The black-robed demon could not comprehend it.
What kind of terrifying infernal entity could erase his demonic brand in an instant and seize that absurdly powerful artifact as its own just as quickly?
"A Hell King... you have to be a Hell King..." Fear kept swelling inside the black-robed demon, and the muttering that might have sounded like praise to another demon only irritated Ian.
Unfortunately for him,
Ian was not a demon.
And in Ian's eyes,
Hell was crawling with things that called themselves Hell Kings.
The title was practically worthless.
It was not even as impressive as when the bull-headed demon had called him a dimensional god.
"I'm your dad!"
Ian did not hesitate. He grabbed the demon and slammed two more punches into him. The insult came out naturally, but once he thought about it, it felt a little off.
Was he not technically insulting himself too?
It really was hard to fully get into the Patriarch persona. He could only blame Batman's suit again. Ever since he wore that thing, even the way he insulted people had gotten nastier.
"Pffft!"
The black-robed demon coughed up blood from the beating. Ian looked heartbroken and immediately slapped a hand over the demon's mouth, preventing him from wasting such precious high-grade fuel.
The bull-headed demon had only been some minor Hell grunt, and even its blood could send the Hellcat tearing across the streets. If Ian used the blood of a Hell Prince instead, his car might go straight into orbit.
There was a real possibility he could drive to the moon and personally verify whether Armstrong had actually planted that flag.
"Stop spitting. I'll go easier on you next time..." Ian tried to soothe him, but that sudden gentleness only made the black-robed demon feel colder all over.
"Mmph! Mmph!"
His mouth moved under Ian's palm, trying to say something, but it came out garbled.
"I said no spitting."
Ian slowly let go.
Sure enough,
more blood immediately spilled out of the demon's mouth.
Bang! Bang!
Ian drove two more punches into him, this time choosing the demon's head. A brain hemorrhage did not matter much to Ian. As long as he did not open the skull, it was not really a loss.
"Ahhh!"
The black-robed demon screamed in agony. The black mist around him had already completely dispersed, and he looked barely conscious. "You said you'd go easier on me!"
He sounded genuinely wronged.
"I did."
Ian lifted a finger matter-of-factly. "I was going to use eighty percent. I'm only using seventy now. Can't you feel the difference?"
Then he punched him again.
"That was seventy."
Then one more time.
"That was eighty."
He had just proven, quite clearly, that he was an honest and trustworthy person.
"Ugh..."
The demon's skull was ringing so hard it felt like his soul itself was getting hammered. He was on the verge of vomiting blood again, but when he saw the bright, clear look in Ian's eyes, he forced it back down.
For a demon,
he was actually pretty clever.
"Fine, fine. We're both demons, we should be on the same side. We should stand together against Heaven and God." The black-robed demon struggled to make Ian see reason. "Let me go, and I swear I'll serve you with everything I have."
"I took this body to reincarnate into the human world. I possess all sorts of powers only warlocks can use. I can even prophesy..." He hurried to explain his value.
If Ian really had been a demon, then yes, the man would have had some value. Because of the rules separating Hell and the human world, most demons could not bring their full power across.
That meant having a powerful human warlock as support could make a lot of things much easier.
The only problem was that he had misunderstood Ian's identity from start to finish.
"You talk dirtier than my Uncle Batman when he's ranting about my dad. Look at me. Do I look like a demon to you?"
Ian's fists twitched, eager to continue.
The black-robed demon's heart nearly stopped.
"I... I mean, I'm a demon too, and I'm handsome..." he said weakly, forcing a smile and desperately trying to salvage the situation. In his own mind, this was a high-EQ response.
But Ian clearly disagreed.
"What right do you have to use the same word, handsome, that I use for myself? Besides my dad, my big brother, and my second brother if he ever gives up his daily habits long enough for his face to recover..."
"Everyone else just looks decent at best."
As he spoke, Ian casually punched the demon several times below the waist.
"Ah!"
The black-robed demon went sheet-white. He would rather Ian had gone back to punching his head.
