Chapter 526: Courage Matters More Than Cunning

Rumors could not be contained, not even by the Wall of the Unbelievers.

Ambrose's name and deeds had already spread across every plane.

The first layer of Hell might belong to Sariel, but countless sinners fell into Hell every single day, each carrying fresh news from whatever plane they'd come from.

One person mentioning the lich wouldn't mean much on its own. But when a flood of sinners from every corner of existence started dropping the same name within a short span of time, that name would spread through Hell like wildfire.

The Goddesses' Bane, the Lich Savior, the Wealthiest Man in the World... He had been lauded with a whole string of titles. But the one Hell's devils admired most was simply, "the Trickster."

The Trickster, Megaman Tiga, a man who'd outwitted an Archduchess of Hell to her face and walked away clean. There was no greater feat imaginable.

To devils, deception was practically a survival skill. Managing to con both Sariel and Tiamat elevated that skill to the level of true art.

Every devil in Hell was eager to see this artist descend into their domain. An artist of deception like that could only ever end up in Hell, sooner or later.

Monica was one of those devils. This particular succubus lady had even fantasized about the day the artist would fall to Hell—and land squarely in her own territory.

If that happened, Monica would gladly cross even the two Archduchesses to protect him. His soul would be a treasure beyond price, worth more than a million soul-coins combined.

Monica turned the coin over in her fingers, murmuring to herself. "Word is, he's already dead. He must have fallen into Archduchess Sariel's hands by now. So someone's just broken into Hell to deliver a message to her, carrying a coin of this caliber... Is there a connection?"

Curious, Monica gave the insignificant cambion a surprisingly formal audience.

No chains, no whips, not even magic suppression—she had them escorted into the fortress completely unharmed.

The cambion himself was stunned. Soul-coins were valuable, sure, but getting this kind of treatment just for handing over one? How poor was this lord's fortress, exactly?

Monica sat on an obsidian throne, flicking her tail toward the cambion in what looked like an invitation to approach.

The cambion stood over six feet tall and was packed with solid muscle, but in front of Monica, he suddenly felt small and weak.

Monica stood nearly ten feet tall, towering over him by a full head even while seated.

Powerful devils tended to be massive, and succubi were no exception.

Her enormous frame did nothing to diminish her allure. If anything, the sheer scale of it made every enticing feature that much more striking.

The cambion only took one glance at Monica before he dropped his gaze, not daring to look again.

Not every cambion reacted so quickly, though. The two beside him lingered half a second too long. Their minds immediately began to blur, convinced that this magnificent succubus lady was the love of their lives, someone they'd gladly give their souls to.

That was the power of a succubus. Unless your will was exceptionally strong, a single glance was all it took.

Monica ignored those who reacted quickly as she pulled the two dazed cambions forward, whispering seductively into their ears, "Tell me everything about your mistress, little ones."

The first cambion opened his mouth to intervene, only to find her barbed tail pressed against his throat.

Monica warned, "I'm being generous to you for your mistress's sake, little one. Don't push me too far, or you'll be feeding the hellhounds tonight."

An immense pressure bore down on the cambion: not something illusory, but spiritual pressure radiating from a superior devil.

In the world of Hell dominated by the law of the jungle, the weak had no way to resist the strong, none at all.

In the past, the cambion would already have been on the ground kissing Monica's toes. This time, gritting his teeth against the crushing weight bearing down on his very soul, he forced himself to speak. "Honored lady, I mean no disrespect to your authority. It's only that these two fools know nothing of value. You could crush their souls to dust and never extract what you're actually after—and doing so would only put you at odds with my mistress. For someone of your standing, that would be a losing trade."

In Hell, "a losing trade" was practically a curse word.

Call a devil shameless, and he'd modestly reply, "Not nearly shameless enough, I'm afraid." But accuse him of losing money on his contracts, and he would likely fly into a rage and demand a duel on the spot.

The instant the cambion said the phrase, the spike at his throat pressed in closer, drawing a thin line of blood on his skin.

But in the end, Monica withdrew her tail.

"So you're the real messenger, then. Go on. You already know what I want to hear."

