章節 5: The Time Has Come

"You went a little bit too cocky on the last torture session, Yroa." One of the devils chuckled. "Think of this as overtime."

"Don't you think that hanging him high by the neck is much better since he gets a better view of his herded kind that way?"

"Won't it just immediately kill him?"

"So does the iron maiden, you harlots."

"He's still alive, no? Nevermind, he looks like he is dying."

"Looks like casting a temporary 'Immortality Curse' on our adorable guy before this is the right way to go."

"Saves us from putting him back into the iron maiden if he gets revived."

"Hearsay! I propose impaling him from down to up and put it here like a flag! Then, we stretched his entrails to the ground and made an embroidery out of it!"

"How about piercing him through that 'hole', huh? That ought to teach him a dandy lesson."

"Well, we can start doing that on the next lotto. Not like he will get chosen anyway. Wait, Yroa won't get chosen, right?"

"Urgh, I will cry if that happens."

While the prominent Devil of Hell and the Apostle of the Chaos God was giving some customary speech on the tall podium, Yroa could only hear the bickering of his devilish friends that he made in this shitfest of a place. As such, all he could do was a poker-smile, since complaining any further would probably entice them more to ramp up their shenanigans.

It had been 990 years since the first destined lottery that the Apostle of Chaos God enacted, meaning that there had been 99 sinners that were transferred to the world of Yassimhre with their absurdly broken innate abilities and blessings given by the lottery, with only 7 of them getting a subpar result from the grand wheel of luck.

The 100th lucky sinner would be somewhere around the corner of this event.

"And now the winner will be…" An imaginary drumroll could be heard in everyone's mind as the enormous lottery wheel slowly decreased in speed, before landing on one of the names that could barely be read from afar. "Yroa Ingram! You're our luckiest sinner in this fare of destined candy-giving today!"

When that name was announced, almost all of the Hell's executives and operatives looked at the Aphrodite-faced man that was trapped inside the headless iron maiden somewhere in their sides within this decadely event.

Most of them looked at their favorite sinner in disbelief.

Even Yroa himself was found dumbfounded.

"Noooooo!"

"This can't be! This must be rigged!"

"I shall complain about this to Satan himself!"

"Yroaaaa! Don't leave uuuus!!"

Even while Yroa's iron maiden was desperately rocked left and right as if it would stop the result, he tried his best to contain his amazement with his usual poker-faced smile.

Doesn't change the fact that it was hard to listen to any words spoken by the Apostle of the Chaos God at this moment.

'I didn't expect this opportunity to arrive this soon,' Yroa thought to himself, 'I guess this is really happening, huh? Had I've been chosen a little bit earlier, I would have probably danced and pranced to commemorate this jubilation.'

Yroa was already close with some of the higher ranking devils that he could imagine their individual faces and reactions, even though many of them were watching from their own private domain.

Somehow, he had the feeling that he would meet them again somewhere in the future.

All the one in a billion chances aside, there was something that was as important as being chosen by the grand lottery of salvation itself.

The kind of vessel and blessing that one would receive.

The Apostle of Chaos God would often narrate a description of the acquired vessels and blessings, and there could be a great disparity in terms of benefits and demerits to all of them.

From having the power to bend reality and super strength, to a vessel that could only initially live inside the abyssal depth of the sea. Actually, some of those vessels that the sinners had gotten were literally an average human with different flavors.

Within 990 years of observing how it all goes, this was the information that Yroa was able to conclude:

Firstly, the same vessel and blessing could be chosen twice by two different sinners, meaning that it would still exist within the pool of chances regardless of whether it was taken or not.

Yroa saw two people acquiring the same vessel, so this means that he also had the same chances as those who acquired a soundly powerful vessel and blessing!

Secondly, while the Apostle of Chaos God often narrates the result of each chosen sinner, he didn't for some of them, which might be a rather ominous sign since some of the blessing names can be a little bit hard to interpret on what they actually are.

"Alright! Let's spin the wheel once again to see what kind of vessel that our lucky sinner acquires, shall we?"

The grand wheel was churning once again. At this moment, Yroa could only hope for the lady of luck to lower the likelihood of life's lotto's loss for him.

And as eternal as it felt, the spinning of the wheel ended with the pointer stopped at the result.

The result was 'Living Dungeon Core'.

"Oh dear," was something that came out of the Apostle's shadowy figure, it was also said in a rather worrisome tone too. "I didn't know if this thing is supposed to be on the wheel, but I'll try my best to interpret it.

"You see, before all of this, the Chaos God maintained his influence by letting the seeds of chaos spread across the world of Yassimhre in the form of unexpectedly dangerous yet highly opportunistic places known as 'dungeons'!

"Steeped in mystery and danger, these subterranean mazes are filled with dark twists and turns, shadowy corners, and secrets waiting to be uncovered. As one delves further into its depths, ancient stones looming overhead, strange symbols etched into the walls, and musty odors fill the nostrils. The air grows colder, the silence thickens, and whispers echo through the tunnels, warning them of lurking monsters and traps.

"At the same time, glimmers of gold and silver catch their eye, luring them ever forward, while spectral creatures dart past your field of vision, beckoning them deeper still. Will these adventurers emerge victorious from this labyrinthine maze, or succumb to the terrifying legends that haunt these hallowed halls? Such things happen only in the dungeon!

