Ian possessed a type of flexibility since his intelligence reached double digits; the moment he realized the person before him was someone he couldn't afford to provoke, he immediately sought to establish a forced connection.
As taught in the 4S Dealership: Sales Guide Training, one must never strike a smiling relative. As long as you can weave a web of distant relations, you can always secure a favorable outcome.
"I've dreamed of having an aunt since I was a child! No! I started dreaming it while I was still in the womb!" Ian's eyes lit up like two miniature suns when he heard the woman say Lucifer should call her "Auntie." The nobleman Lucifer had a deep friendship with him—they were already Twitter friends—so a blood brotherhood ceremony was practically scheduled for two years from now.
His logic remained flawless and irrefutable. The woman's expression froze, her golden pupils contracting slightly, as if she were looking at a completely incomprehensible organism. Her teeth ground together.
But Ian, a boy with zero boundaries, continued to push his luck.
"Auntie~ It's Ian-y. Can you make my dream come true?" Ian leaned in, mimicking Madison's high-pitched "cloying" voice, his tone sickeningly sweet with anticipation.
"..."
The woman's gaze grew increasingly strange. She narrowed her eyes, her voice remaining elegant but tinged with a dangerous luster: "It seems you've already recognized who I am?"
It didn't take double-digit intelligence to figure that out. Ian's sudden fawning was too abrupt; his eyes held only shock at her presence, not a single trace of confusion.
"Of course I know! You are the only existence capable of defeating God—the Great Darkness, Auntie Amara! If you ask me, there must have been a mix-up at birth. I need to help my dad find his long-lost older sister!" It was hard to imagine, but Ian's address was incredibly smooth, without a hint of awkwardness.
He had always been the thickest-skinned member of the Kent family. Being able to act so self-righteously while overstepping his bounds was truly beyond Amara's expectations.
"You know who I am, and you still dare to speak to me like this?" She was the first to find it unbelievable.
"What does this amount to? You should really wait until I'm eighteen and see the size of my balls then... Alright, I won't say things like 'since your courage is so big, I'll do this and that' to you."
"That's too frivolous for a fifteen-year-old like me. Let's just say: the bigger the storm, the more expensive the fish. You came looking for me for a reason. It must be that my wish for a powerful 'thigh' of an auntie is finally coming true." Anyone who knew Ian knew that when his voice was full of emotion, not a single word out of his mouth was true.
"What kind of child makes a wish like that to Santa Claus on Christmas?" Amara obviously didn't believe him. She stared at the boy with a speechless expression—a boy who seemed to possess nothing but sheer audacity.
"No, it wasn't a Christmas wish. It was the Ghost Festival. I wished for a 'Goth Auntie' during the Ghost Festival. It's perfectly logical." Ian indicated that he never discriminated between holidays when making wishes.
"??????"
Amara's composure completely shattered. Her golden pupils contracted, and the temperature in the Hellish guest room plummeted instantly. The wailing souls on the walls went silent as one, and even the bed woven from demon arms tucked itself back under the covers.
Naturally, Amara's emotions were similar to those demons. She instinctively took a few steps back. Her dark gown, influenced by her mood, turned dark red, churning like lava representing "red-hot rage."
"Don't come any closer!" Amara watched Ian's restless movements. She had clearly never met someone so bold. she was genuinely afraid Ian would rush over and spend the rest of his life clinging to her leg without letting go.
"It's not just the love for writing; even your thick skin is exactly like God's. I think the person who got the wrong baby was Jonathan Kent." Amara took a deep breath, struggling to maintain her elegance. She tried to use sarcasm to make Ian back off, maintaining her sharp-tongued cruelty.
However.
"If you put it that way..." Ian blinked, his face filled with the logic only a "Logic Monster" could possess. "Then I have even more reason to call you Auntie, don't I?"
His expression was so sincere, as if he were merely stating a simple fact rather than forcing a family connection. His eyes held no ulterior motives, only a pure longing for family.
"..."
Amara had never realized she could be this speechless. She had lived for countless centuries, seen the birth of the universe, witnessed the fall of gods, and even personally torn apart several overconfident supreme beings—but she had never encountered a creature like Ian.
Well. He was still a creature, right?
Amara's gaze slowly fell upon the hand Ian used to hold the pen. The pen spun lightly between the boy's fingers. It looked casual, yet it faintly emitted power fluctuations that didn't belong to mortals. That power was still immature, like a newly awakened flame, flickering and unstable, but it carried a sense of familiarity that made her heart skip a beat.
Precisely because of this, she wasn't entirely sure if Ian was wrong. Everything was too similar. God also loved to create, which was why He was so obsessed with being a third-rate writer. It was hard to say if the glory Ian carried wasn't the result of a certain Being's affection after sensing a "cause-and-effect" resemblance.
"Are you thinking that because you can't confirm your origin, you can just claim family wherever you please?" Amara continued her attempt to make Ian flush with shame using her sharp tongue. Her golden pupils flashed with a dangerous light.
