“What did you do to me?” Ying Yueru stopped struggling. Rugged breaths kept coming out of her red lips as she regained some inkling of her current helplessness. Wei Zhiruo, however, refused to indulge the other’s small questions, or ploys, and instead, jumped closer to Ying Yueru’s hanging figure. Red sword’s reflection mirrored in the sea water. 

It was marvelous. Wei Zhiruo marvelled at the complexity of the matter forming the golden chains. Each of its, small-finger length chain-links were made of gold, etched with incomprehensible shapes and lines that caused a headache once she started staring at them too hard. 

She looked up and met those eyes who were chasing her, and said - “You cannot get away. Don’t worry you won't die.” These chains were just reflections of the real hell-chains, they wouldn’t kill a person. So, the woman was really safe. She might lose something precious to offset her crimes and sins - but it wouldn’t be as heavy as losing her life.

Wei Zhiruo touched the chains and became certain of her conjectures.

Everyone in the Middle world was aware of the legend of the Hell chains. It was a story of lingering horror; a tale told to children by their elders to arouse their inner fear and make them obedient. 

If there was a bard singing hymns to the greatness of the Ancient Gods walking down the street somewhere, there was always a chance to come across one who was alluding to the might of these chains – legends, odes and parables, in all forms of imagination it had left its traces. It came creeping in the night’s shadow, but left like a singing, raging fire. No one was impervious to its hold. Because in all of its visits – there was a trace of justice being served, and for many helpless, downtrodden men and women, these hell-chains were nothing less than a symbol of the dawn of hope.

It all started in the ancient times, when the God of Darkness, the ruler of Gloomy Trenches – the one called Abyss, made use of the universe's first gold frothing in the river of skies, and smelted to perfection, some thousands of these chains. Like unfettered birds, they flew in the universe like unstoppable curses. Later, after the defeat of the ‘Fallen God’s’, inside that long list of purged fallen Gods was also his name - Abyss, who was killed and out of his darkness formed the ‘Endless Pit of Hell’. But after the fall of that deity, these chains became lost, till the new Hell-keeper found a way to summon them through word [Expel].

Every sinner, every single one of them regardless of the nature of their crimes and their origin, was sentenced and dragged down into the hell when it was his time to be sentenced - and when there was the possibility of the hell-keeper losing a certain fight, he would send the chains in his stead. Gods, immortals, humans and magical creatures feared its reach like nothing else – in the Home of Gloom, in the Country of Night, they were the uncrowned kings, and in the living realm they roamed on certain days of the year seeking out those who smelled of ‘sin’ to drag them down into the hell pits.

The one that emerged in her spiritual world right now was definitely not the actual artefact– rather, it was a ‘tiny’ imitation of it, or rather a reduced, small reflection of the actual thing. How she got her hands around this Rune, was yet another strange tale. 

She stumbled upon a dead necromancer’s tomb in the Abyss, when she was searching for the traces of another person. She was lost and knew nothing about the extent of the vast lands that formed Abyss itself in those early days. When she saw troves of scribbled notebooks and books, words and patterns filling margins and even running along on the floor and walls of that tomb, she decided to read them; that necromancer had spent fifty thousand years of his lifespan, dedicating it all, to unravel a single word. Unfortunately, he just had sporadic access to some unconventional legends, few heresies about hell-chains and nothing else as a guide. He wasn’t even a trained Rune-forger! He was just a very good mathematician. 

Intrigued by another mortal's sheer passion for words, Wei Zhiruo, began her own little quest of deciphering it. Despite having the luxury of knowing a similar kind of language, she spent five grueling years deciphering just a single word! Not just that - it was two years later, finally, when she successfully learned how to write it down. This…this was just her second time using it – the only time where it properly showed its edges. And also opened up a mad possibility of really summoning the hell-chains one day!     

This was a great success. Exceptional. 

She felt the metal with her hand. 

Her marveling at this glorious phenomenon was completely natural. A word, which was lost, and once banned by the ‘New Era Gods’ - a word which held the powers to summon the wandering ‘Judges of hell’– being able to see it work in a different universe was an electrifying experience. 

