'
He remembered the past.
The ground was cracked, the sky was black, and there...
"Tsk."
He clicked his tongue.
It wasn't something he wanted to remember.
"Let's see…"
KangWoo took out his smartphone, changed to selfie mode, and looked into his eyes.
He could see his eyes behind his mask.
—White eyes and black pupils, they had returned to normal.
'It got better.'
When he became overly excited, the color of his eyes changed.
He had to be careful when the color of his eyes changed.
If he wasn't careful, something similar to what happened that day could happen once more.
'Now that I think about it, that bastard Satan was similar to me.'
When he thought about it, he and Satan had many things in common.
He frowned at the unexpectedly common points.
"To think I have similarities with the Demon of Prophecy."
It wasn't welcome news.
Someone could mistake him for the Demon of Prophecy instead of Satan.
That was something he couldn't accept.
'But…'
KangWoo turned and looked at Malphas.
He was mumbling something while trembling.
It was as if he'd completely lost his mind.
"I don't think he's in a state where I could ask him something."
He was starting to wonder if he'd overdone things.
KangWoo put his eyes on Halphas instead of Malphas.
Halphas was lying on the floor, unconscious.
KangWoo walked toward Halphas.
"Hey, old man, you cannot sleep here."
He touched Halphas with the tip of his shoes; Halphas slowly opened his eyes.
[Cough! Ugh!]
After waking up, he moaned in pain while grabbing his wound.
His eyes were full of fear while looking at KangWoo.
[Y-you...]
Paf-!
KangWoo kicked Halphas in the face, and his head became embedded in the ground.
He spoke in a low voice.
"You know you aren't in a situation where you can ask questions, right?"
[...]
There was silence. It seemed like he wasn't dumb enough not to realize the situation he was in.
KangWoo looked down at Halphas.
"Who are you?"
It was his first time seeing them.
Their strength was comparable to high-ranking demons of the 9th hell…
But he'd never seen them during all the years he’d waged wars in the 9th hell.
'Well, I guess it's possible that I just overlooked them.'
Just because he was the ruler of the Hell of Nine Skies didn't mean he knew the faces of all the demons that lived there.
Hell was big, and lots of demons lived there.
But there was another problem…
'They used Lucifer's power.'
The black sphere that had a high absorbing ability…
It was a technique Lucifer used in the past when he fought against him.
The techniques were too similar to call it a coincidence.
"You guys… are you servants of Lucifer?"
[Ugh.]
Halphas frowned. That short reaction was enough to know the answer.
'I don't remember seeing guys like these among Lucifer's servants.'
KangWoo thought of Halphas, Malphas, and Phenex's faces.
You couldn't tell them apart from each other based on their appearances.
Since they had such a unique appearance, there was no way he wouldn't be able to remember them if he'd seen them before.
After all, the war against Lucifer had lasted for a very long time.
'Are they new servants?'
There was a chance that was the case.
KangWoo stroked his chin and fell into thought. If they were newly-made servants, things would get troublesome.
'Has Lucifer recovered his old strength already?'
You couldn't say that the three demons were weak.
* * *
He could overwhelm them because he'd recently absorbed Tyrion's strength and obtained massive growth.
If he weren't able to use demonic energy from the deepest part of the Demonic Energy Sea, he wouldn't have been able to win against them so easily.
'I don't think he's made new servants in the Hell of Nine Skies.'
The place Lucifer had fallen to was the Ernor Continent. He wasn't sure what kind of place that was, but it probably wasn't a place full of demonic energy like the Hell of Nine Skies.
But if he was to create demons that were that strong despite that, it just showed how strong Lucifer was.
'This isn't good.'
There was no way he'd just made three servants.
KangWoo wasn't sure how many servants stronger than them he had.
'They said he fought against angels, right?'
Then there was a chance he'd made more servants so he could face them.
"Damn."
He frowned.
So many beings from the Ernor Continent were crossing to Earth showed that the dimensional wall separating them had become quite weak.
He was already feeling annoyed while dealing with the Demon Cult. If the forces of Lucifer started to cross to Earth more frequently, things could get too troublesome.
'Please, leave me alone, you bastards.'
He wanted to enjoy life as a payment for the ten thousand years of struggle he'd gone through, but why was everyone trying to bother him?
'Fuck, what did I do to deserve this?'
He could confidently say he'd lived an honest and good life.
It wasn't fair.
KangWoo sighed and opened his mouth.
"So, why did you guys come here?"
[I… I cannot say t...]
"Do you want to become like him?"
Halphas looked at Malphas, who had gone crazy from the insane amount of pain he'd gone through.
The fact they were demons didn't mean they didn't feel anything after seeing someone suffer like that.
No. Demons would probably feel an even bigger fear since they were obsessed with the desire to live as much as possible.
[W-we came here to find Satan.]
"What?"
KangWoo looked at him in surprise.
'Is the real Satan here?'
He felt as if he'd been hit with something from behind.
"You came here to find Satan?"