The cambion let out a breath of relief. As long as they were talking, he had a chance. Still face-down on the floor, not daring to lift his head, the young cambion said, "Honored lady, you already know why my mistress is here. We're prepared to pay a fair price to borrow use of your teleportation array."

"Heh." Monica's tail lashed across the cambion's face, sending him flying several meters back.

Blood streaming down his face, the cambion tried to push himself up, only to find Monica's long leg pinning him to the ground.

"I told you, you already know what I want to hear. Little one, do you really think you can test my patience? You get one more chance. Tell me everything about your mistress, or else..."

Monica's tail coiled around the cambion and yanked him up in front of her.

Even with his eyes squeezed shut, that faint, intoxicating scent and her hypnotic voice slowly began to erode his will.

Within seconds, the cambion's breathing turned ragged, and a trail of bloodied drool spilled from his open mouth.

"I'll tell you everything I know. I was just a cambion drifting through the Blood Wastes. I was summoned by Archduchess Sariel's own artifact, and bound to serve whoever wielded it..."

The cambion spilled everything he knew—including, without a shred of shame, the fact that he'd broken several of his own kind's noses just to save his own skin.

Monica found it all rather entertaining. This little cambion had some cunning in him. He'd had the nerve to volunteer as messenger, too. He didn't lack for guts, but he was far too weak to matter.

Such was Hell. Courage and cunning alone wouldn't get him far. Every wretched soul down here already had both in spades.

Without real strength, you couldn't even commit the kind of sins that would land you in Hell in the first place.

Hell was crawling with "talents" just like this cambion. Luck, clearly, hadn't been on his side.

Of everything the cambion had revealed, the single piece of information that mattered to Monica was one name: Milena.

Milena, an undead girl, accompanied by an undead queen of striking bearing and terrifying strength...

"My, my! What an exciting gift this is—that artist's own daughter, standing right in front of me! If I hand her over to Archduchess Sariel, what kind of reward could I claim?"

Had the artist himself descended into Hell in person, Monica would have thrown open her gates and knelt at his feet, desperate to become his woman. She knew perfectly well the rewards that would come from following a legend like him.

But Milena was only his daughter, and the man himself had already fallen into Sariel's hands. There was nothing left to consider. Capture her and sell her—that was it.

Braving Hell to save one's father was admirable enough, but just like the cambion, it didn't matter if she possessed courage and cunning without any strength.

Monica flashed the group of cambions before her a seductive smile, then ordered, "Go back and tell your mistress that I agree to their use of the teleportation array. All it'll cost is a thousand soul-coins."

Milena was ushered into the ornate fortress and came face to face with the lady of Hell, who was practically radiating charm from every inch of her body.

Monica's plan was simple and direct: get Milena to lower her guard for one meeting, and the rest would take care of itself.

A succubus never needed to fight head-on. Control someone's will, and everything else would come free of charge.

Monica was a rare elf-succubus hybrid, a combination that fused perfectly to render her charm stronger against every living thing than either bloodline alone.

That was precisely how even a succubus lacking in raw combat power had managed to end up as ruler of her own territory.

Monica had spent years honing her charm specifically for this reason, until talent and effort together added up to something greater than the sum of their parts.

So Monica felt entirely confident that, after one meeting with Milena, the girl would be hers to control.

But she'd made one critical mistake: she had no real concept of what it meant to be truly, obscenely wealthy.

Her whole fortress, penniless lord that she was, was worth barely a hundred thousand soul-coins, a mere fraction of the fortune Milena had inherited.

The moment Milena stepped into the fortress to meet Monica, more than three layers of magical protection activated on her body at once.

The first layer was the innate magic resistance built into the enchanted armor Black Rose had prepared for her. With dragon bones in ready supply, the overall grade of her magical equipment had risen across the board, and Milena wore the very finest of it. That resistance alone cancelled out most of Monica's charm.

The second layer was the blessing of free will that Aige had granted her before she set out. Aige's power now bordered on true divinity, and freedom itself was the domain she sought to claim. The resulting blessing was therefore extraordinarily potent, nearly on par with elven resistance and capable of blocking virtually every form of mental control. The catch was that Aige could only grant it to one person at a time, and only for a limited duration. Choralan, by contrast, could permanently ward an entire race of elves against such effects.

