POV: Meruem
I'm, and always have been, a man of great taste.
So he thought, and so he would always think, with that grave inward dignity peculiar to men who had long since mistaken the sharpness of their appetites for the grandeur of their souls, and yet, by some inherited knack for self-deception, managed to make the mistake appear almost noble through the sheer elegance with which they carried it.
Meruem Beleth had never been one of those lesser beings who required the sanction of law, the comfort of consensus, or the soft applause of public sentiment to justify the lustre of his self-regard.
He had been born with incurable conviction that the world, insofar as it possessed any worth at all, possessed it chiefly as a stage upon which the magnificence of his nature might be displayed in proper scale.
There were men, and devils besides, who derived their sense of injury from material loss, from the seizure of lands, from the diminishment of wealth. And there were others, smaller still, who felt most wounded when norms had been violated, when statute had been ignored, when balance of the realm had been disturbed and the appointed gears of order had begun to grind against one another.
Meruem, however, cared for none of these things. He was not a clerk of Hell's jurisprudence, nor some priestly custodian of civic harmony, nor a trembling steward kneeling before the inutile wisdom of Satans whose decrees were obeyed by the prudent and praised by the mediocre.
He had been insulted yet again.
No, what had been done to him was of a far more grievous affront than the attempts at conquest, you see. For conquest, at least when attempted by the worthy, could almost be seen as a compliment, being one of the few tributes strength could pay to strength.
In that sense, he was not outraged at the mere fact of Bael's reaching hand, not at all. How could he be angry at that?
He understood power too intimately to feign revulsion at its exercise, and understood hunger too well to despise those who sought a richer table, a broader dominion, a more luminous station in the infernal hierarchy.
He could, after a fashion, respect them for it.
Such instincts were cousins to his own, born of the same hunger, nourished by the same noble refusal to live in poverty of ambition.
He did not believe greatness ought to apologize for desiring more. He did not believe the mighty should be shamed for wishing to impose their design upon the world. Such moralisms were fit for preachers, functionaries, and all those pale parasites who built careers from praising restraint in men whose vigor they secretly envied.
Yet even conquest had its terms, and among them was this: an adversary of stature ought to know precisely what it faced. Zekram Bael evidently did not.
That was the insult.
That was what stopped him from letting bygones be bygones.
Dimoar Bael had not descended upon House Beleth as one ruler testing another. She had not approached his throne as though it were held by a prince whose will might prove her equal if not greater. She did not see house Beleth…him as someone worthy of respect.
She thought Beleth were pliant ground, that his crown rested lightly enough upon the brow that a stranger's hand might strip it loose and take it away with impunity. She thought that he, Meruem, was some decorative king awaiting instruction from someone superior.
That was unacceptable. It was unbearable.
His fury distilled itself drop by drop through the apparatus of his pride until that very insult was all he could perceive.
He could almost forgive an attempt born from desperation. He could even, under rare conditions, admire an attempt born from audacity openly declared. What he could not forgive, what his nature would never accept, was presumption.
The idea that House Bael had looked toward Beleth and seen a house fit for quiet annexation, to be made subordinate of, a throne whose occupant might be controlled, or erased without consequence, struck him with an affront so great that even Dimoar's death lay upon it like a perfumed cloth over a corpse that still stank beneath.
Her death was an ending proper to her failure. But it was not retribution.
Retribution implied proportion. Retribution implied that the scales had been brought to equilibrium, that the moral mathematics of wound and answer had concluded in some stable sum.
Nothing of the sort had occurred.
Yes, one ambitious daughter of Bael had overreached and died for it. The underworld had been offered the convenient little pageant that always follows failed conspiracies by powerful houses, the disavowal, the careful sorrow, the public separation of blood from deed, as though a scion might hatch from a pillar house in perfect political isolation like some spontaneous aberration of nature, owing nothing to the climate that bred her.
And then the congratulations. He looked at the Letter written in beautiful cursive, sent to him by Lord Bael.
Congratulations!
He repeated the word in his mind as a man might test a shard of glass with his tongue, discovering fresh cuts each time he touched it. They congratulated him. They had sent their smiles lacquered over with courtesy, their approval of his actions.
And he was expected to bow his head and accept from their hands the counterfeit dignity of being permitted to survive his own dispossession. They had treated the attempt for his throne as though it were a minor embarrassment easily mended, an unfortunate misadventure after which all serious persons might resume the illusion of cordiality.
And somewhere beneath the etiquette of it, beneath the exquisite attempt at diplomacy, lay the true insult, which was the assumption that he could be managed after the fact just as he had been intended to be managed before it.
This, above all, was what his pride refused to endure.
Meruem's pride was no vulgar swelling of ego. He did not insist upon deference like a common savage, nor was he quick to take slights. No, he was a man of culture and his pride was a cultivated thing.
And his pride dictated that he existed in a category whose subjugation would constitute a metaphysical error. There were men one commanded. There were lines one acquired. There were houses one bent into vassalage through fear, debt, seduction, or greater will.
Meruem, in his own estimation, belonged among those rare beings for whom such possibilities ought never even present themselves to imagination much less be attempted in earnest.
That Zekram Bael had imagined it at all offended him more than the actual coup itself.
He cared nothing for destruction of order. Let the Satans nurse their precious stability. Let the lesser men quarrel over laws and ministers speak of sovereign domains and inter-pillar restraint.
Rules were stage lighting. Force of personality, will, terror, and power, these were the columns upon which kingdoms actually stood.
House Bael knew this as well as he did, which was precisely why their offense struck so personally. Had they been moralists, he could have dismissed them as hypocrites. Had they been bureaucrats, he could have crushed them as irritants. Had they been zealots of order, he could have laughed.
Yet they were something much more competent and therefore much more intolerable. They were players of the same game, men of large appetite who nevertheless looked upon him and judged his house ripe for the taking. They had measured him. They had assigned him a value. They had found that value insufficient.
And because he was Meruem, because his spirit had been born with the peculiar curse of needing to appear immeasurable in the eyes of others, he found the very existence of that judgment a grave sin.
The death of his father did not sit at the core of his wrath as others might have expected. His grief was worth less than his pride. He did not require sentimental attachments to justify vengeance. He required only the certainty that his dignity had been weighed and found wanting by those who ought to have known better.