Unfortunately, the "source code" that made up Ian probably didn't contain any such impurities. Ian wasn't anxious or angry; instead, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"Even you can't confirm my origin..." He caught the key information in her words and immediately seized the opportunity. "In that case, even if I were actually your child, you wouldn't know, right? My mom definitely wouldn't mind one more person loving me. So, I actually still have a chance to call you..."
Ian's eyes brightened as if he'd discovered a new continent. Seeing this guy's train of thought veering into a bizarre direction, a panicked Amara quickly raised her hand.
"Stop, stop, stop! Close that wicked mouth of yours!"
The air in Hell became instantly silent, all sound suppressed by the physical manifestation of the Great Darkness. Amara was truly afraid of hearing that terrifying title from Ian's mouth.
"Auntie" didn't even seem to satisfy him anymore; this kid was way too eager for "social mobility"... Amara desperately wanted to teach him a lesson, but as arrogant as she was, she knew that when she needed someone's help, she couldn't easily gift them a "torture package." Moreover, from the universal information she had read, torture might actually be a reward for this boy.
As for the option of killing him, Amara wouldn't consider it. She knew more secrets than most high-level entities. Rule Entities would grant this boy the right to never die, and God's hand was among the influences—certainly not just because of favoritism or liking.
"Listen, little brat, don't try to play the relative card. You have no blood relatives in our world. But I... I can tell you exactly where you come from."
Amara took a deep breath, suddenly understanding why Lucifer had his subordinates deliver the keys. He had clearly suffered from the boy's "family entanglement" and was still in shock.
Left with no choice, she got straight to the point.
However.
"I don't need to know where I come from—that way, my networking possibilities are infinite! Yesterday I might have been Lucifer's cousin, today I can be your nephew, and tomorrow I might be God's long-lost son... Could you 'ping' God and have Him tell the angels that I'm His most trusted child?"
Ian sat cross-legged on the dragon-bone desk, swinging his feet in those shoes that were still "Ow-woo-ing" away. Hearing this, the lava patterns on Amara's gown froze for a moment.
"Besides, I'm very happy now. I'm not hung up on my past; I only care about our family's future..." Ian's sudden seriousness made Amara feel a bit out of place.
Fortunately, the empathetic Ian didn't let her stay uncomfortable for long. "Won't you consider becoming sworn siblings with my dad? My dad has great potential—true 'Great Emperor' talent."
He made one last effort. One of the demon heads used as a chandelier "pfft-ed" out a spray of hellfire in laughter. After Ian glared at it, it immediately shrank into a ball.
"Does your father know you're out here claiming relatives for him?" Amara covered her forehead, trying her best to resist the impulse to destroy everything.
"He'll know I'm doing it for his own good. Have you heard of an old Eastern... I mean, a saying?" Ian looked at Amara with "wise" eyes. "'If one does not work hard while young, one will grieve in vain when old.' It means if a child doesn't work hard out in the world, the old man at home will have a very, very miserable time. I am, after all, a sufficiently filial son."
Ian spoke with such heartfelt sincerity that Amara really wanted to slap him. The manifestation of Darkness stared at this "unreachable" creature and finally sighed in frustration.
"Clever brat. You realized I have a request for you, which is why you dare to be so insolent." Ian didn't say yes or no to this, giving no direct response.
Amara took a long look at Ian.
"How about this: you have the book and the writing power, but you lack a good pen. I can pluck a pen from the walls for you. Although it can't compare to God's pen, it's definitely not bad." She was clearly trying to bestow a favor upon Ian in exchange for his help, so her tone was heavy with suppressed irritation.
Ian's ears suddenly perked up.
"God has a particularly good pen?!" He always managed to notice the true point of interest—the element others didn't want him to see.
"Forget it. God treasures His pen more than His world. He's a self-unaware third-rate writer just like you." Amara could obviously see through Ian's little scheme.
"First of all, I'm not a third-rate writer; I'm a best-selling author. Secondly, how good is that pen? Can it write cursive? Does the ink flow smoothly?"
"Does God usually keep it behind His ear or in His pocket?" Ian's tone was full of enthusiasm, like a thief scouting the difficulty of a job, rambling incessantly.
"I told you, it's God's treasure!" Amara raised her voice for emphasis, the temperature in the room dropping another thirty degrees. The lava patterns on her hem began to churn violently.
"Oh, treasure is good. Treasures are valuable. I really want it." You couldn't blame Ian for pushing his luck; who told her she wasn't willing to establish a blood relationship with his father? Altering bloodlines—that certainly wouldn't be a problem for the Great Darkness.
"Damn it!" Amara was utterly speechless. Finally unable to take it anymore, she slammed the table and shouted, "You let me out! And I'll snatch God's pen for you!"
This was a direct reveal of her reason for appearing.
