The greatest difference between the High School DxD anime Meruem remembered watching and the reality he now inhabited was just how thoroughly demonic energy saturated the Underworld. It was everywhere. The soil, the stone and even the deeper geological layers were steeped in crude, chaotic demonic energy, and that contamination was largely responsible for why so much of the Underworld remained barren and why true oceans were virtually nonexistent.
That same crude energy periodically gathered into what scholars called Gehenna Nodes, dense concentrations that attracted all manner of demonic beasts. His Rings of Power could manipulate the flow of that ambient demonic energy, allowing him to drain it from one region and force it elsewhere. The obvious benefit was agriculture. Reduce the concentration enough and previously barren land became fertile, which was precisely what had interested the Lords of Hell and, initially, Meruem himself. The original Beelzebub had apparently been pursuing much the same problem because feeding armies during a prolonged war was considerably easier when one's homeland could actually grow food. But Meruem was beginning to suspect that he had been thinking too… narrowly.
The crude demonic energy removed from one region still had to go somewhere, and concentrating enough of it within another location would inevitably create a Gehenna Node. That was hardly a disadvantage by itself. The principal danger of Gehenna Nodes had always been their unpredictability. His Rings changed that equation considerably. If Meruem could determine exactly where the displaced energy accumulated, then he could determine exactly where the resulting Gehenna Node formed. Which raised a considerably more interesting question.
What else could a Gehenna Node be used for?
Demonic beasts were known to feed upon the crude energy gathered within them. Unfortunately, numerous experts had reached the same conclusion through rather unfortunate experimentation - prolonged consumption of crude demonic energy drove living beings toward heightened aggression, instability, and eventually the destruction of whatever personality they had beforehand.
Naturally, devils being devils, which was to say power-hungry lunatics with an almost religious aversion to being told something was impossible, had repeatedly attempted to consume it anyway.
There were several recorded incidents throughout history in which devils, driven by desperation, vanity, or the simple conviction that they were cleverer than everyone who had failed before them, attempted to absorb power directly from Gehenna Nodes. The results tended to end in madness, mutation, spontaneous detonation, or some combination of all three. The most famous example remained the tale of the three Zagan brothers, whose exact strength before their attempt varied wildly depending upon which chronicle one trusted, but most placed them somewhere between peak High-Class and Ultimate-Class.
Unsatisfied with that limit, they attempted to consume a Gehenna Node believed to have existed for several millennia. They survived, technically speaking, though what emerged from the process could scarcely be called the same three devils. Their bodies warped, their minds collapsed beneath the pressure of the chaotic energy, and in time they became the beings later remembered as the Three Great Archdemons.
Demons, despite the terminology, were distinct from devils. Most demons were demonic beasts that had accumulated enough power and intelligence to attain true sapience, while others were former devils whose personalities had been eroded until little remained beyond appetite, malice, and instinct supported by a disturbingly high degree of intelligence. An archdemon was the extreme end of that process, a creature of immense power that might still reason, plan, speak, and deceive while having zero empathy or restraint.
Still, the Zagan brothers had proved something important: crude demonic energy could indeed be absorbed, and doing so could dramatically increase a devil's power, with the only minor complications being surviving the process and retaining enough of oneself afterward to remain recognizably the same person, which, admittedly, were rather important details.
But what if there were some method of stripping crude demonic energy of the chaotic properties that made direct absorption so dangerous, refining it into something stable enough for a devil to consume without turning into an insane flesh monster halfway through the process?
Devil demonic power was already, in a sense, proof that refinement was possible. The energy circulating through a devil's body was derived from the same underlying demonic force saturating the Underworld, except it existed in a refined, stable, and deeply personalized state that responded naturally to the user's will. Lucifer had somehow understood that process well enough to build an entire species around it.
Meruem intended to understand it.
