CH 70

It was fortunate. 

He had just sent Baal to work and sent him to another place. Dietrich turned around and glanced at the tree where Anissa was hiding, then hurried his steps. 

“Baal.”

Out of the forest, he summoned the demon again. 

“When do you think the gate will open?”

“Did you call me to ask that?”

The demon who was suddenly summoned had his arms full of documents, grumbled with his non-existent mouth split open. 

“Judging by the state of Derek, who has lost his soul, it will be half a month before the shadows will eat him completely.” 

The moment Derek would be dominated by his demon, Agares, the great demon of Lagrange would open the door to determine the successor who would become the new Grand Duke. 

“Are you sure?’

“Yes. It’s the history of Lagrange.”

And it was also the future of Dietrich. Baal looked at Dietrich’s shadow, which looked appetizing, and smacked his lips. 

“Before that, you have to admit that Miss Anissa is your most precious person.”

Baal smiled with his non-existent mouth. 

“What’s wrong with you all of a sudden? Are you purposely ignoring the princess?”

Dietrich did not answer the arrogant demon’s question. Baal shrugged his shoulders and watched him, who ignored him, moving away. 

“You know that if you have no sacrifice, you will never be able to come out again even if you enter the gate.” 

Was he doing it on purpose?

Baal stopped in his place and became suspicious. It didn't take long for his doubts to be confirmed. 

“Your majesty!” 

The demon, who barely realized that Anissa had disappeared from Dahlia, presented himself promptly to Dietrich. 

“The princess ran away?!”

“...............”

“Was this the reason why you’ve been making me work for the last fifteen days?! Because you didn’t want me to notice!”

Baal screamed in shock. With no intention of understanding Dietrich nor did he intend to be tolerant. His chin shrank at the thought that the king was about to betray him. 

“In the end, you’re not going to sacrifice the princess.”

“You’re noisy.”

“Of course, it goes without saying that you are not keeping your contract with me.”

“I never said I wouldn’t keep it.”

“I believed that you would rule the North and so I gave you my strength.” 

Baal continued to speak while breathing hard. 

“I am the king of demons and you are the king I chose who will stand upon the shadows. Did you think that I would make a dog who lost a fight, no, a dog who gave up without a fight, a king and serve him?”

“How arrogant.”

Dietrich looked at the elongated demon with an indifferent face and stepped forward. 

His sword engulfed in black ether vibrated. Baal raised the corners of his mouth as if it was funny. 

“Even that power is given to you as my kin --hic.”

Baal was the source of Dietrich’s power, and the demon was not lending his powers to him right now. 

Then, what was that power?

“Your kin?”

Baal’s face turned white as he looked down at his chest pierced with magic that cut even the demon’s body. 

It wasn’t enough for the demon to disappear, but it was a little dangerous. 

“Watch your mouth.”

“Aak!”

“I am not like your kin. Don’t think that because Derek and his predecessors were descendants of shadow demons, I am also the same.” 

Dietrich, who swung his sword at Baal, calmly sheathed his sword as if nothing had happened. 

“I am your king, Baal.”

“That -- ah, yes. I know. I said I know.”

The demon sighed, breaking in cold sweats that didn't even come out. 

He was upset at Dietrich’s attack but he was the one who provoked his master first. After he sighed lightly, he swallowed his breath. 

Who else could threaten a demon? It was something that no one could have done in the North with its hundred years of history. 

‘As expected, this person has to become the Grand Duke.’

Baal shivered at the thought that his choice was right. There was no one, throughout history or reality, who was fit to become the ruler of the North more than him. 

In the end, the demon clenched his teeth and turned around. He intended to look for Anissa. 

“Baal.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Is it my soul you want?”

At that very moment, Dietrich took the prey that the demon so desperately wanted, which he didn’t want to covet but had no choice but to desire, and began to shake it before his eyes. 

“What are you talking about?”

The voice of the disconcerted demon trembled. He didn’t miss the change in the demon and continued speaking. 

“If I’m going to be swallowed by Asmodeus anyway, I’ll give it to you.”

“Ha.”

At Dietrich’s calm words, Baal was dumbfounded. A half-wit who spoke such foolish words -- it was to the point that he became ashamed of his self-confidence to make him a king until just now.

“Do you know what you’re talking about right now? Don’t you know what it means to give your soul to the demon?”

