Chapter 254 Demon Lord Candidate Pt.I
Alpha’s Domain
“Humph~ Aren’t I just the greatest?”
Alpha sat down with both legs crossed, praising herself greatly for her actions. Zatana who was just trying to enjoy her drink in peace decided to humour Alpha a bit.
~Of course, you are. You are the great Alpha~
She took another sip of her drink and just looked at the cocky Alpha with a straight face.
“Huhuhu, praise me more!”
~Um…~
“Or I kick you out.”
~How great you are, Alpha. Indeed, that is more than enough praise coming from me. Now shu~
Zatana was done with her beverage and was not in the mood to play anymore. Rather, she turned her eyes to the sleeping Beta. She was in a container Alpha had made to drain away all her power. For most beings, it was the equivalent of death, but to beings like Alpha and Beta, this was just an induced nap.
~Truly odd~
The goddess flicked the container and Beta’s eyes widened for a moment before shutting quickly.
~And you say this thing could kill even I?~
“Hm? Oh, I’m not sure about someone as strong as you, but it should be effective on most gods.”
Alpha who had also grown bored of praising herself answered with little emotion. She was back to working on her system and her whole appearance now resembled that of an overworked salary man.
While working, there was an interference in Alpha’s realm. This caused her to lift her attention from the system and to her domain which had cracks appearing in it.
‘What’s this? Someone easily cracked my defences?’
The first person to come to mind was Beta, but she was sleeping right there. The others also had no need to forcibly enter as they had a free pass into her domain.
Whoever it was, was definitely an enemy, but their energy was a bit different from what she had ever experienced.
She tried to reinforce her defences, considering that no sentient being other than Beta would intentionally try to force their way into her domain. The only things that would do that were Chaos Beings, but those guys couldn’t think.
If she ignored them, they’d simply pass by.
At least, that was what she thought till a rip appeared in her domain. The colour was drained out immediately and a new presence entered through this rip.
Both Alpha and Zatana were put on high alert. They jumped up from their seats and steeled themselves for a fight as this person was clearly not here with friendly intentions.
The being was black and riddled with stars from head to toe. One could easily confuse this for a celestial body, but the energy they gave off was that of a Chaos Being.
Alpha felt like she’d underestimated its strength since it entered her realm, but once it was a mindless monster with too much power, there was no way she would feel scared. She simply had to kick it out of her house and that was no problem in the slightest.
<<Once>>
A voice resembling a blade scratching against a wall of metal echoed in the tiny dimension. It caused the celestial beings present a sort of discomfort that was hard to describe.
<<I shall warn you once>>
The first time, Alpha couldn’t interpret the sound it made. But the second time, it made a complete sentence. This confused her far worse than ‘that’ person’s words ever could.
‘What? It can speak?’
An interest had been born from the new discovery.
<<Do not interfere with my scenarios ever again. The next time, I will personally destroy all your sources>>
With that warning delivered, the chaos being disappeared from the room and everything was returned to their original state from before it arrived. Almost as if there was no chaos being a second ago.
Zatana fell back to her seat and stared at the centre table. Alpha glanced at her, then at the still sleeping Beta. Angry, she shattered the container Beta slept in and shot her with a blast of raw power.
-Ow! Ow! Ow!-
The tiny Beta’s cry caused Alpha’s smile to return to her face. She then sat down and activated a system. This one wasn’t the one she was working on for Hinotori.
This was more of a generalised system that most celestial beings used to communicate with one another. She had found something odd and there were only a handful of beings that would know what the hell just happened.
Furrowing her brows, Alpha went to work to find out about the Chaos Being that could think.
_________________________
Day 67
The day started out with my room being flooded by a horde of crying monsters. They were acting as if I was dead or something and they looked really worried, so I decided to let them have their way for the morning even though it was a bit annoying for me.
After an hour, I finally had enough and kicked them all out. The hell kitten was still under the assumption that I was its mother, but I ignored it for most of the time. Amethyst also refused to let me walk on my own so acted as my portable chair now.
I had breakfast – a bunch of fruit and dead rabbits. The kitten was hungry, but none of the food there seemed to please it. Curiously, I transformed a fruit using [Devil Light Manipulation] to make it into a hell fruit or some nonsense like that.
The kitten had no problem eating it then, so I could rest easy. Amethyst too wanted me to do something special for her, but I wasn’t sure what exactly would be special for a Twilight Crystal Drake. Maybe a bath?
