I'm The Devil-Chapter 324: Trapped

The silence didn’t feel peaceful.

It felt… unfinished.

Lucifer stood there a moment longer, fire dripping off his body like sweat, his wings smoldering behind him. Nezha was still watching the sky, the crack above them finally sealing shut, like a wound that forgot it was bleeding.

The stars were flickering back into place now. One by one. Dim little lights pretending like the universe hadn’t just been torn in half.

Lucifer rolled his shoulder, wincing. Something inside him popped.

Nezha exhaled. "That it?"

Lucifer didn’t answer right away. He scanned the void.

It looked calm.

Too calm.

"No," he said finally. "Not yet."

Nezha turned to him. "What do you mean?"

Lucifer narrowed his eyes, watching shadows ripple in the distance. "There’s still things out there. Fragments. Seeds. Echoes."

"From the gods?"

Lucifer nodded. "From everything."

He turned toward Nezha. "I need to clean it up."

Nezha frowned. "You serious?"

Lucifer gave a tired grin. "When am I not?"

"You’re gonna sweep the whole void?"

"Yep."

"By yourself?"

Lucifer nodded. "You go back. Tell the others… whatever you want."

Nezha stepped forward. "You don’t have to—"

"I do." Lucifer’s voice cut sharp, but not angry. Just final. "If they come back, it’s because I didn’t finish the job. I’m not leaving any pieces behind."

Nezha stared at him a moment, then let out a breath and looked away. "Fine. But don’t take forever."

Lucifer looked up at where the crack used to be. "I’ll be right behind you."

They didn’t shake hands. They didn’t hug. Just a nod.

Then Nezha rose, vanishing into the last echo of the fading crack in the sky.

Lucifer stood alone now.

And then he got to work.

---

The Outer Void was endless.

It wasn’t space. It wasn’t even "out there." It was underneath everything. The trash heap of creation. Every broken god, dead idea, forbidden law, all dumped here like it didn’t matter.

Lucifer drifted through it like a ghost.

Sometimes he flew.

Sometimes he walked on nothing.

Sometimes he just appeared where he needed to be.

The fragments came in different forms. Slivers of Zathrith’s skin still twitching with locked time-loops. Clumps of Naqirath’s eyes floating in oily black fog, still watching, still blinking. Chunks of Vora’Zhul’s failed spawns, stuck in fetal screams. Even whispers of Azahrak, still humming in the cracks between atoms, trying to reform.

Lucifer didn’t let them.

Every time he found one, he burned it.

No prayers. No words. Just fire.

His fire.

Divine, infernal, raw, personal. The kind of flame that didn’t just scorch—it rewrote.

The deeper he went, the worse it got.

There were things buried even deeper than the Outer Gods. Things they forgot. Things they feared. Concepts that had no name, memories that never got born. Little crawlers made of hunger and bone thought they could sneak past him.

They didn’t.

Lucifer’s blade—still that promise, still that old broken vow—flashed in the dark. One cut. Two. Done.

Time didn’t pass here.

But it did wear.

Lucifer felt it.

The longer he stayed, the heavier he got.

Not his body. His mind.

He started forgetting things.

His name.

His shape.

Sometimes he had six wings. Sometimes none. Sometimes horns. Sometimes just eyes.

But the fire stayed.

That’s how he knew he was still himself.

He kept going.

He found one of Izh’raqul’s lesser mouths hiding in a fold of unreality, trying to reform by feeding on leftover dreams.

Lucifer reached in and ripped out its tongue.

Then burned the rest.

At one point, he came across a version of himself.

Not a clone.

A possibility.

A Lucifer who never rebelled.

It smiled at him. Warm. Innocent. Pure.

Lucifer killed it.

Didn’t even blink.

Kept walking.

---

Eventually…

There was nothing left.

Just quiet.

And cold.

Lucifer stood in the center of the void now.

No motion.

No light.

He looked around, eyes dim but still burning faint red.

"Done," he muttered.

No one answered.

No gods.

No monsters.

No Nezha.

He turned.

Looked up.

The crack—his way out—should’ve been there.

