The Path of the Master's Development

at night.

All the lighting in the Demon King's City was adjusted to midnight, and only a few rooms were still lit, including the study of His Majesty the Demon King.

Orlando sat at the desk and seemed to be seriously correcting the official documents, when he suddenly heard a soft "click" from the window, and the black-haired demon youth who had only visited during the day appeared at the window.

"Why are there so many guards on your side?" Isaac folded his wings while crawling in through the window.

When he and Orlando were adventuring in the Devil's City when they were young, there were not so many guards.

Orlando activated the enchantment of the study the moment he came in, and disguised the study so that others could not see the truth from the outside.

"I didn't expect you to understand." Lord Demon King crossed his arms and looked at his childhood playmate with a smile.

Isaac rolled his eyes: "I haven't reached the age of dementia yet."

——Orlando was talking nonsense about the West Tower.

In fact, Isaac was the only one who met Xiluta back then.

When he saw the crying bag kid surrounded by a group of demon children, he didn't know that the crying bag was the heir of the Faoz family.

However, at that time, Isaac Christopher was still in the second stage of middle school, a boy who fantasized about being a hero, so he drove away the group of weak chickens who bullied others with three punches and two kicks, and perfectly achieved the achievement of "the hero saves the younger brother" .

Not only that, Isaac who saved the man was talking nonsense about all kinds of fallacies, threw Xiluta's inferiority complex on the ground, smashed it into pieces, and stepped on it several times, while taking his "newly collected "Little brother" eats, drinks and has fun everywhere.

Although at the end of the day Isaac was knocked on the head by Grand Duke Christophe because he ran around casually, he was taken home directly, but he still happily showed off his heroic deeds to Orlando the next day, but he was complained by Orlando in various ways .

A month later, the two discovered that Isaac had rescued the next Patriarch Faoz, so the little demon kings in hell changed from a duo to a trio, until they reached adulthood.

It was precisely because of this first encounter that Xiluta treated Isaac differently since he was a child. The admiration for him was almost etched into his bones. Later, as he grew older, he gradually turned into admiration—it’s a pity that Isaac’s love for Xiluta Feeling that he has always been a "little brother who needs to be taken care of", Orlando pointed out a convenient and quick way for the distressed Xiluta, and he will never be ignored by Isaac again.

This has pitted Isaac for decades.

So...Orlando will never remember it wrong, and he deliberately said something about the night-Isaac still has a tacit understanding.

So the young master of Christopher's family first deliberately flew west, seemingly looking for his mother Isabella, but in fact, after throwing off his eyeliner, he flew back in a circle and observed the sky above the Demon King City until late at night.

"What's going on in the Demon King's City? I don't think you're a Demon King, but a puppet." Isaac sat on the sofa that he had sat on during the day, leaving the Crystal Dragon aside, and still forbade the guy to speak.

"Since you've been there for so long, you should be able to see it more clearly than me, right?" Orlando pushed away the official document in front of him, clasped his hands on the table, and looked no longer as relaxed as he was during the day.

"Don't go around in circles, I don't have time to dawdle with you."

Hearing Isaac's carefree remarks, Orlando suddenly smiled: "What? You really brought a daughter-in-law back, and you can't wait to go back to accompany her?"

"The news is good, you." Isaac waved his hand and said with a look of trepidation, "I'll show you Rein when the matter here is resolved—my good brother will definitely come out when I get married. A congratulatory gift? What's more, you are the mastermind behind the black market gambling. "

"I didn't do that, it was Aunt Isabella." Orlando shrugged and threw a shocking bomb.

"What—" Isaac felt unbelievable, "Wait, isn't my mother banned from gambling?"

——Whoever can't think of betting with a priest with prophecy ability has never tasted the feeling of losing even his pants!

"So I'm actually just a small laborer who helps run errands." Lord Demon King said without any shame that he was an errand runner.

"Hmph." Isaac rolled his eyes - I believe you have ghosts.

"That's the end of the chat." The black-haired young man said suddenly, his purple eyes flashed a cold light, and his aura changed. "Orlando, I want to know what happened to Lucius Claire."

Lord Demon King narrowed his eyes.

Although Isaac seems to be joking and unserious most of the time, he can always hit the nail on the head when needed, and his force value is also enough to defy the sky.

——Obviously not his own, but how powerful is Christopher's blood?

"You don't want to say it?" Isaac looked at Orlando, his gaze was as sharp as a sharp sword.

