CHAPTER 157: BEELZEBUB

As the light finally faded, Raze found himself staring at a figure standing inside the library with him. His heart almost jumped out of his chest when he realized who it was.

The demon from the image in the book.

It stood exactly as the illustration had shown it. One hand resting on a massive sword propped casually against its shoulder. The creature posed with such confidence that it almost looked like it had been waiting centuries just to make this dramatic entrance. Its eyes slid slowly across the room until they met Raze’s, and it tilted its head slightly, as if saying look at me and admire greatness.

A low growl vibrated from its chest before it fully turned to face him.

"Are you the human that brought me here?" the demon asked in a loud, regal tone like it expected trumpets to follow its words.

"Yeah. That’s me," Raze replied, trying to keep his tone level despite the chaos inside his mind. He definitely had not expected that filling out a book would summon an actual demon.

The demon stared for a few breaths, then broke into a wide, sinister smile. Raze braced himself for an attack.

Instead, the sinister grin instantly shifted into a cheerful one.

"Oh, that is great," the demon said suddenly in a friendly voice, walking past Raze like someone who had just been released from a week-long nap. "Thank you. I have been trapped in a suspended state for a very long time."

Before Raze could react, the demon dragged out a chair, sat down, leaned back, and rested both arms on the table. He looked completely relaxed, while Raze stood there trying to process reality.

"What the hell is happening?" Raze asked.

The demon nodded as if that was a fair question. "Right. My apologies. I have not introduced myself. I am Beelzebub, a demon king."

Raze blinked. "A demon king."

"Yes. A demon king," Beelzebub repeated casually, as though announcing he worked at a bakery. "From a world that is most likely not the same as yours."

Raze rubbed his forehead. "I still don’t understand."

"Let me explain properly," Beelzebub said, lifting one finger like a teacher. "I was killed. Before my true death, I offered my soul to this library. The library sealed me in a book in a suspended state until someone summoned me again. That someone happened to be you."

"You offered your soul to the library?" Raze asked.

"Yes. I did not want to die. A strange woman came to me at the moment of death and offered me a way to live again, even if only inside a book. I accepted," Beelzebub explained calmly.

Raze lifted both hands, signaling him to stop. "No. Wait. This is too much. I need more details"

Beelzebub nodded. "Fair. If you want the rest of the information, you must undergo what the book calls the trial. Anyone who summons me receives my blessing, but ypu need to but undergo the trial, which means, you live through my life. My struggles, my pain, my victories, everything. If you survive it mentally, you gain my blessing and all the answers you want."

He stretched his hand out toward Raze.

"All you have to do is shake my hand."

Raze stared at the hand like it might explode.

"No. No. No. I am not shaking anything until I understand what is going on." He glared around the library. "Library, explain. Librarian, where are you? Someone tell me what this is."

But the library stayed completely silent.

Raze looked back at Beelzebub, who continued smiling as though all of this was perfectly reasonable.

And Raze felt it again. That pressure. That eerie sense that the being sitting across from him was powerful. Extremely powerful. Possibly beyond even Fey.

Luckily for Raze, the librarian descended from above in a gentle drift of light. It turned toward Beelzebub, who was still seated casually in the chair like he owned the place. Then the librarian floated to Raze’s side.

"Seems you have completed the first page of the book I gave, this is the result," the librarian said calmly. It pointed at Beelzebub. "He is alive within the library. His purpose is to allow the current user of the library to gain experience and strength without needing to live it physically."

Raze looked at Beelzebub again.

"You may obtain his blessing by undergoing a trial," the librarian continued. "The trial places you in his mind, showing you his life from beginning to end in a fast-forwarded stream. Surviving it mentally means you gain his blessing. That is the reason I gave you the book. It will allow you to summon otherworldly beings and gain power from their experiences."

Raze stared at the librarian for a long moment before releasing a deep, slow breath.

"So let me get this straight," Raze said. "You are telling me that this being is a demon king from another world. He was supposed to die, but the library saved him. And his job now is for me to relive his life and gain experience from it?"

"That is exactly what I said," Beelzebub replied, still seated comfortably. He rose to his feet with a confident stride. "All you have to do is step into my mind and walk through my memories. See what I saw. Feel what I felt. Understand what shaped me."

Raze folded his arms. "Fine. How long did you even live?"

"Close to a thousand years," Beelzebub answered casually.

Raze’s eyes widened. "How in the world do you expect me to go through a thousand years of memories like it is nothing? Am I supposed to stay trapped in your life story forever? Humans barely live a hundred years. I would die of boredom before I die of old age."

The librarian shook its head. "No. Barely ten seconds will pass in the real world. Inside your mind, it will feel longer, but still fast-forwarded. The mind accepts information at an accelerated speed. You will experience the entire sequence in moments. You should be done before you even collapse to the ground."

Raze looked at the librarian, then at Beelzebub, who smiled like this was all routine.

"I still do not fully understand this," Raze muttered. He thought for a moment. "But the library has never led me down a bad path. Not yet, at least."

With a steady exhale, he stepped forward and stretched out his hand.