Chapter 523: Negotiating With A Duke Of Hell

Damian slowly pushed himself upright, using his greatsword for support as the pain coursing through his body gradually settled into something manageable.

Blood continued dripping from beneath his helmet, but his glowing eyes never left Duke Dantalion. The ancient demon had already demonstrated a terrifying combination of strength, experience and versatility. If Damian could somehow acquire that inheritance, he would have little reason to waste time collecting the individual inheritances of ordinary demons.

Dantalion’s ability to embody the powers of countless demonic races was practically everything Damian could ever need. Yet before he continued fighting, there was something about the Duke that bothered him.

"Let me ask you this..." Damian said calmly. "Are you truly the head of the Order of Demons?"

Dantalion’s three primary heads raised their brows simultaneously, genuine confusion appearing across their faces. It was an unusual question coming from a man who should have been more concerned with staying alive.

"Of course... I am the greatest demon in existence but I am deeply feared by my kind, that’s why they choose to elect that sly dragon, Astaroth, as their leader." The three heads spoke simultaneously, their different voices overlapping into a strange chorus that echoed throughout the Territory.

Dantalion threw his hands apart, his expression twisting into a frown.

"How could I stand by and watch demons submit themselves to mortals over and over again? So I built my pro demon faction with the intent of taking over the Underworld and placing only demons on the thrones of power..."

Damian listened quietly before a faint chuckle escaped him. The black armor surrounding his body suddenly dissolved into a cloud of black smoke, revealing his pale skin and dark robes beneath it.

Dantalion’s many eyes narrowed as Damian casually rested his greatsword against his shoulder.

"Are you making fun of me?" Dantalion’s dragon head asked, irritation creeping into his voice.

Damian shook his head without hesitation. "Actually, I’m thinking of how you are the demon version of Sol... A dedicated pro demon, so powerful even your own kind fears you and plots against you."

The Duke’s frown relaxed almost immediately, his three heads staring at Damian with genuine surprise. He had expected mockery, not an honest comparison.

For someone who had spent thousands of years believing his own kind was too weak and cowardly to understand his ambitions, encountering a human who could actually understand the reasoning behind his actions was unexpected.

"Hahahahaha... You are not wrong in your assessment." Dantalion’s three heads laughed openly, their voices reverberating throughout the Territory.

"The same way I understand why Sol has chosen his path, I can understand yours." Damian nodded slowly.

Dantalion’s three heads nodded even more energetically, apparently pleased that Damian had recognized the logic behind his ideology. But Damian’s expression soon changed.

"But I can also tell why he is wrong."

Buzz!

Dantalion’s heads stopped moving. The amusement disappeared from his faces as his eyes became dangerously cold.

"What?!" he hissed.

Damian immediately raised both hands in surrender, his greatsword remaining casually balanced against his shoulder.

"You are already going to rip my head out, so listen to me first?"

Dantalion narrowed his eyes and remained silent. Damian smiled and stepped forward, his voice becoming more measured as he approached the ancient demon.

"I’ll start with a simple question. Do you think all demons are worthy of your great sacrifice?"

Buzz!

The question struck Dantalion differently from everything Damian had said before. His anger vanished almost instantly, replaced by surprise.

His three heads stared at Damian, and for several moments he seemed incapable of forming a response. His mouths opened slightly before closing again as the question settled into a part of his mind he had spent countless years refusing to examine.

Damian had not condemned his cause. He had not called his desire to save demons foolish. Instead, he had accepted the foundation of Dantalion’s ambition and questioned whether the very demons he wanted to save were worthy of the sacrifice he intended to make for them.

The Order of Demons was considered a terrorist organization even by many demons. That was precisely why its members operated from the shadows, concealed their identities and slowly recruited demons who shared their resentment toward the existing order.

Dantalion himself had remained hidden for thousands of years because openly revealing the organization would have brought the combined attention of the Underworld’s rulers upon him.

The reason he had finally exposed himself today was because he genuinely believed he possessed enough power to kill Damian and take the Lust inheritance for himself.

Once he became a Prince, the rules would change. As royalty, he would possess the same political protection enjoyed by the other Princes, and the Underworld would no longer be able to punish him as easily for the crimes committed by his faction.

"This...." Conflict appeared in Dantalion’s eyes.

"When you achieve your dreams, will you be satisfied to see the same demons who spat on your dreams praise your name and reap the fruit of your hard work?" Damian pressed on.

