Chapter 715 Baalzebul

"I don't see anything," Cain sighed.

"We've been sitting here for a while. Can we change location or do something to draw the bugs' attention?" Zaleria asked.

"I will make something. But I want to do it far from this place. Otherwise, they might attack this place." Cain explained.

Zaleria stood, "I'm going to take a nap then. Call me if you found something worth fighting."

Cain looked at her and closed his eyes, "I will create a golem,"

A string of magic rushed from his body, flying outside the stone and reaching further away, hidden behind the mountains. A Humanoid stone golem rose from the ground with glowing blue eyes.

"Let's see, I can control it nicely," Cain clenched his fist, and the golem did the same.

That golem gave Cain a disposable body controlled from a distance, but he could only put so much power in it before revealing his location. After linking his vision and hearing it, he could control it like his body but with minimal latency, so his reaction times were slower.

THUD! CRUNCH! The golem stepped forward, crunching the ants filling the ground, and worms climbed his body and attempted to burrow in.

BAM! Cain lept forward, shaking everything away rushed forward. After going above the mountain, he saw a horde of hulking beetles crawling on the ground.

"I would call them monsters if I didn't know better." Cain sighed. The devils in this layer were all bug shaped.

BAM! Cain jumped down. The best thing he could do to drag Baalzebul out is rampage and agitate the bugs.

The hulking beetles were marching toward a north encampment where a new patch of sinners appeared. In other layers, sinners and devils are constantly fighting. But here they are, food. The first thing anyone feels upon entering this layer is bugs crawling into their bodies from every crevice.

CRUNCH! Something fell from the sky, crushing one of the beetles, Splattering it inside everywhere. The other froze, staring at the grey humanoid stone glaring at them with a bloodied body.

"Bo!" Cain said, disappearing right after that.

The beetles panicked, immediately sending a mental message to their nest. They spotted an intruder.

Cain watched them from afar. It is what he wanted, having them panic like this.

"Come on, make the word reach Baalzebul," He ran away, looking for another place to strike. Soon he found an ant nest. But the ants were cow-sized behemoths of a bug.

'Ants detect creatures by chemical signals. I'm a stone, so all I need is to keep myself clean.' [Clense] Cain had become nothing more than a stone to them. He then only needed [Invisibility] and [Soundless], and [Fly] so he won't be detected.

Cain approached the nest, floating just a few inches above the ground, and snuck inside. Carefully avoiding all the ants, he made it to the queen's chamber. A massive whale-sized queen ant slept there with multiple males, waiting in line to impregnate her.

Cain looked around. The room was full of eggs waiting to be transported to the hatching room.

"Hey! Hey!" Cain canceled all of his magic and called to the queen, waking her up.

The queen opened her eyes, seeing a white humanoid statue staring at her. All the worker's ants and the males stared at him.

"Bo! Bo!" CRUNCH! He stepped on one of the eggs, and the ants froze. CRUNCH! CRUNCH! He started walking around, smashing the eggs.

The worker ants rushed at him, but he disappeared, grabbing one of the queen's legs. "BO!" CRACK! He ripped it off and then disappeared.

The entire colony went berserk, searching for the intruder as if it was the last thing they could do. And Cain watched from further away as the ants rampaged. "This is bound to attract his attention."

Next, he found a massive hornet nest hanging from one of the crystals illuminating the place. He did the same, sneaking up on the queen and enraging her.

From one colony to the other, Cain kept causing troubles everywhere he walked in, hoping that Baalzebul would eventually appear. And after two days, he found a strange building in the middle of nowhere.

"What is this place?" He wandered, approaching it. It looked like an ancient tomb.

Cain approached the door and inspected the vein-covered gate. It was old and dusty. The bug devils clearly avoided the place. He pushed it open, and a swarm of tiny spiders ran out.

He looked around, sensing waves of magic running in the place. "What? Is this some kind of magic lab?" He delved deeper and deeper, only facing regular insects who wanted nothing but to escape.