He knew their kind because he was their kind. He knew, too, that they would imagine his rage to be containable if they just apologized.
Such thoughts almost amused him. Almost.
Devils of coarser temperament often mistook polish for passivity. They observed taste, cultivation, and restraint, and imagined these qualities were forms of self-limitation, a sign of weakness.
Meruem knew better. And it was for this reason, and this reason alone that he could not accept the cheap narcotic of reconciliation, that treacly word men use when they wish the injured party to assist in burying the evidence of insult for the convenience of everyone else.
No, what he desired was simpler and more difficult.
He desired to impress upon House Bael the irrevocable truth that he had been misvalued. He desired to carve this truth so deeply into their imagination that the very mention of Beleth would thereafter carry with it a taste of iron and an involuntary correction of posture.
I'm, and always have been, a man of great taste.
And there was nothing more distasteful than an insult left unanswered.
…
He heard footsteps approaching the throne. He did not need to open his eyes to know who it was. His senses had long since adjusted to such things, picking up the presence with ease.
Within his household, there were few who could move with such confidence in his presence, and fewer still who possessed power that demanded acknowledgment. Kuorka stood among them, likely second only to himself.
A fight between her and Rossweisse would be difficult to call, he mused. Kuroka held the advantage in raw demonic energy, her reserves vast and overwhelming, but Rossweisse compensated for that through mastery and experience.
As a valkyrie under Odin, she had been shaped from childhood into a weapon, trained relentlessly across countless forms of combat until it became second nature.
It would not be a one-sided battle. He wondered which of them would be the last standing if neither held anything back.
"Still brooding in the dark like some tragic prince from a cheap play, your grace?" Kuroka said teasingly, she swayed her hips seductively as she approached the throne.
"I'm not brooding," he replied calmly. "I'm contemplating the downfall of my enemies. There is a difference, though I understand it may be difficult for you to appreciate nuance."
"~Riiight~" she drawled, dragging the word out as she glanced around the room, her golden eyes taking in the darkness in the room. "And I suppose the shuttered windows, the dim lighting, and the dramatic posture are all part of this… contemplation?"
She took another step closer, then another, her grin widening as though she had just uncovered something particularly amusing.
"Tell me, did you also practice how to look intimidating in a mirror beforehand?"
He did not answer immediately. There was, in fact, a moment of silence long enough to betray that she had struck closer to truth than he would ever admit.
"I don't need to practice," he said at last, lifting his chin slightly. "I'm intimidating by default."
"Of course," she said lightly, clearly unconvinced. "You just accidentally ended up sitting in total darkness, looking like you're about to deliver a monologue about fate and vengeance."
Before he could respond, she closed the remaining distance, her movements seductive, entirely unbothered by the implicit breach of protocol. She climbed onto the throne as though it were hers to claim, settling herself onto his lap with effortless familiarity, her arms sliding around his neck.
"Why are you here, Kuroka?" he asked, though there was less irritation in his voice than the words might suggest. "I gave explicit instructions that I was not to be disturbed."
"Don't be so harsh on your guards, nya~," she murmured, her breath brushing against his ear before her tongue followed, slowly licking his ears. "They didn't even notice me. I slipped right past them."
"I would appreciate it greatly," he said, exhaling slowly, "if you refrained from placing my servants under illusions for your amusement."
"But it's hilarious," she replied, her tone light, almost sing-song. "You should try it sometime. It might help with all this…" she gestured vaguely around the darkened hall, "…intense thinking you're doing."
Her gaze shifted back to him, sharper now beneath the teasing.
"So," she continued, tilting her head slightly, "what are you really doing here? Don't tell me you've been sitting in the dark for hours because House Bael's perceived insult hurt your feelings."
"Perceived?" he repeated, his voice losing a degree of warmth as he reached to the side and took out a letter, holding it between two fingers as though it were something distasteful. "There is nothing perceived about their insult."
She took the letter, scanning it briefly, her lips curling.
"They congratulated you," she said. "That seems polite enough. And look at that, a marriage offer from Lord Bael for his niece to smooth things over between House Bael and Beleth. I would congratulate you myself, but you don't seem particularly thrilled."
"Polite," he echoed disdainfully. "They attempt to steal my throne through backhanded schemes, fail, disavow their little pawn, and then have the audacity to congratulate me for defending what was already mine. And then, as if that were not enough, they offer me a marriage to that vapid, brainless excuse for a devil and call it reconciliation. They expect me to smile and accept it as if I should be grateful."
His gaze hardened, irritation slipping through the cracks of his composure. "They send me a dull, empty-headed harlot dressed up as a bride and think that settles things. It's insulting on every conceivable level."
Kuroka studied him for a moment, then let out a soft laugh.
"You know," Kurka said with a chuckle. "Sometimes I forget that underneath all this calm and reasonable exterior, you're deeply driven… by your particular kind of pride. So what is it this time? You've been sitting here imagining how to make them regret it?"
"Naturally," he replied. "And like I said to the others, my plans are in a delicate stage of development and I need time to think about them. Alone."
"Oh, please," Kuorka said, rolling her eyes as she shifted slightly on his lap, her tails flicking behind her in amusement. "I have known you long enough to see through that. You always have a plan. You had one the moment you finished reading that letter, maybe even before that. You're just sitting here polishing it so it sounds more impressive when you finally reveal it."
"I'm flattered that you hold me in such high regard," he said. "Though I assure you, even I require time. Now, what do you want?"
"Do I always need a reason to talk to my magnificent king?" she teased, leaning in to press a light kiss against his neck. "Are you sure you want to send me away? I could help you relax. I have heard that a bit of post-nut clarity can do wonders for decision making."
Meruem met her gaze, completely unamused. The look in his eyes made it clear that he had not been joking earlier. There were things weighing on his mind that went far beyond petty insults and wounded pride, and he had no interest in distractions.
The shift did not go unnoticed. Kuroka let out a quiet sigh, the playful edge fading slightly.
"My existence has been exposed to the underworld," she said after a moment, her tone more measured now.
"So it has," he replied, his voice softer as his hand rose to gently cup her cheek. "Are you worried?"
"I killed a Pillar," she said, a faint, self-deprecating note slipping through. "Every breath I take is practically an offense to the system. Though I expected more outrage than this. I suppose your coronation drew most of the attention. A convenient coincidence."
