Death... and me

Fleus had his own pieces of advice to give Fagund as he tried to get used to his Soul Guiding Power for the next few hours.

Going back to Roan, he passed by many devils and souls on his way to the mountains Beelzebub mentioned. At the same time, he used Rean's Divine Sense bending skill to see if there were any Divine Senses watching the place. Surprisingly though, the only Divine Senses he could feel in the Path of Reincarnation's periphery were the ones from the devils inside. 'I thought I would feel some High Devils' Divine Senses by now, but there's nothing so far.'

Beelzebub didn't find it weird. 'Forcing a Divine Sense into this area is very difficult because of the power from the Path of Reincarnation's entrance and the cultivation limit barrier. Considering the number of devils walking inside and the fact you can't attack others, the High Devils don't see much of a reason to look into this place. Not to mention you would need many of them to cover the entirety of the entrance's surroundings. Who would want that?'

'Aren't they afraid that a Soul Devil might appear without them noticing?' Roan couldn't help but ask. 'Now that I think about it, what if a Soul Devil becomes too strong for the devils here to deal with? Will the Elder Devils simply wait for it to come out before dealing with it? After all, there's a cultivation limit to get into this place.'

'No,' Beelzebub immediately denied that. 'The Elder Devils can enter this place even with the cultivation limit. The problem is that they would suffer a lot while staying here. Now to answer your first question, it's almost impossible for a Soul Devil to grow strong enough to challenge an Elder Devil without anyone noticing. That's why so many devils are used in this soul-guiding job. If a Soul Devil becomes stronger than the Void Tempering Realm devils, you can be certain that a High Devil or even an Elder Devil will be sent to deal with it straight away. Even if they have to suffer the backlash.'

'That makes sense.' Roan nodded. 'It also explains why you want to stay hidden until you recover completely. You're afraid of them coming after you before that.'

'Shut up!' Beelzebub definitely didn't like the remark. 'Just leave me close to the mountains, and we'll be done with each other.'

'It won't take long then,' Roan said as he was able to see the mountains far in the distance. A few hours of flight was enough to reach the area Beelzebub would come out of.

Roan looked around and confirmed that he could see more than two mountains at once. When he arrived in the middle of two of them, he could even see four, although the fourth was almost out of sight due to the distance. 'Okay, we're here. Is there a specific mountain you want me to bring your altar out?'

Beelzebub pondered over it for a bit. 'There is. One of these mountains should have two peaks on the top. It would be the only one... if things didn't change while I was out. Can you see it?'

Roan found it easily. 'Yes, give me a minute.' He shot in the direction of the only mountain with two peaks in his sight, arriving there in a moment. 'We're here.'

'Good! If that's the same mountain I'm thinking of, you should be able to see quite a few caves with your Divine Sense.' Beelzebub couldn't help but grow even more excited.

Roan did indeed see the caves Beelzebub mentioned. He filtered them out, choosing one where no devil was nearby at that point. But he needed to be fast since the devils would eventually come to take a look. Any area that wasn't verified for too long would usually fill up with more dead souls, after all. 'Alright, I'm bringing you out.'

Inside the Dimensional Realm, the seal on the altar disappeared before the altar itself vanished in thin air. In the next second, the altar slammed down on the ground in front of Roan.

*Bang!*

Beelzebub didn't care about any of that. Even if Roan couldn't feel the presence of anyone watching them, he wasn't sure about that. Using the power available to him, the altar dug into the earth and disappeared from Roan's sight.

Seeing that, Roan used his Divine Sense to talk with Beelzebub, who was getting further and further away. 'With that, we're done here. I'll use that vial of yours if I need your strength in the future.'

Beelzebub couldn't care less. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, just get the fuck out of here already. I won't absorb any souls for the next few days to make sure no one's watching.'

Roan nodded in response. 'Fine. Don't forget that the Soul Guiding Contest will start in two years. Because of that Underworld Relic, there should be a few Elder Devils watching over it. For your own good, you better stop absorbing souls until it's over.'

'Hmph!' Beelzebub knew that. 'You don't need to tell me. I've already waited this long, so I don't mind adding a few extra days to that. Now, when are you leaving? Just go already. Someone might notice that something's off.'

Roan finally took flight once again and shot out of the cave. Whether Beelzebub would be found there was not his problem anymore. Thanks to their pact, Beelzebub wouldn't be able to say anything about him anyway.

'Rean, I released Beelzebub.' Roan took the chance to tell Rean as he made his way back.

'I saw.' Rean obviously never stopped observing. 'Where are you heading now?'

Roan thought about it for a moment. 'To Fekis City. I don't have anything else to do until this contest starts anyway.'

'Very well.' Rean agreed that it was the best thing to do. 'If you continued to gather souls, you would catch more attention than necessary. I'll head back to Fekis City once I'm done here.'