Welcome to the Abyss

The sky was completely black; there were no clouds or stars; it was as if a big curtain covered the vastness where the infinite blue should be. The only source of light were the bright white flowers, which in immense quantity covered as much land as your eyes could see, contrasting with the darkness that permeated the place.

"Lilies," said Vince, passing his hand lightly between the plants. "But I don't think they should normally glow this brightly," he sighed.

'I died?' He was confused. 'I always believed I would be welcomed with open doors in the silent lady's garden when I died, but I didn't think the place would be so gloomy.'

He slowly stood up and began to grope his body.

'I still have most of my stuff, he thought. His uniform was beat up, but it was still there. He unsheathed his sword and noticed that it was cut. 'Well, since my chest isn't cut, the bastard must have taken my head off' he said, raising the sword in the same position he used when he struck the saint, noticing that on it, an extremely clean cut separated the blade from the sword, which matched the height of his neck.

'A few seconds passed and no angel came in receiving', he thought, maybe the priest was wrong?'

Looking once more into the darkness, he let out a sigh: 'Or maybe this is hell; honestly, it seems more plausible.'

Vince recognized that, as a soldier, even if there were motives, he had still taken countless lives.

'Shit, I can't believe I ended up in hell fighting a war that was started by the greed of a rich pig, who at these times must be enjoying the good life!' He said in frustration, 'Damn the Kingdom of Perlenoa, damn the mandatory enlistment!'

'Maybe I'm not really dead, this could be a dream. I used to have realistic dreams when I was a kid. Damn Antony, why aren't your loud snores waking me up when I need them?' He put his hand on his neck. But nothing that real, I still feel the cold steel hitting my neck.

Vince then began to observe his surroundings more closely, his purple eyes glowing brightly, contrasting with the black and white of his surroundings.

Vince had special eyes, which he kept secret so that they would not end up on a wizard's study table.

He could see fine red lines and glimpse whether the paths to which these lines led would bring him luck or misfortune, as well as allowing him to see perfectly in the dark and even over a strong source of light.

The most mysterious thing for him, however, was the fact that sometimes his eyes interrupted the casting of spells.

It was not something he could control; the first time it happened was at a magic show he had watched as a child, when the magician levitated over a pond of water with eels in it, and him maliciously wished 'this show would be much better if he fell into the pond'.

He dreamed for many days after that about the guilt of the injuries the man had after falling into the tank.

'That wizard muttered "magic eyes" before... is that what it's called then? At least it looks like I got a little lucky on the scale of life', he said as he visualized one of the red lines in his field of vision glowing in a tone that represented luck, if it could exist in this situation.

Following the thread, he approached a small dirt path, cutting through the flower garden.

'I wonder where this leads. Well, it's not as if there is a choice in the end,' he said as he watched all the threads that differed from the path with a dark shade of red that represented bad luck.

Vince began to follow the narrow dirt path, his mind filling with the thoughts he had stored away due to the adrenaline generated by the events.

'Maxine, Antony, Marcos, Leni, I can't believe that after all we've been through, this is how you ended up; it's not fair, it's just not', he thought as he pulled some bullets out of one of his uniform pockets and put them in the revolver that was previously in his holster.

Vince had always been a humble person; he was born in a small town called Tacir, in the countryside of the kingdom of Perlenoa.

He was from a small family of shoemakers; life was never easy, and the condition of the family was bad. With the increasing industrialization of the kingdom of Perlenoa, the production lines began to undermine the income of small families like his, who increasingly found themselves losing their source of survival.

Yet he could still say he had a happy life; he got along well with his siblings and enjoyed the love of his mother and father.

As he grew older, more and more he was dazzled by the stories of the various adventurers who passed through Tacir before arriving in the capital of Perlenoa; their tales of exploring ruins, subduing beasts, and traveling in search of unexplored lands filled him with hopes and dreams.

But then a bucket of cold water fell on his head, and as he grew up, he realized that he had a great deficiency: the lack of mana.

Every human on the continent was capable of using mana, even if he lacked talent and knowledge. Most people could at least use the simplest of incantations to help in everyday life, and people who were not good at the theoretical understanding of magic were able to use the mysterious energy in ways other than conjuring, like strengthening objects or themselves, like knights.

Even with this unfortunate quirk, Vince did not give up; he began to think about the best ways to make use of his eyes.

He was known in Tacir for getting into fights during his teenage years. Many thought he was someone with a short fuse, but the truth is that he was always testing the strength of his body and the skill of his eyes on people he thought were arrogant or who were slackers and caused trouble on the city streets.

Vince was a tall man by Perlenoa standards, being about 1.86 meters tall. He was a self-taught fighter, if that was even possible, and knew the best place to drop someone quickly, where to hit so that someone would lose their balance, where they would lose their air, how to make the most of his large physical build, and of course, How could he hit with maximum force the paths of fortune that his eyes showed him.

He also had a great interest in books and magical knowledge, even if he could not use it.

Unfortunately, in the kingdom of Perleona, it was easier to get weapons due to the rise of industry than books, and knowledge was meticulously targeted to the nobles and bourgeois who could afford it while the normal population was only taught the basics of writing and what they could use to become good workers.

