Morvathos walked forward, the fog thickening, the silence almost deafening. He moved for a few moments before the fog finally cleared, and his vision returned. He was inside a cave.
The faint, rhythmic sound of flowing water echoed around him. In front of him ran an underground river, its water glowing a deep, vivid emerald green. He used Hell Inspection through the Authority Seal and he got to know that this was Soul Water.
Unlike him, who could traverse anywhere in his Hell, the souls on the other hand were either dragged to the Pit of Karma and Punishment or to the Spring of Reincarnation, depending on their virtue after being weighed on the Karmic Scale .
They first arrived in the fog, wandered forward, and eventually found themselves at the River of Reincarnation, which guided them to the Spring. This river determined the path their next life would take.
There were six such rivers. Each embodied different path of Reincarnation. After judgment, every soul drifted into the one it deserved.
The Path of Radiant Virtue granted blessed lives of love, health, and prosperity. Though the greater the virtue, the harsher the fall if they failed.
The Path of Blessed Fortune offered steady, content lives, smooth but seldom great.
The Path of Mortal Balance was the common road , ordinary lives, neither cursed nor blessed.
The Path of Purified Sinners gave the punished a chance at redemption, reborn into hardship but not ruin.
The Path of Burdened Karma cast lingering sinners into poverty, sickness, and misfortune, testing their resolve.
The Path of Endless Trial condemned the most tainted to cursed lives of tragedy and yet even here, salvation could be seized through sacrifice.
'Hmm~ this isn't like anything I Knew about Hell. It's opposite. This Hell is like an economy system that runs on souls.'
Morvathos thought to himself. When he used Hell Inspection on both Pot of Karma and Punishment ano Spring of Reincarnation, he got to know how they worked and is being maintained by Divine Laws.
And in doing so it was charging the Karmic Coins produced by both Pit of Karma and Punishment and Spring of Reincarnation.
In other words, to maintain Hell, Karmic Coins were needed. And to earn Karmic Coins, Pit of Karma and Punishment and Spring of Reincarnation is needed.
Pit of Karma and Punishment burned the sins and those sins were absorbed by the silvery floor and when meet a certain quantity, a Karmic Coin was produced.
The Spring of Reincarnation infront of him was the opposite, with every successful Reincarnation of the souls from Path of Radiant Virtue and Path of Blessed Fortune, Karmic Coins were produced.
Morvathos stood at the shore, overlooking the six rivers that converged upon the Spring of Reincarnation. The spring itself was a vast circular pit within a lake, its diameter stretching over fifteen kilometers, the lake was more than forty in diameter.
To mortals and his former self, it would appear incomprehensibly massive, yet to Morvathos it was but the most basic foundation, a crude cycle of rebirth maintained only by the Divine Laws.
He knew it needed Karmic Coins to be strengthened, refined and upgraded, made worthy of its purpose.
From above, the scene resembled the waterfalls of Niagara. Streams of emerald soul water thundered into the pit, carrying countless drifting spirits in their current. The shapes of pale, human-like figures swirled through the flow, dissolving into the depths of the spring.
But then, something went wrong or it was like that from the beginning.
"Hmm?"
Morvathos narrowed his eyes as a faint wisp of soul drifted upward instead of down. It rose like a defiant spark, lifting higher and higher toward the endless dark above, where no ceiling marked the cave's end. Another followed. And another.
His chest tightened.The soul water was tainted. That could not happen because no ordinary spirit possessed the strength to resist the soothing pull of Soul Water, let alone gain consciousness before reincarnation.
Mortals were meant to remain oblivious and never knowing what happened after they had died, never remembering anything until their eyes reopened in their next life.
Yet these souls had slipped free.
The realization hit him harder than he expected. This wasn't just a strange anomaly, it was a calamity. Each escaping soul meant one less life born. Empty vessels would grow in mortal wombs, bodies without spirit, their time for soul assimilation passing in silence.
A dwindling birthrate on Earth was the symptom. The cause was here, bleeding into the cycle. And with it, a slow cut on his income.
*Sigh~*
He rubbed his temples, the pressure mounting in his skull. One soul escaping every three minutes seemed insignificant, but the truth was crushing: over years, the numbers would spiral into devastation. Not just for mortals, but for him as well.
Hell Inspection of the Spring of Reincarnation confirmed his dread that the corruption within the Soul Water was spreading. At best, he had one year before collapse. After that, the cycle would fail entirely, and Earth would fall into ruin.
'Damn it! What a mess!'
Morvathos clenched his jaw. He had never asked for this, never wanted to inherit death itself. Yet here he stood, staring at a broken cycle that demanded his intervention.
Another headache throbbed in his skull. He couldn't remain here any longer. He felt a familiar emotion bubbling within his heart that he didn't feel even after all this.
But it was faint. He could still keep his cool.
With a surge of Umbral Desolation, his figure blurred into the fog, shadows coiling around him until he emerged before the towering gates of the Crimson Descent Palace.
He exhaled slowly. First, he needed answers. Then, a solution. And that meant going to the treasury in his living quarters , the right wing of the palace.
The right wing of the palace only had two rooms. One is the Shopping room, which one can use to buy Almost anything permitted by the Divine Laws in exchange fir Karmic Coins.
And the other was the Treasury, where Morvathos was headed. He was walking through the hall way and saw the tree at the center for the first time. Morvathos didn't use Hell Inspection because he wasn't that curious right now.
His mind was elsewhere. His existence was at stake here and he destroyed the urgency to do something right now.
Morvathos could access both the Shopping Room and the Treasury through the Authority Seal but he needed to connect them with his Authority Seal.
Even though it was connected to The Authority Seal of Abrosis, and the same thing was passed down to Morvathos, but the moment the Authority Seal was passed down to Morvathos it changed because an Authority Seal is unique to each individual.
That's why even though he is now the new King of Hell, he still needed to manually connect with both rooms to access them from anywhere.
Morvathos reached Shopping Room first and brought his Authority Seal close to the door lock and the Authority Seal glowed and radiated a white light that was absorbed into the door lock and was absorbed back into Authority Seal again.
His brain was flooded with a massive wave of information with how to use this new feature and access Shopping Room from anywhere also how to buy things.
'How nice. This feature is already making me feel comfortable.'
Morvathos's mood calmed down a bit with the new features. He didn't have to come here every time to buy something. He moved to the next room and did the same. After the connection was established the door automatically opened and let Morvathos see what was inside.
*Crack~*
The door opened with a crack and inside of the Treasury was visible. The Treasury wall and floor was made with same brown colour brick. There were three red pillars on each side of the wall. The pillars and the selling matched the palace them.
But what caught Morvathos's attention was how empty the Treasury was. It was too empty. There was nothing at all. No matter how bad the situation was right now, there should be some Karmic Coins left in the Treasury since the damage in Spring of Reincarnation was done decades ago.
There was only one possibility of why the Treasury was empty. Abrosis had taken every single Karmic Coin when he left.
Morvathos's breathing quickened. His heart started to beat faster. Unlike before where it was just subtle, this time rage was wheeling up inside his heart like tidal wave of ocean.
For a fleeting moment, Morvathos saw a fly waving by infront of his vision with a smug expression and flashing middle fingers at him.
"YOU SON OF A BIIIIITTCCH!!!"
A voice of raw fury rang throughout the Hell before everything went back to normal.