Chapter 290 Devil of the Nine Hells

How did one choose the perfect target for corruption?

For the devils residing in the Nine-Layered Purgatory—the Baator Nine Hells—this was a discipline rooted in experience and worthy of deep study.

As the most common currency in hell, the fuel for machines and magic arrays, the foundational material for buildings, and even the stepping stones for a devil's promotion, souls held tremendous value within the Nine Hells. They were practically a strategic resource.

But just as the Material Plane's currency was divided into gold, silver, and copper, there were obvious distinctions in value and rarity from one soul to the next.

Take a bottom-tier adventurer who idled away their days in taverns and mingled with goblins, compared to a Legendary existence who had reached the pinnacle and stood at the top of the Class Holder pyramid;

or a filthy vagrant on any street corner who might die in a dark alley at any moment, compared to the supreme emperor of a massive kingdom ruling over hundreds of millions of subjects.

The value of their souls naturally could not be compared.

Even a mere difference in race—Elf, dwarf, or human—offered distinct flavors to the devils, who each harbored their own preferences.

Among them all, the most precious, rare, and highly valued were those souls that were originally pure, kind, and resolute.

When a devout Cleric or a noble Paladin willingly fell from grace, voluntarily signing their name to a contract, the coveted, indescribable rush of pleasure it brought would make even the most experienced devil shiver uncontrollably.

But before any of that could happen, the most fundamental and important step came first.

How to keep the target consciously aware while making them willingly sign their true name on a Purgatory Contract Book, granting "soul ownership rights."

Of course, for Saloyan, this had never been an issue.

He was a Purgatory noble bearing the title of Baron, hailing from Dis, the second layer of the Nine Hells.

His ability to climb to such a position might have been partly due to the noble blood flowing through his veins, but the primary reason—or so he believed—was the string of outstanding achievements he had racked up over countless years.

Enticing an intelligent creature of the Material Plane to fall and willingly surrender their soul was as simple as breathing to him.

Ambition and aspiration, despair and trauma, pride and conceit, greed and apathy...

Naturally gifted at peering into the hearts of mortals, a brief interaction was all he needed to keenly pinpoint the cracks deep within a target's psyche. Supplemented with a few suggestive words and a tiny bit of magical obscuration, he could pry open those faintly visible fissures and transform them into a stairway leading the target straight to hell.

Hiding the true cost behind ambiguous clauses, dangling massive profits in front of their eyes while burying the agonizing price in obscure corners or the distant future, using grammar and punctuation to construct logical traps...

He had mastered these myriad tricks through countless iterations. Even the smartest, most level-headed lawyer would struggle to spot the hidden pitfalls.

For Saloyan himself, choosing a suitable target was actually much harder than any of the steps that followed.

He utterly despised uncontrollable risks.

No matter how delectable a soul might be, if it had already been marked by the demon lords of the Abyss, it was like a rat dropping in a bowl of hot soup, making him frown and steer well clear.

The darlings and chosen ones of the gods were the absolute first taboo to identify and avoid.

Poaching devout believers destined for a divine kingdom was like stealing from a neighbor's warehouse; it easily drew the wrath and retaliation of the respective deities.

Although he had full confidence in the strength of the lord of Purgatory's second layer, the esteemed Iron Archduke Dispater, pointlessly making enemies for his liege was obviously not something a small fry like him should do.

Furthermore, if a target's soul contained even a trace of divinity, it would destabilize the contract, potentially causing a backlash that would hit him instead.

Secondly, souls severely tortured in life, hollowed out and shattered into worthless husks by extreme despair; souls bearing powerful curses; and souls so exceptionally strong they might break his control and turn the tables—these were all targets Saloyan took care to avoid.

In a way, the black-haired youth he had briefly crossed paths with during the day wasn't actually worthy of Saloyan's attention.

His strength was mediocre; he had likely only recently set foot on the path of a Class Holder. Perhaps he was somewhat of a figure among the bottom-tier adventurers of Rivervale Town, but in the eyes of a Purgatory Baron like himself, he was utterly negligible.

He displayed no particularly noble or kindhearted traits, placing him squarely in the most common tier of Material Plane souls—hardly worth the effort to corrupt.

Yet it was this seemingly ordinary soul that had caused Saloyan—a devil whose status allowed him to look down upon the vast majority of high-ranking devils across all of Dis—to fall subconsciously silent upon drawing near.