She hadn’t had one in a long time, so I decided that we took one. I gave her a power scrubbing and it would seem my suggestion was the right one. Amethyst exclaimed about how much she was loving it. Since she evolved, she hadn’t been able to feel much, so the sense of something hard hitting her made her happy.
If she was happy, I was happy.
The hell kitten on the other hand did not want to get wet. I remembered the scary guy that popped up last night because of the kitten so as punishment, I gave it a bath as well. The kitten cried in my arms, but I simply found it cute.
When I dried it up, it was simply an adorable puffy kitten. If cameras existed, I’d have taken at least 100 pictures of it in that moment.
We finished up really fast, then went to attend to our guest. Apparently, he had been given new orders while I was sleeping and to show some curtesy, he waited for me to get prepared before meeting with me.
Of course, the discussion topic for the day was the kitten that was with me. My two spawns – Ichi and Ni, were both waiting in the room, acting as my bodyguard. I had them wait outside of the room to ward off any one who would try to eavesdrop on the conversation.
Well, this was merely me trying to keep them out of the room in case my guest attempted using them as a hostage in any form or way.
The room was a large guest room with two elegant chairs prepared and a table in between those chairs. A large door that led to a balcony overlooking the landscape and a shelf filled with books I would never read.
Some tea had been served, probably by the kobolds and Julian was drinking it with skills so refined I couldn’t believe he was the very same chuuni who creeped me out last night.
I sat down on the chair in my human form and had Amethyst stand behind me. I tried to keep her out, but she refused no matter what. The kitten sat on my lap, purring as I scratched its back.
“Good morning, oh queen of monsters.”
‘Queen of what-now?’
My perception of him had dropped back to zero.
“Could you refrain from calling me that?”
I asked kindly, yet the brat chose not to.
“How could I dare insult thine excellence by not addressing thou by thine epithet?”
8th grade nightmares were flooding back in.
“Are you incapable of speaking normally?”
“Forgive my foolishness, but this humble one hath not the tiniest idea of what thou imply by ‘normally’.”
He looked confused as he stopped sipping his tea and furrowed his brows. I kept my smile on my face, trying my best not to lose control.
“I mean, like how I do. Do you think you can do this?”
“Hmm, I believe I am starting to understand you. You wish for me to speak more like this?”
He completely switched up. Sure, it retained a bit of it’s former ancientness, but it was a bit closer to modern tone of speaking. I could work with that.
“Yes. Excellent. As expected of the Great Blood Emperor.”
I applauded him and he seemed to like the praise as he blushed lightly while trying to act tough. An uncontrollable smile spread across his face.
‘Ah, so he likes being called by that cringe title?’
“So, Great Blood Emperor. What brings you here?”
His smile widened to the point that his mouth was practically hanging off the tip of his ears.
‘Bingo!’
“My lady chose me to come monitor the growth of a demon lord candidate. Which, we had clarified last night, was the child you hold in your laps.”
He pointed to the kitten. It hissed once it realised Julian was talking about it. I found the entire situation to be a bit weird though.
"Why would she choose a child to be the next demon lord?”
Julian dropped his cup gently on the table then closed his eyes in contemplation. When he opened his eyes, he shrugged.
“Who knows what goes on in my Lady’s head? She simply does as she pleases.”
He was speaking as if she was some sort of lost cause. Then again, given how he was, I guess I would have to prepare myself for that sort of revelation where she was actually a clueless overpowered chuuni.
‘All of a sudden, I don’t feel too good anymore.’
“My lady, after witnessing your display of tremendous power last night, had a change of heart.”
“Hm?”
“Please, do not misunderstand. She still wishes for that child to become the next demon lord. However, she wants you to participate in the Demon lord trials in place of the child. Raise the child with the mindset of ruling over the demons, then pass on the throne to them once they are fully grown and ready to handle it.”
He explained what exactly it was his lady wanted. I was going to act as a sort of dummy demon lord till the kitten had grown strong enough to take the throne.
Basically, they were asking me to gain the ire of practically the entirety of humanity just to wait for some years for this kitten to dethrone me and I would be thrown away like forgotten trash.
“Like hell I will!”
<A/N: <A/N: Hey guys, it\'s been a while. Sadly, I\'m not going to be writing for another month. I feel like I haven\'t really done this story any justice considering the kind of reactions I\'ve gotten.
Ok, let me rephrase, I\'m going to be writing a lot in the next month, I just won\'t be releasing next month. Going forward, I want my work to only be released after going through intense scrutiny. That means less grammatical errors, a more cohesive story and less chapters that feel "useless". For this reason, please excuse me to another month.
Also, secondary reason: My brain died after exams, Imma need to recover. Later!>>