No matter how absurd Baal found the facts, or how unwilling he was to accept Michael becoming the Demon King, he had to conceal this for his unreliable new superior.
Baal: “When I followed Lord Lucifer back then, I also learned a little of the divine art of changing one’s appearance, what’s that look?”
“Lord Lucifer, still?”
Michael gave a soft laugh: “The Archangel who fell is me. You should now address me as Your Majesty, Great Demon Baal.”
Baal did not refute these words, but stared at the person in front of him with an interested look: “What, being Archangel in Heaven wasn’t enough, and now that you’re in Hell you want to put on airs?”
Michael lightly brushed the dust off himself, looking calm and unruffled, and his tone was also mild: “That’s not right of you to say, Baal.”
“You should know that right now the balance between Hell and Heaven is just right. If Lucifer had become the Demon King, thinking only of attacking Heaven, then what awaited us would be a shattered world.”
Baal found these words very funny, and refuted them on the spot: “Merely attacking Heaven would shake the root of the world? Don’t you find that funny, Michael?”
Funny?
Michael thought it was indeed very funny.
But having been through this kind of thing for real, he understood that the more minor the matter, the more easily it becomes the mayfly that shakes the great tree.
What was the process in the previous life? Wasn’t it that Lucifer fell, Michael and God kept up a precarious surface friendliness, until Lucifer, urged on by the god from another world, sent the Archangel to the Abyss? And that completely broke the original balance of the three realms.
Lucifer was still the Demon King, but Michael and God were no longer who they had been.
And Michael had only sorted out the causes and effects of these things long, long after they happened. On the surface, each thing indeed seemed unrelated to the others, but once connected, one would find that every link was tied to the next and every point was interlocked, and when these closely linked events were put together, a clear logic could be seen.
Pulling the God of Light into the Abyss, destroying the barrier between the three realms and the Abyss: of these two most crucial steps, the former was planned by Lucifer himself, and the latter Michael himself had no choice but to do.
He closed his eyes, pressed down his bad mood at having been schemed against, and then said to the demon in front of him: “Whether you help me or not, whether you respect me or not, you can’t change the facts in front of you. I only needed a reason to leave Heaven. Whether I am the Demon King or not, I don’t care.”
Baal snorted: “You needed a reason to leave Heaven, and you could have done it at any time, so why choose the time Lucifer fell? Michael, who do you think will believe that?”
The one who had inherited the former Archangel’s position seemed not to hear these words, and just said calmly: “Whether you believe it or not doesn’t matter. Anyway, I really have no interest in being the Demon King.”
Although he had taken the Demon King’s place at the cost of himself, so that Lucifer would be bound in Heaven, he also knew that his power was too bright and he was not the material for a Demon King at all.
Although he was not the Demon King, that did not stop him from speaking to these demons without courtesy.
“It’s different for you fallen angels, Baal. You need a place to live, you need something like a home. Not only that, you must also stand firm in this new territory with the pride you were born with.”
Michael suddenly smiled, with an inexpressibly mocking look: “So are you sure you want to keep going head to head with me?”
As a newly made great demon, Baal was proud to the bone, or rather arrogant. He had chosen to attack Heaven and fall because he respected Lucifel, and it was by no means a choice made under compulsion or helplessness.
Compared with the other fallen angels, he actually had no reason that required him to fall. Perhaps his situation would not be very good after Lucifer fell, but that would only be temporary.
A superior rebels and the subordinates are dragged in; this is entirely normal. As far as this matter went, he wouldn’t say much.
As an angel of Heaven, had he not longed for Lucifel, Baal would have had many choices.
And now, when he had thought he was following his heart by following Lucifel… he suddenly realized that it had only been a dream. In fact, an Archangel had indeed fallen, but it was one whose relationship with him could not be called good.
Worst of all, he had no other choice now.
Lucifer had been left in Heaven, and he, had already fallen to Hell.
Listening to the conversation of his two colleagues, Belial only felt his skull ache: “Whether you want respect or any other treatment, isn’t the biggest problem now how to change the power and appearance in Michael’s body?”
Baal could only retract his claws and rub his nose: “The appearance is easy to solve, just do as Lord Luci… as he deceived Heaven back then.”
