Wrong

Elsewhere, Yifomiet was practically glaring at him—his bloodshot eyeballs looked even more bulging than usual.

His two bovine lips trembled as though he wanted to laugh but was trying desperately to hold it in.

"The right place? The right place?" he asked repeatedly, craning his neck.

Yicha did not understand what was so funny.

"Or you could follow me. I can give you several research directions, projects. Yes, that's what we call them."

Suddenly thinking of something, he continued smoothly, "We have several people who can do research together. You'll get twice the results with half the effort. This current Trinity Transfiguration is just too stupid. I have a better idea..."

His words were interrupted by a sneer.

"Let me tell you what the right place is."

Black smoke burst beside Yifomiet. The next second, he appeared two hundred feet away—in Yicha's energy vision, the prisms refracting fragments of his body seemed to twist toward another location at the same instant—

And so he simply appeared there.

Yifomiet appeared beside Sankarabi. He had changed back to the height of an ordinary demon, though his appearance remained bizarre and far more robust.

The Grand Duke of Hell seized the archbishop by the throat and lifted him up.

"Ugh—ughgh—"

The frail archbishop was utterly incapable of resisting a great demon second only to Beelzebub. He clawed uselessly at Yifomiet's fingers.

"Let him go." Yicha frowned slightly.

I still need to Transfigure these people later. I promised them, he thought.

"The right place is..." Yifomiet was about to snap Sankarabi's neck, but Yicha had already flown over. His Yin Iron blade drew a long streak of fleeting black fireworks as it slashed toward Yifomiet's shoulder.

The minotaur demon retreated to one side and dropped the archbishop. Several quick-reacting members of the order hurriedly flew down and caught him.

Sankarabi coughed twice and waved a hand. He was not seriously hurt.

"You're truly ridiculous," Yifomiet said to Yicha.

This time, he really was laughing mockingly.

"You're wrong." He paused, as though words had reached his lips only to be swallowed back down. "If you have what it takes, kill me."

"I don't want to kill you," Yicha immediately replied. "My gift should be used in the right place as well. I hope you understand that as soon as possible."

The smile vanished from Yifomiet's face.

The low-ranking demons covering the ground and filling the sky were confused or bewildered, and some began whispering among themselves.

"How old are you?" Yifomiet suddenly asked.

"Perhaps nearly four thousand."

Yicha realized that he truly did not remember how old he was. Compared to other important knowledge, something like age was far too insignificant.

"Four thousand years. Four thousand years." One corner of Yifomiet's mouth curled upward, exposing yellowed fangs. "At four thousand years old, you still don't understand that if you don't kill others, they'll kill you?"

Before his words had even faded, in less than half a blink, he had strangely teleported in front of Yicha. The Extermination Destruction Cone stabbed toward his throat.

The demons of the three legions let out excited roars. The demons of the order gasped sharply.

Yicha raised the blade in his right hand and smoothly sheared off the tip of the crimson spear—but it swiftly condensed again. He still did not know how strong his current body was, so he tilted one wing and dodged aside.

At the same time, he stirred dream energy with his left hand.

A cluster of thin, soft, pale-blue tentacles sprouted and grew rapidly from his palm like spring grass, dew-like suckers forming along their blades.

He slapped the palm bearing that cluster of pale-blue tentacles beneath Yifomiet's temple.

Destructive Burst.

Yifomiet raised a cloud of corrosive black smoke. His black demonic claw, with thick-knuckled fingers, flashed out and blocked Yicha's left hand.

Mirror-shard-like destructive energy collided with the order energy of the first fallen angel, condensing into ash-white particles the size of grains of sand that fell in a rustling shower.

Yifomiet's reaction was truly fast. He had basically blocked this sudden strike.

Basically.

The soft, slender pale-blue tentacles slipped through his fingers and curled forward gracefully.

They bent nimbly, passed through the coarse bristles studded with barbs, and pressed against Yifomiet's temple.

He said I was wrong, Yicha thought. He remembered such things especially well.

If something was wrong, it had to be corrected.

Yifomiet's bloodshot, bulging eyes froze. His movements stopped.

His body sank.

This body had never felt so heavy.

Yifomiet felt as though he were dreaming.

No.

He was certain that he was dreaming.

Because he saw his wife again.

"Ah-ha!"

She leaped from the shadows of the cave, making that familiar face at him, and pressed something ugly against his face.

He should have been startled, but he was not.

He stared silently at his wife.

The harpy's bright blue feathers were neat and vivid. Her face was twisted into a strange shape to accompany her silly expression, but those pale-purple eyes, so captivating, overflowed with bright mischief.

He looked at what she held.

An ugly bird egg, bright purple and spotted with black.

"Sorena," he said, while finding his own voice unfamiliar.

"Tch, no fun. I can't even scare you." Sorena spun around lightly, balancing the bright purple egg on the tip of one wing as she twirled it. "Her name is Xiqisi. Got a problem with that?"

He let out a soft breath. "No."

"Good boy, good boy." Sorena grinned. "Now for more good news. The elders of my flock came to inform me today. It's time for us to move."

Good news. Yifomiet knew what that word meant in Sorena's mouth.

He forcefully pulled over her other wing. Sure enough—bloodstains. Beneath the thick feathers lay a bandaged wound.

"Hey! Hey! Stop pulling me around!" Sorena swayed and hurriedly hugged the egg to her chest. "Otherwise, dinner will have to be daughter egg omelet. Do you want to eat daughter egg omelet?"

"They dared to bully you..." It was clearly a dream, yet the anger he felt was so real.

"Bully? What bullying?"

Sorena deftly pulled her wing free from his hand and flew onto a branch stretched across the upper part of the cave. "We don't use that word. We fae call it a prank. We have to prank people to live. Don't look so pitiful, Asmodeus! That just makes you easier to prank."

That is bullying, he thought.

He really should have killed them all. Every being that bullied her, mocked her, excluded her. "Oh, come on, don't be such a sore loser." Sorena would surely say that. She was fae. That was just how fae were.

Besides, he might not have been able to beat them.

"Fine." He heard himself compromise. "Where are we going?"

"Ooh, Asmodeus, don't you have any ideas of your own?" Sorena made that adorable chirping sound.

"No."

"Ooh, correct answer, correct answer. Asmodeus gets ten points." Happily, she tossed the bird egg above her head with one wing. "Funny enough, I've already decided. We're going to the Prime Material Plane."

"It's full of lowly creatures," he said.

"Ah. Sorry, sorry. I forgot that our Asmodeus is a wandering demon with refined tastes." Sorena chirped with laughter. "All right. You can complain on the way. I have a grand plan."

"What plan?"

Sorena's bright blue feathers blurred before his eyes. The dream closed before him like an iron-blue gate of death.