"Why didn’t they love us?" Belial’s both voices asked at the same time.A moment of silence stretched through all of them.
"Why can’t you love us, son of Adam?" The demon king asked again.
"I can’t love someone I don’t know." Matthew answered.
"So that’s all it takes? To be known?" Belial smiled at them.
"No. There’s more. But first, yes. You need to know the person." Erin said.
"They knew us." Belial’s face looked down upon one of the open graves on fire. "They knew us their whole lives. They never knew hunger. They never saw scarcity. We gave them everything they needed or wanted." Their voice was regretful.
"That’s not enough." Erin replied. "To love is not simply to give in to someone’s needs. It’s to do the best for them, even when it’s painful... I think." She added, not so sure about her words.
"So we gave them too much?" Belial laughed. "We guess that might be it. They never saw us as a god, did they? We were just a giver. Just a dispense of miracles."
"What do you want from me?" Matthew interrupted the demon king’s introspection. "I don’t understand."
Belial looked up, finally, and smiled at Matthew.
"We want you to show us where we went wrong. We want you to worship us. To love us." They said with a gentle tone.
Matthew kept silent, not knowing what to say about that.
"Aren’t you grateful? We fixed your soul. We gave you that sword." They asked.
"I will admit it was of great help." Matthew said, looking at the dark blade on his hand. "And I thank you for those things. But what you ask of me... I don’t know if I can."
"We have time." Belial smiled. "You will love us by the end."
"The end?" Matthew asked.
The demon king just smiled.
"What do you mean, the end?" Tina asked.
"It’s a secret, daughter of Adam." The demon king teased her.
Matthew then took a step forward and offered the sword back to Belial.
"I don’t need it anymore. Thank you, but you can have it back." He said respectfully.
Belial looked weirdly at Matthew.
"Why? This sword is much more powerful than anything you could ever find on Earth. Why relinquish it?" They asked genuinely confused.
"I don’t need your power. If you want me to have it just so I can love you, I don’t need it." Matthew defied him.
Belial sighed.
"You still defy us." The demon king sounded impatient now. "But the daughter of Adam is right. We can’t gain the love of mortals by just giving. We understand our mistakes."
Suddenly, they all had a terrible feeling. None of them could tell exactly what, but they felt something bad was going to happen.
"We see now. That’s why Yahweh disciplines his creation." Belial laughed, getting up from his throne. "You will learn to love us, Matthew."
Matthew lifted his blades in defense from a movement Belial was yet to make.
Daisy was the first to act and shot a lighting bolt at the demon king. The attack bounced off the demon harmlessly.
Ffyr was next, she threw her fireballs in a desperate scream.
Belial just walked through the attack as if it was nothing.
The others were still. Paralysed by fear.
Matthew slashed at the demon king when they got near him, but his attack did nothing.
The male side of Belial held Matthew up by the arms like a baby and the female side pulled off his armor, tearing the dragon scales like they were paper.
"No! Let him go!" Ffyr shouted.
Belial just ignored the fairy and placed their female hands on Matthew’s chest. He screamed loudly as his flesh burned under the palms of the demon king. When he was let go, a symbol was burnt on his chest.
A dark image of two wings hugging a fractured black orb.
Matthew knelt on the floor, breathing deeply. The pain took everything from him. He felt like he had his life beaten out of him.
"A bit of discipline." Belial looked at Matthew with sad faces. "You forced us, Matthew."
"What did you do?!" Ffyr shouted, hurrying to Matthew and hugging him before his strength left his body and he collapsed to the floor.
"Just a reminder that he owes us his love." Belial’s voice was sad.
"You can’t force a person to love you!" Helen protested charging with her shield, breaking away from the fear she was feeling.
Belial flicked one of their hands hitting the woman on her face before she could hit them.
Helen flew away at high speed, landing on a boulder and cracking it.
She didn’t move after that.
"Helen!" Tina ran to help her friend, feeding her a potion.
Ffyr stared daggers at the demon king, hugging Matthew near her protecting him from Belial.
Matthew moaned on the floor. No one else moved, no one else said anything.
"Remember Matthew. You will love us. Before everything is done, you will love us." Belial said and turned their back on them going back to their throne. "Oh, yes. You came for this." They added after sitting, conjuring a stone from thin air. "Your soulstone." They flicked it towards Richard.
The man reluctantly grabbed the stone from the floor.
"We’ll see you soon, Matthew." Belial smiled as everything around them went back to darkness and they vanished from their sight.
Then a blue bright stat screen appeared for all of them.
"Congratulations! Dungeon Clear!
Calculating your rewards."
Erin was now healing Helen who bled profusely from her head. Her helmet was torn open from the impact with the boulder.
"How is she?" Daisy asked, approaching her and Tina who was helping.
"Alive. At least." Erin’s voice wavered, almost bursting into tears.
"Here." Ferdinand said, giving Ffyr the part of Matthew’s armor that was discarded on the floor by the demon king. In his voice it was clear that he pitied Matthew’s fate.
"Is it safe for us to take this?" Richard asked out loud, but no one answered.
"I’ve never been more scared." Daisy started to cry. "Is that what it feels to face a god?"
"It is." Ffyr said with a stern tone. There was no sign of her usual playful self there.
Then a portal opened in front of them. A way out from that nightmare.
Helen regained consciousness on the way to the hospital. Erin and Tina were with her.
Richard and the others went to a hotel in Mexico City’s city center. Ffyr didn’t allow anyone else to touch Matthew. She carried him to their room. She bathed him and put him to bed.
The whole time, Matthew’s consciousness wavered. It came and went like he was drunk.
"You’re sure you don’t want to take him to a hospital?" Daisy asked.
"His injuries are not of the body." Ffyr explained. "He needs time to recover. They branded his soul." The fairy roared in anger.
Two days later Richard, Ferdinand and Daisy went back to England, to the Tower, carrying the auricite.
Helen was completely healed with no major sequela from her injuries. A blessing from her high vitality build.
The three women got a room in the same hotel Matthew and Ffyr were in and stayed with them for another couple of days.
"I don’t understand." Tina said, while they were in Matthew’s room.
Ffyr helped Matthew eat, since he was still too weak to do it on his own.
"What?" Erin asked. "I doubt we can understand the whims of a god." She scoffed in anger.
"Not that." Tina said. "I’ve been thinking. How did Belial come to Earth?" She asked.
"What do you mean? They’re a god. Can’t they just... Come?" Helen questioned.
"No. There are seals and boundaries between the realms. Greater demons can’t just go through the gates like we do. Even gods are not free to move through the realms." Matthew slurred. "Mommy herself couldn’t come on her own needing us to open a portal for her." He explained, referring to how Titania needed him and Ffyr to open a portal inside a dungeon for her to pass through."
Hearing him say mommy in such a somber atmosphere, made them all chuckle and hold their laughter. But then Ffyr was the first to burst out laughing.
"I had forgotten about that!" The fairy said, trying to control her laugh.
Shortly after the other girls joined in laughing. Not because it was funny. But because it was so silly. They just witness terrible things. The ire of a god. The fall of a whole branch of reality.
Titania’s prank now sounded so innocent and pure. They couldn’t help themselves. They laughed as if shooing all the bad feelings away.
"I think I’ll be ok to travel in a day or two." Matthew said, while the laughter died out.
"Then let me book our flight." Erin said, taking her phone.
"Back to England?" Helen asked.
"No. Let me deal with the Tower. I think it’s better for all of us to just go home." Tina reasoned.
"Home." Matthew agreed.