Chapter 39: Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold

  While Greedius was conversing with Belisara on the Mountain of Research and Development, rumors about Felix Faustus's condition began to spread. The fact that the greatest hope of the local adepts ended up with severe injuries sent waves of shock across the mountain.

  The adepts didn't know what to think, and the atmosphere was only heightened by the fact that shortly after Eusebius returned with the unconscious Felix, he focused on strengthening the protective magical formations.

  "Eusebius is expecting an attack!"

  "Nah, that's stupid, it's probably just a routine inspection of old magic."

  "Only Boruta could have beaten Felix like that. Eusebius is surely trying to hide him from the voivode!"

  The devils, of course, clung to all sorts of speculation, but the ruler himself was in no mood for laughter.

  Unlike the useless Ignatius and the self-serving Greedius, he truly cared for the prosperity of his territory.

  Hundreds of years ago, when times were much harder, he won the mountain from its previous master in a bloody duel that went down in the dimension's history.

  Thanks to this, he was able to dedicate himself to working with people, which over time became his beloved hobby.

  He liked what he had built and didn't want to lose it now because of a dispute with the terrifying Maleficius.

  Hence the precautionary measures and the hope that the dangerous devil wouldn't destroy another mountain over a quarrel between adepts.

  'The matter of Felix is also concerning...'

  He received the news that his adept had woken up with slight enthusiasm. He was glad his beloved student was slowly recovering, but he knew the meeting between them would not be easy.

  'Cursed Greedius... Boruta should never have allowed him to keep his position as a mountain ruler,' he thought, recalling the circumstances of Aldona's death that he was aware of.

  'Unfortunately, it will only get worse. After all, the voivode is getting older, and sooner or later, someone will have to take his place.'

  The present times were already complicated enough. Especially since the thirteenth child of the ruler of hell had recently been born.

  'It seems this is the end of the era of relative peace in this miserable world,' he thought, shaking his head in resignation.

  A few days later, Felix Faustus appeared before him. The adept was not in the best condition, and his bones, despite consuming healing elixirs, had still not mended.

  Physical pain, however, was not what consumed the young devil.

  "What about Aldona?" he asked in a voice that would bring pain to the heart of anyone with even a little empathy.

  Eusebius, sighing heavily, said in a calm voice.

  "Aldona is dead, I'm sorry."

  The words that escaped his lips were so heavy that Felix instantly closed his eyes upon hearing them. Thanks to the specific bond he felt with Aldona, he always knew more or less what state she was in and whether she needed help. Since he had woken up, however, there was only a void where the bond used to be.

  Images of his most precious memories with his beloved appeared before his eyes. Images of great hope from when they met as children and of the final disappointment when he inadvertently ruined the hopes she had for him. Finally, images of their cold relations in recent years, when she still seemed to hold that past failure against him.

  All of this filled him with an incredible pain that he didn't even want to fight. After all, if he hadn't failed in the competition, he would have surely protected her. Her death, therefore, regardless of how it happened, was his fault.

  Fighting the anger rising within him, he looked into Eusebius's eyes.

  "Who did it?"

  The mountain's ruler had initially planned to hide the whole matter; after all, it involved dangerous issues surrounding Greedius, and it would be better for his ward if he let it go. But who would he be if he didn't tell his adopted son about the killer of his beloved?

  Therefore, even though the decision was not easy and he knew he was putting Felix in danger, he decided to reveal what he knew. He waved his right hand lightly, causing an image to materialize in the air before the devils.

  This image magically came to life and began to show a scene from Aldona's point of view. It was an observing spell that the mountain ruler had cast on her, lying that it was a blessing.

  "These are the last 5 minutes of her life," he said quietly.

  Soon, the image showed Aldona, along with Belisara, defeating two devils on the third level. Then, the scene showed Aldona falling into a pool of her own blood, and the last image she saw before death – a small mouth that had grown on Belisara's hand.

  Felix watched the image in silent fury. Although he said nothing, the atmosphere in the air was terribly tense, and an aura far exceeding the power he usually displayed could be felt radiating from him.

  Finally, he bowed wordlessly to Eusebius and left the hall. He had to prepare for his revenge.

  Sagittarius was hiding at night in one of his old hideouts. Ever since the brief fight with Justinian, he had been feverish and couldn't even rest in peace to heal his accumulated wounds.

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  'Why the hell haven't they contacted me yet?!' he complained in his thoughts.

  When he heard the story of what happened to his two subordinates during the competition, he was initially relieved and expected to see them soon.

  But almost a week had passed since then, he was still in hiding, and his subordinates had not sent him any of the signals they had arranged for crisis situations.

  'Could that man have been lying when he spoke of my brothers?!' the devil wondered.

  He decided he needed to plan his next steps, but because of the damn fever, he couldn't even focus enough to do so.

  'If I don't rest, there's no way my wounds will start to heal...' he thought grimly.

  Finally, he sighed heavily and decided to nap for a few hours. Although one could never be too cautious, he was on the verge of exhaustion and felt worse and worse with each passing hour. So he took the risk.

  When Belisara, lurking in the dark, who knew this hideout from her past cooperation with Sagittarius, stabbed him in the throat, it turned out the risk hadn't paid off.

  The woman was successively eliminating the uncertain points of her plan.

  The following weeks in the entire sect of the end of the world, and in the 66th hell in general, passed in a nervous atmosphere of preparation for the harvest festival summarizing the hellish pilgrimage. At this festival, a popular spectacle was to take place in which the representative adepts would get a chance to achieve the level of foundation stabilization.

