After Ten Millennia in Hell

Chapter 368 - He Doesn’t Wash

“Evil God, you say?” Michael’s expression froze, and then nodded as if he was convinced. He sighed. “I heard that Lucifer began to make his move again, but... I never imagined he would attack Sant’Angelo with ancient demonic beasts.”

“I was just as surprised as you when I first heard about it from Uriel,” Oh Kang-Woo remarked.

“Come to think of it, Uriel seemed to have headed to you. How is he?”

“He’s fortunately no longer in critical condition.”

Michael’s expression relaxed slightly. “What a relief.” He looked around and then asked, “Did you face Lucifer all on your own, Kang-Woo?”

“Yes.”

“I’m surprised. Even if you’re a retainer of Lady Gaia, Lucifer has acquired Divinity and has earned the title of Evil God.”

Michael scanned Kang-Woo skeptically with narrow eyes. He seemed to know how disadvantageous someone without Divinity was against someone with Divinity.

Kang-Woo slightly lowered his head and answered with a trembling voice, “Honestly... I can’t really say that I faced him by myself, since I was pretty much made a fool of by him.”

“Are you saying that Lucifer let you live on purpose?”

“That’s right. As for the reason, I don’t know either.”

Michael fell into deep thought under silence. He slowly looked up to look around, and then asked in a low tone, “Kang-Woo, did Lucifer have something in particular? For example, an item that looked suspicious...”

Kang-Woo narrowed his eyes at Michael’s question.

‘A suspicious item, huh?’

Although he had devoured the Constellation of Agony without leaving a single mound of flesh, he did not see any suspicious item that Michael was referring to. No matter how thoroughly they looked around, they could not even find a trace of a suspicious item. If Michael was asking such a question despite that...

‘This son of a bitch must know something.’

“He did seem to be trying to hide something,” Kang-Woo replied.

“Did you happen to see what he was trying to hide? Do you remember what it looked like?”

‘He took the bait instantly.’

“Mmm. I didn’t really see it in detail either.”

“Was it something dark that was squirming as if it was alive?”

Kang-Woo obviously had not seen such a thing.

“Oh, come to think of it, I remember seeing something similar during my battle with Lucifer.

“Could I ask what it is?” Kang-Woo asked.

“I apologize. I cannot tell that to an outsider—”

“I’m only asking because I might be able to confirm if the item is what you’re referring to if I have some more information, but if it is classified to outsiders... It can’t be helped.”

Kang-Woo sighed and shook his head as if it truly was a shame.

Michael expressed hesitance.

He weighed the scales; on one side was telling Kang-Woo about the item, and on the other was being given details from Kang-Woo about the item that Lucifer had. Michael did not think for very long.

“That dark item is the legacy left by Demon God Bauli that had been secretly kept in Sant’Angelo.”

“Bauli’s legacy?”

Kang-Woo’s eyes widened. He had not expected to gain such valuable information here.

‘By Bauli’s legacy, could he mean...’

Kang-Woo clenched his fists as his expectations rose. If this item known as Bauli’s legacy could be a clue to finding his corpse, there was no need to keep on with this shitshow.

“Is it related to the Demon God’s corpse?” Kang-Woo asked.

“No, it is not.”

‘Tsk, too bad.’ Kang-Woo expressed slight disappointment. ‘I mean, I guess nothing in life goes as you want all the time.’

He was satisfied enough with having acquired the treasure known as the Repayment of the Dragon God as well as having managed to deceive Michael.

“Does that mean this thing known as Bauli’s legacy has been stolen?”

Michael nodded with a heavy expression. “Yes, so I need to know if the item that Lucifer was hiding really is that legacy or not. After all... there were more than one being that had attacked Sant’Angelo.”

In other words, there had been far too many thieves that it could not be determined who took the most valuable item.

‘Jeez.’

The situation was truly fucked in Michael’s point of view. A horde of ancient demonic beasts and beings in red demon masks suddenly attacked their fortress and stole the legacy of the Demon God they had been safekeeping. Not just that, he had no idea who the culprits were nor who possessed the legacy now.

‘It’s fucked.’

It was far too gone at this point; the angels had already lost to the Constellations of Evil the moment Sant’Angelo was attacked and the legacy was stolen.

‘One of the Constellations of Evil must have that legacy of the Demon God or whatever.’

Since the Constellation of Agony did not have it, it was likely a different Constellation. However, Kang-Woo had no idea who, or even how many Constellations of Evil there were.

‘I only have one choice to make.’

Kang-Woo would need to choose who to tell Michael had the Demon God’s legacy. It was the right choice to say that the Constellations of Evil were the culprits. If he framed Lucifer for the crime, the Constellations of Evil would naturally be free from suspicion; it would be like helping the enemy. In their point of view, they would have completely gotten away with it since the angels would be taking action while being sure of someone else entirely to be the culprit.

‘But...’

If Kang-Woo framed Lucifer, the dangers of this world’s collapse would grow more dire, possibly being able to move up the high elves’ manifestation into the physical world.

‘They each have their pros and cons.’

One would interfere with the enemy’s plans, and the other would move up his own plan.

Kang-Woo stared at Michael with deep, sunken eyes. Michael looked desperate; the Demon God’s legacy seemed to be a very important item.

‘Now, what to do?’

Kang-Woo momentarily closed his eyes to think, and then slowly opened them back up.

“I think Lucifer is the one who stole the legacy. I thought about it, and I’m sure I saw the squirming darkness on Lucifer,” Kang-Woo said.

“So the Evil God stole the legacy.”

Michael clenched his fists as his eyes gleamed with rage.

