Scene 1
"Lord Ten? Why are you here and not Rook?"
I walked up to the half-built wooden wall as the head guard hurried over from the construction line. Fresh-cut logs had been driven into the earth in uneven rows, their bark stripped rough and pale beneath the Underworld's dim light. Workers moved along the frame with hammers, rope, and iron brackets while soldiers stood nearby with bows in hand, watching the tree line more than the wall itself.
These useless lands were finally being forced into shape.
Mud had already been packed down by carts and boots. Trenches were marked out with stakes and cord. The first layer of a defensive ditch was being dug several dozen steps from the wall, while piles of sharpened stakes waited beside the road like teeth not yet planted.
"Rook is training for now with my direct army," I said, letting my eyes move across the construction instead of the guard. "So I'll verify everything before I leave. You'll be the point of contact for the rest of the generals since this will be the staging ground for the next act."
He straightened at that.
I could already see where the moat needed to bend. Where the pitfalls would go. Where an invading force would naturally try to gather before hitting the wall. Devils relied too much on flight and raw power, but armies still had habits. Supply wagons still needed roads. Injured soldiers still retreated through the easiest paths. Commanders still loved open ground because they thought visibility meant control.
This place would teach them otherwise.
"Are you starting on your plans?" the guard asked.
He followed my gaze toward the marked earth, waiting while I focused on the ground.
"No," I said. "Serafall wants to meet and asked me to pause everything until I meet her."
I grinned before I could help it.
The idea sounded ridiculous.
Wars did not pause because noble heirs wanted to gather around a map and talk themselves into feeling important.
"Then I'll send the convoys out as planned," the guard said. "I had to promise the men and women positions for the next round of training you'll lead."
My eyes shifted toward the gathering groups near the road.
Carts sat packed with food, blankets, tools, spare weapons, and whatever living items the new settlers had been allowed to bring. Some stood beside their families. Others were soldiers who had taken off broken armor and replaced it with work clothes, still carrying themselves like they expected orders to come at any moment. A few younger devils watched the wall with hungry eyes, already imagining themselves on the other side of the next training cycle.
I nodded in approval.
"That's fine. Everyone should desire a method to climb the ladder."
I patted the guard's shoulder once, then walked along the inner line of the wooden wall. The logs were crude, but solid enough for the first stage. They would not stop an army alone, but they would slow one. That was enough if the ground outside became hostile before the enemy understood what kind of battlefield they'd entered.
"Keep the archers rotating every four hours," I said. "And don't let the builders stack supplies too close to the wall. If someone throws fire over it, I don't want half the camp burning because a quartermaster got lazy."
"Yes, Lord Ten."
I gave the wall one last look before turning toward the road.
The convoys were already moving.
Good.
Then I left for Leviathan City, where Serafall had decided this meeting was worth interrupting a war for.
Scene 2
"Where's Rook?"
Serafall's voice cut through the room the moment I entered.
Several minor clan heirs stood around a wide war table, their hands resting near jeweled markers and carved tokens spread across a map of Leviathan territory. Thin blue lines marked rivers. Red stones marked contested towns. Black pins marked enemy fortifications. Sections of the map had already been circled and divided as if the war had ended while the rest of us were busy fighting it.
Tall windows lined one side of the chamber, letting in the cold light of Leviathan City. Curtains in dark blue and silver hung between the pillars. Guards stood along the walls with practiced stillness, though several stiffened the moment they saw me enter without escort or announcement.
"Busy," I said. "But I'm here. Since the letter was addressed to my army, it's only right that I show up as their general."
The room went quiet in that sharp way noble rooms always did when arrogance was forced to recognize something outside its script.
I ignored the looks of curiosity from Serafall's fellow heirs and passed each one without a glance.
Serafall's face shifted slightly.
There it was.
She had not expected Rook to relay the message to me instead of answering it himself. He had barely given the contents any attention before passing off her request for our location in favor of training.
"What kind of servant doesn't greet his betters?" one heir muttered.
"Says a lot about how the Sitri Clan operates," another said.
A young woman with painted lips gave Serafall a smile that would have looked pleasant if her eyes had not been so empty.
"Sera, I'll trade you for him. My mother would love to have such a unique-looking servant."
"Let's focus, everyone," another heir said, tapping one of the markers near Leviathan City. "My clan still hasn't given up on claiming Leviathan City as the biggest donors. We still—"
He stopped because my hand was already around his throat.
The guards reached for weapons. Several heirs drew demonic energy into half-formed spells. Chairs scraped back against the floor as everyone realized I had crossed the room faster than their eyes could follow.
I lifted the young man off his feet and looked into his widening eyes.
"I want you to finish what you were saying." Lightning sparked around my aura in thin black-blue lines. "What's this about a claim to Leviathan City?"
His face twisted.
"Fuc—"
I slapped him before the rest of the word could leave his mouth.
The crack echoed through the chamber.
Then I turned my eyes toward Serafall.
"Not you. Her."
I pressed a condensed ball of lightning against the heir's chest.