He... had smelled danger.

If a normal human's soul was a bottle of clear water, then the soul of this man named Xia Nan was like the bizarre byproduct of a clumsy apothecary attempting to invent a new potion.

It looked perfectly ordinary on the surface, but a careful examination would reveal threads of an eerie, creeping aura entwined within it.

A god? An outer fiend? Or perhaps some even higher entity?

Out of caution, Saloyan hadn't even dared to observe it too closely. He had subconsciously pretended not to see anything and instinctively distanced himself.

He had no desire to invite unnecessary trouble.

"Six."

A faint magical ripple that even a Class Holder would fail to notice swept across the gambling table, rendering the dice beneath the cup as clear as day.

Just as he had done countless times over the past three days, Saloyan relayed the dice's number to the naive youth his consciousness was tethered to.

He then watched the youth feign hesitation, pushing half of his chips onto the table. When the results were revealed, the young man pretended to look calm while ecstatically sweeping his doubled chips back into his arms.

A "pitiful" soul—one harboring hope for the future, only to be gradually dragged into depravity by his surroundings.

Judging purely by the value of the soul itself, Rivervale Town was teeming with far more delectable options.

But Saloyan didn't care.

He hadn't projected his consciousness into the Material Plane this time to collect souls anyway.

All he needed was an obedient, inconspicuous vessel to help carry out his plan. Of course, once his goals were perfectly realized, the Purgatory Baron wouldn't mind claiming one extra soul as a bonus.

Saloyan's true purpose in coming to this remote town had nothing to do with any adventurers.

His target was a Goblin Lair located deep within the Misty Forest.

The lord of Dis, the second layer of the Baator Nine Hells, was a renowned arms dealer across the myriad planes.

This Purgatory archduke controlled a vast network of weapon manufactories that operated day and night, supplying countless armaments to the devils fighting in the Blood War.

His severe paranoia had driven him to not only construct a massive, intricate intelligence network but also to forge a suit of metal armor for himself—solid as an iron wall and enchanted with numerous powerful effects.

Saloyan's status was lowly. Only during extremely rare celebrations could he catch a glimpse of that abyssal figure sitting securely upon the crimson throne within the metallic palace at the center of Iron City.

Trying to build a relationship with his boss's boss's boss was undoubtedly a pipe dream.

But he hadn't given up hope. Instead, he did everything in his power to gather information about the devil archduke.

Including, but not limited to, his daily routines, his preferred types of souls, and his unique hobbies...

That was until the intermission of a certain grand ball. While chatting with a noble company commander serving under the archduke's trusted confidant, Bilut, Saloyan stumbled upon a highly credible piece of intelligence.

Archduke Dispater had recently—in a devil's concept of time—developed an interest in the goblin pantheon. The reason seemed to stem from a few small items accidentally discovered by cultists in the Material Plane and offered up to Purgatory as sacrifices.

They appeared to be some sort of cast-metal weapons boasting a remarkably high level of craftsmanship.

Saloyan had no idea how those green-skinned creatures, with their brains overflowing with chaos and primal desires, could possibly manufacture items intriguing enough to catch Lord Dispater's eye.

But without a doubt, he was going to seize this opportunity.

Relying on the intelligence network he had built across the Material Plane over the years, he learned that a massive goblin tribe deep within the Misty Forest had recently been wiped out by a reckless party of Class Holders.

More importantly, there were prior cases of similarly crafted items originating from that very same goblin tribe.

—Supposedly, they were divine rewards bestowed by their gods in exchange for sacrifices made during the local Hunting Day.

In the past, even knowing that his strength as a Purgatory Baron—even as a mere projection—was more than enough to effortlessly slaughter those green-skinned Goblins...

...he still never would have dared to try, out of fear of drawing the attention of the goblin main god, Maglubiyet.

But now that the Goblin tribe had been entirely wiped out, he no longer had any such reservations.

As long as he could steer this young man sitting at the gambling table into carrying the physical anchor of his consciousness into the former Goblin Lair, he was confident that his magical expertise and Perception would unearth something.

When the time came, if he followed the clues and truly uncovered a few interesting trinkets to teleport back and offer to the archduke, His Grace might just be pleased enough to promote him a rank higher, or bestow some treasure he could never have dreamed of touching before.

Originally, Saloyan hadn't been in any rush.

After all, "patience" was one of the few genuine virtues a devil possessed.

