While various beings were having various reactions to the prophesied child's birth, said child was currently laughing joyfully in his mother's arms.
Besides being a little bit bigger than average, he looked no different from a normal baby.
"Of course, he's a normal baby after all."
"He looks cute."
"So this is my grandson huh?"
With the assistance of the Royal family's private doctor and the two women who had gone through the pains of childbirth before, Cattleya was able to safely give birth to her son without any complications.
As for the gods all around the cosmos who were shaking in their booths, the boy's father included, she could not care less about them.
The little boy ignored all his family member's reactions in favour of playing with his mother's fingers.
Like his mother, he had silver hair, just a bit brighter in colour. His eyes, however, were black just like his father's, and his pupils had an uncommon shape.
Unlike the normal, more common circular shape, his were like vertical slits.
"He's just ignoring everyone else and playing with Cattleya only."
"He seems to like his mommy best."
"That's only natural, isn't it?"
Hearing the words of her family members surrounding her on the bed, Cattleya tilted her head to the side and asked. To this action, her mother simply put her head back in place as she replied.
"When you were just born, you were so full of energy. You played with anyone who came to see you."
"I don't really think I was like that though?"
"Of course, you would not."
Inglis replied while rolling her eyes. She then turned to look at the Devil king who had curled himself up in the corner of the room mumbling strange things. She told Cattleya how he was getting depressed that his grandson was not paying attention to him but Cattleya only gave a cold reply.
"I don't see how that's my problem."
Cattleya laughed at the sight of Creusery attempting to console the depressed Diablo only to end up joining him in the depression as his newborn nephew was also ignoring him before turning to her son and smiling.
"He's too cute. I understand why he's the child of destruction, he'd destroy us with cuteness."
The baby seemed to understand his mother's words and flailed around happily. However, he was still a baby, one that was only a few hours old, he had very little energy and tired himself out in no time before falling asleep in his mother's arms.
Seeing her son sleeping soundly, Cattleya's lack of energy caught up with her as she dozed off while gently hugging the child in her arms.
Inglis looked at her sleeping daughter with a smile before turning around and speaking to the rest of the people in the room.
"We would be getting a lot of visitors, both welcome and unwelcome ones. How are we dealing with them?"
"The same way we did at Creusery and Cattleya's births, only with twice the level of intensity."
The once-depressed grandfather instantly recovered his dignity as the Devil King and put up an inhibition barrier around Cattleya before continuing.
"We would have allies, neutral parties, and enemies in disguise coming over. Cattleya is not to go out for a while, even more so as she's currently weaker than normal."
When devils gave birth, the children absorbed a portion of their mother's strength for themselves. This weakened the mother temporarily and if the situation was handled improperly, it could lead to the mother's death.
The silver lining was that it helped increase the child's realm of existence to a higher level, though a year is needed to tell what level the child was brought up to.
Sadly, even if the child were only brought up a few stages or just a single minor level, it would still result in the mother being weakened greatly.
Currently, Cattleya was only a little bit above half her original strength. This was a crucial time when many might make attempts on both her and the child's lives so going out like she usually did would be simply her courting death.
"Speaking of which, did she give him a name?"
"Nope, she probably planned to do so with his father."
At the mention of the child's father, Aurora who was present flinched slightly. Inglis saw this and wondered what occurred between her and who she thought was the father of the child to warrant such a reaction.
"Just wha-!"
Right as she was about to play the insensitive role and ask Aurora without consideration for how she may have felt, she saw something that surprised both her, Aurora who she was about to speak to, and Creusery who was checking on his mother.
Diablo narrowed his eyes as he gazed in a certain direction with all his six pairs of wings revealed!
This was an action that Inglis had forgotten when last she saw Diablo do this, even when battling multiple high-tier celestial deities, he did not do so.
This meant whoever or whatever he sensed was not to be underestimated.
All of them instantly became alert. Inglis summoned her magic staff as she felt something pass through one of the barriers she has set up around Dorcaster.
