44 - 50 years (1)

Neither of us idled along in those 50 years. While Ixtra mainly looked for clues on interdimensional travel and warp drives, I looked for that while simultaneously perusing through Hell.

There was a lot I hadn't seen.

Compared to the previous two realms I had been in, which were relatively similar in many ways, Hell was quite different.

Not only was the terrain very different from anything I had ever seen before, so were many other components.

The culture in each circle was distinctly different.

The 6th and 7th circles were bloodbaths, fights breaking out constantly and almost everyone out for themselves. I didn't go down to the 8th circle since that would be dangerous even for me, but apparently things were very different there too.

Archdemons supposedly brought bits and pieces of things from other realms into the 8th and 9th circles fairly regularly, making those two circles very different from circles above. However, the fact that it was a bloodbath was still true.

In the 8th circle, anyone who wasn't an archdemon wasn't even considered worth talking to.

Because archdemons couldn't become demon kings through the same law of slaughter and devouring that they had used to get their archdemon strength, most became far less violent at that level, and although fights still occasionally broke out, it was far more rare.

It was due to this that archdemons had a relatively peaceful and blooming culture in the 8th circle. However, anyone below archdemon was excluded from this peaceful society, and could only serve as slaves to the archdemons.

Since I was a bit different from a demon, I didn't want to take the risk of going down there, despite the peace, in case a misunderstanding popped up.

What if they thought I wasn't strong enough to be worthy of befriending? It was true that I wasn't an archdemon. I was using a completely different power system, so such a misunderstanding could occur.

In the 3rd, 4th, and 5th circles, although fights were less common, they still broke out. However, the main Hellish aspect of these layers was the dystopian aspects.

There was a lot of trickery and deception, lies and scheming that happened at every level. In a way, it was similar to human empires, except demons were naturally more cruel and ruthless. Moreover, when this scheming and plotting resulted not only in financial power and status, but also physical strength, it became all the more rampant than it ever did amongst humans.

And it was already quite rampant amongst humans.

Of course, demons gained power through feeding. So what did I mean by strength coming with status?

Things like weekly tributes towards the leader where a sacrifice would be chosen to be killed and fed to the strongest in a group.

Subjugation of enemy camps leading to mass banquettes of cannibalistic feasting on the corpses of fellow demons in a nearby city.

I even saw some cases of a few particularly smart demons allowing nearby cities to repopulate, not wiping them out completely, only to come massacre them and feed on them in waves.

It was like some odd method of farming.

When I thought of it as analogous to farming, I had the thought of going vegan for a second, and when I next thought of how I didn't care enough to, I realized that same callousness must be what the demons feel, just towards each other and everyone else, instead of just towards animals.

In other words, to a demon that thrives off feasting on the remains of others, everyone he sees is just equivalent to livestock to him.

I even had conversations with demons at times that told me that exact thing.

"Does caring for others put food on the table? Especially when that said food is quite literally the other person, caring for them in fact does the opposite. It deprives you of valuable nutrition and even indirectly kills you."

One particular greater demon had told me that, and it really stuck with me.

The longer I spent in Hell, the more I felt like I was becoming accustomed to the demons' way of thinking. The more I felt like I was becoming a more heartless person.

In the 1st and 2nd circles, however, I regained some of my prior humanity as there was finally some semblance of what I considered normalcy.

There were kingdoms and empires, fully functional and normal, for the most part.

What the demons called the law of devouring was barely in effect in the 2nd circle, and quite literally not in effect at all in the 1st.

This meant the nations in the 1st circle especially were pretty much just like human kingdoms. Of course, there were still racial differences, but the key point was that there was widespread peace.

Actually, there was one very interesting aspect to the first circle.

The 2nd circle still had wars amongst its nations. It was essentially the exact same as the realms I used to live in. However, in the 1st circle, there were clearcut territorial boundaries between races and empires, and they were adhered to strictly.

This wasn't due to the demons of the 1st circle being overly peace-loving, but rather because of the Overseer of the layer.

Every circle of Hell had an Overseer, or at least used to.

