Stepping through the teleportation gate felt rather different from being summoned –simply put, you took a step forward and voila, you"re in a different place. It was similar to Doraem*n"s Dokodem* D**r in that sense.

It was a difference of one step from the Prison of the Dead to Purgatory, and yet it took me from the slight chilliness of the Prison to the scorching temperatures of Purgatory.

Purgatory was essentially comprised of two words, red and black. Red was the lava flowing throughout the area and black were the rocks that solidified from the magma.

Because devils were born with an innate resistance to a certain degree of heat, my first foray in Purgatory wasn"t met by a wave of sweltering heat but rather a more comfortable temperature. Standing in this fiery resort, I felt the mana in my leap in joy. However, now wasn"t the time to bask in the changes in my body. I immediately rushed in front of the betrayer and blocked her off before the molten river, right hand raised: “Return the devil egg.”

She was merely an ordinary two-star head imp and clearly wasn"t a match for me. Had it not been for the fact that she was still holding onto the egg and that I was worried that it would fall into the river, I would"ve s.n.a.t.c.hed it back already or even chucked the Grimoire of the Dead at her from a distance away.

“Mas…ter…”

She was very afraid. Her eyes quivered in terror as she barely managed to look me in the eyes. "If you"re so afraid, why did you betray me in the first place?"

Before I could get it back however, a rush of air erupted from my flanks. I hurriedly tried to dodge but I still ended getting hit anyway and was thrown violently aside.

My body landed on the solid ground of Purgatory with a resounding thud and continued rolling off into the distance till I finally impacted with a stone pillar nearby. The shock of the crash stunned me momentarily as I laid there sprawled out on the floor, unable to lift my head at all.

“It seems like you still haven"t figured out your situation yet, my dear Master.” Came the voice of One-eye. He was completely relaxed at the moment as if he had just unloaded a heavy burden off his shoulders.

Gritting my teeth, I raised my eyes to find his right arm wrapped around the female imp hugging the devil egg and his eyes sneering at me from that towering vantage point of theirs. “I bet you"re really confused right now. Honestly, it"s not that strange at all. Who told you to be so alluring, my dear Mas—hmmm, why am I still calling you Master? Forget it, that"s just a minor detail.”

"D*mnit…I get it now, he"s the mastermind behind all this! He used his position to bribe that female devil in order to have her lure me into this gate…that devil egg is an important legacy of Mo Ci"s that she left to me…he knew I would chase after it without any hesitation…if even One-eye betrayed me…who else has betrayed me? Nine-finger is his subordinate so they"re definitely in cahoots with each other. What about No.3 and Big 4? What are their views on this? Did they know that he was planning to revolt?”

"But I don"t remember seeing One-eye interact with the female devil much, so how did…that"s right, that period of time when I was summoned to the human realm…it must"ve happened then…other than this female imp, who else did he bribe?"

"Well, thinking about all that is pointless now, more importantly, what is he up to? What does he stand to gain from betraying me?"

“Master, I bet you"re wondering why I betrayed you, am I right?” As if he had seen through my thoughts, he coldly chortled twice before turning to the female devil beside him. Then, under the expecting and bashful eyes of that imp, he spat at her with a deafening *ptooey*. The look in her eyes turned into one of shock as One-eye swiftly withdrew the arm he had around her and gave her disdainful smile: “Did you really think that I was interested in you? Don"t you know that your body has a certain stench about it, the stench of a low level imp sickens me. I prefer a high-blooded female devil like the Master…”

“Boss, I can"t hold them for much longer…”

Just as One-eye was about to reach the height of his pretentiousness, that potato, Nine-finger, appeared from the teleportation gate and began yelling for help the moment he made landfall: “Boss, save me quick…”

“You moron.” Snapped One-eye, his moment of triumph completely ruined by now. However, that didn"t mean he was going to give up on Nine-finger either. After ensuring that I was incapacitated for the time being, he turned around to a.s.sist Nine-finger.

Right now, Nine-finger could be said to be a mess. There was a noticeable claw mark running down the right of his face and his left arm was broken. Grinning toothily, he sprinted towards One-eye, not even bothering to fully get to his feet as if he was a dog that had finally reunited with his master after a long absence.

“Can"t you even hold back one person? Exactly how useless can you get?”

“But…I can"t beat Big 4 and No.3 together…” Pouted the berated devil. Seeing me p.r.o.ne on the floor, his next instinct was to try and help me to my feet. “Master, what are you doing on the floor? Quick, let me help you up…”

“Scram.” One-eye swiftly kicked the devil, forcing him back four to five steps before he was finally able to stabilize himself. “I haven"t even had a chance to touch her yet so what makes you think you can? Also, you need to get your facts straight here, we are traitors now, stop with the Master this, Master that, so annoying.”