The other Arch devils in the castle all had tense expressions on their faces, the aura Diablo was emitting just that overwhelming.
The spherical device she had made on Cattleya's request began flashing wildly atop the table she kept it on. The divinity crystal in it began to glow a dark light.
Seeing this, Inglis realized who Diablo had sensed, however, Diablo acted like he was a threat, and so she decided to treat him as such.
There was silence in the room, no one made a sound as they all remained standing with their gazes on the spherical device that was currently flashing light.
Suddenly, it stopped.
The next moment, they sensed someone warping into the room. Creusery created a spear of black flames and thrust it forward while Inglis had conjured hundreds of darkness spears and was about to gesture for them to fire.
|STOP!|
Diablo's sudden shoot made the both of them cease their movements, however, he was not speaking to them but to the person who warped in.
"Tell that to them."
The intruder, Hades, replied as he unsummoned his twin swords that were pointed in Inglis' and Cattleya's directions.
He then took off his hood and revealed his face. Seeing him, Inglis and Creusery recognized him instantly, he was one of the elder Olympians after all.
Strictly speaking, the devils of Hell had no disputes with the Olympians, however, they were considered enemies because of the fact that Olympus was allied with Celestials that the devils had animosity with.
Nevertheless, that was not the reason for Diablo's actions.
It was widely known that Hades was superior even among the highest-ranked Olympian gods, even so, his strength was not supposed to be as high as what Diablo was sensing currently.
Hades also rose his eyebrows in surprise when he looked at Diablo. He then rose a finger in Diablo's direction and flicked it.
Diablo responded by opening up his palm before closing it back.
This set of actions puzzled the others in the room, none of them could see or sense the multicoloured ball of energy Hades flicked towards Diablo, one that Diablo rose his palm to catch.
"It seems I failed to hide it once again. I also did not expect to see another 'sub'."
"Are you truly that child's father?"
After Hades' strange words, Diablo asked him the question that had been on his mind for a while.
"Yep, in the flesh.
I'm sure you have a lot to ask but first, Can I see my kid? That's why I'm here, after all."
After scanning him from head to toe, Diablo finally let him go beyond the barrier he placed around Cattleya, he also sent Creusery to pacify the unsettled devils outside the room.
A smile bloomed on Hades' face as he saw Cattleya for the first time in months, sleeping peacefully with their son in her arms. He lightly rearranged her hair that had spilt over her face before touching the baby in her arms.
Even in his sleep, the baby seemed to recognize his father's touch as he smiled while grabbing onto the hand touching his face. This caused Hades' smile to become wider as he spoke the exact same words Cattleya said earlier.
"He's too cute. I understand why he's the child of destruction, he'd destroy us with cuteness."
He felt the weird stares the others were giving him and turned to them with a questioning gaze.
"What? Never seen a dad who's a fool for his kid before?"
"No, it's just that Leya said those same words not long ago."
Creusery's reply evoked a laugh from Hades as he turned to Diablo and asked.
"We have a lot to discuss, so shall we go elsewhere?"
Diablo nodded and walked out of the room with Hades trailing behind, however, right before he closed the door behind him, he turned towards Aurora.
"Nice to see you again, Aurora."
Leaving the unsettled phoenix, he closed the door behind him and walked with Diablo as the two began discussing important matters.
As there were many Nobles present in the castle, they all saw Hades and instantly figured out who the father of their princess' child was.
Upon seeing him, they had a variety of reactions. Some were shocked, some smiled as if amused while others were angry but had to hold themselves back as lashing out at Hades would not end well.
Meanwhile, the duo ignored the stares of the Devildom nobles as they entered a private room to continue their discussion.
They discussed the issue of Hades revealing he was the father of the prophesied child and how the gods would take the news, especially his brother, Zeus.
"They can't do anything to me so they're just gonna have to suck on their thumbs."
"They can't do anything to you?"
