"You two were a real pain." He chuckled, and his razor sharp, shark-like teeth flashed white, cruses and black smoke diffusing through his black lips.

The devil, tall and red, horned and clad in charred armor, stood upon his castle’s wall, glancing down at the devastated bay of his castle. Countless devils were dead, and half of the inner buildings were razed to the ground. But at last, the battle ended.

Impaled on the wall of his vile keep, a blue slime rested, round and crushed, seeping blue blood and pinned to the burned wall with a hundred black spears.

Beneath that, tens of powerful devils stood at the ready. Some of them were injured, but the majority were unharmed, having just regenerated after the deadly battle.

Even though they just defeated a deadly foe, none of them smiled. Because for the first time in decades, some of them had shat themselves when Demogorgan suddenly dropped in the bay in the middle of their lunch break.

But think the great and ancient Demon Lord had been killed and his corpse wasn’t claimed by other demons and instead just got eaten by a weak slime. He had fallen deeper than the abyss itself.

The devils weren’t eager to see the one who killed him, though. Since Demogorgan was supposed to be immortal.

Whoever did it, they’d better stay buried beneath the abyss’s endless layers.

Watching his men victorious, the devil frowned and shouted at them. "You useless bastards! I had to kill that thing with my own spears! Get to cleaning this place. I want it black and shiny in half a day."

He grinned. "But leave the slime there! I want it to slowly bleed to death."

The devils did fight Obelisk, but in the end, it was their lord who finished her off with his black spears.

The devil smiled and looked back. Behind him in the main hall rested a massive, egg-like glass cage, and inside it, Yuwaku was suspended mid-air, carried by trails of shimmering black and white light.

"The slime is defeated. Now it shall bleed on my wall until it dies. A reminder that even a Demon Lord can’t stop me anymore." As he laughed, a golden ball could be seen pinned to his long, forked tongue.

Yuwaku just glared at him, sweating. He was unlike any other devil they had faced before. He was powerful, far surpassing the seven-devils’ squad combined. He alone could probably kill a hundred such devils with ease. This is the kind of horror that would need her father or mother to take action and stop them.

Obelisk was putting up a fight against his army of devils, but when he joined the fray, she couldn’t even block one of his spears as they rained down on her.

She can’t even get out of this cage to fight him. He knew he was going to face a Nymph, so he had all of the evil and cursed wizard sinners he had on hand work together to create this seal.

A cage of light and curses that muffled her beauty and weakened her immensely. Unless she was as physically gifted as a titan, she won’t be breaking out any time soon.

At the hall’s wall, the succubus Filly was impaled, just like Obelisk. But unlike the powerful slime, she only needed a single spear in the chest to be stopped. The future devil lord only spared her a glance, a snarl, and a mocking remark.

"What kind of pathetic devil gets bested by a human brat? Failure." He sounded more disappointed than angry. And more shamed that he is a devil just like her, not even imps are stupid enough to get enslaved by a kid.

He approached Yuwaku’s cage with a smile. "Don’t worry, I won’t kill you yet. I need you spotless and clean to create the deadliest poison of them all." He looked back at the gate of his hall as the servant devils closed it.

"Hope." He lifted his arms. "That vile, hungry little goddess. Hope is what’s going to bring her crawling to me." He glanced at Yuwaku. "Hoping that she can still save you, hoping that you aren’t lost to hell."

"You think she’ll come save me? Pray to Asmodeus that she’ll be the one coming and no one else." Yuwaku smiled. "You can kill me if you want, but if you know what’s best for you, you’ll let me go and hurry to find a hole to hide in."

She knew that this devil’s days were numbered. Arad already knows that she got kidnapped; he was watching all this time. So when he returns, he’ll turn this devil inside out and burn him and hell whole. He doesn’t know what kind of crazed and demented horror he has summoned.

But before that could even happen, he had another problem to deal with.

