The Time After the Miracle

While he was unconscious, the energies that had dispersed returned to Yicha's side.

Gentle dream energy relaxed his nerves, lively life energy wove and mended his wounds, and law energy formed a thin shell of magical warning around him—now it was trembling violently, waking him.

Yicha sprang up.

Almost at the same instant, a gaping maw carrying a stench of blood lunged straight at him, its gleaming white fangs barely an inch from the top of his head.

The thought of dodging had only just crossed his mind when his body blinked a meter to the side—he realized his energy was fully replenished. He swiftly drew his scimitar and slashed the thing across the waist, carving a deep, long wound.

The deafening roar still hung in the air as the attacker crashed to the ground, black fireworks spraying from the spot cleaved open by the blade.

Yicha rose to his feet and prodded the monster on the ground with the tip of his blade—it could only be called a monster.

Demons came in all shapes and forms, but this one bore obvious signs of stitching—four bowl-shaped protrusions stood on one side of its pitted belly.

It had a ring of coarse lion's mane, but its body resembled a water strider magnified countless times. Its back had the texture of solidified lava, and farther down, it was joined to a scorpion's tail. Its entire abdomen was covered in dense, rough dark-brown stitches and thick, sickly green scars.

The monster lay sprawled in a disgusting, incomplete lump, broken roars rolling from its throat.

But it could no longer get up. Everything beneath its skin was rapidly leaking away through the gashes cleaved open by true chaos power.

One side of the monster's face was covered in grape-like tumors that obscured its features, but its outline looked familiar.

Yicha lifted a finger. The other side of the monster's face twisted at an unnatural, rigid angle, and it let out a sharp howl. Yicha looked at that half of its face and recognized it—it was half a lion's face.

Andras's subordinate, Baron Bile.

Yicha's gaze shifted to the monster's back, where he spotted that chunk of solidified-lava-like material. He had seen that texture before—it came from Amiladu.

That little demon who loved reciting poetry had ultimately been dealt with.

Was it because his injuries had been too severe, or had he been punished for letting Yicha escape?

There was no need for that. They could not have stopped him anyway.

Yicha lowered his gaze and suddenly realized something.

He looked down at his reflection in the blade—his skin was firm, his features sharply defined, two long crimson horns extended from his forehead, and blue flames burned in his eye sockets.

The standard appearance of a demon.

He had turned back into a demon.

A miracle?

Yicha sheathed the Yin Iron scimitar at his waist and touched his chest and back—his body was intact, without a single scar. Even the places where those little claws had torn his robe had miraculously returned to their original state, good as new.

A miracle.

These were all probably effects of the miracle.

All positive effects...

No. That was impossible.

Miracles seemed to grant whatever one wished for, but in truth, depending on the angel involved, they often had the opposite result.

He recalled a famous story: an archangel had gone to a human city on the Prime Material Plane for a visit and received a warm welcome from its residents. This kindhearted archangel then bestowed a miracle, wishing that the city's people would never suffer from illness again.

The miracle happened.

A storm of fire and brimstone fell from the sky. The entire city was razed overnight, every resident set aflame and burned into ashes that truly would never fall ill again.

The angel had also committed suicide out of agony and guilt—and what made the matter even more tragic was that angels were not permitted to commit suicide.

So he had become a terrifying, immortal, tortured monster, wandering year-round between the Slaughter Domain and the End of the Final Path.

Yicha shook his head.

No matter what, he had no desire to become the protagonist of a similar story.

According to Keir, miracles that were entirely positive and aligned with one's wishes did exist.

But according to the records of the Source of Order, only seraphim with the purest, strongest, and most devout energy could create them, and only in the most stable environments.

The First Fallen Angel, though possessing the same rank as a seraphim in the prayers of the Fallen Angel Cult, was ultimately just an identity they had fabricated. Moreover, it had been created through the Transfiguration of a demon, so its purity could hardly compare to that of a true seraphim.

And the condition and environment in which he had created the miracle had both been as bad as they could possibly be.

The miracle could not have been so kind to him.

There had to be some terrible consequence he did not know about, already quietly taking shape.

He just did not know what it was yet.

Yicha swiftly swept his gaze over his surroundings.

This was a viewing platform above one of Mount Kishino's levels, a place every demon knew well. The best spot to watch the Branding Judgment.

Dozens of towering black stone chairs cast vague, trembling shadows, arranged in the shape of half a hexagram—the other half was filled by six rows of cages suspended in midair, containing several shriveled, withered things.

Mount Kishino as a whole was a towering, slanted crescent. Countless enormous, sharp blades jutted out in every direction like interlocking fangs, forming a rough and savage outline.

The mountain's third level curved outward in an enormous arc, like a strange tongue covered in barbs, stretching far into the distance.

At the end of the "tongue," a massive trapezoidal blunt opening lay broad and flat, burning with bluish flames that would never be extinguished. Crimson airwaves and complex energies churned endlessly above it, day and night.

Flame Cliff.

Its two sides were engraved with asymmetrical, intricate ancient sigils. Each sigil repeated the six paths of soul, matter, law, sin, punishment, and destruction six times, carved with spear, blade, claw, thorn, curse, and fang, layered six times over.

On the side facing the ground, the true name of every demon was branded in living fire. Line after line of tiny ancient demon script packed the surface, extending all the way to where that burning moon neared its center.

Every demon's anchor was here.

Chaos's anchor was here as well.

Mount Kishino.

The place where disorderly energy was most concentrated.

The heart of Chaos Hell.

The passage through which the King of All Demons connected to the power of the entire hell.

As far as the eye could see, the place was empty. Beelzebub must have summoned every demon to the Flesh-Forging Pool.

But nothing seemed out of the ordinary...

Except... this place was an entire hell-radius away from Yicha's Floating Island Courtyard. He had no idea how he had gotten here.

Yicha glanced at Bile.

A strange sense of unease suddenly rose in his heart.

How much time had passed?

He calculated inwardly.

On the very day Andras had been killed by him and Bile injured, he had returned to the floating island. Almost immediately afterward, Yifomiet had attacked. Exploring Yifomiet's dream had taken only a dozen or so minutes.

After that...

He had sent Goodbye to bring back Keir and Nese, while he taught Xiqisi magic. That had only taken three hours.

Infusing Nese's energy into the new body had taken a dozen or so minutes. Then Yifomiet had quickly arrived to report the bad news. Within the next ten minutes, they had completed the defense of the floating island.

Then, thirty seconds later, he had met Beelzebub.

How long had Beelzebub spoken with him? Though it had felt longer than ten thousand years, thinking carefully, it had not been long.

No matter how he counted it, the total could not have exceeded half a day.

He stared at the monster on the ground. Its body was covered in stitches, and its skin had clearly been soaked and processed in the blood pool. Bile's voice grew weaker and weaker, tar-like bubbles beginning to froth from the corners of his mouth.

A new stitched demon took five days to complete...

Where had those four and a half days gone...

Had he been unconscious for four and a half days?

Yicha bent down, pale blue tentacles growing from his palm.

Bile gave two muffled groans.

Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack.

Too late. Like a porcelain cup dropped on the floor, cracks spread through the stitched demon, and it shattered into pieces in an instant.

He was thoroughly dead.