The Demon’s Bride

The demoness stared at her. She seemed to be having something she had wanted to utter but held back ultimately. "Do you truly have to choose him as your life partner? There are people outside who has lesser sins than him, someone who aren't as cursed as him. You do know what danger he bears to you, don't you?"

Esther frowned at first as the demoness sounded to doubt her choice but looking at her eyes, Esther realized it was a pure question which the demoness had asked, as if to help her from having any regret in the future.

Esther asked, "Are you warning me?"

The demoness nodded her head slowly, "Some times, there are humans who are kind enough, who wish to help people even though it would cost them. But those people would sometimes not understand the weigh of that cost and ended up losing everything. The blamed their own action and those regret to me are very ugly to watch."

Esther smiled, "I won't regret it. I haven't regret my choices and I know I will regret it more if I am not by his side now."

The demoness sighed. She stepped down from the staircase, disappear and suddenly reappear beside Esther startling her. 

"I know where he is," the demoness then said.

Esther saw her pacing somewhere else and tailed her steps, "That quickly?" Wouldn't there usually be a long ritual to find a high demon's location?

"You seem to have forgotten how powerful I am," the demoness jabbed, "Well forget those. From what I can see, he is currently… in a fight."

"Fight?" Esther asked and frowned in concerned, "With whom?"

"Himself, of course, his greed," the demoness replied. "Do you want to know what he is currently doing?"

Esther nodded her head to her question. 

The demoness stared at her as they walked in haste as if trying to make her words sound better to the ears when she uttered, "He is currently tearing his soul apart."

Esther's heart fell to the bottom of her stomach, her eyes widening, "What do you mean?"

When they entered a room, the demoness pulled out a staff that laid next to the door, pulling it, she then knocked the wall for a slit to appear vertically across the wall. When the split opened wider a black mass covered the opening, making Esther to see nothing but an empty mass.

"He is breaking his own curse in the most reckless way possible. The fastest and quite clever but not the safest," the demoness entered the slit before her, making Esther wary. 

She stared at the slit which she doesn't know where it would lead to. There were possible danger oozing from the slit but her determination was stronger than her fear and she stepped into the slit with her eyes shut tightly.

Before Esther opened her eyes, she could hear the demoness spoke, "It's because he loves you, I suppose. Tearing a soul is the fastest way to put an end to a certain curses. It applies not to every curse, however. There are curses that would remain the same and constant even if the demon had torn their soul to separate the curse to the torn side such as—"

"The Diablo," answered Esther. She squinted her eyes when seeing how bright the sunlight greeted her. When she had adjusted her eyes, she looked to see that it wasn't sun that had blinded her sight and instead was a large gemstone that glimmered in a red color.

"Indeed. Such as Diablo or Satan for example. Their curse run down not only to their descendants but also to the deepest part of any demons in hell which is their soul. Tearing it won't work on them but in Beelzebub's case, it is different. He was cursed by greed and his greed can be separated from him."

"How… how could he come with such an idea?" Esther shook her head, thinking of how dangerous it was bring chill to her bone. She couldn't imagine the pain Beelzebub would have to go through by tearing his own soul.

When a demon's soul was harmed, the pain over-exceed even the worse flesh wound, tearing his soul was equal to death and her heart squeezed in pain as she imagine what pain he had to go through.

The demoness sighed, "It was my idea," and when Esther glared at the woman she raised her hand, "I had warned him plentifully that it is dangerous and I expressed the worse regret he could have if he failed this ritual."

The demoness recalled how Beelzebub had came to her, asking for a way to get rid of his curse. She had told him as she had a soft spot to those who needed help. 

'Your beloved would not be happy when she knew of this,' The demoness told him who was preparing for his leave. 'If you failed, you will not only cause a deep scar on her heart but make her alone forever.'

'If I don't do anything now, I will instead lose her and I would rather lose myself compared to losing her,' Beelzebub then smiled cheekily. 'You think I am greedy and selfish?'

'Are you not?' The demoness questioned.

Beelzebub shook his head, 'I am selfish indeed and greedy. I had even thought that leaving a deep scar on her heart for losing me would be good if I were to disappear from this world. But when I recall her tears, I don't think I have the heart to endure watching her cries.'

In the present, Esther now understood the reason why the demoness needed no effort in searching for Beelzebub. It was because she knew the ritual that he had started.

They then arrived inside a cage and although Esther hadn't entered the cave yet, she could feel Beelzebub's presence even as she was away from him.

"Is there nothing I can do other than watching him?" Esther then asked. She felt extremely useless for not being able to help him and to only watch him from afar. 

Esther felt a hand gently wrapping around her. It was cold but wasn't uncomfortable. She looked to see it was the demoness's hand. 

The demoness offered her a gentle look on her face, "Sometimes, doing nothing could help. This is a fight between him and his curse. Give him your deepest trust.. To my eyes, he is one of those people who wouldn't die despite death coming to haunt him."