"...you always make me think about what to say."

When Orlando said this, he even tacitly agreed that the existence of "Lucius" was tricky.

"What are you thinking about? As soon as you start 'thinking about' with your full stomach, you won't be able to tell the truth, so just say it."

Isaac still remembers when Orlando used his penetrating tongue to bully the Faoz family child in West Luta in various troubles in the Demon King City and was finally caught and humiliated, and when the kid was sold out by him and left completely. He also thanked Dade in various ways and vowed to devote himself to the next Demon King until he died-Orlando was simply the best representative of a black-hearted landlord.

Lord Demon King said that he was wronged.

"I never lie."

"Yes, yes, you are just good at misleading people, so tell me quickly."

"Okay, then I'll say whatever comes to mind." The Demon King turned his gaze out of the window, and there was a thunderbolt when he opened his mouth, "I died once before, so Lucius appeared."

Isaac: ...

——Brother, why are you still expressionless when you say such words!

—and what about logic?Where is the logic?

"I've convinced you, let's start over!"

Orlando looked "you are so troublesome", and finally began to tell the cause, process and result of the incident under Isaac's increasingly aggressive stare.

"I first noticed something was wrong after inheriting the position of Demon King." Orlando pointed to the horns on his finger, "Do you know the meaning of the pair of horns?"

Isaac looked puzzled.

Anyone who is a demon knows what this means for the jagged and narrow black horns.

The "horn of the devil king" is equivalent to the kingship of the demon clan. Although the demon kings all come from the Hirphys family, they do not follow the inheritance method of father to son.Rather, the horn of the Demon King chooses the person who sits on the Demon King's throne.At the same time, there will only be at most two Silphis in the world with the horn of the devil, the reigning king and the next king.

The succession ceremony of the devil king is a ceremony where the horns of the previous devil king fall off and the horns of the new devil king are fully mature.

Because Orlando was born with the horn of the devil, so he is the next heir to the throne of hell.

But these are some well-known things.

Orlando will ask this, which means that this pair has other meanings.

"I only knew this secret when I became a demon king."

"The so-called Horn of the Demon King is actually the lock that seals the door at the end of the underground corridor of the Demon King City—do you still remember the door we saw when we two got lost underground in the Demon King City?"

"...Remember." The expression on Isaac's face was a bit complicated.

"Speaking of which, from that time on, you were not very willing to come to the Demon King City to play with me. Every time, Xiluta and I were asked to go to the territory of Grand Duke Christopher to find you."

Isaac: "..."

——Do you want to be so sharp?

Orlando was right, that door was the reason why he became unwilling to step into the Demon King's Castle.

Isaac still remembers that he and Orlando were just two chubby balls back then, relying on the fact that there was an old man on their heads, they ran around the Demon King City, but they accidentally stepped on some trap and lost their way, and stumbled to find A door.

There was a pattern on the door that he couldn't understand, but felt a little familiar.

— Isaac, don't go there!Come back soon!

At that time, Orlando Jr. instinctively sensed the danger because of the diagonal angle above his head, and his face changed in anxiety.

But Isaac walked to the door in a daze, looking at the patterns on the door curiously.

——Hey, Orlando... this pattern... I seem to have seen it somewhere.

— Isaac!Don't touch it!

The young demon put his hand on the gate...and he was swallowed by a black rage.

Curse him curse him curse him curse him!

Why betray me betray me betray me betray me!

Hate this world, hate all humanoid races in this world, everyone, die, die, die!

The violent emotions poured into Isaac's mind like disgusting black mud, engulfing Isaac's will in an instant, and plunged him into darkness.

By the time Isaac woke up again, he had already left the underground corridor, and the three-headed Orlando stood beside him crying with snot and tears all over his face, completely unable to see that he was now an elite dog-like man.

Because of this incident, Isaac's insignificant father and the always gentle Lord Demon King rarely turned black, scolding him and Orlando bloody.

After returning home from Demon King City, he was locked up in the Duke's Mansion by Robert for a year.

Until a few months later, Isaac could still dream of the door from time to time, and the terrible anger behind it.

However, he didn't tell anyone... In addition to being frightened by the power of that anger, Isaac actually felt a little familiar-he felt that he should be very familiar with it.

Isaac withdrew from the memory, coughed dryly, and looked at Orlando.

"Why don't you just tell me the secret of the Demon King?"

The red-haired devil hummed lightly.

