After the Lord of the Abyss Awakens - Chapter 85.2

At this moment, Vassago, who seemed fast asleep, lifted His eye mask and slowly sat up. In a low and slow voice, He said, “I’ve found some locations. Historical recompilation postponed, finding Barbatos is the priority. Let’s scatter and search.”

The demons were startled. They thought their third brother was sleeping, but He had been looking for Barbatos?

But anyway, since it was decided, they should act quickly. Their eighth sister was trapped, so of course, they needed to severely punish whoever trapped Her.

Vassago opened His clenched fist, and hundreds of location information points scattered from it.

Botis was surprised. “Why so many?”

Vassago explained, “Barbatos has too many contractors and places She’s been to. There’s information from both new and old, I can’t filter through them all at once. Let’s search together anyway.”

“Is that so.”

Botis had no choice but to agree.

Inpos asked Vassago, “Should we ask Bachin for help? His intelligence is strong, and the subspace is His information network.”

Vassago nodded, “Tell Him. Everyone knows anyway.”

Beelzebub glanced at the family member contact list, “That should be about it. The distant ones would take time to return anyway, let’s start searching.”

Amon stood up, stretched His arms, and warmed up a bit.

“I’ll inform Valefor and Buer.”

The other demons had no objections.

The demons prepared and began to act!

Soon after, only Celerios remained in the library.

He blinked at the round table now empty of demons, green pupils behind His bangs glowing dimly, then His gaze fell on the black coffin.

Hmm, His siblings’ task was to find a demon.

His task was to open this blind box.

He nodded to Himself, completely unaware of how odd the term “blind box” sounded.

****

Speaking of which, Morax didn’t expect to be called away too, and could only look longingly at His father before stepping into the spatial rift.

So the only active cub left by their father’s side was the big orange cat.

The big orange cat was eloquent and quick-witted, strong when strength was needed, intelligent when intelligence was required, with almost no weakness except for being excessively fat in His cat form.

He got the opportunity to have His father to Himself temporarily, happily pacing around the room, chin slightly raised, eyes shining, muttering to Himself, as if composing a tune, preparing a great epic about His father.

The sunset glow filled the balcony, and He was inspired by the scene. He took out a small lute from the void, His cat paws brushing it, and the melody floated.

It was just past 7 PM in the Roman Kingdom.

Xiu Si didn’t notice the commotion outside, as He was focused on feeding milk to the little light body.

The little black cloud also came out, circling around Xiu Si, not knowing what it was thinking, very likely thinking nothing at all.

The little light body had grown a bit, and even the halo behind Its head had grown with It.

Just a few days ago, it was only the size of a saucer, but now it had grown to the size of a bowl, pure white like jade, glowing brilliantly, extremely divine.

Xiu Si had wanted to give the little light body a name, as it wasn’t good to keep calling It “little light body”, but he wasn’t Its birth father, so it seemed he didn’t have the right to name It.

And gods didn’t have the habit of naming themselves, especially otherworld gods.

If They would name Themselves, They wouldn’t be referred to by numbers by humans.

Oh well. He was only fostering this child, how could he think so much?

Xiu Si wiped the little light body’s mouth. Despite Its short arms and legs, the little light body showed a desire for independence.

He had adopted this child less than a month ago, which meant the little light body was growing faster than humans.

“Are you full?” he asked.

The little light body looked at him with squinted eyes, then smiled sweetly, like a small blooming flower.

A god’s hundreds of years old was still an infant.

The lifespan of long-lived species was sometimes really hard to understand with human life experiences.

Xiu Si smiled.

Meanwhile, the little black cloud, for some reason, stopped Its circling and quietly approached Xiu Si’s side.

Xiu Si turned his head and saw It shrinking, like a gray cotton candy, damp and looking like it might rain at any moment.

He didn’t speak, just watching Its reaction.

The man and the cloud fell silent, the scene of them looking at each other closely was just seen by the big orange cat.

The little orange cat lay by the wall, half of Its cat face exposed, looking like a meme of secret observation.

He thought, that was the Otherworld God Numbered 002, the divine consciousness of the concept of curses.

He didn’t expect It to be such a cute little cloud, looking not aggressive at all.

He was curious inside, excitedly ran over, climbed onto the table, walked in front of his father, tried hard to stand up straight, and finally reached the same height as the little black cloud.

The little black cloud seemed not to notice It, the cloud slowly stretched, as if bubbling.

The orange cat blinked, curiously raised Its paw, revealing pink paw pads.

The biggest characteristic of most wandering poets was curiosity, full of curiosity about the world, unwilling to be boringly confined to one place, so they wandered around, understanding various sceneries of the world, meeting various people in the world.

And It, as the world’s first wandering poet, oh no, should be called wandering poet-meow now.

Of course, It also had a strong curiosity!

Its paw approached the little black cloud, about to successfully touch It, while the little black cloud was unaware.

Then, the paw really lightly patted the little black cloud, like an ordinary greeting.

The little black cloud hadn’t reacted yet, but the orange cat’s eyes widened instantly, shocked inside.

It wasn’t an energy body, but a physical body!

The little black cloud was dazed, as if just reacting, turned Its body, faced the big orange cat, then slowly drifted over.

The big orange cat was shocked, thinking the little black cloud was angry, but the little black cloud just slowly approached, bumping Its forehead.

It seemed like a kind of politeness or friendliness.

The big orange cat was shocked again, thinking the God of Curses would be some terrifying existence, but unexpectedly It was a little one who didn’t understand anything.

It had a bit of consciousness, but not much. Even more blank than the little light body.

It really wanted to know how Father had retrieved this little one.

Logically speaking, this little one’s status was extraordinary.

— And only high-level existences could influence other high-level existences.

The big orange cat then turned to look at the young man who had already started reading.