"There are no coincidences," Merume said calmly. "My mother and sister have been doing their best to suppress any coverage of your existence, well at least insofar as traditional media is concerned."
"I should thank them," Kuroka admitted. "Though I get the feeling your mother doesn't like me very much."
"She's an old-fashioned devil," he replied. "Caution comes naturally to her. From her perspective, you are a volatile variable who might decide to slit her son's throat on a whim."
Kuroka let out a soft breath. "I can't really blame her for that. I would be really surprised to find anyone who doesn't feel the same way. Except…" She hesitated slightly, her gaze settling on him. "...you. I sometimes wonder what made you pursue me, why trust me at all?"
"I'm a simple man," he said with a perfectly straight face. "The moment I saw those giant jiggly slobberknocker milk truck tits, I knew that we were meant for each other. Everything after that was merely finding a polite way to tell you that I wanted to motorboat those gravity welling sex mounds."
She laughed, the sound light and melodic, though there was something more grounded beneath it.
"Well, I suppose you did succeed in that," she said, before her expression shifted again, becoming more serious. "But I'm serious. You never explained why you decided I was worth bringing in, when the rest of your kind sees me as a walking disaster."
He studied her quietly.
He could see the uncertainty in her. A quiet tension lingered beneath her composure, as if she were weighing possibilities she did not dare voice. Perhaps she feared he might simply hand her over to the authorities. Or perhaps something darker had taken root.
She had seen something she had not expected.
She had witnessed his cruelty firsthand, the deliberate, unrestrained brutality he had shown that day. It was not a side of him she, nor any member of his peerage or family, had ever seen before. That alone was enough to unsettle anyone.
Until then, she had believed she understood him. She had constructed a clear image of the man he was, one she felt confident navigating. That single day had dismantled it entirely, exposing just how much lay beyond her grasp.
For someone like Kuroka, who had endured the cruelty of a former master, it was only natural that she would begin drawing comparisons, even if she did not want to. The mind, once burned, learned quickly to recognize familiar shapes in new shadows.
Meruem exhaled softly.
A half-truth would suffice, he decided. Lies would not hold against her. She was too perceptive, too attuned to the slightest shift in emotion, and he was not inclined toward deception in any case. He preferred a more simpler approach. The truth, stated plainly. Or, when necessary, trimmed into something more manageable.
There were limits, however. He could not tell her that he knew her past because, in another life, she had been nothing more than a fictional character.
Some things were better left unspoken.
"I confess, I haven't been entirely truthful with you," he said calmly, meeting her gaze without hesitation.
Kuroka stiffened slightly.
"What do you mean?" she asked, and he could hear it clearly, the subtle shift in her breathing, the faint but rapid rhythm of her heartbeat picking up.
"I knew about the experiments House Naberius was conducting," he said, his voice quiet.
Her eyes widened sharply, pupils shrinking as if trying to take in too much at once. The change in her body was even more telling. Every muscle tensed, her posture locking up in an instant. The fine hairs along her arms and neck rose, her instincts flaring like startled animal's.
Her twin tails stiffened behind her, rigid and alert, no longer moving with their usual lazy confidence but frozen in place, betraying the surge of fear that ran through her.
A nekomata's instincts did not lie. Fight or flight.
And yet, she did not move.
She remained where she was, seated on his lap, though whether that was by choice or because she understood the futility of trying to escape was unclear even to him. There was a tremor running through her now, her control holding, but only just.
Her mind was working quickly. He could see it in her eyes, the rapid calculations, the questions forming one after another. How much did he know? How long had he known? Why had he brought her in?
"Relax," he said softly, his hand moving up to gently stroke her hair. The gesture was calm, almost soothing, though it did little to ease the tension in her body. "Don't misunderstand. I had no involvement in their work, nor did I know the full extent of it."
He paused briefly, letting his words settle.
"Lord Naberius approached my father at one point," he continued. "He sought political support for a proposal he intended to bring before the council. In doing so, he revealed fragments of what they were attempting in secret. Their ambition was to artificially produce 'super devils.' That was all I was given.
"From there, I drew my own conclusions. I was aware of your former master's reputation, his tendencies, the kind of man he was. When I heard of his death, and your actions, It didn't take much to piece together a plausible explanation." His voice softened slightly. "I concluded that he likely turned his attention toward your sister, and that you killed him to stop it."
He tilted his head just slightly. "Was I wrong?"
If anything, she grew more tense. The fear in her eyes was no longer masked, though she still forced a smile onto her lips, brittle and unconvincing.
"That is quite a leap, master," she said lightly, though her voice betrayed her. "Most people would not arrive at that conclusion so easily… and yet you did.… why recruit me after that?"
"Because I believed the experiment would have increased your potential significantly," he answered plainly. "And because, if my assumption was correct, you were dealt a particularly shitty hand. I chose to give you an alternative."
"And the fact that I killed a member of a Pillar House?" she asked quietly. "That doesn't matter to you?"
"Why would it?" he replied, genuinely puzzled. "And even if it did, I would hardly be in a position to judge you for it."
"I suppose that's fair," she muttered, her gaze lowering as she sank into thought.
He said nothing, allowing her the space to process.
He could have framed it differently. He could have softened the truth, presented it in a way that cast his intentions in a more favorable light, omitted the part where her potential had been a key factor in his decision.
It would have been easy to make it sound better.
But that was not what he wanted.
Trust built on half-formed illusions tended to collapse the moment it was tested. If he wanted loyalty that lasted, he needed something more solid than that. Honesty, even if incomplete, created a foundation that could endure.
"You promised you would help me reunite with my sister," she said quietly after a while, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I did," he replied simply. "And I will."
"W-when?" she asked, then caught herself. "I know I'm being demanding and I don't want to put more pressure on you than you already have…but I..I"
"You miss your sister," he finished for her. She nodded. "Is that why you came here?"
"I was worried," she admitted. "Now that the underworld knows I'm here, I thought someone might try to use her against me."
If Rias is anything like he knew from canon, then he doubted that she would let anyone harm her peerage, but Kuorka had no way of knowing that.
"She's under the protection of House Gremory and the current Lucifer," he said calmly. "I doubt there is any idiot who would risk provoking them over a personal grudge against you."
"I don't trust the Gremory," she said, her tone darkening slightly.