With the Rings, he could drain crude demonic energy from vast stretches of barren territory, making the land fertile while concentrating the removed power into controlled reservoirs. Given enough territory, he could manufacture a Gehenna Node dwarfing anything nature had ever produced. Then he would refine it and absorb it. The amount of power involved -given the size of the underworld - could exceed the level of Satan-Class altogether and propel him directly into the realm of the Transcendents. Which, Meruem had to admit, sounded considerably more interesting than growing wheat.
Meruem looked down at the golden ring upon his hand and reluctantly conceded that perhaps the original Meruem had been moving in the right direction with his obsession over locating the inheritance sites of the Original Satans. If Beelzebub's inheritance had contained the knowledge required to create the Rings of Power, then there was no telling what Lucifer might have left behind. He would have to begin searching for the remaining inheritance sites in earnest while conducting his own research alongside it.
"What do you think of the idea, my dear?" Meruem asked.
He stood topless within a vast subterranean cavern, the air so saturated with demonic energy that he could practically taste the nearby Gehenna Nodes with every breath. Beside him stood Azrael, the Angel of Death, her attention fixed upon the turbulent mass of demonic power gathering deeper within the cavern.
"It may be possible, Master," the Angel of Death said quietly. "My brother… Lucifer was capable of wielding both holy and demonic power, but I saw well enough what carrying those opposing forces did to him. His holy power could have been one of the essential components he used to temper the crude demonic energy, refining it into something stable enough to create the devil race."
For thousands of years, devils had devoted entire careers to discovering a way to refine crude demonic energy into something their bodies could safely consume, and Meruem was nowhere near arrogant enough to assume that he would casually solve a problem that had defeated generations of specialists. Still, the first time he had seen Azrael imprisoned before him, an idea had taken root.
"Holy and demonic power are opposites," Meruem said thoughtfully. "Their frequencies are fundamentally incompatible, and when they come into contact, the force present in greater concentration usually overwhelms and purifies the weaker one. If that principle could be controlled carefully enough, then perhaps holy power could be used to strip away the chaotic properties of crude demonic energy without destroying the energy itself. I suspect Lucifer may have used some variation of that principle when he created the refined demonic power we devils use."
"Is that why you brought me here, Master?" Azrael asked. "You intend to test the hypothesis?"
"Yes." Meruem rubbed his chin as he considered the Gehenna Node before them. "I want you to introduce your holy power into the nodes gradually, in very small amounts. Don't purify the node completely. We need to find the point where the chaotic properties begin to break down while the demonic energy itself remains intact. Keep increasing the concentration until we approach an equilibrium and see how the energy responds."
It would likely take some time before they produced anything useful, but Meruem was nothing if not patient when the potential reward was worth the wait.
"I understand." Azrael inclined her head. "But I should warn you, master, that we in Heaven long suspected Lucifer's ability to wield two opposing forces contributed to the deterioration of his mind. I will give the devil his due, he accomplished things few beings could have conceived, but he was also terribly reckless with himself. My brother always believed that if something could be endured, then enduring it was reason enough to continue."
There was quiet regret in her voice. For all Lucifer had done, Azrael seemed to carry little hatred for him anymore, only the exhausted sorrow of someone who had spent millennia mourning a brother she could neither forgive nor stop loving.
"I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case," Meruem agreed. "Some things were simply never meant to coexist, which is precisely why I have no intention of forcing them together inside myself, even with the Sephiroth Graal in my possession."
Azrael fell silent for a moment, her expression turning distant with thought. "Lucifer was blinded by his own brilliance. He became so accustomed to accomplishing the impossible that he stopped asking what the consequences would be once he succeeded." Her gaze returned to Meruem, quieter now. "You are my master, and I would not see thee follow the same path. So I will ask you again. Art thou certain thou wishest to continue with this?"
He could tell she meant every word. Meredith had rewritten Azrael's devotion and love for God so that those feelings now centered upon Meruem, and witnessing the result firsthand was still unsettling enough to send the occasional chill down his spine. There was no hesitation in her concern, only the sincere fear that something might happen to him.
