The next moment, his figure vanished from the hell-tainted base and appeared directly before the motel known as "Elysian Fields," located beside Interstate 90.
The motel still retained the bright exterior Mercury's divine power had given it.
But beneath that false prosperity lay a deathly Silence.
Lucifer pushed open the half-closed door and stepped inside.
There was no anticipated divine radiance, no tense atmosphere of a meeting—not even the faintest trace of life.
There was only devastation.
The meeting room doors had been shattered, and the walls were covered in scorch marks, frost, corrosion stains, and other traces left by various energy impacts.
The air was permeated by a strange sense of "blankness," the void left behind after divinity had been forcibly stripped away and souls completely annihilated.
There were no corpses, no lingering souls—only pure disappearance.
Lucifer's brow furrowed ever so slightly.
This was not the scene he had expected.
He had anticipated terrified gods kneeling in submission, or desperate resistance—not a place that had already been "harvested."
"Interesting."
He murmured to himself, his voice echoing through the empty motel. This was definitely not the result of infighting among those native gods. It seemed something had happened.
Someone had cleared away the obstacles for him.
But Lucifer knew it was certainly not an act of kindness. That "blankness" alone made it clear that the other party had an agenda.
He extended a finger, and a thread of dark energy flowed from its tip like a sensitive probe, beginning to capture and analyze every trace of energy lingering in the air.
Chaotic fragments of divine power. A strange, complex fluctuation of power. An evil, predatory shadow energy...
And finally, one faint yet distinct direction.
"Hell?"
Lucifer's brow tightened further.
The residual energy trail actually pointed toward Hell?
Who had killed