Chapter 459 - Hell Dragons
Chapter 459: Hell Dragons
Translator: imperfectluck
There was no sunlight in the deeper levels of Hell. Yet, there was no worry that you wouldn’t be able to see anything around you. That was because the dead wouldn’t need eyes to see what was around them. Souls had true vision that could see the reality around them even if they didn’t have physical light.
In this pitch-black world, if one closed their eyes and opened their heart, this world would show you its true form that shocked all the dimensional visitors.
At every moment, this sunless pitch-black land was trembling. However, this was no catastrophe, but rather the tempo of life. It was as if the land was a sleeping giant beast, with the trembles being the beast’s breathing and heartbeat.
That’s right – this world was alive. It was breathing, moving, and growing.
When one first entered the doors of Hell, the endless River Styx would flow from the void just like Heaven’s waters. Countless newborn souls would helplessly float within it. This was the source of the new Cycle of Reincarnation.
And at a turn in the river, the fast-flowing River Styx actually stopped. This shore was constantly bombarded by blizzards, where devils busily worked to wield spears and clubs, forcing the souls that had lost their senses of self to come ashore.
“Who… who am I? Where am I…? I am… John, a village militia member of Kati Village, I… I think I was killed by beastmen while I was out patrolling?”
The moment that John recovered his memories, the fatal injury on his chest appeared at the same time, together with the arrow that pierced his body. This endlessly reminded him of the reality that he was now dead.
This was one of the dimensional laws of Hell, which allowed these souls that lost their memories and senses of self in the River Styx to regain their forms from when they were alive.
The snow would then fall upon their souls and help create new physical bodies of ice and snow. These bodies were capable of hunger, pain, and possessing desires. And with the devils plodding them on, they would start proceeding down a twisted mountain path, heading towards the temple in the mountains where they would all be judged for their actions in their past life.
There was a large obsidian stone door at the end of the mountain path with unclear words inscribed upon it.
Behind this door was a large group of hallways. To reach the temple, one would first have to pass through a corridor of mirrors.
John walked through this mirror corridor. Yet, the mirrors didn’t display his current appearance. Instead, they displayed his past, present, and even future appearances.
On the left mirror was the young John as a hoodlum teenager who committed petty thefts. On the right mirror was a recent John who regretted his past actions and joined the village militia, finding meaning in helping and protecting others.
This was a special product of Hell – the Fate Corridor of Good and Evil. Here, Fate-powered magic mirrors would show each person’s acts of kindness and evil. After walking through the mirror corridor, one would reach the first Hall of the Four Halls of Hell. This Hall was where each person’s acts of good and evil would be weighed on a scale – the Balance Hall.
Only by walking into the Balance Hall would one discover that this wasn’t a temple at all. Instead, it was a world with no visible boundaries.
This well-lit hall was filled with busy people. A galaxy of Fate was inscribed into the floorboard, and devils were working hard everywhere. Countless Fate Mirrors were flashing. Just recording all the dead’s major deeds of good and evil as evidence for their judgements already made these newcomer Hell Devils incredibly busy.
Right now, the God of Fate Catio who should have been the master of this Hall was currently in a hibernation. He was currently being transformed by the dimensional laws of Hell. Once Catio awakened, he would gain the Concepts of Measuring Scale of Good and Evil as well as Accusation. The Balance Hall would gain its true master once Catio finally awoke.
Since Catio was currently sleeping, a certain silver-robed judge was sitting in his spot and busily working. Not only that, in the other three Halls that had also been activated with their Guardian Gods currently asleep and absorbing the dimensional laws, the same silver-robed figure could be seen busily working at the administrator’s seat.
“…I’m doing so many jobs all by myself. Can I ask for overtime pay?”
You’re the ultimate boss right now, so who are you supposed to ask for overtime pay?
Right now, the only reason that I still had free time to make comments to my System was that I had gained new abilities as the master of Hell.
I had free time because I now had the ability to send out countless incarnations. It was quite a subtle sensation to simultaneously observe many locations. The even more subtle part was how I sent an incarnation to each of my Seven Original Sins to loudly taunt and make fun of the Main Gods, yet I didn’t have to worry about them being able to kill me.
“Oh my, Donatis is such a violent fellow. I lost yet another incarnation.”
Yep, I should say that no matter how many incarnations I lost, it wouldn’t affect me at all.
And so, as if I was playing a strategy game, I sent another incarnation over to Donatis to continue taunting him. This was all in order to interfere with his rational judgement and obtain more information on my enemies.
The current me was Wumianzhe Roland, one of the Four Pillars of Hell, the Pillar of Space. I existed within the Four Halls and the Seven Circles of Hell. I was Hell, and Hell was myself. An “endless amount of incarnations” was both my most useful and useless special ability. That was because these incarnations had basically zero combat strength, yet they were capable of helping me finish countless tasks.
Not only that, unless the Tower of Law and Tower of Death were both destroyed, I would be absolutely undying. This was yet another special ability I just received.
To be honest, as long as the Tower of Death wasn’t destroyed, every single Hell God would be absolutely undying. Perhaps it would be easier to comprehend if I explained it directly –”In Hell, how can already dead existences die again?”
The Hell Gods absolutely had to be dead already to be in their roles. Any living God that chose to become a member of Hell would become dead the moment that they entered. As since the Four Pillar Gods were the foundation, they would need to reincarnate from their very souls. They had to be the purest dead individuals “born” in this world in order to become the Four Pillars of Hell.
