Chapter 279. King of Hell (2)
“The other demons didn’t feel any particular sense of crisis even when the human souls scattered throughout Hell began disappearing somewhere.”
“But I found it strange and started investigating.”
“And then I realized it wasn’t only human souls that were vanishing.”
“The spiritual energy that formed Hell itself was also leaking away somewhere.”
“At this rate, Hell would dry up and eventually collapse completely.”
“I intended to summon the demons and inform them of what was happening... but at that exact time, a massive change was occurring in the human world.”
“Dimensions twisted.”
“The world tore apart.”
“And passages leading into the human world opened wide.”
“When the demons learned about it, they cheered.”
“They said this was finally the perfect opportunity to invade the human world.”
“I accepted their request and began the invasion.”
“I didn’t want to throw my own forces into confusion, so I concealed the fact that Hell had begun collapsing.”
“That was how we escaped Hell and poured into the human world...”
“But the world spread before us wasn’t the Fantasy Realm that had originally been directly connected to Hell.”
“It was a completely different world.”
“The Material Realm.”
“The dimensional distortion had occurred because the Material Realm and Fantasy Realm were overlapping.”
“Even so, the demons didn’t care.”
“They simply invaded the Material Realm.”
“But I had doubts.”
“Hell collapsing.”
“The Material Realm and Fantasy Realm overlapping.”
“Changes on this scale had never happened before.”
“So I began investigating privately.”
“And eventually...”
“I discovered that a vast existence we had never known about was behind all of it.”
“After I realized that truth...”
“unknown beings began watching me.”
“They warned me several times.”
“But I ignored them.”
“This Lucifer is not an existence that bows to such things.”
“When I continued ignoring their warnings...”
“they acted.”
“By interfering with the humans’ incomplete magical ritual...”
“they eliminated me.”
Lucifer was also eliminated by Taigong Wang?!
I was stunned by Lucifer’s story.
It hadn’t only been Count Monte Cristo and his companions.
Lucifer himself had investigated Taigong Wang...
and suffered the consequences.
“Then there is one thing we can infer.”
Lucifer spoke with dignity.
“My soul was shattered into countless fragments.”
“Then why did those fragments end up inside you, Nameless King?”
“There’s only one answer.”
I frowned.
“Taigong Wang gathered the fragments of your soul and put them inside me.”
“Exactly.”
Lucifer nodded.
“Ha Mina pointed it out before.”
“You were never someone who should have qualified to become a Constellation.”
“Yeah... that’s right.”
“When Taigong Wang turned you into a Constellation, he used my soul as a ‘component.’”
“He used it to disguise you as someone qualified to become a Constellation.”
So that really was it.
I had suspected it for a long time.
But now that Lucifer had confirmed it...
I could finally be certain.
The reason I became an S-rank Constellation...
was Taigong Wang’s conspiracy.
“But this is where the important part begins, Nameless King.”
Lucifer’s voice became serious.
“Why did Taigong Wang turn you into an S-rank Constellation?”
“I don’t know.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know what his goal was.”
“And I don’t know why he chose me out of all the people in the world.”
“Hmm...”
“I had no connection to you or Taigong Wang.”
“Why would he specifically choose me?”
“Nameless King.”
“That might not be true.”
“What?”
I looked at Lucifer in surprise.
“What do you mean?”
“You clearly had some kind of connection, Nameless King.”
Lucifer spoke calmly.
“While investigating Taigong Wang, I occasionally infiltrated human society.”
“That was when I met Ha Mina.”
So that was how Lucifer, who had commanded the demons of Pandemonium, had met Ha Mina.
“I also approached a Contractor organization and turned them into my agents.”
“A Contractor organization?”
“You should remember them, Nameless King.”
“Wait... don’t tell me.”
“Yes.”
“The organization that fled from Europe to Asia...”
“and tried to overturn the world using a magical ritual based on the Bible.”
"...!"
Back when I was still beside Cheon Sangwoon...
that organization had infiltrated Korea and become a target for extermination by the Eight Guardians.
Cheon Sangwoon later inherited their legacy and tried to summon the ‘Beast’ to seize control of the metropolitan region.
So it connects all the way back to this...!
They had used biblical prophecies to devise an occult conspiracy.
If Lucifer had influenced them...
it suddenly made much more sense.
“Nameless King.”
“You weren’t completely unconnected to me.”
“But that connection was extremely weak...”
I had never met Lucifer personally.
I had only come into contact with an organization influenced by him.
And I hadn’t even been the one who destroyed that organization.
Cheon Sangwoon had.
“Nameless King.”
“Didn’t you understand what that organization was planning almost immediately?”
“That... yeah.”
“I had to explain it to Cheon Sangwoon.”
“Perhaps that was the reason.”
“What?”
“We can form a hypothesis.”
“Even after my death, Taigong Wang or his agents continued monitoring the organization I had left behind.”
“And in the final land that organization reached...”
“they found someone with an exceptionally sharp mind, someone who understood a highly complex occult magical ritual at a glance.”
"...!"
“Let’s take the speculation a little farther.”
Lucifer continued.
“Perhaps Taigong Wang had already been searching the Material Realm for useful humans for some purpose.”
“Not people great enough to naturally become Constellations...”
“but individuals with exceptional intelligence.”
“Perhaps he had compiled a list of candidates.”
“And then he chose one of them and turned that person into a Constellation?”
“Your death may simply have occurred at the right time.”
“Or perhaps you were the most suitable of all the candidates.”
Hearing that...
I remembered the intense desire I had felt just before dying.
At the time...
I had despaired over the fact that I was contracted to a D-rank Constellation.
And inside my heart...
