#049
"Our king."
"Our king."
"Our king has arrived."
"Our king has arrived."
Ominously chilling voices echoed from the sky, sending shivers down her spine. But no matter how hard she looked, she couldn't spot the sources of those countless voices.
She realized they were rising from underground.
Catherine shook off her dizziness and lifted her head. The cascade of blood had vanished without a trace. Her eyes fell on the massive magic circle—large enough to envelop the entire Lilith Ship—that was in the midst of being drawn.
But...
'Oh no.'
The magic circle was already complete.
"Worship our king."
⟨ CIRCLE COMPLETE ⟩
The moment the magic circle shattered, blazing flames erupted. As the dark crimson inferno plummeted toward them, Catherine thought this might be the last sight of her life.
But fortunately, that didn't happen.
"Unlike my liege, what a noisy king you are..."
Catherine unwittingly opened her tightly shut eyes. She felt a massive shadow pass overhead. A whale so enormous it was hard to take in at a glance had intercepted the flames hurtling toward the Lilith Ship.
"The Duke!"
Someone who had been crouching rose and shouted.
"Duke Chezare's demon!"
"It's Duke Chezare! Haah, we're saved!"
The deflected flames plummeted into the sea.
"Quiet down, you vermin. I can't hear my liege's voice..."
It was clearly the same Remor, but its size dwarfed the one Catherine had summoned.
'Now that's what I'd call a true Remor.' She suddenly felt her own Remor had been remarkably tolerant for not complaining much about her call.
Demian released his grip on her shoulder and shook the blood-matted hair from his head.
"Finally, Lord Chezare steps in. Now I can relax a bit."
"Not at all. This is anything but relaxing."
"Huh?"
A Great Demon had been summoned, for heaven's sake—how could anyone relax?
"But how did they even manage the summoning? With all the passengers on the Lilith Ship still alive and kicking?"
> "We were short-sighted. The sacrifice didn't have to be human."
Catherine flinched at the sudden chill and scanned her surroundings. At some point, pitch-black smoke had snuck into her bag. It was Fontpado Madam.
"Not human?"
"Lifeforms that aren't human are plentiful around here! There must've been a massacre in these waters. So thorough that barely any survivors are left. Ahh, damn it... We got completely played. What a waste of time!"
So, they'd sacrificed sea life for the Great Demon summoning. Fontpado Madam's voice was laced with despair, almost on the verge of tears.
"Roughly ten thousand. Ten thousand lives slaughtered—more than enough for a Great Demon sacrifice! Even the Duke can't stop a Great Demon. We're done for!"
Well, the Duke was a Great Demon himself, but... She wanted to comfort the madam, who seemed to think death was imminent, but it was a secret she couldn't reveal, so Catherine quietly played dumb.
Yaong.
A cat's meow came from her feet. It was Yaong.
"You made it?"
Instead of answering, Yaong diligently groomed its blood-soaked fur. Catherine picked up the little body, wiped off the blood with her sleeve, and tucked it into her bag.
Remor's shadow began to slowly recede.
"You've irked Chezare. He's angry."
No need to ask who. It was obvious—the summoned Great Demon had brazenly used sea life as sacrifice right in front of Chezare, ruler of the oceans.
"So what happens to us?"
That was the real question. If they had no intention of using humans as sacrifices, why stir up all this chaos on the Lilith Ship?
"The purpose of the humans here is obvious."
Yaong spoke in a rare tense tone.
"They'll be the first meal for the descended Great Demon."
At that moment, her vision flickered, and Catherine lost consciousness.
Splash, splash.
How long had it been? Catherine suddenly realized she'd been walking for what felt like an eternity. The moment she acknowledged it, her surroundings came into focus.
This wasn't the Lilith Ship. She was walking across the surface of an impossibly deep, pitch-black sea.
A blood-red sun blazed fiercely against a hazy turquoise sky. Jagged rocks protruded here and there, covered in golden moss.
Where the hell is this?
"Long time no see, Leviathan."
The voice was so faint she had to strain to hear it. But the name it invoked tensed her body.
Leviathan, king of the great ocean, one of the seven Great Demons ruling the underworld. To hear Chezare's true name in this bizarre place...
Catherine realized this was no ordinary spot and stiffened her shoulders.
"What's the reason for dragging me here like this?"
The voice was chillingly cold—unmistakably Chezare's. Catherine carefully crept forward without a sound and hid behind a rock.
