The Egg Beneath His Heart
"Hmph. You think I'll be intimidated?"
Baal snorted at the blade resting against his chest, a sneer curling across his face.
Do-ha applied the slightest pressure. The sword sank two centimeters deeper, and blood welled up around the steel.
"Kill me, then. Frankly, I'd rather die by your hand."
He was already living a half-life — bound, unable even to die. If Do-ha would simply end him, he could escape this confinement at last.
"And where exactly do you think I'm about to drive this sword?"
"What are you—"
"Did you assume I'd pierce your heart? Come on. You know better. As long as you have Hellfire, you can heal any wound."
"How do you know that…?"
A thin smile spread across Do-ha's face as Baal's pupils trembled.
With Hellfire — not ordinary flame — Baal was effectively immortal. Lose an arm, lose a leg, even lose his head, and Hellfire would restore him. Fatal wounds could kill him only in places where Hellfire did not exist… and right now, Hellfire saturated the air around them.
"How I know isn't the important part."
"?"
"What matters is that I already know piercing your heart is useless — and I'm still doing this anyway."
"…"
Baal narrowed his eyes. The words unsettled him. If Do-ha understood that Hellfire made recovery inevitable, then threatening him with a sword should have been pointless. A pierced heart? Given time, it would simply heal.
"Doesn't the angle of this blade look a little strange? It's not going straight in. It's angled slightly downward."
"…"
"I'm not aiming for your heart."
Do-ha drove the sword in with deliberate, glacial slowness.
"I'm aiming for the little egg you hid beneath it."
"?!!!"
Baal's eyes — so composed until now — blew wide enough to nearly leave their sockets. The hidden egg. He knew about the hidden egg? How? How in the world had this man discovered it…?
"I carved up your body more times than I can count back in the Demon Realm and stumbled across it by accident. At first I thought it was just a lump. But no matter how I looked at it, it didn't seem like any ordinary growth."
The blade sank deeper.
"W-wait!"
Panic flooded Baal's face. The tiny egg beneath his heart was more precious to him than his own life.
"Heh. That precious, is it? I've never seen you this rattled."
"Aaaargh! Stop!"
"I really wanted to see you again. Want to know why? You were one of the biggest reasons I lost to the Demon God."
While the Demon Kings assembled, Baal had bought them time — and Do-ha had burned through a catastrophic amount of stamina. That exhaustion had ultimately cost him everything.
"I've thought about it over and over. If you hadn't been there, could I have killed the Demon God? Could I have avoided fighting the Demon Kings at all?"
The sword pressed harder.
"No—!!"
The blade plunged all the way in beneath Baal's desperate cry.
"But no matter how many times I turn it over, I would have lost to the Demon God even without you. Blaming the stamina I spent on you? That's just an excuse. I was simply weaker."
Do-ha's voice was low. The words weren't meant for Baal. They were meant for himself — a rebuke of the fool who had spent so long hunting for the cause of his defeat anywhere but in his own inadequacy.
"Hah… hah…"
Baal stared at the sword that had narrowly missed the egg and dragged in ragged breaths. At the final instant, when Do-ha had driven the blade deep, he had shifted his hand just enough to change the angle.
Do-ha yanked the sword free and looked down at him.
"Now talk. Why you're here — and which angel bound you."
Hellfire writhed and licked across Baal's wounds, knitting flesh back together. Do-ha shook his head.
"No matter how many times I see that, I never get used to it."
He had watched it countless times in the Demon Realm, and still the sight of living fire healing a body felt profoundly alien.
"If you don't answer properly this time, I really will destroy that egg."
"…"
Baal ground his teeth and glared. Fury burned in him — he wanted nothing more than to tear Do-ha apart — but bound as he was, there was nothing he could do.
"An angel bound me."
"I already know that, you idiot."
Do-ha rapped the chains with his sword. They thrummed with angelic power. Did Baal seriously expect him to believe these were demonic restraints?
"Which angel. For what purpose. That's what I want to hear."
"I don't know which angel. I've never even seen them."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Someone ambushed me in the Demon Realm. When I came to, I was here — bound by angelic power."
"So an angel and a Demon King joined forces. They knocked you out and handed you over."
An angel would never have crossed into the Demon Realm to attack Baal themselves. No angel was that reckless — and if word of such a thing reached the other demons, Heaven and Hell would be at war overnight.
"Or maybe an angel really did cross into the Demon Realm?"
Canteas tilted his head. Why would a Demon King ever ally with an angel?
"Cross into the Demon Realm just to capture Baal? There's no angel crazy enough to— wait. Actually, there was one lunatic."
Lucifer. You couldn't talk about deranged angels without mentioning him. But that was a different case entirely. Lucifer had fallen and been cast down into the Demon Realm; he hadn't crossed over of his own free will.
"And no angel would invade the Demon Realm just to grab Baal."
