Chapter 250. The Gates of Hell (1)
The Assembly Hall where the Demon God Assembly gathered had been built in imitation of the original Pandemonium that demons had constructed in Hell long ago.
Originally, the word Pandemonium referred to the great hall built by the fallen angels who had been cast into Hell and dreamed of rising again.
There, the demons who were no longer angels endlessly argued among themselves.
Come to think of it... what happened to Hell?
As Belial moved deeper into the Assembly Hall, the question suddenly occurred to him.
Ever since the demons crossed over into this world together ten years ago, none of them had ever returned to Hell.
Of course, Belial wasn’t particularly attached to Hell.
This world was far more comfortable to live in, so there was no reason to miss it.
What bothered him was the fact that no one had even thought about returning.
Hell hasn’t... disappeared, has it?
With that thought in mind, Belial entered the central chamber of the Assembly Hall.
Normally, powerful demons would be exchanging endless arguments and opinions here.
But what entered Belial’s eyes was a sight he had never seen before.
"...?!"
The powerful demons were certainly present.
No. 2 of the Seventy-Two Demons, Duke Agares.
No. 3, Prince Vassago.
No. 9, King Paimon.
No. 10, Governor Buer.
No. 13, King Beleth.
No. 20, King Purson.
No. 36, Prince Stolas.
All the regular members who always attended the Demon God Assembly were sitting in their places.
But that was all they were doing.
“How could this...”
Belial hurried toward Agares, the closest one to him.
Agares was normally an energetic demon who actively participated in every meeting and loudly voiced his opinions.
But now...
he sat with his arms crossed and his mouth firmly shut.
He didn’t move at all.
Almost as though he had become a statue.
“The others too...”
It wasn’t just Agares.
Every demon was completely still, as though time itself had stopped.
There was no breathing.
No pulse.
And yet there were no visible injuries anywhere on their bodies.
“Ah...!”
After searching for quite some time, Belial finally noticed something.
Something strange, resembling tree roots, extended from beneath the feet of Agares and the other demons.
Belial hurriedly traced where those roots led.
They continued beneath the dais of the chairman’s seat, which was currently empty.
“Underground...?”
There was a hole behind the dais.
After hesitating briefly, Belial entered it.
“There was a space like this beneath the Assembly Hall...?”
A vast underground chamber stretched out beneath him.
Belial had entered and left the Assembly Hall countless times over the years, yet he had never noticed the existence of this place.
Following the roots deeper inside, he eventually reached an area where they had gathered together into something resembling a single tree.
“What is this...?”
“So you made it this far, Belial.”
A figure emerged from the darkness.
A huge man wearing a crown.
No. 1 of Pandemonium’s Seventy-Two Demons...
and the chairman of the Demon God Assembly.
Bael.
“Bael!”
Belial immediately raised his voice.
“What is all this?”
“What exactly are you planning?”
“I heard you were collecting holy relics. Is this connected to that?”
Bael didn’t answer.
Instead, he walked past Belial and reached toward the mass of intertwined roots.
“Do you not recognize it, Belial?”
“What?”
“What this is.”
Belial approached, confused.
And then...
he realized what was hidden inside the roots.
“This is...!”
It was a corpse.
More precisely...
pieces of a corpse.
Part of a head.
A right hand.
A left thigh.
Several organs.
Fragments of a body that had been torn apart were wrapped tightly in the roots.
“Bael, you...!”
Belial screamed.
“You did this to his remains...?!”
His.
There was only one being in the entire universe whom Belial would address that way.
The remains before him belonged to Lucifer...
who had died several years ago.
“Then you really were trying to resurrect him too...!”
Belial had long suspected Moloch and the other demons of the pro-war faction.
But that had never been the whole story.
Just as Astaroth had suspected...
Bael also desired Lucifer’s resurrection.
“Belial, all this time... I have been continuously supplying life energy to this corpse.”
“What?”
“There are humans who cooperate with us demons.”
“With their help, I have been receiving a steady supply of human life energy.”
Come to think of it...
back in Korea, Ha Mina had massacred members of the Morning Star Church, extracted their life energy, and delivered it to Phenex.
Had similar acts been taking place all over the world?
“But I began reaching the limit.”
“Don’t tell me...”
“When I injected energy extracted from other demons instead, the reaction was excellent.”
"...!"
At last, Belial understood what had happened to the demons upstairs.
They were empty shells.
Their life force had been drained away.
“Come to your senses, Bael!”
Belial glared and shouted.
“He is gone!”
“That being no longer exists anywhere!”
“These are nothing but fragments of a soulless corpse!”
“No matter how much energy you force into them, he will not return!”
“Is that really true, Belial?”
“What?”
“Are you certain... Lucifer’s soul no longer remains within this corpse?”
“What are you talking about?”
Bael extended his hand before the bewildered Belial.
He pointed toward what remained of Lucifer’s badly damaged head.
