Hecate said enthusiastically, “To make up for the maternal love you missed all these years, I have decided to turn Hell into a parent-child amusement park exclusively for the two of us.”
“Are you looking forward to it?”
Ning Busan: “...”
He could not comprehend Hecate's train of thought and often felt deeply suffocated by her outrageous ideas.
“...I am looking forward to it,” Ning Busan squeezed out with great difficulty.
Hecate pulled Ning Busan into the air above Hell, and they sat upon a crimson crescent moon, looking down over the entire realm.
Hecate asked, “What color do you think the sky should be?”
Ning Busan said offhandedly, “A colorful black.”
Hecate raised an eyebrow slightly and snapped her fingers.
The sky of Hell began to slowly change. The originally gloomy sky was gradually covered by a layer of deep black, but upon closer inspection, one would find that this black shimmered with a subtle, multicolored glow.
Ning Busan's mouth twitched.
It really was a colorful black.
She was actually granting his every whim?
Hecate was a woman of action, heavily modifying Hell into a parent-child park in an incredibly short amount of time.
The wasteland was carpeted with a black velvet rug, and the once-menacing thorns transformed into soft flower vines, blooming with deep purple and dark red blossoms.
She reshaped the lava into a crimson candy river, piled skeletons into a giant slide, and wove the shrieks of dead souls into a cheerful melody that echoed through the blood-mist-filled air.
Ning Busan asked, “Mother God, don't you think something is missing?”
Hecate asked, “What is missing?”
Ning Busan said, “For example... some playmates?”
“You mean those demons?” Hecate's face was full of fastidiousness, but in the end, she said reluctantly, “If you really like them, I won't kill them. I'll keep them as your playmates.”
Ning Busan said, “Thank you, Mother God.”
Out of nowhere, Hecate asked, “How do you think this place compares to Heaven?”
Ning Busan did not know what crazy mood had struck Hecate now, but he knew what the perfect answer was: “Any place Mother God likes, I like. Any place Mother God hates, I hate.”
Hecate curled her lips in pleasure. “Good boy.”
Once Hecate had her fill of the parent-child game, Ning Busan finally found an opportunity to leave her side.
Ning Busan asked Mammon, “Where are the other four Demon Kings of Hell?”
Mammon said, “Some dead, some injured, some crippled.”
“Who died?”
“Leviathan.”
“What happened?”
“The God of Darkness asked Leviathan if he wanted to undergo a complete transformation and rid himself of his ugly appearance. He said yes, so the God of Darkness helped shave his bones and change his face,” Mammon sneered. “Shattering all his bones and reconstructing his flesh and skin is no ordinary pain. Leviathan regretted it halfway through, but the God of Darkness wouldn't stop just because he called for it.”
“He didn't make it through. But that was his own choice, so he can't blame anyone else.”
Ning Busan pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “The God of Darkness clearly disliked Leviathan. No matter what he chose, she would have made him disappear.”
Ning Busan asked again, “Who is injured?”
Mammon said, “I'll take you to see, and then you'll know.”
The Palace of Lust.
Ning Busan asked, “Asmodeus, why are you wearing a veil?”
Asmodeus removed her veil. Her once exquisitely beautiful face was covered in corrosive scars, looking incredibly hideous.
Her voice twisted with hatred. “The God of Darkness is a lunatic!”
“She asked me to write a hymn for her, and I did. But because she was unsatisfied, she ruined my face.”
“She is just jealous that I am more beautiful than her!”
A gentle glow emerged from Ning Busan's palm, within which countless tiny runes could be seen faintly circulating.
He covered Asmodeus's face with the light, and the runes, like tiny threads, stitched up the scars on her face bit by bit.
“Thank you, my King,” Asmodeus said, not showing much joy but speaking urgently. “Please, save Samael as well.”
Ning Busan asked, “What happened to him?”
Asmodeus said, “When the God of Darkness hurt me, he was right there beside me. He has a fiery temper and attacked the God of Darkness directly. As a result, he nearly lost his life.”
Samael lay on a bed, his body twisted out of shape.
His chest was deeply sunken, the fractures of his ribs clearly visible. His left arm bent at an eerie angle, and his right leg below the knee was almost completely shattered.
Ning Busan guessed he must have been struck by Hecate's tail.
Healing magic crystals were piled around Samael, continuously channeling energy into him. It was clear that Asmodeus desperately wanted to save him, but his condition remained grim.
He was indeed in a pitiful state.
Ning Busan sighed, and the gentle light emerged in his palm once more. The runes seeped into Samael's body like living creatures, slowly healing his wounds.
“Gone... all gone...” A figure suddenly appeared behind them, his voice ghostly.
His hair was thick and smooth, of a light silver-gray color, casually draped over his shoulders with slightly curled tips. His entire being exuded a lazy and despondent temperament.
Ning Busan asked in surprise, “Belphegor, you actually left your Resting Nest?”
Belphegor had the vacant, dead-inside look of the living dead, only repeating those words: “Gone... all gone...”
Ning Busan pointed at Belphegor and asked Mammon, “Is he crazy?”
A mocking smile curled on the corner of Mammon's mouth, his tone carrying thirty percent pity and seventy percent schadenfreude:
“While all the demons in Hell were searching for the mermaid, he was the only one who stubbornly refused to take a single step out of his Resting Nest. The God of Darkness couldn't stand his attitude and simply burned his Resting Nest to the ground.”
While Ning Busan pitied Belphegor, he also felt that the demon had brought it upon himself.
This was entirely of his own making, wasn't it?
Every single demon in this room was actually injured or crippled!
Ning Busan noticed an anomaly and looked at Mammon, asking in confusion, “How is it that only you are perfectly fine?”
“Are you wishing for something to happen to me?” The veins on Mammon's temples throbbed.
“No.” Ning Busan paused subtly. “I'm just a bit surprised. I thought she would equally spare none of you demons.”
Mammon sneered. “I've been actively avoiding the God of Darkness. I threw a few greed demons forward as shields and never even showed my face in front of her.”
Ning Busan twitched his lips.
No wonder you're considered the clever one.
“I've finally figured it out,” Mammon said. “The God of Darkness doesn't value the lives of demons at all. To her, we are just ants she can torture and kill at any moment.”
During Satan and Lucifer's reign over Hell, though they were somewhat tyrannical and domineering, they at least treated the demons as allies of their own faction.
But Hecate was truly insane.
She did not care whether the demons lived or died; she even wished they would all disappear.
“If you want to survive, watch your words and actions in Hell from now on.” Ning Busan looked at them, his eyes darkening.
“Keep a low profile for a while and stay out of her sight. Tell the other surviving demons in Hell to hide as well.”
Mammon said, “And what about you? Do you plan to remain submissive under her tyranny forever?”
Ning Busan rubbed his temples. “If she's willing to just play parent-child games forever, I would actually have it easy.”
Although Hecate was moody and temperamental, as long as one mastered the correct way to get along with her, she was actually quite easy to deal with.
The only fear was that she would suddenly go mad and want to do something else.
And as fate would have it, whatever one feared most was exactly what would happen.
Rate on N.U.
