At the moment a crack split the surface of the jade-white bone egg that Seraphine had become, ten billion kilometers away, a horde of one hundred thousand Raging Demons charging toward the Hell of Pain suddenly froze in their tracks.
They dared not move.
In that instant, they felt an utterly alien yet infinitely terrifying pressure. Under this weight that blanketed the void with boundless malice, the burning demonic souls deep within their skulls—usually filled with Raging fire—were instantly extinguished and frozen.
The entire demonic army was like mosquitoes trapped in amber; not a single limb moved, and not a single hideous contour on their distorted faces dared to twitch.
Fortunately, this terrifying pressure vanished as quickly as it arrived. After a dozen seconds, the nightmarish, suffocating atmosphere dissipated. Yet, the demons remained paralyzed for several moments more before regaining the courage to even let their facial muscles shiver.
"What... what was that just now?!" a hunched demon covered in serrated fins stammered. "Why did I feel fear?"
Beside him, a demon with dozens of eyes plucked one of its own eyeballs, crushing it to steady itself, before gasping: "I don't know. Since my birth, I have never known fear, until today..."
SPLAT!
Suddenly, a massive crimson claw, larger than both demons combined, slammed down and crushed them into a slurry of flesh and bone. Amidst the spray of gore, a crimson Demon General, standing two thousand meters tall like a mountain range, slowly withdrew its claw.
He turned coldly to the swarm of one hundred thousand demons, his voice rasping like grinding metal:
"Demons of the Hell of Rage are forbidden from feeling fear! If I see this again... you die!!"
The army straightened and roared in unison: "UNDERSTOOD!!"
The crimson Demon General nodded with satisfaction, then turned to the other generals flanking him, asking in a low voice: "That pressure just now... what do you make of it?"
"Perhaps this is just a trick from those despicable Practitioners in the Hell of Pain," the Demon General on the left remarked. "Like a spiritual pressure trap or some sinister occult snare."
"I agree," the general on the right mused. "That pressure seemed more terrifying than our own God, but how is that possible? If such a being truly existed in the Hell of Pain, why would they allow our invasion?"
The general on the far right added raspily, "Usually, we'd have been ambushed by those Practitioners by now. This silence is suspicious. Has something changed in the Hell of Pain?"
"Makes sense," the left general chuckled. "That's why they set up this bluff. We're brilliant; we've already seen through their cowardly schemes." The other generals joined in his laughter.
"I've always believed one thing," the Crimson General sneered, drawing a massive, twisted blade from his waist. "All conspiracies stem from a lack of true strength. The Great Angel of Destruction, Abaddon, is watching us. Follow me and slaughter those Hell of Pain mongrels!"
"ROAR!!" The hundred thousand Raging Demons erupted in a frenzied howl and thundered toward the massive Hell of Pain.
In the boundless void, without landmarks, judging the passage of time is nearly impossible. The demonic army felt this void, yet they possessed a different kind of clock: as they drew closer to the Hell of Pain, a seed of fear deep within their demonic souls—one that had never truly dissipated—began to swell.
But fear was a foreign concept to the Raging Demon clan. It was so alien that they refused to acknowledge it. They convinced themselves it was merely the effect of some invisible occult array set by the Practitioners. Consequently, not a single demon allowed a shred of terror to show on its face.
Not a single demon dared to show fear. The generals leading the front maintained their bloodthirsty poses, acting as if nothing in existence could ever terrify them, despite the deep, indelible dread rooted in their souls.
After an unknown time, the vanguard reached the outskirts of the Hell of Pain's massive labyrinth. Without slowing down, their bodies wreathed in roaring flames, they smashed directly into the vast, grey-white spires that already lay collapsed upon the ground.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Like a world-ending meteor shower, the demons' impact completely disintegrated the solid structures. Massive boulders and twisted steel reinforcements were sent flying amidst clouds of ash, violently leveling the surrounding smaller buildings.
Before the dust could settle, the main army followed. Thousands upon thousands of Raging Demons struck like fiery meteors, obliterating every ruin in their path.
With a series of earth-shattering explosions, the ruins across ten thousand miles were reduced to shapeless rubble and dust. Towering, broken gateways toppled like felled trees. Tunnels and corridors already severed were further smashed into millions of charred, flaming stones.
By now, the massive army had already breached hundreds of architectural layers, plunging deeper into the Hell of Pain. They destroyed everything in their path with reckless abandon, a spectacle of continuous destruction akin to a string of nuclear explosions. The air was filled with ghostly wails and thick, choking dust.
