She’s right. These feelings are a defense mechanism in my brain. All to keep me alive and comfortable. I know who I am and I know what I want to do. And in order to accomplish it, I’ll have to throw myself headfirst into those feelings. It’ll be hard battling against that nagging feeling to return to where it’s nice and comfy, but this is just something that I have to overcome if I want to succeed. He thinks.

Mera releases her hands from his face and gives him some space. The spear fades back into his shadow and he lets out a deep breath.

“Thanks.” He says.

“Just don’t expect another one. My RED talks certainly don’t come free.” She says.

Something tells me she would get taken off the stage with her attitude. He thinks.

“Well, now that’s out of the way. What do you say we team up? At this rate, everyone else has probably already found another teammate.” She suggests, reaching out her hand. 

I’m not too keen on partnering up with this guy, but I’m out of options. Travelling Hell alone is a big risk. He might have a few communication issues, but he seems to have resolved himself earlier. The chances he’ll decline are low because I’m sure he’s in the same situation. Mera thinks.

Seiren hesitates, and simply stares at her hand for a few moments. Then as if he’s reached a decision reaches out and grabs her hand.

I’m not too sure how this partnership will turn out, but hopefully, we can get along. Seiren thinks. 

“Let’s work together. I’m Seiren.” Seiren says.

“Great, my name is Mera by the way.” She says. “Then just give me a few minutes to figure out how to use this ability.”

Seiren looks at her with a blank stare.

“What’s with that look? It shouldn’t take me too long to figure it out.” She says.

Especially if someone like him can do it. Coma said it’s like flexing a muscle so that means that using it must feel pretty natural. Mera thinks.

Mera closes her eyes and begins focusing on herself. As she falls deeper and deeper into her focus, beads of sweat begin to form on her forehead and even her nape. The beads of sweat begin to slowly travel to one another, coalescing and steadily growing larger. The beads travel down her shoulders and arms forming spheres at her fingertips. As if by a sixth sense, she felt as though something had changed and opened her eyes. Two orbs of sweat floated at her fingertips. She opened her eyes and notices the orbs floating before her.

“That was much easier than I thought.” She says. “But…”

I’d rather not use my own sweat, that's just nasty. I swear if this is the limit of my ability… She thinks.

Mera drops her orbs of sweat onto the ground and looks around at the ground. Spotting a puddle, she manages to extract water from it, in the shape of a sphere. As if playing or practicing, she then shapes it into a cube.

It’s fairly easy to manipulate, the amount of control I can exercise is fairly good. She thinks.

She compresses the water into a small cube, then shoots it off toward the wall. It slams into the wall causing a small, yet deep hole to appear, seconds later the water evacuated the opening.

“And there it is. Come on, let's get out of here, it stinks.” She says.

If things don’t go well with him I can always leave. This is just a temporary partnership until I can find someone actually capable of matching me. I just can’t see someone like him fighting, let alone making it to the devil. She thinks.

“For starters, we should look for a way outta this layer, I wanna get moving as fast as I can. The sooner we move ahead, the sooner we can fight the devil.” She states.

“Why the rush?” He asks.

“Because it's hell? Do YOU wanna stay here forever? This environment is far too chaotic, makes it hard to plan, there are too many variables to account for. It’s an annoyance.” She says. “The faster the better.”

Mera begins walking after finishing speaking, going through the narrow passage nearby.

I understand what she means, but if we don’t spend the time to properly gain experience and grow our abilities, what good will meeting the devil do if we get annihilated? I’m not too sure how well we’re gonna perform as partners, we seem like polar opposites. He thinks.

Following Mera, Seiren emerged from the narrow alleyway and was back on the street from before. Seiren looked down at his reflection in a puddle between the cracked cobblestone.

“I’m pretty sure we need to head over there. There’s a door.” Mera points.

Far in the distance, a large door-like structure appeared with a skull over its arch. Seiren strained his eyes and still couldn’t even make it out fully.

Does she have the eyesight of a hawk? Just how far is that? Seiren wonders.

“Let's move quickly.” She states.

They passed through the layer, going past all manner of rotting and debris-ridden buildings. Demonic rodents ran around commonly, even slipping between Seiren’s legs as he walked. There were even corpses lying about in the streets, some torn apart by hell hounds in the area. Even Seiren recoiled at the sight, but Mera kept going.

