Redeeming Merit

The drider lord had not expected Melina to provoke him of her own accord. In bewilderment, the drider said, "Are you truly an idiot? It's really not easy to run into a rare gem like you in Hell." To devils, wasn't this kind of mockery the most normal greeting imaginable? And she had jumped straight to a duel over it? Surrounding devils were already crowding around to watch the spectacle. Fiends who loved nothing more than chaos began shouting and jeering, egging them on to fight. "Get on with it!" "Fight! Fight!" "I want to see rivers of blood!" ... Regardless of who won or lost, scavenging the corpse might yield a tidy profit. Even the fortress personnel responsible for collecting carcasses sensibly stepped aside for the moment. Melina had told him to choose between kneeling or dying; if he didn't make a move now, he would lose far too much face. In truth, the drider could hardly be blamed for running his mouth. In Hell, this brand of derision was utterly routine—scarcely different from trading casual curses upon meeting. What he didn't realize was that Melina was exceptionally touchy about any insults directed at intelligence. Call her a filthy beggar from out of town and the undead princess wouldn't bat an eye, but call her an idiot, and Melina would pursue you to the death. The drider snorted coldly, the deep-crimson hellish runes across his body lighting up as he braced for battle. Yet all he caught was a flash before Melina's figure vanished into thin air. It was teleportation magic, but Melina had moved so swiftly that the drider failed to spot her casting motion. Was it an enchanted item or a scroll? Was it Misty Step or a spatial jump? Unable to identify the spell, the drider immediately spewed out a massive spray of spiderwebs. These threads carried a soul-corroding venom that dispersed into the air with the webbing—a lethal poison that even the undead could not shrug off. A venom like this should at least halt an ambush, shouldn't it? Unfortunately, his assumption was far too naive. So naive, in fact, that when the spear in Melina's hands pierced his bloated spider abdomen, the drider had not even reacted. Black blood dribbled from his lips as he struggled to turn his head toward Melina, wheezing, "How... how is that possible?!" His shock was understandable. A drider's lower half took the form of a spider, bulbous and massive like a giant living bullseye, packed with vital organs. A region like that demanded the utmost protection. Consequently, the drider had inscribed most of his runes onto his spider abdomen. These runes not only supplied magical buffs, but also provided formidable defensive wards. To put it bluntly, he could take several direct hits from the magical cannons mounted on the Blood River Fortress. Yet now, Melina had impaled his body with a single, unassuming spear, shredding those defensive runes as though they were paper. Even if the runes failed, he still wore enchanted rings and amulets, plus several active protective spells—why hadn't any of them worked? Melina had no interest in offering an explanation. The spear, formed from the sussur tree, thrust forth in a tempestuous flurry, hacking and pounding the hulking drider into mincemeat. The entire clash took less than ten seconds. The mighty drider was dead beyond measure, his soul shattering into countless sparks of light before slowly dispersing; it would likely take years for him to re-form somewhere across Hell. The drider's fatal flaw was his excessive reliance on magical gear and mana. Melina was practically a mage's natural predator; against her, anyone who relied on spells met a swift demise. Unless one was like Gareth, possessing the raw might to grapple legendary warriors barehanded even without a speck of mana, crossing Melina almost always ended in an instant death. Resolving the fight in a matter of seconds left the spectating devils stunned. When the drider collapsed, even the onlookers eager to scavenge the corpse froze in their tracks. Taking advantage of that momentary hesitation, Cambien dashed over to Melina's side, stripped away everything of value on the drider, and pointed at the mangled remains. "Can we count this toward merit?" Hearing Cambien's question, the corrupt little dretch from earlier snapped to his senses and stated solemnly, "We don't take this junk." With a crack of his leather whip, the trapdoor beneath the weighbridge slid open, and a fleshy tentacle reached out from below, dragging down the multi-ton drider carcass. Though he claimed they didn't take it, the dretch was secretly thrilled. To keep clerks from skimming so ruthlessly that it incited a riot, the Blood River Fortress set strict quotas for them. Taking in a drider this massive satisfied more than half his daily target, meaning he could skim even more later. Yet, stealing a glance at Melina's icy expression, the dretch figured he had better go easy on the skimming today; his little life came first. The fortress had strict rules against harming staff, but who knew if this undead girl might snap? Was he supposed to die and have "Other Party at Full Fault" engraved on his headstone? Staying alive was what mattered; money could always be scraped together later. Cambien was the sharpest among Melina's subordinates. Seeing that the dretch was thoroughly intimidated, he dragged Monica forward and chose this clerk to hand over their demon carcasses. Monica caught on at once. While she didn't dare completely bewitch the dretch, flashing a sultry wink and speaking a few flattering words was enough to coax him into logging a few extra entries in the ledger. Dumping out the carcasses from several spatial pouches, the dretch took inventory and, at long last, refrained from logging balors as hell worms. Even so, when the final tally was calculated, the soul coins they received came to a mere twenty-two thousand. This was already the stingiest embezzlement the dretch had ever committed in his life. Monica and Cambien both let out a sigh. This was precisely why they hated visiting the Blood River Fortress; the round trip was a pure loss. They would have been better off setting up a stall along the banks of the River of Blood to scrape together whatever they could. The two couldn't help glancing at Melina. They hadn't journeyed to the fortress today just to lose money; Melina had stated she wanted to purchase hell lord authority. The most basic domain authority cost fifty thousand soul coins—essentially a status symbol with no real benefits, though it at least allowed conquered lands to support a fortress rather than steadily falling to waste. Numerous minor domains on the periphery of the Blood River battlefield fit this mold: lords worked tirelessly to claim a plot where they could erect a fortress, hunt down stray demons fleeing the clash, and serve as an outpost along the outer defense lines. Yet Melina had far bigger ambitions. Before setting out for the fortress, she had captured six domains in total, though only three hell lords had genuinely submitted to her, counting Monica. The lords of the other three domains were dead, their fortresses were crumbling, and the land was steadily turning desolate. Melina intended to fuse all six territories into a unified domain under her rule. Ruling a territory so immense required exceptionally high lordship authority—demanding at least three million soul coins. Monica had only tagged along because Melina ordered her to; now she wanted to see how her master planned to resolve this. Cambien, on the other hand, wasn't worried in the slightest. He had come to know Melina's character well: she was formidable and direct, devoid of convoluted schemes. If she said she had come to buy lordship authority, she had certainly prepared in advance. And Cambien was not disappointed. Upon hearing the offer of twenty-two thousand, Melina merely knitted her brows, retrieved her magic mirror, and murmured softly, "Father, this Blood River Fortress is an utter rip-off!" Anbaixiu's visage appeared on the surface. Chuckling softly, he said, "Silly child, this is Hell." Standing taller, Monica had a clear view of the magic mirror in Melina's hands. She had long deduced Melina's true background, and anyone Melina called 'Father'... Wait, hadn't that person died? Rumor had it that his soul had been completely shattered. Even if he hadn't perished, shouldn't he be in the clutches of Archduke Zariel? How could he be casually chatting with Melina? Could this truly be the Deceiver she had admired for so long? Monica felt a wave of heat wash through her, and her legs went slightly weak. Melina paid no attention to her, merely pointing the magic mirror toward an empty clearing. An instant later, an endless deluge of demon flesh and gore surged forth from the teleportation array above the mirror, completely burying the corrupt little dretch beneath it.