The armored truck roared like a metallic beast through the forests of northern Argentina. The vegetation was dense and humid, with mosquitoes and broad leaves suffocating the dirt road that few dared to traverse. The sky hung heavy with leaden clouds. Everything there seemed on the verge of collapse.
Daytona kept her eyes fixed on the window. Her reflection showed her face partially distorted by the vehicle's vibration—but something else hid within it. A second pair of eyes, deep and dark, stared at her from behind the glass. Belzebub was growing closer to the surface.
Saravia remained silent, also gazing outside. Leviathan whispered in her mind, in a liquid voice:
— The trees here grow twisted… because they've heard something. Things crawling beneath the earth. Don't trust the whispers when night falls.
She ignored him.
Martin was more restless than ever, sweating despite the cool air. — "How many hours left?"
Ghost, driving, answered: — "Four. If we're lucky, we arrive before sunset."
— "And if not?" — he asked.
— "The cave closes itself at nightfall."
— "Naturally?" Martin pressed.
Ghost didn't respond. Silence was the harshest answer.
⸻
Later, high in the Chilean Andes, the group stopped. The road ended here—the rest would have to be on foot.
— "Let's go." — said Ghost. — "The entrance isn't visible to just anyone."
Daytona took a deep breath, feeling the thin air. Her skin was sweating, yet cold, as if something inside her was preparing to emerge. She knew it would happen today. Belzebub knew too.
Vegetation was sparse. Rocks slid under their boots. Walking these trails without ropes was suicide, yet they pressed on, as if something greater pulled them forward.
Until they arrived.
A tiny opening between two rocks. Small enough to let sunlight in—but deeply dark just a few meters inside. The cave was dry and silent, the only sound the wind threading through the boulders.
— "Here?" — Saravia asked, frowning.
— "Here." — Ghost confirmed. — "This is where it all began… and where it ends."
Daytona entered first. The space was so narrow they had to bow their heads. The walls were marked with ancient symbols—some resembling circuits, others petrified veins. At the back, a smooth wall like glass blocked the path.
Daytona paused. Her eyes slowly closed. The silence was heavy.
And then, she felt it.
The flesh of her chest moved on its own. Her ribs expanded. Daytona's eyes turned completely black. A dark slime slid down her back, shoulders, and face. Martin recoiled, a scream caught in his throat. Saravia raised the anchor but hesitated. Ghost held his breath, as if he had expected this.
A tall, muscular creature, yet hiding its body beneath a cloak, began to emerge from Daytona, as if birthed from within.
It was Belzebub.
His feet touched the ground soundlessly. The cloak covering him resembled dried, stitched flesh with bones. The Bode skull he wore as a mask reflected the faint cave light.
The air grew heavy.
Belzebub said nothing at first. He simply walked to the stone wall, studying it with nostalgia, as if reuniting with a familiar door. Then, he turned to them.
His voice cut the air with gravity:
— Setealem demands more than will. It demands purpose. Pain. Desire. Flesh does not bend without hunger… and you are hungry.
He raised his arms. Veins on Daytona glowed faintly—the body responded, even though he was already outside of her.
Belzebub dug his claws into his own chest and pulled forth a pulsating sphere, filled with eyes and whispering mouths, crying in forgotten tongues. He threw it against the stone wall.
The entire cave shook.
The wall cracked at the center, revealing a red vortex—spiraling like twisting intestines, light and darkness intertwined. It was the Portal to Setealem.
Belzebub turned again, now his voice sounding as if several spoke together:
— To cross this is to unravel. You will not return the same. Your structure will break… and reorganize. Those who enter Setealem are no longer human. Do you understand?
Daytona, still kneeling, simply nodded. Her eyes now glowed like living embers. Belzebub approached her, placed two fingers in the center of her forehead… and slowly began to be absorbed back into her skin, with wet, deep sounds.
Silence.
— "…It's done." — said Daytona. — "Let's go."
