Erasure

The monster on the ground dissolved into a puddle of nutrient-rich black-green slurry. Ichaint withdrew the energy from his palm and straightened up.

His mind was terrifyingly quiet.

There was no broadcast from Beelzebub.

There was none of that faint, irritating, continuous background noise he could always sense as a demon. Nor were there any messages from the King of All Demons.

It was hard for him to guess what had happened to Beelzebub.

So he turned his thoughts to the missing four and a half days.

If Beelzebub had continued in her previous direction, four and a half days would have been enough for her to destroy his courtyard three thousand times over.

With that thought, Ichaint raised both hands and stirred the red and white contract sigils, sensing them.

Xiqisi and Yifomiet were unharmed.

A slow, faint pulse of life in his blood told him that Goodbye, the hellhound linked to his soul, was also in good condition.

Good. Beelzebub had not gone to his floating island to slaughter everyone.

There was no need to dwell on it.

No matter how much longer the Coin of Miracles could keep spinning in the air, whether its bright side could illuminate a way out of this predicament, or whether its shadowed side would obscure the road ahead.

It was time to act.

Flame Cliff blazed fiercely. Ichaint beat his wings and flew toward its summit, where the ghostly blue flames burned brightest.

Scorching waves of heat rushed at his face.

He ascended to the very edge of the cliff and swiftly searched through the demonic symbols formed by wildly writhing living fire.

He had not had time to ask for the names of every member of the Fallen Angel Cult—an unforeseen mistake, indeed—but he could deal with one first.

"Sankarabi."

He found the word in an inconspicuous corner.

Upon Flame Cliff, demons' names were inscribed through six methods, layered six times over.

To erase one, six methods were likewise required, destroying it six times.

Or one special method.

He drew the curved blade containing the power of true chaos and pressed the tip of the Yin Iron blade into Sankarabi's name.

The living fire that formed the word twisted to either side, then flattened, dried out, and shriveled into an ugly little black strip, like an insect crushed beneath the blazing sun.

Ichaint took Alexander Hanging Ghost's twig from his robes and easily scraped away those shriveled, water-stain-like marks—other materials with excellent energy conductivity and non-conflicting energy could have worked as well. But nothing had greater conductivity or a more compatible energy type than a branch containing the essence of the Tree of Hell.

The remnants of the living-fire characters were scraped away, leaving a string of indentations.

Those indentations needed to be dealt with.

If he did nothing, living fire would quickly regrow along them, making all his earlier work pointless.

Ichaint took out that precious bottle of Silent Ink—

A sturdy Resting Stone bottle, with a ring of inert adhesive sealant around its mouth and a rounded bottom—this thing never needed to stand upright on any table under any circumstances.

Using laws, he created a small transparent sphere in his right hand that sealed energy inside, just large enough to contain the bottle of ink. With two fingers, he gently picked open the seal, popped out the stopper of the Silent Ink, then tilted the bottle slightly.

Nothing flowed from its mouth.

He waited for a moment. Soon, the entire transparent mana barrier began to darken from within in a radiating pattern—indeed, it looked much like a drop of ink being injected into the center of an enormous ball of water.

Before long, the mana barrier in his hand had turned into a tiny pitch-black sphere. He carefully replaced and pressed down the stopper, put away the Silent Ink, then held that black sphere in his hands and pressed it toward the indentations.

It was difficult to say which description better matched the present situation:

What was easy to see was this—as the law barrier dissolved, the pitch-black sphere burst like a water-filled balloon, flooding the indentations that had once held the living-fire characters.

But upon closer inspection, what truly happened was this:

Those indentations drifted toward the black sphere and neutralized each other, both becoming transparent. Yet because of that sudden disappearance, the places where the indentations had been were left newly pitch-black.

Ichaint knew very well that the second explanation was the truth.

Those black things were black not because their color was black, but because they were "empty."

Because there was nothing within them, including light.

After using emptiness to deal with the indentations, even if living fire could enter them, it would have nothing to grow from.

Void energy.

It was the sixth type of energy Nese had failed to identify within Ichaint. It came from the bottle of Silent Ink he always carried on him.

He only had this small bottle, so he had to use it carefully.

"Most scholars currently believe that 'void' is also a special kind of energy.

Void energy cannot be transformed, nor can it be obtained from other forms of energy. Void energy reacts with every substance except Resting Stone. Energy-conduction techniques are required to extract it.

It is worth mentioning that no creature with an innate domain of 'void' has yet been discovered.

Energy may be empty, but life cannot be empty!"

—<Forty-Six Common Domain Energies and Your Life · Appendix I>

"When mentioning the plane of End of the Final Path, one must mention its most renowned attraction—the Nihility Ocean Vortex. It produces over 90% of the world's void energy.

Every Downbend Season, skilled octagonal-curve fishermen stack themselves together, sail out in one hundred forty-four-faced polyhedra, extract the fleeting foam atop the vortex, and use purifying radiation to turn it into an ink invisible and intangible to material sight.

Local merchants call it Silent Ink. One bottle of this size (illustration here) can provide one cubic meter of void energy.

Those lucky enough to return from End of the Final Path intact may as well bring two bottles back for friends and family (if they have friends and family) as souvenirs (if they have hands)."

—<The Nine Planes Handbook · Local Specialties · End of the Final Path>

There was no problem. Removing old anchors was an important step in Transfiguration. He had promised the Fallen Angel Cult.

As for the other members of the cult, once he obtained a list of everyone in it, he could come back and do it again.

Ichaint examined the area dissolved away by void energy.

Only half a bottle of Silent Ink remained. Otherwise, he could have tried blotting out every name on Flame Cliff.

His gaze rose and settled on several names at Flame Cliff's very peak.

The topmost large line belonged solely to the King of All Demons:

"Beelzebub."

To be honest, Beelzebub had indeed stirred up some memories of the past.

It was not that he was surprised by the Demon Queen's cruelty, tyranny, moodiness, or incomprehensibility—none of that was new to him.

Ichaint was not one to actively remember the details of his interactions with other beings. But as he thought back now, he suddenly realized:

Beelzebub seemed to hold some personal grudge against him.

That was truly strange. Ichaint believed he had never had any personal grievances with other demons.

Speaking of Beelzebub's campaign against him—

He had originally thought that Transfiguration into an angel was merely another aggravating factor among his many inappropriate actions, but from what Beelzebub had implied, that did not seem to be the case.

She seemed to consider certain trivial matters, which he had regarded as perfectly natural, more important than Transfiguration into a demon's greatest enemy.

The living fire forming the word "Beelzebub" writhed before his eyes.

Silent Ink was mentioned in Chapter 3 when equipment was introduced.

Most creatures of End of the Final Path were law creatures.