There's a Demon on Earth?
"There's a demon on Earth?"
At Baal's words, Do-ha furrowed his brow.
Demons had already left the Demon Realm?
If even a noble-class demon starts rampaging, we're in serious trouble.
No matter how weak a noble-class demon might be, they were not beings humans could easily handle. Even the weakest among them—the Baronet-class demons—were practically kings in the human world.
In fact, a Baronet-class demon had once been summoned into Moorim, and five disciples of the Huashan Sect plus one elder had died fighting it. The elder had been at the extreme Super-Peak realm, right on the verge of Hwa-gyeong.
SS-Rank or higher Hunters could stop them, but...
The problem was how many casualties would pile up before they arrived. The one silver lining was that the demon was still quiet for now.
If that bastard started moving, people would die in droves—and I haven't seen any news like that yet.
Do-ha looked at Baal.
"Which noble-class demon left the Demon Realm?"
"Kimeries."
"Kimeries?"
Do-ha tilted his head at the name. He was sure he'd heard it before, but he couldn't place who it was.
"Baron, sixty-sixth in the noble rankings. No wonder you don't remember him."
Baal kindly filled him in. It was only natural that Baek Do-ha wouldn't remember. Back when he was the Absolute Being, Do-ha had only ever dealt with the top ten nobles and the Demon Kings. The rest never dared challenge him.
"A Baron, huh..."
A headache. As he'd said earlier, even a Baronet-class demon emerging into the world was a problem—and now it was a full Baron. He needed to deal with the bastard before it did anything.
"Where is he?"
"If I tell you, what can you do for me?"
"?"
Do-ha tilted his head at Baal's words. Has this guy lost it...? What the hell was he supposed to do for him?
"I think you're misunderstanding something... Does this look like a negotiation to you?"
Do-ha pressed Un-jeop-bi-jang against him.
"You forgot the condition for me not destroying the egg you're protecting?"
"And didn't I already tell you?"
"What?"
"Didn't I say earlier that I would tell you the name?"
"..."
"So I told you the name. But telling you the location is another matter entirely."
"True to form for a demon—playing word games?"
Do-ha let out a hollow laugh as he looked at Baal. This was exactly why deals with demons were dangerous. They used clever wordplay and loopholes to toy with humans. And from there, they led them to ruin.
"You must have forgotten who I am. Seeing you play word games in front of me."
"Heh heh, how could I forget? The great Absolute Being. The one even the Demon God trembled before in fear. But you've grown weak now."
"And you're the one who's bound."
Do-ha pressed Un-jeop-bi-jang in a little deeper.
"Heh heh heh heh."
"Has this bastard gone mad...?"
Canteas, standing nearby, tilted his head in confusion. The guy who'd been screaming in terror earlier was suddenly laughing? Had he lost his mind?
"Hey, stop provoking the Emperor for no reason and just spit it out. You really want that egg you're protecting smashed?"
In the end, Canteas scolded Baal.
"An egg... What egg are you talking about?"
"What?"
"Did I ever have something like an egg?"
"You... Don't tell me..."
Canteas panicked at his words. Had he somehow sent away the egg he'd been hiding under his heart?! That was why he was acting like this!
"Hahahaha! Didn't I tell you?! Baek Do-ha has grown weak!"
When Baek Do-ha had pulled the sword from his body, Baal had secretly sent the egg away through the hellfire healing his wounds. If it had been the old Baek Do-ha, he would have noticed—but he was weakened now. Canteas was weakened as well. So both of them had noticed nothing and simply stood there.
"Do... Do-ha! What do we do?!"
Canteas looked at Do-ha with a panicked expression. Why was he just standing there quietly without saying a word?!
"Heh heh, feeling empty? That's how I feel right now. You'll feel the same..."
"The same what?"
As Do-ha tilted his head and raised his hand, hellfire rippled and began gathering above his palm. Then a small egg appeared in Do-ha's hand.
"I wondered what you were pulling out right before the wound healed—so it was an egg after all?"
"You... H-how..."
Baal's pupils began to shake violently from the sheer shock. How on earth had he found the egg? Since when had he been able to control hellfire?!
"Did you think hiding it in hellfire would keep me from noticing?"
He had noticed early on that a peculiar energy was leaking from Baal's body. He just hadn't known what Baal was doing, so he'd watched quietly.
"How can a human like you control hellfire?!"
"Beats me? I just mixed in a bit of my energy and it worked."
"Nonsense!"
Baal snapped in anger. Hellfire wasn't something you could control that way. Even most demons born and raised in the Demon Realm couldn't handle hellfire. No—not only handle it, they couldn't even withstand it. More than half the Demon Kings themselves couldn't control hellfire. And yet a human claimed he could command it just by mixing in a little energy? That was absolutely impossible.
But why did the hellfire actually move?
Do-ha narrowed his eyes. What he'd said to Baal a moment ago had been the honest truth. He'd only meant to pull out the egg, but the hellfire had moved along with it.
"Canteas."
"Yeah?"
"Go home and bring a frying pan. We're making a fried egg. There's fire right here—it'll cook up nice and golden."
"You bastard! I'll kill you!"
As Baal thrashed, the chains binding him rattled.
"What was it you said earlier? 'What can you do for me?' Wasn't that it? There is something I can do for you. I'll give you a bite of the fried egg."
"Aaaargh!"
"So stop acting up and tell me where the demon is."
