The extra hands sank back into Baal's body with a wet, sucking sound. His belly swelled grotesquely, skin stretching until it split open in long, jagged lines.
Thick veins of red and green pulsed beneath the surface like living wires. His teeth rotted black in seconds, and when he grinned one last time, they caught the failing light like broken glass.
Gabriel stumbled backward until his shoulders hit the wall. Uriel raised her sword again, flames licking along the blade, but even she hesitated. The point wavered.
Baal had done the unthinkable.
He had offered himself as the vessel.
The air thickened until it felt like breathing soup. Baal's last human voice gurgled out—a half-prayer drowned in his own blood—as his body slumped forward and hit the marble with a heavy slap.
Then something crawled up from inside the husk.
A woman.
Or what looked like one.
She was bloated, gray-skinned, her face sagging with decay. Her eyes burned a radiant, poisonous green that seemed to drink in every scrap of light.
Her teeth were jagged and stained moss-green, set in rows that went too far back into her throat. She smiled, and the smile stretched wider than any mouth should allow.
"…My, oh my…" Her voice slid across the marble like thick oil. "Is this truly where I've been summoned?"
She looked around slowly—the pure white halls now streaked with blood, the trembling angels, Gabriel on his knees, Uriel burning with barely-held wrath. Then she laughed, soft and wet.
"Oh, Middle Heaven. Baal, you greedy little worm… you actually did it. Bravo. Bra-fucking-vo."
She waved one swollen hand lazily.
Uriel froze mid-step. Her wings locked in place with an audible snap. Her blade stopped dead. Her whole body jerked forward as though invisible chains had yanked her, until Beelzebub's bloated fingers closed around her throat.
The demon leaned in close, inhaling deeply. Her long, glistening tongue traced the side of Uriel's face from jaw to temple, leaving a trail of clear slime.
"Such purity," she whispered, voice trembling with real pleasure. "I could drink it… drown in it…"
Gabriel didn't wait for more. He spun and ran for the elevator at the far end of the hall. His boots slipped in the fresh blood, but he kept moving. He slammed the call button again and again, muttering prayers that died halfway out of his mouth.
"Come on, come on—"
The doors slid open. He stumbled inside, chest heaving. "Shit, shit, shit… the Prince of Hell… she's here. Why did it come to this? Oh Lord, save me… it's his fault—it's always his fault—if Aron didn't exist—if he just didn't—"
The doors shut. Silence swallowed the rest of his words.
Beelzebub's laughter rolled through the hall, wet and echoing and hungry. She could have stopped the elevator with a thought, but she didn't. Fear tasted better when it had time to ripen.
"Let him run," she murmured, still holding Uriel by the throat. "I'll feast later."
She released the angel of fire. Uriel dropped to her knees, gasping, one hand clutching her neck where gray fingerprints already bruised the skin.
Before Uriel could stand, Beelzebub vanished. Her bloated form moved with impossible speed, appearing behind a young angel who had been trying to drag an injured comrade away.
She grinned wide.
Her mouth opened.
Wider.
Wider still—until her jaw split down the middle and continued all the way to her chest, revealing a black void lined with rotating rows of fangs and filth.
CHOMP.
Half the angel disappeared in one bite. The lower half hit the floor, legs still kicking. Blood sprayed across the white marble like cheap paint.
The other angels screamed.
They prayed.
No one answered.
Another angel fell. Then another. The pristine hall turned crimson. The buzzing of flies rose until it drowned out every hymn and plea.
Beelzebub devoured them laughing, her laughter bubbling with pure ecstasy. "Your God is dead," she said between gulps, black ichor dripping from her chin. "He's been dead a long time. You're abandoned—just meat waiting to rot."
Her belly swelled with visible movement. Muffled screaming leaked out from inside it—angels still burning alive in the bile of Hell.
Uriel could only watch. Tears cut clean tracks through the soot and blood on her face. Her hands shook. The holy fire on her sword flickered lower and lower until it was barely a spark.
Oh Lord… why have You forsaken us?
