Chapter 525: That Legendary Man

The cambion regretted answering that summons more than anything else in his life.

He'd been getting by well enough as a cambion drifting through the Blood Wastes—not a great life, but at least a free one. Unfortunately, ambition ran through every devil's veins, and the cambion often found himself dreaming of climbing higher.

He used to imagine himself draped in a red cloak, standing atop the walls of the Bloodriver Fortress, looking out over the thousand-mile battlefield below.

He'd even imagined joining Archduchess Sariel's own elite legion, outfitted with the finest Hell Engine, with other lords bowing their heads to him on sight.

He really had wanted that kind of glory.

So the instant he sensed a summons carrying Archduchess Sariel's own essence, the cambion responded without hesitation.

Deep down, he knew the real Sariel would never personally summon some disposable cambion like him. He figured her legions probably just needed a bit of cannon fodder.

But that was fine. The cambion just needed an opportunity.

Instead, he found himself facing an undead who'd wandered in from the material plane, a massive letdown compared to what he'd hoped for.

He'd figured he could bluff his way through, perhaps con a soul or two out of her. Instead, he'd run headlong into real danger.

The undead girl was strong, but her mother was far more terrifying. She was the kind of woman who could have carved out her own named territory in Hell without breaking a sweat.

He couldn't run, and his life was on the line at every turn. The cambion figured his luck had never been this bad, not even on the day he was born and abandoned.

Once the cambion confirmed Milena was serious, he had no choice but to grit his teeth and get to work.

Still, the cambion was "clever" enough to know how to drag his own kind down with him. He specifically picked out a few cambions to come along: the very ones whose noses he'd smashed earlier.

He'd already screwed them over once, so he might as well do it again. Better to let them die first than worry about them getting revenge on him.

Milena could only distinguish that one cambion from the rest of the group, so she had no objection to his suggestion. She used the sacred sword in her hand to grant him authority to command the others.

Just like that, the cambion became a low-level squad leader.

But the rapid promotion brought him no joy at all. He forced himself to stay calm and asked Milena, "Mistress, whichever lord controls this fortress, they'll ask two things for certain. First, your real reason for heading to the Blood River. Second, how much you can afford to pay. I need information from you before I can even try to negotiate with them."

"Can't you just tell them we're here to join the war?" Milena asked.

The cambion sighed. "Mistress, we're in Hell. Even I wouldn't buy that excuse."

Who in their right mind would head to the Blood River unless they had no other option? It wasn't as if anyone was born craving battle for its own sake.

And the Blood River wasn't going anywhere. It would still be there in a few millennia. So why would anyone need to shave time off the trip by borrowing a teleportation array? If they couldn't explain that clearly, the local lord would simply mark them as invaders and kill them outright.

"Give me a moment."

Milena stepped aside, pulled out the magic mirror, and consulted her mother.

The cambion watched with real envy. What would it be like to have a mother looking out for him like that?

But in Hell, that was basically unheard of.

It was extremely common for devils to abandon their children; in fact, getting abandoned was a better-than-average outcome. Most half-blood devils ended up as their parents' playthings or slaves, eaten as a snack in hard times or thrown out as sacrifices when convenient.

This was Hell. There was no room here for family bonds.

Reproduction was simply a byproduct of desire, nothing more.

Milena relayed the cambion's concerns to Black Rose. Even the undead queen couldn't help frowning. Black Rose herself wasn't skilled at this kind of scheming. She rarely dealt with devils, and for a moment, she genuinely couldn't think of a good excuse.

In the end, Black Rose told Milena, "Use Sariel as your excuse. You're carrying an artifact she personally granted. Claim to be her messenger. Have the cambions deliver that message to the fortress. If they refuse to lend you the array, take the long way around. It'll cost time, but your father matters too much to Sariel. He may be suffering, but nothing worse will happen to him."

Milena nodded, then turned back to the cambion. "Just tell them I'm delivering a message for Archduchess Sariel. Show them this. They should be able to sense her essence in it."

"This" turned out to be the cambion who'd been run through by the flaming sword. Though now a zombie, it was still trailing sparks from the wound: residue left behind by hellfire, which naturally carried a trace of Sariel's own power.

Though the cambion didn't think that excuse would work, it was at least better than nothing. "Mistress, there's still the second issue. What do we have to offer as a toll?"

Milena thought for a moment. "A hundred thousand soul-coins."

"Soul-coins! Now that's good currency, though a hundred isn't much... wait!" The cambion froze, then blurted out in shock, "How many?!"

