It was incredibly painful.

Of course, it wasn’t as bad as the time Henry drank the Black Tear to advance to the 8th-Circle, but this pain was strangely different. He felt like his brain and heart were tightening.

Cold sweat trickled down his chin. He was burning up, and because the air was chilly, steam came off of him.

Henry tried his best to stay awake. The pain had exhausted him, his strength almost entirely gone. However, strangely enough, this fluttering sensation in his heart made Henry smile.

‘Could it be?’

This sensation was strangely familiar, and because of that, Henry was expecting something. He was almost welcoming the pain.

Henry straightened up from his hunched position. He then kneeled, stretched his back, and sat in the lotus position. There was nothing quite like sitting in the lotus position to help him focus.

Henry straightened his back and exhaled deeply.

Cold sweat was still dripping from him like rain. The pain and the dizziness had caused his vision to become blurry, so he decided to close his eyes.

Henry was plunged into darkness, but he wasn’t scared because he purposefully submerged himself in it. In his little dark world, Henry checked on the new ring growing in his heart, and after confirming what it was, he couldn’t help smiling.

‘I knew it!’

There was no mistake about it. The new ring that was forming on his heart was the ninth ring. He was absolutely sure of it.

The ring was trembling slightly like a newborn puppy. This was proof that the ring wasn’t complete yet.

Henry slowly circulated his mana throughout his body. He filtered his mana until it was completely pure and then sent it to the ninth ring.

In a way, this was a tedious and long process. In fact, the ring required a lot of time and care, and Henry felt like he was tending to a newborn animal.

But none of that mattered. If anything, Henry was, at this moment, the most competent nanny in the world, so he welcomed this new ring along with all the pain.

After half a day of maintaining the process, Henry was no longer sweating as much as before, and steam was no longer coming off of him either.

Another six hours had passed, and now the rate at which Henry was sweating slowed down significantly. Actually, he was barely sweating at all.

A few hours later, Henry’s head was no longer throbbing, his dizziness gone. Eventually, Henry returned to his normal self, healthy as ever. He could finally smile because the ninth ring had finally stopped quivering.

The moment the new ring stabilized itself, Henry slowly infused mana into it. The ring was spinning slowly as Henry’s mana was filling it up.

The rotation was steady at first, but the speed soon picked up and fell in harmony with the other eight rings.

The ninth ring eventually became complete and synchronized with the others, and Henry slowly opened his eyes as he was finally done with the whole process.

Time passed at a different pace in the Demon Realm, and as Henry looked around, he realized that the scenery hadn’t changed at all. Raina was nowhere to be seen, and Gaga and Ganisel were still unconscious on the ground.

Henry slowly broke the lotus pose and stood up. His joints cracked loudly and hurt like hell because he had maintained the lotus position for what would’ve been almost a full day in the human realm.

However, it was a pleasant kind of stiffness. As he stood up, Henry took a deep breath, and despite the toxins in the air, he felt refreshed.

“...I never thought I’d achieve my dream this way,” Henry quietly muttered to himself, a hint of disbelief in his voice. Even though there wasn’t anything amusing going on, his smirk was as wide as it could be.

The 9th-Circle had just been created. Henry couldn’t believe he had managed to achieve his dream so easily.

After taking in a few more breaths of fresh air, Henry closed his eyes again. During the past day, he had been distracted by the ninth ring suddenly forming in his heart, but it wasn’t this ring that the Demon God had given him.

He had received the power to manipulate dimensions that would bring him back to the human realm.

Henry recalled the wave of information he had received. It had been overwhelming at first, but his overloaded brain had finally settled down after organizing his Circles.

As he collected his thoughts with his eyes closed, the newly acquired dimensional knowledge slowly came back to him.

‘This is…’

All the information on dimensions was in divine language, and Henry had no difficulties deciphering it, given that he was a god himself.

Having processed the information, Henry finally understood how he had awakened the 9th-Circle.

Magic that dealt with dimensions was extremely messy and difficult to comprehend. Moreover, it was in the divine language.

Of course, the information was organized in a way that Henry could understand and apply right away. However, that didn’t change the fact that this kind of knowledge was simply too much for the human brain.

Henry had awakened the 9th-Circle by managing to assimilate that knowledge. And even though it had been forced upon him, it was nonetheless an extraordinary form of enlightenment.

Therefore, his ascension to the 9th-Circle was like a natural evolutionary process through the acquisition of advanced knowledge.

‘It seems that my body chose to evolve itself in order to fully understand this dimensional knowledge.’

Henry had full control over his body, yet in moments like these, he found his subconscious to be frightening. Although, he was also grateful to his instinct of proactively evolving.

He turned his attention back to dimensional knowledge. As one would with any precious ancient book, Henry slowly studied the information he had been fed.

The information was so abundant that Henry found himself analyzing it for half a day. However, not a second of it was boring to him, quite the contrary. He was deeply invested in his quest for knowledge.

Soon, Ganisel finally woke up.

“Ugh…!”

Ganisel had passed out at some point, but he didn’t remember anything about it. He was holding onto his head as though it was about to shatter and slowly rose to his feet.