She remembered Aron's sneer once, long ago, when he had asked why she accepted her limits so easily. She had answered that strength came from obedience, that her place was not to question the order of things.
Now, watching Heaven itself being defiled, that obedience tasted like cowardice.
The hall eventually fell quiet again. The buzzing dulled to a low, constant hum. Beelzebub's form had grown until she towered near the ceiling, her gut writhing like a sack full of live rats. She licked her fingers clean with slow, satisfied strokes.
"Now, for dessert," she whispered, turning her gaze back to Uriel.
Her jaw unhinged once more, descending toward the trembling angel of fire—
"…Ohh," came a calm voice from the top of the grand staircase. Steady. Unimpressed. "So this is the noise I heard."
Beelzebub froze mid-motion.
Golden light spilled down the stairs, cutting through the haze of flies and blood.
Aron stood there, hands shoved casually into his pockets, eyes glowing like molten glass. His expression was flat, almost bored. He looked over the gore, the broken wings, the smears of red that used to be angels, and let out a long sigh.
"…Damn it," he muttered. "Now I really don't want to walk down those stairs."
The flies stopped buzzing.
The air itself seemed to hold its breath.
Beelzebub—the Prince of Flies, the eater of angels—smiled slowly, revealing every layer of jagged teeth.
She knew that voice.
She remembered it well.
The one being who had killed her once before.
And had come to do it again.
The beast of disgust.
The beast of hunger.
The Beast of Sin—Gluttony.
Beelzebub turned her massive body, blotting out the fractured ceiling of Middle Heaven. Her vast belly trembled with every breath. The stench of death and rot clung to the air like thick fog.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Aron's footsteps echoed through the silence—slow, deliberate, each one sinking into the blood and bone fragments that now slicked the marble. He didn't rush. He didn't need to.
He took in the ruin. Angels—his kind, once—reduced to nothing but stains. The white stone of Heaven marked beyond any hope of cleaning. He had killed plenty of angels himself in the past, but this was different. This was deliberate desecration, done for fun.
He didn't speak. His eyes said everything that needed saying.
Beelzebub hesitated. Her claws flexed. Her jaws trembled open like a pit ready to swallow the world—but the fear was already crawling up from somewhere ancient inside her. Her own sin recognized him and recoiled.
She didn't even fully understand why.
She just knew.
Those golden eyes meant death.
Her voice cracked through the heavy silence. "You… you shouldn't be here."
Aron kept walking closer, saying nothing.
Her aura slammed into him first—the crushing, sickly gravity of gluttony itself. The air grew thick enough to choke on. The few surviving angels still hiding in corners dropped dead where they stood, lungs collapsing under the weight of pure divine corruption.
Even Uriel, already on her knees, felt the force scrape across her soul like rusty blades.
Aron—barehanded, unarmed, completely unguarded—kept walking.
When he finally stopped, he was only a single breath away from the towering Beast.
He tilted his head up, expression flat, voice cold and quiet.
"…Beelzebub," he said. "You really made a mess."
She snarled, the sound shaking dust from the ceiling. "S–so what?! What are you gonna do about it?!"
Her jaw split wider, rows of rotating fangs spinning like a hellish meat grinder—
"Unlo…" Aron's voice cut through her roar. One unfinished word.
The command hit like a verdict handed down by God Himself.
Beelzebub froze.
Her entire body convulsed violently.
Then she began to melt.
The grotesque layers of flesh sagged and liquefied into black, tar-like sludge. The mountains of her form collapsed inward, shrinking rapidly—bones cracking, organs bursting—until only a small girl remained kneeling in the middle of the carnage.
She looked no older than twelve. Skin faintly green, hair matted with blood and bile, eyes wide and full of sudden tears.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here!" she cried. Her small voice echoed pathetically in the silent hall.
Aron looked down at her without expression.
The girl—Beelzebub in her reduced, childlike form—clutched at the hem of her tattered dress with trembling fingers. "I was just… I was hungry. Baal promised me a feast. I didn't know this place was yours. I swear I didn't know!"
