"Master, a guest from Hell wishes to see you."
Accompanied by a subtle ripple through the Weave, Trump's projection appeared before Cassius. As always, the prime minister maintained a posture of solemn deference, his voice precise and formal.
"Another one of those peddling devils? Just send a simulacrum to brush them off. It never ends with them," Cassius replied, his tone laced with impatience.
Ever since his triumph over Barachiel, invitations from devils had poured in without pause, offering all manner of elaborate olive branches.
Factions throughout Hell longed to secure an incomparably mighty red dragon as an ally—someone who could wage war across their battlefields and reap glory in the brutal Blood War on their behalf.
Trump hesitated for a moment before answering, "Master, the guest claims to bear tidings of grave importance and requests an audience with you in person."
"Who is it?"
Cassius finally took notice, having already guessed the visitor's identity.
"That former devil lord."
Trump was exceedingly cautious, deliberately avoiding the name itself. An archdevil could sense when their true name was spoken and respond accordingly.
Cassius gave it little mind. Shaking his massive horned head, he languidly unfurled the wings folded across his back and asked, "Where is he now?"
"In the Wyvern Capital. Marquis Smaug, chief of the wyverns, is currently hosting him."
"Very well. I understand."
Before the words had even faded, Cassius took a single forward stride. The space before him shattered like glass, tearing open a massive void, and the red dragon stepped through.
So long as he remained within the borders of the Cinder Empire, the power of his Imperial Domain allowed him to appear anywhere without restraint or hesitation.
***
The Wyvern Capital, the Lonely Mountain Treasury.
This former dwarven treasure vault had now become the palace of the "King under the Mountain," Smaug. He lived there in grand comfort alongside a dozen female wyverns.
Yet at this very moment, the wyvern lord—normally so haughty and imposing—was curled into a corner of the cavern, trembling uncontrollably. The fawning smile plastered across his draconic visage looked more wretched than weeping.
Meanwhile, a handsome, black-haired youth clad in lavish finery sat atop the throne that rightfully belonged to Smaug, curiously gazing at his surroundings.
"So this is the dwarves' Lonely Mountain Treasury... Tsk, tsk. Even I never set foot inside it before," the young man remarked softly as he studied the stone walls.
He turned his head toward Smaug and asked with an affable smile, "Noble King under the Mountain, me sitting here... it isn't considered an impoliteness, is it?"
"M-My lord, of course not! You are my master's honored guest!" Feeling the suffocating aura of dread rolling off the visitor from Hell, Smaug cowered in the corner, on the verge of tears.
The youth looked frail and delicate, like some young noble abducted into a monster's den by a savage wyvern, but a terrifying nether-light flickered within his pitch-black eyes.
To look into those eyes and see past the illusion was to behold an archdevil lord of supreme cruelty and malice laughing in mockery. The sheer, overwhelming pressure sweeping off him made Smaug feel as though he were trapped in an inferno.
Smaug had assumed that after receiving his master's Bloodline Boon and ascending to legendary might, he could lord over northern Feanso and run rampant with impunity.
Never did he imagine that divine avatars and archdevils would appear before him one after another, reducing him, the glorious "King under the Mountain," to a complete laughingstock.
Suddenly, an even more overwhelming pressure—one so concentrated it felt nearly physical—descended upon the vault. The air inside the cavern turned scorching hot in an instant, baking the stone walls red.
Immediately after, the Weave within the cavern churned like a tempestuous sea. Spiderweb fractures spread across the fabric of space, followed by the ignition of a flaming portal.
"Lord Bel, with your stature, there is hardly any need to frighten my subjects," a majestic voice resonated through the chamber.
As if finding his anchor, Smaug let out a massive sigh of relief. Light flooded back into his reptilian eyes, and he cried out desperately, "Master, you've finally arrived!"
Cassius stepped out from the portal. Framed by his colossal, nearly sixty-meter-long frame, even the grand expanse of the Lonely Mountain Treasury suddenly felt cramped.
Only then did Bel stow his mocking smirk, replacing it with a courteous smile as he rose from the throne. "Your Majesty Cassius, you jest. As the Cinder Empire's most steadfast ally, how could I ever presume to provoke you?
"You have certainly displayed unrivaled might across the Feanso Continent of late—toppling the Duchy of North Aethel, crushing the Highland Dwarf Kingdom, and even slaying an avatar of a god. Truly, I am filled with boundless admiration..."