It wasn’t.

Just smooth black.

Unbroken.

Unreal.

Lucifer blinked. Frowned.

He raised his hand, summoned light. Fired a pulse.

Nothing.

He moved forward. Walked for what felt like hours.

Still no exit.

He tried to open a gate himself.

Pushed divine will into the void.

Nothing happened.

Tried again.

Still nothing.

He floated there a moment, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.

"…Huh."

Back in Pangu Realm

The wind was thin on Devil’s Peak.

No sound. No birds. Just the whistling quiet of old stone and older skies. Nezha stood there alone, the last ember of a war that shouldn’t have been real. His cloak fluttered in the wind, tattered from the last battles, eyes locked on the horizon where the tear in space used to be.

Gone.

For good this time.

No flicker. No pulse. Just air.

"Damn it…" he whispered.

He waited there for hours. Just in case. Lucifer had always been the kind of bastard who’d show up late and still act like he planned it. But this time… nothing. No wings. No smirk. Just silence.

It hit different now.

He turned slowly, eyes dull, and walked away.

---

The palace was quiet when Nezha returned. No alarms. No celebration. Just a heavy stillness that settled over the marble like grief. He didn’t have to say a word when he stepped through the front gates. They saw it in his face.

And they felt it in their bones.

Aphrodite was the first to appear. She looked at him—then past him. Her smile started to rise, waiting for that second presence to step in behind.

But no one came.

"…Where is he?" she asked.

Nezha didn’t answer. Just looked at her.

Her breath caught. "No. No, no. Don’t do that. Don’t look at me like that."

Bast stepped into the hall, tail twitching, her golden eyes sharpening. "He’s not with you?"

Nezha lowered his head. "He stayed behind. The crack… it closed."

Hestia froze mid-step in the courtyard, hands still covered in garden soil. "What do you mean it closed?"

"He said he’d follow. Said he just needed to finish cleaning the outer void." Nezha swallowed hard. "But something happened. When he turned to leave, the tear was just… gone."

Athena stepped down the stairs, fists clenched. "Then we find a way back in."

"It doesn’t work like that." His voice was tired. "The tear was unnatural. A rip caused by the Balance. That thing’s gone now. So’s the path."

Amaterasu’s light dimmed. "He’s trapped."

"Worse," Medusa muttered, arms crossed. "He’s buried. In a place not even gods can reach."

Aphrodite turned away, covering her mouth. She didn’t cry loud. Just quiet. Small, broken sounds that didn’t belong to a goddess.

Hestia walked up, grabbed Nezha by the collar. "You left him."

He didn’t fight back. "He told me to."

"YOU LEFT HIM!" she screamed.

"HE MADE ME!"

Her hand fell. Nezha stumbled back, breathing hard.

"I begged him," he said, voice shaking. "I begged him not to stay. He just smiled. Said someone had to lock the door after the monsters were gone."

Silence.

Heavy.

Amaterasu dropped to her knees. "That idiot…"

Bast sat down on the edge of a low fountain, staring into the water like she could summon him through it.

Athena didn’t say anything. She just turned, walked outside, and punched a pillar until it cracked.

Aphrodite finally spoke. "So that’s it? He saved everyone… and now he’s just gone?"

Nezha said nothing.

Because there was nothing else to say.

---

Later that night, the wives gathered at the high temple.

Lucifer’s throne sat untouched at the center. Still scorched from his last fight. His coat still hung off the backrest, frayed and half-burned. No one moved it.

They sat around it in silence. Gods and monsters. Queens and warriors. Not crying anymore.

Just breathing.

Waiting.

Hestia lit a small flame at the base of the throne. Just a little one. It danced low, soft.

"He’ll come back," she whispered.

"No, he won’t," Medusa replied. "But I’ll still wait."

"We all will," Bast added.

Even Athena nodded.

They didn’t light incense.

Didn’t pray.

Lucifer wouldn’t have wanted that.

They just sat. Together.

Wives of a devil who refused to die. freeweɓnovel.cøm

Wives of a man who went to the edge of creation—and stayed there to make sure it never broke again.