Chapter 3230: Taking The City Hostage

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Dark Realm, Seven Prince of Hell Territory, Pandemonium City, Center of Pandemonium Volcano, Millennium Volcano Heart Natural Array

"But how?" Mommon asked in disbelief. His disbelief wasn’t directed toward my confirmation of the obvious, but toward the fact that his entire city was sitting on an explosive and he didn’t have an inkling.

"That’s not the question we should be asking..." I shook my head in dismay. "We should be asking what now."

Mommon’s greed to capture powerful demonic beasts by using the Millennium Volcano Heart was what gave Belphegor an opportunity to place an explosion-type True Relic underneath the city without being detected for so long.

As I was infiltrating the center of the Pandemonium Volcano, I noticed the several tunnels underneath the city that the demonic beasts had dug to make their way toward the Millennium Volcano Heart. It was a mess down there. If not for the demonic beasts’ tunnel digging and their excellent silk for reinforcing the walls, the city would have long since sunk into the bowels of the Dark Realm.

Belphegor most likely used one of his trained demonic beasts or even created a demonic beast incarnation to plant the explosion-type True Relic, created with a couple of Celestial Will fragments, below the city and guard it while waiting for his instructions.

Usually, I would have teleported out of here with Mommon as soon as the text arrived because I didn’t trust Belphegor to give his enemies time to think while holding a blade to their necks. The ten-minute time limit he had given them to make the decision could most likely have been intended to catch his enemies off guard.

However, the circumstances didn’t allow for such a manoeuvre from him now. There were two important things to notice from the text Belphegor sent Mommon:

i) He was holding Pandemonicum City hostage, but he actually didn’t care if Mommon escaped.ii) Belphegor needed Mommon alive to get what he wanted. If Mommon died, it was game over for him.

Belphegor understood that with Mommon’s prowess and arsenal of True Relics, he would survive the explosion with ease. After all, Mommon was the richest of all the Seven Princes of Hell faction leaders, and most of his wealth was spent on ensuring he lived a lengthy life.

He wanted Mommon to survive the ordeal because he didn’t want Mommon’s death to fan the flames of the fire burning the bridge between him and the Bloodrools.

Seeing the assassins guarding Pandemonium City, Belphegor must have long figured out that Mommon was now an ally of the Bloodrools. If he were to kill an ally of the Bloodrools, it would be game over for him. There would be no place left in the Myriad Realms for him to hide.

Right now, Belphegor’s relationship with the Bloodrools was bad but still salvageable. However, if he were to kill someone they had declared an ally, he would have no hope of fixing his relationship with the Bloodrools. Instead, they would actively hunt him down.

Because if Belphegor were to kill Mommon, a Bloodrool ally, and they were to still trade with him, it would send the wrong message to their other allies. Yes, they were strong enough not to care about what these allies thought of them, but then, what about their pride? The purer the Bloodrool bloodline, the stronger their pride. Their pride wouldn’t allow it.

As for the rights to the Card World they wanted? They could just kill the last surviving leader of the Seven Princes of Hell, Belphegor, and when the Demon Merchant Code disbanded their dark faction, seizing its assets to recover their debts, the Bloodrools could buy the rights to the Card World directly from the Demon Merchant Code.

Basically, if he were to kill Mommon, all he would be doing was strengthening the Bloodrools’ justification for hunting him down. That meant that if he were to kill Mommon, his plan to become the lone king in the well would not only crumble to dust, but he would also be signing his death warrant.

Therefore, Belphegor needed Mommon to willingly quit the dark faction, making him the sole leader of the Seven Princes of Hell, so that he could offer up the rights to the Card World to the Bloodrools, begging for their mercy and fixing their relationship in the process.

To get Mommon to do his bidding, Belphegor took his precious city hostage.

Pandemonium City, even without the earnings from Mommon’s secret herbal garden, earned almost half of what the Seven Princes of Hell dark faction did. If you were to add the earnings from the secret herbal garden, then it earned a lot more than the dark faction did.

The city was Mommon’s golden goose. Knowing Mommon’s greed, Belphegor believed that Mommon would do anything it took to protect it. After all, Pandemonium City was not only worth more than the entire dark faction but was also a much more stable and steady source of income.

Maybe, if the old Mommon were still in control, Belphegor’s threat might have worked. He would have gotten his way, once again successfully squeezing through a death grip like the rat he was. Unfortunately for him, Old Mommon was no longer in charge. The Mommon that now remained had only one greed: to serve his master to the best of his ability and as much as possible. To him, Pandemonium City, its mines, its Volcano Heart, and his secret herbal garden meant nothing compared to his master’s will. He would burn the whole city down, destroying the volcano, if that was what his master wanted. Anything to satisfy his master.

"Ask him what guarantee there is that he will not hold the same threat over your head over and over again if you were to give in now," I instructed Mommon to text Belphegor back, while Karl, Clown Mask, and I used our own methods of divination to locate Belphegor, as according to Gideon’s report, the one among them was a clone.

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