Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Goodbye, monthly halo!

After a series of daily affairs—such as processing a mountain of official documents, quarreling with ministers through the remote magic mirror, having afternoon tea with close allies, and arranging important meetings for dinner—His Majesty the Demon King dragged his exhausted body back to his bedroom.

This place was absolutely private; there was an enchantment laid by Ansel himself, so he could safely throw away his “demon king’s bearing” and throw himself on to the soft big bed like a social animal1 who worked overtime all day and didn’t even want to move a finger.

After lying face down for a while in silence, Ansel got up again in pain.

He still needed to take off his contact lenses.

Ansel came to the mirror. This mirror was not connected to the magic mirror network in the Devil’s Palace, so it was very safe. He looked solemnly in the mirror and then began to touch his eyes to remove his contact lenses.

What a joke, how can an angel have demonic vertical pupils? These are obviously contact lenses!

Today’s contact lenses were extremely difficult to remove. Ansel even teared up before he could finally manage to take one off. He blinked at the mirror. Now he could see the huge difference between the two eyes: one still had a demonic vertical pupil, making it look sharp and arrogant within the sunset colour; the other had the vertical pupil removed, the brilliant sunset color resembling splendid clouds or a sea of ​​flowers.

——An angel’s pupils.

At this moment, something seemed to be flickering slightly above Ansel’s head. That thing was in the shape of a ring. It was gleaming with warm light, could glow in the dark, and was hovering gently above Ansel’s head.

——An angel’s halo.

When Ansel was taking off his contact lenses, the tears wouldn’t stop flowing out. Suddenly, the phone rang, almost making him put the contact lenses back. This was a private phone number, and few people knew about it, so it was either a close minister trusted by Ansel or an extremely important leader of other forces who needed to contact Ansel urgently. Ansel finally took off his contact lenses, making him in a good mood. After calculating the time, it should be the call from the prime minister who was dispatched, so he picked it up.

“Andre?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone, and there was only a slight sound of breathing. Ansel sensed something from the silence. It was not the Prime Minister Andre who made the call, but someone else. This habit of being silent at the beginning would probably only be…

“The Devil of the Western Regions, Saros Asmodeus, calling,” he said in a deep voice that was slightly cold, resembling something frigid and chilly on a frosted ice field. But he has an extremely pleasant timbre along with precise wording and a gentle tone. The elegance and nobility of the generations long “Demon King Family” ancestry was vividly displayed in this short sentence.

This voice and the eloquent words almost made Ansel drop the landline.

His nerves also immediately tensed hearing another demon lord.

“The Demon King of the Western Regions is calling late at night, could it be possible…”

He paused, remembering the newspaper that made his liver hurt2 during the day and suddenly came up with a novel idea. Saros called him late at night, could it be for the purpose of apologizing for this report?

For example, his original intention was to make the outside world feel that the relationship between the East and the West was not very good, but he actually recognized Ansel’s new trade policy?

“I did make this call because of that report.” The voice on the other side was still cold, “I didn’t expect that the wording of that report would be so…”

Apologize! Apologize! Immediately apologize…

“Too gentle.”

…to him.

“…?”

Ansel thought he didn’t hear it clearly.

“What did you say?”

Just hearing the sneer coming from the other end of the phone, Ansel could almost imagine that guy sitting comfortably in a wide armchair with stacks of documents in front of him, yet still raising his chin arrogantly.

“My original words were: Ansel, you are naive, stupid, and beyond hopeless!”

Before Saros spoke, Ansel actually thought about it. The image of the other bowing his head to apologize to him made him more elated the more he thought about it. Of course, of course, he was a magnanimous Demon King and also a generous angel so if the other bowed his head, he would not hold a grudge…

What a joke!

It wasn’t enough that Ansel got on the news for this, but Saros even called to scold him for his actions, which almost made his aperture slanted.

The opposite side was still talking.

“What on earth are you thinking with that new trade policy? It seems that you have completely abandoned the support of other Demon Lords, and you even want to move the interests they have held in their hands for thousands of years.” On the other side of the phone, Saros tapped his fingers on the armrest of the seat, showing a certain restless state of mind.

“Do you still think you haven’t suffered enough assassinations?”

Ansel himself knew this. He was much of an uncompromising hardliner. All the policies were centered on Subabienne City. Ansel was determined to clean up the demon lords scattered like stars on the eastern land, sooner or later. Because of this attitude, Ansel had suffered countless assassinations in the past three hundred years. Fortunately, his courtiers were loyal and guarded the Devil’s Palace like an iron barrel. In addition, Ansel was strong, so he was still alive and kicking.

Saros’ words surprised him.