Here though she was interrupted by a sudden bell-like laughter. Wei Zhiruo looked up to meet a very amused looking woman.

“You…you don’t take me as dead, do you?” Ying Yueru whispered. “Your eyes wander in front of me like wandering in the labyrinth of time - and here I am. Your enemy is hanging pliantly in front of you to receive any kind of punishment you deem fit. Or is it that you don't see me worthy enough to even consider that?” The intensity of her gaze made Wei Zhiruo uncomfortable, so she looked down at the gaping hole in her stomach. 

Unworthy? Who would call a woman like this an unworthy opponent? Won’t she be calling herself a piece of trash for suffering so much under her hands?

“I told you the truth.” Wei Zhiruo replied without embarrassment. “Although we both know you would have killed me if you could, but know that this sentiment isn’t mutual. I won't kill you - these chains are called hell-chains and they will just put you through a simple trial, judge the gravity of your sins and then punish you. They cannot take your life.”

“They cannot take my life but they can take everything else - ha! What a compassionate heart…” The woman began laughing, as if she couldn’t believe what she had heard.

Ying Yueru grew increasingly furious – “Release me. Now! We can forget all our disagreements from before. I will walk my way; you can do whatever you please. I will never take revenge against you, I can take an oath if you would like that –in return, just release me.” She stared seriously into the golden eyes, but received no reply.

Wei Zhiruo didn’t look away from the stare, instead she truthfully conveyed the current circumstances to her, “I cannot release you. Hell-chain’s hardly ever leave behind a ‘sinner’ before their punishments are served. You have the smell – death of innocence, sin of old; uncountable sins hang on your shoulder...It will only let you go after balancing your wrongs– what you’ll lose after this is not something I can predict.” She walked up closer to the woman, and looked up. The ragged cloth, blood smeared face and body, and wounds everywhere. She retained nothing of her previous glory or her calm.

“Sins…and you’ll wait for me here while it judges me like that?”

“I should.”

“Despite the possibility that I might kill you by blowing up? I am still in your spiritual sea - do you dare to let me explode in here? And don’t think I wouldn’t do that…”

“You can do whatever you want - just try.”

“...” 

Wei Zhiruo knew she had already tried every way to get out. She turned away from her and studied the chains, while Marr asked her worriedly - “Is this going to take time?”

“Don’t worry, it won’t be long. Ten minutes is the longest they will take to complete judgment and sentence. We will handle the rest. I will kick her out as soon as it's done punishing her and you…”

“I will throw her away into the portal - don’t worry. I will be quick this time.” Having reassured her, he hesitantly asked her in a low voice, “Did it try to interrupt your thoughts again?”  

“No - without that link, it cannot access my inner senses.”

“What is it? Did you think of something - how did we offend him?”

"It’s not the ‘world consciousness’ as I thought before - it's a power on par with it, but not that. The world rules aren't being used against us for one… he can push some disguised thoughts in my mind, lead us to our present confrontation, but it cannot come down and join or do it himself. No world rule can restrict the world consciousness, so we can rule out it being the ‘world consciousness’ who wants us dead. This thing, he acts in a bounded manner. As if there are some rules which restrict his appearance in reality. But at the same time, he is also powerful enough to influence other powerful beings like this woman…to chase us and do his job instead. I am divided on what to conclude from this.”

“A God?”

“If this world has one. Ah…it's most likely a divine being.”

“This sounds difficult - you cannot forge an enmity with such a being. Remember what we suffered through in the Cuiping world because of a single deity? A single oracle led to the bloodbath of all your clansmen, erased the name of your kingdom from the world, and most likely…was the cause of sudden design to use you in exchange for immortality of the Cuiping world and its people. I am ready to bet that those Ruze people might have exchanged our bloodline with that goddess of theirs! If there was no Goddess of Hope, Syncesia, behind the Ruze clan - do you think all those humans and mages would blindly follow the dictates of such a weak clan as your mother’s?”

“I cannot tell how I caught his eyes. Maybe, it's not me but this woman?”

“But when you wake up, he will know your true worth. You will become more…powerful in his eyes. Do you realize what that means for us?”