His eyes had one moment to understand.
Then the bolt released.
The blast threw him through the wall hard enough to shatter stone and send pieces of carved paneling exploding into the hall beyond. Wind rushed through the new hole, carrying dust, splinters, and screams from the corridor outside.
I wiped my hand clean as if something unpleasant had touched it, then dragged his chair toward the front of the table where Serafall stood.
The wooden legs screamed against the polished floor.
"Tenebris," Serafall said, voice low and dangerous, "this isn't the place for you to start fights. These are our allies. Where is Rook?"
Her demonic energy pushed into the room.
Cold pressure spread from her like winter trying to become law. Frost crawled over the edges of the table. The weaker heirs started sweating despite the chill, their faces turning pale as the air thickened around them. Some of the guards struggled to keep their knees from bending.
I paused, then glanced around the room.
"Stop it before you hurt these cowards," I said. "They can't even move right now, and you call these people allies?"
Her eyes sharpened.
I continued walking, dragging the chair with me as the sound rose into a high, ugly pitch.
"Plus, you keep asking for Rook like I don't know why you're focused on him and his lack of response to your summons. He's not going to give you the location. I've already cleared it with Lady Sitri that he's officially under me. So stop asking my butler what he's doing and where he's at."
I placed the chair beside hers and sat down.
Then I put my muddy boots on her table.
The wet dirt smeared across the carefully divided map, ruining boundary lines, troop markers, and whatever pleasant fantasy these heirs had been building for themselves.
"Whatever deal you agreed to with Sirzechs only includes the forces you have under you," I said. "When was I included in this setup?"
"You arrogant bas—"
A lightning bolt struck the female devil who tried to speak.
Her spell collapsed before it could form. She hit the floor with a choked cry, smoke rising from the edge of her sleeve. The others froze.
They had failed to sense it.
My laws were already threaded through the room.
"I'm arrogant, and I know this," I said. "But I'm not a fool who'll let opposing voices take root in my lands. Or did you forget, Serafall, that you are still the biggest target on the map?"
I leaned back in the stolen chair, letting the room feel the silence for a moment.
"Unlike my fiancée, I am very unforgiving to traitors and turncoats. While she's debating with you all about giving away land and the treasures tied to it, I'm debating whose head among you deserves to remain attached to their body. Whose head holds more value while still speaking. And who will continue to bark after I teach them the first time who is in charge of who."
No one moved.
Even the wind coming through the broken wall sounded louder now.
"Ruining a war I saved the lot of you from being backstabbed in should be the last of your concerns if you're aiming for the best outcome for your clans."
Serafall's jaw tightened. Her anger pressed against the room again, but this time she held most of it back.
I looked at the heirs one by one.
They avoided my eyes.
Good.
"Since being an aloof god doesn't work for the idiots I'm defending, it's very clear I'll have to be the most devilish out of this new era of devils. Shut up and sit back for the ride. That's my only time saying it before I leave you all to fend for yourselves."
I turned my head toward Serafall.
"Am I clear, Serafall Sitri?"
Her face held pure anger.
Not fear.
Anger.
Good. At least she still had a spine.
"Am I clear?" I asked again.
This time I pushed back.
My own energy rolled outward and shoved hers back inside her, freeing the room from the pressure of her tantrum. Frost cracked along the table edges. Several heirs gasped as if they had forgotten how to breathe.
Serafall quietly nodded.
Reluctantly.
"The rest of you, get out of my face," I said. "And I expect you to use the clan armies you've been entrusted with to defend the territories of Leviathan. Failing means you'll only lose more of the potential loot divided by war merit. Not by donations. Not by old promises. Not by whose father sent the most coin while hiding behind walls."
I dropped my boots from the table and stood.
"So take one thing from this pointless meeting. Go home and think very hard about what you can offer. Not your soldiers. You, as commanders."
The heirs looked at each other with grim faces.
That was better than smug ones.
"As of today, I am the only general involved in this war over territory unless the matter is defensive. I don't need you. I need the men who have been surviving in your place. And I will burn down every minor clan that decides today is when they want to pull out."
I lifted one hand slightly.
"Mari, if you could please hand out the reports."
The maids moved at once.
Mari stepped forward from the side of the chamber with a stack of sealed reports in her arms. Her expression remained professional, but her steps were steady enough to show she had expected this. Several other maids followed, placing documents in front of each heir with quiet precision.
The sound of paper touching the ruined map was almost funny.
Mari gave Serafall her own report last.
It detailed the battle at the lake. The consequences if Serafall had lost her chance to defeat the Leviathan Clan when she did. The projected collapse of allied positions. The cities that would have turned. The routes that would have been cut off. The number of soldiers who would have died because noble heirs were more interested in territory rights than military pressure.
It also included the attacks I had ordered throughout Satan territory.
The strikes that forced the reset.
The reason everyone was now quietly waiting for part two.