As these demons vented their raging fury and hidden fears, they gradually began to notice the strange state of the Hell of Pain.
The anomaly was simple: it was far too quiet.
There were no screams from lost souls or Cursers, no cold ambushes from Practitioners, and no terrifying occult attacks from the Hell High Priests.
Everything was deathly still.
It was as if the entire Hell of Pain had become a ghost town.
Whether inanimate objects, living beings, or magical creatures, all traces of activity had vanished. The realm offered no reaction and no counterattack, allowing them to wantonly destroy everything without resistance.
"Something feels wrong."
The crimson-black Demon General muttered in confusion after vaporizing a ten-thousand-meter ruined structure with a casual swing of his blade. "Where is everyone? Where did they go? And these buildings..."
He scanned the endless, collapsing architecture, his scarlet eyes flickering. "I didn't notice before... why are these ruins so dilapidated? Did those Practitioner mongrels blow this place up themselves for fun?"
While the general puzzled over the mystery, millions of kilometers away from the demonic army, the pure white bone egg floating above the Hell of Pain's highest palace suddenly shattered. Thousands of cracks spiderwebbed across its surface, erupting with streaks of pitch-black, sinister light.
Under this light—radiating concentrated negative energy—the surrounding ruins and architecture across trillions of miles of territory buckled and dissolved into infinite mist.
The destruction surged deeper at a staggering speed, reaching tens of millions of kilometers per second.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The entire structural framework of the realm was disintegrating. In an instant, half of the hundred-million-kilometer-long Hell of Pain, drifting in the void, had vanished.
Within the remaining half of the labyrinth world, the Raging Demons scattered across the various layers watched in absolute horror through the million-kilometer-long structural fissures. They bore witness to the Great Annihilation of the Hell of Pain.
CRACK! CRACK!
The ruins surrounding the crimson-black general suddenly fractured, and the entire region began to heave.
"What is happening?!"
He widened his bloodshot eyes, scanning his surroundings only to see a vision of pure shock.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
In every direction, no matter how deep or far he looked, there was only one sight: destruction.
A violent, inexplicable cataclysm. The general saw no visible force or weapon, yet the countless layers of ancient, overlapping architecture simply blinked out of existence, leaving not a single pebble behind.
It was as if a formless Evil God were manifesting, wantonly erasing existence. In a single blink, everything within a radius of millions of kilometers would vanish. This inexplicable tide of destruction was closing in on him from every direction.
The crimson-black general wanted to flee, but there was nowhere to run.
"Who?! Who is it?!" he roared hoarsely, struggling against his terror. "Who could possibly inflict such damage upon the Hell of Pain?!"
Before his voice could fade, he was overwhelmed by a violent, jagged aura surging from all sides, ruthlessly twisting his massive body into a mist of blood.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Seconds later, the Hell of Pain, which had endured for countless eons, was utterly annihilated.
A few Raging Demons near the labyrinth's edge drifted in the dark void, wailing in agony as they were crushed by the terrifying pressure erupting from Seraphine's awakening, until both their bodies and souls were extinguished.
WHOOSH!
Violent, pitch-black storms suddenly swirled in the empty void. This black wind was birthed from the slow disintegration of the shattered bone egg.
The storm grew larger and more solid until, at a specific moment, the black winds froze and vanished into nothingness.
The void returned to silence.
In that suffocating stillness, at the point where the winds had converged and dissipated, a silhouette slowly emerged. Standing ten thousand meters tall, pitch-black, with bodily contours as jagged and eerie as a child's scribbled drawing: this was the entity.
This was Seraphine, having successfully ascended to the Mythic Domain.
"I didn't expect the power of the Hell of Pain to be insufficient for an advancement to Primordial Myth," Seraphine murmured coldly.
She glanced at Ellincer, trillions of miles away, still suspended in the void amidst a violent metamorphosis. "I am just a hair's breadth from success. It seems I must devour one or two more Hells."
Having finished her thought, she gazed toward the shriveled blood-sac floating in the boundless distance.
With a slight shift of her form, Seraphine flew toward it at extreme speed.
As she arrived before the hovering blood-sac, Seraphine raised her arm and slowly clenched her fist, suddenly striking forward.
BOOM!
A low, heavy roar resounded, and a massive region of the void centered around Seraphine vibrated violently.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
The struck blood-sac abruptly split open, forming a colossal cavernous entrance that erupted with streaks of crimson fire.
