"… How are you doing, Lord Oedipus?"

"Any discoveries?"

After a while, Oedipus's hand still gently rested on Samael's head, sighing softly.

"No, it seems that Mammon has erased a lot of Samael's memories."

"There are clear gaps in recent memories."

"This guy Mammon... He's been feigning fear of me for over a decade, making me think he had surrendered."

"Turns out it was just to make me drop my guard, huh?"

"Such audacity..."

Oedipus detested the unknown and things that exceeded predictions the most, and now Mammon, without a doubt, had set Oedipus' final challenge with his own death.

"I need to dig deeper into his memories, see if I can find any clues."

"London, why don't you head back for now."

London swallowed a spit, she was actually quite frightened by Samael's sudden burst of power just now, but considering her unwavering loyalty to her master, she didn't want to leave so easily.

"It's okay, Lord Oedipus. Whatever happens, I will protect you until the very end."

Oedipus let out a light hum, as if agreeing with London's words, yet also as if disdainful of London's boastful assurances.

"Suit yourself... Hm?"

"Besides the curse I left on Samael, there's actually another curse within his body."

Oedipus' tentacles began to move faster, almost inscribing incomprehensible runes all over the surrounding ground.

"The code is very messy... There are many redundancies within the looping structures."

"Is this curse written by Mammon? That despicable devil... hiding this up his sleeve."

"Hmph... It's so messy, hard to decipher."

"It seems we won't know the purpose of this program until we run it."

"Wait, it looks like it's running now?"

Seeing the suddenly shimmering crystal-clear golden text in sight, Oedipus broke into a cold sweat.

Oedipus rapidly flipped through the code written by Mammon in the curse, not stopping until he reached the last line, where he noticed a small annotation.

"Is this... a comment on the program?"

"Encountering the älven, grasping it; meeting the flowers, it fades."

"What does that mean?"

A vast pile of bytes sat before the monumental program, the last line marked with an eternally profound epitaph-like poetic verse.

Oedipus furrowed her brow, sensing a truly life-threatening danger emanating from it for the first time since her birth.

"What does 'älven' mean...?"

"Is it referring to me?"

The program within Samael’s mind seemed to be reaching its conclusion, and Oedipus couldn't help but add a tint of urgency to his tone.

"Jade? A gentleman like jade is the highest praise for Lord Oedipus."

London smirked at the side, but she was unsure of what kind of response Oedipus wanted to hear at this moment.

"No, it couldn't be jade."

"What's written here is..."

"Lucifer."

The little fox spoke up, releasing the tentacle that bound Samael and leaping lightly off the table, its cat-like vertical pupils widening as it silently stared at the unmoving Samael.

Approaching Samael, Beezelbub extended a pair of small claws and gently stroked Samael's shoulder.

"When we angels used to play together as kids, we all called you that, right?"

"Saying you're as cunning and sinister as a salamander."

"Have you forgotten?"

"You have too many memories from the divine. You've even forgotten about these things."

Beezelbub licked their claw and slowly wagged their tail.

"So, Mammon remembered the things from the lab?"

"That's why she's able to cast curses."

"Because she even remembered how to use curses."

"But that doesn't make sense."

"Every time I checked her memories at intervals, she didn't remember anything, right?"

Oedipus bit their thumb and tried hard to decipher the program left by Mammon in Samael's mind, but they couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Glancing at the progress of the program's execution, Oedipus noticed that it was almost at one hundred percent.

"She must have hidden a book that records her past memories."

"She deletes her memories each time to evade your inspections, then reads the book to recall those memories."

"It's quite easy, isn't it? Just like how you dodged the lab's inspections back then."

"Perhaps Maria does the same to you in Congress."

Sitting like a cat, Beezelbub seemed unruffled, casually throwing shade next to Oedipus.

It must be said that this is the confidence of possibly the strongest angel in the world—Archangel.

"Stop talking."

Oedipus's tone cooled down; she hated being unable to control the situation, especially now.

"Encountering a salamander, one grasps it; meeting a flower, one accepts serenity."

"Encountering a salamander, one grasps it; meeting a flower, one accepts serenity..."

"What does that even mean?"

Seeing Oedipus in great distress, Beezelbub sighed and hopped onto Oedipus's shoulder in two or three steps, whispering into Oedipus' ear.

"You need to learn a lesson too."

"You think everything in this world is logical."

"Everyone is as self-serving as you are."

"That is precisely why you've become the biggest failure among us."

A burst of intense light suddenly erupted from Samael's shattered organs, orifices, and veins.