  It was a contest based on seizing resources and showing the spirit of cooperation or antipathy that had developed between the members of the four mountains during their hellish journey. Although Voivode Boruta had not yet announced the details, emotions were already reaching their peak.

  "Apparently, Felix was poisoned earlier by the other representative adepts, and that's why he fainted at the competition!"

  "I heard that the Grim Judge personally passed a cursed sentence on him, causing heavenly powers to attack Faustus!"

  "And did you know that Greedius's mountain has chosen a new representative adept?"

  Such sentiments dominated among the adepts of both the mountain of research and development and Greedius's mountain. The atmosphere also spread to other devils – including the nobility, who, as usual, seeking variety in life, concluded that it might be worth watching this harvest festival.

  At the same time, Justinian returned to the "native" mountain of misfortune and plague. His search for Aldona had failed, and he had no leads to follow.

  'What's worse... Sagittarius also vanished into thin air after he escaped from me earlier...' The boy was taking the whole matter hard and felt guilty for the situation.

  'After all, if I hadn't let her switch colors, she would still be here with me...'

  Besides a great sense of guilt, he also missed her companionship as a person. The truth is that despite having spent several months in this dimension, he had some difficulty forming meaningful relationships. The devils either treated him with reservation or as some kind of amusing curiosity.

  'With Aldona, I felt like I could talk about our views on the world and why there are such differences in perspective between humans and devils.'

  As is often the case in life, Justinian felt regret at a moment when it was simply too late. He couldn't come to terms with the fact that she had simply vanished without a trace.

  'Something must have been left there!' he fought desperately against the feeling of hopelessness that was engulfing him.

  He wondered if maybe he had missed something in the clues, if some important connections had escaped him, but it was all doomed to failure from the start.

  "What's the use of this damned cultivation if I can't even protect the people close to me?!" he cried out, full of pain.

  He hadn't slept for days trying to solve the mystery without any progress, causing his mental state to deteriorate.

  'If only there was someone who saw what happened there...' he thought desperately, refusing to leave the matter as it was out of sheer defiance.

  His emotions were transferring to the technique stone associated with him, significantly affecting the cultivation foundations the boy had stabilized so far. This pure grief and pain, as well as his refusal to accept fate and the fresh realization of how unfair life can be, caused him to, against his will... begin a process of enlightenment revealing his second cultivation technique!

  "No... I don't want this! Not now, dammit!" he shouted into the air, irritated that his tragedy was being interrupted by damn cultivation.

  His attitude, however, didn't matter much here. Soon the process was complete and... a phantom appeared before him, placing a hand on his shoulder with a smile!

  "No... please..." the boy hung his head when, after looking at the face of Aldona's "ghost," the name of his second and final Ki Gathering technique appeared in his mind – "Summoning of the Witness."

  It was an empty projection, born of his desires and grief.

  For Justinian, this progress was no cause for joy.

  He was angry at himself, angry that despite gaining power, nothing in his life had changed and he was still unable to protect someone close to him.

  In this difficult moment, where a mentor's advice would have been very helpful, he spent his time alone, sinking deeper and deeper into negative feelings, questioning his worldview. His loneliness was also compounded by the fact that the ruler of the Mountain of Misfortune and Plague, Ignatius the Emptyheaded, had been acting strangely ever since Justinian returned from his pilgrimage.

  Maleficius entered the hut on the Mountain of Darkness, which he had previously taken from Rokita the Elder.

  'Septima's regeneration will probably take another 2 weeks...' he estimated, shaking his head.

  He still couldn't believe the whole affair; she had truly failed to defeat the adept from this end-of-the-world, despite using one of her innate abilities.

  'What's more, she failed despite using it to the point of fainting...' he sighed heavily.

  He was a loyal devil, and his ward was very important to him. He worried that recent events would thwart their already desperate plans.

  His worries were interrupted by his senses screaming at the detection of an intruder in his new home. The devil frowned.

  "Do you really find life so disagreeable, old man?" he asked towards the figure waiting for him in the darkness.

  "There's nothing agreeable about brittle bones and a head full of duties," Boruta replied, yawning.

  Maleficius, however, did not appreciate his sense of humor, and soon the room was filled with his terrible, suffocating power that choked all living things. If a devil on Boruta's level were in the same room, he would have likely screamed in terror – for it would have been absolutely clear to him that Maleficius was much, much stronger than the voivode!

  The old man himself, however, was completely calm; he even smiled at this reaction.

  "The holy war won't start for the next few years, what's the point of being so tense?"

  These words caused Maleficius's power, until now suffocating everything in the room, to thunder like a storm! Only a fraction of a second passed, and he was already holding the old voivode by the throat, ready to take his life at any moment.

  But the latter was not impressed.

  "Do it, and the devils you're running from will instantly learn of your location," he hissed through his teeth, even as the powerful force squeezed his throat.

  Of course, these words angered the master of the house, who was not accustomed to considering arguments of insects. For a moment, he even wanted to simply crush the old man like an annoying fly, but remembering the sleeping Septima in the house nearby, he finally calmed down.

  "What do you want?"

  "You will not interfere in the dispute of the young generation and you will leave Felix Faustus in peace," Boruta explained his terms.

  A silence fell, in which the voivode awaited the answer of one of his "subordinates." Maleficius himself, however, had to think about it seriously.

  'I wanted to take care of this as soon as Septima recovered a bit... leaving someone alive who saw her ability isn't very wise...' – but these plans had to be revised, as their identities were already known anyway.

  Finally, he decided. Releasing the voivode's throat, he signaled that he agreed to the proposed condition.