"Maybe Lucifer was half-assing the whole thing," Meruem said thoughtfully. "He tried to keep the grace of the holy while claiming the freedom and power of the demonic, and in the end he tried to stand with one foot in both worlds. If his true ambition was to equal God, or even surpass Him, then he should've committed himself completely. He should have become to the demonic what God was to holy light - the absolute embodiment and master of that force. Perhaps then he might actually have achieved his dream of surpassing his creator."
"Embrace the demonic completely…" Azrael repeated, studying him with open curiosity. "Is that what you are trying to do?"
"The world exists in dichotomies," Meruem explained, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Light and darkness, creation and destruction, order and chaos, holy and demonic. Everything seems to cast its opposite as surely as flame casts a shadow. Why, then, should God alone be exempt? If there exists something worthy of being called divine, then somewhere, by that same symmetry, there ought to exist its antithesis. Something opposite to God. You know of the Gnostics, of course?"
"I believe they were among the heretical sects that arose after the New Testament?" Azrael replied, sounding faintly confused.
"They rejected your Father as the highest God and gave Him another name: Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, creator and sovereign of this material world. Above Him they imagined the Pleroma and the unknowable God from whom true divinity flowed. Your Father's proclamation, 'I am God, and there is no other beside me,' was to them a declaration of blindness. They called Him Saklas, the Blind God, and believed that salvation meant escaping your Father's creation entirely, passing through His heavens, beyond His angels, and returning to a God greater than He." Meruem gave a small shrug. "All rubbish, of course, born largely from their inability to reconcile a harsh world with the idea of a loving God. Still, I have always liked the shape of the idea."
"I don't understand, my lord," Azrael said, looking at him in confusion.
"I shall… become Yaldabaoth, the First Archon, craftsman of heaven and earth, the king enthroned above the firmament." Meruem extended one hand like a prophet delivering revelation. "Mine shall be the stars and the spheres wherein they turn, and mine the law by which flesh is chained unto flesh. I shall advance like a jealous God until there is no other God beside me. Let those who speak of some hidden Father beyond my heaven bring Him forth. Let the Pleroma open its gates and answer me. I shall fashion a world in my own image and place my seal upon all that possesses shape, all that possesses flesh, all that crawls beneath the heavens I have made. And when my work is finished, every soul born beneath those heavens shall open its eyes within my creation, behold the firmament above it, and know that it has awakened beneath the gaze of Yaldabaoth."
The moment Meruem entered his office, his attention settled upon the several letters scattered across the desk, each bearing the seal or insignia of some noble House of Hell or powerful organization seeking his attention. Seated behind that same desk were his two sisters, working in quiet tandem, with Herodias reading through the correspondence while Athaliah drafted replies. Both were so absorbed in their work that neither noticed him enter, though that was hardly surprising when Meruem had a habit of concealing his presence without even thinking about it.
"I see you've made yourselves comfortable in my chair," Meruem said casually, announcing himself.
His sisters shot upright like soldiers who had just heard a gunshot, turning toward him with alarm written plainly across their faces. Given their family history, perhaps sneaking up on them and making remarks about occupying his seat had been a poor choice of humor.
"Brother, you're back," Athaliah said, quickly stepping away from the chair behind the main desk. "Rossweisse said you'd be gone for some time."
"Change of plans," he said casually, crossing the room and reclaiming the chair Athaliah had vacated moments earlier. "I got a little overexcited and wanted to test something immediately. Unfortunately, it looks like it'll take quite a while before the experiment bears any fruit."
"What would that be, if I may ask?" Herodias said, watching him curiously.
"I'd love to explain, but it's supposed to be a secret project." Meruem smiled and gave her a small wink before gesturing toward the mountain of correspondence spread across his desk. "What have the two of you been doing here, anyway? What's all this?"
