Chapter 6

Written By Illuminet

Disclaimer: Refer to the first chapter to see it...

"..."-Indicate Speech

'...'-Indicate Thought

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Netherworld, Overlord's Castle, Throne Room

"I guess that's everyone then."

Etna stated as the last Angel was brought from Celestia to the Netherworld.

"Thank you, Overlord Etna. I'll spare as many soldiers as I can to help your army fight off Baal, but this will definitely not be an easy battle. No matter how serious he sounded, Baal was still toying with us. If he decided not to hold back, I'm not sure what we can do."

Michaelangelo told her. His broken wing had been bandaged and mended, but would take a bit of time to heal.

"Good. Now all we need is the Earth's help. I hope Baal won't go after it next, or we may be in trouble."

Etna said.

"I bet he'll head over to Celestia one more time to claim it as his own. It will be easy to since all the Angels have fled to here. That alone will buy us some time, but it won't be much."

Priere stated as she came into the conversation.

"Yeah, I know, but it is something. We're going to have to spend whatever time we have preparing for Baal...hmmm..."

Etna put a hand to her chin in thought.

"What's wrong?"

Priere asked. Etna shook her head.

"No, nothing's wrong. I was just thinking of how my predecessor would have handled all this. Knowing him, he'd probably want to fight on the enemy's turf, not his own."

Etna told her.

"The one you succeeded...wasn't his name Laharl? The son of the late Overlord Krichevskoy?"

Michaelangelo asked. Etna nodded.

"Yeah, the one I used to call Master. As you probably know, I was originally his Vassal. Usually the royal title of Overlord is passed from parent to child, never from Overlord to Vassal."

Etna explained.

"In the Alternate Netherworld, the strongest is made into the Overlord."

Priere said.

"The title of Seraph is usually passed on by the Seraph to the one he or she finds worthy, be it a relative, a friend, or someone they don't even know."

Michaelangelo stated.

"Were getting off the topic. Sorry to bring up my predecessor. I should be thinking of what I should be doing here and now, since I'm the one who's Overlord."

Etna said firmly. Priere nodded.

"That's true. Can't dwell on the past when it's the present that needs taking care of."

She said. Michaelangelo looked deep in thought.

"Never the less, having someone as powerful as the ex-Overlord Laharl could be put to our advantage if we could find him, don't you think? He did have the power to kill our former Seraph Lamington. Even though he was still a child at that time, or so I heard, he still managed to defeat one of our most powerful Seraphs in Celestian history."

Michaelangelo told them after his brief thoughts.

"Laharl may have won over the Seraph, but the Seraph was still much stronger than him."

Etna told him. This time even Priere eyed Etna oddly along with Michaelangelo.

"How could he have beaten Seraph Lamington if he was the weaker one...? Did the Seraph hold back?"

Michaelangelo pondered, more to himself than to the other two. Etna shook her head.

"No. At first he went easy, but after a while he began going all out and almost wiped out our entire army. Something happened to Laharl though...something I can't really explain all that well... he just went berserk when the Seraph had beaten him to an inch of his life. I could feel a great shift in his powers that hadn't been there before."

Etna said, with a bit of a forced effort. This bit of information left a lot for Michealangelo and Priere to think about.

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Celestia, Seraphic Sanctuary, Sacred Alter

"So they left. It would be too easy to take over this world, so much so that I feel I should not even bother taking over. Well, it doesn't matter, I might as well take over Celestia since it's such as easy picking."

Baal said to himself. He decided to search around. Being a curious Demon, Baal headed for the library, the only place he decided not to visit only to destroy it. When Baal did get to the library, he began going through iles of bookshelves. He would pick up random books to read through briefly, then put them back neatly as they had been when he found them. It was very uncharacteristic of the Lord of Terror, but he was a believer that knowledge was power, and treated books with utmost respect.

'Many of these books are written in the Celestian tongue. It's a good thing I studied the Celestians cultures or none of this would make sense to me.'

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The Infinite Darkness, Wastelands

'It's so dark here...'

Laharl looked around, yet even with his heighten senses, he could not pick out anything out of the ordinary. This bothered Laharl greatly. Laharl's eyes widened in surprise as he just realized something.

'Where is she? Flonne?!'

Laharl looked about frantically, yet no matter how hard he tried, his eyes would not adjust to the level of darkness around him.

'Why is this darkness impenetrable? As a Demon, I should have no problem seeing anything in the dark yet I can't see a damn thing!'

Laharl couldn't even feel the ground with his hands, and when he looked up he could not see the night sky that was always present. Suddenly Laharl could see his figure slightly as a dark red light seemed to emanate from the ground faintly. Laharl growled as he looked about, trying to find the white flower. Laharl could not find the flower however, but found something else instead. Or somebody. Laharl could make the silhouette of a giant figure in his line of vision. As it came forward, Laharl could make out that it was in fact a large stone statue, or so he thought. Laharl jumped back in slight surprise as the eyes opened with crimson light.