"And this fantastical place is fervently crafted and managed by a sentient semi-physical entity known as the Dungeon Core! They are rather complex and enigmatic entities amongst those that reside within Yassimhre, and it's definitely one of the most potentially powerful vessels if done right!

"However, this is the first time for me to hear something called the 'Living Dungeon Core'. Maybe our current lucky sinner will acquire a living physical body instead of the usual spectral one that a Dungeon Core basically has before settling in on a spot."

Yroa couldn't decide on whether he wanted to be astonished or pessimistic.

'Well, it won't be the end of everything, at least it's better than being an insect or any kind of lower life form in that world,' Yroa optimistically chuckled to himself.

"Moving on, let's see what kind of blessing given by our chaotic and noble God to this remarkable and lucky sinner, shall we?"

The grandiose wheel spun once again.

It landed on a rather blackened piece of itself, coated in astral manifestation for everything that was impure and evil.

So did the result that was showcased on the lacerated sky for everyone to see.

"Oh dear, may the Chaos God give me mercy." The Apostle wiped his own forehead as if discarding a sweat. "I actually have no idea what that means."

"You gotta be kidding me…" Yroa murmured in annoyance.

"Actually, I think I can truly transcribe what it says, if only I have my dandy and reliable…" The Apostle plunged his arm into an abyssal gap that he conjured, before drawing a piece akin to a headgear, sliding it in front of what appeared to be his eyes. "Chaotic Glasses! This will worsen my vision and scramble it into a mish-mash of random realities of what I'm witnessing, but all of what is true is displayed and revealed! All I need is to pinpoint those truthful pieces and assemble them like a puzzle.

"Ahah!" The Apostle gestured both of his hands into the air in pride and jubilation. "What will be bestowed upon you, little sinner, is a transcendent piece of an organ called the 'Qliphoth Speech'! I actually have no idea what this thing does, but it's certainly something that's so powerfully named for a mere hint of its existence to be covered by an immense amount of evil and impurity.

"Of course, there might be a slight risk of imparting something as unstable as this blessing to a mere sinner, but what is life without a little bit of chaos and risk?"

At this point, Yroa had already accepted his fate. He was also darn sure that many of his devil friends back on their own domain was laughing and wheezing in high definition, since some of the torturers on the site did while the rest of them were still rocking the headless iron maiden back and forth, intensifying suffering on his mangled body inside it.

Regardless, to leave this place and into that of a fantastic world of magic was something that should be celebrated even with this sour and inopportune aftertaste.

"Now off you go, lucky sinner!"

"Haha, I guess that's my cue to-wooah!?" Yroa was elevated into the air by some sort of unknown force, together with the headless iron maiden that was attached to him—alongside some imps and hellspawns that were clinging onto it, not letting their favorite sinner to leave.

Suspended now he was, akin to being pinched by an invisible giant in the enigmatic sky of Hell for a few moments, only for the essence of reality to fill every brim of his existence much like the air expelled from a fire tornado inside of two slightly cross-latching half-cylinders.

Yes, Yroa was starting to feel like his body being usurped by a mysterious divine force from the inside, hastily separating his body into two hetero existences as the energy traveled violently through the available crevices, with his sole soul as the spinning spiral of life that kept everything from falling apart.

He felt neither the pain of having his body wrecked apart, nor was the salvation of being freed from his eternal damnation.

Instead, there was only a rekindled flame of purpose. Which, in Yroa's case, is the excitement from the visible infinite possibilities of his future.

"Huh, no wonder all of them are screaming when this is happening," Yroa chuckled. "It really revs my heart like an engine."

And then there was nothing. He popped out of his existence in Hell, and had been fully transferred to an entirely different planarity of dimension, realm, world, and probably reality itself.

And in that new reality, there was only cosmic ordainment, where stars shone the gaping void of possibly infinite space and all of the creation resided within. Here, Yroa found his own voice and his familiar physicality. His hands, his body, his beating heart, and his larger-than-usual member in between his legs uncovered from potential cosmic rays.

He couldn't breathe because there was nothing to breathe on, but it didn't feel discomforting in the slightest. It was as if he was being supported by a transcendent spectral machine, keeping his body intact and functioning like it normally should while also giving an equal amount of comfort.

"This is certainly something." A grin of amazement slowly crept onto his face. To experience something other than the unstable temperature of Hell and its blessings in the form of torture, this was nothing but an unadulterated liberation from the Chaos God himself. "I still wonder why I can hear my own voice even though there's no oxygen here… Actually, I'm more amazed that I still have my logical reasoning after living more than a thousand years in a place devoid of true logic."

And then out of nowhere, wafting forth like a divine excursion to this void-full yet starlight-filled expansion, was an enormously unfathomable entity of illusive nature.

Despite the ineffableness, a core of its existence could be visibly determined from the asymmetrical spiraling formation of the astral luminescence that appeared. It was daunting, gasping for sovereignty and extermination.

Yroa's gaze immediately fixated upon this resplendent being. A fragrant aroma permeated the space, redolent of exotic blooms and mysterious incense, enticing and hypnotic in equal measure. He also sensed a faint warmth spreading throughout his body as the deity appointed its focus on him, emitting a luminous energy from within.

In this silence, Yroa heard nothing but an ethereal harmony resonating in his very soul, surpassing any earthly tune.