“Have you never seen a dead body before?” She asks.

“No.” He says.

“Well, better them than us.” She says.

Just what kind of life has she been living? Seiren wonders.

Part of Seiren wanted to ask, yet part of him wondered if knowing the answer to that question would make him doubt his already fraying partnership anymore. When they came across an intersection, there was a mound lying at the center. Confused by it, Seiren dashed in, spear at the ready in order to inspect it.

“They’re all dead.” Mera says as she comes walking up.

A mound of dead hell hounds was lying there.

“What kind of monster could’ve done this?” Mera questioned, kneeling next to the bodies in a pool of blood.

All of the bodies had slight discoloration, even their eyeballs were tinged yellow.

“None of the bodies have any marks or any indicators that they were killed by external sources.” Mera says. “I’d love to chalk it up to natural causes, but this is just too unnatural.”

It’s a bit of a shame, I’d have liked the opportunity to grow my combat skills a bit. Seiren thinks.

“We should get back to heading to the door. We don’t wanna be here when whatever did this gets back.” She suggests.

I’m getting a bad feeling about this, but all we can do is press on. Seiren thinks.

They continue onward toward the wall, finally leaving behind the bloody intersection. Seiren begins noticing a smaller amount of people compared to the main part of the city. There was almost no sign of the 68 others that came here with them.

The time for such things had passed, because the door was right behind the next corner. They turned the corner and before their eyes were the door. Made of stone, a giant red skull hung down from the top of it, staring down menacingly at them. As their eyes traveled downward, they met with at least two dozen bodies on the ground.

“Again?!” Mera said, looking around in a slight panic.

All the bodies were lifeless, all save for one leaned up against the door. Seiren noticing her breathing, he runs over.

“What are you doing?!” Mera shouts watching as he runs over. “Damn this guy is annoying!”

She follows after him. Seiren slides onto the floor, ending near her.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

With skin pale and limbs weak, she opened her eyes.

“No…” She begins.  “He came out of nowhere and attacked us. He used some sort of poison or something. He had no trouble taking us all on at once. There’s no mistaking it, that man has the most control over his abilities out of everyone. To him, we were all just… test subjects.”

“What did he look like?” Mera asks, half looking like she’d already deduced the answer. 

“He had on a lab coat with short purple hair.” She describes.

“It was Coma.” She says.

“Coma.” Seiren repeats, he clenches his fists in anger.

How could he do this? We’re all human, we’re all working to defeat the devil, so why lower our chances?! Someone has to stop him. I’m not going to let this guy do whatever he wants to people with the pretense of “experimenting” He thinks.

“How did you manage to survive? You’re the only one here who didn’t succumb to his poison.” Mera questions. 

“He said it was experimental. Because of that, I can’t really move my limbs all that well. It’s like I try moving one thing and it ends up being another.” She states.

The observation I made about Coma was correct it seems. That man is already progressing at a staggering rate. I thought we were on the same level, but he’s an experimenting monster. Would I have ended up the same as them, had we partnered up? I’ll need to think up a countermeasure if we go against him at some point. Mera thinks.

“In any case. This must be the door we need to keep going if he was here.” She says. “Let's just keep going for now.”

“And leave her here?” Seiren questions while throwing his arms up.  “She’ll be a sitting duck to demons.”

“We can’t waste all our time defending her,” Mera says 

“It’s not a waste. She’s a human being just like us.” Seiren says.

“It’s okay.” The woman says. “There was no way I was gonna beat the devil with the ability to communicate telepathically with my twin, but I’m not going to leave him since he’s right here. We came here together and that's how we leave.”

Seiren silently looks at her, before rising to his feet.

“Good luck to you two.” She states.

“Thanks.” Seiren says.

As he and Mera stand at the door, the skull’s eyes alight, and the entire door becomes engulfed in flames. With a deep breath and a quick look between one another, they step into the gate. Leaving the layer of sloth behind them. 

Meanwhile, at the Castle at the edge of hell… 

“Looks like more and more of them are figuring out the hidden requirements for the layers. While not all of them have one, it’s fun seeing them rack their brains for a way out. The newest group seems to have potential, there are quite a few I’m looking forward to fighting.” The dark figure says.

