Chapter 268: Fallen Star
[...Don’t? Are you crazy Lucifer? Do you not understand what is currently happening?! And you want me to sit still?!]
".... You should know that now is not the time."
[...]
The progenitor devil looked genuinely speechless upon hearing Lucifer’s words, running a hand through her hair as she took a deep breath to calm herself down.
"Hey, Bel.
Remember that time when we first met all those millions of years ago...I can’t remember the exact amount of time anymore."
"Oh, I most certainly do.
I definitely remember that thousand-year-old monarch archdevil brat who dared to stand up to an ancient breed like me."
Lucifer chuckled weakly as he spoke turned to Alexia and asked a similar question, one to which the woman replied with tears in her eyes.
He did the same thing with Quinn, something that made the Progenitor click her tongue in annoyance at him being sentimental, however, Lucifer could tell that it was her means of preventing herself from flipping out in rage.
"It’s a pity I would not be able to join you on the ’other side’, if such a place even exists."
The Devil King laughed depreciatingly, as his breathing started slowing down, his grip on his sword slowly loosening as he muttered to himself.
"Sorry I wasn’t the best dad, Diablo."
Surrounded by the Progenitor of his race, his Ancient Breed Devil confidant, and his adopted daughter, the eyes of the Devil King Lucifer slowly closed as one last statement escaped his lips.
"Oh, how time flies."
After that, he went silent and his breathing ceased. The last heart of the Archdevil stopped beating and his body slowly fell into Alexia’s arms.
The half flugel woman’s tears overflowed as she cried out his name, and her face distorted greatly because of it.
But regardless of how much she called, Lucifer didn’t open his eyes; it made one painfully understand what was there was merely what was left of him.
Unfortunately, even that was not allowed to remain.
Cracks slowly began to spread across the man’s body, after which his skin started to flake off underneath his clothes.
The process speeds up as fat and muscles are exposed before bones and organs disintegrate into dust - and then to nothingness.
All that was left were the clothes of the now-deceased Devil King...grasped tightly in the arms of the crying woman while the Ancient Devil and Progenitor silently watched.
Lucifer’s vestige did not know this happened, but the Eternal who was sent to ’hold off’ the progenitor devil to prevent her from coming to Lucifer’s aid when she discerned what the Eternal of Knowledge had planned for the Devil King was beaten black and blue by her, and it was only his status as an ’Eternal’ that prevented him from seeing ’true death’ at her hands.
◇ ◇ ◇
After the video, ended, they were all silent.
In just a little over an hour, they had all seen the final battle that led to the death of one of the most powerful Archdevils in all of existence.
Cattleya and the rest also discovered the existence of the ’Eternals’, powerful beings who were capable of controlling the very concepts that governed the multiverse they lived in.
The fact that these beings were involved in Lucifer’s death, brought a different kind of shock to all of those present.
As for Diablo, he was now enlightened with new information about another relative of his, the woman who was most definitely his Mother’s sister.
In fact, for him, this was no less important than the details of how his father had perished.
"And there you have it...The reason why I said that even if you gave me a homunculus body, it’d just be delaying my inevitable end."
Lucifer’s vestige finally spoke up, with his words directed at Diablo who only sighed before pressing his temple with his fingers.
After a few seconds, he heaved a sigh once more, raising his head and replying to his father’s vestige.
"I’m still doing it either way."
"You sure? That energy core definitely has enough energy to take you to the Primogenial realm? You really wanna use it to power a homunculus body for a vestige that’s eventually going to fade away?"
"You say that like I still would not be able to reach the Primogenial realm even if I did not have the core.
Don’t underestimate me."
Diablo shot back with a scoff, getting up to his feet and revealing his existence realm for Lucifer to see, with the Vestige’s eyes going wide in surprise as he noticed the Devil King’s current level.
"HAHAHAHA!!! That brat Kronos and his kids are gonna be so mad if they ever found out that you’re already higher than their level despite not even being up to half their ages!!"
Lucifer burst into laughter as he spoke, citing the fact that the current Diablo, was more powerful than the three Olympian brothers who ruled the Olympus universe.
"The only one who’s gonna give me a hard time is Arthur’s father...he’s also sub cosmic, after all."
"For real? That kid Hades who was so scared to enter Tartarus has achieved partial cosmic superiority?"
"Yep."
"And Gaia did not say anything about it?"
"What?"
"Hmm?"
Father and son stared at each other in silence for a moment, before Diablo broke it with a set of questions.
"First of, you speak like Hades becoming a sub cosmic being is something that Gaia is supposed to react to despite her current sealed state.
Also...even if she did react...how in hell am I supposed to know that?"
"You don’t have spies in Olympus?"
"I do. But there’s no way they’d be able to get close to where the Olympians sealed Gaia!"
While the two were busy discussing Olympus’ internal affairs, Cattleya and Creusery finally finished digesting the information they had just discovered, turning their attention to their father and expressing their shock when they noticed his existence realm.
"You became a superior stage?!"
"Hmm? Yeah...it’s been a few years since that happened. Could have done it decades ago but I had a few things to do so I put it on hold."
"I think you’re the only Monarch realm existence who would put ascending to a higher stage ’on hold’...."
Creusery heaved an exasperated sigh upon hearing his father’s words, with Lucifer’s vestige chuckling and patting Diablo’s shoulder as he spoke.
"Still, even if you were born with a high existence realm, your progression a lot faster than I expected."
The vestige’s words caught Arthur’s attention as the boy posed a question to his grandfather.
"What existence realm were you in at birth?"
The answer, however, came from Lucifer who casually revealed something that only Belphegor was aware of.
"The Legendary Realm."
"Wut?"
"Huh?!!"
"EH?!"
Arthur, Cattleya and Creusery’s respective reactions were expected, after all, they had just been told that at birth, Diablo was already a Legendary realm existence.
"And here I thought being a master realm at birth was cool..."
’Ah...that’s kinda my fault. He normally would have been as high as, or even higher than Diablo, but I messed some shit up.’
Lucifer’s vestige thought to himself when he heard Arthur’s words, but chose to remain silent about the fact that he was the reason why Arthur’s was born in ’just’ the master realm and not higher.
On a side note, both Creusery and Cattleya were inferior stage grandmaster realms at birth.
After a little bout of depression at this unexpected discovery, Arthur then asked a question that Diablo was planning on asking.
"Where did you send Grandpa’s aunt to?"