"You don't need to have any psychological burden. Although this is a secret that can only be known by the 'devil king', I only tell you because it is a link that must be explained. I don't need a 'good friend' to share my troubles for me at all. , you see that you had a 'so happy' life in the human world, and I was 'so painful' when I corrected official documents in hell, so I didn't even have the slightest idea of ​​wanting you to edit official documents together."

——You obviously have deep resentment!

Listening to His Majesty the Demon King's cadenced explanation, Isaac was quite speechless.

If it was Isaac with blue eyes, he might have succumbed to Orlando's mouth.

But unfortunately, what Orlando is facing is Mr. Isaac Christopher who already has a "family" and doesn't care about others except Laing.

So the black-haired young man said coldly, "What's behind that door?"

"I do not know."

Orlando looked at Isaac's expression and spread his hands out.

"I haven't opened it, how do I know? I haven't got a complete inheritance. Aunt Isabella only said that according to the previous demon kings, this door must never be opened. Opening it will bring disaster to the world—could it be the next door?" Don’t the people who sealed it know that the more they say that, the more people want to open it?”

"You're not that kind of person," Isaac said firmly.

If Orlando is the kind of guy who can be cheap, the horn of the devil will not choose him.

At least the demon kings of all ages who have received a complete inheritance know very well the fate of being cheap, so one or two just guard the horns on their heads, instead of using the pair of horns to open the door.

"I'm not, but I can't stand someone who is." Orlando cast his cold eyes out of the window, "I found out that there were many rats in the Demon King's City before the succession ceremony, and I thought the other party was just coveting the name of the Demon King. Unexpectedly, their target turned out to be the door at the end of the underground corridor."

That was Orlando's misstep.

Originally, he would become the Demon King so quickly because the current Demon King suddenly disappeared.At that time, he could only accept the succession ceremony under the auspices of the high priest of the demon race, Aunt Isabella. However, due to the absence of the previous demon king, the ceremony was incomplete, and he was therefore weak for a while.

It was during that time of weakness that he was seized, taken into a secret room, and performed a strange ceremony.

Isaac's tone was full of disbelief.

"You were arrested and held a ceremony without anyone knowing?"

Are the guards in Demon King City brain-twitched and blind?

"I don't think I have left the Demon King's City. The place where the ceremony is held should be somewhere underground in the Demon King's City. It's just that I haven't found it for so long."

Orlando recalled.

In order to better hide the existence of the underground corridor, the entire underground of the Demon King City was built with a labyrinth of secret passages with many organs. In addition, every few generations there will be demon kings who are keen on secret passage puzzles, and the underground will be expanded.Even now, even His Majesty the Demon King of Orlando can't recognize every passage and secret room underground in his house.

The only exception is that door - the horn of the devil seems to be the detector of that door, no matter how complicated the road is, as long as there is the horn of the devil, he can find the door.

But that's not the point, Orlando continued: "In that ceremony, I remember that I was killed for the horns."

"...You must have had a dream, right?"

Lord Demon King simply and neatly opened his neckline, and pointed to his heart for Isaac to see.

There is a black scar on the heart - a puncture wound.The black color represents a curse, indicating that the weapon that inflicted the wound has very evil black magic attached to it.

Every race has its weaknesses, and even the mighty demons are absolutely impossible to survive when their hearts are pierced.

However, Orlando stood in front of Isaac with the scar piercing through his heart.

"After that, I began to dream some scenes one after another-I became another person in the dream."

"Lucius Claire." Isaac's voice was a little heavy.

He had guessed what Orlando was going to tell next.

At first, His Majesty the Demon King thought it was just an ordinary dream, but as he dreamed more and more "Lucius", Orlando gradually became a little strange. It wasn't until Lucius met Isaac that Orlando understood. It's not a dream, but something that really happened in the human world.

Almost immediately he thought of the original ceremony.

When he was truly sure of the relationship between Lucius and himself, it was when the Book of Omniscience called out Lucius' real name.

As a Demon King, as a Sylphis, he knows that the Book of Omniscience will never call out false names, and the function of a sage's creation is to tell the truth. He may not tell, but he cannot lie.

Then he was waiting for Isaac to come - he knew his friend would come.

Isaac pondered for a while, then raised his head and asked His Majesty the Demon King.

"Is Lucius the original purpose of the ceremony, or was it an accidental product?"