"I knew you wanted me to do something 'naughty' for you." Ian had forced her true purpose out. He felt his wisdom was higher than that of God's sister; by extension, without elaborating, it was basically equal to being higher than... well, someone else.
He was a modest guy, after all.
"The point is to let me out!" Amara's red gown fluttered without wind, her tone gritted with teeth-clenching anger. Along with her emotions, all the eyeballs on the walls exploded simultaneously.
"But haven't you already come out?" Ian was unmoved, simply pointing at her complete physical form. At this, Amara shot him a side-glance and helplessly explained to the boy.
"This is just a projection of my will. In fact, my true body is still in your damned Kent Manor basement!" When emotions are deep, they naturally overflow; this was exactly that case. In a moment of distraction, Amara started swearing again.
"Manor?" Ian blinked.
The haunted manor Crowley gave him? He was somewhat startled, but he didn't dare agree. Having big balls was one thing, but being reckless was another.
"You know, I'm just a kid~" Ian suddenly sighed, playing the "minor" card, speaking with a worried tone. "I'm afraid God will spank my butt."
Even as Amara stared at him with a fiery gaze, he remained unmoved. He just went on with his clumsy acting.
"Damn it! You were just talking about stealing God's pen!" Amara gritted her teeth.
" I was just thinking about it secretly. I didn't think about actually committing the crime. Besides, to be able to steal God's things, never mind a spanking on the butt—even getting my little willy hit would be worth it."
"If it gets broken anyway, I'll just pull it off and throw it away; I can grow a new one." Ian's logic was still so flawless. His words caused Amara's expression to shift repeatedly.
The projection of the Great Darkness began to flicker. She suddenly leaned down, her cold breath brushing Ian's ear: "Let me out, and I will give you everything you desire."
Perhaps time was running out. Amara's tone carried a hint of urgency. However, this clumsy temptation of Amara's wasn't even as practiced as the demons who had been training for two and a half years.
"Why not ask Lucifer?" Ian still delayed his response.
"Because you are different." Amara's figure began to fade. "Though your power is weak, your essence is closest to God. Your power is the most suitable master key."
A very apt metaphor. It made Ian feel like a total badass. He felt her stern gaze, so he quickly employed the "stalling tactic" from the Seventy-Six Stratagems.
"Can I think about it?" Ian felt that "thinking about it" for a hundred years shouldn't be too long for the Darkness.
Silence spread through the room. The souls on the wall held their breath.
"Fine." Amara's figure was now as thin as mist. "But don't let me down."
Ian gave his most well-behaved smile. "Don't worry, in the very, very end, I definitely won't~" Ian used the art of language; no one defined exactly when the "very end" was. It was clear Amara hadn't been tricked by many people, as she didn't even notice this point. She took one last look at Ian's hand, and then her entire being scattered like the wind.
The blood moon outside, which had been obscured at some point, reappeared. After Amara left, Ian intended to try his skill again, but he was interrupted once more by a knock on the door.
"Knock, knock, knock~" It was Thomas Wayne.
The King of Hell was wearing a dark red suit today, the gem-encrusted pin on his tie flickering with an ominous light. He leaned against the doorframe, his silver-gray eyes scanning the room. His nostrils flared slightly as if he were sniffing for information in the air.
"I sensed that the demon furniture here has perished, so I came to check on the situation." Clearly, Thomas Wayne hadn't perceived what had just happened here.
Ian turned around. Sure enough, all the demon furniture had withered. This was obviously the work of Amara, the manifestation of Darkness; she didn't want any other being to know about the previous conversation.
"I was bored and broke these demons while playing." Ian's confession, aided by his reputation, didn't make Thomas suspicious. It only made Thomas imagine Ian's "way of playing."
He gave Ian a "man-to-man" look. Seeing that Ian remained unmoved, acting like a prude, he immediately shifted the topic to another main point. "I've already found your demon servant for you."
This was indeed good news.
"So fast?" Ian was a bit surprised.
"Never underestimate the power of a King of Hell." Thomas gave a light laugh, his tone carrying a hint of pride. Ian nodded, gave a thumbs up for "emotional value," and then asked where his trash can was.
Upon hearing this, Thomas's expression became somewhat strange. He took off his tie pin, toyed with it in his hand, and avoided Ian's gaze. "About that... the situation is a bit special."
"Your demon servant was captured by a King of Hell." These words made Ian frown.
"Which Demon King is holding him? What's the price for me to go redeem him?" Ian was already prepared to go all out.
However.
"No, quite the opposite." Thomas finally looked up, his face showing a complex expression Ian had never seen before. "Your servant... uh... is very impressive."
"Impressive?" Ian repeated, a head that only knew how to crack jokes and roll around coming to mind. "Are you sure we're talking about the same demon?"
Thomas took a deep breath, as if organizing his words. "According to the intel I received, your servant somehow convinced that King of Hell—or rather, it should be said your servant has already bluffed that King of Hell—and they are currently packing up their things to come join you."