DXD SI : Chapter 7 : Meeting the Crimson Satan... (Patreon)

Bael Territory Outer Edges

–Magdaran Bael–

He took one look at the now vastly changed landscape around the cabin that was allotted to Sairaorg and Misla Bael and realised that the Duke had visited, and he was not happy with the accommodations afforded to his sister. Even if he couldn’t really do much about the new heir appointment, as that was a domain that belonged to the Clan Head and the Clan Head only, he could have atleast protested the treatment of his sister, but even that avenue was lost to him as his sister was now afflicted with the Sleeping Sickness.

Something that was so unknown to everything that no one would fault the Bael Clan for placing the afflicted member out of the territory, let alone the outer fringes of the Bael Territory. 

He expanded his senses and flinched back a little at the feedback he received. The moment he teleported here, he knew something was wrong. It was as if the demonic energy in the area itself was bent by someone, or bent to someone’s will. He had only felt something like this once in his life before.

Knowing that running away now would be pointless, he sighed and began walking towards the cabin that housed multiple Satan Class devils. So much so that the demonic energy signatures of Sairorg and Misla were buried underneath the feedback of the Crimson Satan.

Sirzechs Lucifer. 

The Devil.

Strongest one alive right now, responsible for all Domestic affairs of Devil kind.

As he turned around the corner that took him from the garden in front of him to the clearing where the cabin was located, he looked at the Queen who was probably there, simply to receive him.

Grayfia Lucifuge.

The Strongest Queen in the Underworld.

Currently dressed as a Maid to welcome him.

“Welcome, Magdaran-sama,” She bowed at him as he did the same, albeit not as deeply as her, the etiquette lessons still ingrained in him.

“Grayfia-sama.”

“Satan Lucifer awaits you,” She gestured for him to enter, as the door opened up on its own. Taking the first step, he blinked as he saw just Sirzechs sitting on a chair, directly facing the door, with Misla and her son nowhere in sight. Still, confused as he might be, he did not forget his manners. To not show a Satan their due respect might as well be a crime worthy of death, had it been the old times. Nowadays, the New Satans were a lot more forgiving, even going so far as to accept valid constructive criticism, a concept so foreign to old devils that it might as well be called Worshipping the Big G.

“Satan Lucifer.”

“Magdaran-kun, Sit.”

He sat in front of the Devil, because that’s what you did when the strongest devil alive corners you alone in a room and asks you to do something. Sure, he was not really worried for his life. No one, least of all Sirzechs, was that stupid, reckless or had the will to do anything to the heir of the Bael Clan, and destabilise the underworld, but just sitting in the same room as that inferno was uncomfortable.

It was as if just being in his vicinity was causing his very own Power of Destruction, mutated as it might be, to shrink in on itself. The last time he met the man, he had barely been an Ultimate Class devil, but even after becoming Satan Class, the effect was the same.

What a monster.

Then, there was silence. A power play move he was quite aware of, seeing as he had just experienced quite outside Zephyr’s office, but this was different. It was a different thing when some worm, whose life or death did not matter to you, tried to play that card. It was a totally different thing when it was played by someone who could snuff out your life with a single thought. The pressure was intense, which is why he was not proud to say that he folded first.

“I assume you heard of me becoming the heir?” he asked in what he hoped was a steady voice. Sure, Sirzechs was known to be the pacifist one, so much so that most pillar nobles made fun of him behind his back, about how it was unthinkable that they could dictate terms with a devil who could look at them and erase them from existence, but that did not mean shit when you were sitting in front of a non-smiling version of the always jolly man.

After what felt like forever but was probably only a few minutes, “Yes. Yes, I did hear about that. Congratulations.”

“I was also sad to hear about Aunt Misla and her falling ill. I mean, we all knew her constitution was frail from the start but she suddenly fell ill yesterday. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

You. This was it. The moment he decided what to do. To lie and cover Zekram Bael’s actions, all so he could have a higher position when shit hit the fan or just come clean with the truth he had no possible way of knowing, and maybe become a thorn in Zekram’s side.

The choice was much easier than he expected it to be. Even if did tell Sirzechs the truth, it was unsubstantiated, originating in the limited meta knowledge that was present in his mind. Even if reincarnation was not rare, the fact that he came from a universe where their entire lives were just an ecchi-anime or light novel would result in many things changing. 

He essentially knew the broad strokes of how their life’s mission, of keeping the Underworld in peace and the Devil race in existence, ended. 

Saved by the Boob Dragon Emperor.

God, Draig would kill himself now if he knew what his incarnation will be in the future. Also, there was something about Issei himself being compromised by the invading gods and how he might betray them in the future. He had to take care of that, once he got his Evil Pieces and was permitted to travel out of the Underworld.

Having made the decision to gain an advantageous position for himself instead of potential action that would barely annoy Zekram, instead of doing any actual damage, he replied firmly, “No. I am not aware of what happened to her. I just came here to tell her and Sairaorg that it was not my choice and I did not wish for things to happen this way.”