He picked up one of the letters, recognized the sigil of House Agares upon the seal, saw how many pages were attached to it, and promptly put it back down.
"They're inquiries regarding the Rings of Power," Athaliah explained as she moved to one of the chairs facing his desk. "Aside from the test rings you provided to House Astaroth, you have yet to sell any to the other Houses, and the Lords of Hell are becoming increasingly restless."
"Is that so?" Meruem replied absently. "Let them grow restless. It'll only increase the value of the rings and make them considerably more desperate once I finally decide to sell them." He leaned back in his chair. "Did anything interesting happen while I was away?"
The way his sisters immediately looked at one another told him something had. Athaliah proceeded to tell him about the Hearing of Equals, which amounted, in Meruem's estimation, to a collection of increasingly impotent Pillar Lords attempting to intimidate his elder sister while carefully ensuring that he himself was nowhere near the room.
"Bael must be growing desperate," Meruem said softly once she finished. "Alphard imagines Sirzechs' presence will keep him safe while he fights me in an arena of his own choosing. He wants to turn the neutral Houses against me by presenting Beleth as greedy, unreasonable, and unwilling to act in the wider interests of the Underworld."
Herodias glanced at Athaliah before looking back at him. "You're considerably less angry than I expected."
"Why, sweet sister, did you imagine I would leap from my chair, fly into a murderous rage, and swear some unbreakable oath of vengeance over their audacity?" Meruem chuckled. "It's a minor annoyance and a fairly toothless one in the grand scheme of things. I've had an enjoyable few weeks, so it will take considerably more than Alphard Bael waving legislation in my direction to spoil my mood." His amusement faded into thoughtfulness. "Still, I wonder what he's actually trying to accomplish. I assume most of the Pillar Houses remained neutral?"
"Other than Phenex and Agares supporting us, yes," Athaliah replied. "How did you know?"
"The Lords of Hell despise few things quite so sincerely as watching someone else prosper while they do not." Meruem casually raised one leg and rested his foot upon the desk. "Under ordinary circumstances, Alphard's little attempt to form a coalition in favor of nationalizing the Eye of the Pit might actually have worked. No Pillar Lord with a functioning sense of greed would sit quietly while House Beleth gained enough agricultural and mineral wealth to eclipse half the Underworld."
He raised one finger. "But those would be ordinary circumstances, where opposing Beleth carried fewer benefits than cooperating with us."
"The Rings of Power…" Herodias murmured.
"I dangled the possibility of turning their barren wastelands into fertile territory directly in front of them," Meruem said with a grin. "The Eye of the Pit may give Beleth an enormous advantage, but most of them can suppress their envy for a little while if doing so keeps them eligible to receive a ring of their own. By attending the hearing while refusing to commit themselves, they put pressure on me to begin selling my rings without openly becoming my enemies. The message is fairly obvious. Either I give them a plate of their own, or eventually they may decide to help themselves to mine…Still, Alphard must've known that would happen, which makes the whole performance strange. Why bother with the farce at all?"
Clearly he wants me to start selling the Rings of Power, Meruem thought. But why? That only increases my wealth, my influence, and the number of Houses with a vested interest in keeping me happy. If Alphard has any sense, he should be trying to isolate me, not helping me build a customer base. He frowned. What a drag. Here I was hoping to devote my immediate future to the far more important task of becoming Capital-E Evil, and now I have to deal with feudal market signaling and passive aggression.
"Will you finally start using the Rings to buy yourself allies?" Athaliah asked. "There is only so long you can dangle meat in front of a starving beast before it decides to take your hand along with it."
"It looks like I don't have much choice," Meruem said, brooding as he leaned back in his chair. "They'll keep being a thorn in my side if I don't, and unfortunately I can't simply march into their estates and baptize the lot of them in holy water while Sirzechs is breathing down my neck." He drummed his fingers against the armrest. "Still, I dislike the idea of letting Alphard run circles around me simply because he has political immunity…Decisions, decisions."
