Chapter 1568 - 221 - Seven Deadly Sins’ Meeting (4)
"Are you sure about that?" Satania asked.
Even though I was only speaking to her through one of Beelzebub’s copies, she was still showing at least a little emotion while talking to me. It almost felt like Beelzebub wasn’t just copying Satania’s appearance anymore, but was also imitating some of Lilith’s mannerisms while acting as the messenger between the two of us. That tiny resemblance was strange enough to catch my attention, even if it was only subtle.
"Why are you even asking me?" I replied while looking straight at her. "I think it’s pretty strange for the Sin of Wrath to be showing this much consideration toward me, isn’t it?"
"I wasn’t being considerate in the slightest," she answered without the slightest hint of embarrassment. "I’m simply not someone who goes back on the promises I’ve already made. Even if I am the Sin of Wrath, I still have my pride, and I have no intention of throwing that away."
Well, that was honestly the last thing I had expected to hear from someone like her.
Out of everyone I had met so far, Satania was the person I imagined would completely ignore everyone else’s opinion and bulldoze her way through any obstacle without bothering to explain herself. Hearing her talk about honoring her word caught me completely off guard because it didn’t match the image I had built of her in my head.
She was far more reasonable than I had initially expected.
She was also a little more willing to listen than I had given her credit for.
At the very least, she wasn’t impossible to negotiate with if the circumstances were right.
"Well, as long as it isn’t Elise or Veronica, then I don’t mind," I said after giving the matter another moment of thought.
Honestly, I believed it was for the best that Leona and Estelle were completely out of the question from the very beginning.
If either one of them ended up dying, then Lilith would never be able to return in her complete form.
Even if she somehow managed to awaken using only the remaining fragments, I seriously doubted she would recover the overwhelming power she originally possessed before being split apart.
"Well, that’s all I wanted to ask," she said as if the conversation had already reached its natural conclusion.
I really hadn’t expected her to ask me something like that in the first place.
While I was quietly thinking everything over, another question naturally crossed my mind before I could stop myself.
"You’re not going to consider teaming up with me?" I asked while watching her reaction carefully.
She looked at me without changing her expression.
"And why exactly would I team up with you?" she asked in return.
"Didn’t I tell you before?" I replied. "If you genuinely want to protect this world, then you need to become strong enough to defeat the people who’ll eventually invade it. That’s not something you can simply ignore forever."
"You don’t have to worry about that," she answered while glaring at me with an irritated expression that made her annoyance painfully obvious. "Besides, why would I need to join forces with you anyway? I’ll defeat anyone who dares to invade this world with my own two hands, along with the army I’ve already built."
"Your army of undead?" I asked before letting out a quiet sigh. "Sure, they’re undeniably powerful, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Still, I don’t think they’re strong enough for you to place your entire confidence in them. We aren’t talking about fighting against a single world anymore. We’re talking about facing multiple worlds one after another. Your undead army might be enough to conquer one world, but what happens when you have to fight many of them without getting much of a break in between?"
"I’ll simply make my army larger every time I conquer another world," she replied without showing even the slightest hesitation. "Those worlds all have their own armies, don’t they? Once they die, they’ll become mine instead. I honestly don’t think that’ll become much of a problem. Other worlds are filled with resources, soldiers, and powerful people. I’ll just keep adding all of them to my forces."
Well, I couldn’t exactly deny that her plan had some logic behind it.
The strategy itself wasn’t impossible.
Unfortunately, reality wasn’t nearly as simple as she was making it sound.
"Sure," I said after taking a slow breath. "But while you have the ability to raise the dead and turn them into your soldiers, you’re not relying on mana alone to make that happen... are you?"
Silence immediately filled the space between us.
She didn’t answer my question right away.
That silence alone was already enough for me.
It meant I had guessed correctly.
While I was still organizing my thoughts, a small blob of slime suddenly separated itself from Satania before quickly taking on Beelzebub’s appearance.
Apparently, even one of Beelzebub’s copies could create another copy of itself.
Honestly, that wasn’t even the strangest thing I had witnessed today, so I accepted it much faster than I probably should have. At this point, surprise was starting to feel like a luxury I couldn’t afford anymore.
"What do you mean by that, Leon?" Beelzebub asked while looking at me with genuine curiosity.
I didn’t answer her immediately because someone else spoke first.
"...How do you know that?" Satania asked quietly.
"I figured it out because something about you never made sense," I replied while meeting her gaze. "For a demon, and especially for one of the Seven Deadly Sins, it doesn’t make any sense that you only have about half a decade left to live."
Beelzebub’s eyes widened almost instantly after hearing those words leave my mouth.
Satania, on the other hand, didn’t appear to react at all.
Then again, maybe she actually did react, and Beelzebub simply wasn’t reflecting those emotions through the copy she was controlling because Beelzebub was too shock to hear that.
Either way, the silence that followed was more convincing than any verbal answer she could have given me.
That was enough to confirm my suspicion.
Satania wasn’t fueling her necromancy with mana.
She was sacrificing her own life force every single time she raised the dead.
When I thought about it from that perspective, the whole thing actually made perfect sense.
If someone wanted to return life to those who had already lost it, then something valuable had to be offered in exchange.
Life couldn’t simply appear out of nowhere without a price attached to it.
Something living always had to give up part of itself in return.
And in Satania’s case, that price had always been her own remaining lifespan.