Chapter 39

The Hall of Sins, a large ancient castle-like building that stood atop of a jagged mountain, standing tall while watching over all of the demon realm, at the very top of the pointed roof was a giant glowing ball, filled with seemingly limitless energy, it glowed a soft gold and the light managed to lit up the entire area around the castle, giving the Hall of Sins more of a holy feeling rather than a sinister and evil place.

While the building only stood upright with no extension to the side, as soon as Theodore stepped past the metal gates, the entire area seemed to have increased tremendously in size, it was most likely four times larger than all of the rooms in Pearl Palace combined.

He stood to admire the interior of the Hall of Sins, past the hallway he was currently standing in was a wide, opened area with a blue translucent sphere floating in the middle, surrounded by golden overlapping rings that seemed to be keeping the ball confined in its space, it hovered around ten meters above the ground, allowing him to just about see the seven doorways that seemed to be heading somewhere, although despite not having any doors blocking the view, he couldn't see passed the darkness at all.

There were little to no decorations inside, just intricate paintings drawn on the ceiling of the circular space, seemingly depicting a picture of all the seven demon kings in the form of their animal counterparts. He couldn't recognize a lot of them since he wasn't well-versed with the symbolism, though he knew who the dragon, the goat, and the snake were.

'Mammon. Asmodeus. Theodore.' He thought to himself. '…My name sounds weird when grouped with them.'

"That door is the arena." The sound of a woman spoke up beside him, it was Asmodeus, she'd guided his friends and his father inside the building since they insisted on coming with him after knowing that spectators were allowed to watch the fight. "That ball is called 'Drocer', I have no clue why but Lucifer gave it that name when he built it, though it'll show you the scenes in the arena once the battle starts."

Theodore looked ahead to where Asmodeus was initially pointing, each gate had a colored door frame corresponding to each demon king, the one that she'd mentioned was right in front of him, outlined in deep crimson with the crest of a lion in the middle.

"…The door just screams Wrath." Theo tilted his head with a hint of curiosity.

"Well, usually these rooms contain the records of the individual demon king, although the space inside can also be changed to 'Test Halls' corresponding to certain information that the Hall of Sins needed to update." Asmodeus explained in her usual cheery tone.

Before Theodore could say anything, the sound of footsteps echoed from behind him, he turned to face the entrance and saw six figures emerging through the large gates. He immediately but carefully walked towards them, stopping in front of the three humans while Asmodeus stood on her guard as well.

Silence enveloped the entire hall, but then one of the six people perked his head from the back, and as soon as his eyes landed on Theodore, he shouted angrily while pointing towards him. "You…!"

Theodore narrowed his eyes at Mammon, who wore the exact same suit just like the first time he'd met him on the battlefield. "What? Did you think that I wouldn't show up?"

"I thought you were supposed to be a snake!" Mammon replied back, still in his angry tone.

Theodore looked at Asmodeus and she just shrugged at him, he turned back towards Mammon and sighed. "I thought you guys can see people's true form or whatever."

Greed seemed slightly taken aback by his comment. "I…I just didn't bother to check! You're just a lucky monster either way!"

"Mammon, you know this guy?" Another demon king spoke among the crowd, he was taller than the rest of his peers, standing at around seven feet tall, his arms and legs ripped with muscles and he seemed to be wearing a black japanese kimono, judging from his white hakama, he was trying to imitate the look of a high-class samurai.

"Don't you remember? I told you about Pride last time." Mammon replied, glancing at his friend with a look tinged with annoyance. "…Did you not listen to a single thing I said?"

The tall demon ran his hand through his long messy blonde hair that was tied up into a ponytail, revealing two small horns poking out from his forehead. "Er…I only remember you saying something about getting your ass handed to you."

"Beelzebub!"

Gluttony laughed as he smacked his own thigh, his red eyes landed on Theodore before he spoke. "Haha! You must be the new Pride, huh? My man Greed got destroyed by a serpent, I must thank you for giving me a great story to listen to."

Theodore didn't expect a man like him to be Beelzebub, but for a first impression, Gluttony had done quite a good job at making his entrance memorable. He relaxed slightly after seeing the demon king's carefree behavior. "No problem?"

Though he could feel his muscles tensed up again when his attention landed on another demon, he'd been standing quietly this entire time while staring at him with a blank expression. The demon had straight white hair that went down to the middle of his back, his black suit gave him the appearance of a businessman though his deep crimson necktie that matched with his eyes caught Theo's gaze.

Most peculiar thing about this demon though was the fact that, just like Theodore, he didn't have horns nor any features that clearly speak of his demon king status. "…So you're the serpent that'd kill Lucifer."

While the man's voice was dull, Theodore could tell that he wasn't being hostile towards him, instead, he and this demon used a similar tone when speaking casually. "Yes, and who might you be?"

The demon slightly crooked his head to the side and his gaze went along with it, as if contemplating whether he should speak or not. Eventually, he would straighten himself and extend a hand. "…I'm Samuel, Demon King of Wrath."

