Chapter 65: Welcome to Hell. Now Leave.

Chapter 65: Welcome to Hell. Now Leave.

A Devil walked across some corpses in a big, bloody room.

You have slain Level 9 Champion Vessel.

You have slain Level 14 Champion Vessel.Ñøv€l-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

You have slain Level 6 Champion Vessel.

He’d killed at least a hundred of the Champion Vessels at this point, and it was really starting to get tiring. There were only a couple dozen left, but still. He was so exhausted that it’d started taking him two hits to kill them, instead of one. And that definitely didn’t speed things up.

You have slain Level 12 Champion Vessel.

You have slain Level 8 Champion Vessel.

Just as he was getting to the last few bodies to kill, one of them that was across the large room began to stir.

“Ugh,” he groaned and walked over to the body, but before he got there, Aankin had awoken, getting to his feet with a gasp of breath and fluttering of his eyes.

He looked around the room at the carnage that surrounded him. It wasn’t like the Devil didn’t understand Aankin’s surprise at the scene. The entire room had practically been painted red by the blood of the bodies he’d killed, and the corpses of them scattered across the floor, broken little things bent in too many places.

“You– you really did it,” Aankin said, staring at the Devil in horror.

“I mean, yeah, of course I did it. Did you think I was lying? Fucking idiot,” he rolled his eyes.

“Please, let me live. I’ll serve you. You have proven yourself above me. I’ll gladly serve you. Please.”

“Oh, wow, I get to have you serve me now? The guy who’s so fucking weak I can kill him fifteen times over? Lucky me!” The Devil smashed his fist into another of the Champion Vessels.

You have struck Level 11 Champion Vessel for 3.80k damage using your fist.

You have slain Level 11 Champion Vessel.

Aankin’s face flushed white.

“Y’know, I may just let you live, actually,” the Devil said after remembering something. “Just give me some info.”

“Yes, of course. Anything.”

“Did you get anyone coming through here named Arlan Nota?”

Aankin blinked. “Um, yes. We did.”

“Great. Tell me why.”

“...He wanted a Tribute for his Nymph. After she became a Dryad, she healed him of some sort of malady. Th-that is all I know.”

“Hm,” the Devil took a breath. Then, he crunched another Champion Vessel beneath his heel.

You have struck Level 10 Champion Vessel for 3.55k damage using your foot.

You have slain Level 10 Champion Vessel.

That left no more Vessels in the room. Aankin was the last one. If he died, he’d be dead for good. His breathing quickened in what the Devil recognized as the primal fear one felt when confronted with powerlessness.

“Are you sure you don’t know anything else?” the Devil asked. “Because I’d really like to know a bit more.”

“Uh, he– he departed out in that direction,” Aankin pointed.

“I already know that, dipshit. Anything else that he said about where he was going? We know the direction, but not the destination.”

“An empire! He said they were going to a neighboring empire. Didn’t say which.”

“That’s good,” the Devil mused. It was useful, if Aankin was telling the truth. He’d have to consult his maps and try to figure out where Arlan Nota was heading. Maybe they could set up an ambush or blockade. “Still, though. I really do not like how much you don’t know here.”

“Please, please. I’ll do anything.”

“Tell you what. Is there anyone who might know more about all this?” the Devil asked. “Point me in their direction, and I’ll leave you here.”

“The Queene. She’s in the palace, in the center of the village. She spoke with them more, so you can talk with her.” Aankin had a strange look in his eye when he said that, like he knew something the Devil didn’t. The Devil didn’t care, though. Probably just thankfulness for what he assumed was mercy on the Devil’s part.

“Hm,” the Queene mused through his wails. “Looks like I win. You put up a good fight, though. Most people just die instantly. Not that you’d actually die, of course. You’ve got a body down in the Underworld too, right?”

He didn’t respond. He could barely decipher language, at this point.

“Hm, you’re less talkative now, I notice. It’s much nicer. Unfortunately, I do want to finish this conversation with you, so I’ll allow you to speak once again.” She lazily waved a hand.

The Arcane Blight has been lifted. You no longer suffer from the effects of Arcane Blight.

The Devil sat on the floor, panting in exhaustion and fear. He looked up at the Queene. “What do you want from me?”

“Mm. What do I want? Interesting question. I think I’d be willing to settle for you calling off this little invasion of yours. I suspect it has something to do with this Arlan Nota person you’re so keen on knowing about?”

