The Vampire King's Toxic Consort (bxb)

Chapter 63 A New Religion

"All settled?" Freya asked as she saw Adrian exit the guest wing.

"Yeah. I arranged for them to stay in adjacent rooms."Adrian said in a mix of sympathy and mild amusement. "Welp, that was pretty fucked up. Having been with someone your whole life, building a life together, only to realize that person betrayed you and killed you and then lied to you half of your life."

"That's what humans do. They do shitty things just like us, but they don't want to admit it, not even to themselves." Freya remarked with contempt.

"I wonder who the werewolf will choose then. Dad or the traitor."

"It's hard to say. He might have loved Father once, but it was two decades ago, and since he was revived and lost his memory and believed that Florian saved his life, they had been together for so long...I don't know where his loyalty will lie." A dangerous glint flickered in Freya's eerie eyes, and she tsked in annoyance, "I wish Father could have allowed me to at least throw that snake Florian back into the prison cell."

"Dad still has a soft spot for him. They relied on each other to survive when Dad was still a human."

"But that hunter may not feel the same way. We need to keep a close eye on him." Freya's apprehensive mien suddenly brightened up slightly, "Anyway, now I have to go meet with the blood dealers and do some shopping. You go report to father about their accommodation."

"How come you always get the fun job?"

"Because I'm older, dear little brother." Freya pecked at Adrian's cheek, left a smudge of red lipstick mark, and strutted away smugly.

"That's not a valid reason at all!"

**********

Lucius leaned against the railing on the balcony and looked down into the lake of acid. The water was, contradicting popular belief and how they were depicted in movies, crystal clear with a hint of amber. It assumed such a perfectly tranquil facade that a person from the corporeal world would be tempted to jump into it and swim. Of course, this would turn them into a red lump of dissolving flesh.

However, the water was not completely dead. Some hellish creatures' giant shadows occasionally would emerge from the depth, long, sinewy tendrils slowly unfurled, and if someone walked too close to the lake, those tendrils would drag them into the acid and absorb them so fast that no bone would be left behind.

During the past two decades, Lucius spent more and more time in Asmodian's castle and was acclimated to all sorts of gory, gruesome scenes. Apparently, Hell had severe resource and environmental issues. The water and the soil were all barren and poisoned, and few places could grow crops. Moreover, many hell-dwelling "people", who were always referred to as "demons" in the corporeal world, were strictly carnivorous, meaning that it was not even a choice. They couldn't survive on a plant-based diet. And since there was no dominant demonic species, no drastic differentiation between "human and animal" in Hell as in the mortal world, they would have to eat each other.

From that perspective, Hell had reached true equality between species.

Well, not completely equal, since there were archdemons and the Devil.

"Penny for your thoughts." A hand as if carved out from moonstone extended before him, holding an ancient-looking gold coin.

"That's a very expensive penny." Lucius grabbed the gold coin and closed his fingers, and when his palm opened again, the gold coin had changed into a much smaller copper coin, with some gold dust scattered around, "now it's a real penny."

"Glad to see your Alchemy magic has become more proficient. For a while I almost thought you would never be able to learn it." Asmodian commented sarcastically.