“I know…” 

Earning the attention of a deity was like walking a single plank bridge, using a single foot. While he stood watching in amusement. A little tilt, a forceful nudge and you are ready to fall to pieces…when pleased he will shower you with endless gifts and boons, and when you are no more ‘pleasing’ in his eyes, he will throw you away, discard you, destroy you to remove all the traces of you from the earth. There was nothing like the entitlement they had…there was only one fate for a ‘pleasing’ human in their eyes; becoming a pet that was ready to do tricks all the time.    

Wei Zhiruo floundered in the gravity of her present circumstances and grew extremely reluctant to die. There were so many things she hadn’t done yet…so many riddles, left unsolved. The rune collection has grown tremendously, and now if she lived – she will be busy spending each warm day, bent under her specially made glasses to peer past the bits of runes and look into their essence. Then weave it into a yarn of meaning, and thread it in the spindle of structure, to finally pull out her own interpretation, from the endless depth, unfathomable bottom of it all; all of these ‘words’ had inside them a complete world, and she felt she was at loss if she didn’t get a chance to glimpse them after coming so close to them. 

“I wish, I am wrong. This time…” 

While Wei Zhiruo was lost in her conversation, she was not unaware of an eye following her closely. Ying Yueru looked dumbstruck; a feeling akin to immense hatred dawned over her face, but she bit her lips, not letting them utter any useless word.

“She hates me? What do you think I should have done instead? Served my soul on a silver platter to earn her good wishes? What a strange woman.” Wei Zhiruo nonchalantly observed, when she finally heard the woman continue saying.

“Release me girl, I'm pleading with you now. Instead of wasting both our times like this, why not try to use something else instead. How about I tell you the whereabouts of some secret realms? And if that is not enough for you, do you know why I came to this place? You aren’t one of the Taiyuan cultivators…of course you do not know the conspiracy behind our presence here.” Ying Yueru said, looking increasingly grievous. 

“Yes, you heard me right. Both you and I have fallen in a big game. Or else, what do you think allowed us to enter this world? I don’t care wherever you are from. But you shouldn’t stay too long in this world. A war between the heavens and earth…the mortal and cultivators, is going to unfold in two years. All the mortals will die, and this realm will become a secret realm controlled by a sect member from the Taiyuan realm.” She stopped talking as if judging the impact of her words.

Unfortunately, she didn’t see any obvious changes, as the mask covered everything except the eyes, and those eyes registered no impact from her words. They were as still and clear, as they had been before.

“Why do you think I will believe anything you say?” 

“You really are not from the Taiyuan realm, ha…but why do you think I will lie to you about something like this, and at this time?” Ying Yueru questioned. She looked up into the wide canopy of the inner world, a grievousness flickered mixed with agitation.

“...” Wei Zhiruo refrained from replying, pretending to be nonchalant. But in actuality, both she and Marr had regained their utmost alertness. 

“It doesn’t matter even if I tell you.” Ying Yueru spoke a little while later. “Next year, a war between mortals will help an evil cultivator to gain enough resentment to ascend, and while ascending directly to the God realm, he will widen the gap that has opened in this realm's outer barrier space. That gap will be widened enough to let in all the sect members, and the current restrictions on cultivators above the Nascent soul level will also become redundant. Why do you think you and I can easily enter this realm with completely independent heavenly principles and rules? It's just this gap that allows our entry and once more powerful cultivators can enter here - this world will become a purgatory. Mortals and animals, birds and trees, nothing will be spared. Like a swarm of locust, they will seize everything. Many others have entered this realm and are awaiting the perfect time to seize its full control and no one can stop them anymore. Not that it matters to either of us, ha. But you should ready yourself to return through the channel you came here, as this realm will become a personal realm, in possession of …a cultivator.”

“You talk as if you can see the future. You are a prophetess?” Wei Zhiruo asked, raising a brow.

“A prophetess…what is that? No, I cannot predict the future. I just know, some news you are not privy to. Child, I am not scaring you. You know pretty well, all I had ever wanted from you was a body. And a good enough body - but you turned out to be a living giant box of treasure. And you are so dumb…you don’t even realize what you are sitting on! How can you expect me to not be greedy!” Ying Yueru started laughing madly, and looked down at her mockingly.