With Lilith resting soundlessly through the air, I gently wiped the blood trickling down my nose in streams, trying to hold back the tornt of soone taking a hamr to my head.
Another soul had dissolved.
Resisting the urge to toss Lilith over, I released a dry breath of air and focused my attention over the horizon, the nacing demonic qi slowly overtaking this realm. Since the demons lost their minds, I had felt a change in the air. But the longer we traveled, the longer ti was spent, and the more I began to pick up on the abnormalities in the world, I felt the change grow stronger.
The days where light would hit the earth had begun to trickle away, leaving longer nights and colder winters, almost like the sun was dying. While I didn't have much to complain about in that regard, as the sun could go fuck itself, life around had begun to take on different properties.
The grass was no longer carrying a green glow but rather a black. And with the odd contrast of green, everything around seed to be losing itself to the nature of Hell.
"Arsene, we are here." Lilith softly inford, opening her eyes with a wary glow to them.
Looking around for a mountain, she had stated Yor'fenli was on. I couldn't help but frown, noting that nothing was there.
"Where is the—" I paused, feeling the tainted grass beneath my feet, alongside an entirely new world below my feet. "Underground? But why? And what the Hell is that building?"
Loki touched his chin and darted his eyes towards Lili, "Why don't we ask your wife?"
"The other Fallens are also making cathedrals, but nine years ago, Yor'fenli was just upon this mountain." She said with glowing eyes, shimring a brilliance beyond the dawn, "I'm trying to look back through the laws of ti to see what is going on, but it seems he's disrupted the nodes."
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"Well, after the Shadow and King were inford about Lord Lucifer and all the other Fallen Angels, I was tasked to track them down in a suicidal attempt to find out where they are and what they are doing."
Releasing Lilith from my arms, I groaned, " You didn't think that was valuable information?"
"Tell your wife that. But haven't you all noticed so think odd?"
My expression went solemn, as did Lilith. She spoke, " There were no abyssal monsters anywhere, even on our way to the capital. We barely encountered any."
"Are they dead?" I inquired.
"No, they're fleeing," Lilith responded darkly. Opening her palm, a projection of the Nine provinces appeared before , with all nine showing red dots. She continued, " While there are seven fallen of notable power, we have so like Belphegor running their operations in tandem with phisto. But I just can't figure out why phisto wants us to kill Belphegor."
"He doesn't, not really." I answered, scrunching my brow, " Sure, he wants Yor'fenli dead, but he also wanted his cathedral built. Look around you. Do you see any Abyssal Fiends? Where exactly were they forced to migrate?"
"Ilyia" Said Lilith and Loki.
"Bingo!" I coldly said, " Do you think it's a coincidence that Zantar and Balor are doing the sa thing with that ridiculous capital?"
"Arsene? What did you—"
"It's a sacrifice." I said while I didn't have proof, did I not do sothing similar during my days in pendragon? Did I not sacrifice a major city just to kill my enemies? Balor was doing the sa; that has to be the case.
Lilith held in her sights, and I could see she had no disagreents. Not on the surface anyway, but there was so inner turmoil.
"Not a bad plan, but there's no evidence, but it's not like we cultivators act on evidence anyway. Kill first, ask questions later, am I right?" Loki uttered, sliding his gaze to the silent Tian Wang and his wife. "So, what are we going to do now? A Cathedral is like a ho for these—"
"Greetings, Mr. and Mrs. Snow," A calm, high-pitched voice said as the earth beneath our feet trembled.
Leaping away just in case, a large stairwell leading downwards ford with the Laws of Earth, as a boy no more than three walked up the stairs with a loving smile.
"A boy?" Said Tian Wang.
"Do not speak," I snapped, walking up to the young child.
But the closer I ca, the more I began to pierce through what seed like an illusion. My heart seized as the world around began to beco clear, and before , I saw a boy with a single eye hanging out of its socket, rotten skin bubbling with a pestilence that made my skin crawl, and a jaw that seed to have been pealed away.
Watching roaches and various maggots within the socket squealing, my footsteps ca to a halt.
"What are you?" I muttered.
"Undead," He said as a serpent slithered its way out the boy's eye, coiling around his neck, hissing at .
The entire sight of the boy sickened —all that good at wasted. It wasn't even fresh enough to dry age.
"Pontiff Yor'fenli would like a word." The small child said.
Lilith stepped to my side, studying the child with a long look, ' how'd you die?"
The boy lifted the rags on his decaying body, revealing a gaping hole filled with scratch marks along the edges of his stomach.
"I had the honor of being Pontiffs Yor'fenli's dinner," he said with a smile of pride. "The pain was so spectacular I begged for a second chance. Once my soul has t the requirents, my lord demands. I shall present myself so that I will forever be within him."
Damn.
Getting a whiff of sothing sour that wasn't coming from the boy, I glanced at Tian Wang's wife, who I needed to ask the na of, that had vomited as she looked at the boy. I shook my head, shifting my attention back to this thing.
"Follow ," The child said.
Lilith snatched my hand, and her voice visited my soul, " be careful. You know what it ans to be Pontiff to Belphegor, right?"
"We'll be fighting Belphegor most likely."
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