Chapter 53: Evil

  The devils of the entire 66th hellish dimension were discussing the events of the holy pilgrimage's finale.

  "How did Felix's stabilization collapse?! He was the greatest hope against that human pest!"

  "You're telling me? The Grim Judge must have somehow poisoned our devilish adepts, otherwise this exam couldn't have turned out this way!"

  "Maybe it's that damned Empty-Head's fault again?!"

  There were many such deliberations and comments, and the mood was negative.

  For the first time in the dimension's history, a human not only became a representative adept but also ruined the Holy Pilgrimage, leaving the local adepts behind.

  What was worse, the aforementioned adepts... preferred to attack each other rather than unite forces against a common, nefarious enemy.

  No one knew what to do about it, but the problem had definitely been identified.

  Occasionally, someone brought up the strange meteor Felix had thrown towards the earth, but due to the vastness of the hellish dimension, few powerful devils perceived what it was exactly about.

  Meanwhile, all the mountain rulers were currently occupied with extremely important matters.

  Voivode Boruta was trying to keep Eusebius alive, who had bravely, yet with a scientist's unworthy lack of patience, tried to charge the moon.

  Maleficius had returned to his mountain after being left alone in the honorary box.

  Greedius was unscrupulously trying to hunt down his former friend, and that friend—Ignatius—was desperately trying to prevent it.

  All in all, quite a lot was happening, and to top it all off, Justinian, traversing further distances of cosmic void, was approaching the devil's earth.

  'Where is that damned Ignatius?!'

  Greedius gritted his teeth in frustration, feeling the inexorable passage of time.

  'If I don't get him now, I never will. Boruta will kill me as soon as he finds out!'

  He scanned the areas around the Mountain of Plague and Misfortune, but he couldn't find anything that indicated traces of his old friend.

  Nearby, a group of devils was praying to the Lord of Hell to send lightning and punish the Grim Judge.

  In another place, a hellish striped zebra, which he hadn't seen in a good few decades, was drowning in a pool of blood—probably shot by poachers.

  Somewhere else still, a modest procession of bald devils walked, dressed in hair shirts and flogging each other in a not-very-healthy-looking way.

  'Still, zero traces of the Empty-Head...'

  What weighed heavily on his heart was the fact that he had lost another spare life because of damned Felix. Stroking the tattoo with the "11" on it, he had no choice but to consider the worst-case scenarios.

  Only he himself knew the truth about his power, and his mind screamed at him to drop his intention to hell.

  He hesitated for a moment, then finally shook his head.

  'The risk is high, but the stakes are even higher. This power is the perfect element for my plan!'

  Determination flashed in his eyes. He was afraid of attracting the voivode's attention, but there was no more time.

  Unleashing more ki than usual, he began to search again for the echo of his victim's energy.

  A grimace of disappointment washed over his face, slowly starting to turn into anger. This was not the time to let emotions take over, however, so he was just about to move on when he remembered a certain detail.

  'Wasn't the extinction of the hellish striped zebras announced right after Ignatius disappeared?'

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  At first, the idea seemed absurd, but... was it really?

  Having no other leads and under the stress of passing time, he approached the dead zebra. Finding himself about 20 meters from the target... he finally detected a faint echo of the Empty-Head's power in it!

  Laughing loudly and with a longing for a good meal in his eye, he attacked immediately, almost overwhelming the terrified devil.

  "Why are you doing this to me, you damned traitor?!" - the wounded Ignatius cried out to his former friend.

  "Unlike you, I have ambitions."

  Emptyhead, in a desperate situation, thus reached for the last power he had in his arsenal.

  The only one that could help him at all. His foundation was already damaged, but due to the simplicity of the technique itself, he could still use it.

  What's more, it was an original technique he had developed himself, without the help of his inherited bloodline.

  "Technique... of the Dramatic Entrance!"

  A moment later, the sky over the 66th dimension turned black, and a loud explosion was heard.

  All the devils turned their eyes upward, while those older than 20... shook their heads in embarrassment.

  "What does that idiot want again?!"

  "Isn't he ashamed to show himself like this with his nickname?"

  "That traitor surely wants to brag about the Grim Judge's success!"

  This was Ignatius's technique from his younger years, before he had obtained his social mark and could actually boast of his magnificent heritage.