“My lord…”  An attendant says. “Don’t you think the first layer was a bit too easy for them?”

“That’s exactly what I want. Sloth’s only purpose is for them to get a good handle on their abilities. Once that's accomplished, they’ll be thrown headfirst into the nightmare. Only those with true talent and abilities will survive these layers.” He says with a smirk.

“Their numbers are probably going to drop again after Gluttony." Vermillion says, stifling a laugh.

After walking through the large gate at the edge of Sloth, Seiren and Mera were greeted by a blinding light. Immediately after, they were bombarded by the sounds of loud chirping and flowing water. They stepped into a grassy patch and surveyed their surroundings, seeing the forest stretch far into the horizon. Along with several others that followed after them, they could only stare in awe. 

A large sprawling forest, with birds and hundreds of tiny demonic-looking animals that ran around the forest. The plants nestled within were strangely colored a variety of orange colors, the most common being the grass beneath their feet which was a strange blood orange color. Before them, just before the entrance to the forest rested a strange gelatinous mass sat before them, at a makeshift table made from the base of a tree stump. The mass began to split apart at the center as if opening its mouth. 

A mere seconds later, someone exits the forest covered in all sorts of wounds, dragging with him a boar-like creature. He barely managed to drag himself through the tall grass, let alone his massive catch. He finally approached Gura, leaving the boar right before him, for appraisal.

“Let’s see what you’ve brought me.” He examines while grinning, “This is a Scroffa, they have excellent meat quality, depending on the way they’re killed.”

Gura flips the beast over, noticing a giant hole that runs the length of its entire body.

“Now that’s not good,” he says. His jaw unhinges and he shoves the entire beast into his mouth, finishing it in a single gulp to the surprise of everyone.

“The quality is so-so, and the freshness is terrible. Tastes like it’s been dead for over an hour, disappointing.” Gura looks over at the injured man and smirks. “You fail.”

Once more, his jaw unhinges as the man starts running in a panic. The advocate’s head stretched forward to take a huge chomp from the man’s upper half, leaving his legs behind, causing blood to spurt out like a small fountain.

Seiren’s eyebrows rose from the sight, while Mera winced in disgust. 

After finishing the remains of the injured man, the advocate turned to everyone else who just arrived. 

I see most of the people from earlier here. So I guess that means we were the last group to arrive. More importantly, I don’t see Coma. Seiren thinks.

“Welcome to the layer of gluttony. Here you all will be tasked with retrieving something for my meal. It depends. What you bring may be quite the meal or quite the disappointment. Should it be a disappointment, you’ll meet a similar fate as him.” He explains.

“What if we beat you?” A fiery-haired woman says stepping forth from the crowd.

The advocate begins to drool profusely while exuding a wave of sinister energy. He grinned from cheek to cheek, while looking dead at her.

“If you think you’ve got the skill, then any of you for that matter can challenge me.” He says.

The group grew silent and some took off running. The fiery-haired girl could only tremble as his energy blew past her. Every hair on her body stood up and she broke out into a cold sweat. Her breathing became very shallow, her body froze up. 

The sword in her hand fades away in the blink of an eye as she walks off sucking her teeth.

“I’ll be waiting to see what you all bring back.” The advocate says.

The others began to scatter into the nearby forest. Seiren begins walking into the forest from the west side and Mera grabs him by the shoulder.

“Before we just go walking anywhere mindlessly, we need a plan.” She says.

“We should explore first.” Seiren says.

Whether we make a plan or not, as long as we know nothing about the area or the wildlife, we’re gonna be in trouble regardless.  Seiren thinks.

“Well, considering the task that we were given, I guess it makes sense to explore.” She says, crossing her arms.

She looks like she wants to disagree. Seiren thinks. 

“Well, lead the way.” Mera says as Seiren begins leading them into the forest. 

I just have to hang in there until I find a new partner. There has to be someone on this layer that’s without a partner. Mera thinks.

They press on past the clearing, looking to and fro at the various flora and fauna. As he looked down before him, there was a wide hole in the dirt, wide enough for a person to fit. 

Noticing there’s a giant leaf underfoot, he lifts his leg and faces some resistance. The leaf exudes a thick sappy liquid.