Turn the Tables
Turn the Tables
Mammon had already infiltrated the Scrap Yard, dividing his followers into two groups.
One group had insinuated themselves among the factory owners, endlessly stoking their insatiable greed.
The other had wormed their way in among the Labor Theorists, ceaselessly fanning their combative psychology and rage.
When the wrath and greed that had been driven to their breaking points finally collided and triggered a massive explosion, a prolonged civil war would erupt.
And was this place the only target?
There was a high probability that the entire empire would descend into chaos from the fighting between Labor Theorists and capitalists.
Mammon had planned to grow fat, happily devouring the souls and resentment falling from that pandemonium where the lust for power and wealth danced.
And the most crucial part of that process was that Mammon's identity would not be exposed.
Mammon only ever needed to pull the strings from behind and swallow the resentment.
Unlike Satan of Wrath or Leviathan of Envy, who would just brute-force their way into a slugfest with the Pantheon, this was a very safe and surefire method for securing gains.
So his followers had also been taking every possible precaution to ensure their identities were never revealed.
They had lived cautiously, oh so cautiously, making doubly sure not to provoke the Pantheon or the Imperial Household......
That had definitely been the case.
"What are you people? Why isn't my ability working on you?"
The moment the Saint loosened his belt and held it in his hand, delivering a single murderous remark, the followers' faces soured.
What in the world was this situation?
As if Time Stop had been cast, everything in the room was perfectly still, and in the midst of it, only they and the Saint could move, as if they were the sole beings existing in this world.
"You filthy bastards. You were deliberately inciting Karl Lenaro to spill blood, weren't you? You planned to shed blood and dedicate that resentment and those souls to the one you serve, right?"
The followers' eyes trembled uncontrollably at the Saint's anger-laced voice.
Though thrown into extreme confusion, the followers made a swift judgment.
"O Mammon!! Grant us strength!!"
In their hands, each conjured a dagger of deep crimson, formed from blood.
And just like that, they charged at the Saint.
Now that their identities were blown, they had to eliminate him.
It would draw in the Pantheon and the Imperial Household by provoking them, but since their cover was already blown, elimination was their only option.
After reinforcing their bodies with sorcery and imbuing their daggers with powerful black magic that could directly wound an opponent's soul, they rushed at the Saint. In their eyes, the Saint looked like nothing more than incredibly easy prey.
The narrow space where Time Stop had been lifted resembled a back alley, and they were experts who had cut their teeth on secretly assassinating or cursing people to death in back alleys.
Certain that this clueless-looking Saint, who seemed too good-natured to have ever been in a single fight, could never defeat them, they lunged.
But the next moment.
"Fine. Let's go, you sons of bitches."
The belt came flying in with a tearing shriek that ripped through the air.
And the followers' teeth began sailing through the air.
***
Mammon.
A Demon King whose name even I knew.
Right.
Of course there were rats in this rotten, festering gutter.
The excessively ruthless behavior that had cornered Karl Lenaro.
Now that I thought about it, it had clearly been a scheme to deliberately instigate a fight between the labor and capitalist classes and then suck up the resentment and souls of the humans caught in between.
I couldn't stand it.
Out there, people were starving to death with nothing to eat, and they were aching with no way to get treatment, and these bastards were planning to exploit that to build a resentment factory?
"You demonic bastards!!"
I swung the belt.
Slipping past the followers charging at me, I whipped the belt.
With a satisfying crack! one follower sprayed his teeth into the air and was sent flying backward, slamming to the floor.
However, because the space where Time Stop had been lifted was so confined, while I was subduing one of them,
the other two managed to rush me and successfully stab their daggers into my stomach.
Blossoms of laughter spread across their faces.
"We stabbed!!.......Aack!!"
But both of them immediately screamed in agony, dropping their daggers and staggering back.
Blood was dripping from their hands.
How did I do it?
Simple.
I cast Time Stop on the space in front of my abdomen.
The daggers could not penetrate the time-stopped space and were blocked. As a result, the ones who ended up injured were the followers themselves, by their own daggers.
Thank you, Chief of the Capital Magic Tower.
The psychic amplifier's performance was incredible.
My control was on an entirely different level of precision compared to before.
"Wh-who the hell are you!! Who are you to be able to wield such an authority like this!!"
"Can't you tell by looking? The Saint, you fuckers."
"That's impossible!! Among the Pantheon's gods, there is none who can stop time!! Wh-what are you! What's your true identity!!"