Uriel stared from a few meters away, still on her knees, sword forgotten on the floor. The shift was too sudden, too absurd. One moment a prince of Hell had been about to devour her. The next, a crying child knelt in a lake of blood and angel remains.
Aron crouched down so he was eye-level with the small demon. His golden eyes studied her face for a long moment.
"You always say that," he said quietly. "Every single time."
"I mean it this time!" Beelzebub's voice cracked. Actual tears rolled down her green-tinged cheeks. "Please… I'll leave. I'll go back down. I won't touch anything else. Just… don't kill me again. It hurts so much when you do it."
Aron stayed silent.
The girl's shoulders shook. "You remember last time, right? In the old temple? I was good for centuries after that. Centuries! I only came because Baal kept calling and calling and—"
"Shut up."
She shut up instantly, lower lip quivering.
Aron glanced around at the devastation again. Bodies. Wings torn off. Half-eaten torsos. The marble floor would never be white again.
"You know the rules," he said. "No feeding in Middle Heaven. No exceptions. Not even if some idiot angel offers himself as a meat suit."
Beelzebub nodded frantically. "I know. I know. I was weak. The purity here… it smelled so good. Like fresh bread and honey and—"
Aron raised one eyebrow.
She stopped talking again.
He stood up slowly. The small girl stayed on her knees, looking up at him like a dog waiting for the whip.
Uriel finally found her voice. It came out hoarse. "Aron… what is this? Who is she? What did you just do to her?"
He didn't look at Uriel. His eyes stayed on the child-shaped demon.
"Her name is Beelzebub. Prince of Gluttony. One of the oldest. She's killed more angels than most wars. She also dies messily every time she forgets her place."
The girl whimpered.
Aron continued, voice flat. "She can shrink down like this when she's scared enough. Makes her easier to manage. Doesn't change what she is."
Uriel pushed herself to her feet, legs still shaky. "Then why is she still alive? After… after all this?" She gestured weakly at the slaughter around them.
"Because killing her permanently is annoying," Aron said. "She comes back. Always does. Takes decades sometimes, but she crawls back out of whatever pit she dissolves into. And every time she returns, she's a little more careful. For a while."
He looked down at Beelzebub again.
"Until she gets hungry."
The small demon sniffled. "I won't. Not here. Never again. I promise."
Aron sighed. "You said that last time too."
He reached down and grabbed her by the back of her neck, lifting her easily. She dangled like a kitten, feet kicking uselessly a few inches off the ground. Up close, the faint green tint to her skin and the too-sharp teeth were still visible, but the monstrous bulk was gone.
"Uriel," Aron said without looking away from the demon. "Gather whoever's still breathing. Get them out of this floor. Seal the elevator if you can. Tell the ones above that Middle Heaven is compromised. They'll want to move the archives."
Uriel hesitated. "And… her?"
"I'll handle her."
Beelzebub's eyes widened. "Wait—wait, Aron, please—"
He ignored her and started walking toward the staircase, still carrying the small girl by the neck. Her legs swung helplessly.
Uriel watched them go. The golden light from Aron's eyes lit the way as he climbed the blood-slick stairs, leaving red footprints behind.
When they reached the landing, Beelzebub's small voice floated back down, trembling.
"Can I at least keep one wing? Just a little one? For the road?"
Aron's reply was too low for Uriel to hear, but the sudden yelp that followed suggested the answer was no.
Uriel stood alone in the ruined hall for a long moment. The buzzing of flies had completely stopped. The only sound left was the slow drip of blood from the ceiling where an angel's body still hung impaled on a broken chandelier.
She picked up her sword. The flame on it had gone out completely.
For the first time in her long existence, the angel of fire felt cold.
She looked at the carnage, at the empty husks that used to be her brothers and sisters, and whispered the question again, softer this time.
"…Why have You forsaken us?"
No answer came.
Far above, on the higher floors of Middle Heaven, the sound of heavy footsteps continued. A small, frightened voice kept pleading between them.
Uriel closed her eyes.
Somewhere deep inside her chest, the first crack of doubt had formed.
And it was spreading.