Chapter 25: Hell’s Third Layer

In a deserted stretch of wasteland, the air began to vibrate, and a long rift tore open across the sky.

A dark figure fell through it and slammed into the ground.

A long time later, Koda stirred and opened his eyes. When he took in his surroundings, he was utterly shocked.

There was none of the familiar ash of the Outer World. No water, no grass, not even a breeze.

All Koda could see was a blood-red sky and an endless expanse of barren land, its surface cracked like old pottery.

Foul, fishy air swept in from every direction, driven by endless storms and lightning.

High above him, an enormous black-and-red vortex turned slowly across the sky.

It looked like a colossal millstone; grinding down everything beneath it and dragging the broken, corrupted souls of the realms toward its center.

It felt like there were no rules here. Everything existed in its rawest state of chaos.

Like a birthplace of slaughter and destruction, and the final destination of the worst souls Hell could swallow.

This was...

The Third Layer of Hell!

"Cough! Cough! Cough!"

After only two breaths, a sharp pain stabbed through Koda’s lungs, and he doubled over, coughing violently.

What came up was blood.

He hadn’t even been here a full minute, and he was already coughing blood.

The air was poisonous!

’Is it really this bad down here?’ he thought, wiping his jaw. ’How does anything live in this conditions?’

"There’s nothing I can do," he muttered. "I only had one chance to choose."

He glanced at the battered satchel still strapped across his chest and sighed.

"Even if I regret it now, it’s too late. No matter how hostile this world is, I have to build my territory here."

Following the pursuit instead of running had given him the spheres and the dwarves’ spoils. Naturally, it had also come with more risk.

He had accepted that risk the moment he chased after the wyverns.

He didn’t regret it, and he wasn’t going to start now.

Inside the satchel, beside his last soul stone and a dwarven pick, lay something he hadn’t carried before the fall: a black stone the size of his fist. It had been in his palm when he woke, warm and pulsing like a heartbeat.

He only knew what it was because he remembered Nera mentioned it back then.

’A Dominion Seed,’ he thought. ’Plant it in empty land, and the land becomes yours.’ According to her, Demon Lords in the deep layers of Hell would wipe out whole civilizations to get one.

"The first problem," he said, "is choosing where to put it."

"According to what I can remember, a rift never drops anyone in truly dead lands. There should be essence veins, water, or ore nearby. I should find them, plant the Seed somewhere in the middle, and once it takes root, the land will accept me as its lord. The air included."

Unfortunately, once he actually started exploring, Koda found that those stories might not be entirely accurate.

Or perhaps the Third Layer of Hell was simply too strange to be explained by a broker’s stories over drinks.

His Devouring Origin chewed slowly at the poison in his lungs, breaking a little down with every breath. After a while, the coughing eased, and his body gradually began to adapt.

He spent what passed for a whole morning walking, the Seed in one hand and the dwarven pick in the other.

He didn’t find a single place that felt right.

That wasn’t all. In all those hours, he didn’t feel the faintest tug of an essence vein, or see a single trickle of water.

Meanwhile, columns of smoke were rising one after another on the horizon, and banners stood on a distant ridge. Others in this layer had already staked their ground.

Some were even faster. He could see dark lines of figures trudging toward the smoke; followers, already gathering under someone else’s banner.

"This won’t do," Koda said. "If I keep dragging my feet, everyone else will be stronger before I even start."

’Instead of wandering around alone, I should get some hands first. Let them do the scouting for me,’ he thought.

He walked to a relatively open stretch of flat ground and pressed the Seed into a crack in the earth.

It sank in like a hot coal into snow.

The ground shuddered. Lines of dull red light raced outward from the spot in a wide ring, then faded. The pain in his lungs vanished all at once, as though the air had decided he belonged here.

Then something rose out of the ground.

It was a throne, weathered and buried in dust. It had been fashioned from the bones of an unknown creature and hardened dark-red blood. Strange glyphs were carved across its surface, and Koda couldn’t read a single one.

The moment he touched it, he oddly understood what it was.

This throne was now the heart of his territory.

It was also its seat of power. While sitting on it, he could command anyone bound to this land and raise new structures within it.

However, it worked the other way too. If the throne was ever destroyed, his entire territory would die with it.

Three more shapes pushed up from the earth, a short walk apart.

It was said that a Seed took its shape from its planter’s blood. Dwarves got taverns and smelting workshops. The undead got graveyards, halls of the dead, and death watchtowers. The rare drakes got lairs, hunting grounds, hatching caverns, and dragon-bone fields. Whatever the race, a Seed gave the basics: followers, food, and growth.

The first of Koda’s was an old, unremarkable platform covered in dust.

The second was a sealed pool wrapped in countless dried black tentacles.

The third was a gate radiating a black-and-red glow.

Still seated on the throne, Koda examined them one by one. Through the throne, he could feel what each was for.

"A Sacrificial Altar?" he said, frowning. "It takes anything of value as an offering. Treasures, resources... even hope, or souls. And it gives treasures of the deep in return?"

He checked his satchel. There was nothing worth offering.

Unless...

’Should I try offering my own soul?’ he thought. ’Maybe it’s worth more than I think?’

For some reason, the sinister thought surfaced in his mind on its own.

A gust of gloomy wind swept past.

Koda snapped out of it, shook his head hard, and turned to the next structure.

"An Incubation Pool. But why is it dried up?"

"Does it need something to wake it?"

He reached toward the pool through the throne.

In the next instant, he froze.

"What is going on? How can it make so many kinds? And almost none of them need anything but payment!"

The knowledge poured into him, tier after tier.

A Lesser Imp, the lowest of all, cost a quarter of a soul and 25 kilograms of flesh and blood. Any race would do. The remains didn’t even need to be whole.

A Lesser Demon cost half a soul and 40 kilograms. Same terms.

A Coil Demon cost one whole soul and 60 kilograms. Any race.

The list went deeper.

A Stone Golem Demon: five souls, 540 kilograms of flesh and blood, and 20 kilograms of precious metal.

A Demon Craftsman: three souls, 20 kilograms of flesh and blood, 100 kilograms of precious metal, and a workshop to be born in.

Further down, a Succubus. Its price was a special soul.

Further still, a legendary Flame Demon. It required one Molten Core, and a pool built inside an active volcano.

And at the very bottom, the hundredth tier, a Demon Prince.

The price was one Divine Child!

Koda could barely contain his excitement.

This was the first gift the Third Layer of Hell had given him.

The greatest gift of all!