"Is there any reason we couldn't meet like this?"
"Quit screwing around and attack properly if you're gonna. I'll shove you back underground myself."
"I came to ask you not to do that, you know."
"Forgot how you crawled up here needling my patience when you should be grateful just to surface? Act arrogant, and pay the price."
Is that really Chezare? It felt off. The Chezare she knew didn't speak like that. Despite his prickliness, he used refined language befitting his honor and station...
"Stop being mad already. I went with sea creatures instead of humans so you wouldn't get annoyed about the hassle."
"If you'd meant to, you'd have targeted land creatures."
"Human interests are all tangled up. I didn't mean to slight you, Leviathan. You get that, right?"
Fair enough. Here, he wasn't Chezare—he was Leviathan. This might be closer to his true nature.
"Fine. Just tell me why you called me to the Abyss."
Abyss! Catherine belatedly grasped the nature of this eerie space. Each Great Demon had a passage connecting the mortal land of Eden to the demonic inferno—called the Abyss or a demon summoning circle. This hidden space was it.
'But why am I here?'
She glanced around just in case, but she was the only human. Of course. The Abyss was theoretically inaccessible to humans.
'Aftereffect of my contract with Chezare, maybe.'
"The human who summoned me wants us to clash."
"You even know what I'm up to?"
"Of course. Heard you've settled down lately, playing human. Making yourself a human king, right?"
"Something like that."
"Playing human" struck Catherine as oddly dissonant. And Chezare agreeing with it?
The entity conversing with Chezare spoke in a somewhat melancholic tone.
"I had my reasons for answering this summoning. I never wanted to come back to Eden, but for my goals, I did. I hope we don't have to fight."
"Was it Seifran Crown Prince who summoned you?"
Seifran Crown Prince—Magi's boss and Chezare's stalker?
"More precisely, Seifran Crown Prince and Marcus III."
The answer shocked even Catherine, who knew zilch about politics. Pope Marcus III, son of God and transcendent being—one of the few who could match Emperor Shagweed II in power. The Papal Court summoning a Great Demon?!
Her heart raced at the bombshell info.
'No. I didn't hear a thing. I'm deaf, I'm deaf...'
The interlocutor continued.
"Some things never change. They've always harbored a massive serpent within. They'll pretend to play along, but it's all pretense."
"Still hunting for Lilith?"
At first, she thought Chezare meant the Lilith Ship. But the follow-up changed her mind.
"You're still young, so it's understandable you can't accept Lilith's death. Her lifespan already ended..."
"Enough, Leviathan. Please, just stop there."
Great Demon Lilith. Chezare meant the demon, not the ship.
'Dangerous names keep popping up today.' Just months ago, her biggest worry was finding a place to live. She never imagined stumbling into the eye of the storm like this.
"That's all I wanted to say."
Catherine relaxed and leaned slowly against the golden-moss-covered rock. Great Demons didn't speak in utterly incomprehensible ways. It felt like eavesdropping on an ordinary human conversation—sometimes emotional, sometimes rational.
"Don't forget our words carry weight. If you went to the trouble of stealing my time to convey this, you must honor that promise."
"Of course."
The sea beneath her feet began to ripple. Heading back to reality? Catherine gazed calmly at the churning waters.
"I hope you find the answers you seek in Eden, Behemoth."
Behemoth. One of the seven Great Demons ruling the underworld, lord of bronze.
Yeah, not many could converse as equals with Chezare in the Abyss. She'd sensed something ominous, but never dreamed his opponent was Great Demon Behemoth.
'Are Great Demons just that commonplace...?'
She shook her dizzy head and stood. Not just her—passengers on the deck were stirring one by one.
The sky-spanning magic circle, the meteor-like flames, the protective Remor—all had vanished cleanly.
"You're all safe now, everyone!"
Amid the murmurs, someone bellowed loudly. Eyes turned to a middle-aged man in priestly robes, who raised both hands overhead with a beaming smile.
"The Papal Court has slain all the demons threatening the Lilith Ship! You can rest easy!"
Slain? They were the ones who'd caused this mess in the first place—the acting was top-notch.
'Or maybe not? Doesn't seem like deception.' Perhaps only a select few in the Papal Court knew the goal was summoning Behemoth.
"What happened?! Explain yourselves properly!"
"The Papal Court must explain!"