Seeing Mephisto's forced smile, Lucas prepared to reveal his true intentions.
"Mephisto, do you want to add joy upon joy?"
Joy upon joy?
Mephisto's heart stirred, and he asked, "Sorcerer, have you taken a fancy to any succubus? I will send her to Earth-404 for you right away."
"Uh... meeting an old friend in a foreign land combined with the wedding night certainly counts as joy upon joy, but that's not what I meant."
Lucas's tone suddenly became eerie. "Meeting an old acquaintance in a foreign land, an enemy. That's the joy upon joy I'm talking about, Mephisto."
He's going to attack me!
Mephisto was greatly alarmed, and a thought flashed through his mind.
He quickly shouted, "Sorcerer, wait! We can make a deal! Aside from Hell, I can give you anything you want"
"What a joke. If I kill you, even Hell will be mine." Lucas said with disdain.
After the initial shock, Mephisto calmed down and said earnestly, "No, there's one thing you'll never get if you kill me."
"Oh, tell me about it."
Lucas asked, somewhat curious about what Mephisto planned to offer for his life.
"My allegiance."
Mephisto looked in Lucas's direction and said solemnly.
Mephisto found me?
Confused, Lucas quietly shifted his position, only to find Mephisto still looking in the same direction, as if it had just been a coincidence.
Lucas asked, "Do you think I need your allegiance?"
"Sorcerer, you may not need my allegiance, but you also don't need to kill me. I am no longer a threat to you. Keeping me has ten benefits, killing me has ten drawbacks."
"First, keeping me…"
Mephisto began to babble.
If it didn't concern him, he could simply say: If you didn't need me, you wouldn't have been arguing with me for so long.
But since his life was on the line, he could think that, but not say it.
Humans are creatures of both reason and emotion, and often act irrationally.
Lucas asked, "Mephisto, how strong are you among Dimensional Lords?"
Mephisto said confidently, "If I fully recover and return to my peak, I can rival a powerful Elder God."
"And now?" Lucas's forehead darkened.
Mephisto, having returned to his peak and secured his position as Satan, indeed had the strength to fight a powerful Elder God, but a hero doesn't boast about past glories.
Mephisto's fall from Satan was a fall in status, not due to injury.
Simply put, he couldn't recover.
"I have a place at the top of the Dimensional Lords. Except for a few anomalies, I can at least maintain an undefeated record."
Mephisto remained confident, leaving a few small traps in his words.
For example, where he could maintain an undefeated record.
"What if the battle takes place in another Dimensional Lord's dimension? And both sides are allowed to bring armies." Lucas asked again.
"My Hell has strong armies."
Mephisto, just about to boast, suddenly felt a substantial gaze and couldn't help but tremble.
Fuck!
What 'wandering the Multiverse' nonsense? He definitely came in person.
"Although my Hell suffered heavy losses in previous wars, there are still a few armies that maintain their structure, and their combat power has not been reduced too much."
"Compared to most Dimensions, Hell has a military advantage. Moreover, the rule of most Dimensional Lords is not stable, and their power is difficult to coalesce. Overall, even if the battlefield is in the opponent's dimension, my Hell can achieve ultimate victory."
"Mm."
Lucas nodded, then said abruptly, "I will give you an answer in a few days. Mephisto, eat and drink as usual these days."
"If I reject your allegiance, I will act directly. Don't worry, I'll be very quick. I promise you won't feel a single bit of pain."
"Sorcerer…"
After that, Lucas no longer responded to Mephisto.
Considering everything, he had already decided to accept Mephisto's allegiance in exchange for his life.
The last sentence was just to scare him, to punish him for his little tricks when answering questions.
Was Mephisto's allegiance useful?
The answer was undoubtedly yes.
He could become Lucas's sword, conquering suitable dimensions for him.
With a little management, establishing trade relations, and turning the conquered Dimensions into qualified distribution points.
Continuously earning points for Lucas.
Coming back to his senses, Lucas had already entered the second anomalous Dimension he had discovered.
If this wasn't a small Dimension, but a complete Universe, Lucas would have suspected if he had gone to Spider-Man Noir's world.
This Dimension only had black and white in varying saturations, with no other colors. It was like a black and white film from the early 20th century.
