Caterpillar

For a moment, no one spoke.

Keir stared at Yicha as if he had only just discovered that he was a demon.

The angel's brows and eyes formed an exaggerated angle. His flawless fingers tightly twisted the scroll back and forth, as though he were clutching his own brain and trying to manually start it up to understand the situation.

Go to Hell?

Like most angels born during these seven thousand years of peace—also known as the Isolated Island Era—Keir had never been to Chaos Hell.

He had never even considered it.

That was the advantage of order: it kept people from thinking about things beyond order.

He and Yicha had met at a traveling lecture by Talilichi, the great life priest of the Vine Spirit race. It had been hard not to notice each other; amid the green, slimy, tangled-rope-like Vine Spirits, they stood out like two glass marbles among a pile of mung beans.

Afterward, he and Yicha had maintained a good long-distance correspondence. Even when they absolutely had to discuss an important subject in person, they would meet in the most hidden, balanced, and energy-pure place among the nine planes—the Garden of the Equilibrator. That ensured they could discuss matters in a completely fair and impartial environment.

To be honest, after discovering that Yicha had broken their appointment, merely trying to use the pool at the center of the Garden of the Equilibrator to reflect and replay what had happened had frightened him. The coarse images of Chaos Hell burned his pure eyes like thick smoke.

Now this guy wants me to go to Hell?

He just told me to go to Hell, didn't he?

Will I choke to death? Melt? Be discovered by the seventy-two demon gods and torn apart?

Once he started thinking about it, the angel realized that this absolutely was not something he could think too deeply about.

Damn...

Oh no, that definitely wasn't swearing this time... Damn it!

Nese was doing slightly better, but not by much.

The warlock stood rigid all over, straighter than a knightly order's statue. His gaze was glued intently to the floor in the distance—as if it bore a life-sized portrait of Medusa.

He put on his hood and took it off again three times.

Nese knew that one could use a Holy Circle, precise instruments, a pure source of spiritual essence, sufficient concentration, and control over time, space, and stars to capture the instant planes collided, then guide alien energy from other planes over, or project it across.

That was what a professional planar warlock ought to do: use a precise structure of rituals, materials, and will to guide energy, like using red-hot iron tongs to stir a fire, occasionally fanning it to make the flames burn bigger or extinguish altogether.

Even if the mortal world were about to be destroyed twice in the flames, he should follow the proper procedure and reasonably save it twice.

Rather than plunging headfirst into the raging blaze.

Absolutely not.

The only reason to do so was because the demon Yicha, who was currently dangling his legs leisurely as he sat on the edge of the huge hole in the wall, had told him to.

The breeze cooperatively brushed against the demon's black-and-red robes, making him look especially respectable.

Especially correct.

Especially impossible to refuse.

Nese had already realized that Yicha bore no hostility toward the mortal world or humanity, and he was likely the only demon with such an attitude. It now seemed that only by following him could they reach the key to resolving the apocalypse of the Prime Material Plane.

This learned and benevolent demon—among so many humans, he had happened to be the one granted the chance to remain at his side...

The chance to touch the truth, perhaps even the chance to save the mortal world.

A feeling of glory rose within the warlock. Not even his gift for spellcraft, once praised by countless people, had ever made him feel such glory.

Just as he had said before, he ought to follow this heaven-sent mentor, no matter where he went.

Yet the images depicting Hell's terrifying sights, absorbed since childhood, surfaced again from the depths of his mind.

Nese shook his head, flinging those images away.

Perhaps his learned demon mentor had a way? Just as he had miraculously saved him from the claws of death.

But no matter what, that was Chaos Hell, a place that terrified every human...

Silence.

Silence lingered.

All kinds of heavy-hearted silence.

After a complex stillness mixed with holiness, evil, ordinariness, joy, and boredom.

Smack!

Xiqisi clapped her hands crisply.

"Wonderful!" Her violet eyes sparkled with interest, and her sweet, alluring voice echoed through the drafty prison cell as she asked the question circling everyone's mind. "How do we get there?"

Yicha slowly turned around, blue flames burning in his eyes.

"So, you've made up your minds?"

He was giving us time to choose... He respected our free will so much... Nese immediately realized.

He looked at Keir. The angel remained silent, confusion still shining in his golden eyes. Nese understood this very well. A basic trait of long-lived creatures: slow reactions. This fellow embodied it perfectly.

"Wherever my teacher goes, I will of course be there."

Nese immediately bowed as he spoke.

Xiqisi shot him a somewhat surprised glance. She had not expected this tiny human warlock not to shrink back.

"I hope to remain by your side," Nese added.

Yicha rose to his feet and walked before the warlock.

He stirred Disorder Energy and transformed into his demon form, a golden horn chain winding around his vivid crimson horns.

Good.

A caterpillar with commendable courage. He had not misjudged him.

Of course, it did not matter if he had.

He gently raised one hand and pressed it onto Nese's head. Nese did not move. Keir watched them anxiously.

"You will die."

Yicha spoke slowly, feeling the young warlock begin to tremble beneath his hand.

Xiqisi's eyes lit up excitedly.

"Following your instructions," Nese finally said in a strained hiss.

Yicha smiled. "Good."

He gripped the warlock's skull.

Blue flames surged in his eyes as chaotic black mist began to seep from his entire body.

It was as if something had suctioned onto the warlock's head. The crown of his head pressed tightly against Yicha's demonic palm, while all his features and facial skin flew upward.

Hiss...

In just an instant, Nese could no longer make a sound.

His whole body convulsed with tremors. Horrifying, sucking gurgles sounded where his head met the demon's hand. The warlock's eyes and mouth gaped wide, but there were only pitch-black holes within them, along with blood dripping continuously downward.

With a pop, his tongue, eyeballs, and brain were sucked clean out through the top of his skull.

The warlock's body rapidly deflated. His skin first turned deathly pale—because all the blood within had vanished—then changed into a dry gray.

Whoosh—gurgle, gurgle...

Flesh and blood were pumped out from inside him.

In the blink of an eye, the warlock had become an empty leather face-sack.

Bleurgh...

Hahahahahahahaha!

Keir vomited. Xiqisi clapped and laughed heartily.

Yicha lightly moved his fingers—and even that wrinkled face-sack shrank upward, vanishing between his fingers as though elastic.

Nese's cloak lost the support of flesh and dropped to the floor.

The warlock disappeared in his palm.

A caterpillar, Yicha thought.

The black mist grew denser. It remained still, awaiting his command.

The demon did not stop. He concentrated on carrying out the rules he had invented himself.

The energy of the warlock's flesh and matter flowed upward, was broken down by the horn chain, then returned to his palm once more.

His palm filled with that pitiful human's energy, heavy and dense, like pig iron.

Yicha raised that hand and tossed it upward.

He threw a mass of jelly-like air into the sky.

The vomiting and laughter stopped in midair.

Like an illusion.

A blond young man appeared in midair and fell before them.

Nese curled up on the floor and looked up at the demon blankly. He looked no different from before and seemed not yet to understand what had happened.

Yicha rubbed his wrist.

Only after a while did Xiqisi and Keir quietly gather around. The angel casually draped clothes over Nese—this was simply his nature.

"Teacher...?" Nese's voice sounded, exceedingly weak.

"Only energy beings can pass through planes."

"This is..."

The planar warlock wore a confused expression. His whole body felt weightless. The magical tail end of the demon's words still echoed lowly, but his brain no longer reacted to them so violently.

Young caterpillar.

Yicha met his gaze with an encouraging look.

You are a butterfly now.