"Stop! Stop! Just stop!" the demon shouted, trying to stop Ian. Human bodies were too fragile. Certain weak points were far too weak.
"You're telling me what to do?"
Ian raised a fist and brought it down on the demon's skull with a brutal hammer blow. The advanced demon trapped in a human body was surprisingly easy to damage. A huge bump rose on his head almost instantly.
He was not even as durable as the bull-headed grunt.
"Dammit!" The demon was trembling with fear, but there was a strange sense of relief too. At least the swelling was not somewhere more important. Otherwise it would have hurt even more.
"Listen. My father is the new Satan of Hell, the great King of Hell. You do not want to offend a new god of the underworld." His voice wavered between threat and plea.
Apparently, his mouth was much harder than the rest of him.
"The new Satan?"
Just hearing the title, Ian knew this was some bargain-bin nonsense.
"Satan? My ass. The one true god over Metropolis is my... dad!"
Ian really did get into these arrogant personas. He was not usually the kind of person who liked relying on his father, but when he was in Patriarch mode, that confidence just came naturally.
Different personas required different temperaments.
Who said DC had no equivalent to someone running multiple identities? As long as Ian wore enough masks, a bad reputation in one could always be offset by another. That was what a true capitalist called planning ahead and diversifying assets.
With his flexible use of method acting, Ian had no fear of actually developing a split personality.
On that point, he truly owed a debt of gratitude to the teacher who had passed on the art of partially releasing one's nature.
"Madison, get me some rope and some scaffolding," Ian said, already turning away from the demon. "Now."
That was when his precious deskmate was exposed for what she really was.
Because Madison was no longer paying attention to the battle at all. She was crawling around on the ground, patting pockets on the unconscious bodies, apparently searching for a phone after losing track of her own.
She looked exactly like the sort of petty scavenger Ian would expect to see in a disaster movie.
"You what now?"
Madison looked up.
"Rope and scaffolding. Do I need to spell it out?" Ian said, exasperated. "And stop asking questions that ruin my image while I'm in Patriarch mode. Patriarch does what Patriarch wants."
"If Patriarch wants to go somewhere, Patriarch goes."
He was genuinely warning her to respect the boundaries of his roleplay.
Madison only half understood.
"Oh."
Still, she got up and immediately started looking.
One thing about Madison was that if she did not understand Ian's way of thinking, she usually just assumed it was because she was not smart enough to keep up.
That did not bother her.
After all, seeming a little dumb was also part of the image of a future Hollywood bombshell.
"Patriarch is Ian's chaos persona..." she muttered to herself, like an actress trying to interpret a script. A moment later, her eyes lit up.
It clicked.
Not long after,
she returned with what Ian asked for.
She watched him tie the black-robed demon to the scaffolding like a sausage being hung to cure. She did not question it. Why would she? In her eyes, Ian had already won, and once Ian won, everything else was just cleanup.
She did not care about the demon's life at all.
In fact, remembering how she had been hunted, she even stepped forward and kicked him a few times herself.
Naturally, she had learned nothing.
Luckily for her, the demon's thigh was not as hard as Ian's shin.
"So this is what real improvisation feels like," Ian said thoughtfully as Madison struck another angry pose and resumed taking photos like this was a war-zone photoshoot.
The black-robed demon, hanging there and bleeding out, could only stare at them in stunned disbelief.
"You both have serious problems."
He finally said it.
"Then do you have medicine?" Ian asked immediately, hopeful. He had honestly thought maybe he could scam some kind of Hell-exclusive drug out of the man.
Instead, all he got was the demon's blank, dumbfounded stare.
"So you don't? Then why are you even talking?"
Ian was disappointed enough to lash out with a curse so vicious it was probably the most hateful thing he had ever managed to say in English.
At that, the demon panicked again.
"Please! I was wrong! I really was wrong! Don't hit me again! Please!"
Apparently, he had finally realized that Ian truly was merciless.
"Good. Now I ask, you answer."
Ian pulled the magic book out from the waistband of his underwear. Since he had not brought his backpack, that waistband had become the perfect emergency shelf.