Cassius lowered himself onto the seat of power, cutting Bel off without the slightest courtesy. "Lord Bel, I've grown quite tired of infernal flattery lately. Speak. What brought you to me this time?"
"Is that so...?" Bel chuckled awkwardly, his expression finally turning somber. His previously gentle, mellifluous voice curdled with bitter venom. "It is that madwoman. I can feel it—she grows stronger by the day. She has already consumed tens of thousands of souls.
"Her power is beginning to seep into the Material Plane. Her apostles walk the mortal realm—most notably in that City of Sunrise. Once that boundary is shattered..."
"Auguste will plunge into Hell?" Cassius asked.
Bel ground his teeth in fury. "Yes. And that entire city will become her soul pasture, granting her an inexhaustible well of power."
The archdevil's voice dripped with hatred, jealousy, and disgust—and beneath it all, a bottomless greed and thirst.
Souls were the primal craving inherent to every devil from the moment of inception; it was a fundamental law of the multiverse, and for an archdevil like Bel, that hunger ran even deeper.
In the eyes of devils, there were no eternal friends, only eternal interests.
Cassius knew that if Bel still ruled Avernus, he would not have hesitated for a second to forge an alliance with Wilhelm and make an enemy of the empire.
Bel's voice hissed like a rasping serpent: "Your Majesty Cassius, Zariel is far too formidable right now. My armies in Hell are suffering defeat after defeat.
"Forgive my bluntness, but those mad 'Soulless Ones' under your command, undying though they may be, cannot provide us with even a sliver of soul power.
"As an ally of your empire, I must obtain more souls to sustain my resistance against her and remain useful to you. Therefore..."
"Out of the question."
Before Bel could finish, Cassius flatly rejected him. Through those few brief exchanges, he had already deduced Bel's intentions.
The archdevil wanted the Cinder Empire to emulate the Kingdom of Thrace by offering up the souls of its citizens, fueling Bel's power and perhaps even creating a similar 'land of souls.'
What Bel failed to grasp was that Cassius's ultimate goal was apotheosis. In Cassius's eyes, every single subject within the empire was a precious resource that would one day serve as his font of faith.
Moreover, the empire's territory was Cassius's absolute bottom line. That land belonged solely to him. How could he ever allow it to become an infernal grazing pasture?
Seeing Cassius's resolute stance, Bel let out an uneasy laugh and attempted a subtle persuasion: "Your Majesty Cassius, your empire is vast and teeming with population. What I require—"
The devil carefully raised a single finger and whispered, "—is merely an insignificant fraction."
To Bel's mind, chromatic dragon lords almost universally treated their mortal subjects as lowly slaves and disposable fodder, caring nothing for their lives or deaths.
He assumed that with enough honeyed words, the red dragon emperor would eventually yield and deliver tens of thousands of pure souls into Hell.
How could he have anticipated that this red dragon was so insatiably greedy that he regarded every single citizen as his personal, invaluable property?
"Lord Bel, there is no need to speak of this further."
Cassius's voice was ironclad. "To aid your struggle against Zariel, I shall dispatch thirty thousand elite Starfallen—or as you devils call them, Soulless Ones—to march into Hell and wage war."
Cassius's logic was simple: deploying a cohort of players as reinforcements would check Zariel while simultaneously offering the players a prime grinding ground—killing two birds with one stone.
Upon hearing this, however, Bel's handsome face instantly warped into a hideous grimace. Fine fissures spread across his skin as though it were on the verge of tearing apart, wisps of sulfurous smoke curling from the cracks.
His pitch-black eyes flickered with volcanic fury, as if the raging fires of Hell were about to erupt from within them.
*Boom—*
A suffocating infernal aura expanded outward, terrifying and dreadful, conjuring visions of mountains of corpses and rivers of blood spanning Avernus.
Cassius merely sneered. Spreading his wings, he unleashed an even more crushing draconic majesty, reinforced by the oppressive laws of his Imperial Domain. The two colossal forces clashed, sending violent shockwaves rippling through the air.
Caught between the contest of these two mighty entities, Smaug huddled in the corner of the cavern, shivering and letting out a pathetic whimper.
*Isn't this supposed to be my lair?*
*How did things turn out like this?*
Crushed beneath a weight that prevented him from even raising his head, the wyvern chieftain began to question his very existence as a dragon.
