Mammon didn't wait for Wrath to answer.
Silence was, after all, already an answer.
Around the arena, the demigods began to shift. Their positions subtly adjusted, spacing narrowing in a way that felt practiced—habitual. Domains brushed together, not clashing, but layering. Pressure multiplied.
Wrath felt it immediately.
This wasn't a challenge.
This was containment. Containment of him.
Wrath had seen this formation before. Not used against himself—but against others.
Mammon folded the parchment with care and tucked it away. His voice, when he spoke again, was still mild. Almost apologetic.
"Do you remember why we formalized these councils?" he asked.
Wrath snarled but didn't answer. But of course he remembered. He was one of the instigators for forming these council meetings.
Mammon smiled faintly but didn't get upset at the lack of reply. "Because discipline requires witnesses, otherwise it may just be regarded as betrayal."
A low hum spread through the arena as more domains bled outward. Gravity thickened. Time felt sluggish, syrupy. Wrath's domain surged instinctively in response—and was crushed back down as dozens of domains pressed against it from all sides.
Leviathan circled slowly, his large reptilian body moving around Wrath like a predator circling prey. "You remember the first one, don't you?" he said casually. "The one we called a rogue failure."
Wrath's eyes burned with anger.
Lilith stepped closer, her gaze burning with something other than lust for once. "Divine Energy," she said softly. "It had never been so effortless to consume before..."
Wrath's chest tightened.
They weren't hiding it anymore. Their true intentions towards him.
But Lilith's words made old memories surface—memories Wrath himself could not suppress.
Around eight hundred years ago, long before these council meetings became established, the turned Infernal Seven had been… bored. A fellow abyssal demigod had returned injured after failing to conquer another world. His failure had been public. His weakness obvious. Wanting entertainment rather than justice, they had surrounded him under the pretense of punishment, intending only to toy with him. Torture, humiliation—nothing more. Even after becoming abyssals, their underworld natures had never fully quieted.
Then Gluttony had taken a bite.
What followed had shocked them all.
Divine Energy—the violet energy that carried one's fate, destiny, and accumulated fortune—had poured free with almost no resistance. Unlike normal harvests when conquering other planets, the divine energy of a fellow abyssal demigod was nearly identical in nature to their own. Pure. Familiar. Easy to digest.
Most abyssal demigods could not survive on such energy alone. As the highest level of energy in the universe, it was very difficult to refine even for demigods. Therefore, they had to mix it with lower sources of energy—the soul or flesh—to get enough energy to sustain themselves. That impurity was the reason gold and red flecks shimmered within their violet eyes. Only anomalies like the black abyssal dragon could absorb fully refined divine energy without difficulty.
But that day, feeding together, they had never eaten so well.
That discovery had changed everything...
Wrath bared his teeth. "You can't."
Mammon tilted his head. "Can't?"
"The Great Mother forbade—"
"She forbade hunting," Mammon corrected. "Not discipline."
The word landed heavier than any blow.
Leviathan laughed quietly. "You were the one who argued that point to her."
Memory struck like a blade.
Wrath's domain flared again.
And died.
Pressure slammed down, pinning him in place. Consensus. Overlapping domains fused into a lattice that pressed into his essence itself, locking his fate in place.
Wrath roared.
Mammon sighed. "Please don't struggle. It complicates extraction."
The first touch came.
Not teeth. Not claws.
Something more akin to cold tentacles made of intangible energy reached into Wrath's core and pulled.
Wrath screamed.
Then another cold energy entered him. And another.
Purple Divine Energy bled from his form, resisting as it was drawn free.
Leviathan, Envy, inhaled.
His presence swelled as violet light streamed toward him, scales brightening, sharpening, his form gaining a predatory clarity that hadn't been there a moment before.
Wrath convulsed as something fundamental was torn free.
Belphegor, Sloth, was next. He anchored Wrath in place and ripped away a chunk of his manifested domain with brute inevitability, shoving it into his mouth.
Wrath felt himself shrinking—compressed, diminished.
Beelzebub surged forward in a frenzy, plunging into the leaking Divine Energy, siphoning greedily as his wings screamed in ecstatic overload and his body bloated with stolen potential.
And then Lilith stepped in.
She traced a single finger along Wrath's brow, eyes lingering on him with something like regret—but not sympathy.
"Such a waste," she murmured. "I always thought you'd make a marvelous lover."
Then she too began to feast. Along with the dozens of other watching abyssal demigods.
From the shadows, the black abyssal dragon watched in shock.
This wasn't how things were before he'd been imprisoned!
'Abyssals eat each other now?!'
Fear rippled through him.
Wrath thrashed one final time, cracks tearing through the lattice. The building shook.
Mammon frowned. "Enough."
The others closed in. One by one. Careful. Precise.
The final thread holding Wrath together snapped.
Wrath collapsed—barely alive, but hollow.
Even a mid-grade abyssal could probably kill him now. And it was unknown if he'd ever be able to recover. This last bit of life left to him was out of respect to the Great Mother, so that one of her fallen generals may still one day serve a purpose to her.
The domains withdrew.
The council breathed again.
In the shadows, the black abyssal dragon recoiled deeper.
'If other abyssal demigods could be consumed—'
He did not finish the thought.
After expelling a large, satisfying breath, Mammon turned to face the rest of the 'Council': "Now, should we discuss the current timeline for invading the planet 'Earth'?"
"Due to the return of a special kinsman," Mammon looked at the black dragon shrinking in the corner, "The Great Mother has said that our plans to begin a full-scale invasion in a few more months can be moved forward. In fact, we can probably begin invading the other continents two months ahead of schedule. Are there any volunteers to lead the expedition?"