The book rested against his stomach while he stood there looking absurdly serious.
"What exactly does this book do?"
He flipped through its yellowed blank pages again. He felt no mystical connection to it whatsoever, so he naturally needed answers from its previous owner.
"It... it was a relic my father, King Crowley of Hell, acquired by accident. Before I came to the human world, I tricked my idiot brother into stealing it for me."
The black-robed demon watched Ian's face closely while speaking, hoping the name would intimidate him.
It did not.
"Crowley? Seriously? That crossroads demon? So this is what passes for royalty in Hell now."
Ian sounded almost disappointed.
The name definitely carried weight in his memory.
Crowley, like Sam and Death and his precious stepfather, all came from the same merged continuity. Originally just a crossroads demon, and later one of the many things that had clawed their way up into the title of Hell King.
"So you aren't afraid of my father..."
The black-robed demon sounded more and more desperate. Ian even knew what his father used to do, and yet he still could not figure out Ian's background.
"Back to the book. Don't start rambling."
Ian smacked the demon's face with the book itself. The demon looked aggrieved, but answered anyway.
"I don't know where it came from. My father probably didn't, and my brother certainly didn't. The only thing I can say for sure is that it contains power like that of a creator god."
He answered truthfully, because he was terrified Ian might somehow be able to test lies.
Plenty of powerful Hell beings had that kind of ability.
"If it really had that much power, would you have gotten beaten this badly by me?"
Ian gave him a suspicious look and tapped him on the cheek with the book.
"Creating rules is not the same as creating things from nothing. It requires magic power as fuel. The reason I needed the Supreme Witch dead was because I needed enough power to use it."
"The moment she dies, all that magic falls to the nearest eligible heir."
Ian's gaze sharpened.
"Oh."
Now he was listening.
The demon continued in a trembling rush, "The book can be used to write powers that do not belong to this world into existence."
That, finally, caught Ian's full attention.
"So that's how this works."
He glanced down at the cover again.
No wonder it had retreated into survival mode the second it touched him.
It had likely sensed something deeply wrong.
Ian let that thought roll around in his head for a moment before looking back at the demon.
"Then explain witches. All of it."
This was one of Ian's major blind spots. He had always loved learning.
"Yes. Yes, of course."
Terrified of losing his value, the demon launched into an explanation without holding anything back.
Witches were one of the oldest supernatural professions in this world. Only those with the proper bloodline could become witches. That bloodline was connected to an ancient being.
"Descendants of an ancient god?"
Ian rolled the idea around in his mind.
"Yes. Exactly." The demon nodded eagerly. "It's not common knowledge, but a witch's power is inherited through blood. Every witch possesses at least one strong bloodline gift."
"Elemental control, mind control, astral projection, teleportation, resurrection, prophecy, and mind reading. Those are known as the Seven Wonders."
The demon was speaking faster now, eager to prove his usefulness. "Witches can have other powers too, but those seven determine how pure their bloodline is."
"Only a witch who can master all Seven Wonders is considered the closest to the ancient bloodline. That person receives the majority of the old god's residual magic."
"That is the Supreme Witch. And since the ancient being was female, the inheritance overwhelmingly favors women. That's why Supreme Witches are almost always women."
"And because of that, female witches naturally possess more magic than male warlocks."
That answer broadened Ian's worldview considerably.
Then the demon glanced toward Madison, who was still busy taking carefully posed damage selfies not far away.
"She passed several of the wonder tests. Not all of them, but enough to come dangerously close to qualifying as a vessel for the Supreme Witch."
"She is the best possible vessel for the old Supreme Witch, who is nearing the end of her life."
"I could not allow that. If the current Supreme Witch gained another lifetime, her magic would become even more overwhelming." The demon explained why he had targeted Madison.
"If anyone was going to take that body, it should have been me."
That really was ruthless.
"If I were you, I wouldn't even be thinking about that."
Ian turned and gave Madison another look.
The girl was leaning against a wrecked police car, angling for the perfect "wounded beauty" shot with tears glittering in her eyes.
"Why not?" the demon asked, confused.