The young man had a calm demeanor, gentle eyes, and as he read, time seemed peaceful.

Sometimes, His father was good to an almost unreal degree, whether in personality or temper, good in every way, gentle and optimistic. Before, He thought all humans were like His father, but after understanding, knowing, and interacting with others, He realized that His father was a rare kind of person. Not self-deprecating when weak, not impulsive when strong, occasionally complaining but never shirking responsibility, always emotionally stable.

He knew His father definitely wasn’t just a superficial level 43. According to the rule that creation upgrades drive the creator’s upgrade, His father should at least be at max level by now.

Why was His strength suppressed due to the “system lag” issue?

His other siblings didn’t seem to care much about this, but He was a bit concerned.

Because from what He understood, system magic was just a summary and organization of the host’s various information, and wouldn’t affect the host’s actual strength.

For instance, the matter of “you leveled up” – your strength increase was your own improvement, the system just reported that you had leveled up, rather than it giving you the level up. It might report incorrect information, like if it malfunctioned or something, but it couldn’t affect your actual strength.

However, His father’s situation…

The big orange cat moved closer to observe, Its head almost buried in, but still couldn’t see His father’s “true strength” on the surface.

Why was this? His eyes were full of curiosity, paw supporting His almost non-existent chin, showing a thoughtful expression.

Xiu Si seemed to sense something and turned to look at Him.

“Sleepy?”

He paused, wasn’t sleepy but nodded, and thus received a pat and heard a gentle whisper by His ear.

“Go to sleep, Beleth. Father will always be by your side.”

As He listened, His cat ears perked up, as if suddenly jolted.

Once upon a time, He had also heard these words, but the other party had been unable to fulfill the promise due to force majeure.

But today.

The big orange cat lowered Its head, Its gaze determined, as if saying, we won’t let you break your promise again, we will protect you well, and never let you be hurt again.

Because He lowered His head, Xiu Si couldn’t see His resolute look.

Xiu Si glanced out the window, worried that tonight would be cool, and casually created a small cotton blanket, slowly draping it over the big orange cat.

Only after His child seemed to be asleep did he turn back to read the alchemy book.

****

Almost simultaneously.

In a certain misty realm, a black-haired girl seemed to be lost, alternating between jogging forward, looking around anxiously, and stopping in her tracks, gazing at her surroundings with a bewildered expression.

She appeared to be lost, going in circles in the same place unable to find Her way, and couldn’t open the mental shared realm.

The surroundings were complete chaos, as if She had accidentally run into the belly of the God of Chaos.

Here, time and space were chaotic. Once you entered, everything would become chaotic along with you, including your own consciousness, the various concepts and memories in your heart.

The girl searched for a long time, until She was tired of searching. She finally stopped, Her gaze falling, faintly revealing a hint of dejection, whether from self-blame or something else.

Perhaps She was also reflecting on Herself, wondering how She could have been so careless as to fall into such a place.

She hated darkness, hated loneliness.

Whenever She faced such a scene alone, a person’s face would always appear in Her mind.

“Father…”

****

The other side.

Inside the large group of cat-headed demons.

Amon: “Did you find her?”

Botis: “No, not even a shadow.”

Beelzebub: “There were too many locations, and the range was vast. A thorough search takes time. Most crucially, what if the other side was also moving?”

Inpos paused, “Moving… that would make it even harder to find.”

Morax: “So what should we do?”

Vassago: “The locations I provided weren’t where Barbatos ‘currently’ might be, but where Barbatos might be across the entire timeline. The concept of movement is included in the operation of the authority. You need not worry, just continue searching. You’ll find her eventually.”

He was very certain.

This attitude gave confidence to the other demons.

They began to speed up their investigation again, causing a stir wherever they went.

Everyone wondered what had happened to the Abyss Lords.

****

However, a night passed.

No demon in the large group reported good news. They couldn’t find any trace of Barbatos at all.

“Did She disappear into thin air?”

“It’s not possible She went to the far cosmic domain, is it?”

“Vassago, are you sure there’s no problem with your location screening?”

Vassago frowned, but his tone remained unchanged. “The places I searched won’t be wrong. Either you missed something in your search, or that place is too hidden, and you passed by without sensing it.”

Beelzebub: “So we have to search again?”

Vassago thought for a moment, then indicated that they indeed needed to search again.

The demons fell silent for a while, but didn’t complain, and quickly searched again.

This time they were more careful, not overlooking any anomalies.

Halfway through the search, Beelzebub seemed to think of something and muttered to himself. “This isn’t right, we should be able to locate more accurately.”

One might ask, what thing or force in this world could trap Barbatos?

Several possibilities flashed through Beelzebub’s mind, then He went to a few places, and then to Bachin’s home, asking Bachin to transmit Him to the God of Chaos’s place as well.

Hearing this, Bachin paused for a second, then immediately understood. Without even asking, He sent Him over.

Beelzebub stood in the void, staring at the chaos.

Aelioge had gone in with the little black bird to find the god two days ago, and was currently out of contact, not having come out.

So if Barbatos was inside, would it be the same?

Aelioge had Bachin’s positioning and could be retrieved, but if Barbatos had accidentally fallen in, She would be very difficult to find.

Beelzebub seemed to have thought of the right place.

But difficulties followed, which was – facing chaos, how do you search?

Should They just wake up the God of Chaos and fight?

Beelzebub fell into deep thought.

Meanwhile.

The girl in the black mist crouched down, her green eyes, which should have been bright, gradually dimmed.

“…”

She fell silent, allowing the chaos to envelop her body, as if giving up the struggle.

But suddenly, a very familiar voice echoed in her brain.

—”Barbatos, are you lost? Father is here.”

She paused, slowly raised her face, her gaze seeming to pierce through space, looking straight to the end.