Herodias glanced toward Athaliah. Her elder sister gave her a small nod, and Herodias drew in a measured breath before speaking.
"I may have a suggestion regarding that, if you're willing to hear me out."
Meruem looked at her with genuine curiosity. His relationship with his younger sister had always been somewhat distant, and Herodias rarely volunteered her thoughts to him unless directly asked. That alone was enough to earn his attention, so he gestured for her to continue.
She did. Herodias laid out her entire scheme of restoring House Vepar as a claimant against Bael-held territory, and the farther she went, the wider Meruem's grin became. He really had no idea what the original Meruem was smoking when he dismissed his siblings as inferiors. So far, all four of them had proven remarkably capable, especially compared with most devils their age. Yes, even Hermon.
"…Lilitifa is an heir to a fallen House, and she hasn't inherited [Tempest Dominion] herself, so marrying her to you would be beneath your station," Herodias continued matter-of-factly. "But House Beleth has two eligible bachelors. I would suggest Hermon, since he's the younger of the two and less valuable than Belethriel. I'm sure he would be perfectly happy to father the potential heir of a restored ducal House and perform his duty to you, brother."
"How heartless~" Meruem said, genuinely impressed. "Calling our soft-hearted brother the less talented one and then volunteering him as breeding stock without even inviting him into the room."
"It's the truth," Herodias replied defensively. "Being less talented than Belethriel doesn't make Hermon untalented. Belethriel is simply too valuable to waste on the scion of a House that has been dead in everything but name for over half a millennium, especially when the scheme itself could take decades to bear fruit."
And she was right. There was no guarantee that a child born of Lilitifa and Hermon would inherit [Tempest Dominion]. Their children might fail as well, and the trait could remain dormant for several generations before resurfacing, assuming it resurfaced at all. Of course, Meruem would have found that uncertainty considerably more troublesome if Valerie were not on his side.
"We may not need to wait that long," Meruem said with a faint smile.
"What do you mean?" Athaliah asked.
"The Pillar Traits are engraved directly into the souls of the seventy-two founders of the Pillar Houses," Meruem explained, stretching one arm above his head. "That's part of what makes them so powerful and so difficult to imitate. Every descendant of an original Pillar carries the potential to awaken that ancestral trait, though inheritance can be inconsistent. A devil may be born without manifesting it, only for their child to awaken it perfectly. Which means that whatever portion of the soul governs the Pillar Trait must still exist in a dormant state even within descendants who never manifested the ability themselves."
"An interesting piece of trivia," a new voice said from the doorway, "though I fail to see where you are going with it."
Meruem turned and found his mother standing there. "Hello to you too, Mother," he said with a smile.
Queen Morena wore a formal navy-blue gown that left her pale shoulders bare, accompanied, as always, by enough jewelry to finance a minor barony. Meruem sometimes wondered whether she ever grew tired of dressing as though an imperial portraitist might burst through the door at any moment. He had also begun to suspect she had never worn the same outfit twice in his presence. Then again, he could hardly complain. His mother was beautiful and always had an almost aggressive commitment to looking immaculate.
Morena entered without hurry, crossing the chamber with the dignity of a woman who had spent most of her life expecting rooms to make way for her. She circled the desk, reached Meruem's chair, and pulled him into a fierce embrace before he could offer some clever remark.
"I'm glad you returned home safely, my love," she said, kissing his cheek.
"Mother, I'm Ultimate-Class. There really aren't many things left in this world capable of threatening me." Boasted the man who had died five days earlier after being hopelessly outmatched.
"I know perfectly well how strong you are," Morena replied, drawing back enough to look at him. "But I'm still your mother and I can't help but worry wherever you disappear into some unknown corner of the world."
Her eyes then dropped toward his boots, which were still resting insolently upon the desk, and her expression tightened with disapproval. Meruem made no effort to move them. Morena glanced toward Athaliah and Herodias seated on the opposite side, seemed to consider something for the briefest moment, and then apparently decided to surprise everyone by simply settling herself upon his lap.
