"What is this devil to you, Nephew, to warrant such attention?" pressed Praxis, his voice sharp with suspicion.
Sirzechs sighed—again. It had become habitual, each breath a small release of the tension winding tighter in his chest.
"You won't believe this, Uncle," he began slowly, eyes casting downward for a moment, gathering resolve. "But I've recently learned... I have a younger brother."
The silence that followed was instantaneous and absolute.
Both Praxis and Zekram blinked, their eyes widening in shock. Even Serafall, ever unreadable, rose slightly from her seat, mouth parted in surprise.
Praxis found his voice first, shaking away the disbelief. "My sister had a second son?"
Sirzechs nodded solemnly. "Yes. He was born near the end of the Great War—about five hundred years ago. Hidden. Forgotten by nearly everyone."
Praxis scowled. "Why was I not told? Why did she not tell me?"
Sirzechs felt a heavy weight sink into his chest. This was the moment he had dreaded. The lie they had agreed upon to protect Dante. A necessary deception that would sow resentment and misunderstanding. He had warned Venelana of this, and she had accepted it without hesitation.
"Shame," he said finally, his voice low but firm. "Dante never inherited the Power of Destruction. I did. Me, and me alone."
Serafall's expression shifted subtly in understanding, while Zekram grunted thoughtfully. Praxis, however, clenched his fists, fury blossoming in his features.
"My sister birthed a defect?" Praxis spat, his voice rising. "How is that even possible? She was the strongest among us!"
Then his glare turned molten with contempt. "You mean to say you've wasted an entire week training a defect? A lowly abomination who wasn't even gifted our bloodline's power?"
Sirzechs' eyes narrowed dangerously. A coldness crept into his voice that silenced the air.
"Do you know where I found him, Praxis Bael?" he asked, each syllable razor-sharp.
The deliberate use of his full name was not lost on anyone in the room. The weight behind those words made Praxis stiffen.
Sirzechs stood slowly from his throne, every inch of him radiating restrained fury.
"I found Dante imprisoned in the Halphes Territory," he said. "Months in the hands of the Old Satan faction—and he survived. Untouched. Undamaged. He resisted their torture. Broke their rituals. Endured isolation so vile it would have shattered even seasoned warriors."
The room was silent now. Even Praxis dared not interrupt.
"In his first week of freedom," Sirzechs continued, voice rising like a tide, "he mastered complex spellwork without formal instruction. He bested two of my elite guards in combat trials. And during training... he released Infernum Fulgur."
Serafall's eyes widened anew. Praxis blinked rapidly, his mouth twitching, unable to form words.
"That's right," Sirzechs said. "He awakened a legendary Armis. And not just any Armis, but one we thought lost to history."
He let those words hang in the air like a blade suspended above them all.
Praxis finally found his voice, though it had lost much of its fire. "Still, he's not a Bael. Not truly."
Sirzechs leaned forward slightly, eyes boring into his uncle's. "He doesn't need to be. Inherited power does not define worth. The battlefield has no sympathy for bloodlines—only results."
Zekram, who had remained silent, finally spoke. His gravelly voice cut through the air like the sound of stone grinding. "Spoken like someone who remembers what war truly is. Praxis... the boy may lack the power of destruction, but he carries something else. Something perhaps rarer."
"And what's that?" Praxis snapped, though with noticeably less bite.
Zekram met his eyes, unblinking. "Survival. Resilience. And the will to fight not because he was born to, but because he chose to."
Serafall nodded slowly. "He is not a defect, Praxis. He is a weapon forged in fire. The only question now is who he aims it at."
Only recently had the demons passed, and already Sirzechs could feel the fading of their legacy. Once a terror that scorched the skies and shook the foundations of Hell, their rule had been less of a reign and more of a crucible—a fire that burned away weakness and tempered devils into true warriors. But now, standing in the comfort of white-marble towers and among velvet-draped politics, Sirzechs saw the corrosion. He could see it in the prideful smirks of nobles who had never bled. He could see it in Praxis.
Zekram knew it too. Any devil who had lived through the tyranny of the old demons even a millennium ago could feel the dilution in their kind. While devils now sought peace, they still clung to the worst of the old ways—their arrogance, their obsession with bloodline and power. But none of the strength.
Praxis simply shook his head at Sirzechs' sudden question, dismissive.
"I found him in the Halphes territory," Sirzechs began, his voice quiet but sharp as a blade drawn from its sheath. "Surrounded by my captured men and women. All of them executed. Except him."
A pause followed. Silence fell like snow.
"Dante doesn't speak of it much," Sirzechs continued, his voice tightening, "but I know what he saw. For reasons still unknown, he was immune to their assault. They tried everything—even an ultimate-class devil. Nothing worked. So instead... they used my men."
His words sent a ripple of shock through the room. Even Serafall's breath caught. Only Zekram remained still, eyes narrowed in solemn understanding.
"They bled them. Gutted them in front of him. For six months, he watched innocent soldiers die. Just to break him. Just to get him to scream."
Sirzechs rose slowly, undoing the strap on his formal legion jacket. He turned, exposing his torso to the room. Across his chest ran a vicious, healing scar—a brutal gash from his left shoulder to his right hip.
"And this..." he said quietly, "This was their answer when I found them. No one has ever harmed me. Not once. Until that day."
He gently brushed his fingers across the scar, the memory clear in his mind.
"It's humbling," he muttered. "To realize you're not the apex predator. That something—someone—has surpassed the limits that bind the rest of us."
His eyes turned, crimson now, a deep infernal hue that glowed with emotion held in check. He met Praxis' gaze head-on, unflinching.
"My brother did not inherit the power of destruction," he repeated. "Instead, he inherited something older. Something deeper. Something even the Demon Bael would have respected. And if forging him into the blade we need cost me months... I would do it again."
He rebuttoned his jacket and sat back down slowly into the lavish throne, regal yet weary.
"My loyalty is to our survival as a species. I seek no glory. But I will use any weapon I must to ensure we don't fall into extinction."
Praxis finally closed his mouth, the weight of his nephew's words silencing whatever protest he might have had left.
Zekram leaned forward, his curiosity finally piqued—a rare thing in a devil who had seen centuries.
"What power do you speak of, General?" he asked. "Bael was known to wield many."
Sirzechs smirked, a rare glint of mischief beneath the storm in his gaze. He leaned back into the throne just as the great doors opened and Praetor Saladin quietly entered the room, standing respectfully near the wall.
"You'll need to stay and see for yourself, Lord Bael," Sirzechs said at last, his voice like steel wrapped in velvet.
"It's almost time."