"Let me put this into words you can understand." Ian crouched in front of him. "You said it yourself. The Supreme Witch has to die so that the magic assigned to her role can pass to another person with blood close enough to that old god."
"Right."
The demon nodded.
"Which means," Ian continued slowly, "if you were to somehow kill every other witch and warlock, all of that old god's residual power would ultimately end up concentrated in one vessel."
The demon froze.
"Right?"
Ian stared him in the eye.
"If you gathered all of the power left behind by that ancient being, then your bloodline would effectively become the closest thing possible to the ancient god's own vessel."
"Doesn't that sound tempting? Because frankly, if I were that old god, I'd be tempted."
Ian's logic was disturbingly airtight.
The demon's face turned pale.
"No... no, surely not?"
He did not want to admit it. After all, admitting Ian might be right would mean accepting that he had thrown himself into the biggest trap imaginable.
He would not have been reclaiming divine inheritance.
He would have been building the perfect reincarnation vessel for something far older and more terrifying.
"Sure. Sometimes being stupid really does make life easier. I get it. Ostrich mentality. Very familiar."
Ian patted the demon's head.
Then the demon tried to panic, but Ian had already moved on.
"I've learned what I wanted."
That sentence made the black-robed demon immediately tense up.
"So... we're good now, right?" he asked, trying to sound hopeful.
Ian did not answer directly.
Instead, he walked over to a nearby hardware shelf, picked up a kitchen knife and a paint bucket, then adjusted the scaffolding so the demon hung upside down.
"...What are you doing?"
The demon's voice shook.
"Didn't we already make peace, brother?"
"Brother?"
Ian turned, expression blank.
"Who exactly are you calling brother?"
The demon's smile turned stiff.
"I just meant—"
"Don't get familiar with me."
Ian interrupted him. "Patriarch may have made peace with you, but Ian hasn't. There's still a conflict here."
Then he started sharpening the knife.
The sound of steel grinding against steel was painfully crisp in the evening air.
The demon's pupils shrank.
"Stop that."
Ian kept sharpening.
"Stop that!"
Ian kept sharpening.
"PLEASE stop that!"
The black-robed demon finally broke.
"Relax. My dad taught me what mercy looks like."
Ian said that while continuing to sharpen the blade until it gleamed.
What he meant, apparently, was that the knife was now very sharp.
As soon as the blade came down,
thick, black blood began pouring into the bucket below.
The demon's skin went gray. Purple veins spread over his face as his humanity started collapsing and the true demonic shape beneath began to emerge.
That was just how badly demon life-force corrupted human genes.
A thick sulfurous smell filled the area.
Ian held the bucket with the elegance of someone catching fine wine.
Demon blood was not red.
The blood of this Hell Prince was black and syrupy, like crude oil.
Premium fuel.
"No..."
The demon's screams grew weaker.
Then—
Riiip.
A translucent soul tore free from the body. It looked like some hideous twisted thing with deformed wings. It tried to fly off, only for Ian to snatch it right out of the air.
"How?!"
The soul screamed shrilly.
"I don't even exist in the world anymore!"
He sounded utterly unable to understand what was happening.
"That would matter if I were normal."
Ian pulled out the pendant.
The soul of a prince of Hell was clearly a lot more worthwhile than the previous scraps. Death Knight finally responded once again to this shameless little favored one of his.
Whoosh.
The soul vanished into the pendant.
Blood-red patterns spread over the metal surface like living veins.
A moment later, the pendant spat out its reward.
Another crystal.
"I told you," Ian said, grabbing it from the air. "My stepfather took your soul away to use as a toy. This is just the treat he picked out for me from his stash."
The crystal melted in his mouth the moment it touched his tongue.
The familiar taste.
Always that unbelievably good texture.
Instantly dissolving.
A new surge of strength coursed through Ian's whole body.
