Scene 1
"No capability of speech, although the reliability of that being linked to your ability is still in question. Moving on to your clan."
I glanced up from the notes in front of me and faced the silver-haired woman hiding herself behind crimson armor.
There were traces of holy energy inside her.
Not enough for me to call it an innate ability. Not truly. Her affinity for weaponizing ice laws seemed closer to Serafall's level, though she lacked the understanding needed to chase laws properly.
"Lucifuge?" I asked. "What is this, a servant clan?"
She nodded once.
My annoyance reached the point where I began thinking of ways to bridge the gap myself.
"I can't do much for your voice right now. I'm also assuming that if Sirzechs sent you, then you're a spy."
Her stone-cold expression did not shift.
Not even the smallest flinch.
"But that's pointless to worry about," I continued, "since anything you receive from me will be tailored only to you."
Still nothing.
Fine.
This one would be a tough nut to crack.
"Hold on to this sword. That will be your job from now on. Carry this sword."
I pulled out a Life-aligned key, watching as it morphed into the Life variant of the Sword of Pluto.
The blade settled into existence with a quiet pulse, its edge carrying an authority that was softer than Death, yet no less absolute. Life did not always heal gently. Sometimes it forced what was broken to remember what it should have been.
"We'll see how well Life Laws aid you. Healing magic, and most laws capable of healing, use Light Laws to a certain degree. But pushing out a holy element would mean shattering your core."
Her eyes remained locked on the sword.
"At worst, you become a cripple. At best, you end up twenty-five percent of what you could have been."
I let that settle.
"Once I step into the Minor God—excuse me, Satan rank—I should be able to use Life Laws more directly. It will come at a cost, but by then you will have seen enough benefit to understand why it matters."
I leaned back slightly.
"Gray. Train with it in the city. It's not like I'm afraid Sirzechs could win a war against me when he can't even leave his territory undefended."
One eyebrow twitched.
Small.
Almost nothing.
But there.
So she had heard about the attacks across Lucifer territory.
Good.
Gray accepted the sword with a nod before stepping out.
Once she was gone, Mari took her seat. Her facial form was still shifting often enough that it was useless to care which one she wore at any given moment.
"That is not what my report said," she said.
Black flames swallowed the report in my hand.
Mari smirked as it burned.
"We both know she's a spy. Of that, I'm certain. But turning a spy isn't hard when you can offer genuine rewards and praise for actual ability."
I watched the ashes curl into nothing.
"If she were an average devil comparable to Rook, even if she were smarter than my closest advisor, I would still choose Rook every time."
Mari's smirk sharpened.
"But she breaks that model, and you knew it when you investigated her fully. Compared to these heirs who can be ratted out by their servants, this one is very different."
I rested my fingers against the table.
"Bael or Sirzechs. It does not matter to me when such a talent appears. That is my bad habit. I collect talented beginners, because there is no telling which cycle I will end up in next."
A few memories in my soul finally settled along the scars left by the Astral God who had wounded me long ago.
Old pain.
Old lessons.
Old beginnings wearing new faces.
Mari's gaze did not miss the shift.
"Then don't be upset when a rose draws blood," she said. "Each personality will come to a head eventually. Heiresses rarely share."
I pulled my map closer, deciding it would be more trouble than it was worth to keep speaking with this spy.
My attention moved to the villages Sein had marked as fertile enough to invest in. There was also a secondary list, one that clearly showed a sliver of bias.
That forced me to send more surveyors out to double-check his work.
The first reports had been approved. The later ones came in with smaller changes, but nothing worth concerning myself with yet. Ethos would shift things where he saw fit, while Rook Sitiri and Alexi Star raided the minor clans that had failed the test of proving their worth.
They only needed to participate in the Leviathan Clan's clean-up effort.
That wasn't a secret at their level of information. The foot soldiers might not know, but their heirs did.
The families could be spared.
The main clans had to go.
No free rides would become the new motto of the Sitiri Clan going forward.
And my Black Sun would back them.
Scene 2
"It's almost like Fate decided your clan needed another chance. That is how valuable what I'm about to teach you is, Alexi."
Starlight gathered around my hand.
The Laws of the Stars answered slowly at first, as if waking from neglect. I had hardly used them compared to my other domains. In my Golden Cycle, true Stellar Gods were rare. Too rare.