At the very first glance of the World Gate, she had completely deciphered its principles. Ignoring all operational rules of the Gate, she used a single punch of sheer violence to effortlessly force open a massive portal connecting the two realms.
"Rage. A rage so thick it is nearly physical."
Seraphine approached the flaming cavern and reached out to pry it open, preparing to pull herself inside.
Suddenly, two colossal arms constructed from scarlet fire-light reached out from the other side of the portal. In a panic, they grabbed the edges of the great cavern and tried to wrench it shut.
"Did I give you permission to close the door? Abaddon."
Seraphine's icy voice vibrated through the vast firmament.
The entity on the opposite side of the World Gate was none other than the Lord of the Pit of Hell, the Angel of Destruction, Abaddon.
She had somehow sensed Seraphine's existence and immediately identified her extreme danger.
At that moment, a chaotic vortex of serrated white teeth split open across Seraphine's featureless black face. She abruptly clamped onto Abaddon's outstretched scarlet arms.
With a series of ear-splitting CRUNCHES, she physically dragged his entire gargantuan body out of the Pit of Hell and threw him into the ruins of the Hell of Pain.
"Since you've come, don't bother leaving."
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Amidst the continuous, violent tremors of the near-collapsing flaming blood-sac, Abaddon was forcibly dragged out into the void of the Hell of Pain.
She stood nearly ten thousand meters tall, wearing a magnificent golden crown. Her form was as elegant as a beautiful woman, yet a long, glossy black scorpion tail grew from her waist, and a pair of massive gray wings spanned from her back.
"YAARGHHH!!!"
With a ferocious, piercing shriek that shook the vast void, Abaddon—her arms still bound—suddenly lashed her long scorpion tail toward Seraphine's head.
Facing this strike, Seraphine casually extended a single pitch-black finger, stopping the blow cold.
Then, she flicked it back.
BOOM!!
In an instant, a force capable of piercing a star erupted from her fingertip.
SWOOSH
Endless light and fire roared wantonly, instantly annihilating all physical matter within a trillion-mile radius. Abaddon's scorpion tail was blown apart, reduced to nothingness.
Simultaneously, the serrated chaotic vortex on Seraphine's face rotated at extreme speed. With a brutal SNAP, she twisted off Abaddon's slender arms—flesh and bone alike—and began to CRUNCH and grind them, swallowing them whole.
"The taste isn't bad."
Sensing the clear growth in her power, Seraphine tilted her head toward Abaddon, who was screaming and retreating like lightning back into the blood-sac. She let out a chilling laugh. "As expected, devouring is indeed the fastest way to grow strong."
Her head suddenly expanded a million times, transforming into a world-swallowing maw. She bit down on Abaddon, whose lower half was still exposed, along with the fading blood-sac itself.
CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!!!
After a series of hair-raising sounds of shattering and chewing, Seraphine's aura visibly surged.
"You pulled away quickly, managing to escape with half your body," she said coldly, staring into the now-empty, dark void. Her voice was ice. "Why couldn't you just stay still and let me eat you? Do you think the blessings of your secret Pit can protect you? Foolish."
This isn't baseless speculation.
In a general sense, False Gods are typically unable to truly perceive, control, or even connect with the worlds they've created. Such abilities belong only to Mythic-level existences.
However, the Hell Lords—artificial creations like Leviathan who act as the secret masters of a giant ecosystem—are entirely different. He clearly possesses the World-Dominating capability on par with Mythic beings.
Leviathan's signature trait is: "As long as Hell remains, he shall not die."
By this logic, Abaddon and Baphomet should share this power. Otherwise, as the other two vital Nodes of the colossal ecosystem, how could the Pit of Hell and the Hell of Nightmare fulfill their roles as the pillars ensuring the stability and continued existence of the entire system?
"If they were ordinary False Gods, devouring ten, twenty, or even thirty might not be enough for me to ascend to Primordial Myth."
Seraphine slowly sat cross-legged in the void. As she analyzed the fragmented memories extracted from Abaddon's lower half, she rested her chin on her hand in contemplation.
"But Leviathan, Baphomet, and Abaddon seem to be a Trinity in a sense. By devouring one and then moving on to completely consume the others, my power will grow exponentially. This was evident from the massive surge I just felt from half of Abaddon's body. If I thoroughly devour all three, I will undoubtedly break through the bottleneck and truly ascend to Primordial Myth."
