(Beelzebub Arc – Chapter 4 of 7)
The wind inside the arena no longer felt like air.
It was breath.
Hot, moist, gluttonous.
The entire coliseum was alive. The ground twitched under Lucen's feet. Veins pulsed through stone like muscle. The skies above had turned from black to stomach-pink, and in the center of it all, Beelzebub stood—massive, breathing heavily, as if feasting itself had become a ritual of war.
Lucen moved in circles, his boots kicking up bones and rotted petals from a hundred sacrifices. He hadn't attacked again. Not yet. This wasn't a fight to win by force—it was a puzzle hidden in meat and madness.
And Beelzebub knew it too.
"Why won't you come closer, boy?" the devil called, voice booming. "Afraid I'll bite off your spine?"
Lucen didn't answer. His eyes scanned the perimeter—watching the rise and fall of the flesh beneath them. Studying the rhythm. Every few minutes, the entire arena shuddered, like a stomach digesting.
He's not just fighting in his domain…
He is his domain.
Beelzebub and the arena were one.
Lucen whispered to himself, "So if I can't kill the king… starve the kingdom."
He crouched low, placing his palm on the twitching floor, and summoned Kindness—one of the Virtues. Not to heal. But to awaken empathy in the infected ground.
A strange thing happened.
The twitching slowed. The floor beneath him quivered… then stilled. He could feel the hunger spirits below start to hesitate. Doubt. A small ripple in the storm. It was enough to open a crack in the illusion.
The Fed, those bloated corpse-like servants, began to moan—not in hunger, but in confusion.
Beelzebub's massive eyes flared.
"You dare use compassion against Gluttony?"
His stomach split open—literally. A maw lined with bone-blades stretched across his gut, and from inside, he pulled out something dripping.
A mirror of meat and crystal.
Lucen looked up, trying not to gag.
Beelzebub held it out like a relic. "This is the Appetite of All Things. You look into it, and you see the thing you crave most."
He tossed it at Lucen's feet.
Lucen froze.
For a moment, he didn't move. Didn't breathe.
Because when he looked into the mirror… he saw himself.
Not devil. Not monk.
Not even human.
Just a kid. A boy standing alone. Hungry to be understood. To belong.
To not be feared.
He flinched.
That second of distraction was all Beelzebub needed.
The devil lunged—not like a fat beast, but like a snake fired from a cannon. His jaw unhinged and shot forward with supernatural speed, aiming to swallow Lucen whole.
Lucen dodged barely in time. The wind from Beelzebub's snap sliced through concrete like butter. Lucen rolled, breathing hard. That mirror wasn't just illusion. It pulled at truths. Truths Lucen buried deep.
Beelzebub laughed, "Still starving for approval, little brother?"
Lucen clenched his fists.
The word "brother" hit hard. Beelzebub was the second son of Hell. A prince. A gluttonous god. And now, he stood mocking the eighth son—Zaqel Fallmoon—as a disappointment.
Lucen snapped his fingers.
A power surged around him.
He activated Asmodeus's Sin of Lust—but twisted it. Not to seduce or blind, but to amplify desire. Lucen pushed it outward—not to enemies, but into Beelzebub's own hunger.
If Gluttony feeds…
Let him overfeed.
The ripple worked. Beelzebub staggered. His pupils dilated. His body shook violently.
He wanted more.
And more.
The coliseum groaned. The stomach-walls of the domain began to pulse faster, harder. Fed began biting each other. Beelzebub's body tried to devour itself, trying to answer the hunger Lucen had just dialed up to infinity.
Beelzebub roared, clawing at his own chest. "YOU DARE USE SIN AGAINST ME?"
Lucen's voice was calm, cold.
"You made me a demon. I'm just showing you what that means."
Suddenly, the arena exploded in chaos.
Beelzebub's body split into three massive worm-like torsos, all screaming and writhing, devouring whatever they could reach. His true form was unraveling. Each mouth begged for food, begged for death, begged for release.
Lucen summoned Charity, another Virtue—his third active power.
A golden pulse surged from his chest.
Not destruction.
Not seduction.
Mercy.
The Fed screamed as their forms melted into ash, freed from their curse. The arena began to shrink. Not because Lucen destroyed it—but because the souls it was built on had been released.
Only Beelzebub remained—deformed, skeletal, bloated beyond repair.
He fell to his knees.
Lucen walked forward.
Beelzebub gasped, drooling, laughing weakly. "You… you think this is victory? You've only tasted the first course… wait until you meet my brother, Wrath."
Lucen didn't answer.
He touched Beelzebub's forehead.
There was a flash of red.
A seal.
A whisper of ancient power moved into Lucen's soul.
And then Beelzebub was gone.
Not dead.
Just… empty.
—
Lucen stood alone in the aftermath, his chest rising and falling. The mirror of meat lay cracked on the ground, still reflecting him.
Only now…
He was smiling.
But his eyes were still sad.
"Two down."
"Five to go."
And far above the city, in a place no telescope could reach, Lucifer watched. He said nothing.
But he smiled.
—
To be continued in Chapter 24.
Next Up:-CHAPTER 24 — "The Price of the Second Sin"