"Brother."
"Mm."
"What is this?"
At the edge of the Underworld's Pure Land, Anya stared, wide-eyed. With a casual wave of her brother's right hand, a blood pool had appeared before them—gurgling and bubbling.
It looked scary.
But after a few years in Hell, Anya's threshold was pretty high. So even though the blood pool looked creepy, curiosity beat fear.
Hawk didn't answer. He reached into the Eden Apple and tossed a Heaven-soul—eyes clear and spotless like a fresh college kid—straight into the pool.
The boiling pool went still.
Only then did Hawk glance at his sister and smile. "Thought you might get bored here. I'm making you a few playmates."
"Playmates?" Anya blinked.
"Mm." Hawk looked back at the pool, which had begun to roil again. "You'll see in a second."
As he spoke, something seemed to rise from within the bubbling blood.
Anya stared unblinking.
The next second—
A blood-red woman with horned, feral features rose from the pool as if emerging from a bath.
Anya's eyes went round. "Brother, this is…?"
"Blood Elf."
Hawk's mouth tilted upward.
He watched the figure soaking quietly in the pool—bearing the perfectly blended auras of the Blood God, Hell, and Heaven—gazing up at him with pure eyes. A sudden feeling surged in him:
Creator.
This was what he'd conceived—and then created—after taking and refining the Blood God's dimension and fusing it into his Underworld: a lifeform exclusive to his realm.
Even though his microcosmos hadn't fully manifested yet—
No problem.
Creatures in the Underworld need only souls.
And the Eden Apple he'd seized from the cloning expert Dr. Merrick was packed with a vast number of blank Heaven-souls.
But those souls belonged to Heaven.
If Hawk wanted to use them, he had to wash them first and make them his.
Before now, he couldn't.
His microcosmos hadn't truly manifested, so it didn't have any "soul-washing" capability.
But once La Magra died, he left behind an unclaimed Blood God dimension—an actually existing, masterless realm.
Which was…
Perfect.
Hawk didn't rush to claim it. He wrapped the Blood God dimension in his six senses for days. Only after confirming that La Magra had truly scattered to nothing did he accept it.
You can't trust even Mephisto's punctuation.
Likewise—
He didn't fully trust La Magra either.
Mephisto wasn't a good guy.
Was La Magra?
Days later, when his senses told him the Blood God dimension was collapsing further from losing its master, he finally took it and, after a few more days of tinkering, fused it into his Underworld.
From that moment, his microcosmos had an anchor in the real universe.
Blood God…
Pah.
The Blood God was dead—beyond prayer and paper money. The realm now should be called the Blood Dimension.
The dried-out thing was the Blood God's realm. What did that have to do with his Blood Dimension?
With the Reality Stone in hand—
Filling the Blood Dimension was just a thought away.
But the extra compute he had freed from the Reality Stone by absorbing life force last time—he burned it all again to push the Stone back to full power.
Still—
Worth it.
With the Blood Dimension, he could convert the Eden Apple's stockpile of souls, turning those Heaven-souls into a lifeform that belonged solely to him—
The Blood Elves you see now.
The Blood Elf rising from the pool looked at Hawk on the shore, and her form shifted again.
The death-signifying demon horns vanished. With long, sleek blood-red hair and the race's trademark long, tapered ears, the Blood Elf stepped from the pool in a crimson gown. She walked to Hawk, went down on one knee, and looked up.
"Master."
"Mm."
Hawk smiled at the first Blood Elf he had created—sultry, bewitching, and his work. "From now on, you're Kyra—the chieftain of the Blood Elves."
"Thank you, Master," Kyra answered, voice airy and clear.
"Rise."
"Yes."
Kyra stood, turned to Anya, and knelt again on one knee.
"My lady."
"…Bro." Anya blinked and looked up at Hawk.
Hawk smiled at his sister. "The Underworld's Blood Elves will be your guard. Kyra is the captain I made for you. You said I won't let you leave the Pure Land—well, with Kyra, if you want to visit the Infernal Pits, you can."