Dantalion’s faces twisted into ugly frowns. His hands slowly clenched into fists until his claws dug into his palms, his teeth grinding together as memories accumulated across thousands of years surfaced within him. Damian saw the reaction and knew he had struck something deeper than ideology.

This was personal.

"My days on Earth were the same... I started off being suspicious of demons and always picking the side of humans, only to be betrayed by those very humans at the very end. Even the woman I loved abandoned me the moment she realized my ties to demons, and the day my heart was ripped out humanity did not weep for me.... That is why I will always fill my court with demons and not humans... That is why I will be the one to kill that man on the golden throne and save the demon race from extinction!" Damian declared, his voice carrying the weight of memories he rarely allowed himself to speak about.

Dantalion’s eyes widened.

His enormous body trembled faintly as hesitation crossed his faces for the first time. After thousands of years, he had finally encountered someone who understood the resentment behind his ideology.

Someone who had experienced betrayal from the very people he had once chosen to protect.

Yet the irony was almost cruel. The person standing before him was a human, and that human was precisely the person Dantalion needed to kill if he wanted to achieve his dream.

Dantalion’s tense body gradually relaxed, and the disturbed expression across his faces was replaced by grim resolve.

He slowly clenched one fist. "I am truly grateful to know amongst humans, there are a few as thoughtful as yourself.... Unfortunately, there is no retreat from the path I have chosen to walk. You must die here for my dreams." Dantalion shook his head bitterly.

For a moment, Damian’s expression remained serious.

Then it shattered.

A mocking smile spread across his lips as his pitch black eyes opened wider, three crimson irises burning violently within each eye.

"Of course, Great Duke... My words were never meant to dissuade you from achieving your goal but it was meant to buy me enough time to achieve mine."

Buzz!

Dantalion’s eyes widened.

Behind Damian, darkness suddenly began creeping in, slowly covering what was left of the world behind him. Dantalion instinctively stepped backward as the darkness closed around Damian, sealing him away from the rest of the Territory. Within a second, the darkness snapped shut.

Abyssal Inheritance: Realm Zero!

Dantalion immediately looked around.

The balanced world he had created was gone from his immediate reach. He now stood within a pitch black world beneath a stormy black sky, with crimson lightning occasionally illuminating the endless darkness.

He could still feel his Territory existing beyond this space. He could still sense its connection to him, and his power had not diminished, but something was fundamentally wrong. He could no longer interact with it. Worse, he could not deactivate it.

"You sly...."

"Fox!" Damian completed his sentence, appearing several meters away with a mocking smile. "Yes, Lord Dantalion... I am a sly fox. Or did you think my choice to attack my enemies directly rendered me unable to depend on deceit just like my predecessors?"

Buzz!

Dantalion’s expression became vicious as murderous intent exploded from his body. Yet before he could attack, something else entered the Realm Zero.

Dantalion’s rage abruptly disappeared.

His eyes widened as he slowly turned toward the enormous crimson eye surrounded by a dark storm. The eye floated silently within the darkness, staring directly at him with an almost amused expression.

"Is this the one who dares covet my inheritance?"

The Abyss’s voice caused the entire world to tremble, yet there was no anger within it. Only calm amusement.

Dantalion’s eyes narrowed. "Abyss..."

"I have chosen that boy as my successor. I have grown quite accustomed to his vessel and I have no plans of changing him any time soon. So the question now is, do you dare to harm what I have chosen to protect?" The Abyss spoke calmly, but its voice resonated through every corner of Realm Zero.

Buzz!

Dantalion’s eyes twitched as he slowly shifted his gaze back toward Damian. Damian stood comfortably above the crimson eye, covering the lower half of his face with a hand fan while his black greatsword floated casually beside him.

"Bastard, you lied to me!" Dantalion hissed with undisguised disdain.

He felt cheated by the human he had believed actually understood him on a fundamental level.

Damian scoffed and shook his head. "If I had lied straight to your face, you would have realized immediately and found out I was preparing my Domain secretly. The only reason you fell for my words is because every single one of them are true."

Buzz!

Dantalion’s eyes twitched at those words.

"I truly understand why you are doing this, and I also plan to kill Sol with the power of the Abyss and save all demons from extinction.... The only reason the Abyss is giving you a choice is because it sees you as a potential ally, because I see you as a potential ally. So choose. Will you die here or will you bend a knee and serve me?!"

Damian’s voice echoed through Realm Zero, no longer mocking but carrying the absolute confidence of someone who had finally turned the tables on his opponent.