At this thought, she smiled happily. "What perfect nourishment. You are destined to be devoured by me, becoming the scenery on my path to growth."
By now, Seraphine had finally pieced together the shattered memories from Abaddon's remains. Amidst the fragmented information, she obtained several important items.
One was the confirmation that Abaddon, like Leviathan, is an existence inextricably linked to her respective Hell—their lives bound together. Not only that, this demon—who appeared to the world as a human female general—could use the Pit of Hell to abruptly boost her combat power by dozens or even hundreds of times.
However, unlike the Hell of Pain which primarily feeds on agony, the Pit of Hell is even more gluttonous and pure.
She sought to plunder as much flesh and soul as possible, for these two elements were the fuel for the Pit of Hell's operation and growth, as well as the umbilical cord for the gestation and birth of the Raging Demon race.
Because of this, the Pit of Hell, second only to Uriel and the Elder Ouroboros, was the most malicious and destructive force toward the millions of mortal realms. Over countless eons, it is impossible to know how many mortal realms have been destroyed or how many lives have perished at their hands.
"Given that previous experience, Abaddon likely won't dare enter the Hell of Pain for a long while, meaning she can't use this place as a springboard to invade the millions of mortal realms."
Seraphine sat cross-legged in the void, resting her chin on her hand in deep thought. "But since she and her Pit of Hell are so ravenous for souls and flesh, she can only rely on... dark contracts."
The dark contract was Abaddon's alternative method for influencing the mortal realms aside from direct invasion. Although the quantity of flesh and souls obtained this way was far smaller, it was extremely convenient and fast.
Whether it was dozens, thousands, or even millions of people, any number of captured or slaughtered humans was a harvest for the Pit of Hell. Only on rare occasions could a small detachment of dozens or hundreds of demons—having risked the gauntlet of Practitioner armies—successfully infiltrate a mortal realm to enjoy a massive buffet.
Thus, for the majority of the time, the Pit of Hell survived primarily on dark contracts.
These contracts were items intentionally left behind by demon squads that had previously invaded. Their purpose was to lure specific individuals—vengers, the ambitious, folklore scholars, or scientists—to summon them for various ends.
This was a form of sustainable development. Over time, the Fantasy clan, human transcendents, and even the Moon Tribe's Night Walkers had discovered and learned more than one type of demonic summoning incantation due to the Pit of Hell's deliberate efforts.
As long as these groups summoned a Raging Demon—whether to use it for slaughter and conquest, to wickedly enslave it, or to use it as an experimental subject—it didn't matter to the Pit of Hell. So long as the dark contracts were spread as widely as possible, the macro-level result was always beneficial to the Pit of Hell's growth and expansion.
"I need to enter a mortal realm, find a dark contract, or learn a summoning incantation. I'll use it as a bridge to enter the Hell of Rage, find Abaddon... and eat her."
With that thought, Seraphine's ten-thousand-meter-tall body gradually blurred and dissipated, spiraling inward until it suddenly transformed into a pitch-black, misty vortex.
SWOOSH
The vortex collapsed and shrank, its dark mists molding and condensing in the void until it took the form of a young woman about twenty years old. She was beautiful but pale as a ghost, with a sturdy build yet an aura as gloomy as a demon's.
This was Seraphine transformed into human form.
"Hmm..."
She slowly opened her eyes, cold light flickering in them. "Let me see how many Boxes of Sorrow are still active... and how many unlucky fools are opening them."
Seraphine concentrated her senses on the countless Boxes of Sorrow scattered across thousands of mortal realms. Instantly, the dark expanse of the firmament in her vision became dotted with starlight.
Each speck of light represented a Box of Sorrow.
A steady, bright light meant the box was dormant.
A violent flickering indicated someone had opened a box, allowing a coordinate to be established to open a channel through the Creeping Sea.
Faint, dim starlight meant the box was damaged or defunct and could not be used.
Upon sensing them, she discovered that 99.9% of the stars had turned dim.
Under the Hell of Pain's tireless maintenance over eons, vast numbers of Boxes of Sorrow existed throughout millions of mortal realms. Each realm had anywhere from a few to thousands of boxes. Roughly estimated, there were a total of 100 million Boxes of Sorrow.
This meant that now only 100,000 boxes were still functional. All others had lost their power and become useless husks.
"Is it because the God of Pain, Leviathan, was thoroughly refined by me, creating a node deficiency in the giant ecosystem and affecting the overall operational structure?"