"Yes, what do you think they could do?"
Thinking about it, Diablo realized there was very little that could be done to Hades. He was a powerful god with equally high status, he was also the king of the Underworld, one of Olympus's major Superclusters.
The system of Olympus also relied heavily on his existence, any sanctions they might try to give him would be equivalent to them shooting themselves in the leg.
"They might try to scheme in the background though, especially Zeus."
"So then, what are you gonna do about that?"
"There'd be nothing much for me to do if the boy doesn't leave Hell for now.
If he ever comes to Olympus, it'd be when I'm sure no harm would come to him. If he stays here, you all would be able to watch him closely and protect him if the need arises."
"Do you perhaps plan to abandon him here?"
"Obviously not, I'd visit more often than not. However, you should know that I cannot leave the Underworld for extended periods of time due to the nature of my position there."
Diablo nodded in affirmation before asking about Hades' relationship with Aurora. The answer he received was far from his expectations.
A few dozen millennia ago, Aurora's family was in Olympus and they prevented Hades from retrieving the soul of a phoenix deity for reasons Hades could not give two fucks about at the time.
He was quite pissed so he killed her father and brother in front of her before retrieving the soul and leaving. This made Diablo angry but Hades' words made him calm down.
"I know you're angry and all but you should remember that they were the ones in 'MY' universe, harbouring a soul that escaped from 'MY' underworld for foolish reasons.
If you were in my position, would you let them go? They were obstructing my duties as a god."
Although Diablo felt there was something else Hades wasn't telling him, he decided to put it behind him as it had already been thousands of years since the incident occurred.
◇ ◇ ◇
"Arthur? That was the name you both decided on?"
"Yep, his full name is obviously something else but we're gonna go with Arthur Vaughn.
Hades doesn't exactly have a last name so he'd go with mine."
To the question asked by her mother, Cattleya replied while rocking the baby in her arms to sleep.
"Well sorry for not getting one from my dad, he was too busy eating his kids to care."
Hades' grumbled in response to Cattleya's words, however, Cattleya ignored him and continued speaking.
"I don't really want him to see the scary faces of all those guys outside so he needs to be asleep."
"Why not just use a spell?"
Seeing her reason for rocking the child to sleep, Hades asked feeling this was going to take quite a while.
"No! I want to do it normally, like humans do."
"Might as well get a human nanny for him."
"On a second thought I might just do th- Oh he's asleep, let's go, we'd talk about the nanny later."
Seeing as the boy had fallen asleep in his mother's arms, the trio finally walked into the banquet hall where the celebrations were ongoing.
[Entering!!!!
Grand Duchess Inglis, Her Royal Highness Cattleya and His Royal Highness Arthur alongside his Father, Olympian god of the Underworld, King Hades!!!]
Hearing them being announced, all those present in the hall turned towards them. Seeing the various dignitaries and representatives of various pantheons present, Cattleya clicked her tongue.
'What the hell?! There are more of them than I thought! So many auras so widely released might cause him to wake up!'
Before she voiced her concerns, Inglis coughed quite loudly attracting the attention of most of the eyes in the hall.
"It'd be appreciated if you all toned it down a little bit."
She then smiled at them, however, her smile did not reach her eyes. Upon realizing what she was talking about, most of the auras around died down.
"Arthur here is quite sensitive, you see. His mother doesn't really want anything to disturb his sleep."
Diablo spoke before raising his glass and continuing.
"I thank you all for coming to celebrate with me on this new addition to our family.
Here's to the new prince of the Devilian Royal Family, Arthur Vaughn."
The guests rose their glasses in response and there was a light round of applause. After this, the guests began presenting the gifts they had brought for the Royal family.
Various powers sent representatives with a few Masters attending in person.
The entire celebration party was broadcast to various locations across various galaxies in the Hell universe via advanced magi-technology as many wanted to see the face of the prophesied child that had garnered so much attention in the past few months.