“Are you… worried about me?”

He asked hesitantly, obviously not thinking that this three-hundred-years long adversary would be so kind.

There was a sound of documents being overturned on the other end of the phone, and following the sound of the papers rustling was Saros’ cold voice coming through again.

“No, I just hope that you can hold on for a longer time.”

“Oh?” Ansel immediately understood what he meant, his sunset-colored eyes narrowed slightly, “Do you want to attack Levi, the Demon King of the Southern Region?”

“…he’s too weak.”

That’s true.

Weak creatures would be preyed on by predators first. To hunt, it was best to have stable surroundings. So Saros hoped that he could be stable for another few hundred years, leaving enough time to complete an attack on the Southern Region.

As for whether Subabienne City would be attacked next after the capture of the Southern Region, Ansel believed certainly in this.

He still had time—enough time to develop the city and even get a piece of the pie from the Southern Region. If he used this period of time to gain enough power to challenge the veteran Demon King Saros, then when the time comes, the entire demon world would become a situation where he and Saros divided the territory.

The Demon King’s ambition was expanding, and the Demon King’s head was thinking. At that moment, Ansel thought a lot.

“The Southern Region is very good, a fertile land rich in ore.” Even though he knew that the other party could not see, Ansel still raised his chin proudly and said to the phone, “I hope you don’t show your back when you are too obsessed with your prey.”

“…right back at you.”

The call was hung up.

Ansel stood silently for a while, then he smoothed his long hair, from the top to the end, the halo on his head was shaken by his movements. Only then did he remember this obstructing thing. Ansel grabbed the aperture with one hand while facing the mirror.

Probably sensing that its end would come soon, the aperture began to flicker wildly.

“No, as the Demon King, I can’t take you around.” Ansel murmured, exerting strength in his hands, “Goodbye, Halo No. 3658.”

Crack!

Goodbye, monthly halo!

The bright aperture that was broken off instantly dimmed, but it was still very warm, glowing like a warm jade. However, compared to the heavy jade, the halo that was broken off was lighter. The power of light in it sealed, making it look like an ordinary hard plastic ring.

When Ansel was an angel, he did not acquire relevant knowledge about the nature of the aperture. After all, no angel would break one’s own aperture down to study. However, Ansel had been breaking his own aperture for many years. He knew that even in places where the light element was thin, such as the Demon Realm, the aperture would automatically collect and store the light energy. When the energy reached a certain level, the halo would appear on the top of his head, which posed a great threat to his Demon King career. The best solution to that was…

to break it off.

Then, Ansel worked hard to stuff the dimmed aperture into the special space ring. The ring was filled with 3,658 apertures, so it was already pretty much full.

More could still be stuffed inside, just a bit more, just hang in there. There were not many space rings that could store angel’s halos.

While Ansel was fighting with the aperture, on the other side of the hanged-up call, Saros, the Demon King of the Western Regions, slowly leaned back on the chair. In the Demon King’s office, only a dim yellow lamp was lit, and a silver shadow flashed under the light—it was the silver-winged dragon flipping his wings.

The reflection of light awoke the Demon King from his contemplation. He looked at the silver-winged dragon. The silver-winged dragon pressed its front paws on a document in front of him and made a low “woo” sound.

It was a letter of surrender. It was cast by a demon lord under Ansel’s subordinate. The content was roughly that the demon lord would create an opportunity to assassinate the current Eastern Demon King Ansel, and he only needed some help from Saros.

The Demon King lowered his dark blue vertical pupils.

“This kind of thing can even be handed to me, his situation…”

The Demon King sneered again.

“Such a radical method, such a reckless policy, it seems that he has not learned at all how a demon king should balance the forces under his command…”

Saros stopped.

Of course, Ansel had never learned it. He was a rare demon king who fought hard from the ordinary demon class, which was very different from Saros, who was born into the “Demon King Family”.

The silver-winged dragon saw his owner staring at the table in a daze. Hadn’t his master been in a daze often in the past three hundred years? The silver-winged dragon was used to it. He raised his hind paws and scratched his ear fins, waiting for instructions.

“Let him come to see me in person, to the front line of the Seventh Abyss.” In the end, Saros said, “I believe he will be able to deceive the others.”

The silver-winged dragon flew away with the secret order. The demon king indifferently glanced at the letter of surrender, then folded it up temporarily.

He raised his hand and subconsciously touched the horns on his head. The pair of horns were completely black, shimmering, and extremely majestic.

The joint dispatch of troops was just a few days away. When the time comes…

They would meet.

* * *

The author has something to say:

Saros: I touched my horns that he touched. (Matryoshka starts3 XD)