Ghost was the first to step through the portal. Then Martin, trembling. Saravia entered silently, glancing back one last time. And finally, Daytona.
When the last strand of her hair crossed the threshold, the cave exploded into absolute silence. The entrance vanished. Reality here became smooth again, as if nothing had ever existed.
Only the cold mountain wind remained, blowing.
The smell of sulfur and burnt flesh filled the air as the group crossed the portal. Daytona barely had time to blink: the world around them had already changed completely. The stones underfoot were black and deformed, like callouses hardened on the skin of something much larger. The sky was a strange, calm blue, strangely peaceful, illuminating the place with a sickly, trembling light.
They had arrived at the Fourth Ring of Setealem: the Ring of Envy.
Ghost spoke first.
— "This is… grotesquely calm."
The place resembled a ghost city, yet alive. Ruins of mansions stretched across rolling hills. Eyeless statues, mouths agape in silent screams, were scattered across the terrain. Some wept a black substance that pooled in greasy puddles on the ground.
Saravia stayed close to Daytona, tense. Since the last battle, she had been quieter—Leviathan whispered less, but each word now carried different weight.
— These souls… murmured Leviathan in her mind. — They do not desire violence. Only what they cannot have.
Daytona scanned the path ahead. A group of deformed sinners, with overly long arms and cracked heads, observed the group from a distance. None approached, but some waved with multiple fingers slowly, eerily, as if mimicking human gestures.
Martin broke the silence:
— "They… seem friendly?"
— "Don't trust Setealem," Ghost muttered. — "Nor apparent kindness."
Daytona approached one of the sinners. She was a woman with pale, wax-like skin, eyes covered by veils of flesh, and three mouths moving out of sync.
— "You are different, girl…" — one mouth said, almost maternally. — "Your scent does not belong to this Ring…"
— "We're heading to the Ring of Wrath," Daytona replied cautiously. — "How do we get there?"
The woman pointed with one thin hand toward the horizon, shrouded in lilac mist.
— Climb. Always upward. The stairs are hidden in the center of envy… But beware of eyes that follow you without a head.
Ghost muttered again.
— "That doesn't sound promising."
They continued along the path, descending hill after hill, passing creatures crouched in shadows. Some slender, silent demons, with bodies like serpents wrapped in shattered glass-like skin, crawled in circles, whispering among themselves.
Yet none attacked.
It was as if, in this Ring, envy consumed fury itself. The energy was passive, rotten, but not aggressive. Still, the atmosphere was suffocating. Every building displayed scenes of happy families, lavish banquets, lost treasures—but all dusty, unreachable, dead. Each corner exuded a desire that had never been fulfilled.
After hours of walking, crossing broken bridges, fields of distorted mirrors, and gardens with living statues trembling subtly, the group reached a circular plaza.
In its center, surrounded by a pale blue mist that neither rose nor dissipated, was the Stair of the Empty Spiral.
A staircase of translucent material, cracked as if it moved, narrowing downward like an endless whirlpool. Around it, stone totems bore inscriptions in a dead language, vibrating faintly as Daytona approached. Belzebub murmured something nearly incomprehensible in her mind.
— "This staircase… is alive."
Saravia paused at the edge of the abyss and looked at Daytona.
— "This leads to Gluttony, right?"
— "Yes. And from Gluttony… to Wrath." — Daytona replied.
Ghost examined the totems, lost in thought, as if recalling something ancient.
Martin just took a deep breath, trying to stay calm.
Daytona looked at everyone, then at the staircase.
— "Then… now we descend."
She took the first step onto the spiral.
The sound of the stairs echoed differently. Each step reverberated in their minds, producing a deep vibration in their stomachs. As they descended, the blue mist thickened, the whispers of the totems grew stronger, like voices forgotten by reality.
It wasn't yet the hell they expected—but the true journey through Setealem had begun.
And the path to Paimon… had barely been touched.