Come

Ichaint snapped off that slender arm.

A new arm replaced it, squeezing tighter, its fuzz pricking into his skin.

"Buzz."

He looked around.

In both his energy and material vision, there was only a dense, solid-like darkness. No boundaries were visible.

Ichaint flapped his wings, trying to move forward.

The darkness was split apart by his figure, but more darkness immediately followed ahead.

The six slender arms clutching him were like ill-fitting clothes tied around his body.

"Buzz buzz buzz," Beelzebub said happily.

Ichaint felt his brain shaking like pudding that had lost its container.

Even without the rank suppression between demons—the kind that could blast the other into a spray of blood in an instant—the piercing, bone-eroding sensation still arose every time she spoke.

"Command. Command. Command. Buzz."

The voice came from the left, from the right, from above.

This command still had no target, but her tone had grown heavier. Like three crocodiles biting down on his brain and twisting in three different directions.

A slender arm pressed a dent into the muscles of his back, feeling its way back and forth.

Frowning, Ichaint grabbed her wrist. Beelzebub let out a light laugh and a buzzing sound at the same time.

"Your Majesty, King of All Demons, what would you like to command?"

Ichaint seized the hand with its soft pad-like disk and swung the mass of things embracing him away.

That mass flew forward through the darkness, as though it had crashed into a vast pile of popcorn, making soft muffled thumps and a broad rustling sound.

Six new arms climbed onto him. This time, they brazenly wrapped around his neck, and Ichaint felt his face being pressed by an irrefutable force into something furry and soft.

"All. Of course, all of it, buzz. All."

Everything was black, yet Ichaint's vision flashed white three times with those three short sentences.

At the same time, several thin tube-like things pierced through his robe, lightly poking at his lower back and back, pressing and sucking. They were not sharp; their tips were even as soft as tender shoots. If it had only been one poke, it would have been no big deal.

But they never stopped.

Ichaint gripped the slender jointed arms around his neck, three on each side.

He paused for one second.

He could snap those six arms at once, or throw the Beelzebub in his hands away again.

Then, in less than half a second, a new one would appear and pounce on him.

She was becoming more and more proficient.

One tube parted several feathers near the base of his wings, sniffing the skin underneath with a hiss.

Ichaint shook his wings, stirring up a colorless circular current of air. The tubes sucking at him were flung away.

About two million light laughs, two million complaints, and six million buzzing background noises erupted.

They all came from the black specks surrounding him.

They all came from Beelzebub. Or rather, potential Beelzebub larvae.

Yes, she had ten million alternatives. Each of those tiny, irritating black specks could turn into her in an instant, and she could shift and travel freely among them.

The King of All Demons could annoy you to death without harming you, if she wanted to.

She could also hurt you however she pleased, if she wanted to.

Before Beelzebub's larvae could close in, Ichaint swiftly stirred the energy of laws into a specific shape, then spread it outward with the power of order running through his entire body.

Guided by the laws, the energy of order quickly wove itself into a pure white, translucent bubble, isolating him from the heavy darkness and from Beelzebub, enclosing him within.

Only while staying in this small space he had forcibly carved out could he barely think.

The translucent bubble flickered between bright and dim.

The energy was draining faster than he had expected.

Normally, maintaining this tiny domain should not have taken much effort. But things were different now.

Tap tap tap. Buzz buzz buzz.

Buzz buzz buzz. Tap tap tap.

Knock, knock. Buzz, buzz.

Six slender arms knocked against the defensive hemisphere made of order energy at different frequencies. She was not even using much force; she was merely expressing her eagerness.

"Darling," Beelzebub said.

"Ichaint Ichaint Ichaint Ichaint Ichaint Ichaint Ichaint!" the Beelzebubs said together.

Pressure squeezed the round white domain enclosing him from every direction.

Beelzebub bent down, pressing herself affectionately against his bubble.

Perhaps because she was pressed close to the First Fallen Angel's orb of order energy, or because the King of All Demons herself had dissolved part of the pure darkness.

Suddenly, her face emerged from the endless blindness.

Since Beelzebub had ascended to become the King of All Demons, this was the first time Ichaint had seen her face.

To be honest, he would have preferred never to see it even once.

Beelzebub looked far more mature than the last time he had seen her two thousand years ago.

She now had nearly six hundred eyes burning with dark crimson flames, though only fourteen of them were on her face.

Two, round and large like an owl's, grew where a humanoid's eyes would be. Six smaller ones lined each side above her cheeks, shining fiercely.

The remaining five hundred or so eyes formed a strange radial symbol extending from her back.

She could blink—few demons could blink. The two larger eyes blinked very slowly, like foam-covered waves rushing onto shore before gently receding, while the tiny spark-like ones flickered without pause.

Beneath the eyes were small red lips.

"Dear Ichaint, buzz."

Beelzebub clung to his bubble, raised her two forelimbs and rubbed her hands together, tilting her head and looking at him with sparkling eyes like a mischievous girl.

Ichaint knew that gesture all too well.

It meant danger.

"Great King of All Demons, I have something extremely important to report to you," he immediately said.

He had not forgotten why he had come to face her. He had something to say.

"Wait. Wait. My Ichaint. We cannot talk like this."

Beelzebub laughed with a buzz. Her four layers of webbed wings, tipped with sharp barbs, stretched open. Like a gigantic moth, they tightly wrapped around the white sphere of light containing Ichaint.

Then she looked directly at him, her red lips forming a tiny circle.

Two words popped out.

"Command: Come."

Crack!

The pure white translucent bubble made of order energy was brutally torn open from the front, and darkness surged inside.

"Come," "throw," "flee," "stop," "lie down."

The five purest demon commands.

"Come."

The foremost of the five purest commands.

Spoken by a demon of the highest rank.

Almost instantly, Ichaint realized that this woman's strength had risen by more than one level since her ascension.

He had avoided her too many times after all. He had failed to accurately estimate the speed of her growth.

Infinite energy, infinite malice, and endless time had allowed her to molt and transform again and again.

If this "Come" had been directed at Hell's elite Sixth Legion, it would not even need rank suppression to compress them instantly into a demon rod as thick as an armful.

And now, this "Come" was directed solely at Ichaint from such close range.

"Come."

She opened three pairs of arms toward him. Her tiny rosy lips smiled at him. Her six hundred eyes stared at him.