“For example, this brain.”
“Much of it has been destroyed, but wouldn’t His Majesty’s memories still remain somewhere inside?”
“How could you even think of something like that...?!”
“This is not some absurd fantasy, Belial.”
“You would understand if you studied the science of this world.”
“Even if his memories remain, and even if you could restore them... that would not be his true personality!”
“I know that much, Belial.”
Bael’s clear, unwavering voice silenced him.
“You are probably the only being in the universe who obsesses over such a distinction.”
"...!"
“So what if he isn’t perfectly restored?”
“If even a part of him returns to us, shouldn’t that be something to celebrate?”
“Bael, you...!”
“Belial, I understand your loyalty toward His Majesty.”
“But I too loved and respected him every bit as much as you did.”
“Our ways of thinking are simply different.”
There was an unshakable conviction in Bael’s eyes.
It was something very close to madness.
And it told Belial that no conversation would change anything.
“Then there’s no helping it...”
Belial stepped backward.
He glared at Bael and drew up every bit of magical power within his body.
“I’ll erase both you and his corpse from this world.”
The numbers assigned to Pandemonium’s Seventy-Two Demons were not rankings of strength.
Belial’s number was sixty-eight.
But in terms of demonic power, he was by no means inferior to Bael.
He had been heavily weakened for quite some time, but recently he had recovered much of his strength.
After hearing Astaroth’s story, he had suspected that a confrontation with Bael might eventually become unavoidable.
I’ll erase everything with destructive light...!
Belial prepared to unleash his full power, even if it meant destroying the entire Assembly Hall.
But at that moment...
he realized something.
A root extending from somewhere had wrapped itself around his ankle.
"...!"
Belial made an immediate decision.
He formed a blade of magic...
and cut off his own foot.
Then he shot upward.
“What is this...?!”
Countless roots erupted from below like tentacles.
In the end, Belial was forced to smash through the ceiling of the Assembly Hall itself and escape outside.
"...!"
The moment he emerged...
Belial froze in horror.
Jerusalem...
No.
All across Dis City, the capital of Pandemonium...
roots were bursting from the ground.
They attacked countless demons and the subordinate races under their rule, including distorted fiends...
and sucked away their life force.
As though the roots themselves possessed a will.
“Don’t tell me those roots aren’t merely supplying nutrients to the corpse...”
Were those roots themselves...
part of Lucifer’s newly created body?
“Bael, have you lost your mind...?!”
Belial looked down.
Bael stood atop one of the shattered pillars of the Assembly Hall, looking up at him.
“Wasn’t what you wanted a glorious victory?”
Belial shouted down at him.
“Wasn’t it your wish to achieve such a magnificent triumph that we could laugh in the face of ‘that being’ who cast us out of Heaven?”
“But what is glorious about this?!”
“What is magnificent about any of this?!”
“What the hell happened to you, Bael?!”
Bael said nothing.
He only smiled.
Seeing that smile...
Belial felt chills crawl across his entire body.
“I will not allow this!”
Belial prepared himself to die.
The roots attacked again, but he forced his way through them with everything he had and descended underground.
If he destroyed Lucifer’s corpse...
perhaps he could stop all of this.
“Even if my life ends here...!”
Belial shouted as he drew out every last bit of his strength.
He tried to unleash destructive light upon Lucifer’s remains wrapped in roots.
But...
“Ghk!”
Roots shot in from every direction and pierced Belial’s entire body.
Amid the unbearable pain...
Belial sensed an overwhelming energy.
This sacred energy... a holy relic?!
At last, he understood why such a monster had grown from Lucifer’s corpse.
The power of a holy relic had fused with Lucifer’s demonic nature and gone out of control.
An unprecedented existence born from the union of the holy and the demonic...
that was the true nature of this monster.
Nameless...!
As his consciousness began to fade, Belial reached one hand upward.
I couldn’t stop it with my power!
But you might be able to...!
Thinking of the friend who was somewhere in this world...
Belial screamed inwardly.
With the power of a Constellation...!
Belial had already realized the truth.
Kim Nameless had never been an ordinary Contractor.
He was a Constellation who had descended into the Material Realm.
At first, Belial hadn’t noticed anything.
But after spending more and more time with him, he gradually realized that Kim Nameless was no longer human.
Even so...
Belial had pretended not to know.
He had assumed Kim Nameless would explain everything eventually.
But it seemed he would never get that chance now.
As your friend... this is my final request...!
With that last desperate cry...
Belial was dragged into Lucifer’s corpse.
An unprecedented disaster had begun in Dis City, the capital of Pandemonium...
the former Jerusalem.
But not a single Constellation noticed.
This place lay in the very heart of Pandemonium’s territory.
It was completely impossible to observe through an Observer.
And because of that...
no one realized that the creature had begun endlessly expanding through Pandemonium’s territory.
At last...
the true gates of Hell had opened in the Material Realm.