"Oh?" he replied, faint amusement touching his expression. "I see, you have been spending too much time around my mother."
House Gremory had not always been respected among the Pillars. Before Sirzechs, they had been viewed as little more than a laughingstock.
"They seem too perfect," Kuroka said. "People like that always have something beneath the surface. I refuse to believe anyone is that good without a reason."
"You're letting your paranoia get the better of you," he said amused.
"I have seen enough to not trust blindly," she shot back.
"More's the pity," he said. "The underworld is not a kind place. But you might be surprised, there are decent people among devils as well. I have yet to meet one personally, but I'm confident they exist."
That earned a small smile from her, some of the tension finally leaving her shoulders.
"Very comforting," she said. "But you haven't answered my question yet."
"I have a plan to get you a full pardon from the council," he said softly. "Although there are some variables I need to account for before that. After that you can visit your sister anytime you wish. I doubt the Gremory will make a fuss, and if they do, I will handle it."
"Full pardon?" she said in wonder. "Would that even be possible? Wouldn't that kind of set a precedent that you can kill a pillar and get away with it?"
"If you have enough power, you can get away with anything," he stated matter of factly. "No matter how much the lords of hell ramble on about tradition and honor, the moment anyone with power makes a request, they'll get on their knees and suck his dick until his internal organs look like they were vacuum packed."
Kuroka blinked at him. "And House Naberius? Would they just accept that?"
"I'm the Lord of the Rings. There are few houses in this realm that would willingly earn my displeasure, and Naberius is not amongst them. Even now, they weigh their approach, no doubt seeking the most profitable way to secure your pardon without overstepping their bounds."
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"For what?" he asked.
"For making things more complicated for you."
"You're my servant," he said simply. "Your concerns are my responsibility. And with the Rings of Power, resolving them is hardly difficult."
She studied him for a moment, then tilted her head slightly, a hint of playfulness returning.
"And if you didn't have them?" she asked, her fingers idly brushing through his hair. "What would you have done then?"
"Then," he said, his voice calm, "I would have taken a more direct approach."
Her smile widened slightly. "Such as?"
He met her gaze with a grin.
"War," he said simply.
...
He mused over what to do after Kuroka left him to brood in silence. She had been correct. He had already reached a decision regarding House Bael and their laughable attempt at binding him through marriage, a proposal so lacking in awareness that it could only be an insult.
They had not even granted him the basic courtesy of offering a union with a member of their main branch.
He remembered Dalia Bael from his time at the academy, recalling her as a shallow and unimpressive girl whose abilities in the demonic arts barely rose above mediocrity, a forgettable figure among the many disappointments born into greatness yet incapable of embodying it.
She belonged to that long and tiresome list of devils who inherited illustrious names only to contribute nothing of value to them.
Her cousin Sairaorg stood as a stark contrast, a man born without the ability to wield the fabled Power of Destruction, yet one whose accomplishments spoke for themselves.
Meruem held a great deal of respect for individuals like him, those who had been dealt poor hands by fate and nevertheless carved their own path through sheer will and effort, rising beyond what was expected of them.
Dalia Bael, the woman Lord Bael sought to bind to him, embodied none of that. Her inadequacy extended across every conceivable measure, and the mere suggestion that she was a suitable match for him soured his mood further.
The fact that they don't have any other eligible daughters worth offering was besides the point.
He had refused Dimora. What made them think he would settle for her lesser cousin?
He could have refused outright, sweeping the matter beneath the rug, but such an approach carried no value. Silence didn't just send quite the message he wanted to get across.
House Bael had grown comfortable in their perceived invulnerability, secure in the belief that their position placed them beyond consequence.
They needed to be reminded otherwise.
Footsteps echoed through the hall, steady and assured. The rhythm alone was enough to tell him who approached. The one he had been waiting for had arrived.
His younger brother, Belthariel, entered and knelt at an appropriate distance from the throne.
"I have found some information that may be of interest to you, brother," Belathriel said, a faint smile resting upon his lips.
"Then come forward and show me what you have discovered," Meruem replied, his voice calm as he gestured for him to approach.
Belthariel rose, ascended the steps, and unfurled a map across the arm of the throne. It charted the territories of House Beleth and its neighboring dominions. Across its surface, several red markings stood out, concentrated most heavily along the borders where their lands met those of House Bael.
"These red dots," Belathriel said, tracing them with a finger, "each represent territories that once belonged to our domain, some of considerable size, others more modest in scale."
"And you're telling me that all of them now fall under the control of House Bael?" Meruem asked, his tone even as his gaze traced the marked regions.
He had assigned his brother a specific task - to uncover a legitimate justification for war, a jus ad bellum that would allow them to act without appearing as the aggressor.
"More or less," Belathriel replied. "A significant portion has been annexed directly by House Bael, while others have been taken by different Pillar Houses. However, the distinction is largely superficial. Those houses operate in alignment with Bael's interests, whether formally acknowledged or not. In practical terms, the majority of these territories fall under Bael's sphere of control, though House Naberius, House Amon, and House Agares have also claimed their share."
The original size of House Beleth's domain had once rivaled that of an entire continent, comparable in scale to North America, though that was before the emergence of the Eye of the Pit, after which their territory had diminished significantly.
The extent of what had been stolen was surprising, though not entirely unexpected when viewed through the lens of opportunism that governed the underworld.
"When did these acquisitions occur, and are you sure they constitute theft?" Meruem asked, committing the map to memory. "For all we know they could have been given as dowry or part of some deal in the past. They're common enough."
"I thought so at first as well," Belathriel said. "However, I have reviewed the records of every treaty our house has entered into with other Pillars over the past thousand years, and I found no documentation supporting any such transfers."
"Then perhaps they predate those records?" Meruem suggested.
Belathriel shook his head.
"These territories are special," he explained. "Each of them was annexed after the Great War, following the Wrath of Tiamat. Some acquisitions are as recent as four centuries ago. An interesting pattern emerges when one examines the timing. Most of these lands were taken immediately after the first outbreak of the Pit and again during the onset of the civil war."
Meruem recalled Maerach's account of that pit outbreak during the early civil war, one of the most devastating events recorded in their history.
"So they exploited the chaos caused by the outbreak to steal our lands then," Meruem concluded, a trace of amusement entering his voice.