A thunder clap roared and the entire castle shook, screams filled the air, and the cannons on the wall fired. Fractal froze in place, then looked back, his eyes growing wide, then focusing once more.

Did that slime get a second wind and start fighting again? Impossible, this magic wasn’t hers. He could tell the difference between hell’s cursed magic and the demon’s demonic magic. The one causing a ruckus outside is a resident of hell.

He could hear a feral roar muffled by the roaring cannons and clapping thunder, like a mad cat violating a mouse in pure demented rage and frenzy.

His devils were the screaming mice.

A mere devil dare stands against his castle? For what reason? He glared back at the succubus. "Bitch, how many of you got enslaved? No, you useless trash can’t force the garrison to fire the cannons." He started walking toward the door.

Whatever was out there, it had to be either powerful or fast enough to cause problems.

Whatever was outside, he’ll have to deal with it himself, so he can then deal with Yuwaku in peace. They also need to prepare for when that goddess arrives.

But then, as he approached the gate, it exploded into a storm of jagged steel shards, fire, evaporating sparks of molten iron. Before he could react, a massive black paw flew out of the dust and flames, smacking him across the hall with a blast of black lightning.

Taken by surprise, the devil stood, only to get his left arm bitten by the massive animal, and before he could hit the thing, he got thrown away once more with a second paw strike.

That animal was fast, as fast as its black lightning, moving with it as one.

He stood, his arm mangled and his back bleeding from a massive wound. He looked forward and saw it. A black jaguar, six meter high at the shoulders, almost ten meters long without the tail. Its muscular body was marred with gaping wounds and charred hide, and its left eye was already missing, but it still moved, fueled by an insatiable rage and bloodlust.

Yuwaku in the back gasped, her eyes opening wide. Agnar was bigger than he used to be; usually, he was the size of a normal large tiger or lion, but now, he is as massive as a monster. The magic coming out of him also felt strange; it was sharper, denser, and most importantly, even more cursed than it was before.

The devil looked outside, and his eyes opened wide. The swarm of enslaved imps had vanished, only leaving a massive pool of rotting blood and cracked bones. His castle walls were shattered, and many of his soldiers were maimed, chunks of their bodies bitten off. Even the pit fiend, his strongest devil, was dead on the wall, his head fully chewed off.

"A rakshasa? And a black jaguar like their queen..." He looked at Agnar and smiled. "What brought an animal like you to my land? There is nothing for you to hunt here." He summoned a massive, flaming black spear, causing the ground around him to start melting.

Agnar’s wounds were slowly healing thanks to all the devils he consumed, so he waited a bit and allowed the devil to talk. He needed to at least get his gouged eye healed before they fight.

The succubus recognized Agnar, and she almost lost it. Not because he was a massive tiger. Not because she just noticed that he is a rakshasa. But because she could see them around him, the chains of hell.

She was certain that he didn’t have them in the mortal world, which meant he died here in hell and resurrected as a rakshasa? Was he one before? Did the Maharaja grace him with power? Or did he just happen to become one out of sheer luck?

She didn’t know, and Fractal didn’t seem to know either. But then, he looked at her.

"Did any of the goddess’s minions have a contract with this devil?" He asked, looking at the succubus with a smile.

She was enslaved, right. But no one was around to give her orders. Yuwaku could tell her not to answer or lie, but that would expose the truth. So, the succubus could tell him the truth.

The succubus smiled, looking at the devil with a grin. "No! There was never such a thing. Just a kid, a powerful Nymph, the Demogorgan slime, and a red wyrmling. There were several earthworms and wild feline monsters around in the forest, but not this one, nothing even close."

Fractal smiled. "I see... Drawn by blood, probably saw Demogorgan from afar and came to hunt it. Now, it’s mad we killed its prey."

The succubus remained silent afterward, but she was smiling inside.

^I’ll shake by ass to whoever I need to survive. And I’m not going to shake it for you when Maharaja herself might be involved. Come on, go at him, brat.^