Meruem blinked. He was reasonably certain mothers were generally expected to choose one of the several perfectly serviceable chairs available when speaking with their adult sons, but with Morena he suspected practicality had very little to do with it. This felt suspiciously like one of her petty little territorial displays, a silent declaration to his half-sisters that however important they might be to Meruem, she was still his mother and therefore occupied a place none of them could challenge.
Morena adjusted herself comfortably before turning her attention back to him, close enough that Meruem could feel the warmth of her breath when she spoke.
"Now then," she said, fixing him with an expectant look, "you were explaining the significance of dormant Pillar Traits."
Meruem cleared his throat and chose to ignore the peculiar arrangement entirely. "What if I told you I have a way to awaken that dormant trait?" he asked with a grin, idly resting a hand against his mother's bare shoulder.
For once, all three women simply stared at him incredulously.
"You can awaken [Tempest Dominion] within Lilitifa?" Herodias recovered first. "H-how?"
Meruem could not quite decide whether the tremor in her voice came from wonder or alarm. "I happen to know someone extraordinarily proficient in soul magic."
"Then you should be the one to marry the Vepar girl," Morena declared at once, daring anyone to contradict her. "Without her Pillar Trait, such a match would have been degrading but that changes everything. If we are to sponsor the revival of a fallen Pillar House, then Lilitifa Vepar must understand her place and be wholly subservient to you in every matter that truly counts. She should consider it an honor that you would take her at all."
Herodias's expression tightened slightly. "The other Pillar Lords may not appreciate such an open display of territorial acquisition. If Hermon or Belethriel married Lilitifa, we could at least dress the arrangement in the language of an ancient pact, or some convenient revival of old obligations. If Meruem marries her himself, no one will entertain the fiction that the restored House Vepar is anything except an extension of House Beleth."
"Then so be it. I would dearly like to see which devil is foolish enough to stand against the Lord of Rings," Morena declared dismissively. "In the Great Game, caution has its place when the outcome is uncertain and the risk is worth weighing; otherwise, you do not hesitate, you do not second-guess yourself, and you certainly do not ask permission. You make your move boldly and let everyone else scramble to deal with the consequences."
Meruem suppressed a laugh at the little struggle unfolding before him. Who would have thought Herodias could be this devious? You keep surprising me, dear little sister.
Herodias's proposal had revealed something interesting, however. His siblings were beginning to maneuver independently, each in their own way, attempting to strengthen their positions within the increasingly enormous shadow he cast over House Beleth. Belethriel cultivated friendships among powerful nobles and maintained close relationships with Houses already sworn to them. Herodias had now devised a scheme that could effectively place an entire restored Pillar House into Hermon's hands and give their younger brother a political foundation no one could easily dismiss.
It was clever and hilarious as far Meruem was concerned.
Unfortunately for them, Morena, who had a talent for seeing conspiracies even where there were none, had noticed the pattern and was already moving to snuff out the flame before it had a chance to become a fire.
"And what do you think, Athaliah?" Meruem asked, turning toward his elder sister, who had watched the argument in silence.
Athaliah considered the matter for a moment before answering. "If your method for awakening a dormant Pillar Trait actually works, then I believe Lady Morena's proposal is more logical," she said. "The Satans will see any restoration of House Vepar under our patronage as an expansion of Beleth influence, regardless of whether Lilitifa marries you, Hermon, or Belethriel. We gain little by pretending otherwise. If you marry her yourself, however, the legal argument becomes cleaner. You would be supporting your wife's hereditary claim to restore her ancestral House, which gives our enemies fewer grounds to portray the entire matter as naked territorial annexation.
"And if we play our cards well, the Satans may even support us. Their overriding interest is the long-term stability and prosperity of devilkind. Restoring an extinct Pillar House, and returning sovereign territory to a legitimate bloodline is something they would support. The fact that House Beleth benefits enormously from the arrangement need never be concealed, so long as others can also be given reasons to call the outcome desirable."