Vince managed to overcome this, however, by taking odd jobs to save money and training his body and skills as best he could. It might be a youthful dream fed by a false perception of reality, but he had the hope of one day crossing the 3 great seas, the dragon range, the red jungle, the land of the giants, the southern islands, the icy northern mountains, and the eastern continent.

However, one year before the date he estimated to begin his journey, a confrontation broke out near the easternmost city of the Perleona kingdom, Alisburg, the territory of a powerful margrave, and worse, for a silly reason.

This city bordered a territory that was formerly part of the Perleona kingdom, ceded by the previous king to the Armadiem empire as a peace offering for previous conflicts.

The Margrave's son, however, a living scum, crossed the lands of the empire on a night of revelry with his men, heading for a village within the imperial territory, where the worst happened.

The village was burned down, and the few survivors who managed to escape reported to the Duke responsible for those lands how the marquis' son had spread his terror.

The empire obviously reacted strongly, demanding explanations from the kingdom and demanding for execution of the inconsequential criminal as a way of reparations for invading its borders and committing war crimes.

The Marquis in turn decided to act like a father instead of his role as a nobleman defending his people; he said that there was no concrete evidence and that this was a ruse by the empire to invade Perleona.

Because he was a nobleman from an old family and had a strong voice at court, the King believed his words, ordering troops to be enlisted for a possible confrontation with the empire.

And the confrontation came; conscription was now mandatory due to the rise of firearms; now men who were not good at auras or magic were conscripted in great numbers; at least every male child of a family should serve his country.

Vince would never pass this responsibility on to his younger brothers or his aging father, so he enlisted.

And so it was that Vince Durant's life apparently came to an end in the green hills, after a year of exhausting campaigning to defend the crimes committed by some rich kid he never met.

'Come to think of it, it was a dog's life. At least my family will live well on the army allowance, and hopefully Elena will be able to pursue her studies with the money.'He thought as he saw a huge silhouette of a gate appearing in the distance.

"A gate! Maybe there is, wherever that place is from!" He spoke excitedly, not being able to contain his emotions.

He had been walking for a long time, and as he thought about his life so far, the loneliness of this dark and silent garden consumed him each time. He felt that the moment his mind stopped thinking, something terrible would happen.

His steps gradually increased in speed until they became an intense rush towards the giant gate taking shape in front of him.

It was immense, so large that it made it impossible to think of passing over it, even though the room was not closed. Made of a black metallic material, a multitude of runes covered its length, and figures resembling gods and demons covered the seemingly insurmountable walls along its length.

As he approached, he felt his chest burning brightly under his clothes, and then a deafening noise from a door, a heavy door opening filled the space, a slight opening, not enough for the giant it was designed to fit through, but enough for Vince.

As the gate opened, Vince began to hear deafening howls coming from behind the path he was walking. Instinctively, he thought to look behind him, and at that moment every hair on his body stood on end, an intense and primal fear rising from the depths of his soul, a thought arising in his head as heat permeated his entire being.

Don't look; there's no turning back if you look.

His steps didn't stop for a second, he simply ran in a straight line towards the door. The howling of the creatures became more intense, and to his right, he swore he saw the earth rising up as he ran past, the sound of bones breaking and being put back together appearing close to him.

He ran with all his strength, catching sight of a small light in the black vastness to which the gate led.

He felt something approaching him rapidly, so in an extremely swift action, he threw himself into the gaps in the gate.

As he passed through it, he felt his sense of space vanish; he couldn't feel any part of his body; only his thoughts echoed in the darkness that even his magical eyes could not see beyond.

'SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, FUCK!!!!'

His thoughts ceased as he began to feel and see around him again; he felt like he was falling.

He quickly saw sand appear in his vision and began to position himself so as not to break any limbs when he hit the ground.

Luckily, the height was small, and he managed to fall, feeling only his bones creak in protest.

He lay stretched out on the ground and was breathing heavily, trying to calm his own mind. 'It's over, Vince. It's over. For the love of the goddess, it's over.

As he took a heavy breath, he felt a dim light coming closer and closer to where he was standing

He looked in its direction; his eyes didn't need to adapt, as they reacted well even to intense sources of light.

Three people were approaching; the one in front of him removed the hood from his head, making visible his gray skin, blood red eyes, and a scarred face; the weight in his eyes revealed his experience and age; his neatly trimmed white hair and beard matched the obsidian horns that protruded from the right side of his head.

He approached Vince cautiously, his hands holding a long sword that glowed with a blue light.

"Who the hell are you and where the hell did you come from?"

Vince looked at the demoniac man in front of him, his brain working at full throttle due to what he had just been through, his mind surprisingly lucid and calm. He looked at the person in front of him, who was extremely similar to the devils in the legends he heard as a child, and formulated an answer a few seconds later.

"Well, damn, my name is Vince, and I came, well, from hell?"

"Today is not your lucky day then, Vince. From hell to the abyss, how unlucky for you," the devil said with a smile.