(Beelzebub Arc – Chapter 7 of 7)
The city was quiet, but it wasn't peace.
It was exhaustion.
The kind that comes after chaos.
Lucen walked through the half-burnt streets, hands in his coat pockets. He wore a black scarf to hide the bruises on his jaw, but it couldn't hide the weight in his eyes. Not from those who looked close enough.
Some did.
Most didn't.
People stared from behind broken windows. Some with fear. Some with a strange kind of reverence. Others with silence that judged harder than words ever could.
He was the one who saved them.
He was also the one they feared.
Children were whispering about the glowing circle that appeared behind his back when the cult ritual failed. About how the fire rained from the sky when he screamed. About how his voice cracked the glass of truth inside them, and made people betray one another—just by existing.
They didn't know he stopped it.
They only saw what almost happened.
What could still happen.
He didn't blame them.
---
Lucen knelt in front of the old wooden altar.
The monks had repaired the stone carvings. The incense was fresh, the silence alive with memory.
Eshun stepped forward quietly. He was older now. Slower. But his presence was as sharp as ever.
"You carry more now," Eshun said softly.
Lucen didn't look up. "Three sins… and three virtues."
Eshun nodded. "And one truth."
Lucen finally raised his head. "Which is?"
"That you're still choosing who you are."
There was a long pause.
Lucen's fingers clenched. "I almost gave in, Eshun. I was dancing. With them. With it. I could feel myself disappearing."
"But you didn't," Eshun said.
"I wanted to."
Eshun stepped closer and knelt beside him. "Wanting the fire is not the same as becoming it."
Lucen turned to face him. "I'm not the same boy you raised."
Eshun smiled, sad and soft. "You never were."
---
Beelzebub stirred.
His body was sealed beneath layers of cursed stone and dripping black ichor, but his mind... it was still awake.
And he was smiling.
Not out of defeat.
Out of satisfaction.
"I was devoured…" he murmured to the shadows. "And he ate me without knowing."
A small insect crawled across his eye. He let it.
"He thinks this is over," Beelzebub whispered.
"Let him believe it."
A voice replied, cold and coiled like a blade in winter.
"He's growing too quickly."
Beelzebub chuckled wetly. "Let him grow. He'll need every limb, every thought, every tear."
"And when he reaches the ocean… the envy will drown him."
---
He stood shirtless, staring at the mirror.
Two marks burned across his back and chest. One for Lust, one for Gluttony. Each glowed faintly with a different hue—pink, green—like they were alive.
On the table beside him sat a small notebook. Inside it, a hand-drawn list:
1. Asmodeus – Lust ✅
2. Beelzebub – Gluttony ✅
3. Leviathan – Envy
4. Mammon – Greed
5. Belphegor – Sloth
6. Satan – Wrath
7. Lucifer – Pride
At the bottom of the page, in black ink:
"Defeat all seven. Face the Father. Decide who I am."
Lucen sat down at the edge of the bed and closed his eyes.
The room grew dark.
His breathing slowed.
Until the dream took him.
---
Morpheus stood before him.
The dream god's face was cracked like porcelain, his eyes mirrors showing different versions of Lucen—some heroic, others monstrous.
"You're becoming more than just a myth," Morpheus said.
Lucen didn't reply.
"You're becoming a question," Morpheus whispered.
Lucen's eyes flicked open inside the dream. "Then give me the next answer."
Morpheus pointed.
The mirrors parted.
And Lucen saw water. A vast ocean. Green and endless and thick with teeth. In the center, a tower made of envy, shaped like a serpent's spine.
"Leviathan waits."
Morpheus smiled, and it was not kind.
"Can you face the sin that hates you for every good you've ever done?"
Lucen didn't flinch.
"I'll find out."
---
To be continued in Chapter 27 – "The Ocean That Hates the Shore"