The child within Sindia’s hands was obviously a Devil, it had their trademark red eyes that were different from the Blood Fiends, but what snatched Ghost’s attention was the 2 tiny horns on each side of the kid’s head, barely peeking out of his short hair. The horns were crimson like blood in colour and possessed a strangely enchanting allure the more you looked at it.

Very, very similar to the Horns that separated a regular Monster/Greater Demon from a Demon King.

Ghost immediately knew that the kid was trouble. Of the 87 Demon Kings, many of them had given birth to plenty of children and although they had much more talent than others of their specific species, none of them were as talented as the Demon King’s themselves and none of them inherited the Demon King Horns.

But apparently, the son of Balik, who wasn’t even a Monster but instead a Devil, was an exception. On top of that, instead of them being purple and jagged like his fathers, they were red and smooth. It was too soon to see what shape they would take so maybe they would gain the same shape as his fathers later on, but they were certainly not the same colour.

Demon King Horns were different from Greater Demon Horns. The first thing was that if someone was a Demon King (A Monster who possessed the Divine Demon Physique), then no matter what Realm you were in, you would always have the Horns. They were something that you were born with, unlike the Greater Demon Horns that only grew out when a Monster entered the 4th Realm and became a Greater Demon.

The second difference between Demon King Horns and Greater Demon Horns was that the former were always on the side of your head and the latter on your forehead. On top of that, the former’s colour and shape varied depending on the owner, but the latter was always black and curved upwards. However, there were 2 exceptions to this. The first was when a Demon King became a Greater Demon; instead of getting the regular black Greater Demon Horns, they gained a second pair of Demon King Horns that matched their first pair placed upon their forehead. The second exception was for those Monsters whose constitution was too strange. The Elementals and Wraiths for example. Such beings were privileged to have custom fit horns that matched their bodies.

And finally, the last difference between Demon King Horns and regular Greater Demon Horns was that the former granted the owner the ability to absorb and manipulate Demonic Energy to even greater extents. Very useful.

So for a Devil to possess Demon King Horns, it could be imagined how it affected Ghost, who prided himself on always being aware of everything. He had immediately questioned the System for answers, hoping that he wouldn’t once again be denied like the time he tried to inquire about Sindia and Balik, and to his surprise, he was successful!

The System told him that the child was something called a Paragon Devil. A perfect and complete fusion of a Monster and a Blood Fiend, something that shocked him greatly. But when he tried to ask about its powers, he was expectedly denied.

No matter, In that moment, just hearing the term ‘perfect devil’ was enough. He wanted to slaughter the child before it could do something that he would regret and unhesitatingly demanded that Sindia hand the child over, however, not only did she not do so, but she made it extremely clear that she would join with Balik to fight him if he attempted to harm her child.

The nerve! Even remembering the scene was enough to cause his blood to boil, especially after knowing what happened after, how he had to back down and actually make concessions.

It wasn’t that he was scared to fight them. If he wanted to, he could beat the 2 of them silly even if he didn’t use his bloodline suppression over Sindia. He was the Progenitor of all Blood Fiends and that came with unparalleled might. He could have even used his rights as a progenitor to forcefully compel Sindia to do as he wished, but looking at their faces in that moment. The look of fury that they had never once shown him before… he knew that if he were to truly compel Sindia to kill the child, talk less of losing all of Sindia’s ‘trust’ in him and perhaps creating a snake that would stab him in the back at the worst moment, his ties with Balik and the Blitzorgs would have been irreconcilably destroyed.

In the end, he decided to let it continue its existence so long as he could monitor it once a week and make sure that it never obtained a drop of strength.

His helplessness over the situation was infuriating and caused him to itch every time he remembered it, but the him back then was not the him now. The him now would have destroyed the child at all costs, no matter the consequences. But the him back then was stumped by surprise.

Everybody despised the Devils, even their parents. They had an innate repulsion for the creatures that were even more sinful than them and it was very common for them to accidentally-not accidentally kill them on a whim. But what was the situation? Sindia and Balik had almost attacked him on the spot just for saying that he wanted to kill their Devil child. He knew how that sounded and If it was a Blood Fiend or at least a Monster, he would understand… but it was a DEVIL!

He HAD to understand. The mystery between Sindia and Balik was becoming too strange and it caused him endless bouts of disorientation and fury, but the thought of comprehending and harnessing their secrets were just too sweet.

‘It was fine’ he had said back then to console himself. Sooner or later he would strip them of their secrets and kill them off along with their child after they had become useless, and then he would continue on his path to becoming the South Continent Kaiser undaunted. He was already half the ruler of the Continent, what was truly the worst that could happen? It shouldn't be so great that he couldn’t eventually suppress it, even if he had to make temporary concessions to an opportunistic Asura in the process.

In all his life, he had encountered many ups and downs. Hadn’t he once been called the Crying Ghost because of the way he used to act? Hadn’t he been chased all around the continent by Asura? Hadn’t he suffered many betrayals from the Humans, Beasts and Monsters that he naively used to trust? But look at him now! Look at THEM now!

2 of those races were now extinct and the last one trembling when they heard his name.

‘I will be KAISER! Come Fate, try and stop me!’

…He had said back then.