Belial gave a cold laugh: “So this time it really has become a joke? Our grand operation has gone on for so long, and we couldn’t even bring back one Demon King… it’s laughable just to think about.”
Michael, after all, had once been the one and only God, and as for the methods of converting power, he felt they should be in his memory.
He summoned the divine artifact, and under the horrified gaze of the other two great demons, sealed away the original power of light bit by bit.
Putting the artifact away, he raised his head and saw two blank faces.
He blinked and tilted his head: “What’s wrong, is there a problem?”
Belial: “What do you mean ‘is there a problem’!? Isn’t this a huge problem?”
He would stake his word on it that even Lucifer, who was supposed to become the Demon King, could not have known how to convert power like this. Never mind the rest, an Archangel fell to Hell with neither appearance nor power changed, which meant he was still one of those angels of Heaven. As for the inside of his body, there was even less chance of any dark power.
Michael reached out, and in his open palm the powers of darkness and light blended together, repelled and sprang apart, and blended again.
Baal was stunned.
He had truly never seen this kind of scene.
As Michael slowly closed his fist, interrupting the process of the powers’ attraction and repulsion, he put away the excess emotion on his face and threw a question to his two new subordinates.
“According to your original plan, what comes next?”
Only then did the two great demons come to their senses.
Oh right, they had a plan, didn’t they?
While they were still communicating with their eyes, Michael had already lost patience.
Without waiting for the two great demons to work out an answer, he had already taken steps toward the entrance of Hell.
He didn’t find Baal and Belial’s attitude strange.
Even if circumstances forced it, he really would not and could not take Lucifer’s place.
No, he didn’t have that intention himself.
Thrown into this point in time without warning, he still didn’t understand what had happened that made him open the door and come to this moment.
He had learned the news that Archangel Lucifel, whom he had once treated as an idol, had betrayed Heaven, followed immediately by the other’s merciless attack, and he had not only needed to sort out the existing situation while facing the attack but also to immediately come up with a countermeasure.
To be honest, after a whole series of things, he finally had a chance to breathe, only to be told the fact that a three-person movie had only two people in it… anyone would have a bit of a temper, right?
With the corners of his lips slightly curled, the black-haired, red-eyed Demon King’s long hair, tied in a ponytail, lifted lightly.
As the power of darkness was fully released at the entrance of Hell, the might of a superior slowly fell on every corner of Hell.
This was a world where strength is respected, and Michael knew this well.
Back then, he had been willing to set aside his dignity to beg Lucifel, both teacher and friend, to return, and what had he gotten in exchange? His colleagues thinking he still had lingering feelings for the other? Or God taking surveillance measures against his possible betrayal? Whichever it was, it was not something he should have had to bear.
Michael never admitted to being weak, so this time he intended to settle a lot of troubles with force.
Seeing that Michael was gone, Baal and Belial assumed he had gone off somewhere to slack off, and began discussing the arrangements to follow.
Belial put his hands on his hips with a grief-stricken face: “I get it now, Michael has never given any thought to whether we live or die, otherwise he wouldn’t have said such things, would he?”
What did he mean, they needed a place to live? Didn’t Michael himself need one?
Fine, the former Archangel with the bright and brilliant appearance probably really had no need to worry about that.
Compared with Belial’s displeasure, Baal considered things more practically: “Even if we don’t acknowledge him, there’s nothing we can do about it now. The other fallen angels seem to have already reached the deepest part of Hell by now.”
Compared with the native residents of Hell, it was the angels they had brought down who would find it harder to accept a change of leader.
For his part, Baal really did not know how to explain Michael taking Lucifer’s place.
No, in fact he didn’t know what had happened to delay Lord Lucifer, so that Michael picked up the chance.
The most heartbreaking thing was that this Archangel who had picked up the chance looked utterly uninterested.
It made him even more stifled.
Just then, the ground of Hell shook violently, startling the two great demons into turning their heads at the same time.
Belial suspected there was something wrong with his eyes, as he couldn’t see any buildings in his field of vision.
“…Where’s the entrance of Hell? That huge entrance?”
Baal: “…”
He wanted to know too.
Had Hell been looted by someone?
Michael sat on the only intact chair in Hell, legs crossed, his expression casual.
“The name Hell is too ugly, so I’ve decided to rename it the Abyss.”