Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

Nira Nightshade ignored Eren's shocked expression and continued.

"They say that House Montmorency was doing some sort of demonic ritual as an experiment and summoned the soul fragment of Satan by accident. He possessed the body of the original Ottoman de Montmorency. After his demonic possession, Ottoman is said to have killed a lot of members of his own clan before finally obtaining control of the soul fragment.

Frankly, I doubt how much control this Ottoman guy has over his current body. But since the Anfang Alliance has decided to keep him around, I don't want to raise any doubts.

Anyways… I heard that the possessed Ottoman killed the head of the clan right after the ritual was completed. So his daughter Levine de Montmorency hates Ottoman for it. This effectively divided the clan into two factions. And since there was a demonic ritual involved, none of them could talk openly about it to any outsider.

Ottoman was merely an Ace ranker at the time of the demonic ritual. And he was still able to kill a Master-ranked entity that was Levine's father with intent-based magic under the influence of his wrath.

The point I'm trying to make here is that you should stop seeing House Samael and Sage Eliza from your limited perspective. If someone like Ottoman can pull off such feats just because of his connection with Satan, House Samael and its most venerated scion Sage Eliza could be considered to be capable of a lot more."

Nira Nightshade looked blankly in front of her and pondered something before concluding the matter.

"I think the goddess's unusual interest in Anfang is also shared by the Demon Prince of Wrath. As the eyewitness to the lost history points out, everything seems to be connected to some prophecy.

The only question is… what is it that they both are looking for?"

'Or who…'

Eren thought to himself and smiled wickedly. At this point, he felt that he had gotten everything he could from the Sage.

***

Only now did Eren realize why Levine didn't tell him the whole story about Demonmir. And why she hated the man's guts.

He and Alephee could also guess that both the slumbering goddess and Demon Prince of Wrath were still active on the land of Anfang because of the prophecy about him. Or more like… they had cast their net wide and this was one of the worlds they had zeroed in on.

However, both the slumbering goddess and Satan had different intentions. The slumbering goddess wanted to prevent Eren from inheriting the Elder Ichor bloodline. She wanted to prevent his existence altogether.

Satan, on the other hand, wanted to confront him after he had inherited the Elder Ichor. If Alephee's guess was right, the Prince of Wrath wanted to rob Eren's bloodline's authority so that he could take the Emperor's throne for himself.

So while the goddess was doing everything in her power to prevent Eren from inheriting the bloodline, Satan was busy crafting his own plans. He had the title of the Wicked One, after all.

Alephee also made Eren understand that titles like Beelzebub and Satan were not linked with demons on an individual level. Whoever demon was in charge of one of the Seven Planes of Seven Sins would receive such titles. As such, they were transferable.

Eren smiled mirthlessly in his head after understanding both the divine and demonic sides were his enemies for the most part. They may want him dead for different reasons. But they both wanted him dead nonetheless.

***

Eren was also shocked by House Samael's origins. But it made him realize various things about the clan as well as Eliza.

It also explains how Eliza got possession of the seven-headed serpent statue. It was probably brought into this world from Labh Salem before the isolation array was activated.

Eren guessed that Eliza was a user of intent-based magic. She had to be. And a very skilled user at that. With her clan's profound demonic origins and expertise backing her, she would have mastered the use of intent-based magic very early on in her life.

He could not understand how Eliza could harbor so much wrath inside her mind. The wrath hidden in her bloodline had given her such an undying will to survive and take revenge.

He could understand how she could perform unbelievable feats like killing a quasi-Saint rank titan right after breaking into the Sage rank. Users of intent-based magic were able to perform feats that exceeded their rank's potential after all.

Plus, he could also conclude that Eliza had at least a single Mark of the Seven Sins powering her attacks. After all, her bloodline made her highly compatible with it. He was also aware that she could be compatible with even more Marks if his luck was any worse than he imagined it to be.

Know thy enemy.

The butcher always wanted to learn more about Eliza before he took on the Lazarus project. He could never underestimate her. However, he felt that his cautious nature would end up being useless if he didn't have any information about her.

There is no point in being cautious about potential fuck-ups if one doesn't have the plan to avoid them or get over them. And to plan, one needs the right amount of information.

The butcher immediately thought of honing his Domain of Wrath to perfection in the coming years as the Lazarus project stayed active.

He had learned a bit about the Sin Series Abilities and his bloodline powers.

The Elder Ichor bloodline gave Eren certain authority over the Sin Series Abilities– the likes of which nobody but Demon Princes could exert. In fact, his authority could even supersede the Demon Princes' under the right conditions. That is if he wanted to.

Eren didn't want to antagonize Satan at this point. But he could always make his Ability more potent than before by understanding it better. By using it more often. On various test subjects.

Furthermore, the butcher was more confident about using the Domain of Wrath than any of his other Abilities against Eliza. That's because he felt more in control of his surroundings when he was inside the Wrath domain.

If he played his card right, the butcher would have an edge over Eliza with his Domain of Wrath. He also saw the need to get all the Sin Series Marks from the Seven-headed serpent statue. wto

***

Eren thought of many things in his head after receiving information from Nira Nightshade. He was glad he had pestered her about it to this point. And now it was time he ended his charade with her.

'We got all we need. Do it.'

Alephee received Eren's message. In the next moment, she executed what she was supposed to do.