Meruem looked at her for a moment. So his elder sister had decided to remain above the petty family politics altogether.
How disappointingly mature.
He made his way toward the east wing of the absolutely massive Beleth Castle, where the quarters of his peerage were located, although he still found it mildly annoying that their rooms were so far from his own; it hardly mattered in practice, though, since Rossweisse and Kuroka spent most of their time in his room anyway, usually sleeping there as if they had collectively decided his bed was now public property.
He walked at an easy pace toward Valerie's chamber to see whether she had recovered enough to begin his little sister's little scheme, while his thoughts wandered back to the revelation he had made with Azrael. She had been slowly infusing her holy power into the crude demonic energy. To his considerable delight, the stuff had actually begun to change, gradually becoming purer and lighter as it slowly approached the quality of the demonic energy normally used by devils.
The result had, of course, immediately dissolved afterward, but that was hardly surprising considering they had been working with microscopic doses under extremely controlled conditions; it would probably take a year or two before Azrael could reproduce the process on any meaningful scale, and considerably longer before it could be performed on the scale he ultimately intended.
Still, it was proof of concept, and that alone was a huge step in the right direction. Which made Valerie even more important. Even purified, demonic energy was still extremely volatile and chaotic, and attempting to absorb it would still be an excellent way to get oneself killed in any number of unpleasant ways. That, after all, was what Valerie was there for: to bail him out whenever one of his experiments inevitably went sideways, preferably before he managed to explode himself.
He knocked on the door and waited a few seconds before it opened, only to be greeted by Kuroka's worried expression, which made him raise an eyebrow as he stepped inside. The room was decent enough, though noticeably less luxurious than his own rather kingly quarters, and his gaze immediately settled on the king-sized bed where Rossweisse sat beside Valerie's sleeping form, one hand resting against her forehead as though checking for a fever before she turned toward him.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
He sat on the edge of the bed and activated the [Alpha Stigma], allowing his sight to pass through Valerie's body in search of anything obviously abnormal. He found nothing immediately life-threatening, although her demonic energy was moving at a sluggish pace, which generally wasn't a particularly encouraging sign.
"She suddenly started bleeding from the nose while we were training," Rossweisse explained. "We stopped immediately and brought her here to rest."
"Did she say anything before she lost consciousness?" Meruem asked.
He placed two fingers against Valerie's forehead and began feeding a careful stream of his own demonic power into her, encouraging the stagnant energy within her channels to circulate more quickly without overwhelming her system.
"She was speaking," Kuroka said, fidgeting slightly. "But neither of us could understand a word."
Meruem looked toward her. "What do you mean?"
"I mean it didn't sound like any language I've ever heard," Kuroka replied, her ears twitching uneasily. "And whatever it was, the usual devil ability to understand languages didn't work. Neither did mine as a nekomata. It sounded… wrong. Alien, almost." She hesitated before continuing. "And she wasn't mumbling randomly either. It felt like she was having a conversation with someone…There was no one else in the room."
"And she kept shouting a name between intervals," Rossweisse added.
"What name?" Meruem asked calmly.
"Gasper," Rossweisse said, lowering her voice. "Does it ring any bells to you?"
"It does." Meruem gave Valerie one final examination before withdrawing his hand and rising from the bed. "The good news is that I know what's wrong with her."
"Care to share that revelation with us lowly mortals?" Kuroka asked dryly.
"Only after you work on that attitude," Meruem replied with half a smile. "It's a backlash from overusing the Sephiroth Graal. I pushed her too hard over the last several days. The language you heard was probably one of the tongues of the dead, and there is a fair chance she actually was speaking with them. The Graal has been forcing knowledge into her mind faster than she can process it."
"What do we do, then?" Rossweisse asked.