"Who are you?"

Laharl asked. He had never seen this Demon before, but there was something very familiar about him.

"Answer me."

Laharl declared in a low tone. The Demon's stone face remained stoic, but it held out it's right hand slowly, which was clenched loosely into a fist. Laharl looked at the Demon's fist carefully as it opened, only to reveal what Laharl was looking for all along.

"You found that flower. It belongs to me."

Laharl said as he walked closer to the Demon. The Demon's head lowered to look at Laharl more clearly, and Laharl took a step back at seeing the Demon's eyes narrow, and his face contort into an animalistic grin. It's fist began to close slowly over the flower.

"What are you doing? Stop it!"

Laharl tried to run to the Demon, but his body refused to cooperate. Laharl's eyes filled with fear as the Demon's fist crushed the white flower with a sickening sound.

"NOOOO!!!!"

Laharl breathed heavily as he stared at his outstretched hand. He could see in the dark. Everything seemed normal. He felt the familiar velvety softness of the flower petals in his other hand and it reassured Laharl that he was just having a dream.

'More like a nightmare...that Demon...I've seen him somewhere before...'

Laharl wiped the sweat that gathered on his forehead with the back of his hand. His heavy breathing subsided to normal after a little while. No longer feeling the need for sleep, Laharl got up to wander about the wastelands as he usually did.

'Wait...I wonder...could that have been what the Lord of Terror looks like? Could that have been Baal...?'

Laharl kept walking, his mind in confusion. First and foremost, Laharl had never physically seen the Lord of Terror. Whoever the Demon was in his dream, it could have been Baal, and yet it may not have been. Laharl thought back to some things he had heard about the Lord of Terror. He knew that the Lord of Terror was said to be the largest and the strongest Demon of all the Netherworld, even more powerful than the Overlord.

'If I remember correctly...'

:::Flashback:::

"The Lord of Terror...little is known about this Demon save for this: Long ago when the Netherworld was whole, an unknown Demon challenged the Overlord of the time. He claimed he was the Lord of Terror and that he be made the rightful ruler over the Netherworld. This claim was scoffed at of course, but soon the Demon calling himself the Lord of Terror showed his fearsome powers that nearly annihilated the Overlord. With the last of his strength, the Overlord ripped the Netherworld into two and hurled the halve that the Lord of Terror was on into space, and then perished shortly after using his power to recreate the Netherworld into a whole. Centuries later the Alternate Netherworld was discovered. It was believed that this world was created from the half of the original Netherworld that had been ripped off by the Overlord in an attempt to slay the Demon calling himself the Lord of Terror. The Netherworld Demons who decided to go and explore this Alternate Netherworld where met with hostility from the Demons of the Alternate Netherworld, who claimed to be descendants of the Demons who had once been a part of the Netherworld before the Overlord severed it and hurled it into space. As this lesson seems to be drawing the class a bit too long I will mention this much: Once the Alternate Netherworld was recognized as it's own independent world, a mysterious tower appeared far away from civilization and a massive stone giant appeared to begin an invasion of Demons on the Alternate Netherworld to the Netherworld. It was believed by the Alternate Netherworld Demons that this stone giant was actually the vessel housing the original Demon that called himself the Lord of Terror when the Netherworld and Alternate Netherworld were still one world. This Demon called himself Baal..."

:::Flashback:::

'I remember that lesson from my private tutor. Back then, when I was a child still, that tale sounded to fantastic to be real, and I thought it was just a myth. When I went to see the Alternate Netherworld for myself when I became Overlord I saw the tower that was mentioned in the legends but it was sealed by a powerful spell that I didn't want to bother trying to undo. Even though I didn't check that tower personally it was then that I believed that there could have very possibly been a Lord of Terror in existence...'

Laharl lifted his hand to look at the flower.

'Perhaps that nightmare is a vision of things to come. Etna is the Overlord now...I doubt she has been able to get as strong as my old man yet and that could mean trouble...I may need to help her...and that means returning to the castle...'

Laharl thought as he kept looking at the flower.

'If I am to go back to the castle, it won't be to become the Overlord once more...it will be simply to help out an Overlord in need of assistance...'

Laharl wasn't sure what he should do, but if he was going to help, he would have to think quickly.

TBC

Note: Sorry for not updating sooner, but I was very busy with other things in my life. I'm also sorry that this chapter is very short. Anyway, to any readers out there who are thinking that the flashback Laharl had about what he knew about Baal is contradictory to what Baal mentions to Etna, Priere, and Michaelangelo about him being a successor to the title of Lord of Terror rather than the original, then don't worry. When Baal and Laharl finally meet, more about Baal's origins will be revealed.