Theodore was surprised, this demon seemed a little too calm to be Wrath, and not to mention his real name too. He didn't ponder about it much and took Wrath's hand for a handshake. "Theodore, Demon King of Pride."

They both gripped each other's hand for a little too long for comfort, but Theodore would notice this and parted with Samuel first. Wrath looked at him with his unreadable, unblinking gaze for a moment before his lips would curl up into a little smile. "You have nice grip for a snake."

"That's because I was human." Theodore didn't bother hiding the truth, eventually, the intrigued demon kings would simply take a glance at his soul and dug it out either way. His eyes would unconsciously turn towards Asmodeus as someone else was walking towards her.

The demon had her lavender blue hair braided into a singular strand, it went all the way down to the floor where her long, scaly tail also rested beside it. Her medium-length horns grew from the side of her head in many directions, giving them the appearance of corals. Her pale blue dress complimented her bright yellow eyes as she looked at Asmodeus mockingly. "Look who it is, it's the Demon King of Lechery."

Lust scoffed as she smiled arrogantly. She spoke in a tone filled with nothing but pure sarcasm. "Greetings, Your Majesty, the King of Envy. How envious are you on a scale of one to ten?"

Envy's brows tied into a knot, her face red from anger. "You…! Do you want to die!?"

Asmodeus laughed. "Oh, Levi…Why are you so angry? Even Wrath is quite calm today."

"Shut up b*tch! You took everything from me!" Envy screamed while pointing at her, anyone could see her practically shaking with frustration. "If you hadn't interrupted me I could have…!"

"Could have what?" Asmodeus smirked, cutting off Envy before speaking in the same joking tone. "I'm trying to keep everything balanced here, Levi. If I had let you do such a thing and succeeded, the demon world would be in chaos!"

"Quiet! It's all your fault!" Suddenly, Envy turned towards Theodore. "And you! Why didn't you pick me!?"

Theodore was obviously confused by what the demon king was talking about. He slightly frowned but then something clicked in this mind. '…Levi…Is she Leviathan?'

He would remember vaguely about his evolution options some time ago and a Leviathan was one of them, he didn't know that it was actually 'Leviathan', the personification of Envy and understood it as just another monster.

Meanwhile, the three humans watching from the back were slightly fearful of the immense demonic aura that was radiating from the group. Merlin swallowed nervously as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "…To think Theo is now one of them."

Lawrence huffed. "He'd grown up so fast…"

Eugene looked at the two of them with a slight frown. "Is it just me or is Theodore in some sort of love triangle right now?"

Theodore ignored whatever weird conversation the humans were having back there and focused on what's in front of him. He turned towards Asmodeus first. "What's she talking about?"

Envy instantly got angry after seeing this. "Are you seriously ignoring my question?!"

Asmodeus didn't respond to Leviathan's angry shouting and turned towards Theodore as soon as he asked her the question. "Ah, Levi had this whole master plan of using you to take down Lucifer so she could rise up the ranks."

Theodore frowned. "But that wouldn't work though."

Leviathan shouted once again, interrupting them. "I'm not going to disappear that easily! I know I can take over your mind easily, it would only be a matter of time before I can become the strongest king!"

Asmodeus sighed with a shake of her head. "She's angrier than Wrath and more arrogant than Pride…"

"Yeah, I can see that." For once, Theodore agreed with Asmodeus. He looked at Envy before speaking. "Look, since we're going to have this strength evaluation thing soon, how about you just forget about it and focus on it instead? If you do well then your rank rises, simple as that."

Leviathan didn't look very pleased with his reply though, she was gritting her teeth as her sharp nails dug into the palm of her fisted hand, it didn't seem to be hard enough to draw blood but it still showed how angry she was. "I will take everything away from you. Both of you!"

With one last furious remark, Leviathan aggressively stormed off towards the arena entrance and disappeared. Theodore just shook his head and turned towards the rest of the demon kings, more specifically, he was looking for someone.

His eyes would avert downwards until it landed on a boy, he was wearing a full-body bear pajamas with a hood covering his untamed hazel hair and the bull-like horns on either side of his head, he seemed to be fidgeting with something in his hands, and after taking a closer look, he realized that it was a phone. It wasn't that difficult to tell he was the Demon King of Sloth.

When he felt that he was being stared at, Belphegor looked up from his phone, revealing that he was wearing a pair of rectangular glasses. He spoke in a soft and tired tone, though tinged with annoyance. "What?"

Theodore was slightly startled. "Ah, nothing…"

Belphegor didn't take his eyes off of him though, instead, he continued to stare at Theo with a judgmental look. "…You don't look like a demon king either."

'Either?' Theodore's mouth slightly fell apart, speechless that Sloth would think that he'd questioned his identity. "I didn't say anything."

"You don't need to say it." Belphegor went back to tapping on his phone and a video game theme music played softly. "I can already tell what you're thinking."

'!?'

Mammon glanced at Belphegor and smirked cynically. His words seemed to be directed towards Theodore but he spoke loud enough for practically everyone to hear. "I've told you that I brought Sloth down to the bottom of the board, right? I think you can see why."

"Hey!" Asmodeus stepped forward, frowning at Mammon. "Don't badmouth Belphi!"