Lucas temporarily named it the Shadow Dimension.
Inside the Shadow Dimension, it was desolate, with no sign of human habitation. Mist filled the air, mixed with the scent of ages.
This Shadow Dimension was a fragment of a certain Universe.
Countless years ago, the Universe shattered, and this fragment was picked up by someone and placed here as a dwelling.
Or, this fragment drifted freely to this place.
After a rough tour, Lucas made his judgment.
He believed the first possibility more.
It wasn't that he didn't believe in coincidences, but he had already seen the Masters of the Shadow Dimension.
Inside a dilapidated, massive hall, five towering gods, a few hundred meters tall, sat in a semicircle on divine thrones.
At this moment, they all bowed their heads and closed their eyes, seemingly in a deep slumber.
Although their faces were unclear, Lucas could easily distinguish their genders by the style of their armor. There were three males and two females in total, seated alternately by gender.
As they slept, their divine power was locked, with almost no leakage.
While fully concealing himself and not actively releasing his perception, Lucas saw through the true nature of these five gods at a glance.
Any one of them possessed power as strong as Knull.
Their power had a great impact on Lucas.
The opponents I carefully sneaked in to observe, is this all?
Looking at the five sleeping Gods before him, Lucas wondered if he had come to the wrong place.
These five weak gods controlling the fate of the Nine Realms in billions of Universes?
Surely there must be some misunderstanding.
Lucas couldn't help but release a trace of his perception to observe carefully.
He hadn't come to the wrong place, this was indeed a crucial node on the World Tree root system.
Divine power surged, silver invading the black and white colors of this world, forcefully rendering it pure white.
Although the changes within the Dimension were akin to a cosmic shift, the entire process was silent.
The five Gods remained oblivious, still sleeping on their divine thrones.
Lucas's body expanded and grew, stopping only when he estimated he was a head taller than the five Gods if they were to stand up.
After matching their size, he unleashed five consecutive slaps, waking up the five Gods.
"Wake up, you have a delivery."
A moment later, the five Gods slowly awoke.
They were stunned to see the sudden change in the Shadow Dimension.
After regaining their senses, they began chattering excitedly, even involving Lucas. They didn't notice that Lucas, who was beside them, was the source of all this.
"You're such a good person, you woke us up to see when you noticed the change here."
"Wow, this place hasn't changed in so many years. When did it become like this? Do you know?"
Two female Gods spoke one after another.
Before Lucas could answer, someone interjected, "The space-time here is chaotic, so we can't use time spells. All five of us have been sleeping, so it's hard to tell when it changed."
"Five people? How come I remember there were six of us sleeping together? Look, there are clearly six people here."
The female God who had called Lucas a good person retorted to her companion.
"Ah, is that so? But I clearly remember there were five."
"I remember six people. If you don't believe me, let's count the chairs." Lucas interjected, offering a solution.
"Alright."
The group glanced around, and indeed, there were six identical chairs.
"It really is six people. So it seems I got confused."
"Sleeping for too long can easily cause memory confusion."
Lucas comforted them, "You're lucky, you only misremembered the number of people sleeping. I'm much worse, I've lost most of my memories."
"Memory lost, how could this be? Is your injury worsening?"
Hearing that Lucas had lost most of his memory, a female God asked with concern.
"Uh... it seems so."
Lucas used the opportunity, following the words of the female God who had given him a 'good person card,' and continued to probe, "Ever since that incident back then, my injury has never recovered, and it's even been continuously worsening."
"How pitiful." The Female God looked at Lucas with complex emotions in her eyes.
Most of it was pity, mixed with a hint of fear.
"Could it be that your injury is too severe, and you absorbed too little energy while you were asleep?"
"How about this? You stay awake for now and don't go back to sleep. When the energy tide arrives, we'll intercept it together and give it to you. You prioritize absorbing the energy and see if it can stop your injury from worsening."
The other four Gods also spoke up to comfort him, automatically filling in the blanks and offering solutions for Lucas.
From beginning to end, they seemed to have no doubt about Lucas's identity.
This made Lucas even more puzzled.
Could such people truly be the masterminds behind Ragnarok?