"That's not important. What matters is that I'm going to beat you bastards half to death today!!"
With another shriek, the belt flew through the air once more.
The two followers who had lost their daggers were no match for me now.
After I mindlessly boosted my muscle strength and reflexes with Body Modification, followers or whatever else couldn't touch me.
After a few more satisfyingly sharp sounds of skin bursting, the three followers collapsed to the floor, their faces swollen like pounded rice cakes.
I deliberately didn't kill them.
I had to interrogate them.
What exactly had their plan been?
Why had these demon-worshipping bastards been posing as Labor Theorists?
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and then approached the three of them.
While preparing to cast Sensitivity 3000x.
"From now on, it's going to hurt like hell. It'll hurt like hell, but you won't die. I don't want to get any more blood on my clothes, so let's just finish this quickly. Tell me honestly. What on earth were you trying to do in this city......"
I stopped walking.
Because all three followers had begun to tremble as if struck by convulsions.
Yet their expressions were utterly ecstatic, as if they were experiencing an orgasm.
"Ah!! Aaaah!! He manifests!!"
"Oh, Ma-Mammon!! I offer it!! I offer you my flesh!!"
The beaten men screamed, and soon something black began to settle onto their bodies.
The three bodies melted down and then, in the blink of an eye, started clumping together like clay into a single mass.
I had no idea what was what, but one thing was clear.
This was not good.
My instincts were screaming at me to run.
I hurriedly tried to cast Time Stop again.
"Ugh!! Urrgh!!"
But I was a step too late.
Before I could do anything, my neck was already seized, and I was being slowly lifted into the air.
[Skill Unavailable!!]
[Skill Unavailable!!]
Time Stop.
Body Modification.
Absolute Hypnosis.
Sensitivity 3000x.
Not a single one obeyed my command.
As I was floundering helplessly in midair like that,
[When the worm of the Abyss told the tale, I took it for a lie.]
A grotesque shape with dozens of eyeballs cluster-clustered all over its face.
A familiar voice of divinity that seemed to make my soul reverberate.
The lump of flesh, formed from the amalgamation of three people's bodies, had now taken a fully humanoid form and began to cackle as it looked up at me.
[Time Stop, of all things. There is no being in the Pantheon capable of this. It was so absurd and ridiculous I could hardly believe it...... but to think it was true.]
The dozens of eyeballs all locked onto me at once.
Even without an introduction, I could figure out without much difficulty who it was that stood before me.
[Asmodeus of Lust, playing the role of a Saint. All of Pandemonium will be beside themselves.]
Mammon.
The Demon King of Greed had manifested right in front of me.
***
The authority to stop all time—in the Human Realm, of course, but also in the Celestial Realm, Hell, and the Abyss—and move about alone.
As far as Mammon knew, Time Stop was an authority that was practically synonymous with Lust.
How many times had he gotten sucker-punched and fled from that very authority?
Just thinking of a few memories that surfaced was enough to make Mammon's blood boil.
But the fortunate thing was that the bastard who had cast Time Stop now was utterly incapable of properly utilizing that fraudulent, arguably absolute authority.
Dispelling Time Stop right in front of his own followers.
It was like he was advertising that Asmodeus's authority was present here.
Hadn't he just made it ridiculously easy to pinpoint his location and manifest?
When compared to what Asmodeus had wielded in his prime, it was truly a miserable, disastrous level of utilization skill.
Mammon looked at the Saint.
A shabby figure, unable to eat or wash properly from tending to the sick.
Greasy, matted hair.
A musty smell.
What kind of ridiculous dog-and-pony show was this?
Mammon let out a hollow laugh.
But while it was funny and surprising, it wasn't shocking.
Because Lust had always been that kind of bastard.
A desire that could be more vile, filthy, and revolting than anything else, yet simultaneously the root of the most brilliant act of all: the birth of life.
That was lust.
A desire that could become either a demon or a god.
Because of that, Lust was a bastard who could perfectly disguise himself better than anyone and come and go through the Pantheon and the Abyss as if they were his own home.
In the end, his tail got stepped on so much that he became the only being in Pandemonium to be annihilated during the Heavenly War, but still.
[Asmodeus. Our relationship wasn't on good terms, but nor was it the worst, as I recall. You weren't hoping to get away with throwing shit on someone else's game board unscathed, were you?]
Mammon spoke mockingly, still clutching the Saint by the throat.
[The saying 'a blessing in disguise' seems tailor-made for this situation.]
