章節 3: Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

Nary a scream, and nary a knowledge of what was happening there ever ended up on his mind. Death immediately took a toll as his body succumbed almost instantly after that terrific gore, not even letting him struggle and choke on his own blood, let alone introspect his own life.

Alas, neither a serenade nor a tirade could imagine the fate of his unearned cascade, for he had crossed beyond the line betwixt the mortal and the dead.

Was there an afterlife that awaits him? Or was it his fated second life in another world that cradled him?

Regardless of the possibility, Yroa found himself semi-conscious after his last moment of consciousness on Earth.

Which was quite a weird experience, because this state of consciousness wasn't the same state as living. It felt stiff, limp, and mindless, like that of a puppeteered ghoul.

It was only when he heard a hoarse voice filled with infernal judgment, that he got awakened into proper consciousness from his mindless state.

"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."

It was only then he realized.

That he had entered Hell.

"Ah…"

Shrill cries that tore the eardrums and mercilessly beat upon his ears, from the first column of fleshy pillar on the left to the hundredth crimson column on the right, grimaces, and sadistic smiley faces laughed at him. Nineteen thousand eight hundred forty-nine index fingers pointed at him, while thirty-seven thousand, eight hundred twenty-nine throats pouring insults, beration, revilement, exhilaration on him.

"This can't be…"

Questions shaped from the various emotions smothered Yroa's breath slowly.

What could possibly go worse than this?

Since then, at least 100 years had passed in this gehenna where Yroa was brutally dissected, boiled, freezed, and desecrated again and again, only for his whole body to be revived at the end of the day to take a break for a second, before being called and put into another torture made by the hell's devilish operatives.

"Ahahaha, hahaha, AHAHAHAH- STOP IT! PLEASE! MAKE IT STOP! IT HURTS! IT HURTS!! THERE IS SO MUCH BLOOD!"

The torturer merely grinned, intensifying their method of inflicting excruciating pain after hearing the harmonious melodies of screams and tainted tears.

"No… Don't put that in there… DON'T PUT IT—AAAAAAAARRGH!!"

Crying was useless, screaming was useless. In fact, those act would only excite these Hell's officials, intensifying the torture into a greater height.

The inferno's flame burned and froze the will of any sinners that touched it, ensuring that the feeling of salvation was nonexistent in every of their hearts.

"Aaaaa… the pain, it never ends… it's hot, it's cold, it's tiring. I'm thirsty… I'm hungry… kill me.. KILL ME!!" Yroa would never have imagined that all of his sins that he accumulated would result in this terrifying reality, as his face contorted into helpless despair, waiting when this dream would come to end. "KILL ME FROM THIS NIGHTMARE, IT HAS BEEN GOING FOR FAR TOO LONG, WHY I HAVEN'T WAKE UP FROM IT, WHY AM I STILL HERE!?"

His pride was shattered, put into a guillotine, and then obliterated once again on the incinerator. Humiliation was underselling it, he was immensely desecrated, eviscerated, and violated in any way imaginable—that even the details of what he had gone through everyday in this place would make the most non-empathic sociopath puke in disgust.

And thanks to these operatives' creativity, there was never a day where Yroa felt comfortable and jaded of his experience in this shit hole. Only pain, and debilitating suffering.

That was, until one fateful day came to the residents of Hell.

"One-fifty-one thousand, six hundred people die—everyday on Earth." The voice of a certain prominent Devil of Hell boomed into the field of molten flesh and cathartic heat, a place where every sinner was gathered to hear this sudden speech. These forsaken sinners were nothing but a blurry mash of monochromatic color at this height. "But Hell is never full, and every bloodshed is a fuel to keep this place running for another grueling year.

"To the newcomers still, I hope you all have comfily settled in. Maybe shaken some of the rigor mortis, and keep your eyes bloodshot tinted-

"But pleasantness is not the reason why you all gathered here." Beside him on the tall skeleton-tower of a podium, was an entity of a cloaked shadow, something or someone that didn't fit with the imagery of this place. "This person standing beside me came from another world that's far different than that of Earth, albeit with some major similarities.

"He has made a deal with our Ruler of Hell, a deal which might be possibly seen as a salvation to some or even many of you." The devil then gestured to the being of shadow. "If you may, good sir."

"I'll explain this briefly," the being of shadow said. It was quite manly, but not necessarily the most menacing of voice that came out from his ghostly appearance. "I've come from a world known as Yassimhre, where it might be easier to describe as an amazingly diverse and rich fantasy world full of magic and wonders, to you earthlings~!

"And as the Apostle from the God of Chaos of that world, we have been planning to stir Yassimhre with more chaotic seeds of our own, ensuring that our influence spreads wide and nicely, reminding its residents that chaos does exist all the time at any moment.

"Henceforth, from this very moment, with the best fashion that the God of Chaos likes to incite." A gargantuan wheel of fortune manifested into existence, for every sinner and Hell's officials to see. "We will be holding a lottery every ten years in Hell! Where the lucky few can get a second chance of life with some perks and benefits patronized by the God of Chaos himself!"

And after he said that, the gargantuan wheel of fortune began to spin, shaking the very core of Hell with its immense size and immense speed. After it stopped and landed on a name, it was displayed on an illusory mirage above the podium.