  Behold, in the darkened sky of the dimension... an illusion and a projection of the empty-headed devil, enlarged to the limit, appeared!

  At first, shouts erupted telling him to go home and calls for him to come to his senses. Loud booing could also be heard.

  Only after a moment were certain disturbing details noticed.

  "Doesn't he look rather strange in this scene?"

  "Exactly as if something is attacking him!"

  "Do you think it was that human who stabbed him in the back?!"

  Discussions quickly began to shake the entire dimension, and soon a scream full of outrage tore through the sky.

  "How dare you?!"

  It was none other than Boruta who finally realized what was happening in the dimension when the noise forced him to shift his attention from the wounded Eusebius.

  The voivode was in an absolute fury that he had only needed to look away for a moment for someone to dare attack the son of a friend he had once pledged to protect.

  He immediately appeared nearby, only to swear vehemently when he saw that the culprit was none other than Greedius XXIII.

  "This is the kind of friends you are? I'm ashamed to have raised you like this!"

  He stretched out a hand radiating power to immediately end this performance.

  Red light burst from his palm, tearing the air like thunder in the middle of a desert.

  The temperature around instantly rose—stones melted like wax, and the sky above them took on the color of molten iron. The earth trembled, as if the dimension itself were trying to escape its ruler's wrath.

  The smell of ozone and sulfur hung in the air, and the echo of Boruta's shout spread like a shockwave, shattering the stained-glass windows of hellish temples in the surrounding mountains.

  The powerful devil looked as if his entire silhouette was burning from within—his form blurred in a blinding glow, and every movement left a trail of anger, like a comet's tail.

  The Lord of the Mountain of Envy and Conflagration, however, gritted his teeth. He had already gone too far to give up.

  In his hand, he gripped an artifact prepared earlier, which he had bought from Shedim Medaiash just for this occasion!

  It was a black disc of strange metal, which now pulsed like a heart, emitting a sound reminiscent of a whisper in a language no one remembered anymore.

  Boruta's power tore the air. He saw Greedius grip the artifact, but it was too late-his attack was already committed, a comet of pure force that couldn't be recalled. He intended to obliterate both the mountain lord and his desperate, last-ditch trinket in the same blow.

  The power emanating from his attack shook the 66th dimension, when suddenly... it completely vanished!

  For a split second, there was silence—not a natural one, but one that seemed to devour sound, light, and existence itself. Even the air seemed to weigh a ton.

  The voivode hadn't even hit his opponent!

  "What sorcery is this!?"

  He shouted angrily, watching as his subsequent attacks missed the target entirely.

  "These are new times, you rotten old man!" - Greedius snapped back, clearly relieved of a huge burden upon seeing that the artifact he had spent a fortune on had worked.

  'I don't have much time, though...' - he thought, turning quickly away from the confounded Boruta.

  A short distance away, he immediately spotted the still-terrified Ignatius and lunged in his direction, wanting to finally devour the bloodline he had dreamed of for so long.

  "Help!" the Empty-Head screamed, but Greedius paid him no mind.

  "Hahaha, who would help you?"

  Boruta was temporarily trapped.

  Eusebius, from what he had sensed earlier, was badly wounded.

  Maleficius? He looked at them all like insects and would certainly not intervene.

  Even that kid Felix, who had treacherously attacked him earlier, must have burned his foundation to allow himself to unleash such energy.

  All that remained were random onlookers and nobles, who traditionally did not interfere in disputes between mountain lords.

  All this made Greedius smile blissfully.

  Finally, his long-held dream of absorbing Ignatius's lineage and gaining his magnificent potential would come true.

  He was already reaching out his hand to begin consuming the remaining foundation base of his former friend when a voice sounding a few meters behind him suddenly interrupted him.

  "I will help him."

  Somewhat surprised, the Lord of the Mountain of Envy and Conflagration turned to see... Justinian the Just, levitating slightly above the ground.

  The kid, from Ignatius's mountain, who had apparently already stabilized his foundation and was now looking at him with fury in his eyes.

  The burly devil furrowed his brows.

  'No... this isn't ordinary fury. This looks like genuine murderous intent.'

  He didn't know why the boy was looking at him like that, but there was no doubt that it was important to him.

  The duel between the most powerful adept of the current generation and the demon who had turned his life into hell was about to begin!