Ch.176Answer (7)

Answer (7)

In the past, when she came to the Empire and advocated for starting diplomatic relations.

Belphegor was in despair.

No matter how strong she was, she couldn’t conquer the human realm alone.

In that situation, learning that there wasn’t even a line of communication with the human realm delivered quite a shock.

‘What am I supposed to do now?’

She understood the situation relatively well. The demon realm was heading toward destruction.

Leviathan knew this but was only looking out for his own interests.

As a result, they couldn’t even begin relations with the human realm, and even if they tried to establish connections now, it would already be too late.

That left only one option.

‘War.’

Much blood would be spilled.

Fighting for survival might mean battling until one side was completely annihilated.

Belphegor was afraid of that burden.

She had thought that becoming a Demon Lord would allow her to change many things. But that was a grave miscalculation.

Setting aside Leviathan, hadn’t there been others who thought like her? Everyone had failed, which is why the demon realm was in this state.

And because Belphegor was at the center of that despair and fear.

“Do you have a moment?”

“…”

She made a foolish choice.

The Pope’s plan. To bring down a heavenly deity and take its power.

Belphegor didn’t know much, but she at least realized that the Pope wasn’t on good terms with the Empire.

The enemy of my enemy could become my ally.

So she planned to join hands with the Pope, share the deity’s power, and use overwhelming force to bring down the Empire.

She thought that by collaborating with the Holy Order, even if war broke out, they could find a compromise.

And so the ritual began.

A prayer meeting to summon the heavenly deity.

Belphegor had to blankly watch as the Pope knelt in prayer for hours.

She felt skeptical. She couldn’t believe this would actually succeed.

It was a mistake to join in a state of desperation because she was too exhausted.

Tedious hours passed. Several times she thought about just leaving.

Yet she remained steadfastly in place because.

‘Is it really possible?’

She still had lingering hope.

Belphegor watched the Pope who had been kneeling in prayer for so long and thought.

It wasn’t prayer. She didn’t kneel, didn’t clasp her hands, and didn’t even close her eyes.

So this clearly wasn’t prayer.

‘Someone…’

Yes, that’s right.

‘Please save us…’

This was just a momentary thought.

***

“…”

After hearing Lug’s story, Belphegor couldn’t move for a while.

It felt like her innermost thoughts, which she had kept deeply hidden, had been exposed. It was humiliating.

He came for a conversation?

He heard her prayer and came?

“Don’t be ridiculous…”

Belphegor had been working hard all this time.

She reorganized the army to prepare for war and examined countless variables.

She threw herself as bait to summon the Dragon King and repeatedly acted foolishly to deceive the Empire’s Emperor.

During those years.

Belphegor had been whittling herself down.

She had made her resolution and carried out purges.

All for the future of demonkind.

“What can you possibly do?”

So many sacrifices had already been made.

Everyone had shed blood while looking toward a single goal.

So it couldn’t be. She couldn’t say that it had all been meaningless.

“With what feelings we…!”

Now?

Now a near-omnipotent deity appears and says he’ll solve everything?

That’s impossible.

It’s simply not possible.

“You can’t do anything.”

That’s why Belphegor denied it.

The heavenly deity couldn’t save her or the demon realm.

She couldn’t deny the conclusion she had reached long ago.

“We determine our own future.”

Belphegor clenched her fist. She denied her weak past.

The heavenly deity before her wasn’t her ally but an enemy to be defeated.

If not, she couldn’t face the soldiers who had died for her plans.

KWAAAANG!

Space exploded.

The power of destruction pulverized everything in a straight line where her fist pointed.

Another scar was carved into the already half-destroyed imperial capital.

“Kuh…”

And Lug, the target of that attack, couldn’t escape unharmed.

When facing his own power, he could absorb most of it and easily deflect it, but Belphegor’s power was different. He couldn’t deflect it.

Lug clutched his severely lacerated waist and curled up.

But it wasn’t over yet. He couldn’t fall. The conditions weren’t met.

“Kek?!”

While Lug was curled up swallowing his pain, Belphegor approached and grabbed him by the throat.

“You can’t even defeat me, so what exactly can you do?”

“Are you… curious…?”

Crack!

Belphegor gripped Lug’s neck with even greater force.