The tactic did not surprise him. If anything, he would have found it more unusual had the other houses refrained from taking advantage. The Lords of Hell thrived on weakness, ever ready to seize any opportunity that presented itself. The structure of their world demanded it. Eat or be eaten.
"Yes," Belathriel confirmed. "Our forces were fully committed to containing the Eye of the Pit, leaving our borders vulnerable. House Bael and others deployed their troops under the pretense of offering assistance, and once positioned, they remained there permanently."
"And our father allowed this?" Meruem asked, a hint of skepticism in his voice.
"He had little choice," Belathriel replied. "He, like our grandfather, understood the constraints they faced. Maintaining a constant military presence at the Eye of the Pit was necessary to prevent catastrophe. Reclaiming those lands would have required diverting significant forces, which was not feasible under those conditions. They likely deemed it wiser to concede territory rather than risk total collapse."
"A pragmatic decision," Meruem said, his tone calm.
House Beleth would have been weakened by their ongoing struggle against the Pit's creatures, and engaging another Pillar House at the height of their strength for the sake of contested lands would have been strategically unsound.
"However," Belathriel continued, "these territories were never formally transferred. There exists no legal framework that legitimizes their occupation. In theory, they remain ours, and we possess a valid claim should we choose to assert it. We are after all only taking back what is ours."
Ah, war! What a wonderful news!
Meruem let out a laugh. "Oh, this is just perfect! Exactly what I've been looking for. Well done, brother."
Belathriel's smile deepened slightly, though something in his expression suggested hesitation, as though he had something to say but was unsure how to say it.
"What is it?" Meruem asked. "I know that look, there is something you don't approve of."
"I wouldn't wish to offend you, Your Grace," Belathriel replied carefully.
"You're my brother," Meruem declared. "You're supposed to tell me if my breath stinks lest I make a fool of myself before my enemies. Speak freely, I want to hear your thoughts. Your king commands it."
While their relationship has gotten marginally better compared to what it was in the past, his siblings were still wary of him and did not dare voice their thoughts freely. It was something Meruem intended to change, particularly in Belathriel, whose strategic insight he had come to value highly.
"If you insist," Belathriel said at last. "I don't believe it would be wise to retaliate directly against House Bael now, and I doubt we would accomplish anything meaningful if we did."
"You believe we lack the strength to oppose them?" Meruem asked, one brow lifting slightly.
"Yes," Belathriel answered without hesitation. "At present, a significant portion of our forces remain stationed at the Pit. What we can gather outside of that is insignificant compared to what House Bael can field. The difference in numbers alone would be difficult to overcome. Although…" His voice trailed off, his gaze shifting slightly as another thought formed.
"What is it?" Meruem prompted.
"If I may ask, brother," Belathriel began, "what are the limits of your Rings of Power?"
Meruem regarded him with mild curiosity, though he already sensed the direction of his reasoning.
"In what sense?"
"Their operational capacity," Belathriel clarified. "How long it takes you to redirect the flow of the Gehenna nodes, and how far that influence can reach."
"You intend to use them as a weapon," Meruem said, a faint, knowing smile touching his lips.
"Yes," Belathriel admitted. "If you could use the Rings to direct beast tides into Bael's territory from several fronts at once, it would force them to split their forces. It wouldn't eliminate the gap in numbers, but it might reduce it enough for us to work with."
Meruem found himself, once again, mildly surprised by his younger brother. The idea Belathriel had just voiced was not new to him. He had already considered it himself.
It's like we have the same thought process, he thought faintly amused.
"That's not an option at the moment," Meruem said, letting out a small breath. "While I do have the strength of will necessary to influence beast tides, there are specific conditions that must be met before the Rings can be used in such a manner."
"What conditions?" Belathriel asked.
"Believe me, little brother," Meruem replied calmly, "if it were that simple, I would have used them against Dimora. The Rings of Power are useful, but they're not without limits. To redirect the flow of the Gehenna nodes, I first need to establish a proper conduit. This requires the creation of a magic circle within the target area, through which the Rings can channel their influence.
"Creating the circle itself is not particularly difficult, but placing one inside enemy territory is another matter entirely. That's why, at least for now, I intend to use them more as a tool for influence rather than direct warfare."
There was no such thing as a flawless power in that world. Every ability came with conditions, restrictions, or weaknesses that could be exploited if one was careless enough. Balance existed in one form or another.
Even the most powerful demonic weapons were bound by limits, whether in how often they could be used or under what circumstances they would function. The Rings were no different.
"I understand," Belathriel said. "It was only an idea. But it does make my point clearer. We can't challenge House Bael as we are now. Even if you have reached Ultimate Class, you are still only one person. House Bael has several of that level, and figures like Roygun Belphegor, and Bedeze Abaddon are all aligned with them."
Meruem considered his words and found no fault in them. The assessment was free of any unnecessary optimism. He did not hold it against his brother.
"If we want any real chance," Belathriel continued, "we need to deal with the Eye of the Pit first and bring Maerach's legion back into play. Anything before that is just reckless."
"Well said," Meruem replied. "It seems everything leads back to the Eye of the Pit."
Belathriel went on to explain his additional findings and what they could mean for the wider politics of the underworld, and Meruem listened without interruption, taking in every detail.
No matter how he looked at it, the Eye of the Pit remained a persistent problem. Even if one ignored the constant threat of another outbreak, it still tied down a large portion of his military, making it unreliable for any larger conflict. That alone was reason enough to deal with it. He needed those soldiers freed and available when he chose to use them.
And then there were the resources.
The Pit was rich in untapped resources, an expanse filled with valuable minerals, industrial potential, and fertile land capable of sustaining large-scale agricultural development. If he managed to bring the Pit under his control, House Beleth could rise to stand among the richest houses in the underworld, possibly surpassing even the famously prosperous House Phenex.
The underworld's barren nature forced its inhabitants to rely heavily on imports, creating a constant demand that could be exploited. The Pit, by contrast, possessed an unusual fertility that defied the norms of their world, and harnessing that potential would alter the balance of power.
The question was how to get Tiamat's cooperation.
Before any war could be waged, before any claim could be enforced, the Eye of the Pit had to be brought under control.
Only then would the game truly begin.
POV: Issei
Issei Hyoudou had long ago come to an important conclusion about himself. That conclusion was that the world, in all its chaos and confusion, could be understood far more clearly if one simply paid proper attention to women.