As he looked around, he found Henry standing in front of him with his eyes closed. Puzzled by this, Ganisel asked, “What are you doing…?”

“Shhh…”

In response, Henry brought his index finger to his lips and silenced Ganisel.

The fallen angel didn’t understand what Henry was doing, but as time passed and his mind became clearer, Ganisel noticed something strange about Henry. He rubbed his eyes and looked at Henry again.

There was no mistake about it. Henry’s presence was even greater and more powerful than before he had passed out.

‘What the…?’

A myriad of thoughts went through Ganisel’s mind.

What in the world had happened while he was unconscious? What had caused Henry to evolve at such a frightening level?

Ganisel’s curiosity raised questions that lay on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt Henry again. He found it hard to talk to Henry because he didn’t even see him as human anymore.

Looking at Henry, Ganisel felt an ominous yet noble aura, and he could tell that Henry had surpassed humanity.

The fallen angel waited. He wasn’t sure what Henry was doing, but he didn’t want to interrupt this terrifying being, whom he was too afraid to talk to.

Several hours went by, during which Ganisel kept his eyes fixed on Henry at all times.

Henry stood in the same position from the beginning, his eyes closed shut. He hadn’t moved in the slightest. However, not even a second of this was boring to Ganisel because he felt that the human in front of him was slowly but surely becoming a greater being with each passing moment.

Henry was evolving in real time, which was a fascinating sight for Ganisel, given that he himself had been seeking great power.

Several more hours passed, and only after a full day did Henry finally open his eyes. He seemed uplifted.

Ganisel continued to watch Henry.

After a long silence, Henry said, “That took some time.”

“It’s fine. I wasn’t bored at all.”

“That’s good. Then shall we get going?”

“To where?”

“I promised that I’d help you get your revenge, right?”

“...!”

So much had happened that Ganisel had forgotten for a second why he had accompanied Henry to begin with. But to be honest, he wasn’t really expecting much in that regard.

He had seen sincerity in Henry’s eyes when he had made the promise, but Ganisel was unsure if someone of Henry’s caliber would care about him after gaining so much power.

However, Henry didn’t forget about his promise.

When Ganisel looked at him in surprise, Henry smirked and said, “Don’t be so surprised. Promises are meant to be kept, and I also managed to take care of my problems while you were napping.”

“You took care of them? Then the new Demon King of the Demon Realm is…?”

“Ah… Is that how it works? I didn’t hear anything about me being appointed as the new Demon King… Anyway, I was granted the power to manipulate dimensions, so all my problems are gone. But now that you mention it, the position of Demon King is indeed vacant.”

A lot of things had changed from what he had initially planned. However, even though the process of solving the main problem had changed drastically, Henry had ultimately gotten everything he wanted.

He finally had the power to cross over to the human realm and also seal off the Demon Realm Gap. He understood the principles of dimensional disasters and what they were exactly, which meant that he could close the gap for good and prevent demonic beasts from ever entering the human realm again.

Therefore, Henry didn’t need to become the new Demon King. He thought about the situation, and after a while, he turned to Ganisel and said, “Do you want to become the Demon King?”

“Me?”

“That position is no longer of any use to me. Besides, you won’t have much to do after you’re done taking revenge on the heavens, right?”

Henry was right.

Having unexpectedly attained incredible powers, Henry would take revenge on the heavens on behalf of Ganisel, and the fallen angel would claim the honor for himself.

However, Ganisel had no intention of returning to the heavens and live a lowly life there just because he had regained his honor. His values were more suited to the Demon Realm than the strict heavens.

Ganisel found himself forced to agree with Henry. The only problem was that even if he became the new Demon King then and there, he didn’t have the power to protect that position.

Therefore, it was hard for him to give Henry an answer.

Seeing Ganisel’s expression, Henry said, “It’s because of these, right?”

He then pulled out from the subspace the six wings he had cut from Ganisel and offered them back.

However, even if Ganisel got his wings back, reattaching them was easier said than done.

“If your wings are the problem, I’ll reattach them, but if you still can’t regain your strength, I’ll lend you my power until you regain your own,” proposed Henry.

Henry was being awfully generous, and Ganisel was confused as to why he was trying to help him so much. He hadn’t received kindness from anyone ever since he had been banished to the Demon Realm.

Seeing Ganisel’s puzzled look, Henry explained, “Don’t worry about it. Just think of it as payment for the information you gave me. If someone else had brought me here, I would’ve rewarded them properly as well. ”

Henry’s reasoning was simple.

𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

This kind of goodwill was nothing to Henry, but it was very meaningful for Ganisel. He hadn’t felt such kindness in a long time, and it made him feel a bit nostalgic about his time in the heavens.

Henry’s unexpected gesture of goodwill caused Ganisel’s resentment from having his wings cut off completely melt away like snow.

“Thanks… I shall never forget your kindness,” said Ganisel in a soft voice.

“Just don’t forget what you’ve just said, alright?” replied Henry, smiling as his new friend had just become the new Demon King.