After the event that wiped out most demon kings over a thousand years ago, only 2 Overseers remained.

The one formerly in charge of the 7th circle, who was now in charge of the 2nd-7th circle, and the one in charge of the 1st circle.

The Overseer of the 1st circle was someone I was unable to meet, but apparently, they were of a unique species, and one of the first few demon kings.

They had been created, not naturally born, expressly to oversee the 1st circle, and their primary job was to ensure the nations of the 1st circle remained at peace.

Nobody knew why this would be the case. Maybe the being that created Hell was attempting a play on some weird form of irony, where Hell was such an awful place but the 1st circle was a paradise.

Nonetheless, that is what it was like. A paradise.

I met many new species on the first floor. There were dark elves and ogres and all sorts. I also met the imp species that Ixtra came from.

They were all like him, in that they all looked like 12-14 year olds boys. They had no gender, and were born from accumulation of demonic energy in certain conditions, like under the right temperature, humidity, and so on.

I witnessed the birth of an imp once.

In a cave that seemed modified to maximize the likelyhood of meeting the right conditions, there were mountains of red mana crystals all over the place.

These weren't obtained through hunting, but mining and farming. Red mana crystals were much more commonly naturally occurring in Hell than blue mana crystals were in my previous realms.

Next to the mana crystals, which each individually weren't even close to the sizes I'd seen, but piled up still looked quite sizeable, was raw red mana floating in the air.

This red mana floated in gaseous form as a mist next to the piles of crystals, and back then, next to one of the piles, I had seen the mist come together slowly in a whirlpool, turning into a spherical congregation of gaseous mana, rotating at a speed that was at first slow, but then started speeding up.

The mana sped up to a tremendous speed, and shone, before slightly bursting out of the spherical region of space. The next moment after the "shell" burst, all the mana compressed into a small area the size of the nail, and began doing something I had never imagined mana could do.

It twisted and danced around in the air in a miraculous and complex way, seeming profound and unusual, slowly forming a vague shape, and that vague shape was reinforced and wrapped around by the red mana in strips until it became the size and thickness of an imp's body.

Then, there was a large sphere of red mana that formed around the humanoid shape made of red mana strips and stopped me from seeing what happened inside the sphere.

When the sphere, which was also made of strips of mana, dissipated by slowly "untangling" the strips, inside was no longer a red silhouette made of mana but a colored body that looked like an imp.

The body floated down and gently laid at rest on the ground.

I had never seen Ixtra naked, so it surprised me to find that...they were quite big down there?

No, sorry, that isn't important.

After that, the imp didn't wake up, and I could sense it was still a lifeless body barely held together by red mana. An imp watching the process with me walked towards the unconscious red mana body while taking out a dark, jet black crystal.

This was not a mana crystal of any kind, but a demonic energy crystal. These were comparatively much more rare, especially in the 1st circle, although not too rare.

The imp placed the demonic energy crystal atop the unconcious body and soon after the crystal melted. The demonic energy infuse itself into the body that was still made of red mana inside, and the red mana I sensed disappeared and was replaced rapidly, in under a second, all with demonic energy.

The newly born imp woke up, and looked around innocently.

It wasn't like an newborn human. It was born with more intelligence than that. It was probably around the mind of a 5 year old human or so.

After that, it'd grow up, and live a peaceful life in the 1st circle until it died.

Seeing the weak imps living in their peaceful society, cute and friendly, I gained a newfound understanding about how difficult of a feat it was for Ixtra to have obtained not just 1, but 2 Release forms, becomimg an archdemon.

Some imps had horns and some didn't. It seemed fairly random. None had tails, though.

All the greater demon imps I met, which weren't many, all had similar 1st Releases to Ixtra, with horns, a tail, and naturally formed "armor" near their hips, crotch, and thighs.

As for archdemons, that was interesting. There were no archdemons in the 1st circle.

Or rather, to be more precise, there were, but they couldn't use their 2nd Release here. Their power was restricted. This was also done by the circle's Overseer.

I had seen large farms of interesting crops that fed off red mana and demonic energy, and even things like killing intent.

