They had to admit that despite dozens of them working together at the start, poor signals and mutual sabotage included, it had taken immense effort just to break his rules and modify his physical body. No one understood why he was sometimes impossibly tough and sometimes absurdly easy to work with, switching back and forth without reason. Still, success finally seemed close.
The original Black Dragon body had been transformed into a thousand-meter demonic vessel saturated with dark power, capable of carrying their will into reality. Whether for rituals or direct descent, it was an ideal choice. At this moment, however, the remaining shadows exchanged glances, because the best body could only have one controller.
While they calculated how to eliminate each other, Belial felt the timing was about right. He planned to stay a little longer, then leave. Inside his body, he had found an interesting legacy left by an old acquaintance, and he had been quietly charging up something big.
"Once the last of their gold is squeezed out, I will finish them in one shot and leave."
He rolled over again, having long mapped every weak point of this space with Energy Field. If he wanted, he could kill them all and tear the space apart with his bare hands at any time. The only reason he stayed was for the food, and he was already tired of the scenery and the constant muttering during meals.
"Maybe I should do something new?"
Rolling in the black fog, Belial suddenly raised his head. He saw something that should not exist here. A beam of light.
It was very faint, with no heat, and even at its brightest it did not hurt the eyes. It reminded Belial of mornings from his school days, just after early reading, when the sun had only just risen. Curious, he watched as the light wavered before him, then deliberately drifted away as if inviting him to follow.
Since he was bored anyway and it stayed within the fog's range, he followed it. It led him to a familiar place. The light stopped at a pale Rift glowing faintly with Rend, exactly the weak point in space he had identified before.
"You are not trying to get me out, are you?"
Belial tilted his head and pointed at himself as the light continued to circle near the Rift. "That will not work. Their gold is not gone yet. I will go back and eat some more first." "I do not know who you are, but goodbye for now. I will check again after I wake up."
After eating, sleep always came easily, and he could digest while continuing his electronic serf work. Curious as he was, Belial decided to sleep first. This place provided food and lodging, and that was simply too good to pass up.
He returned to the center of the black fog as the Rift around the light slowly closed and withdrew to the outside. "…" "…" "?"
It seemed that someone had been here before, and then left with a mix of confusion and speechlessness. After waking up, Belial looked around and saw that the beam of light was indeed gone, and Rift at a Spatial Weak Point was gone as well, though the surrounding space felt even more brittle than before. He clicked his tongue softly, feeling that the place had clearly been shaved thinner by someone passing through.
"So someone really did come by, and even helped me shave the walls again," he muttered. "Thanks, I guess, though it feels like I could have done it myself." The other party was gone now, and he felt a bit of regret, since having someone to talk to would not have been bad. That kind of light also felt familiar, even though Belial was sure he had never actually seen it before.
"But honestly, having food and a place to stay is still the best," he said. "And if people can already get in here, then it is probably time for me to go out too. I should prepare first." He could have torn this space apart and left directly, but he was a vengeful the Lord, and those guys scraping at him for so long had not been forgotten. Even if they could not hurt him, it did not mean Belial had no ideas.
While moving around to digest, he had deliberately spat a few blasts of Heat Ray toward those figures. Each time he blew them apart successfully, but after a while they would reassemble again. By watching closely during each reassembly, he realized they were likely just remote Clone, little puppets being controlled from far away.
Even if he smashed them into a Shard, the loss on the other side would be minimal. At most, it would just make them disconnect for a bit, like network lag, with no real damage to the players behind the screen. That meant he needed a way to truly hurt the ones on the other end, the kind of attack that worked through the cable itself.
There was no way to find a Blue Pill here, so the only option was to steal and learn their methods. Something a certain damned white brat had said came back to him, and Belial found it very reasonable. "If you can see it, you can observe it. If you can observe it, you can interfere."
Observation and exchange went both ways. If they could borrow dark power to interfere with him, then Belial believed he could do the same in return. "I should thank them for providing so much skill proficiency experience," he added. "And also thanks for the Gold Coins that Fire Rodan dropped earlier. Come to think of it, is that what I swallowed last time?"
After breaking himself down into this kind of Black Mist Form, Belial finally noticed something unusual inside his body. There was a quietly burning fireball, like a miniature sun, sitting within him. The aura was very familiar, belonging to Legendary Fire-Resistant King, whom he had killed earlier with Red Lotus Form, along with Fire Rodan.
"When we fought, I ate and gnawed on him pretty thoroughly," Belial said. "Leaving something behind makes sense." If he was not mistaken, this power could cause energy to erupt in an instant, with very high consumption but much greater force. More importantly, it seemed capable of interfering with the other side's power, the dark power.
Over these many days of being an electronic farm slave, a large part of his effort had gone into modifying his own body and connecting it with this Rodan inheritance. It was like updating his internal System first, just to the point where this software could be installed. Using Red Lotus Form directly to blow up with them was not an option, since it would waste all the energy he had worked so hard to eat.
So during these days, Belial had been quietly learning their techniques. Little by little, he found the line through which they delivered their power, and with his newly created move, he was completely confident he could hurt them. "I spent most of my time developing power systems based on Space and planets," he said. "But now it seems Diablo has its own strengths too."
"At least it gives bonus damage against these brats," he continued. "Now prepare yourselves and face my… huh?" Just as Belial was about to move, a black door appeared again at the weak point of the space. It slowly opened, and an extremely dark figure stepped out.
That darkness was something he knew well, the result of a massive concentration of dark power. If ordinary people's darkness was like gray mist, and heavier types were like his own environment, black as spilled oil, then how dark was this figure? It was black like fabric pressed tight against star iron.
"Wait, why is someone coming again?" Belial said. "I was just about to leave." Curiosity won out, and he paused his actions, leaning his head closer to take a careful look. He watched quietly as the figure moved inside.
"The direction chased by the light of dawn is here," the figure said. "What a disgusting sight." The robed figure stepped forward, revealing a girl with ink-black hair and large antler-like horns forming a crown shape. Above her head appeared a five-pointed Black Iron crown.
She located the space Rift where faint light still lingered and gently opened it. Just opening the door allowed madness and chaotic Laws to pour out, making Chloe frown immediately. This level of corrosion was smaller in scale than her former self, but if trapped in this space alone, the outcome would be grim.
"I do not have much time outside right now," she said softly. "I cannot let the Four Heavenly Kings return yet, at least not before Irene arrives." Chloe believed that if Dawn herself had intervened to save him, then the target had not been fully corrupted by the abyss. There was still hope.
"I hope you still have a sliver of consciousness," she continued. "If not, I can only see whether I can absorb part of your burden." The Demon King stepped into hell. She had prepared herself for blasphemous runes, sacrificial altars, or a banquet table where gods fed greedily.
None of that mattered, as it would just be hardship. What she never expected was endless blackness. There was nothing at all, only pure darkness drifting without end.