But after his daytime encounter with that Greysword, he suddenly felt a surge of inexplicable urgency. A faint premonition that his plans might be derailed crept into his heart.

'Perhaps... I need to speed things up a bit,' the devil baron thought.

On the surface, he showed no obvious reaction, but the faint magical ripple blanketing the gambling table quietly extended outward, searching for a suitable target.

...

...

200 gold!

In just a single night, Abi had won a full two hundred gold coins!

His right hand gently stroked the fabric of his waist pouch, feeling the Anonymous Crystal Card stored inside. The hard texture of the card filled him with an intoxicating sense of joy.

Standing outside the casino doors, Abi took a deep breath.

At this moment, the freezing late-night air felt even fresher and crisper than the early morning breeze.

The reminder from the male voice in his mind let him clearly know the outcome beneath every dice cup and the face of every card on the table.

If he hadn't been afraid that winning too much would draw unnecessary attention, he could have easily added another zero to the 200 gold in his pocket tonight.

The intense thrill, bright lights, and warm atmosphere inside the casino had kept him awake for nearly three days straight.

Even though his physical constitution had improved significantly since he first became an adventurer last year, he could barely hold on any longer. Exhaustion crashed over his consciousness like a tidal wave.

'I'll go back to the inn, book the most expensive, high-end room they have, and get a good night's sleep.'

'When I wake up tomorrow, I'll buy the earliest ticket to Nym City.'

He fantasized about the bustling prosperity of the grand metropolis—a city he had never visited, only hearing of it from the lips of other adventurers.

Walking alone down the late-night streets, the exhausted young man couldn't stop a slightly feverish smile from creeping across his face.

Perhaps his sheer exhaustion had stripped him of the vigilance he should have maintained, or perhaps his drained mental state had dulled his Perception.

Abi completely failed to notice that shortly after he stepped out, several hulking figures pushed open the casino doors and followed close behind him.

They glanced around, spotted his retreating back, and muttered to one another before hurrying after him.

They tailed him...

Finally, at a desolate street corner, they quickened their pace and surrounded him.

A burst of agonizing pain exploded at the back of his head.

Rushing into his nose with his next breath was the thick, filthy stench of half-orcs.

His consciousness blurred. The hands he had instinctively wrapped around his waist pouch were violently wrenched away, and the pouch was torn free.

The natural physical prowess of their race, combined with their sheer advantage in numbers, meant the exhausted Abi didn't have the slightest chance to resist.

He didn't even last five seconds before collapsing to the ground unconscious.

Under normal circumstances, tonight would have undoubtedly been the last night of his life.

But right at that moment, the surface of a hard object hidden beneath the shirt on his chest flashed with magical luster.

The surrounding half-orcs didn't notice a thing. Just as when they had randomly spotted this incredibly lucky youth in the casino, their minds were subtly altered; they didn't thoroughly search him or bother to finish him off. They simply snatched the crystal card and hurried away.

The subtle influence of magic particles had shielded Abi's cognition all along. He had never once stopped to wonder how he could win so much money over three days in a place like Rivervale Town without encountering a single problem or facing any suspicion.

And now, waking up to pounding pain on the cold street, he still didn't harbor the slightest shred of suspicion. He only felt that he had been too careless.

His waist was empty. The gold he had "worked so hard" to win had vanished into thin air.

For a moment, Abi was entirely at a loss, sitting blankly on the ground.

The deep, magnetic male voice quietly echoed within his skull once more, carrying an imperceptibly bewitching tone:

"All your gold was stolen? It doesn't matter. With me here, you'll win it back in no time."

"Besides, don't you still have some starting capital on you...?"

Saloyan's deliberate guidance precisely manipulated Abi's emotions.

The young man suddenly jolted, as if he had just remembered something.

"Right, right!"

"I still have money... I still have money!"

Forcefully tearing open his collar, he reached inside with his right hand.

He pulled a bulging envelope out of his shirt.

This was the money he had originally planned to send back home to support his parents.

Right now, however, it was his capital for a comeback.

He haphazardly poured out the gold coins, casually crumpled the accompanying letter into a ball, and tossed it aside.

Struggling to his feet, his pale face still smeared with dirt, he stumbled forward and rushed toward the nearest casino.

His thin, wretched figure was swallowed by the darkness of the night, much like his sanity unraveling under the bewitching voice.