There was no equivalent culture of progression in the class blood system in Hell, not even in the 1st circle. Thus, despite the abundance of red mana crystals, the demons here just accepted the level of strength they were born with.

Well, the 1st circle was at peace, always, and elwas even so by design. The common thought process of the demons here was not to worry so much.

As for lifespan, they'd have to obtain a Release form to subvert their original lifespan. Most couldn't be bothered.

For lesser demons, the distance to travel to the edge of the circle was too much, and to travel between circles up and down was also too much. The ones that couldn't fly wouldn't even be able to make it up or down even if they got to the edge.

So, traversing circles was rarely done by lesser demons. It was to the point where Ixtra being able to do so twice was an extremely impressive feat.

In the 1st circle, where it was primarily lesser demons, with no way of progressing in strength besides going down a circle and relying on the law of devouring, a 1st Release was dreamlike notion to most demons. So, they just didn't even try.

Seeing the farms of red mana crops, which quite literally grew mana crystals on them, I spent some time learning about them and how to grow and harvest them.

These could be useful one day.

My power, too, was restricted on the 1st circle. I couldn't cast 11th circle spells or overly powerful techniques.

It made me feel uncomfortable and weak, so despite how nice the 1st circle's society was, I didn't stick around for too long.

After seeing the sights there, I continued looking for clues in lower circles.

I scoured every inch of the 2nd circle, then the 3rd, and the 4th.

In the process, I discovered a disturbing reality.

In the 2nd circle, it was still ok. There wasn't anything of note.

However, in the 3rd circle, there were the screams in the winter just like in the 4th. However, I had already tested and found that these winter screams didn't occur in any other circle.

Going to the center of the circle, despite the many warnings by others, including Ixtra, not to, I was dumbfounded.

It was a giant serpentine creature, chained up and slithering through the cavity in the ground.

When I say giant, I mean really, truly ginormous. It covered the diameter of the cavity in which it was imprisoned, and coiled its snake-like body around and around in the depths of the ground.

The cavity alone must have been at least a dozen kilometers wide, and the creature even more so, to coild around it so many times.

It was coiled around in a forced arrangement. There seemed to be some sort of spell directing its path. In the center was a shining white object I couldn't quite make out, and the creature seemed to want to get away from it, but couldn't.

Something was stopping it from escaping the hole in the ground, and it constantly rubbed its body against the walls of the hole attempting to distance itself from the center object.

It constantly screamed in anguish, and struggled futilely to get away.

It was scaled, and there were small wing like things on its body from time to time. What looked like its head seemed draconic and ferociou, unlike a snake. However, the ferocity of its face lay primarily in its expression rather than its build.

It was constantly scowling in pain. If it wasn't for that, it might look somewhat cute.

The hole in the ground went all the way through. I should be able to see the creature from the other side, looking up from midair near the ceiling of the 4th circle. It was floating there, swimming through the air but unable to move past a certain point.

I wanted to go take a look and test my theory, whegher or not I could see it from below, but suddenly I felt an oncoming sense of danger.

I hadn't felt this even when watching Ixtra transform.

Immediately, I quickcast [Greater Teleportation] and got away. I still felt that feeling, so I did so a few more times.

By the time I no longer felt the feeling, maybe half a second had passed, and I was over 500 kms away. Looking behind me, in the next fraction of a second I saw a giant, blinding beam of energy shoot up into the sky.

It wasn't demonic energy, red mana, blue mana, or anything else I had come into contact with so far, and I could tell that if it hit me, I would be gone that very moment.

Looking up, the beam crashed into the ceiling of the 3rd circle, far away, and somehow I hadn't noticed this before, but the ceiling in the center of the 3rd circle was different from the surrounding ceiling. It was made of some crystalline blue material.

When the beam hit this material, it did no damage.

After a dozen seconds, the beam subsided, and the screams momentarily paused, before slowly but surely starting up again.

Taking a deep breath to calm myself down, I recalled the many warnings I had received about coming here during the winter and shook my head at myself exasperatedly.

'I'm really...such an idiot.'