My Star Court still lacked bodies.
Death had Thanatos and Bale as my head reapers. Darkness was mainly left to Discordia, who went by Eris. Sun Laws usually fell to my beasts—Kunlun, who had learned to swim in the sun, and Tí, who normally absorbed the energy before returning to sleep.
Tí had been the first to sense my Sun sealing itself.
The wolf had broken out of my Grotto Heart, where he usually slept closest to my Sun. He had come out instinctively, only to be fed too much energy by Michael in the form of a fragment of the Biblical Sun.
Now he had become a three-vector beast of suns.
A strange prize from a broken Aesir cycle.
I had given the wolf's icy sister to my counterpart, Artemis, as her loot for the cycle where I had rendered her unconscious to save her from Hastur's influence.
I focused back on the Stellar Laws and commanded them to morph into balls of light.
"This is knowledge Bael would kill for," I said. "So all of your progress should be revealed only when needed."
Alexi's eyes remained fixed on the lights.
"When you go to war, the goal is to use twenty-five percent of the cards we have. The remaining seventy-five percent is for allies who think they are capable of winning through schemes."
The starlight shifted, separating into different colors and densities.
"Stellar Laws are the embodiment of the stars that dot mortal night skies, but they are also various suns, planets, and moons. The void the stars sit within is also a form of Darkness Law expressed through Stellar Law."
The lights circled my hand.
"To be a star is to be unaffected by the mortal world. It is a form of enlightenment every being chasing divinity eventually faces. Each finds their home somewhere within the stars."
The lights changed again.
A blue sphere formed first.
"Whether it is a planet covered in water like Neptune."
Then a red one.
"Or a barren wasteland that symbolizes war like Mars."
Then a softer light, warmer and more alluring.
"Cupid and Aphrodite could lay claim to the Star of Love, Venus."
The next light streaked through the others like a falling omen.
"How about becoming the fallen star that shoots through the night and symbolizes the coming of a new era? Like the one I gave Prometheus to fulfill his name as Torchbearer when we aided his exit from the game of gods while wearing the Laws of Sun and Moon."
The balls of light expressed the various domains I had encountered.
With Force Laws still available to me, my star tattoos retained insight into many domains. Some remained sealed due to their lethality if they caused me to run wild. Chaos. Corruption. A few others that were better left untouched until I had the authority to survive them.
"If Stellar Laws are so powerful and diverse," Alexi asked, still focused on the dancing lights, "then why are there so few Stellar Gods?"
The light in her eyes said she was enjoying the display far more than she wanted to admit.
"Outer Gods," I said. "And whatever horrors are hiding outside the world."
Her attention sharpened.
"In most pantheons, they do everything possible to stop the Star Crown from being owned, because it sits above the Sky. Most Stellar Gods carry numerous treasures on their bodies. So gods strip them clean before creating their own vessels to try and take over the stellar bodies."
The lights slowed.
"Most of the time, it leads to corruption and madness on a divine scale. But the treasures are usually worth it."
Alexi's expression became more serious.
"Depending on how far you go down the path of Stellar Laws, I will decide whether you come with me when I leave or stay behind. I will leave your clan in a good place as my first outside followers, but a clan with affinity for pure Stellar Laws is worth bringing back."
I forced more energy into the room.
Darkness spread outward, swallowing the walls, floor, and ceiling until the chamber vanished beneath a false night. Then motes of light bloomed one after another, forming a universe of stars around us.
Alexi stood in the middle of it.
Silent.
Still.
For a moment, she was no longer a devil heiress inside a political war.
She was a child beneath a sky too large for her world.
I let her enjoy it.
That feeling was not something most beings experienced until they traveled the Star Realm.
Scene 3
"These are trying times, and we as devils must unite!"
The voice rang through the city center.
Newly recruited priests and priestesses of the Church of Lucifer stood at the raised platform, their dark robes catching the firelight from braziers placed around the square. Their foreheads were marked with black suns, painted carefully at the center as if branding faith directly onto the skull.
"It is time we join arms as brothers and sisters of our once-prideful race!"
The crowd grew larger with every word.
The recent attacks had crushed our pride as devils of Lucifer territory. Villages burned. Fathers and sons had died. Soldiers returned in pieces or not at all. Every street carried smoke, grief, or rumor.