"For now, she rests." Meruem moved closer again and gently brushed a few strands of pale hair away from Valerie's face. "She's been a brave little Bishop, and she's earned some time off. As long as she doesn't use her Sacred Gear again, she should be fine for the time being."
Kuroka's ears lowered slightly. "You said that was the good news. What's the bad news?"
"The more she uses her Sacred Gear, the worse this will probably become," Meruem said simply. "Every activation exposes her to another piece of whatever knowledge governs the principle of life, death, souls, resurrection, and everything unfortunate enough to exist between them. We need a better long-term solution before I let her perform another major resurrection."
His gaze shifted toward Kuroka. "For the moment, though, you'll do."
Kuroka blinked. "Me?"
"Yes, you," Meruem confirmed. "The effects of the Graal are worse on weaker users because mortal souls simply aren't built to withstand being force-fed knowledge concerning the fundamental principles of life and death. Your senjutsu can damage the soul, which also means you understand how to interact with it delicately enough to nurture and reinforce it."
Kuroka was already moving before he finished, preparing to use Bouchujutsu, the nekomata's traditional bedroom art and an effective means of applying senjutsu for healing. Which, naturally, required her to get naked. Meruem sighed inwardly. Every medicine in this world somehow found a way to become erotic.
"I take it that senjutsu is only a temporary solution?" Rossweisse asked, her voice subdued.
"Unfortunately." Meruem sighed. "Senjutsu can stabilize her, but it won't solve the underlying problem. We need something capable of strengthening her mind and soul enough to withstand the Graal." He glanced toward Rossweisse and caught the thoughtful look in her eyes. "I have a few ideas. It seems you do too."
"The Apples of Iðunn," Rossweisse said. "The gods consume them to preserve their youth and vitality, so perhaps they could strengthen Valerie's soul as well. What were you thinking?"
"Well, there is the original Holy Grail itself," Meruem said, dropping backward onto the bed with a weary sigh. "Anyhow, I doubt the Church would surrender one of its greatest holy treasures so that I can heal a devil, and I'm not nearly strong enough to simply steal it yet. That leaves us with the other pantheons."
He stared at the ceiling for a moment before continuing. "The Greeks have the waters of Lethe and Mnemosyne. One brings forgetfulness, the other preserves memory. There might be a way to use them together, Lethe to wash away the excess knowledge forced into Valerie's mind, and Mnemosyne to keep her from losing herself in the process. There's also the nectar of the Greek gods, although I doubt they'd be particularly eager to hand that over either. Beyond the Greeks, there are the Peaches of Immortality in the Chinese pantheon, and Amrita among the Hindu gods, but I'd prefer to approach Olympus first."
"Why?" Rossweisse asked. "The Greek gods are extremely unpredictable and dangerous, full of hubris and contempt for anything they consider beneath them."
"Exactly," Meruem said with a shrug. "That makes them easier to deal with. Give me an enemy drowning in hubris and personal flaws over one who is completely detached from worldly concerns any day. At least the Greeks can be appealed or flattered unlike the Hindu. More importantly, the Greeks have Asclepius. If anyone can tell us how to repair the damage the Graal is doing to Valerie, it would be the divine physician. We may even be able to make a deal with him." Meruem drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. "Which means I'm going to have to ask Serafall to arrange a meeting with Olympus."
AN: We've finally reached the point where Meruem's ambitions have expanded from merely becoming the Devil Emperor into something much more theomorphic in scale.
I already did the whole "character who embodies both the holy and the demonic" thing with Haruki, and repeating that storyline with Meruem would've been pretty boring. So instead, I took the God of the Bible (we don't know much about him, but I imagine him as being of pure Holiness) as inspiration and thought, "Why not invert that concept and turn it into some blasphemous abomination through Meruem?"
Advanced chapters are available on my Patreon. If you want to read ahead, vote on which story gets updated each week, or simply support my writing so I can focus more on it, you can check it out here: /abeltargaryen?