“I know. That’s why you don’t have to feel guilty.” 

“What do you mean guilt! I am a demon!”

Baal’s temperature rose and his voice went higher, but strangely, his heart pounded and winced. 

Maybe it was because he had been reading books on morals and fables while he was looking after a small human child. 

“Does the princess mean that much to you, Your Majesty?” 

Baal frowned as if he didn’t understand him. 

“Are you saying it’s all right to die for her? Even though she’s not your real sister?”

“That’s right.”

It was a calm admission -- that she was more precious than life itself. 

With just one word, Baal would be able to summon Anissa, the sacrifice of the successor gate. 

“Damn it.”

But the weak-hearted demon couldn't do it, and Dietrich knew the demon well. 

It was because he wasn’t the only one who was weak against Anissa. 

“So you should go and rest now.”

Baal spread his palms toward Baal. It was meant to cancel his summons. 

“Are you sending me away now?!”

The demon raised his eyes at the unbelievable decision of the king. This meant that he was going to give up everything, apart from sacrificing Anissa. 

He wanted to scream how he could enter the successor’s gate without a shadow demon, but Baal’s wife beside him, who didn’t know the situation, only tilted her round head. 

“Ha.” 

When Baal disappeared, the stillness finally came. Dietrich laughed openly as he looked at the empty forest of withered roses.

“It’s finally quiet.”

Anissa was nowhere to be found in Dahlia Palace, but traces of her could be found in the small thicket. He picked up a dahlia that Anissa loved and held it in his hand. 

“Are you sure you haven’t prepared a sacrifice?” 

It was Derek who greeted him when he arrived at Nature. Alphonse couldn’t be seen around, apparently because he opened the door of the test first and entered. 

“Yes.”

“There’s nothing precious to you at all?”

Derek’s eyes widened in disbelief, to the point you could clearly see the whites in them, and asked back, but Dietrich only nodded shamelessly.

“Yes.”

In fact, Dietrich’s insincere answer was a pack of joy for Derek. He hoped for the defeat of his younger son more than anyone else standing there. 

Although he had already lost Liatris’ love, he believed that she would forgive him once he made Alphonse the Grand Duke. 

“Then you can’t open the gate.”

Dietrich, who watched Derek smile revealing his teeth, slowly shook his head. 

“No, I will open it.”

Derek’s eyes widened at Dietrich’s firm declaration. Soon, Derek sneered at him outright and shrugged his shoulders. It was because a candidate who opened the gate without a sacrifice to the demon god did not exist in history. 

“What did you say?”

However, Dietrich had to open the door. He couldn’t free the Lagrange from the shadows by becoming the Grand Duke as Anissa had planned, but at least he had to get rid of Alphonse. 

‘Otherwise, it would be the same as putting her in danger.’

He was a thorough man, and once he made up his mind, there should be no loopholes left. 

“Open the gate, Asmodeus.”

When Dietrich’s low voice rang in Nature, a black vortex began to form in the air.

“Don’t you know you can’t escape the gate without a sacrifice?” 

“If I stopped here, will my future change?”

Derek didn’t answer his dry question. However, Dietrich knew that Alphonse, who had become the Grand Duke, would never leave him, Anissa, and Baal alone. 

As the black vortex grew bigger, Derek’s face began to get closer to the color of the soil. 

‘Is the worthless medium going to disappear?’

Now that the gate for the new Grand Duke was approaching, it was Derek’s turn to be abandoned by the shadows.

Dietrich stared at his father, half-swallowed by the shadows, and then turned his head. 

“You were not a pleasant person to call as Father.” 

Those that he considered as family, drunk on power and authority, were not fools who knew how to properly cherish the ones they loved. 

So Derek was Dietrich’s father, but they couldn’t be family. 

“Dietrich!” 

He was about to step forward on the last gateway, recalling the young face of his only family. 

A voice that should never be here, a voice he longed for but didn’t want to be here, resounded through the hall. 

“Dietrich!!!”

Dietrich’s eyes met with Anissa’s, who was running madly toward him. She burst into a fit of anger looking at his startled eyes. 

“Just try and go in there!”

“.........”

“Oh?! If you go in, you’re dead! Do you get it?! You’ll die from me!! You think I won’t kill you!!!”

He turned his head away from her and smiled very briefly.