Beelzebub stared intently at Satan's serious face. "Okay… I agree!"
When Satan heard Beelzebub agree with her plans, she gave a wide smile, so enchanting it could charm even gods… But Beelzebub didn't care at all.
"Tsk…" she clicked her tongue and approached Lilith's body—
But before she could get close, Beelzebub placed himself between the two, with both hands ready to join the silver skull atop the Apomyius staff.
"Would you really go as far as using that attack against me?" her voice came out steady, in a chorus of several different voices. For the first time since she appeared, she showed signs of anger.
This made Beelzebub tense, but he didn't back down. "What are you planning to do by approaching her!" Just like Satan, his voice didn't show a hint of courtesy.
But the reasons they were at this impasse were quite different from what Beelzebub imagined. "You fool!" with a shout, she raised her hand pointing toward Lilith's body.
"If you really use that kind of attack, what do you think will happen to her body?"
Faced with Satan's sincere question, he realized that if he actually did it, his beloved's body would probably be destroyed. Damn… she's right, for a second I almost made a mistake…
Original sin number 0: Empty false God
This is currently the strongest power in Beelzebub's arsenal. Holding the skull of the Staff of Apomyius with both hands, imbuing it with his offensive and defensive vibrations simultaneously. By condensing these two vibrations, he creates a large explosion in the form of a black sphere that swallows him along with his opponent. The black sphere then explodes, killing his opponent and severely injuring Beelzebub's body.
Seeing Satan advance toward his beloved, he nearly activated that technique out of pure instinct. But now realizing it would destroy his beloved's body, he lowered his hands.
Satan, on the other hand, was furious because of the recklessness of that technique; she hates seeing Beelzebub hurt.
"Don't worry, I just want to preserve her body!" Satan said as she approached young Lilith's body. She raised one of her hands, activating a sealing technique.
Crystals began to form, and in little time, a beautiful crystal coffin appeared before Beelzebub's astonished eyes. "As you know, gods have special bodies, but after death, not even they escape the deterioration of time."
Beelzebub approached the coffin where Lilith rested. Running his hand over the smooth and cold surface, a sad yet warm smile adorned his lips for the first time in centuries.
Seeing that expression directed at someone else instead of her again, Satan felt uncomfortable once more.
"Enough!" with even faster and clumsier movements, she made the coffin float a few meters above the ground.
As she injected her demonic energy, the coffin began to shrink, until it became as small as a crystal pendant.
At first, Beelzebub was alarmed by her sudden actions, but he felt no malice from her, only… Jealousy? Why would she be jealous?
He didn't know what to think of that situation. Despite having the memories of his past life, he didn't pay them much attention, for he lived much longer as Beelzebub than as Caleb.
And from the memories he had as Caleb, he had never seen anything about Satan being a crazy woman in love with him, so he quickly dismissed the thought. Better not think too much.
"Take it!" handing the pendant to Beelzebub, Satan turned around. "Prepare everything you need, we're traveling in a few hours."
Holding the crystal pendant in his hand, he brought it closer to his face. Inside, a tiny Lilith could be seen in a deep sleep. "Thank you!" he replied, smiling without realizing that at some point his voice had softened.
Hearing that tone, Satan turned her face to look at Beelzebub—
"How beautiful…" for the first time in a long while, that smile wasn't directed at anyone else. Only at her. Her face blushed slightly, but she soon began dissolving into particles of light, leaving Beelzebub behind.
Without thinking twice, he created a thin silver thread and placed it on the pendant, forming a necklace. "This way, until the day of your resurrection, you will be close to my heart…"
After a few hours gathering useful things for the so-called "trip," Beelzebub was now at the gates of the city where he once lived. He didn't have many people to say goodbye to, since this was an abandoned city.
His only friends were perhaps Hades and Brunhilde. Which was truly a surprise; in his life as Caleb, he had read the story with Beelzebub's arc.
It was during the encounter with Hades that he received his iconic Apomyius staff. But that only happened after Lilith's loss. In this world, somehow he met Hades right after the death of Lucifer, Samael, and Azazel.
Could it have been some butterfly effect? He knew his current life was very different from what his past self saw. The Beelzebub of the past merely wandered around in depression, while he focused his journey on increasing his power to break the curse.
That way he met Brunhilde and other Valkyries, but he kept his distance because he feared that his curse might harm them in some way.
"You don't need to be so melancholic." said Satan, who appeared behind him again.
"Couldn't you show up in a… more normal way?" He really found it irritating that someone he couldn't detect kept appearing in his blind spot. Especially when that "someone" was Satan herself.
Ignoring Beelzebub's complaints, she approached him, staying just a meter away.
He was already used to her behavior, but that didn't mean he trusted her. At every moment, his Apomyius staff was in his left hand.
Satan then took a small fragment from her clothes. "First you need to understand where we're going."
He nodded.
"And this little guy here in my hands is the great protagonist of this story." she continued, raising the crystal.
It was quite beautiful, shining in iridescent tones and about the size of an apple. "This in my hands is called: Key of the Pantheon!"
Upon hearing the name of the small crystal, Beelzebub's eyes widened. That name was not at all unfamiliar to him. Over the millennia searching for a way to break the curse or kill Satan, he read several books.
Among them, he found an ancient text written in a language dead even to the gods. In it were the details of a powerful crystal.
This item allowed a low-class god to have the chance to found his own pantheon. That may seem simple, but the true trump card lay in the blessings that came from a pantheon created using this crystal.
The god-king, the one who possesses the crystal, would grow stronger with every new god or mythical creature added to his pantheon.
"So your plan is to create a pantheon?" Beelzebub knew that crystal was powerful, and had no doubt that what Satan held now was real.
"Yes, as you already know, I intend to break the seal." Without hesitation, she made the crystal float toward Beelzebub. "But the only way to break the seal would be externally, and you need to do it."
Beelzebub agreed, taking the crystal for himself. With just those actions, he already understood the layout of Satan's plan well.
First, he needs to break the seal externally.
Second, he is still too weak for that, so he needs to create a pantheon using the crystal to become stronger.
Simple, but the next words Satan spoke froze his body. "By the way, you'll need to create the pantheon in another world."
"Huh?"