"Now that the Satan Families are defeated," I said, watching their faces darken as they read, "the rest is for me to handle. I don't want your lands or treasures, but you will contribute to the effort if you want more than what this territory gives you from the Leviathan war."
Serafall grabbed my hand.
No doubt trying to dissuade me from taking such heavy-handed action against her friends.
I looked down at her hand, then at her face.
She looked furious enough to freeze the room for real this time.
"You can terrorize them into moving today," she said under her breath. "I have to make them obey tomorrow."
That was the first smart thing said in this room.
I leaned closer.
"Then make sure tomorrow has people worth obeying."
Her fingers tightened around mine.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then I stood fully and pulled her with me.
"Me and you are going to meet your mother. Let's go."
I left the office with Serafall in hand, stepping over broken stone and scorched floorboards while the heirs stayed behind with their reports, their ruined map, and the hole where one of their claims to Leviathan City had just exited the room.
Scene 3
Bael POV
"Yes, sir. He wasn't invited to Serafall's meeting. From the sound of it, she was trying to summon a devil identified as one of the Sitri Clan's top advisors. Rook Sitri, a branch member of the clan."
I listened while circling several points on the map with my quill.
The room around us was quieter than the report deserved. Dark wood shelves lined the walls, filled with old ledgers, sealed scrolls, and maps most devils would never be allowed to see. Lamps burned with low blue flame over the table, giving the parchment beneath my hand a colder appearance than it deserved.
Leviathan territory stretched across the center of the map.
Lucifer holdings sat to one side.
Beelzebub's damaged supply routes were marked in black.
Asmodeus positions had already been scratched out.
I circled the roads where armies within Leviathan territory could logically move, then marked the cities that would matter if Serafall's command structure began to fracture.
Sirzechs had drawn information out of his fellow Satans in the name of honest warfare. Everyone had been forced to reveal the locations of major cities and the armies positioned around them. Information all three of the others—Serafall, Ajuka, and Falbium—had failed to secure properly before the territorial war began.
Yet Sirzechs was using my personal map of the cities located within Satan territory.
A map taboo for clans other than my own to even know existed.
And the one side whose information could no longer be trusted was Serafall's.
Not because she was lying.
Because Tenebris had shown up instead of this Rook fellow.
That alone said enough about who was in charge of the Leviathan territory when it came to this agreed-upon war.
"Black Suns," I said softly. "Very interesting choice."
Sirzechs stood across from the table, arms folded, eyes fixed on the same marked region. The light from the lamps caught in his crimson hair and made his expression harder to read. He was not angry in the childish way most heirs became angry. He was thinking.
That was better.
That meant he might survive the lesson.
"Within a hundred years, he raised a force capable of tearing at the ankles of these two," I continued, tapping the Leviathan and Beelzebub fronts. "He forced Falbium to pull back after realizing Beelzebub City had burned down. He's more effective than Serafall could hope to be."
I looked to one of the waiting messengers.
"Tell the Meric Clan to lay low. We've already secured enough of a foothold with them being included in the splitting of territories."
The messenger bowed and teleported away.
Others followed, carrying orders toward Leviathan City, minor clan estates, and the routes where our quieter pieces needed to stop moving before Tenebris noticed them.
I tapped the table again.
"It was a nice play by you, Sirzechs, but you've met your match, I'm afraid."
His eyes shifted toward me.
"He's not only good at warfare," I said. "It appears he's not allowing your rules to impact him. Lady Sitri undoubtedly played a hand in this, but wiping out a minor clan's army as an example is something you would hesitate to do to your own forces."
Sirzechs was quiet for a moment.
Then he nodded.
Even he had to agree with that deduction.
"What does he want, then?" Sirzechs asked. "It's clear he's not interested in a Satan seat."
I shook my head at the boy.
It would take eons to teach him how eccentric some beings could be. The more whimsical they were, the worse they became for their enemies. At least ambition was simple. A throne could be baited. A title could be delayed. A crown could be offered, stolen, or made poisonous.
But someone who did not want the seat everyone else was bleeding for?
That kind of creature was dangerous in a different way.
"Not every powerful being wants the chair in the center of the room," I said. "Some only care who is allowed to sit, who is foolish enough to stand beside it, and who must be removed before the next age begins."
Sirzechs' expression did not change much, but the light in his eyes sharpened.
Good.
"Just focus on rebuilding the villages and towns surrounding Lucifer City," I said. "The citizens of Beelzebub City were thankfully not harmed, but their city and their ability to produce resources for Beelzebub have been crippled. Absorbing the groups affected by this war is also a method of growth."
I moved another marker closer to Lucifer territory.
"You've done as well as the plan allowed. It's your short-term decision-making that needs improvement. And we have met the perfect grindstone for all three of you future Super Satans."
Sirzechs looked back down at the map.
The chamber was silent except for the low burn of the lamps and the faint scratch of my quill crossing out another dead assumption.
"Focus on mastering the Laws of Destruction," I said. "Then I'll show you the next step. But you need more growth than a war plan can give you."
I set the quill down.
"That growth will come from living more."