"And what are you going to do?" Greed scoffed as he leaned forward with a scornful smile.

Asmodeus narrowed her eyes. "Oh, you'll see what I'll do, you better pray to the Lord that you aren't paired up against me in the arena, asshole."

"Hey, hey, let's all calm down…" Wrath spoke up in a low tone. Theodore could see why people call him a great strategist, one would need to be as cool as a cucumber to be able to think of something viable during battle. "Besides, you two might need to work together since the evaluation this time is a free-for-all."

Asmodeus turned towards Samuel with a confused frown. "A free-for-all? Like the first time the Hall of Sins was created?"

Wrath nodded, glancing towards Theodore. "Yes, basically it's last person standing wins and you can form temporary alliances as you wish."

Theo's eyes averted to the ground as he thought about the upcoming battle. After hearing what sort of rules were there, he had to start thinking of a strategy all over again. The night before the Winter Solstice, he'd been planning how he could win if something goes wrong, he even had the two deities help him think about what sort of tricks the demon kings could have up their sleeves.

Although it would still be useful, many options and variables had made half of his strategy too luck-reliant to be effective. '…Even if the demon kings aren't on good terms, they might use each other just to thin down the herd…If I go alone, I'll be targeted for sure.'

'BAaang…'

Abruptly, the sound of a bell rang out, the noise spreading out all over the chamber as it magically drew everyone's attention to the arena's entrance. When everyone's eyes had landed on the doorway, the ringing would stop.

Wrath spoke up first, his voice still calm as if what'd happened was what he'd expected. "It's time then, good luck."

Samuel placed his hands inside his pockets as he casually strolled up to the gate, walking through it and disappeared into the darkness. Mammon gave Asmodeus and Theodore a look of contempt and mumbled a curse under his breath before following Samuel into the chamber.

Beelzebub looked at Theodore and chuckled softly. The demon had stopped a few steps before going past the door. "Good luck."

He watched as Gluttony went in as well, now there were only six of them left outside. Theodore shifted his attention towards the three humans while the last remaining demon kings made their way through the door. "Seems like I'll need to get going then."

Lawrence smiled and gave him a few pats on the back. "I'll be cheering you on, kid! Go get them!"

"If you die, I'm going to blast your least favorite music at your funeral." Merlin spoke jokingly as he smirked, giving him two thumbs up just as Theodore began moving his feet.

Eugene raised his eyebrows. "I don't think you need any other blessing, you already have a sh*t ton."

Theodore waved, throwing his hand across his shoulder. "Yeah, yeah. I know."

He stared into the emptiness beyond the crimson door frame, feeling the eerie air brushing against his skin as if trying to beckon him to walk into it. He felt slightly nervous, the sensation of his racing heart pounding against his chest was something he hadn't felt in a long while, it was refreshing, but at the same time, nerve wracking.

After taking a lung-full of breath, Theodore stepped inside.

.

.

.

Merlin let out a sigh that he didn't know he'd been holding in, Theodore had just disappeared into the chamber and now multiple translucent plates were floating down from the 'Drocer', it stopped and hovered in front of everyone's faces before images would appear on the tablets.

Each one showed different scenery, though it seemed that all of them were connected together. The trees stood tall and relatively close to each other, causing very little sunlight to seep through the gaps between the leaves. There was a mountain too, as shown by one of the screens, he could just barely make out the narrow path that led back to the rainforest that he'd seen earlier.

Merlin curiously tapped the panel and was surprised that it slightly moved, after carefully placing the tip of his finger onto the surface, he flicked slightly and, just as expected, the panel moved with his motion.

After the other two had seen what he'd just done, they began moving all the screens around too until they'd managed to group them close enough that all of them could easily see it.

"Do you see anyone yet?" Eugene spoke as he sat on the ground, staring up at the multiple screens as if scanning for something in particular.

"No—Wait!" Merlin pointed towards an upper right panel and everyone's eyes followed, immediately as all of them noticed some movements within the trees, a loud explosion rang from around them like this place was equipped with high-quality speakers in all directions.

A familiar figure came flying from between the thick barks, though he managed to call his staff just in time and embedded the pole into the ground, stopping his momentum. The black hair boy didn't look amused as he stared ahead of him into the forest where he'd emerged from.

[Hahaha!] A feminine voice was heard next, her laugh empathizing with her confidence as she spoke. [What's wrong, Pride? Realized that you aren't as strong as you think you are?]

"Theo…!" Merlin gritted his teeth after noticing that his best friend's body was almost entirely covered in ice blocks and his stomach had a wide, gaping wound that didn't seem to be healing at all.

Despite that though, Theodore smirked. [No, I was just thinking that Asmodeus was stronger than you.]

His snarky remark seemed to have made the woman mad. She shouted though her form still wasn't visible through the screen. [Shut up! It's always Asmodeus this Asmodeus that!]

Suddenly, a burst of frosty wind erupted from where the woman presumably was, it managed to slightly push Theodore off balance but otherwise he was unharmed.

[Today, I, Leviathan, will have all that I've longed for!]