"Trade-offs?"
Martinet raised his head and stared into the Lord of Hell's eyes, which gleamed with an evil red light. Confusion and puzzlement appeared on his face.
As perhaps one of the few subordinates Asmodeus truly trusted, he had participated deeply in more than one contest against numerous layer lords and witnessed the rise and fall of countless rulers.
Yet he had never seen anyone like Soros, someone who could reach a kind of tacit understanding with his master that only the two of them could comprehend.
The two of them seemed to possess Telepathy. No matter how obscure a signal one of them sent, the other immediately received it and responded.
Moreover, Asmodeus's attitude toward Soros was very strange. It was neither exploitation nor wariness like his treatment of other layer lords. Instead, it was closer to a partnership between equals.
Otherwise, if any other layer had developed to the point where it could threaten Nessus like the Ninth Layer, all sorts of ambitious traitors would have long since emerged to challenge the lord's authority and attempt to seize power.
That layer would then descend into endless internal strife and gradually decline.
In truth, most changes of layer lords in Baator had, to varying degrees, received Asmodeus's tacit approval or even support.
Otherwise, empowered by the Planar Will's powerful Lawful Evil alignment, every layer lord would be able to keep their subordinates firmly under control.
Through such political methods, the Lord of Hell did not even need to wield his supreme authority to easily deal with one challenger after another within the rules.
That was also why the outside world had so many different speculations about Asmodeus's true identity.
He was simply too mysterious, even more unfathomable than the Abyssal Will. From beginning to end, he had never once