Do-ha pressed his finger down on the egg as he looked at Baal. This wasn't an empty threat—if he didn't get a satisfactory answer, he fully intended to crush it.
"Three."
"..."
"Two."
As Do-ha counted down, Baal ground his teeth. Telling him wasn't hard, but being threatened like this made him furious.
"One."
"China!"
"China?"
Do-ha, about to put force into his finger, relaxed and asked again.
"Yes! The one in China named Chi Wei is actually Kimeries!"
"Do-ha, isn't Chi Wei that Chinese superstar?"
"That's right."
Do-ha nodded at Canteas's question. Chi Wei—Cheonwaecheon of China, one of the Divine 200, ranked 70th. An Awakened who had rocketed to stardom years ago by single-handedly stopping a monster wave.
The monster wave was probably a setup of his own making.
A scheme cooked up by a demon to gain fame. But something felt off. A Baron-class demon should have been able to climb at least higher than 70th.
Even if he couldn't reach SSS-Rank Cheonwaecheon, he should have been able to rise a bit higher—so why settle for an ambiguous 70th?
Or was his power still insufficient? The most likely explanation was that the bastard was still weak and taking time to recover his strength.
"You're certain?"
"Yes! So give me back the egg!"
"Nah, I can't just hand it back that easily."
Do-ha set the egg on his palm instead of his finger, and something registered.
"Hey, what is this?"
When he gently cupped the entire egg in his hand, a faint pulse could be felt. Which meant something was alive inside. It wasn't something still forming like a chick—it was already complete. Just sleeping.
"Aaaargh! I'll kill you!"
"Hey, I asked what this is."
If this was something dangerous, better to destroy it right here. He didn't know what was inside, but if the usually composed Baal was throwing this much of a fit, it had to be important.
"If there's a Demon King holding its breath in here, I'll just crush it on the spot..."
"My... daughter..."
Baal ground his teeth and forced the words out as if coughing up blood. What Do-ha held in his hand was his own daughter.
"Daughter?? You had a daughter?"
"...As you know, the Demon Realm doesn't only have demons—there are also Demon Realm people."
"I know."
The Demon Realm had monsters, demons, and Demon Kings, but also other beings. In other words, Demon Realm people. Races born in the Demon Realm were called Demon Realm people. If they grew strong and became soldiers, they became demons; otherwise, they lived as ordinary Demon Realm people. The same was true of Heaven.
"Inside that egg... my daughter, who is a Demon Realm person rather than a demon, is sleeping."
"Then why is she in an egg? The life force I feel is already fully grown."
"As I said, she is sleeping. She suffered a severe injury in the past..."
"Ahh, so that's why you were hiding her under your heart and protecting her?"
"...Haa."
When Do-ha learned the whole truth, Baal let out a deep sigh. No one in the Demon Realm knew this fact. He would have felt better if the Demon Kings had found out instead. Of all people, for the Absolute Being Baek Do-ha to learn of it...
"Hey, Canteas."
"Yeah?"
Do-ha casually tossed the egg, and Canteas yelped in shock as he hurriedly caught the flying egg.
Damn that mad Emperor! He'd just heard that Baal's daughter was inside, and he was throwing it around like that! What if he hadn't caught it?! If the egg broke and the daughter died, Baal would clearly risk his life to attack them!
"Take that and turn her into a ghoul."
"...What?"
Canteas's expression went blank.
"W-what?! What are you doing right now?!"
Baal's face hardened as he looked back and forth between Do-ha and Canteas. He had told them everything honestly—why were they doing this?!
"If making her a ghoul feels like a waste, you can cut off her head and turn her into a Dullahan instead. That works too."
"W-w-wait! Why... why are you doing this?! Didn't I tell you everything honestly?!"
"Why am I doing this? We're enemies—don't you think 'why are you doing this' is the wrong question?"
"...Please."
"I'll come back later with your daughter as a Dullahan. Stay well until then."
Do-ha smiled as he patted the bound Baal's shoulder.
"Let's go, Canteas."
Then Do-ha and Canteas shot up into the air and began rising toward the surface.
"Do-ha, are you really going to make her a Dullahan...?"
Canteas looked at Do-ha with worried eyes.
"Nah, that was just talk."
Having reached the surface, Do-ha shook his head. He wasn't actually that much of a madman—he didn't go that far.
"I just said it to scare Baal a bit. Keep it safe. When we get home, try treating Baal's daughter inside the egg."
"Treat his daughter?"
"I'm going to form a soul contract with Baal."
A soul contract. A pact made between a human and a demon, where the demon must absolutely obey whatever is written in the contract. In truth, calling it a soul contract was putting it nicely—it was simply a slave contract. The demon had to obey any command the human gave, and during the contract period, it couldn't harm the human contractor. That was why not a single demon in the Demon Realm ever entered into a soul contract.
"We'll offer to treat his daughter in exchange for a soul contract."
"Then why not just say you'll treat her and propose the soul contract right away?"
"What if the treatment turns out to be impossible? So we treat her first, then make the contract. Heh heh."
"Wow, you really are worse than a demon..."
Canteas shook his head and flew toward the entrance. And from somewhere in the meantime, an enraged scream could be heard.
"Why is Baal screaming like that?"
"Why do you think?"
When Do-ha tilted his head, Canteas let out a sigh. He had never felt sorry for a demon before, but this time he truly pitied Baal.