[Yes. Recently, the hero god Tyrion died at the hands of Satan in this world. Lucifer gave us the order to find him and asked us to join forces.]
"Ah."
KangWoo let out a short exclamation and nodded. He was starting to understand what was going on.
'So they were talking about me.'
For a moment, he thought that the real Satan had appeared on Earth.
'No.'
He shook his head.
'Satan is on Earth.'
The Demon of Prophecy, Satan. It had been proved many times that he'd gone to Earth and was currently leading the Demon Cult.
He'd known for a while that Satan was on Earth.
'Of course. Satan is the one who killed Guardian Alec and Tyrion's apostle, Reinald.'
He'd almost forgotten about something very important.
'But…'
KangWoo's eyes narrowed. Satan, Lucifer, and alliance… those three words started to bounce around inside his head.
"You… how much do you know about Satan?"
[We don't know that much. We just know he's been creating servants in this world and is fighting against Gaia's servants.]
'Ho.'
KangWoo's eyes shone. The tips of his mouth went up.
'This…'
He could use that.
He quickly thought of a story.
KangWoo grabbed his stomach and started to laugh out loud.
"HAHAHAHA!"
[Ugh!! Wh-what the...?!]
He made the demonic energy inside him explode out. He didn't use the ‘Ruler of Demonic Energy’ attribute on purpose.
Halphas’s face became pale after feeling the huge amount of demonic energy flowing from KangWoo.
"It isn't that you don't know exactly, but you don't know anything at all!"
[What do you mean...?]
KangWoo laughed at him.
"You say you came here to find Satan when I'm right here in front of you, so isn't this situation very fun?"
[Wh-what?!]
Halphas's eyes became wider.
'This guy is Satan?'
There was no way.
Even though he was wearing a mask, the person in front of him was clearly a human.
Leaving his appearance aside, why was Satan protecting a servant of Gaia and attacking them?
"Seeing your reaction, it seems like your eyes are decoration. I'll take this opportunity to get rid of those useless eyes."
[What... AAGGHH!!]
He put his finger into one of Halphas's eyes. A horrifying scream came out of his mouth.
Blood poured out of Halphas's eye, and he looked up at him.
At that moment, he felt that the human in front of him was more like a demon than any demon he'd seen before.
[D-don't tell me... A-are you really Satan?]
"You still don't know after seeing it? Aah... It seems like the other eye is useless, too."
[N-no!] He quickly answered.
He bit his lip and nodded.
'He's Satan.'
The chilling amount of demonic energy he could summon…
His mad actions, and...
'His eyes.'
How his eyes turned black when he became angry…
It was a characteristic only very few demons had.
If that couldn't prove he was Satan, nothing else could.
'How could something like this…?!'
They weren't able to recognize an archduke and had tried to fight against him!
He couldn't even let out a fake laugh at the unbelievable situation.
[S-Satan…]
"Now we're finally understanding each other. So, Lucifer asked me to form an alliance?"
[Y-yes.]
"What kind of alliance?"
[He said that the words ‘let's get the Sea of Demonic Energy in our hands’, you'd understand.]
"..."
Getting the Sea of Demonic Energy…
It wasn't hard to imagine what they were talking about.
'This bastard... is he after me?'
To be more precise, they were after the Ten Thousand Demon Core.
He couldn't help but laugh. It seemed like dogs who'd lost already once hadn't learned their lesson yet.
"HAHAHA! You're saying some funny things."
He laughed out loud again.
'Didn't Lucifer learn his lesson yet?'
It was different from Kim JaeHyun or Baek KangHyun.
Lucifer knew very well who he was.
But still, he was planning to face him—that by itself was comedy.
'You know who I am.'
When KangWoo declared war on the seven archdukes, he was still weak.
He'd lost tens of times. Despite that, he ended up winning against them.
This wasn't simply because he was strong enough to beat the archdukes.
If 'strength' were the only reason, he wouldn't have been able to win against them.
"Tell this to Lucifer…"
He grabbed his neck and spoke.
"I already have the Sea of Demonic Energy in my hands."
[Wh-what does that…?]
"Hahaha! Lucifer, you idiot! It seems like he really doesn't know anything!!"
The tips of his mouth went up.
"Why do you think I created the Demon Cult? The Sea of Demonic Energy is already in my hands! It's only a matter of time before I absorb it!"
[...]
He looked at Halphas with eyes full of madness.
"Is the territory Lucifer in called Ernor...?"
[Y-yes.]
"Good. I was starting to get bored of this world."
He threw Halphas to the ground.
"Tell Lucifer this…"
He twisted his mouth upward.
"I'm going to take the Demon Cult, my servants, and go there."
[M-Mr. Satan! D-don't tell me!]
"Hahaha! Listen carefully, servant of Lucifer."
Speaking in a voice filled with madness, he spread demonic energy to his surroundings.
"I, Satan, am declaring war on Lucifer."
KangWoo laughed out loud.
'Fight among yourselveeees!'