The Underworld was his—nothing there could escape his senses.
But—
He'd only just gotten his sister back. He wasn't going to let anything happen to her.
Even if he was a hundred percent sure Anya was safe in his realm—
He still worried.
Call it a condition.
He knew it. But now that the Underworld had its own native life—the Blood Elves—that problem vanished.
Created by his own hand, bound by absolute loyalty, they were perfect as Anya's guards.
This way, even if he wasn't around, Anya could go sightseeing beyond the Pure Land without any safety concerns.
Sure enough—
Hearing she could visit the Pits, Anya's eyes lit up, her smile unstoppable. "Really?"
"Of course." Hawk's gaze was all doting warmth. "But the Blood Elves go with you—Kyra's squad."
"Blood Elves… squads?" Anya blinked.
"Of course!"
Hawk smiled, and with a thought, more Heaven-souls poured into the blood pool.
As it boiled over, those souls bearing Heaven's brand were washed by the Underworld's blood pool and transformed—emerging as Blood Elves one after another. They came in many looks, but without exception they were tall, strikingly beautiful, and blonde with blue eyes.
Naturally—
Where there are women, there are men.
Compared to the peerlessly beautiful females, the male Blood Elves were… not much to look at.
Proof? The guys were so ugly they didn't even rate an illustration.
If the females were Hawk's carefully wrought masterpieces—mighty and breathtaking—
The males were his "good-enough" jobs.
Which made sense.
Men are for labor. Why make them pretty?
He'd made the females to serve as his sister's guards. The males? Draft animals.
"You—Kay." Hawk pointed at the first male who climbed from the pool and tossed him a name. "From today, you and yours will garrison the Infernal Pits and manage the wicked souls."
Kay's voice was deep and steady as he answered.
Exactly.
Hawk had created the males to run the Pits for him.
He already had over five hundred souls down there.
Mephisto had promised him this much:
What Hawk killed, Hawk kept.
Whether or not Mephisto was what La Magra claimed—a "partner" of Yahweh—
Bottom line:
Not his problem. Hawk had never truly believed Mephisto anyway.
Was Mephisto tricking or manipulating him? Who cares.
Kids make either-or choices.
Heaven.
Hell.
Hawk would take both.
Before, he'd lacked manpower. Even if he seized Hell, he neither wanted nor had the way to personally micromanage the fates of Earth.
Now he could create his own race—subordinates absolutely loyal to him.
Given that, Mephisto no longer needed to exist.
You don't let anybody snore beside your pillow.
So—
"Old Mephisto."
"Don't say I never gave you a chance."
"Agreeing to 'cooperate'—that was your chance."
"You'd better not waste it."
Watching squad after squad of male Blood Elves march into the Pits, Hawk's mouth curled into a cold smile.
As thousands of them took up posts, the souls who'd tried to slack off in his carefully designed torments finally met their wardens.
Screams rang out as souls were thrashed—
Including Dr. Merrick, who'd been loafing in the Frozen Pit.
Already killed who knows how many times, Merrick revived and went right back to lying still, letting the absolute cold swallow him again.
If you don't think, it doesn't hurt.
Two male Blood Elves arrived, and Merrick howled.
One snapped his right hand; a blood-whip leapt into his grip and cracked across Merrick's face like lightning.
Smack!
"Argh!"
"Move!"
Merrick stared, stunned at the new enforcers that hadn't been here before.
Smack!
Another strike—another scream.
Up ahead, Alexander Pierce—who kept walking without complaint no matter how many times he died—heard the wails behind him. He shook his head and continued in silence.
Standing over the Frozen Pit, Hawk looked down at Pierce and frowned.
He thought a moment—
And chose not to pay Pierce any mind.
After all—
He'd already given the man two chances.
There wouldn't be a third.
With that, Hawk's mind rose back to reality.
In front of him—
Gwen stepped out of the dressing room, already changed.
"Let's go."
"Peter and Felicia are already at the church."
…
(End of Chapter)
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