"Eric Saffron!" the shadowy being exalted. The wheel of fortune was then coated in light for a second, changing the content of the lottery. "And you will be…"

The lottery landed on 'True Demon Lord'. This result was also displayed in the same manner for everyone to see. "A True Demon Lord! Now that's quite the jackpot now that I've seen it! Unlike any living being in Yassimhre, a True Demon Lord naturally born with an immense amount of 'ohr'! Otherwise known as magical energy, or 'light'! Or whatever familiar concept to you Earthlings, 'mana', if you want to stretch it further to your fantastical fiction.

"They also possessed an overwhelming influence and existence that they could simply order and control a Demon of lesser power under their will, just like an unrelenting force of nature, indomitable and uncontrollable!

"And as for the 'blessing', you will get…"

The fate spun once again.

It landed on 'Elemental Manipulation System'.

"Howiee! That is quite a powerful System to have! I remember that a decade ago, a certain sage acquired this System after unlocking an inheritance vault from an ancient civilization. With this result, your life is finally set in stone!

"Alright, now off you go, little sinner!"

The aforementioned person was then lifted into the air as he was covered in prismic light for every Hell's Sinner to see.

"I'm finally free!!" was the last sentence that this lucky sinner howled before he disappeared.

One of the many remaining sinners watching this unfold was Yroa, as his eyes were filled with soul again, regaining a tremendous amount of hope to escape from this sorry shithole.

"... I can be saved," Yroa desperately muttered, lights finally entering his eyes after a long time of absence. "No, the chances are only one amongst billions that are rolled every ten years in this unholy fest, I can't fall to this positive mindset yet."

It might be the first time since the last hundred years that he regained this amount of conscience and sanity, removing all of the heavy baggage of suffering that he had already gone through with a new rational and logical view, the very same aspect that made him a successful man in his last life.

"Tch, that almost gave me hope for a second. Can't let myself get mindbroken from those tortures again from now on."

At this calmest moment that he ever had in Hell, he was able to fully accept the fact that he died in that taxi.

And seeing how stupidly unlucky he was to get taken out that easily on real life, there shouldn't be any correlative chance that he would get chosen anywhere within the 10,000 years from now, unless that there were any kind of event at play that could alter the sinner's chance to win the lottery.

"... Why did I allow myself to be tortured like this again?"

Outside of that speculative train of thoughts, Yroa began to regain all of his core individuality and aspects that were formerly stripped away by the unfathomable tortures here—it was the ambition, the willpower, the unrelenting pettiness and hatred against something that was stopping him on his way.

In just four seconds, Yroa's eyes and head twitched with wrath and terrifyingly controlled madness, as he churned his head to think of a step-by-step plan to overthrow the entirety of Hell's jurisdiction and its whole sovereign over the sinners. Truly, what he had been treated for the last 100 years was nothing but unforgivable.

The massive killing intent that he emitted was nothing but mortifying, to the point that sinners around him were terrified and uncomfortable, even though this occasion was something that should be celebrated amongst all sinners no matter how small the chance was as long as they could get out of here.

With a pitch-black creepy smile and gaze that he exuded, Yroa also remembered all of the faces and laughters that were enjoying the sight of his torture sessions. So sour, so delightful, so indiscriminately furious, he wanted to ensure that all of them received ten times the treatment that they subjected him to-

"Of course, there are too many of you Sinners within this Hell," boomed the prominent devil on the podium beside the Apostle of Chaos God. "At the same time, it turns out that the physically crystalized suffering and emotion that are all over this place this place is quite well-sought on the world of Yassimhre, since it took them at least one thousand years of constant exposure to an act of suffering just to manifest a tiny speck.

"And after some fun discussion within our council meeting, we decided to name this formerly unnamed mineral as Gehenna Crystal." The prominent Devil of Hell showed the prismic crimson crystal in between the edges of his long and sharp nails. "They are quite hard to chip off from its roots, and we don't really have the motivation and official manpower on our sides outside of you Sinners, who just happen to be really abundant, and really desperate to finish your sentence to get the 'Hell' out of this place!

"As you guessed where I'm going, our guest here wanted some of those precious minerals to be transported to Yassimhre!

"So from now on! We will be adding a two hours session everyday where everyone of you can mine and harvest these minerals and transport it to any extraction counters that we placed all around Hell.

"The more Gehenna Crystal you give to our officials, the bigger your section will become compared to the other on the grand lottery wheel, giving you more chances to get chosen by fate!"

Upon hearing those words, Yroa calmed down. As a side effect, it snapped him out of his malicious trance, although it was a little bit too late since some of the nearby sinners were already passed out from thinking that one of the devils was standing amongst them over their joyous cries.

"Huh, I didn't hear much ecstatic cry and screams of liberation. All of you are free to do that now, by the way."

After being given the cue by the prominent Devil of Hell, everyone roared their celebration as the quaking airwaves echoed through the entirety of Hell.

"Mining huh…" Yroa scratched the back of his neck, maintaining his casual smile as he churned his head with anticipation. The rare festivity was a rare thing that happened here, but it wasn't enough to get him into a joyous mood. "Good thing I went to a gym back on Earth, I guess…

"Things will get extremely chaotic, though."

To pit billions of sinners against one another in this vast expanse of Hell, what could go wrong?