Beelzebub

Beelzebub is the self-aware manifestation of Neo Hargraves's Concept of Time, Nullhour. Named by Gaia, he accompanies Neo as a dependent, companion, and protector. His caterpillar, colossal worm, cocoon, and butterfly bodies are successive forms of one continuous character, not separate Devils or independent applications of Devouring.

Biography

A sentient Concept in the dying trial world

During Neo's centuries inside the Shadow Trial, his Time manifestation develops a mind and receives the name Beelzebub from Gaia. Neo's Adept mastery lets the tiny caterpillar become a colossal worm, and Beelzebub spends enough time away for Gaia to hear reports of the creature roaming the Savage Expanse. When Neo urgently calls after years of silence, Beelzebub suppresses his planned protest, returns, shrinks onto Neo's palm, and responds happily to the affection he receives. (Chapters 279 and 282)

The reunion leads into Neo's desperate attempt to activate the World-Time Spell. Beelzebub defends him from the maggot swarm while Neo repeatedly devours himself and revives, then refuses an order to rest because he will not leave the battle to an Intent clone. When falling lunar wreckage buries Neo, the wounded worm searches through the debris and collapses only after finding him. The injuries establish that Neo's manifestation can choose, grieve, and sacrifice rather than functioning as a disposable spell. (Chapters 284, 289, and 292–293)

Luminera and the Abyss of Nightmares

Back in Luminera, Beelzebub acts with more everyday independence. He stops time across Auburn so that he can forage undisturbed, but the effect has a duration limit; once it becomes unsafe to raid shops, he seeks Nathan, whose cooking he has learned to demand without embarrassment. Neo alternates irritation with indulgence, and their mental link lets Beelzebub ignore him, snort back, or come running without making the relationship less loyal. (Chapters 337, 351, and 390–391)

Beelzebub accompanies Neo into Tartarus with strength that has risen alongside Neo's advances. His appetite frightens Velkaria, but the comic threat to eat another worm does not identify him with an unrelated Devil of Gluttony. In the prison he consumes chaotic Time Elementals, stops dozens of wall guardians, and helps erase hostile Nightmares when Nullhour wins the elemental clash. The work has limits: maintaining many frozen targets exhausts him, and powerful Nyxtharion #1 remains unaffected. (Chapters 415–416, 435, 477, 500–502, and 520–529)

The Outer God war

After Tartarus, Neo relies on Beelzebub for increasingly broad control. Beelzebub freezes the Luminera Continent while Neo selectively restores one person's time for questioning, then releases the population without anyone realizing several minutes passed. He is not blindly obedient: when Neo asks for yet another pause, Beelzebub huffs, refuses to accept the claim that he has barely worked, and enters Neo's Cosmos to sleep using Neo's World Energy. (Chapters 536 and 543)

When the Outer Gods attack the Solar System, Beelzebub becomes one of the independently acting manifestations that prevent the foretold destruction of Earth. His country-spanning worm body coils around the planet, devours its active time, and moves it into Neo's Cosmos before the battlefield can consume it. He then fights beside Neo's Firmaments, crushing Angels, freezing them, and devouring their time. The Outer Gods cannot classify him as an ordinary being or Divinity, but recognize a body, personality, and will of his own. (Chapters 549 and 552–553)

Butterfly evolution and temporal restoration

Much later, the Heavenly Records connect Beelzebub's unusual sentience and accelerated growth to a mark associated with Professor Daniel Caelum. While Neo is nearly broken, Nullhour advances from Supreme rank to Stage 1 Godhood and Beelzebub forms a cocoon. Neo asks him not to emerge prematurely, then studies vast collections of Time Concepts, Worlds, and Laws until the evolution completes. The caterpillar becomes a butterfly whose wings can touch the structure of timelines. (Chapters 771 and 775–777)

Beelzebub uses pseudo-temporal strands to stabilize Neo's brittle Cosmos and gains the fundamental Authority of Temporal Erasure. Neo stops him from erasing the army manipulated by Karax, but uses their shared perception to reach the River of Time and eventually lets Beelzebub counter Karax's escape through Time Authority. At the ending, one flap restores Ultris, Julie, Daniel, and inhabitants erased with Tartarus. Beelzebub remains beside Neo with greater agency and scale, not as a replacement character wearing his earlier name. (Chapters 777–780, 794, and 832–833)

Appearance and personality

Beelzebub first appears as a caterpillar no larger than a finger, able to expand into a segmented worm large enough to shake the ground or stretch around a planet. The worm's translucent layers reveal imagery like gears and rivers of time. His later cocoon opens into a butterfly with sharp, luminous wings; in Neo's Cosmos this body can expand beyond galaxies while retaining a gentle presence around Neo. (Chapters 282, 549, and 771–777)

