Belphegor

"What is this place?"

It seemed he had been sucked into the parchment... Then came a dizzying whirl... By the time Xuan Sheng came to his senses, he was already in a strange, chaotic space...

The surroundings here were like the void: There was no solid ground, and his entire body drifted through the air. All around him was a pitch-black background, filled with profound darkness and silence.

Strangely, despite how dark this space was, it still gave off an eerie light, allowing him to make out up, down, left, right, and his own location.

"You... come..."

A weary voice echoed in his mind, guiding Xuan Sheng to look toward a certain spot in the void.

Following the pull of some force, he propelled himself slowly forward...

After passing through layer upon layer of void, a strange stone platform soon appeared before Xuan Sheng.

It was a plain boulder, standing out sharply in this chaotic space. On top of it, a young woman who could be described as "enormous" was Deep Sleep.

The woman had long, white hair, and her graceful figure was fully revealed as she lay on her side. Her thin gauze clothing was clearly prepared for resting, but even such simple attire could not conceal her strange, lazy, and seductive air...

Judging solely by her figure and face, this woman, who looked no different from a human, was an absolute beauty, no less attractive than Mo Rui, who was a succubus. On top of that, her lazy and carefree air possessed a strange allure... Taken together, this woman's charm even surpassed that of the little succubus!

The moment he saw her, the young man's heart jolted.

Of course... if this woman's body had been the size of a normal person's, it might really have taken him some time to calm down.

Unfortunately, the woman before Xuan Sheng was probably more than three meters tall even without considering anything else... Although there was nothing about her body that distinguished her from an ordinary human, she clearly was not human...

Was she, like Mo Rui, also a demon?

Doubt showed in his eyes. Seeing no demonic features, Xuan Sheng's pupils constricted:

[Belphegor: Lv.?? One of the Seven Demon Lords of the Demon Race, the Demon King representing "Sloth"]

"Hm?"

The woman sitting sideways on the stone platform slowly opened her eyes and swept her gaze over the human before her.

This woman's eyes... They're so strange.

The sclera, which should have been white on a human, was pitch-black. Instead, the irises that should have been black were scarlet, radiating an eerie hue...

Her black eyes with red pupils flashed with confusion, as though the existence before her had taken her completely by surprise:

"A human?"

A slightly astonished voice rang out in Xuan Sheng's mind. At that moment, Li Xunsheng suddenly felt a strange sense of déjà vu...

He suddenly remembered that whenever he descended into the world where his dependents lived in another form... he had communicated with them in exactly this way...

But this woman before him was unwilling even to open her mouth in person... Could it be simply because speaking this way was more convenient?

Seeing that she had merely glanced at him before closing her eyes again, looking as though she could not be bothered to move another inch, Xuan Sheng could not help twitching the corner of his mouth.

As expected of the Demon King of "Sloth"...

And he had come here to gain this Demon King's acknowledgment?

But... where exactly was this place?

Unable to get any hints, Xuan Sheng had no choice but to speak:

"Your Majesty Belphegor, could you tell me where this place is?"

"The place of sealing."

The woman before him breathed evenly, looking Deep Sleep. Even the voice that echoed in Xuan Sheng's mind was feeble, as though it was not the words of Her Majesty the Demon Lord in a conscious state, but rather a murmur in a dream...

A seal?

Hah...

Seeing that even Belphegor's voice was feeble and that she had not given this "intruder" a proper glance from beginning to end, Xuan Sheng wisely shrugged. He did not ask about the various confusing questions any further, instead going straight to the point:

"I came to obtain your acknowledgment."

"Sure enough..."

Sloth, her eyes still closed, furrowed her brow almost imperceptibly before giving a slight nod.

"You passed."

"Eh?"

The young man, who had been waiting there for this Demon Lord to issue him a task, froze.

He passed?

Just like that??

He had not done anything at all???

Was there no task? Was he not supposed to obtain the acknowledgment of "Sloth"? This, this, this...

Could it be that she was even too "lazy" to conduct the trial?

"Go out. I await the day you return."

Compared with her earlier, completely emotionless tone, the voice that echoed in his mind now contained a trace of relief and anticipation... Yet this tiny sliver of emotion seemed to have exhausted all her strength.

The "giant" beauty on the boulder breathed steadily, as though she had fallen Deep Sleep once more and could no longer respond to anything happening outside.

[The Awakening of the Demon God—First Stage: Obtain the acknowledgment of "Sloth." Complete!]

A mysterious force of attraction seized Xuan Sheng's body again, seemingly dragging him forcibly outward...

At that very moment, golden light flashed in Xuan Sheng's eyes as he looked toward the existence on the boulder.

The demon whose true name was "Belphegor" was bound to the boulder by countless transparent chains... The restraint was so absolute that even for this Demon Lord, moving a finger was an impossible dream...

And in the instant he was dragged away, he finally obtained information about this place through the Eye of God...

[Pages of the Gods (I): During the war against the demons, the gods of the other races joined forces and sealed all Seven Demon Lords, binding them within specially crafted pages in order to force the Demon Race to abide by a special treaty signed in ancient times.]

[Note: The Demon Lord sealed within this page is the Fourth Demon Lord, "Sloth," Belphegor.]

Inside the Blood Rose Hotel, Mo Rui, dressed in a cyan qipao, lay sprawled across the table, staring blankly at the faintly reddened page in her hands...

Why had her emotions become increasingly difficult to control?

As an intelligence operative on the front lines of the Demon Race, she should have maintained a calm heart at all times and never wavered easily.

Yet when it came to that man who controlled her soul, she was always especially prone to taking things seriously.

She had even... in a moment of embarrassment and anger, actually thrown him into Lord Belphegor's seal...

"I shouldn't lose my temper so easily..."

She raised both hands and covered her head. This little succubus, who had received the same education as humans from childhood, actually knew very well that aside from his cheeky mouth, that man was quite good in every other respect, whether in character or conduct.

But he really should not have gotten involved in this matter.

She knew the legends passed down through the generations of the Demon Race extremely well, and she was even more familiar with the purpose of the seal in her hands...

All seven Demon Lords of the Demon Race had been sealed through the united efforts of the gods, causing the Demon Race's position in this world to plummet and leaving them universally despised and hunted.

And the Demon Race, which had never possessed faith, much less gods, was helpless against the gods' punishment.

But it was not without a way to break the seals.

If someone could find the seals of all the Demon Lords, enter them, gain the trust of every Demon Lord, and even release them...

Then that existence...

would become the god of all demons—these "faithless ones"...