Everything changed when Cain reached the inner room. "What the fuck are you doing here?" He asked, staring at the half-eaten slug on a pedestal.

The slug's eyes extended, glaring at Cain as they shook, "Leave," It growled.

"You're Baalzebul. I don't know how you ended up like this, but it makes my work easier." Cain lifted his palm, attempting to charge a divine smite.

"I don't have Cania's key. You need to look elsewhere." The slug growled, retracting his eyes as if getting back to sleep.

"There is a new ruler around? Who is it?" Cain asked, but Baalzebul didn't respond.

"Speak!"

With no answers, Cain approached him to discover him dead. But, soon his body returned to life. Forever stuck dying but never dead or alive. "This is a curse that keeps a person on his deathbed," Cain inspected the slug.

SMACK! Cain slapped the slug, "Wake up. I know you should be dying now."

Baalzebul stared at Cain with one eye, "Leave me alone. I died in peace for years, don't disturb me."

"Say, want me to break the curse?" Cain asked.

"No, you will try to enslave me," Baalzebul won't get fooled, "And I will be in agony for years if you failed, scram,"

Cain nodded, "I wasn't asking for your permission. I'm doing it anyway." Cain smiled, "I just want you to choose between serving me willingly or not."

Cain stabbed the slug's back with his hand, "You can't even fight back, so you better make a choice." Cain started the enslavement and cruse lifting process. "It's up to you to be completely obedient and treated fairly. Or resist and be beaten into submission."

Baalzebul's body flashed while his wounds healed and the curse on him slowly broke apart. "See, I'm about to be done. Did you make a choice?"

Just a moment later, the curse breaks, and Baalzebul is freed.

"Hmmm," the massive slug growled, turning to face Cain's golem.

"I can force you to do anything, but I would like it if you obeyed me on your own," Cain said.

"Even if I obeyed you. You're still forcing me to do it." Baalzebul growled.

"We're in hell, and serving me is something you want, right?"

"Why would I want to serve a mere stone..." Baalzebul inspected Cain's aura, sensing hints of divine magic.

"Wait! An avatar?" Baalzebus gasped.

"The mad god Cthulhu, you can call me Cain." Cain created a chair and sat on it.

"Why would a god seek the service of a devil? Your angels are far more obedient." Baalzebul growled.

"I like variety, so what do you say?"

Baalzebul looked around, "Very well," Bowing his head, "I swear to serve you. Mad god, Cthulhu."

Cain nodded, "For now, who took your place?"

"The hulking cockroaches. Their colony grew stronger in the last decades, and they managed to overthrow me after I fought a messenger from Nessus."

"What did the messenger want?"

"I don't know. The messenger brought an encoded order from Asmodeus and wanted me to accept without knowing the details. It looked suspicious, so we fought," Baalzebul explained.

"It wasn't from Asmodeus? You can sense his magic, right?"

"I sensed the Ice here magic in it. But the messenger said it was because he signed it as well." Baalzebul growled, "Taking me for a fool,"

"Well then, we should return to the base and discuss a plan to take down the hulking cockroaches." Cain stood, opening his palms.

"A base? Did you build one here?" Baalzebul stared at Cain, "The bugs won't let it stand."

"Don't worry. It's sturdy. And I left a few powerful people there. It is fine." CLAP! Clapping his hands, Baalzebul teleported back to the base while the golem stayed.

"Now, I need to hide this body for a while." Cain buried the golem in the ground.

Cain opened his eyes inside the base. CLAP! Baalzebul fell to the floor with a slap. His massive slug body splashed everything with mucus.

"What is this thing!" Bela cried, protecting herself with an ice shield.

"Dinner, probably," Zaleria said, thinking she never tasted slug meat.

"Look what you did!" Hati cried with her body covered in mucus.

Farryn wiped her face with her hand with a passive face and stared at the slug, "You're dead."

Cain walked out of the inspecting room, "Calm down, it's Baalzebul, the former ruler of this layer," He looked at the slug, "Can you take a humanoid shape?"