Lug could only furrow his brow in pain, unable to answer.

“…”

With just a little more force, she could completely break Lug’s neck.

But Belphegor couldn’t help but hesitate.

If. Really if.

‘…If there really is a way?’

Shouldn’t she cling to it then? If there was a way to shed less blood, if he really could save demonkind, shouldn’t she be the one to stop, to become the failure?

This wasn’t the time for pride. Her reason seemed to say so.

The hesitation born from such thoughts lasted longer than expected, and thanks to that, Lug was able to fulfill the final condition.

“What?!”

BANG!

Belphegor hurriedly threw Lug away. Because of her hesitation, she lost most of the deity’s power she had been holding.

Even Belphegor hadn’t expected that he could reclaim it without using it.

“It’s not an easy solution.”

Belphegor felt unprecedented fear as she watched Lug trembling while lying flat on the ground.

At this moment, now that he had reclaimed most of the deity’s power, the outcome of the battle became uncertain.

The result of hesitation.

But there was something even more incomprehensible.

“…Why do you have demon blood flowing in you?”

Just as Lug was able to reclaim the deity’s power through contact with Belphegor, she too could confirm Lug’s condition through that contact.

“Why are you carrying such a thing? Why do such a meaningless…”

Demonic energy is the antithesis of holy power. Just being together affects each other.

But the deity’s power is far above holy power.

So carrying demonic energy doesn’t hinder the exercise of the deity’s power.

But the important thing is that the heavenly deity continues to carry demon blood.

With the immense power of a heavenly deity, it would have been simple to eliminate the wicked demon blood flowing in his body.

Yet he didn’t.

He was deliberately maintaining the demon blood, a repelling force, without even healing his wounds.

“You…”

Whoosh!

The moment Belphegor realized something.

Lug, who had refrained from using the deity’s power all this time, ignited blue flames.

The necessary conditions were complete.

Now he just needed to determine the location. And he had already decided on it.

The place where the two were standing seemed to be overlaid with another location.

A place where everyone was looking up at the suddenly appearing blue flames.

“Lug?”

At the moment when the hero Esmeralda defeated the commander First.

The two were transported there.

“I’ve actually been troubled. Whether this is truly the right answer, whether this action is correct. I’ve been pondering it all along.”

Even now, in this place, he couldn’t help but question it repeatedly.

“I was afraid.”

Lug had descended after hearing Belphegor’s prayer that day. But at the same time, he couldn’t ignore the Pope who had been offering the same prayer to him all along.

Though he hadn’t answered that prayer, now he had steeled his resolve.

“It’s thanks to you.”

Lug said he came to answer Belphegor’s prayer.

Just from that fact, Belphegor realized that Lug had a way to save the demon realm and swung her fist.

From that, he could tell.

Though they might make mistakes, turn back, and take a long time, people find answers.

“There was no right answer. A deity who can easily solve everything is unnecessary in this world.”

He had been acting like watching a child abandoned by the river.

Thinking that the poor child must be saved, that no one but himself could do it.

With such thoughts, he had been ignoring the major problem that needed immediate resolution.

“There was never a predetermined right answer, so everyone must find their own answers using themselves as guiding lights.”

They are not children.

They are prepared to repeat failures as many times as needed to grow.

The results won’t always be good, but they will surely find answers after several trials and errors.

“So I hope you understand that this too was my answer.”

Lug also found his answer.

This world doesn’t need a heavenly deity.

People can save themselves without divine help.

The blue flames turn into white light.

He manipulates his power and makes it react with the demon blood in his body to create a massive bomb.

But not a bomb that would purify and blow away the entire area, rather a warm light that could only blow away the pain that had infected this land.

So no one needs to be sacrificed. There’s no need to choose between killing demons or humans.

Only one person would die here.

“Brother.”

Cracks appear in Lug’s body.

Just as Belphegor couldn’t fully absorb the deity’s power she had usurped, the immense power was trying to break out of his body.

In this final moment.

The first thing Lug thought of was his brother who had reached beyond.

“I guess I’m still lacking. I took too long a detour.”

Lug found his answer.

After a long, long time.

He finally understood his brother’s choice to head outside the world.

This world doesn’t need an absolute being who can solve everything alone. So he left the world.

That was the answer Lug had found.