Blood drew from the palm of my hand as I squeezed my fist shut.

All of us were soon funneled into a dimly lit stone room with smooth walls perfect for preventing anybody who attempted to climb away and a spiky ceiling that would impale anybody who was shot upwards.

It was obvious what was about to happen, so I took my spot around the edge of the group and backed very far away before the voice of a skeleton came echoing through the room.

“Kill each other. The last five will be the winners, and we shall grant you the next part of your freedom,”

Its voice was cold yet filled with so much bloodlust that it sent shivers down my spine, but that wasn’t going to be my problem as I now had to focus on the bloodbath slowly brewing.

As soon as the door to the entrance was shut tight, everything went dark, but my amazing senses allowed me to make out pretty much everything around me.

Nobody could escape these eyes of mine.

While everybody grazed each other with bladed eyes, I mustered up a hypothesis as to who everybody was here.

It was good to assume that they were also people banished to Tartarus as though everybody had the signature demonic horns; some had knife-like ears, a stubby yet muscular build, or fur covering parts of their body.

“I see… This is going to be pretty interesting,” I smiled to myself and noticed I was the only one leaning against the smooth wall, away from the rest of the group.

And soon, the bloodbath began as an elf turned demi-human slit the throat of the demi-human next to her with her bare hand.

She was then completely overwhelmed by everybody else who moved onto each other after the elf was torn to shreds.

Her head was on one part of the room while her torso was on the other part… a truly brutal and grotesque sight.

Though, with the more passing time, I noticed some fearful people back up to the smooth walls in order to lessen their presence.

Just judging from their build and my intuition, they were most likely not fighters but people who specialized in something else.

Blacksmiths had extremely calloused hands, pretty well-rounded builds, and lots of burn scars scattered across their toughened bodies.

Weavers had long and dexterous fingers with an almost anemic body from the amount of work they put into their craft.

Alchemists had shifting eyes that paid attention to every single present detail, leaving nothing to escape their grasp. But on top of that, they also had a few burns scars from the several mistakes they’ve made over their careers.

And there were just the pussy’s. The ones who did such a harmful sin without any actual talent, forcing them to be nobodies down here… but just being a mass murderer isn’t enough to be banished.

Tartarus is just hell, meaning the sinners will come down here no matter what, but being banished while still alive is quite an impressive feat if I had to say so myself.

“Okay… I’ll hide my presence as much as possible now,” I muttered before lowering my body into the shadows and holding my breath.

My eyes dimmed from the low oxygen, but I continued to keep myself hidden until the four strong warriors at the very center of the room cleared out the trash that vacated to the walls of this stinky cubicle.

The rancid smell of blood conquered the atmosphere and left no man or woman untouched, staining them with a new sin as they traversed through this hellish land.

“Good. Please proceed to the next test,” The skeleton said as he opened the door, we just came out of and gestured for another door across the room.

I slowly raised out of the shadows, surprising the amazingly strong four in the center of the room… who I could easily kill if need be.

They were strong compared to everybody else, but I was leagues above them in terms of not only kill but status.

“Now, you all better still be alive,” I muttered before traversing through the next door while shielding my eyes from a foregin battering light.

As we walked into a new room, I noticed five other groups of five walk out of their own respective rooms, revealing all my friends who were completely untouched.

It seems they all had the same idea as me… well, except for Cy and Bella, who were covered in blood but had no actual wounds.

Just before we were all about to group up, a skeleton appeared in the middle of the hexagonal room, unleashing a deadly amount of shadow magic that penetrated our lungs and nearly suffocated us to death.

As soon as he stopped, we all gasped for air on the ground, trying to contain our rage as we glared at him.

“That is what you will feel in the next room, so I will recommend for you all to be careful. Not because I worry about you, but because we need some survivors for the king….” The skeleton seemingly smirked before the ground under us disappeared.

Everything was happening so quickly that I was getting sensory overload, but once again didn’t have the luxury of thinking about anything else.

Just like the skeleton described, a powerful pressure of darkness overwhelmed our very beings just as we smashed against a hard stone floor, breaking almost every bone in my body.

My regeneration came in handy as my bones quickly fused back together, but the crushing darkness around me had my lungs in a vice grip.

I gasped for air, and panic began to set in… so I pinched my arm as hard as possible, snapping me away from falling into the pit of despair known as panic.

Tangible Bloodlust

Wrapping myself in a blood-red aura, I felt the pressure slowly subside, but a new feeling of chills scratched my skin.

It was as if Hades was spectating our suffering for his own enjoyment, only fueling my drive to survive even more.

As my skin began to tear off my face but then quickly regenerated, my mouth warped into that of a light smile as my hands turned into claws that gripped the rocky ground beneath me.

“I’ll kill you….”

…

It felt as if years had passed, but in reality, it was only a cruel and cold week that was full of suffering and pain to the very soul of our bodies.

After the darkness around me had disappeared, I noticed only a few people out of the twenty-five participants had died… meaning I underestimated their mental greatly.

“Congratulations to you all for surviving. We have prepared a feast for you,” A familiar cold voice announced, and as the walls around us began to fall, a banquet appeared full of high-ranking dem-humans… and a single demon lord that eyed me.

The banquet was beautiful, but I knew everybody around us were people who had gone through the same thing and most likely swore their souls to the king of the underworld: Hades.

My group of friends came together and discussed our various struggles over the past week, but everybody had a pretty similar and boring story that consisted of suffering and holding onto our consciousness just before they slipped away.

“There is so much food before us, but I don’t have an appetite. No, I’m not even hungry,” Bella muttered disappointingly, garnering the attention of the skeleton who was just about to leave.

“As demi-humans, you don’t feel such humanoid things such as hunger, and you do not excrete waste either. But, as I am not part of this place, I shall take my leave,” The skeleton explained before dissipating into a blanket of shadows.

“Heh, I bet anal is a common occurrence here-“

BAM

Findir quickly slapped Cy in the back of the head before we made our way over to the tables of amazing food which had already been picked at by the surrounding demi-humans.

They were dressed in neat and clean attire while we were still in our prisoner clothes, looking like bums begging for food.

But, besides the food, there was one other main attraction in the room… a man in a neat and decorated tuxedo with massively long horns protruding from his head.

His long black hair with stripes of dark purple mixed into them, perfectly accentuating his nebula-flaming eyes, creating the perfect image of a demon lord.

His pale skin was tattooed with various rose-shaped vines and flowers, some even crawling up to the edge of his right eye.

All of the high-tier demi-humans were sucking up to him like royals trying to gain the favor of a king.

“You see that guy. I feel like just staring at him will kill me….” Findir shivered.

“So, whose is that?” Luna asked, and I slowly turned around to raise my hand.

“He’s mine. No doubt about it,”