Women were wonderful creatures on a philosophical level, even if he lacked the vocabulary or discipline to express it in terms that would earn him anything resembling respect.
He had spent years refining this appreciation, developing what he privately considered to be an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the female form, one that went far beyond the crude and hurried glances of his less enlightened peers.
To him, the female form was something closer to an art form that existed in endless variation. Each person carries their own balance of softness and sharpness, grace and presence, charm and contradiction.
He found himself endlessly fascinated by that variety, by the way a smile could alter an entire face, by the way confidence could reshape posture, by the way even the smallest gesture could carry meaning if one cared enough to notice.
Of course, none of that ever came out when he spoke.
What came out, more often than not, were poorly timed comments, exaggerated reactions, and the kind of honesty that people found far more alarming than endearing.
Issei had never learned the delicate art of restraint, nor had he developed the instinct to conceal what he wanted behind polite ambiguity, and so he walked through life with his desires worn openly, loudly, and with a kind of shameless pride that baffled those around him.
He knew how they saw him.
The pervert.
The idiot.
The guy who could not hold a serious conversation without somehow circling back to breasts, as though his mind were magnetized toward them by some cosmic force beyond his control.
And, in his own way, he accepted that.
There was something almost comforting in being understood so simply, even if that understanding was incomplete. It spared him the effort of pretending to be something else, spared him the strain of maintaining a version of himself that required constant vigilance.
If one was going to admire something, one should admire it properly.
If one desires something, one should at least have the courage to admit it.
Still, he was not entirely oblivious.
He knew he was lazy.
He knew that when faced with effort, with study, with the slow and often tedious work required to improve himself, he had a habit of drifting toward easier pleasures, toward daydreams and distractions that demanded nothing and gave everything in return.
He knew that his parents hoped for more from him than what he currently was, hoped that he would find some direction, some purpose, something that would allow them to look at him with pride.
And sometimes, in rare moments after a particularly strong post-nut clarity, he felt that weight.
He would lie awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what he should be doing, about the version of himself that might exist if he tried just a little harder, studied just a little more, spoke just a little more carefully, carried himself with even a fraction of the composure he saw in others.
He knew all of this.
And yet, knowing something and acting upon it were, as he had discovered repeatedly, two entirely different endeavors.
Because effort, real effort, carried with it the risk of failure in a way that daydreams never did, and somewhere deep down, beneath the humor and the bravado, there was a quiet hesitation, a reluctance to confront the possibility that even if he tried, even if he gave it everything he had, it might not be enough.
So instead, he leaned into what he understood.
And what he understood, better than anything else, was desire.
He did not see his fascination with women as something base or shameful, despite what others claimed. To him, it was honest. It was alive in a way that many other things in his life were not.
When he admired a girl, he did so fully, without reservation, noticing everything from the obvious to the subtle, from the curve of her figure to the cadence of her voice, from the way she carried herself to the fleeting expressions that crossed her face when she thought no one was looking.
There was sincerity in it.
And beneath all of that, beneath the fantasies and the jokes and the lecherous reputation he wore like a second skin, there was something he rarely showed and even more rarely acknowledged.
He wanted to be loved. To be genuinely seen and accepted by someone who could look past the surface, who could understand that his openness, his lack of restraint, his almost reckless honesty came from a place that had never learned how to express itself properly.
He wanted someone who would not flinch at who he was.
And in return, he knew that he would give everything he had, every ounce of loyalty, every fragment of determination he could muster, to that person.
It was an oddly pure thought for someone like him.
Contradictory, perhaps.
Yet Issei had never been particularly concerned with consistency.
In his mind, there was no conflict between wanting a harem and wanting something real, no contradiction between indulging in fantasies and yearning for something sincere. To him, both desires came from the same place, from the same unfiltered heart that refused to separate what it wanted into neat, acceptable categories.
He was aware that others found that strange.
He simply did not care enough to change.
Someday he will become someone worthy of the things he admired so openly.
He just… had not quite figured out how to get there yet.
"Ka-san, Tou-san, I'm home," he called out, his voice carrying the usual casual fatigue as he slipped off his shoes and stepped inside, following the same small ritual he had repeated for years without ever thinking about it.
There was no answer.
He paused.
That was weird. His mother always answered. Always.
There had been times when he had barely opened the door, times when he had not even spoken yet, and still her voice would greet him, as though she had been waiting for him at the door, as though she possessed some inexplicable awareness that transcended reason.
He had joked about it before, half convinced that she had some hidden ability to sense his presence, to track him the moment he stepped onto the street, and though he had never truly believed it, there had always been something uncanny about her timing.
Now there was only silence.
He frowned slightly, shifting his bag on his shoulder as he stepped further inside.
"She must be busy," he muttered to himself.
He moved toward the living room.
And then he stopped.
At first, his mind refused to process what he was seeing.
Red was all he could see.
Then the smell reached him.
A suffocating metallic scent.
His stomach tightened instinctively, a cold sensation crawling up his spine as something deep within him recoiled, recognizing what his mind still struggled to accept.
Blood.
There was too much of it.
Lots of blood.
Far too much.
It spread across the floor in a thick, unnatural sheen, pooling and trailing in uneven patterns that caught the dim light and reflected it in dull, viscous glimmers, turning the familiar space of the living room into something unrecognizable that refused to align with anything his mind could categorize.
His breath caught.
His thoughts stalled.
He took a step forward without realizing it, his body moving on instinct while his mind lagged behind, struggling to catch up, to process, to make sense of the shape of things.
And then he saw them.
His parents lay on the ground.
For a moment, that was all he understood.
They were there.
They were on the floor.
They were not moving.
They lay collapsed on the ground, their bodies twisted into unnatural positions, clothes soaked through, torn open, their forms broken in ways that made no immediate sense. For a moment, he simply stared, his mind grasping at details that refused to align into anything coherent.
Something was wrong.
Something was missing.
He could not quite place it.
His eyes moved again, unfocused, drifting over the scene, over the scattered shapes across the floor, something that should not have been outside the body his thoughts began to fracture, unable to categorize what he was seeing.
There were… pieces. Intestine, liver, human heart and other organs he didn't recognize scattered on the ground like toys.
Things he had only ever known as part of a whole now lay exposed, torn free, glistening in the dim light like grotesque reflections of something that had once lived.