Seraphine's brow furrowed slightly. "It seems I must act quickly; I cannot waste time."
Having decided, she looked toward the sparse cluster of functional stars, searching for those that were flickering.
"Twenty-four points of light are flashing violently. Theoretically, at this very moment, twenty-four Boxes of Sorrow in different parallel solar systems are being opened by humans."
"Haha."
With a soft laugh, Seraphine leisurely gazed at those brilliantly flashing stars. "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe... who shall it be?"
Having finished speaking, her finger calmly pointed toward one of the radiant stars:
"This one."
...
A certain parallel universe.
North America, XX City, an old-fashioned bar.
All customers had been cleared out. Dozens of burly Black men stood or sat with serious expressions, listening to the stout Black boss speaking at the front.
"Dog shit!"
The old Black man cursed angrily. "Fuck those bastards for daring to stir up trouble on my turf!"
He looked toward a muscular man on the left with a scorpion tattoo on his neck and asked loudly: "Leder, did you crack that mouth open? What's their background?"
Leder's dark face twitched as he gave a mocking smile: "I peeled the tattoo off his back and poured two bottles of whiskey over the raw skin. That White ghost spilled everything."
"Hey, man! You're creative. I almost wonder if you graduated from Harvard," the old man remarked, looking at him with surprise.
"Oh yeah, Pops, you guessed right. I'm a Ph.D. in anatomy!" Leder rubbed his nose and thrust his hips with a lewd laugh.
"Fuck, you really should've been a comedian! HAHAHA!"
Hearing the tattooed man's joke, the boss burst into laughter, and the other men in the bar joined in uproariously.
As he laughed, the old man's brow suddenly furrowed. He leaned in close to Leder and sniffed hard; his nose twitched three times before he let out a massive sneeze.
"Holy shit!"
The boss rubbed his nose and glared at a bewildered Leder, spitting as he cursed, "How much damn Gucci cologne did you spray? You smell like you just crawled out of a brothel in Amsterdam! I remember you have a decent bloodline; your body odor shouldn't be that strong, right?"
"Uh, Boss..."
Leder grinned sheepishly and scratched his cheek. "Actually, before coming to the meeting, I skinned a guy. I had some blood on me and didn't have time to shower. My bad."
"Fine."
The old man let out a breath and shook his head, continuing, "Don't get off track. Talk to me—where did that son-of-a-bitch White ghost come from?"
"Aha," Leder grinned proudly. He used two fingers to fish a cigar box out of a nearby travel bag and set it on the bar.
CLACK—
Opening the box, there were no cigars inside. Instead, four bloody, uneven fingers lay there.
Each fingertip had a letter tattooed on its back, spelling out:
"FIRE!"
The boss's eyes widened. "It's those psycho bastards from Hellfire!"
"Those guys are all crazed cultists," he said, rubbing his chin in confusion. "Aren't they running scams on the West Coast? What are they doing here on my turf?"
The old man looked at Leder. "I remember... Hellfire never touched the product business. Why would they send some White ghosts to Queens to sell gear?"
"Uh, those mercurial guys didn't seem to care about selling. It's like they wanted to use the product to lure a few junkies into joining some God-Summoning Ritual of theirs," Leder scratched his bald head. "I had to drag that White ghost into bed before he spilled it."
"Fuck, you think I'll believe that? Traveling this far just to find people for some ghost ritual? Don't give me that shit!" The boss bared his teeth fiercely. "There are no such things as gods or ghosts in this world; those guys definitely have another agenda!"
"But no matter how I tortured him, he wouldn't say anything else. And..." Leder shrugged regretfully. "I forgot to stop his bleeding. Yeah, he's dead."
"Shit! I take back what I said earlier; you're just an idiot who didn't even graduate middle school!"
"This time, you're actually right," Leder replied jokingly, his scorpion tattoo twitching hideously.
"Right." He seemed to remember something and reached into the travel bag again, pulling out a brown music box and setting it carelessly on the bar.
"That White ghost's God-Summoning Ritual is pretty hilarious. No need for poetry or prayers; just wind the bottom of this music box three times and it's done. Hmm, maybe it'll summon Jesus, HAHAHA."
"Jesus? Hmph, the guy who kicked the bucket over three nails? Nothing worth believing in," the boss scoffed. "Better to believe in 50 Cent; at least he took nine shots and lived. Whatever, let's talk about something else."
With that, he casually picked up the music box, grabbed the base, and—CLICK, CLICK, CLICK—wound it three times.