"I don't know." Orlando shook his head, "I have secretly searched all the records of the Silphus family, and there is no clue about this ceremony."

——All the classics of the Hilfes family... The expression on Isaac's face was somewhat subtle.

That means there is no answer to be found on paper.

"So, what do you need me to do for you?" Isaac leaned on the sofa, staring at his old friend with purple eyes, "You left messages and told me so much, you must have your thoughts?"

"I want to meet Lucius," Orlando said.

"I think you want to study Lucius?"

Orlando did not refute. As a Sylphis, the desire to study is an instinct.

"Don't you need me to deal with the rats in the city?" Isaac turned his head lightly, and when he talked about "rats", a cruel smile appeared on the corner of his mouth - very much like Christopher who was slaughtered by iron and blood in hell Grand Duke of France.

Orlando shook his head and showed a fox-like smile: "After one batch is dealt with, there will be another batch. Familiar ones are always easier to deal with than unfamiliar ones."

"When did your personality become so good? The Faoz family's outstretched hands are so long because you secretly encouraged them, right?"

"I suspect that they have something to do with my father's disappearance - don't worry about it for now, I will directly contact my uncle and aunt if I need support in this regard."

Isaac nodded—it is true that his parents are more suitable candidates for handling this matter.

He stood up and stretched, then asked a casual question.

"By the way, the sound transmission ball in Xiluta's hand, is it you who contacted?"

"I haven't contacted Xiluta for a long time." Orlando narrowed his eyes, "It's probably from the Faoz family, and I don't know what made them so confident that they think they can take the place of the Demon King. "

Isaac laughed at Orlando loudly without hesitation: "You, the devil, are too miserable, aren't you?"

His Majesty the Demon King smiled back: "Because my good partner is not by my side."

"Don't come here, I don't want to eat it. It's enough for me to have Rhine."

Orlando Single Dog Sylphis snorted.

Everyone else was blinded once, but for him, Lucius was blinded once, and Orlando was blinded again when he was dreaming at night. It was double damage!

"One day, I will print a photo of your Rein and distribute it to hell, and tell them that this is Mrs. Christopher, who is about to take office, so that the demons can recognize her face."

"Then probably many people will encounter very unfortunate incidents." Isaac brazenly threatened.

"You are still cute with blue eyes. You still don't know if you like others. You need someone to remind you."

"Lucius is also cuter than you, and he is so keen on getting someone else's partner, even though he is still single."

"Do you dare to say that the Demon King is a dog?"

"If you don't want to be said, find a queen as soon as possible." Isaac grabbed the tail of the crystal dragon and was about to fly out of the window again.

"Wait!" Orlando stopped him, "What is this thing in your hand? Why haven't I seen it in a book."

"You don't know?" Isaac asked strangely, he shook the crystal dragon on his hand vigorously, "This is a special product that Rein brought back from the Void Kelp."

"There is no such thing in the classification of sea monsters in the Demon Education Manual." Orlando is always very sure when it comes to knowledge.

"Oh, didn't Lucius tell you?"

"Since I read the Book of Omniscience, I haven't dreamed of Lucius again."

"No wonder you asked me to bring him here. Well, this guy is a crystal dragon, but now he looks like a lizard." Isaac waved to Orlando and flew into the sky.

——Underground Corridor...

When Isaac was flying under the eternal dark blue curtain of hell, he vaguely remembered some things from that time.

In the depths of darkness, when he was about to be submerged to suffocation, someone held his hand, and there was a faint light in the thick darkness. He barely opened his eyes in the chaotic darkness, only seeing He held a soft feather in his hand.

Like a solitary lamp in the dark turbidity, dispelling the darkness and fear in his heart.

Although he didn't see the imaginary feather on his hand after waking up, but Isaac can clearly recall its appearance now.

A feather made of pure light elements.

Generally speaking, limited by the control power, things made of elements only have a rough shape, but the feather is clearly visible, just like the real thing.

It's like... just like when Isaac was transferred to the Valley of the Dead for the first time and was caught by Rein, the wings of light unfolded behind the man.

The black-haired demon flapped his wings and quickly flew towards home.

——He missed Lein.

※※※

Orlando in the study watched Isaac turn into a black dot before sitting back at the desk.

An unremarkable round crystal ball placed among the thick and shallow piles of official documents on his desk suddenly lit up. His Majesty the Demon King reached out to pick it up, looked at the figure reflected inside, and faintly uttered a word.

"He didn't fully trust me."