His breath caught.
Still, his mind resisted.
Still, it refused to complete the picture.
And then, slowly, almost reluctantly, his gaze returned to the bodies.
And he understood.
There were no heads.
The realization crept in, subtle and insidious, filling the gaps his mind had been desperately trying to ignore, and when it settled, when it fully took shape, something inside him seemed to stall completely.
He did not move.
He did not think.
For a few seconds, he simply stood there, suspended in a moment that felt detached from reality, as though he were observing something distant, something that had no connection to him whatsoever.
A part of him refused to believe it.
Refused to accept that what he was seeing was real.
That those were his parents.
That this was happening.
Then his eyes shifted upward.
And everything shattered.
On the table. Placed carefully, almost delicately, as though arranged for presentation, were two plates.
And on those plates…
His parents' heads.
Oh, God!
No!
No!
The expression on his mother's face was frozen in something he could not fully comprehend, her eyes half-lidded, her features slack in a way that stripped away everything familiar, everything that had once defined her as someone who laughed, who spoke, who called his name the moment he stepped through the door.
His father's face was still, unnaturally so, the strength he had always associated with him reduced to something hollow.
For a moment, the world tilted.
His vision blurred, his breathing turning shallow as something sharp and suffocating pressed against his chest, his thoughts unraveling into fragments that refused to form anything coherent.
This was wrong.
This was impossible.
This was not real.
It could not be real.
His hands trembled slightly, his fingers curling into his palms as though grounding himself in sensation might anchor him, might pull him back into something stable, something understandable.
It did not work.
A sound escaped him, though he did not recognize it as his own, something strained and uneven, caught somewhere between breath and a scream.
And then he noticed them.
They sat there, on the couch, as though this were nothing more than an ordinary evening, like the horror that filled the room was merely decoration, something beneath their notice.
A dark-haired boy with crimson eyes that held no warmth or any trace of anything resembling remorse. It was inhuman and he felt like insects were crawling his body just at the mere gaze.
Beside him, a blond haired woman.
Beautiful.
That was the first thing his mind registered, almost involuntarily, even through the chaos of everything else, a beauty so striking that it felt out of place, surreal in the context of what surrounded her, her posture relaxed, her presence composed, as though she belonged in a different scene entirely.
They were watching him.
Waiting and observing for something in his face.
As if his reaction were part of something they had anticipated, something they intended to witness.
For a moment, Issei could not understand.
His mind struggled to connect the pieces, to bridge the gap between what he saw and what it meant, to reconcile the calm, almost casual demeanor of the two figures before him with the brutality that filled the room.
Then the realization came.
They did this.
Something inside him shifted.
The disbelief cracked first, splintering under the weight of what he could no longer deny, and beneath it, something else began to rise. Something that burned through the numbness with sudden, overwhelming intensity.
His breathing changed unsteady.
Each inhale felt like it scraped against something raw, something exposed, as his chest tightened, his pulse pounding in his ears, drowning out everything else.
His gaze locked onto them.
And the confusion gave way to anger.
His hands clenched.
His nails dug into his skin, the sharp sting barely registering as his body tensed, his entire frame rigid with a fury he had never experienced before, a fury that felt too large for him, too heavy, as though it might tear him apart from the inside if he did not release it.
His thoughts narrowed.
Focused.
There was no room for doubt now.
No room for hesitation.
They had taken everything from him.
And in that moment, Issei understood only one thing.
They were responsible.
And the anger that followed was absolute.
His hands burned.
No, burned was too simple a word for what overtook him in that instant. It was as though molten iron had been poured directly into his veins, as though something ancient and furious had awakened within his flesh and was now forcing its way into existence through him.
The skin along his arm split with crimson light. A deep, oppressive glow gathered around his hand, thick and heavy, like congealed blood given form, until it solidified into a gauntlet of a color so violently red that it seemed to devour all other hues around it.
A gauntlet manifested in crimson light that coiled and condensed around his arm. Plates of deep red metal layered over one another, each segment locking into place with a muted, resonant pulse, as though the thing itself possessed a heartbeat.
It was part of him, an extension of something that had always been there, waiting.
Issei did not know what it was, nor why it had appeared.
Yet he understood instinctively that this was his power.
With this power…he could kill them.
The realization had barely formed before his body collapsed.
His knees struck the floor with a dull, hollow sound, the impact barely registering as something else crushed down upon him, something vast and suffocating that filled the room in an instant.
The air itself seemed to grow heavy, dense beyond reason, pressing down on him from all sides as though the space around him had been replaced by something vast and immeasurable, something that did not acknowledge his existence as anything more than a minor inconvenience.
He could not breathe.
He could not speak.
His chest tightened, his lungs refusing to draw in air, his throat locked as though gripped by an invisible hand. He tried to speak, to scream, to do anything at all, but no sound came. Even the act of thought became difficult, sluggish, as though his mind itself was being dragged into the crushing depths of something vast and incomprehensible.
His vision darkened at the edges.
Under that pressure, Issei felt himself die.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Each moment stretched into an eternity of endings, his body convinced beyond reason that it had reached its limit, that this was where it would all cease, only to be dragged back into awareness just to experience it once more. His mind recoiled in terror, instinctively folding in on itself in a desperate attempt to preserve what little sanity it had left.
And so it searched.
It grasped for comparisons, for parallels, for anything within the confines of human experience that could define this sensation, categorize it, give it shape and meaning.
His childhood flashed before him in an instant that felt like a lifetime.
The warmth of his mother's smile as she called him to dinner.
The sound of his father's laughter echoing through their home.
The mundane, unremarkable days at school, the embarrassment, the dreams, the idle thoughts, the countless trivial moments that had once defined his existence.
All of it surged through him in a single, overwhelming cascade.
But none of it matched.
None of it came close.
Pain? No, it was beyond pain.
Fear? No, it surpassed fear.
There was nothing.
Nothing in his entire existence that resembled what he was experiencing now, this overwhelming bloodlust. Nothing that could contain it, nothing that could explain it, and faced with that absolute absence, his mind faltered, slowed, and began to break under the strain of trying to comprehend something that existed entirely outside the boundaries of what he was meant to understand.
"Perfect." The voice cut through everything. "I'm quite pleased with how efficiently this has unfolded."
