CHAPTER 77: CH 77 : GREED

The demonic capital wasn’t a city built; it was a scar on the very face of existence, a place where reality itself had curdled and turned malevolent.

The air was a suffocating, hot blanket, thick with the scent of burnt flesh and the cloying sweetness of rot.

Structures, impossibly tall and jagged, clawed at a sky the color of a deep red.

They were not made of stone but of solidified malice, their surfaces slick with a sheen of oily black and their edges sharp enough to tear a soul.

Every street hummed with the collective, crushing weight of a million powerful auras,

It was a city of predators, where every corner held a silent promise of violence and the only currency was power.

Yet, amidst this landscape of pure terror, a single shop stood as a grotesque monument to a different kind of horror.

This was the "Fresh Meat Corner," a shop that catered to the specific appetites of the demigod demons.

Here, one could find the meat of any race imaginable: elves, humans, titans, giants, and every other life form the multiverse had to offer.

For a race whose tastes were as diverse as they were depraved, a source of fresh meat that was never empty was nothing short of a wish come true.

It was a place where a demigod could satisfy a craving for a specific species, a place that felt tailor-made for their every need.

A small, silver bell above the shop’s entrance chimed, a shockingly clear and melodious sound that felt completely out of place in this cacophonous city.

The shopkeeper, a small lizard-faced demon with a perpetual nervous twitch, looked up from wiping down his counter.

A hulking shadow filled the doorway.

"Welcome, Mr. Geryon," the shopkeeper said, a polite and warm tone carefully masking a deep, bone-weary exhaustion.

Geryon was a demon from the bull race, a brute with skin the color of scorched earth and a thick, silver ring piercing his broad nose.

His eyes were like twin coals, and a contemptuous sneer was a permanent fixture on his face.

"Quit with the yapping," he grunted, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that seemed to shake the very foundations of the shop.

"Bring some of your best wine and dragon meat."

"Yes, Mr. Geryon," the shopkeeper said with a long, drawn-out sigh.

He disappeared into the back of the shop, which was more of a cavernous butchery filled with strange hooks, bubbling vats, and the lingering scent of blood.

Seconds later, a stack of plates and a few bottles of wine floated out of the shadows.

The shopkeeper, using his immense mental force, gently guided them to Geryon’s table.

Each dish settled with a soft clatter, a testament to the proprietor’s careful control.

Geryon wasted no time. He tore into the food with a ferocity that was almost a blur, a chaotic symphony of chewing and gulping.

He devoured different cuts of dragon meat and chugged bottles of wine as if they were water.

The shopkeeper watched, a silent, unblinking observer to this grotesque feast.

When the last plate was scraped clean and the last drop of wine was consumed, Geryon wiped his mouth with the back of a calloused hand and looked up, his coal-like eyes settling on the shopkeeper.

"Write it on my tab," he demanded, his voice a gravelly command.

"Of course, Mr. Geryon," the shopkeeper said, a forced smile plastered on his face as he saw the customer off.

He waited until the massive form of the bull-demon was gone, then let out a deep sigh of frustration that he hadn’t allowed to escape before.

"What tab?" he muttered under his breath, his small, beady eyes narrowing. "You haven’t paid me in six months."

He began the tedious work of cleaning the dishes, a quiet, repetitive task.

He was lost in his own thoughts, a whirlwind of calculations and quiet satisfaction.

"Why is this old demon not looking elsewhere" Mammon thought, but his body showed no such signs.

Since the last half an hour, he has been feeling a gaze of some powerful demon demigod.

It was the gaze of the demon king, a powerful and suffocating aura that had been focused on him for what felt like an eternity. He waited, his muscles tense, until the pressure finally subsided.

"Oh, he finally left me alone," the shopkeeper said, a genuine sense of relief in his voice as he shed the mask of the nervous proprietor.

For this unassuming lizard-faced demon was none other than Mammon, the sin of Greed.

He had been living under different guises for the past 75 years, playing a long, dangerous game of cat and mouse in the heart of the demonic realm.

His first five years were spent in the guise of a prominent demon named Xar’gath.

Mammon had spread a cunning lie: that he had returned from a plundering mission on a far-off planet, bringing back a horde of priceless artifacts and the fresh meat of exotic lifeforms.

It was a simple ruse, but it was enough to make the demigods close to Xar’gath flock to him like vultures to a carcass.

He gave them everything they wanted—the artifacts, the food—without asking for anything in return.

His power was both a blessing and a curse to his victims.

His unique talent dictated that if someone took something from him without providing something of equal value, then upon their death, Mammon would gain everything from them as compensation.

But it wasn’t just a simple trade. His Slow-Poison talent made them more and more addicted to this unfair trade, a psychological trap that lured them deeper and deeper into his web of deceit.

Slowly, one by one, the demigods close to Xar’gath began to vanish.

It would have caused an immediate uproar, but Mammon was always one step ahead.

As soon as a few of his victims disappeared, he would seamlessly change his form, becoming a new demon with a new identity. The demon king, suspecting nothing, had no reason to question a new face in the crowd.

As more and more demigods vanished, the demon king finally took action, by increasing the patrolling in the capital.

But this didn’t affect Mammon’s killing spree at first.

He was too clever, too fast.

It was only when the demon king personally began to check all the demigods in the city that Mammon was forced to change his strategy.

He needed a cover, something so audacious and simple that no one would ever suspect it.

He opened the "Fresh Meat Corner," a shop that sold the meat of every lifeform you could think off.

It was the perfect disguise. Most demons paid their dues in mana stones, which didn’t activate Mammon’s talent, as it requires then to not pay for something they took from Mammon.

But still, a few demons, like Geryon, were so consumed by their own greed and arrogance that they refused to pay.

They were the ones who became hopelessly addicted to the unfair trade, their unpaid tabs kept on stacking his slow-poison talent on them.

"I should return home after the death of this blockhead," Mammon said to himself, a wicked grin forming on his face.

He reached into his storage ring and pulled out a single, unadorned wooden plate.

It was a simple vessel, but its purpose was anything but simple.

"I should gift this to Brother Cerberus," he said, his voice filled with a cold, triumphant glee.

He reached into his own form, pulling a soul from his essence and placing it on the plate.

A number, glowing with a soft, malevolent light, suddenly floated above the plate in his hand.

[299]

"That bull head should be the last soul to fulfill this goal of mine," Mammon said, his grin widening into a truly terrifying sight on his lizard face.

He was so close to his goal, and the thought of it made his heart thrum with a dark, triumphant joy.