God! That is our God!
You… you’ve gotta be kidding me. He’s real?
Oh, praise be. I have seen the face of the Lord. I can now die happy.
Grandfather? Grandfather, open your eyes. Don’t die yet!
… He’s real. He actually exists. That means … Hey, is there a priest around here?! I need to convert right the fuck now!
Seeing the face of God causes a stir among the denizens of the three continents. The holiness they can feel emanating from within the memory makes even the skeptics and non-believers drop to their knees and pray. And seeing Ceram gripping the Devil in his hand gives them a certain realization …
The Devil, Adrian Acker—he is the enemy of our Lord!
So wait, the Devil isn’t just a cringey nickname, she’s like … the literal Devil?
Our Lord Ceram refers to her as a demon. Something about her true essence.
He said she should never have stepped into this realm … Does that mean she came from somewhere else? Another realm, maybe?
Adrian Acker is a literal devil! Saint Eleanor is a false prophet! Be warned, ye fateful, The Devil shall bring about the end of days!
We must kill the Devil before it’s too late! Take up arms, brothers, and sisters, we must band together in the face of this evil!
Who dares say that about my daughter?! Step out here and face my wrath!
Ashton, calm yourself!
Calm? I’ve been calm long enough! I will not lose my Amelia again after all these years!
As the world is in an uproar, the Devil straightens her back and prepares to let out her signature evil laugh. But Knight Carter cups her lips with his hand.
Ella, sit down.
But Terriii.
Whatever you have to say to them—don’t. You’re only going to ruin the moment. Focus on storing the hatred and she’ll handle the rest.
She?
The other half of “Saint Eleanor.”
Knight Carter Cage gives the Devil a wink.
Oh no, not her …
While the tension in the real world rises, back inside the memory, the Devil in the form of red goo is squirming within Ceram’s grasp.
“Oh, s-so you’re the big enchilada around, eh? You’re the one this brat’s been praying to these past few months. L-look what good that did her. Some god you are.”
“Is that all you have to say to me, Amelia Ambrose? It was bad enough having one hate-runner running amok in my world, and then you arrived …”
“Who? You mean Junior?”
“I believe you two are acquainted.”
“Y-yeah sure. Me and Junior, we go way back. He’ll give you hell if you lay a finger on me, puny God!”
“Truly? You claim to be friends with the leader of the Antediluvian … the SoothSayer.”
“Yeah! Yeah, that’s right! SoothSayer and me hang out at the same country club. We may fight from time to time as hate-runners do. But we totally respect each other and would never let something bad happen to the other person! So if you lay a finger on me, he’ll burst through the door and kick your shiny ass to kingdom come!”
“SoothSayer is a brand of tea, Amelia Ambrose.”
“Oh.”
“You truly don’t know the name of your enemy, do you?”
“Nope.”
“You don’t know who I am or the secret of this realm.”
“Nope.”
“You’re a small-time hate-runner who stumbled upon this world and thought nothing more than wanting to make a quick buck.”
“Yup, that sounds about right. Hey, wait a minute—who you’re calling small-time, starboy?! If my real body is here, I’ll … I’ll … You know what, I dare you to kill me! Once you do, I’ll come back here with my real body and rip you a new one!”
“Enough!”
Ceram sends out a powerful mana pulse and the Devil seals her lips.
“I grow tired of your nonsense, Amelia Ambrose. And the child is running out of time.” He gestures towards the dying Donna. “I have other matters that require my immediate attention, so I cannot waste any more energy dealing with small fries like yourself.”
“Who are you calling small fry?! Why I oughta—”
“You are a small, insignificant bug who has trespassed into my house. But at the same time, your present has proven to be useful for drawing out the much larger nuisance.”
“... Junior.”
Ceram nods slowly and releases his grip on the Devil.
“You do things without thought, and your actions thus far have thrown a wrench in the Antediluvian’s well-oiled machine, in ways that my careful machination could not do. I wonder what would happen if I allowed your rivalry to continue to its natural conclusion.” He chuckles. “You may prove yourself to be useful to me yet, Amelia Ambrose. Or should I say, Lady Eleanor Ambrose, Angel of Ceram.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, creep? I don’t work for you!”
“We’ll see about that, my priestess. Haha! Hahahahaha!”
Ceram’s laughter echoes the black void before his body, made up of light, disperses into glittering stars.
The purple stars surround the Devil and Donna Day’s body and slowly circle in. Not only that, the temperature in the void suddenly drops below freezing level.
“Fuck, what are you trying to do?”
The Devil quickly burrows herself back into Donna’s body and jump-starts the girl’s heart.
The pink-haired girl jolts up and coughs violently.
“Ms. Eleanor? Ms. Eleanor, what happened?”
“Good news and bad news. Your god is real, and he’s trying to screw us over.”
“Could you please be serious for a moment and stop being such an unrepentant nonbeliever?!”
“Oh, I believe, freckles. So believe me when I say he’s a massive dick!”
The stars close in on Donna and, before they know it, both of them find themselves transported into a forest.
“Where are we now, Ms. Eleanor? Is this another zone in the dungeon?”
Donna Day gets up on her feet and starts to explore the surrounding area. The flora and fauna appear similar to the outside world, but with some slight alterations that let the girls know they’re still inside the Amber Dungeons.
As Donna walks through the thick shrubbery, she comes face to face with a bear, standing four meters high. The beast gets up on its hind legs and looks down at them with an evil glint in its eyes.
“Take out your gun, freckles. We aren’t outrunning this one.”
“Me? I gave the gun back to you. Where did you put it?”
The Devil thinks back to when she shreds her extra weight in the snowfield, including all of her weapons.
“Oh right … my bad.”
