Chapter 030. The Child Chosen by a Failed Work (2)
A moving mirror was strange enough.
But now it was even talking.
Unable to believe what she was seeing, Sia covered her mouth.
“What... what just happened?”
“What do you think? Something fucking awful.”
They had only been trying to exorcise the demons inside the mirror.
But now, it looked like they would have to deal with the one who had created the mirror itself.
“That thing is Glasya-Labolas.”
The two of them had never expected to see one of the Seventy-Two Demons himself rather than merely hear his name.
Their eyes widened.
And Glasya-Labolas’s next reaction made Mikael feel sick to his stomach.
“Ahhh! Mikael! You called my name! Do you have any idea how desperately I've been searching for you? I believed that if I spread my works far enough, one of them would eventually reach you. But I never expected those crafty Catholic bastards to confiscate every last one!”
Apparently, Glasya-Labolas had a lot bottled up inside him.
The moment he met Mikael again, his words poured out like a waterfall.
“I thought I'd never see you again. Who would've imagined you'd get caught by one of my failed works?”
Mikael ignored him.
Answering would only make this more exhausting.
Unfortunately, Glasya-Labolas was perfectly capable of carrying on the conversation by himself.
“Remember back then, when you kept chasing me everywhere?”
That was a lie.
Mikael had been chasing him because he wanted to kill him.
“You looked at my body and said you'd kill me.”
He had meant that literally.
He really had intended to kill him.
“And so...”
At last, the one-sided conversation reached its real point.
Glasya-Labolas revealed why he had been searching for Mikael.
“Since it's been so long... how about sharing some of your blood with me?”
Mikael instinctively raised his middle finger.
“Fuck off.”
“Whyyy? We had such a good time together back then.”
“Good time, my ass.”
They had only planned to deal with the weak demons inside the mirror, yet now they had ended up facing something much bigger.
Mikael had no aura because of the overload, and they were too unprepared to perform purification.
Even so, the situation wasn't hopeless.
At least it isn't one of the other Great Demons.
This bastard isn't the type to fight personally.
Glasya-Labolas was a demon specialized in art and creation rather than combat.
His works caused chaos wherever they appeared, but from Mikael's perspective, Glasya-Labolas wasn't as tyrannical or destructive as many of the other Seventy-Two Demons.
The problem is that this bastard never comes out of his house.
Just like with this mirror, he always hid inside the reverse world contained within his creations.
That made Glasya-Labolas extremely difficult to suppress whenever he seriously decided to cause trouble.
Wooooong!
The mirror slowly floated toward Mikael.
“What are you thinking about so seriously? Thinking about me? Kahaha.”
The flirtatious tone coming from the mirror made Mikael want to vomit.
“You're still just as disgusting and nauseating as ever.”
No matter how much disgust Mikael showed, Glasya-Labolas only seemed amused.
If anything, he looked even more eager to tease him.
“I still can't forget our memories from back then.”
“Then forget them already!”
Those words dragged Mikael back into a horrible memory.
It had happened during the Renaissance, an era when art and science were rapidly developing.
Even in Florence, the very heart of that era, Glasya-Labolas's works had once spread everywhere.
At the time, Mikael had stepped in to completely eradicate those works.
While smashing every one he could find, he had eventually encountered Glasya-Labolas himself.
“Wasn't it fun? You had quite a hard time acrobatically blocking all those attacks, didn't you?”
Glasya-Labolas had brought along people enchanted by his works and overwhelmed Mikael with sheer numbers.
If they had been demons, Mikael could have wiped them out instantly with White Flame.
But they were humans.
That meant he had to subdue each of them individually without killing them, making them extremely troublesome opponents.
“Don't give me that bullshit! Fuck, I still get chills just thinking about it.”
Back then, Glasya-Labolas hadn't been trying to kill Mikael.
Doing so would've been difficult anyway.
Whether Mikael was cut open or pierced straight through, his body would quickly regenerate.
So Glasya-Labolas had decided to paint instead.
“Chills? I still miss it, though. The taste of your blood.”
He had painted using Mikael's blood.
Even if Mikael's wounds regenerated, the blood he'd already spilled didn't disappear.
The blood flowing from Mikael had naturally soaked into Glasya-Labolas's paintings.
“Your blood was more elegant than any paint and thicker than any ink.”
The paintings completed with that blood gave off tremendous demonic energy simply by existing.
And yet—
“I still have those masterpieces displayed in my room.”
The Demon of Color had never used them for anything else.
He truly was a demon obsessed with art itself.
“If it hadn't been for Naberius-nim's orders, I would've enjoyed myself a little longer... What a shame.”
This half-crazy demon was unusual even among demons because he didn't serve Envy.
He belonged to Envy's faction, but he followed only Naberius, another of the Seventy-Two Demons.
No one knew why.
However, Envy himself tolerated it, so no one questioned the arrangement.
“Still, we've finally met again, so... will you give me some blood?”
“Get lost.”
After hearing the same ridiculous demand again and again, Mikael no longer thought it was even worth answering.
Step. Step.
While Glasya-Labolas had been distracting them with pointless chatter, Heesong seemed to have finished most of her preparations behind him.
Sia, however, still looked troubled.
“A priest getting scared?”
“W-Who said I'm scared?! It's just... if that mirror really is a Great Demon, wouldn't it be better to call for backup?”
Glasya-Labolas might look harmless while casually chatting with Mikael, but he was still a Great Demon.
Sia had indirectly experienced the power of such beings at the Golden Bull Monastery.
Of course she was worried.
If they provoked him and he went berserk, she wasn't confident they could stop him.
“Well, if he'd descended here personally, maybe.”
Right now, Glasya-Labolas could only move around inside his work.
If he actually descended, that would mean coming out of the artwork itself.
That might be too much for ordinary priests to handle.
But so what?
He hadn't descended.
“Don't be too scared. He can't use much power like this.”
Sia looked surprised by Mikael's unusually gentle response.
“...Th-That's unexpected. I thought you'd scold me.”
“Scold you? Why? Being scared of a Great Demon is normal. I had a time like that too. I'm not that coldhearted, you know?”
Mikael, of all people, was capable of saying something warm?
Normally, he would've yelled at her and asked whether she really deserved to call herself a priest.
Sia felt slightly moved.
Only slightly.
Wham!
“How dare you flirt with our cutie! Focus on the Great Demon!”
Heesong suddenly tried to kick Mikael.
But Mikael wasn't going to fall for the same trick twice.
This time, he blocked her foot with his palm and snapped angrily.
“You crazy bitch, what the hell is wrong with you again?! And how was that flirting?!”
“Pfft!”
Even with such a powerful enemy right in front of them, the two were acting exactly the same as always.
Sia barely managed to hold back her laughter.
“Why are you laughing now?”