He is gluttonous, playful, stubborn, and openly expressive despite communicating mostly through cries and the mental link. Food can distract him into raiding an entire country, and he shamelessly imposes on Nathan once he finds a reliable cook. He also resents excessive work, pretends to remain annoyed until Neo pets him, and responds to teasing with huffs or dramatic refusal. These behaviors mark individual preference rather than an automatic property of Time. (Chapters 282, 337, 351, 415, and 543)

His strongest trait is loyalty. Beelzebub fights after Neo disappears, searches through a destroyed moon for him, and tries to complete an evolution while sensing Neo's crisis. The loyalty is reciprocal: Neo orders the Heavenly Records to keep him asleep rather than waste the cocoon, greets the butterfly as a friend, and restrains Temporal Erasure when the apparent enemies are manipulated innocents. Their partnership combines command with care rather than reducing Beelzebub to either a pet or an impersonal technique. (Chapters 292–293, 771, and 776–777)

Powers and limitations

Nullhour and the devouring of time

Beelzebub manifests Neo's Nullhour Concept and can consume the time of creatures, locations, continents, and eventually planets. Removing active time freezes targets and environments; he can also release selected people while the surrounding area remains stopped. The amount of energy required rises with the affected area, duration, and resistance of stronger targets. Dozens of wall guardians tax him heavily, Nyxtharion #1 resists, and ordinary large-scale use is slower than Neo's instantaneous full Null Hour. (Chapters 351, 435, 502, 536, and 549)

Manifested bodies and shared growth

The small caterpillar can become a physically powerful worm capable of crushing enemies, swallowing debris, and carrying a planet into Neo's Cosmos after taking its time. Beelzebub grows when Neo advances because he is tied to Neo's Concept and energy, yet he can act independently, enter the Cosmos using Neo's World Energy, and suffer injury or exhaustion. The forms are transformations of the same conscious manifestation, not creatures summoned from an external Devil lineage. (Chapters 279, 282–293, 415, 543, and 549)

Butterfly and Temporal Erasure

After Nullhour reaches Stage 1 and the cocoon opens, Beelzebub gains a fundamental Authority called Temporal Erasure. Within its demonstrated context, the Authority can remove a target's past, present, and future rather than merely kill the current body. Neo later borrows it against cultivators in the True World, where two Half-step targets vanish but a First Step cultivator resists. The later failure shows that the Chapter 777 threshold is not an unlimited guarantee across every power system or world. (Chapters 771, 776–777, and 794)

Temporal strands, repair, and restoration

The butterfly can perceive the River of Time as individual temporal strands and create pseudo-strands that temporarily stabilize damaged histories. His bond lets Neo share that perception and edit or extract strands through related powers. Beelzebub can also reverse deaths and erasures on a vast scale when Neo directs the target state, as shown when he restores Ultris and people lost with Tartarus. These feats require the shared framework of Neo's Cosmos and command; the source does not establish that Beelzebub independently knows every person who should return. (Chapters 777–778 and 832)

Power progression

Relationships

Neo Hargraves

Beelzebub is Neo's own Time manifestation but also a self-aware dependent and friend. Neo supplies energy, issues commands, and sometimes uses Beelzebub's Authority directly; Beelzebub can refuse, wander, protect Neo without being ordered, and express grief when Neo disappears. Their connection matures from caretaker and caterpillar into a partnership that lets them perceive and reconstruct timelines together. (Chapters 279–293, 351, 543, 771–780, and 832)

Gaia

Gaia gives Beelzebub his grand name during the Shadow Trial and treats him as a known member of the surviving group even when he roams far from headquarters. Her reports about the giant worm help establish that the small and colossal forms already belong to the same individual. Naming recognizes the sentient Concept socially, but it does not make Gaia his creator or owner. (Chapters 279 and 282)

Nathan

Nathan becomes Beelzebub's preferred source of food after demonstrating his cooking. Once a Time Stop used for foraging nears its limit, Beelzebub understands that open theft will bring authorities and instead goes to Nathan's kitchen. The recurring imposition is comic and one-sided, but it shows Beelzebub making plans and maintaining relationships apart from Neo's immediate commands. (Chapter 351)

Professor Daniel Caelum

The Heavenly Records suspect that Beelzebub's impossible sentience and accelerated cocoon growth are connected to the mark associated with Daniel, the self-declared Devil of Time called Ouroboros. The link remains a suspicion rather than a complete creation account. Beelzebub should therefore not be described as Daniel in another form or as conclusively created by him. (Chapter 771)

Items

Beelzebub has no separately catalogued personal artifact. His caterpillar, worm, cocoon, and butterfly bodies are living forms of the same self-aware Time manifestation, not items owned or wielded by Neo. The temporal strands and Authority he manipulates are likewise powers rather than carried objects. (Chapters 279, 771, and 776–777)