“Nine-finger, you b*st*rd, stop running!” It was then that Big 4 and No.3 appeared as well. Upon landing, they immediately set about chasing after Nine-finger. Unfortunately, Nine-finger now had One-eye, a four-star Demon Child, standing beside him. Even with the two of them, the power of a four-star wasn"t something they could hope to resist. All it took was a couple of kicks and punches from the traitor to defeat Big 4 and the already severely injured No.3.

“Worthless, you two have always prided yourselves as the strongest protectors of the Master, well look at you two now. Alone, I was easily able to defeat both of you.”

Completely confident in his victory, One-eye prattled on with his s...o...b..ating. At the side, Nine-finger scratched his head in confusion before densely pulling out the rug from under One-eye: “Boss, I thought you said not to use "Master" anymore? Why are you still calling her that then?”

“Shut up!” Snapped an incensed One-eye before giving Nine-finger a resounding smack on his face.

“Boss…”

*crack, crack, crack*

One-eye broke the arms and legs of No.3 and Big 4 before slowly making his way to me. As he sauntered over, he let forth a sonorous laugh. “My dear Master, do you know how long I"ve waited for this day?”

“…” Truth be told, I never expected the devils under me to betray me. Up till now, all my subordinates had shown themselves to be completely loyal to me. For example, the now deceased Mo Ci, Big 1 who enjoyed addressing himself as "This Lordship", the slightly cowardly No.4…No.1, No.2, Big 1, Big 2, so on and so forth. All of them gave their lives for me and that made me believe that my devils would forever be loyal to me, that they would never betray me. Unfortunately, I was wrong, devils weren"t as simple as I had thought.

Devils themselves were known as the representatives of chaos, betrayal, murder and cruelty…any of those descriptors could be aptly placed on a devil. To them, another person"s pain was their pleasure.

Even though I was a devil myself, I actually forgot about that point. All this while, I had lived under the protection of my subordinates. Thanks to that, I viewed myself as extremely fortunate and even began to treat myself as some kind of main character who could go around recruiting little brothers w.i.l.l.y nilly, the kind with their loyalty maxed out at Lv.100.

As reality would have it, I was wrong. There were definitely a large number who were completely loyal to me, but there were also those who harbored ambitions and a traitorous heart. It just so happened that One-eye was the latter, a rather successful one no less.

One-eye threw me a heavy punch that felt even worse to my weaker-than-normal const.i.tution. Adding on the fact that One-eye was a strength-type devil to begin with, that punch left me severely winded and gasping for air.

“Mas…ter…” Body severely burnt and limbs broken, No.3 miserably dragged his battered body towards me but was summarily stopped by a scoff and a stamp on his head by Nine-finger.

“Even though I don"t know why the Boss decided to betray the Master, but since the Boss told me to guard you two, you"d better behave.”

“Good, keep them under watch, once I"m done having fun, I might just reward you with the leftovers.” One-eye bellowed with laughter having said that.

“Boss, what"s the reward going to be? Also, what are you planning to have fun with?”

“Moron, who else can it be other than her?”

One-eye pointed his finger at me…

"Me? You"ve got to be joking, I said so many times already, I"m a guy, not a woman, stop mixing the two up!"

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“Don"t be angry, even though that"s charming in of itself, I still prefer your smiling face.” Having spouted that gooseb.u.mps-inducing line, he continued walking towards me with a certain thirst in his eyes, hands extended forward in a groping motion as he did so. “Did you know, from the moment I first met you, I decided that I would have my way with you, even if it was only just once!”

“…”

The first time we met…the first time we met, my first impression of those two were that of a pair of tsukkomi and boke.

“Perhaps our first meeting left too much of an impression on you, that"s why you always thought of us as fools. Truthfully, all that was just an act.”

“That"s right, that"s right, I"m not stupid!”

“Shut up, you"re the moron here!” Nine-finger immediately his shrunk inwards from being scolded. “After all, no one would suspect a fool to be capable of betrayal.”

"He"s right, no one would think that a fool would be smart enough to do such a thing. Even if said fool wanted to do so, he would mostly likely telegraph his intentions in some obvious manner."

It was precisely because I saw all my devils as morons that I had never once suspected that the day would come where they would stand opposite me. Still, why was it One-eye who betrayed me and not the others? It was at that moment that a thought suddenly occurred to me. Around the time I returned from the human realm, No.3 reminded me that One-eye was busy creating a faction of his own and that he was one of the few subordinates who became a commander soon after pledging his loyalty.

More annoyingly, I forgot one important piece of information, eating souls boosted one"s intelligence!

At birth, if devils weren"t able to receive enough nourishment from souls, their intelligence tended to be lower than usual, in other words, a brain deficiency of sorts. Such a deficiency could not be made up for easily, no matter how much supplements one threw at the problem. As for One-eye, he was already a commander of a hundred devils before meeting me, back then he must have consumed all the souls just like me.

The reason was simple, Nine-finger was a moron…if One-eye had given him some souls to consume, he wouldn"t be so confused as he was right now. For all I knew, he still recognized me as his master, it was simply that One-eye held a higher position than me.

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