The evil god bastard had been right.
He hadn't believed it, thinking there was no way Asmodeus of Lust was really playing at being a Saint. But now that it was proven true,
Mammon had not a single reason not to devour the Saint before him.
Time was stopped, so the Pantheon bastards wouldn't be able to stop him.
Of course, once the Saint died, the Imperial Household and the Pantheon would send troops, and the plan he had painstakingly prepared for so many years would be blown away, but that didn't matter.
If he could only succeed in absorbing another Demon King's authority, even if a game board decades in the making was destroyed, it would never be a loss.
No.
It would actually be an immense gain.
The hand that wasn't gripping the Saint slowly began to change.
It sharpened into a point like an awl.
Mammon carefully brought that awl toward the Saint's heart.
[What a foolish thing you've done. Think about it. When all the time in the world is stopped, if only some of my followers can move, my attention is inevitably going to be drawn entirely there, isn't it? It's a move the Asmodeus of old would never have made.]
Mammon erupted into laughter.
[After I absorb your authority, I will use that power to make the human world suffer in agony for a very, very long time. And every single soul and drop of resentment that falls in the midst of it will be devoured entirely by me. I shall allow you to watch from within me as I become the most powerful entity in all of Pandemonium.]
"No......... Please........."
The Saint shed tears and struggled.
But it was already too late.
[The Pantheon. The evil gods. Even the other Demon Kings. Time is stopped for all of them, so no one can interfere with my devouring of you. Allow me to express my gratitude for creating such a perfectly convenient situation for me to consume you.]
Mammon's awl burrowed into the Saint's body.
The heart burst, and a gush of blood erupted from the Saint's mouth.
The Saint's body, which had trembled briefly, soon ceased all motion.
He was dead.
Now the soul would separate from the flesh and emerge.
Then, it was simply a matter of swallowing the authority of Lust contained within that soul whole and devouring it completely.
[Heuheuheuheu!! Ahahahaha!! To think things would turn out this way! What incredible luck!!]
Mammon drooled greedily as he began extracting the Saint's soul and pulling it into himself.
Just a little more now.
Just a little more drawn in and consumed, and that bastard Lust's authority would become his.
He would now become the absolute ruler of Pandemonium, mightier even than Lucifer of Pride.
Just as Mammon was bursting into laughter over his rosy future.
[......Huh?]
Mammon suddenly realized the surrounding scenery had changed.
It was no longer the stopped-time basement of the Scrap Yard.
He was standing in a cold, hard, stark white world.
[A mindscape? Wait. Why am I here?]
As Mammon panicked,
[So it was you. The one who hurt my Seong-ppippi.]
A heavy voice came from behind him, and Mammon turned his head.
An angular face.
An immense, muscular physique.
A man with a distinctively styled jawline beard stood staring silently at Mammon, cradling the unconscious soul of the Saint in his arms.
Mammon immediately recognized the other's identity.
[Lust? Is that you? What's with that ridiculous getup?]
[Why did you hurt my Seong-ppippi?]
And what was this ridiculous term, 'Seong-ppippi'?
Mammon couldn't hold back his laughter at Lust's idiotic, never-before-seen appearance and shrugged his shoulders.
[A mere human body and soul like that. What do I care? Lust. Don't resist. Come over to me. If you and I join forces, we could become the new masters of Pandemonium. Lucifer of Pride has had his turn for far too long. It's our time to rule now.]
[And what will you do if I refuse?]
[If you refuse, you say.]
Mammon chuckled and began to swell in size.
In an instant, Lust and the Saint became as tiny as bugs clinging to Mammon's feet.
[Do you think you, who haven't managed to swallow any resentment or souls for 300 years, can defeat me?]
At Mammon's mockery, Lust quietly set the Saint's soul down behind him.
[It's actually fortunate that Seong-ppippi is unconscious. I didn't want to show him this side of me.]
And the next moment.
Lust's body also began to grow.
It expanded until, in exact reverse of moments before, Mammon was as small as a bug at Lust's feet.
Mammon was horrified.
[Wh-where did you get this kind of......]
[How much faith do you think I've been sucking down in the capital for the past half year? You seem to be under some kind of misconception. You didn't devour me.]
Giga Chad.
No.
Asmodeus of Lust slowly opened his mouth, his expression overflowing with mockery.
[I entered inside you. Because it's easier to devour you if I get at your very source. I will make you pay dearly for harming my Seong-ppippi.]