This was the basic dimensional law of the world, just like how only elemental lifeforms would be able to become Elemental Gods. Only dead Gods would be able to become the Four Pillar Gods of Hell.
That’s right, there was no need for me to hide it. I was already dead, deader than dead, absolutely dead. The moment that I used a reverse God’s Descent to descend upon Wumianzhe, combining our physical bodies and souls, my physical body was invaded by the aura of Hell and biologically entered the state of death. Dimensional laws would never separate friends from foes, so from that moment onwards, I was completely dead from a biological standpoint. And actually, I was destined to die from the moment that I entered Hell…
What? You’re saying that this isn’t shocking enough? That’s it’s too sudden? Who made a rule that the author has to use several chapters to slowly boil up to a climax? Who says that authors have to tug at the readers’ heartstrings? I was already so used to dying already. Readers will get bored of the main character dying too much, and since this is my fifth death already, I won’t be contentious and I’ll simply allow myself to die.
“So many have died already anyways. Who cares if I die as well?”
Fortunately for me, Wumianzhe was also Sloth, a unique undead created by cutting off part of my soul. He counted as dead already, and I was able to completely combine with his current physical body. Otherwise, I would have needed to first die in the mortal plane and then fill in my soul crystal. Who knows how long that would take for me to wake up, or if I would wake up at all? There would then no longer be someone in charge of Hell’s construction.
As I now had the power of the dimensional law of Space in Hell, I gained the ability to create as many incarnations, even millions, as I wanted. This was an absolutely required ability for Wumianzhe, the Judge of Hell. Otherwise, just the unending amount of dead souls that required judgement would simply fatigue him to death.
And now, this was my most convenient ability that allowed me to control everything and observe every single battle simultaneously. I could instantly send reinforcements to any place that needed it. And even more importantly, this ability of infinite incarnations allowed me to substitute for the other Hell Gods that were currently hibernating in order to absorb the dimensional laws here in performing their “jobs” for them. This allowed the Cycle of Reincarnation in Hell to already become activated.
As long as Hell continued doing the job that it was supposed to, and allowing the Cycle of Reincarnation to operate, not only would Hell itself become more complete and powerful, even the Hell Gods, and Hell’s warriors and guardians would become ever more powerful. This was the backup support powering us up in any long battle of attrition, as well as the critical element that Ayer had obtained for us.
Every time that evidence of a crime was collected and a person was judged to deserve the punishment of Hell, the sleeping Catio would obtain more power and become closer to waking up. And with every judgement, every reincarnation, and every deliverance of the Law, I would naturally be further powered up as I was the master of Hell, the ruler of Law, and the God of Judgement.
It was the same for the Seven Kings of Hell. Every time that the guilty were tossed into the infernos, then the Seven Kings would carry out their jobs, naturally gaining more power through the process. And since in all of history, the mortal plane of Eich had been capable of giving birth to over a hundred Main Gods (With approximately twenty alive today), and there were even main Gods at the very beginning of Creation, our plane of Hell would naturally be capable of raising Main God level existences as well.
And now, this naturally revealed just what exactly I had promised to certain existences.
Being able to convince the powerful to work for me would naturally be even more power and higher status.
The Seventh Circle of Hell, the Bestial Lust Inferno. That was where “Lust” Cher guarded. The Main God opponent that she had to stop was Sophocles the Deceiver.
Yet she herself didn’t have much combat strength. She could only rely on her subordinate Hell Dragons. The Seventh Circle of Hell was where the Hell Dragons resided.
That’s right, Hell Dragons. This was a brand-new species of dragon which would become the future messengers of Hell. They were also the only existences capable of freely entering and exiting Hell.
Compared to their former selves, these Hell Dragons were even larger and blacker in color. Yet, nobody would mistake them for Black Dragons. The foundational difference these dragons had from other dragons was the aura of death around them.
Dragons’ strongest special ability was to travel between dimensions without being affected by the environment. And now, these Hell Dragons were capable of traveling back and forth between life and death. They would become the messengers of Death and Hell in the mortal plane. Their combat strength was also incomparable to before.
“I know that all dragons desire strength. What I can give you is naturally an endless amount of strength and the glory of being a dimensional ruler. This is strength that’s more than capable of slaying a king. You, Sam, shall become the strongest dragon king of all! The White Dragon species shall become the strongest dragon species!”
And so, the Supreme Immemorial White Dragon Sam had participated in my plan after he confirmed the likelihood of it succeeding. He completely joined my faction in order to change the fate of the White Dragons. The entire White Dragon species became Hell Dragons.
Yet, Sam still wasn’t the highest-ranked Hell Dragon. The true leader of all the Hell Dragons was the three-headed dragon that was currently fighting against the Demon Lord Sophocles the Deceiver – Evelyn.
“…Apart from helping to cure Cher, don’t you want to have your own family and tribe? Of course, you’ll also obtain appropriate strength and the position of a dimensional ruler. You shall receive glory one hundred times what you currently have!”
There were two leaders of the Hell Dragons. One was the former Supreme Immemorial White Dragon Sam, while the other was the three-headed Evelyn and her younger sisters. Right now, the Chaos Main God Sophocles the Deceiver was actually at a disadvantage against the Hell Dragons!