‘He’s apparently been fighting Lucifer for a very long time.’

It was not bad at all; the more Michael resented Lucifer, the quicker Kang-Woo’s plan would progress.

“Yes. I believe... the Evil God was behind everything,” Kang-Woo declared.

Michael remained silent from hearing Kang-Woo’s words devoid of uncertainty. He bit his lip and clenched his fists, veins protruding from the back of his hands, and his shoulders subtly shook.

Michael sighed deeply and stated, “I honestly had others in mind as the culprits of this incident when Sant’Angelo was first attacked.”

“Others?”

“Yes.” Michael swept back his blond hair that looked as if it were made of gold and continued, “I thought the Constellations of Evil were the culprits.”

Kang-Woo remained silent. Michael’s guess was correct. The ones who had summoned ancient demonic beasts, massacred angels, and stole the Demon God’s legacy from Sant’Angelo were indeed the Constellations of Evil, the elite guards of the Demon God. However...

“I only saw the Evil God,” Kang-Woo stated firmly.

He severed any form of suspicion that Michael had for the Constellations of Evil and focused them on Lucifer.

Michael nodded. “I know. There is no way that the Prince of Pride would join forces with others.” He sighed with a heavy expression and continued while biting his lip, “He had laid low for quite a while after ending up with the witch, but... It seems things have ultimately come to this.”

Kang-Woo’s eyes shone. “Do you happen to know the identity of that witch?”

“No. Lucifer had hidden her so well that I have no idea which human it is. However, I do know that Lucifer’s attitude had changed quite a lot after meeting that witch.”

“His attitude changed?”

“Yes. Before, he was all about taking revenge against the Demon King and bringing the Nine Hells to this continent, but he had gotten much less rowdy after meeting the witch.”

“Hmm.” Kang-Woo nodded.

‘Did something change in him after meeting that lady?’

He had no idea; in the first place, Kang-Woo could not figure out why a prince of Hell would marry a human woman.

‘Whatever the case...’

It was not the time to worry about that at the moment.

Crackle—!!

Just then, Kang-Woo heard sparks of lightning. He turned around to see Uriel flying this way from afar. He seemed to have flown all the way here as soon as he was healed.

“Kang-Woo!” Uriel landed on the ground and ran toward Kang-Woo, his face red with fury. He shouted, “I told you to run!! Why did you come here?!”

He did not even notice Michael standing next to Kang-Woo.

“Ahem,” Michael softly coughed.

“Gasp. L-Lord Michael?”

Uriel shrank back while fumbling, completely unlike how prideful he usually was.

Michael smiled and asked, “How are your injuries, Uriel?”

“O-Oh, they’re fine now. Kang-Woo treated me.”

Uriel slowly approached Kang-Woo and carefully pulled on Kang-Woo’s clothes. Kang-Woo lightly hit Uriel on the head.

“Ouch! Wh-Why did you hit me?!”

“You should’ve just rested. Why did you fly all the way here?”

“W-Well, because I was worri—”

Uriel’s eyes widened as he was about to say that he had been worried about Kang-Woo. He had realized that Kang-Woo was speaking to him casually instead of with respect.

“A-Ahem!” Uriel blushed.

‘Why the hell are you blushing?’

Kang-Woo frowned. He had spoken casually without much thought, but Uriel had gotten overly embarrassed about it. He wondered if he should go back to speaking respectfully, but shook his head while sighing. This was not the time to be worrying about that.

“Come to think of it, what happened to that guy in the red mask? Did you see his face?” Uriel asked while looking around at the traces of battle in the area.

Michael answered in Kang-Woo’s place, “The invader in the red mask was apparently Lucifer. And... he stole the legacy as well.”

“Wh-What?”

Uriel clenched his fists, and his eyes widened. He bit his lip and trembled. His blue hair soared into the air as sparks cracked between the strands.

‘Are you a Super Saiyan? Your hair stands up when you get mad?’

Kang-Woo smiled and turned around. “First off, let’s head to Sant’Angelo. We might be able to gain more clues once we investigate the scene of the crime.”

“Very well.” Michael nodded with a heavy expression.

Although Sant’Angelo was normally restricted to humans, it was not the time to nitpick over such trivial things at the moment.

‘With this...’ Kang-Woo thought.

Lucifer had attacked the party hosted at the imperial palace to massacre nobles, tried to kill powerless and innocent civilians en masse, joined forces with the Constellations of Evil, and attacked Sant’Angelo to steal the Demon God’s legacy. He had truly become a being fit for the world’s collapse.

“But Kang-Woo,” Uriel asked as he tilted his head in confusion. “Did Lucifer... always smell that bad? I don’t remember him smelling that bad in the past.”

‘Oh, right.’

Kang-Woo’s eyes momentarily reflected perplexity. There would obviously be discrepancies in information since the one Uriel had met was actually the Constellation of Agony.

‘Oh, fuck. What should I do?’

A completely unexpected problem arose. Kang-Woo turned the gears in his head to come up with an answer about the smell.

‘Shit.’

However, he could not come up with a way to explain why Lucifer would smell so bad, no matter how much he thought about it. In the end, he decided on this answer.

“The son of a bitch...” Kang-Woo gulped. “... Doesn’t seem to wash himself.”

Silence fell. Uriel grimaced in disgust. With this, Lucifer had become a being fit for the world’s collapse, who had attacked the party hosted at the imperial palace to massacre nobles, tried to kill powerless and innocent civilians en masse, joined forces with the Constellations of Evil, attacked Sant’Angelo to steal the Demon God’s legacy, and smelled so bad because he never washed up.

‘Lucifer... You gotta wash yourself, man.’