As for the third layer, well, it barely mattered at this point, but the artifact in Milena's hand sensed Monica's "provocation" and launched an automatic counterattack of its own.

This longsword was Sariel's own gift, carrying the authority of the ruler of the first layer of Hell within it.

Sariel prized martial combat, not seductive charm or soft power. Attempting to charm Milena was, in its own way, an insult to Sariel's authority.

Monica had no idea any of this was happening. The instant she shot Milena a seductive glance, her own eyes burst apart with a pop.

The agony sent Monica into a shrieking fit, all pretense of elegance gone.

There was nothing left to say after that. Amid Monica's screaming, the fortress's devils surged forward to attack Milena.

Milena, for her part, was completely baffled.

Hadn't they already agreed to lend her the teleportation array?

Not that it mattered. Fighting was Milena's specialty.

The whisperwood burst up from the ground, the flaming longsword came free of its sheath, and Milena switched into full combat mode.

Devils great and small alike couldn't survive a single exchange against her.

It wasn't really their fault. Under the whisperwood's canopy, all magic was suppressed. How was flesh and blood alone supposed to stand against Sariel's own artifact?

No fireballs, no curses, no teleporting, no shadow-walking—what were the devils supposed to fight with? Their claws and teeth?

Every so often, some fully armed devil would charge in to fight her head-on in a melee, only to experience the same despair the people of Lyon once had.

Milena's fighting style defied all logic. Years of hardened swordsmanship meant nothing. Devils barely got within range before she tore them apart.

That was the result of half a month of brutal training.

When Gareth had said she could handle a run through Hell, he'd meant exactly this. As long as she didn't run into anything divine, Milena could simply steamroll her way through.

The whisperwood alone was terrifying enough, sealing all magic outright. A spellcaster stripped of their magic was useless. Even a legendary warrior without any enchanted gear stood no chance against someone wielding an actual artifact.

By the time Monica's regeneration finally healed her eyes, what greeted her was an enormous cobalt-blue tree looming over half the fortress, and a battlefield littered with countless corpses, every last one of them her own subordinates.

"Impossible! It's only been minutes!"

Monica's heart sank. What was wrong with this madwoman? Wasn't she supposed to be the Trickster's daughter? Even if she'd seen through Monica's plan, she should still have been buried under sheer numbers. This was Monica's own fortress!

Where were the magical traps? The defensive wards? And all those succubi mages—their control spells should have left her paralyzed!

Watching Milena cut down devil after devil in a frenzy, the succubus lady couldn't help thinking back to her own childhood.

A weak succubus had virtually no way to protect herself in Hell. She had no choice but to depend on someone stronger.

Monica had served more devils than she could count over the years, all of whom had eventually drained her dry of soul and magic. She'd once believed she was above resorting to such crude, brutal tactics herself.

But now, she was remembering the first law of Hell: those who possessed enough power could stiff even the Lord of the Nine Hells himself and get away with it.

Milena represented exactly that kind of power. She cut through devils mercilessly, converting the fallen into undead one after another. Before long, her undead army outnumbered the living devils.

Monica tried to flee, but under the whisperwood's canopy, neither spell nor scroll would work.

She tried to make a run for it on foot, only to find a scarred cambion standing directly in her path. It was the cambion, the very one she'd charmed earlier.

"Damned little wretch!"

Monica recognized him at once, but had no patience for him now. She swung her tail to knock him aside.

But this time, the cambion caught her tail in a death grip and roared, "You're not getting away! You're going to be my atonement gift to my mistress!"

The moment her charm had worn off, the cambion understood exactly what he'd done. He'd sold out his mistress and given the succubus every last piece of information about her.

Once that fearsome woman had a moment free to deal with him, wouldn't he be as good as dead?

His only remaining option was to gamble everything on redeeming himself. He couldn't let this succubus get away.

Monica thrashed furiously as she attempted to shake off the cambion, but no matter how many bones she broke, the cambion refused to let go of her tail.

Just as the enraged succubus lord prepared to tear the cambion apart, a flaming longsword finally arrived in front of her.

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