Bel let out a suppressed snarl. "Cassius, you push too far! Anyone who bargains with a devil must pay the requisite price—even you are no exception! This is an unalterable truth of ten thousand years!"
"Truly, a devil's innate knack for sophistry," Cassius mocked. He took a step forward, and his dragon aura utterly engulfed and obliterated the infernal presence.
The unique aura of a progenitor dragon bore down upon Bel's shoulders, instantly ripping away his disguise and stripping the archdevil of his veneer of dignity.
In a flash, a towering, bat-winged devil materialized within the cavern, cloaked in raging hellfire. It was not Bel's true body, but an avatar condensed from the primal essence of the Lower Planes.
Cassius strode forward step by step, his voice icy. "Bel, you mistake one fundamental fact: in this alliance, the Cinder Empire holds absolute dominion.
"You are nothing more than a deposed archdevil. Without the empire's backing, you might spend the next several millennia cowering in some forgotten ditch in Avernus, fleeing Zariel's hunters like a stray cur.
"I, on the other hand, have plenty of options. In Hell, the archdevils nursing grudges against Zariel are beyond counting, and more than a few Lords of the Nine have already extended their olive branches to me..."
Towering over the devil, the red dragon looked down, pale gold pupils gleaming with cold light. "Remember this: it was the empire that chose you, granting you the chance to reclaim Avernus.
"Were it not for Zariel... you would not even possess the right to negotiate terms with me."
Every word Cassius spoke fell like an iron hammer, sharp as a lance, piercing ruthlessly into the devil's pride.
Cassius had not exaggerated. If he so chose, the Cinder Empire could indeed forge pacts with other archdevils. However, the risk to the empire would be far greater.
Compared to aligning with cunning, well-entrenched devil lords and running the risk of betrayal, Cassius preferred backing a fallen archdevil who had lost his throne—someone far easier to control.
Hearing Cassius's words, the arrogant fury in Bel's posture evaporated, and even the hellfire clinging to his frame receded.
The towering archdevil shrank, morphing back into the slender, refined young man. An awkward smile resurfaced on his handsome face, and he offered a bow of apology. "Forgive me, Your Majesty Cassius. It was poor judgment on my part. I trust you will look past it."
The crushing draconic majesty dissipated instantly. Cassius smiled and replied, "No need for ceremony, Lord Bel. I have always regarded you as a steadfast ally.
"I understand completely. You were merely blinded by a momentary surge of greed and desire, which led to such an irrational request."
"Indeed, indeed."
The rift between them dissolved into thin air, giving way to an atmosphere of warm camaraderie, as though their earlier confrontation had been nothing more than an illusion. Watching from the side, Smaug stared in dazed bewilderment, utterly at a loss.
Cassius then inquired, "Still... given how powerful Zariel has become, how exactly do you intend to overthrow her—or even kill her?"
A cunning smirk crept onto Bel's lips. "You may not be aware, but the day the City of Sunrise plunges into Hell—the moment known as the 'Day of Fall'—will be the precise instant Zariel is at her weakest.
"At that hour, she must exert every ounce of her strength to sustain the conduit between the Material Plane and Hell, hauling the entire city down into Avernus. That will be my window to strike."
Cassius's curiosity was piqued. "Are you not afraid she might complete the ritual in secret?"
"Impossible."
Bel spoke with absolute confidence. "Until all hope is entirely extinguished, Wilhelm will never willingly surrender the City of Sunrise.
"And right now, the only one capable of driving that king to absolute despair... is you.
"Your Majesty Cassius, I ask that you march your armies against the Kingdom of Thrace, severing every shred of hope that king clings to until he has no choice but to sacrifice the City of Sunrise to Hell.
"When that happens, I shall strike Zariel down on the 'Day of Fall' at her most vulnerable, ridding you of a grave threat from the Lower Planes.
"Once she falls, you shall possess Thrace, and I shall reclaim Avernus. A glorious future awaits us both..."
Man and dragon exchanged a knowing smile, leaving everything unsaid. Their words had been sealed in absolute secrecy, completely partitioned from Smaug cowering nearby, leaving the poor wyvern utterly confounded.
Yet as for what secondary schemes Cassius and Bel harbored beneath those smiles, only they themselves truly knew.
Chapter 686