The pressure vanished, as though it had never been there to begin with, and Issei collapsed forward, gasping violently as air rushed back into his lungs. The crimson gauntlet dissolved soon after, its form unraveling into faint wisps of red light that dissipated into nothingness like a mirage exposed as false.
"You see," the voice continued, calm and composed, as though discussing something trivial, "my understanding of Sacred Gears is, in practical terms, nonexistent. I possess fragments of knowledge, scattered observations, secondhand accounts that lack both depth and reliability. However, even incomplete knowledge can be… adequate, when paired with careful reasoning."
Issei lifted his head.
The speaker sat on the couch.
Dark-haired, composed, watching him with an expression that could only be described as satisfied.
"A Sacred Gear is a crystallization of potential, an externalization of something deeply rooted within the soul of its wielder. Such things don't awaken through idle desire or passing curiosity. They require impetus. A catalyst, if you will. An emotion of sufficient magnitude to force that dormant power into manifestation."
His tone remained even, almost academic, as though he were explaining a trivial concept rather than recounting the deliberate orchestration of something horrific.
"Passion, obsession, grief, hatred, rage, each of these has the potential to trigger that awakening. The nature of the emotion is irrelevant. What matters is its intensity. It must reach a threshold where the individual can no longer remain unchanged. Where the mind fractures under the weight of it, and in that fracture, something new is allowed to emerge."
His gaze flickered briefly toward the space where the blood had been.
"The challenge, of course, lies in calibration. Too little, and nothing occurs. Too much, and the subject collapses entirely, their psyche unable to withstand the strain, rendering the entire process… wasteful."
He leaned back slightly, entirely at ease.
"It would have been most unfortunate if the sight of your parents' corpses had broken you beyond recovery rather than provoking the necessary degree of emotion required to activate the Boosted Gear. Fortunately, that did not occur. Your mind, fragile as it is, managed to cling to something. Anger, in particular, proved… effective."
Issei stared at him.
He understood nothing.
"Well done, Issei Hyoudou" the boy said, a faint, almost amused note entering his voice. "You are now the Red Dragon Emperor."
The words meant nothing.
Nothing made sense.
Issei's gaze drifted downward, drawn once more to the floor, to the memory of what he had seen, what he knew he had seen. His body refused to move, his limbs heavy, unresponsive, as though the remnants of that pressure still lingered within him.
"Oh… God… wh-why…"
His voice trembled, fractured, barely coherent.
"Wh-who… Ka-san… Tou-san… you… oh, God… what…?"
The words collapsed into one another, incomplete, disjointed, a reflection of a mind that could no longer form a single coherent thought. All that remained was the image burned into his vision, the corpses of his parents, broken and mutilated.
"God?" the dark-haired boy echoed, tilting his head slightly, his expression shifting into something faintly curious. "God is love. I don't love you at all."
Issei could not understand. Why was this happening? What had he done?
His parents had done nothing. They were innocent. They had no part in anything, no connection to whatever this was, and yet they had been killed, slaughtered without reason, without justification.
Unless…
The Sacred Gear. The thing he had mentioned. Was it because of that?
His gaze snapped back to the floor.
And then, something changed.
The blood began to disappear abruptly, each dark stain fading into nothingness as though it had never existed. The fragments of flesh, the scattered remains, the unbearable evidence of what had happened, all of it dissolved, erased piece by piece until there was nothing left.
No blood.
No bodies.
Nothing.
Issei's breath hitched as he stared, his mind unable to process what he was seeing, unable to reconcile it with what he knew to be true.
Because it had been real.
He knew it had been real.
And yet…He lifted his head.
They were there.
His parents sat beside the two intruders, unharmed, untouched, their bodies whole, their expressions still.
Too still, for it to be natural.
A cold, unnatural stillness that made something twist in his chest. How?
That was impossible.
This had to be a dream.
It had to be.
His breathing grew erratic, uneven, each inhale sharper than the last as panic began to take hold, tightening around his mind with suffocating intensity.
He had seen it.
He had seen their bodies.
Their heads–
He turned toward the table.
There was no plate.
No horror.
Only a simple dish, resting innocently in place, holding nothing more than a few biscuits.
How?
No.
No, that was not possible.
Am I losing my mind?
Did I imagine all of that? Is this some kind of delusion?
"I simply placed you under an illusion. They are entirely unharmed. Needless cruelty is not my style."
Issei's head snapped toward him.
What?
What was he saying?
What illusion?
"W-what… happened…? You…"
The words came out weak, uncertain, as though even speaking had become foreign to him. He did not know how to react, what to believe, what to think. Everything he had just experienced contradicted everything he was now seeing.
"Who are you?"
The question barely left his lips, his voice trembling under the weight of it.
Those crimson eyes held something that made his entire body recoil, something vast and incomprehensible, something that regarded him as something far lesser.
"Call me Meruem," the boy replied calmly. "My companion is called Valerie."
"Wh-what do you want from me?" Issei asked, his body shaking uncontrollably.
"From you? Nothing," Meruem replied without hesitation. "You, as an individual, hold no significance in the grand scheme of things. You are inconsequential, a negligible remnant of a narrative that has already diverged beyond recognition. However…."
His gaze shifted, settling on Issei with a quiet intensity.
"Within you resides a variable. A force that, while not your own, is nevertheless bound to you, and that force possesses the potential to influence matters that concern me."
His lips curved slightly, not quite a smile, but something close to it.
"You should consider yourself fortunate, Issei Hyoudou. A life that would have otherwise dissolved into obscurity has been elevated and woven into a narrative far greater than anything you could have ever conceived. Your existence, insignificant as it is, now serves a function within something vast, something that will reshape the order of this world."
The air felt cold.
"Rejoice, Issei Hyoudou," Meruem said softly. "You have been chosen to take part in an epic that will reshape the order of this world."
The world turned blank.
AN: The first part was meant to show the psychology of a man who was reborn in Hell and immediately decided to become its king. The sheer ego required for that must be insane, and I hope I managed to get that across. I had originally planned for the next arc to begin here, but then I realized that someone with Meruem's ego wouldn't just let House Bael go unpunished. So we'll be taking a short detour.
Advanced chapters are available on my Patreon, so if you want to read ahead or support me so I can focus more on writing, check out my Patreon:patreon.com/abeltargaryen?