[Name: Ian Kent]
[Normal Classes: Student Lv.7 (586/640), Writer Lv.1 (7/10)]
[Supernatural Classes: Berserker Lv.4 (69/80), Barbaric Tyrant Lv.3 (7/40)]
[World Recognition: Independent NPC]
[Talent Skills: Reverse Blood Furnace, Perfect Divinity]
[Class Skills: Regenerative Surge, Body of Iron, Solar Eyes]
[Class Skill Points: Berserker (3), Barbaric Tyrant (1)]
[General Skills: Ian Kent Defense Technique (Beginner), Learning (Elite)]
[General Skill Points: 7]
[Strength: 23 → 26]
[Constitution: 44 → 44.3]
[Intelligence: 3.3 → 3.5]
[Spirit: 7.9 → 21]
The feeling was familiar.
Once again, the biggest increase had gone straight into Spirit.
This had far exceeded Ian's expectations. Apparently the title Hell Prince did have real value after all.
The increase to Spirit was far beyond what even the avatar of a demon lord had given him before.
"I got stronger again! And I'm still not bald!"
Ian instinctively checked the top of his head. No hair loss. Good.
He could also feel his eyes had changed.
Even the slight visual strain from firing the golden heat beams earlier had vanished, and he had not needed to activate Regenerative Surge and burn calories to recover.
Not only could he now use his ability longer,
[Solar Eyes: Your eyes can release high-intensity beams of energy. Prolonged use causes temporary vision decline. The beam's strength is determined by your Spirit stat.]
the actual power of the skill had also increased massively.
Roughly speaking, it now felt like three times stronger than before.
"Sadly, nowhere to use it yet."
Ian glanced regretfully at the upside-down corpse, which had already reverted into a far uglier demonic form.
The stat increase was not the only benefit he had gained. After checking his panel, Ian quickly noticed something else new on his long list of statuses.
[Walker of the Infernal Divide]
That was clearly the extra reward for offering a Hell Prince's soul to Death Knight.
It now sat beside [Favored of the Death Knight].
The description was short.
That meant it was probably important.
Whether it was important for Ian or for everyone else, though, was another matter entirely.
At the moment, Ian was mostly just grateful to his generous stepfather. He immediately decided that every year on the anniversary of their first meeting, he would honor Death Knight with a KFC feast.
Even if his stepfather could only smell it.
"Luck really is on my side."
Ian was in a fantastic mood. One hand carried the bucket of blood. The other dragged the deformed demonic corpse.
Just as he was about to call Madison over,
she came running over on her own.
"Ian, have you joined some weird group or something? A freak club?" Madison held up Ian's phone. "Why is there a message from a bunch of garbled symbols labeled Gotham Freak?"
"He says you need to send the rest of the manuscript the way you promised. And don't blame me for seeing it. It popped up while I was editing my photos."
She tried to defend what remained of her principles.
Entirely pointless.
"Read less Japanese manga."
Ian looked up at the sky.
He could now see birds flying overhead, though his vision still was not good enough to spot satellites.
"He's definitely reminding me to move fast. No way the script he already took got stolen again, right?"
Ian scanned the surroundings.
Then after a brief thought,
he walked over to two of the captured demon-thralls, snapped their necks, and left the bodies in the wreckage.
"Let them take the blame."
Every disaster scene needed a culprit, after all. Ian was already being merciful by handing over two of them.
Then he loaded everything else up.
The flesh.
The blood.
The magic book.
The pendant.
The contraband toad.
The surviving demon-thralls.
Everything.
He drove off before anyone official could arrive.
As the Hellcat pulled away, the late sun reflected off the windshield like molten gold.
And Ian was already thinking ahead.
He had a magic book.
He had a demon battery.
He had a Hell-fuel-powered car.
He had a healing witch.
And now, apparently,
he had a path straight into Hell itself.
"Looks like my summer schedule's getting full."
He said that with complete sincerity.
Behind him, Madison finally looked up from Ian's phone.
"...Wait. Did I just become part of your team?"
Ian glanced at her through the mirror.
Then smiled.
"Too late to back out now."
(End of Chapter)
[Check Out My P@treon For +20 Extra Chapters On All My Fanfics!!][[email protected]/euridome]
[+500 Power Stones = +1 Extra Chapter]
[Thank You For Your Support!]