Chapter 10 - Of Two Paths, One Is Revealed.

The moment she entered the castle, all the servants stopped their actions and proceeded to line up before bowing.

"Greetings Princess!" They all said in unison.

"Geez! Didn't I tell you all to stop being so straight laced." Cattleya said while pouting.

"We do not dare be casual with the princess." The head butler replied with a straight face.

Looking at him, she smiled widely before jumping towards him, "Uncle Bel!"

The butler sidestepped to dodge her incoming hug before catching her with ease and placing her back on the ground. He then said,

"You are not a child anymore princess, stop jumping around, also my name is Belphegor not Bel."

She laughed then opened her arms wide before replying,

"If you want me to call you that then let me hug you, also quit being a butler, i still don't understand why one of the Deadly Sin Devils decided to be a butler, even though you're weirdly good at being one."

"I have my reasons princess, ones you may not understand fully."

Thinking about what powerful existences the deadly sin devils were, she sighed in exasperation before looking around to realize that all the servants still had their heads bowed. "Y'all can go back to your duties." dismissing the servants she turned to Belphegor and asked him what she wanted to originally.

"Where's my dad?"

"In the west tower's Lounge."

After hearing his reply she hid him goodbye then proceeded to walk over to her father's location.

The castle of the Hell Universe's royal family was was so large that one could consider it unnecessary. It had an Archaic style with eight towers in the direction of each of the cardinal points. Each of these towers is for the use of each royal family member one for the King, two for the two possible queens and the remaining five for their children.

The Devil king who built the castle was once asked what would happen if there were to be more than 8 members of the royal family, he simply laughed and replied.

"That means there's someone who's grown too old to live in his parents house so he's gotta move out to make space for his younger ones!"

Although many thought he was joking, after he had his sixth child, he chased the first one out of the castle and told him to go fend for himself for a few years despite that child being the first in line for the throne.

He also refused any suggestions to build a larger castle and forbade his descendants from building a larger castle as the royal family's main castle even if they could build hundreds. Giggling to herself as she remembered the story of her ridiculous ancestor Cattleya made her way to the west tower, the space allocated to her elder brother, the current Crown Prince, Creuserey also known by the moniker of 'Black Phoenix'.

After arriving at the towers lounge, she came across her father and brother who seemed to be engaging in a serious conversation, one which she saw best to interrupt.

"Sup bro, Sup dad!, heard you called for me, I don't remember doing anything wrong tho." She said with a pensive look on her face.

"Don't play dumb, you know exactly why father called you here, that child you're carrying, it's the one those gods have been buzzing about recently right?"

Her brother asked despite knowing the answer to his question. She sighed and replied

"I wanted it to be a surprise for dad, that's why when you found out I told you to keep it a secret, but for some reason you saw it best to tattle on about it."

As they were about to begin arguing, their father finally spoke "Quiet both of you."

Looking at Cattleya he asked,

"Since when have you been with child?"

"Twas around spring so..... three and a half, almost four."

She replied, seeing his questioning look she continued ,

"I hid it with magic, that's why you never noticed, added an extra spell made specifically to counter your frightening senses, spent about a week creating that spell you know, seriously that life sensing ability of yours is truly ridiculous."

Hearing the absurd thing his daughter just said, the current Devil king, Diablo, shook his head while saying to himself

'If the leviathans hear that she was able to create such a spell in just a week they'd go crazy!'

The life sensing ability Diablo possessed was one of his extra skills that allowed him to sense the very origin of any being in his vicinity, making every known type of stealth or concealment magic and skills useless before him.

The leviathan devils are hailed as the strongest and best when it comes to utilizing magic and among them their leader, one of the Great Deadly Sin Devils, Inglis and Cattleya's mother could be considered one of the greatest in their history.

Yet even she was unable to create a type of concealment magic that was able to fool his senses, hearing that his daughter used a week to accomplish what her mother failed to in years made his head ache.

'I definitely can't let her know this!' he thought while holding his head. Coming out of his sea of thoughts, he asked her,

"Who else knows about this? We need to keep it under wraps you know? I don't want any fools making attempts on your life."

Devil king or not he was still a father in the end, a doting one at that and he wouldn't want a situation where his daughter's life was being aimed at.

Unfortunately, the daughter in question did not seem to understand her father's worry for her, or rather, she understood but chose not to care.

"I just told Mammon and Araman outside, Belphegor seemed to have figured it out somehow and I don't really care if the gods do too, they can't do anything either way." She casually delivered a reply that went against the very reason her father called for her in the first place.

"What the-! Cattleya! Why the hell will you want them to find out? It's not just one pantheon that's after you, there are hundreds, possibly thousands, even those long eared bastards are after you, same with those short fools who keep claiming neutrality."

The way he casually insulted two of the greatest known Universal powers made Cattleya unable to hold her laughter, however seeing the looks on her father and brother's faces she realized they were not in any mood to joke. Clearing her throat she decided to explain the reason for her confidence.

"You see, about 3 weeks ago I made a bet with a large idi- I mean large giant, while playing at a casino in Verchester. The idiot lost the game, I got his money, he couldn't accept the result and tried to kill me secretly after I left, before I could counter attack and end his pitiful existence, something shocking happened."

She suddenly stopped speaking and stared at the looks on the two men's faces saying with a a smile

"That's all for today, I'll continue next time."

Before she could stand up from her seat, her brother utilized his telekinesis to force her down and shouted,

"Continue the damn story!"

Laughing at his reaction she smiled teasingly before continuing,

"So, right when I was about to end the idiot, he suddenly got struck by lightning and died, seeing that I thought there was someone else so I acted a little scared while scanning the area to find who killed him only to notice there wasn't anyone within a few miles of my position. That was weird as fuck so I decided to check out his body and would you believe what I noticed."

"What ?" Her father asked impatiently. Laughing slightly she replied with a sudden serious face.

"Traces of casualty, the damn idiot actually got killed off by the law of casualty, it didn't make sense so I thought of every possible scenario yet I still didn't come to an answer.

Taking a break, I decided to do something to kill some time so I went off to the nearest planet undergoing a world war, disguised myself as a random military leader who just got assassinated and was about to leave the room only for the assassin to come back to confirm of the military leader was dead, seeing me who was disgusted as the dead leader, he thought he hadn't finished the job and tried to kill me again, only to be struck by lightning like the other dude. That was when I realized the reason the law or casualty acted.

Despite being an annoying law that prevents us from using our powers properly in lower dimensions, one of the law of casualty's other functions is to make sure that every life fulfills the role they've been given by fate at a certain point in time, at this point in time, my current role is to give birth a being with the power to potentially end the gods, so it's acting in order to make sure I fulfill that role, I obviously can't do that if I'm dead so it's protecting me."

As she finished speaking, the looks of the two men's faces were of confusion and shock with a tinge of relief as they struggled to process what she just said.

"So you mean that the gods can't kill you cus the law of casualty is protecting you?" Creuserey asked with suspicion.

"Yep and I reckon it will take greater action against the gods, after all my kid is directly related to them." she gave a short reply.

"That brings me to the second thing I wanted to know, who's the father? What pantheon? What rank?"

Diablo asked his daughter while holding back his thoughts of killing of the bastard who slept with his daughter.

"Not telling, at least for now, y'all find out eventually."

She replied with a teasing smile.

Although he obviously was not satisfied, he had to settle for that reply seeing as his daughter did not intend to speak of the man's identity.

"How did you meet him then?" Creuserey asked hoping to at least get a proper reply.

"How eh? Okay, I can tell you that.." Cattleya replied recalling the series of events that led to her meeting the father of the child she was carrying.