He got to his feet and brushed the dirt from his clothes. If she called off the curse, she was obviously open to discussion. He just had to be careful. “I am not the one in charge of whether or not we try to catch Arlan Nota, so I do not know if the Demons can call off the invasion.”

“Then put me in contact with someone who is in charge of that. I can discuss it with them.”

The Devil shuddered at what she must have meant by ‘discuss.’ “I’m afraid that may be difficult for me. I–”

“Oh, you’re afraid already? I strike fear into your heart? How flattering,” she grinned.

He grit his teeth. “It will be difficult for me to do that. I was demoted, so I cannot call meetings with my superiors – not the ones that matter – directly anymore. I’d have to wait for them to schedule a meeting with me, or I’d have to send in a request. I’d take quite a while.”

“Then do that.”

“There is no guarantee that it’ll be possible, much less one of timing–”

“Then how about I set a time limit? If I continue to see Demons destroying my forest by the end of, say, two weeks, I will personally find and kill you. And it will be much worse than what you just experienced.”

The Devil took a breath. He had no idea if she was bluffing. Could she really come to the Underworld and kill him? Would she do it, even if she could? He hated himself for coming here. Why couldn’t he have just left after killing Aankin. Or, for fuck’s sake, he could have just fought Aankin off whenever he attacked the soldiers. Would it have been so hard to do that? But no, he just had to come picking around where he didn’t belong.

This was the second time that those bastard higher-ups had screwed him. First, they demoted him. And now, they wouldn’t let him just cut his losses and pull out of the Overworld. And he knew they wouldn’t let him just leave. What would they care that the Queene was threatening his life? They’d more than proven him to be disposable.

“Threats like that may not be necessary,” the Devil said. “I can personally promise you that your forest will no longer come under harm by the Demons after this operation. And–”

“How would I ever trust your promises if you cannot back them up with strength? Your word is as useless as your body.” She gave a weighty sigh, her lungs blowing wind throughout the room. “I have said what I have to say to you, and you seem to have nothing of substance to say in return. So I believe our business is done here. I will send you away.”

“Yes, thank you,” the Devil bowed, eager to remove himself from her presence. He backed up to the double doors behind him. “I will leave immediately.”

“No, no. You will not remove yourself,” she said.

The Devil froze, confused. Hadn’t she just told him to leave?

The Queene planted a hand down on the floor in front of her, shaking the building, then placed another hand down. Then, she pushed herself up. Her head and body crashed through the ceiling above her as she got to her feet, and the entire building broke apart, her feet knocking over support beams and punching through walls.

The Devil was left stunned by her massive figure. It was very different to look at her when she was standing, compared to when prone. Her head blocked out the moon from his perspective, a silver halo forming around her head.

The Queene bent down and reached a hand toward the Devil, who yelped in surprise and scurried away from her grasp. Amused, she quickly caught him and clasped her hand around his body, lifting him off the ground. Trying to shake himself from her grasp, the Devil looked down to the ground far, far below him. He could see the tops of the trees out in a wide expanse around him – a perspective he’d only ever seen in bird’s-eye perspective illusions down in the Underworld.

“Don’t worry,” she brought him closer to her face. “I will simply put you back with your Human friends. No harm done. Or, well, the only harm done will be to your body.”

“What do you mean by–”

The Devil was cut off by a sudden whipping of him through the air. The Queene pulled her hand back – him along with it – and he realized what was about to happen. He braced himself for an impact. The Queene reared back fully and said, “Bye, Xhag’duul. Don’t come back.”

She threw him.

The Devil soared through the air at breakneck speeds as he quickly left the form of the Queene behind him, zipping toward a far off spot in the trees. He screamed as the wind’s speed felt like it threatened to tear off his skin. The trees and ground got closer and closer and closer until–

CRASH.

The Devil was in a crater. His body felt broken and folded against itself in the hole he’d bored through the dirt. The trees around him had shaken from the impact.

“Fuck,” the Devil groaned.

“Uh...” another voice said.

He looked up, blinking wearily, and saw that he had been thrown directly into the bomb squad he’d come from. The soldiers stared down at him.

He shakily got to his feet, trying not to wince in pain as he did. “I got rid of the Aankin problem. Now c’mon and finish planting these bombs. We’re under a new time limit, and we are going to fucking kill Arlan Nota.”