"A time when we need one another to stop the senseless murdering of sons and fathers!"
People pushed closer.
Some came out of belief. Some came out of fear. Some came because grief needed a place to kneel.
"A war of Satans is destroying our homes! Our fields! The hopes of our people!"
A woman near the front began crying openly. The man beside her pulled her close, his own face twisted in that hard way men wore when they refused to weep in public.
"Let us all join in prayer to the Inverted Sun of our Devil God, who will be reborn as the Demonic Black Sun! A renewed Angel of Endings!"
My hand hurt.
I glanced down and saw blood running between my fingers.
I had been squeezing my fist too tightly.
For a moment, all I could remember were my comrades.
Their bodies.
Their screams.
The way fire had turned the night into judgment.
The priest bowed his head. His black sun mark seemed darker beneath the torchlight as he began to pray earnestly for the departed souls.
One by one, people followed.
Heads lowered.
Hands clasped.
Families held each other tighter.
And beneath the grief, beneath the fear, something else began to move through the crowd.
Not hope.
Not yet.
Something sharper.
A need for someone to blame.
A need for someone to follow.
A need for the dead to mean something.
Scene 4
Ten POV
"So I'm supposed to meet this Shinto envoy for access to their territory in the mortal world."
I tossed the thought around in my head as the idea proved logical enough.
Even I paid attention when my cousins appeared inside my territory.
Cupid had gotten stuck there after Apollo sent that brat to cause trouble as a newborn god. Hermes was the most common visitor to everyone's domains, mostly because he was incapable of leaving other people's business alone. Juris was his favorite to annoy since the chances of Juris lashing out were close to zero.
As the one who understood the gods' domains best, Juris usually handed Hermes advice and clues to secrets just to keep the busybody occupied.
"Amaterasu," I said, leaning back in my seat. "What circumstance requires devils inside her domain? She can cast sunlight onto any devils or demons plaguing her territory."
Lady Sitiri sat across from me, composed as always.
I had been requested after the defense against Ajuka, which meant the matter was either delicate, dangerous, or politically inconvenient enough to require my involvement.
Probably all three.
"They are the weakest divine faction when it concerns mortals," Lady Sitiri said. "Yet they also house one of the largest numbers of gods within their pantheon. A slight duality in their overall status among the pantheons."
I listened.
"The agreement made with the Sorceress Supreme has restricted every pantheon's ability to directly manifest within the mortal plane. Anyone above Major God is practically a waste of energy to send, especially when that group of mortals will use any chance to increase their prestige by defeating supernatural beings."
I almost fell back in my seat.
Then the weight of her words fully landed.
I fixed my posture and met her serious expression while my brain nearly shorted itself.
"She's more powerful than most give her credit for," Lady Sitiri continued. "In honesty, I would prefer you learn under her for a time. Her magic system is largely different from ours and from most supernatural systems you will encounter."
That was not nothing.
Lady Sitiri did not hand out praise carelessly.
"Moving on," she said, "the Shinto gods have a poor history when it comes to handling mortal-level affairs. The reason she wants you likely comes down to Michael's support of you."
My eyes narrowed slightly.
"It is hardly a secret that he is supporting you among our pantheon. This situation is an attack aimed at his legitimacy. If you handle it poorly, it can harm our overall position between the Shinto and Biblical factions."
I tapped a finger lightly against the armrest.
So that was the shape of it.
The demons were not only a mortal problem.
They were a political trap.
"The demons, although an issue for mortals, are creating a ruckus the devil race must answer for," Lady Sitiri said. "I am also giving you my Evil Pieces so you can build a group of followers."
That drew my full attention.
"They are already laced with my energy, so you will not have to worry about the issue of anyone becoming a Nephilim. They will also remain under your command only."
Her lips curved faintly.
"So you will have a reason to focus on humans instead of swimming in sin with us."
I glanced toward the crystal of yellow sunlight resting nearby.
A fragment of Amaterasu's domain.
One she was allowing me to use.
The light was clean. Different from Michael's. Different from Apollo's. It carried order, ritual, and warmth beneath discipline. Not a careless sun. Not a conquering one.
A ruled sun.
I smiled.
"Fine. I'll accept it."
Lady Sitiri's expression did not change, but I could feel the satisfaction settle behind her eyes.
"But I want all the information possible on these demons they're dealing with."