"A hundred thousand," Milena repeated, then asked, "Isn't that enough?"

The cambion swallowed hard. "Mistress, please, never tell another devil you're carrying a hundred thousand soul-coins, or we're all dead. Do you have any idea what that much is worth? You could buy this entire fortress outright! If other devils found out, they'd go mad trying to kill us for it!"

Forget other devils—the cambion himself was tempted to kill Milena and take the soul-coins for himself. But he knew he'd lose that fight.

This was insane. The cambion knew Milena was some kind of noble scion, but he'd never imagined she could casually produce a hundred thousand soul-coins. What kind of ultra-wealthy family was this? Where did the material plane get that many soul-coins in the first place?

Milena, unbothered, commanded, "Enough talk. Get moving."

The cambion bowed deeply—this time, with a modicum of genuine respect. Devils weren't afraid of being enslaved, and they weren't afraid of a cruel master. What they feared was a cruel master who was also useless, because then they would be nothing but cannon fodder.

The wealth Milena had just revealed proved something important: she wasn't just powerful. She had considerable backing, too.

If he were to serve a mistress like this, there was a real chance he could climb all the way up Hell's ranks.

The cambion decided to shelve his escape plans for now and focus instead on building a good relationship with her. If everything went smoothly, Milena would eventually leave Hell. If he'd built up enough goodwill by then, maybe the next time she summoned help, she'd let him tag along to the material plane for a visit. He'd heard souls just lay around there for the taking, and no one else would compete for them.

Whether out of self-comfort or genuine resolve, the cambion pulled himself together, took five soul-coins as working funds, and led his little band of expendable cambions off toward the fortress.

It wasn't far off, but it still took the cambion over ten minutes to reach the fortress gates.

Just as he'd expected, the fortress wasn't large. A hundred thousand soul-coins would be more than enough to make its lord kneel and sign whatever contract the cambion wanted.

Of course, he had no intention of revealing he had all that wealth up front. More likely than not, the fortress's devils would empty out and try to swallow them whole if he did that.

Negotiation took finesse. As the cambion approached the gates, he called out loudly, demanding an audience with the fortress's lord, and tossed over a single soul-coin as a show of generosity.

The lesser devil on patrol duty caught it and let out a shriek at once.

Soul-coins weren't something low-ranking devils like these ever got to touch. Only exceptionally powerful souls could be forged into coins, or a dozen or more ordinary souls compressed together to make one.

In other words, a single soul-coin was worth more than the lives of this entire patrol combined.

An important guest had arrived—an extremely important one, at that.

The lesser devils didn't dare pocket the coin themselves. They rushed it straight to their lady.

Despite her slender, lithe frame, the lady of the fortress had a certain pair of dramatically exaggerated assets, and her enchanting face was etched with violet-red demonic markings. Beyond that, the only devilish trait she possessed was a tail. She lacked even the horns and wings so common among devils.

This was a succubus.

Anyone who knew what to look for could tell at a glance that her bloodline wasn't pure, mixed not with human blood, as was typical, but with the far rarer bloodline of elves. The shape of her eyes and ears were unmistakably elven in origin.

As the lesser devils suddenly presented her with a soul-coin, the succubus lady flicked out her forked tail and hooked the coin into her hand.

Their shrill voices rang in her ears as she examined the coin in her palm, puzzled.

"A message for Archduchess Sariel, delivered through such a backwater route? Smuggled in from another plane, I'd guess... though the soul-coin is quite unusual."

She turned the coin over in her fingers, already thinking through how best to kill them all and pocket the coin, when she suddenly held it up to her eyes.

"Wait. This coin... this isn't standard grade. This is top-tier!"

Not all souls were equal. Coins forged from several souls pressed together were the lowest grade. Mixed souls burned less efficiently, with far weaker results.

True premium-grade soul coins came from a single, resilient soul, forged whole into one coin.

And rarer still was the grade in her hand right now. Not only was the soul inside remarkably resilient, it carried a trace of unbroken will. In the hands of a sufficiently powerful lord, a coin like this could be used to forge a powerful artificial devil, bound to service.

A coin of this caliber wasn't merely precious. It was practically unheard of.

Could the person who'd handed this over really be some ordinary smuggler from another plane?

The succubus lord couldn't help but think of a name, a name that had recently become the talk of all Hell.

That man had toyed with two Archduchesses and walked away unscathed. He was the very definition of a devil among devils, and her personal idol.

Could the smuggler outside her walls possibly have some connection to that legend?

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