Sirzechs looked at him a moment longer than necessary before replying with a simple, “I see.”

He looked towards a wall, behind which were Misla and Sairorg, no doubt unaware of what they were talking about, before replying, “I assume you wanted to meet them?”

He just nodded. Sirzechs sighed at that before continuing, “I don’t think that is a good idea right now. Sai is…not in a great place, mentally. I can see that you bear no ill will towards them, which is the only reason you were even able to approach this place.”

He remained silent, despite the words that would have many devils up in arms. Denying the heir of a Pillar Clan the ability to enter a part of his own territory? Unacceptable and unthinkable, except that those people had never stood in front of Sirzechs, intimately aware of just what the monster in devil skin in front of him could really do, if pushed. 

And that was just one part of the equation. Sirzechs was not the only Super Devil in the New Satan Faction. Ajuka was, undoubtedly, the more dangerous of the two. Sure, Sirzechs can destroy, but Ajuka? He can build. He can analyse. He can run his mind faster than he could even think of. He can build stuff that could, for example, let Sirzechs destroy stuff even better or create something just as absurd.

Anything he could think of to counter him, Ajuuka had already thought of and resolved beforehand. Either one of them could be handled if the entire Underworld was against them, but with both of them together?

Even the entirety of the Underworld coming together would fall short, as the Underworld itself was their biggest weakness. Remove the link they had to the volatile, unstable, and downright suicidal race of devils, and you now have two Super Devils with very little to lose.

“I’ll see you when you come to get your Evil Pieces,” Sirzechs suddenly announced. He nodded, taking the dismissal for what it was before bowing lightly at the Crimson Satan and leaving, acknowledging Grayfida with a nod. 

Teleporting right as he turned around the garden trees, he arrived in the underground safe house he had built for himself using the trees and all but collapsed on the ground, his heart beating loudly, as he let his power, which he had suppressed for so long, relax and bubble around him.

His control over his power allowed him to make sure that nothing important was erased, except the top layer of roots in this place. The meeting itself had only served as a wake-up call. Sure, he already knew what kind of monsters lay in this place and how even those monsters could be manipulated and weakened by beings orders of magnitude weaker, but it had just been in his mind.

It was funny. Even after almost two decades in the body of a Devil, his mind still partially operated on a human clock. For a human, ten years was a long time, especially at the beginning stage of their life. Those ten years could change a person so thoroughly, they might become unrecognisable towards the end.

For devil kind, though? A decade was nothing. A blink of an eye. Devils probably spent that long brooding after some loss.

His plan to ingratiate himself with Sirzechs, from the start, to make sure the shounen protagonist Devil did not grow up to hate his elder half brother who stole his heirship from him, did not go as planned. 

Technically, he was supposed to report Sirzechs’ presence to the Clan Head, but eh, who cares about that? Zekram was probably already aware, and if not, then he should really invest in better detection mechanisms, only for Ajuka to whip out a new way to shroud the area from everything.

Man, Ajuka’s existence was such a cheat.

Reality warping using math of all things? No wonder no one has been able to figure out what the deal with that was, if it used math, of all things. 

Shaking his head, he collected himself in the basement of his garden, snorted at the irony of the basement being built by the roots of the Mother Tree and most teenagers living in their parents' basement, before teleporting out of the place.

His destination? The Pits.

He had a lot of pent up aggression to vent, and also a ton of training to do with renewed determination. The Pit was the perfect place for that.

Originally meant to house low level slaves and prisoners under the Morningstar, it had now become a place where reality itself remained broken. The many Great Battles that happened in that place, involving Angels, Fallen Angels, Dragons, and more, had resulted in the place being saturated with so much exotic energy that it had basically become a dungeon of sorts.

A dangerous dungeon that regularly spat out Demonic Beasts as strong as Ultimate Class Devils.

Popular theories as to why that happened ranged from the Dimensional Gap spilling into our world and its energy mutating the monsters to the Beasts being some kind of escaped subjects from an experiment to create strong artificial Devils.

The truth was, as usual, somewhere in the middle, not that it mattered to him. All he used the Pit for was to train, not just his CQC and Demonic Energy, but also his resistance. As it turns out, Holy Light, especially from some of the Archangels, is really tenacious, to the point that it persists in some areas of the Pit, centuries after the battles.

Some areas were so full of Holy Light that even looking at them hurt him, which made him suspect if those were the work of Big G. Nevertheless, it served as good practice for him, to see if his unique brand of PoD could erase the concept of Holy Damage from his body. Man, that would be so great.

Also, it worked as a way to measure his progress, as the areas he could not even approach without burns before, he could stand in the middle of them without feeling anything more than a minor itch. It was satisfying, but today? After being humbled by the strongest Devil alive?

Yeah, that was not going to cut it. He needed to up his training.