Hell's Consort

Newest Chapter For Highest Tier (May 2022)

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The Archdemon of Sloth

Prince Sloth from the Seventh Circle of Hell

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All that mattered was that she knew how to protect Luna.

Sloth paced the chambers with his head up high that he didn't notice that he almost stepped on a huge green python lying on the floor.

He yelped in surprise when its sharp fangs attempted to strike at his left leg.

He might be slow, but at least he was quicker to flap his demon wings and withdraw from the serpent.

The emerald snakeskin had successfully camouflaged with the birthing room except for the white irregular zigzag stripes that appeared like lightning bolts on its back.

"Why is there a python in here?" An Archdemon blade materialized in Sloth's hand so that he could neutralize the threat.

He could feel her wizened gaze on him before moving to the snake.

"Don't kill it. Just leave it be. That emerald python is tasked to protect any pregnant woman that comes here."

Sloth glowered at the disgusting creature as it slithered close to Lune's bed. "Wouldn't this creature pose any danger to Lune and the babies?"

"You should get out of here if you had no intentions of helping me, boy." She scolded him.

"You intended to turn me into a birth attendant?" He snorted, waving his hand in dismissal. "No thanks. I refuse."

Sloth was sure that he wasn't cut out for the role she had given him.

Perhaps this situation was no different from helping the monsters he raised in the Seventh Circle of Hell give birth.

He just had to treat the little girls like small animals and be done with it.

Sloth thought he had given the birth attendant ample time to put some clothes on his sister-in-law, so he permitted himself to look over his shoulder to check.

That glance felt like he had witnessed everything he wasn't supposed to.

He blushed and diverted his attention back to the wall at the speed of light.

The pristine white undervest was even less modest than her bodice earlier since it only covered her breast.

Nothing else.

Lune was supposed to wear this long skirt that the birth attendant had fetched earlier.

He had no idea what the old woman was thinking, blatantly exposing her lower body to him like this.

It wasn't like his Mistress begged him for attention, so it was still his fault in the end.

He collected himself and tried to act like a gentleman for the second time, giving the two women some privacy.

Sloth had turned his back on them while staying away from the python as far as possible.

"Then what are you waiting for? Wait outside the door. Males were forbidden to help or even watch the childbirth." She said, a-matter-of-fact.

"No. I'm staying here."

His decision was final even if his Mistress didn't look too modest from the few articles of clothing she wore, making him feel uncomfortable.

"You make the air foul just by breathing. It is unfit for the Princess' respiration."

He clenched and unclenched his fists.

As an Archdemon Prince, he didn't consent to the old crone throwing him some savage insults, but he tried to take it all in stride.

Sloth kept his feet firmly planted on the ground even if it felt like the emerald crystals were sucking his demonic energy from his soles.

Forgetting Lune's existence, Sloth turned to face the old woman again and asked calmly. " What if that snake decides that she will eat the babies out of the blue?" He made a good show of twirling the Archdemon Blade between his fingers. "Would you take responsibility?"

"The emerald python had a prolonged metabolism. We only fed him several months apart with frogs and rodents." She replied without faltering.

It was a birth attendant's pet in the birthing room.

"What other purposes did this python have aside from protection? Tell me one good reason, or I'll kill it."

"Its venom will make her body numb and slow down her healing abilities even more if I had to take the babies out as a last resort—"

"—and the antidote to this poison?" Sloth cut her off.

"The antidote is in that drawer." She pointed at the table drawer next to the closet. "I don't think I need it yet."

Finally, he gave in. "Alright."

He didn't miss the birth attendant's exaggerated sigh when he relieved her of the interrogation.

Sloth decided to trust the woman a bit, willed for his Archdemon blade to disappear, and turned his back on them again.

He heard the birth attendant jerk the blanket.

Perhaps, she realized her mistake that a man was there with them.

She hadn't covered Lune to Sloth's satisfaction, so she made up for it.

Sloth saw the old woman carry a cast-iron cauldron and slowly approached the small earthenware jars gathered in the hearth.

He speculated that it contained clean water, and she proved him correct when she used a ladle to fill it up to the rim.

She crammed some unknown delivery instruments made of high-grade steel inside the cauldron to sterilize them for later use.

Sloth, who had nothing better else to do instead of stand there and avoid Lune's impropriety, pried the cast iron cauldron from her wrinkled hands and settled it above the fire.

The birth attendant murmured her thanks with a small smile.

After that, the old woman went beside Lune, lowered the blankets to expose her belly, and began to massage her stomach.

The sweet scent of autumn clematis oil permeated the closed chamber.

Sloth didn't wait for the birth attendant to ask him to carry it to her when the water had boiled and began to overflow from the cauldron's lid.

Sloth grimaced.

It was hot enough that it scalded his skin.

He shouldn't be surprised that it took longer than usual to heal the burn just because he was in the birthing room surrounded by emerald crystals.