Do-ha shook his head firmly.
"I'm standing right here, you know. 'Just Baal'…"
"He's right."
Baal nodded. No angel would ever risk entering the Demon Realm for him alone. They weren't the type to go to such extremes over a noble demon who wasn't even a Demon King.
"Hmm. Who could it be? At least a Throne-class angel or higher, I'd guess."
Angels were divided into nine ranks.
First Rank: Seraphim.
Second Rank: Cherubim.
Third Rank: Thrones.
Fourth Rank: Dominions.
Fifth Rank: Virtues.
Sixth Rank: Powers.
Seventh Rank: Principalities.
Eighth Rank: Archangels.
Ninth Rank: Angels.
Metatron, the Archangel of Heaven, stood at the very top as a Seraph. Any angel willing to cooperate with a demon to capture Baal was almost certainly Throne-class or above. Lower ranks could theoretically strike such a deal, but demons regarded anything beneath a Throne as insignificant — making the odds slim.
"But did an angel really get involved? What reason would they have to join hands with demons?"
"You fool."
Baal scoffed at Canteas. The beings in Heaven were every bit as untrustworthy as demons.
"You'd be better off trusting the followers of the Sun Goddess."
"Demons still hate angels as much as ever, I see."
"When do you think angels first started working with demons? Long before Baek Do-ha ever set foot in the Demon Realm."
"…What?"
Canteas reeled. Angels had been colluding with demons since the days when Baek Do-ha was emperor? Why? How? Angels had always fought to protect Belhart. They had always been friendly toward humanity. And those same beings had joined hands with demons?
"You expect me to believe a demon? I don't particularly like angels, but I know full well how hard they worked for humanity."
"You're right. They did work for humanity. But they never worked for Baek Do-ha."
"What?"
"Every time our forces invaded, Heaven dispatched angels. But never the strong ones. And when Baek Do-ha was in real danger, no angel ever stepped in to help him directly."
"…"
"Why do you think that is? Because of Baek Do-ha himself. Even Heaven found the existence of an Absolute Being inconvenient. So they protected humanity just enough — and made sure they never helped enough to keep Baek Do-ha alive."
"Do— Do-ha, he's spouting nonsense."
"No. He's probably right."
Do-ha shrugged at Canteas. He had more or less suspected as much himself. No church had ever truly liked him. More precisely, the gods they served had never liked him.
I went after the Demon God. There was no guarantee that blade wouldn't eventually turn on them.
That was why the churches had always occupied such an ambiguous position. The gods' voices urged hostility, but Do-ha was emperor. So the churches had walked a line that was neither friendly nor openly antagonistic.
"I figured Heaven was the same."
"…"
Do-ha spoke as if it barely mattered, and Canteas clenched his jaw. He was hardly in a position to judge — he had once tried to conquer Belhart himself — but it still made him furious. Hearing that every god despised Do-ha sent irritation and rage boiling up inside him. Do-ha was his friend. And his friend had been treated like that. It simply pissed him off.
"So why hand over Baal specifically, and not some other demon?"
"To use his power, obviously. That bishop I fought used a Fire Spirit Sword, remember? The church must have forcibly extracted his strength."
"Yeah, but there are plenty of ordinary demons for that. Why give them Baal — the number-one noble?"
"Because the Demon Kings hate him."
Do-ha tapped Baal's head lightly with Un-jeop-bi-jang. As a Grand Duke, Baal had constantly clashed with the Demon Kings. Stay out of my territory. Don't give me orders just because you're a Demon King. He had been blatantly defiant, and the Demon Kings had despised him for it.
"Holding me off until the Demon Kings arrived wasn't because he liked them. He was acting for the sake of the Demon Realm."
"…How do you know all of this so well?"
"A demon told me everything."
"Tortured into confessing, I take it."
"Torture? Hardly. He's my friend."
"What?! What demon would dare call himself your—"
Crack.
Baal shuddered as a blow landed on his skull. It felt as though his head had split open — yet there wasn't a single wound.
"Which demon is none of your business. If you don't know which angel bound you, then at least tell me which Demon King ambushed you."
"…"
Baal turned his face away. It wasn't that he refused to speak. He simply didn't know. He had been taken down in an instant — never even saw who hit him before he blacked out. Anyone who could knock out the number-one noble that cleanly had to be a Demon King.
"Is there anything you actually know?"
"I don't claim to know everything."
"Did I ask for everything? You don't know a single thing."
Do-ha set the tip of his sword against Baal's heart once more. If Baal was going to keep this up, Do-ha would have no choice.
"I don't know what that egg is that you treasure as much as your life — but destroying it should be quite the show."
The blade shot toward Baal's heart, far faster than before.
"Demon! I'll give you the names of every noble-class demon on Earth!"
Do-ha's hand stopped cold at Baal's shout.