Chapter 2334: Hell’s Will

Arad was Massive, and compared to him, the Priestess looked as tiny as a child, or a human standing face to face with a giant. He stood still like a statue, but the magic silently burning through his ethereal body was far bigger and harsher than anything she had ever seen in her life. But the most horrifying part was that she could only perceive his existence when directly touching him.

She didn’t know how he came here or why Asmodeus couldn’t detect him, but she couldn’t just ask questions. She could tell that he was immersed and watching the fight between Asmodeus and Doma, studying their moves and use of curses.

She tried to back away, but then noticed the second horrifying thing. Her hands were stuck to his thighs. He was like a thought that she couldn’t wipe out of her mind, and his existence had been glued to her consciousness. And thanks to that solid link, she could understand much of his power, and that alone made her freeze in place.

All of the darkness in her mind, since Doma dragged her here, wasn’t of her own thoughts, but of Arad’s influence on her mind. While neither Doma nor Asmodeus wanted to hurt her, and they both held back to make sure she didn’t get hurt, Arad was actively shielding her with his own mind for no reason at all. She didn’t know him, and he didn’t know her, but as she was just a bystander, his presence was dense enough to fully protect her from the echo of such a cosmic fight.

"You..." She gasped, and her eyes opened wide as Arad moved, and she could see the real world outside. Abel was still standing in front of her, and time felt as if it had slowed to almost a halt. Behind Abel, the second Asmodeus was rushing in to pin him down and free her, making it clear that both Asmodeus were here to get rid of Doma.

It was then that her body moved, and she could feel. "...took control of me?" But that was wrong. Arad didn’t take control of her directly, but took control of her mind by becoming akin to a barrier between her and her own soul.

As Asmodeus outside swung at Abel’s head, the Priestess’s eyes flashed purple, and with a single step, she flipped behind Abel and smacked Asmodeus’s fist aside with a cold, emotionless face.

Abel rolled away, and Asmodeus’s eyes opened wide. "What?" She looked at her hand, her torn skin, and the shockwave that had just shaken the entire Temple. This wasn’t Abel’s doing; it wasn’t Doma’s doing, and the Priestess’s magic shouldn’t allow her to achieve such a level of power.

"You..." Asmodeus growled. "Who are you?" She glared at the Priestess’s face as Abel growled and stood up, feeling that some of his ribs had shattered from the shockwave.

Abel only needed one look at the Priestess’s glowing purple eyes to figure it out and growl. "Fuck, Arad, you bastard! That hurt!"

Hearing that, Asmodeus smiled. "So it’s you, Arad Orion. I heard that you can already possess people, but what are the actual conditions? Wasn’t it that you could only control vampires who are under your blood?"

The Priestess didn’t reply, as Arad inside her mind remained silent, and just looking at the faintly glowing purple eyes was enough to give Asmodeus the creeps. She wasn’t facing someone normal, or even exceptional. She was facing AO himself, or at least a weakened version of him.

There should be no one beside her, and Hell itself, who could easily control devils like this. Even Arad himself didn’t have a clean way to achieve such clear domination. AO can do so by taking control directly from Hell, but this one in front of her isn’t AO himself. This isn’t even Arad’s consciousness, but a mere dreaming fragment of his sleeping mind.

She fully understood the difference between Arad and AO, and that they are the same person but just at different ages and levels of maturity. Arad was now about to emerge as a Mature Adult dragon, and that was the breaking point at which his powers would mature.

The question now wasn’t about whether she could defeat him or not. It was about what he wanted and what he was after here. Thanks to her spies outside, she already knew about Godvia and the situation with her, and she was 100% certain that Arad could’ve handled it without having to go through this roundabout way.

Asmodeus couldn’t risk hurting him or damaging the Temple of Treachery, so she decided to just end the fight quickly and figure things out later. She would even go out and deal with Godvia herself just to make sure everything kept running smoothly.

But then, she noticed a faint smile crossing the Priestess’s face, and in the next fraction of a second, the Priestess grabbed Asmodeus by the face and forcefully jumped with her outside the temple with enough force that even she couldn’t resist the push.

As Asmodeus was thrown back to the ground in the nearby mountain range, she held her face in shock, still feeling her broken nose and dislocated jaw from the Priestess’s grip. "Impossible, just using her power, he did this to me?"

She lifted her eyes and looked at the Priestess. "What do you want?"

The Priestess lifted her hand up, and the chains of hell rushed from the ground, crackling as they reached into her palm, bit into her bones, and wrapped around her forearm, turning into a weapon. Hell itself was moving, and Arad was just carrying its will.

It only took Asmodeus a fraction of a second to understand that it wasn’t just Arad’s will at play here, but Hell itself was pushing him forward. Hell is frustrated; it is angry, tired, and it wants to grow. Arad hears it, he understands it, and now... he is following a nebulous goal that she can’t even wrap her head around.

As the Priestess swung the chains at Asmodeus, the sky of the Ninth Layer cracked open, and a swarm of white wings flashed down; a pillar of blinding light shook the mountain range, and a single massive body groaned as the chains crashed down, pushing him down with a horrid will. Lucifer himself had descended from the front lines of the war and came back to hell.

"Father!" Asmodeus cried as she saw Lucifer towering over her, blocking the chains of hell.

"You..." Lucifer growled, "Alice... go and stop the other one. Drag whatever Arad wanted out, unless you want Hell to enslave us all."

She looked at him, threw a glance at the Priestess’s body, and then frowned. "Arad! What are you doing?"

"I said move!" Lucifer growled. "Don’t question him, don’t question hell. It’s not a place that listens to reason. MOVE!" As he yelled at her, she blasted away, dodging a swarm of chains that kept chasing her, and Lucifer deflected the massive chain that hit him with his wings.

"Hell! Listen to me!" He swung his massive arms and pinned all of the chains to the ground with his own divine magic. "Calm down; we aren’t going against our Father. We need to work together."

The Universe is a massive and complex machine, but at its heart, it could be separated into three distinct realms. The Evil, the Neutral, and the Good. The Hells, the Abyss, Gehenna, and Limbo lean toward the Evil side. The worlds where the mortals live are the neutral realms. And lastly, the good realms are the heavens and their subdomains.

All three respond differently to AO’s will, whether Arad himself intends for it or not. The same way the Universe would shun someone out if they tried to defy Arad’s will, Hell would do the same, but in a direct, malevolent approach, as it’s not neutral like the Mortal World.

Arad is hibernating, and as powerful as his will was, it was nowhere near the will of the Hells, and when his Ego manifested and had a clear desire to help Doma and Abel, Hell understood the assignment, took over for him, and was now enacting the will of the creator the same way it did at the dawn of time.

Abel and Doma worked for Arad; they wanted the Baron, and Asmodeus didn’t give him to them. Hell saw that and was enraged. How dare its representative reject the will of its father? That was unforgivable, a sin above all sins, and so... the chains of Hells were coming for Asmodeus now.

In short, Hell is now trying to help Arad, and as it’s not a living being with emotions and cognitive functions, but more like a heartless and mindless machine, its methods are going to be rough, aggressive, and utterly ruthless. If you don’t bow to the creator’s will, hell will curse you to eternal torment.

Asmodeus and Lucifer might enjoy Hell’s protection and will never perish as long as it exists, but their power ends where AO’s authority starts, and Hell is like a merciless zealot who screams HERESY! When anyone as much as looks at Arad the wrong way.