"Welcome to Hell, you annoying brat."

A voice echoed from behind Aaron, making him whirl around in alarm.

A few hundred feet behind him was a tall platform rising right beneath the opening. Surrounding it were layers of pale gray stairs leading upward, where a throne made out of bones rested at the top.

A gigantic creature was coiled up on that throne.

Aaron’s first instinct upon seeing the thing was to run for his life. However, he had barely taken a few steps when he felt an invisible force pulling him backward. His feet left the ground, and he was lifted into the air, drawn toward the monster.

He was dragged closer and closer until the creature’s full form came into focus before his eyes. It was a bizarre being, something so twisted it was almost unreal. It had the long, segmented body of a centipede the size of a train, but its head was that of a human. Its face held a beauty that unsettled the soul, a radiance bordering on the divine, with a cascade of shimmering platinum hair that flowed down like a river of glowing starlight.

Its beauty was androgynous; if Aaron had not seen the pronounced Adam’s apple at its throat, he would have had a very hard time determining its gender.

The monster’s eyelids were closed, as though it was in a peaceful dream.

Aaron’s eyes widened, and his muscles tensed in terror as he looked down.

Beneath its centipede-like body, instead of insect legs, there were hundreds of bare human arms, skinless and dripping with blood. Each pair was crossing each other in a praying pose.

Along its spine, six goat heads protruded upward. They were covered in long, black fur, adorned with enormous, spiraling horns, and on their foreheads was a glowing white pentagram. All of them were glaring at Aaron with eerie rectangular pupils set horizontally across their eyes.

On the armrest of the bone throne was a pond of melted red wax.

“Damn ... so ugly it’s almost offensive to look at,” Aaron muttered before he could stop himself.

“…”

“Shut your mouth, brat!” the six goat heads roared in unison, while the flawless human face remained asleep.

Although this monster didn’t look like it cared much about its own appearance, the expression on the boy’s face somehow infuriated it.

“It seems you still haven’t figured out your situation, have you? You are in the Abyss,” the first goat head hissed, their tone dripping with malice. “And we, a sinkin, or what you mortals call a demon, though we cannot claim to be so powerful, can at least do this.”

One hand rose, giving a small snap, and a section of the floor melted into a pit of blood.

“So now, your life lies in our hands. Do you understand?” said the second head.

The goat heads’ horizontal pupils shifted from solid black to a blazing shade of red.

“As if I couldn’t guess,” Aaron replied with a shrug. “Just one look at you and I already knew I was dead.”

He was trying to sound bold, but deep down, he was trembling. His eyes darted around, searching for any possible way out.

Damn it. There is no exit other than that hole up above. How the hell am I supposed to climb all the way up there? Maybe if I had proper climbing gear, it would be possible, but in this godforsaken place, where am I supposed to find such things? Do a lot of mountain climbers end up in Hell?

Multiple thoughts rushed through Aaron’s mind.

"If your legs weren’t shaking like that, we might have believed you weren’t afraid at all," the sixth head said, smirking.

“I was born with Parkinson’s,” Aaron shot back. “Shame on you for discriminating against people with disabilities!”

“Silence!” Tarisel barked. “Actually, we have to admit you’re pretty brave. It’s fitting that you are a person carrying the Heart of Everlasting Light, even though it hasn’t awakened yet.”

“The Heart of Everlasting Light?” Aaron repeated.

“You think we just randomly chose you out of the four of you?”

“So it wasn’t because I’m the most handsome one?”

Tarisel:

“…”

“If you dare spout nonsense one more time, we swear …” the fourth head growled in frustration.

But before he could finish his threat, Aaron raised his hand and made a gesture as if zipping his lips shut. Then he stood without a twitch, his arms falling in precise alignment by his sides, looking super obedient.

Tarisel:

“…”

The demon glared at him for a moment before continuing:

“The one who carries the Heart of Light is also known as the Bearer of the Bright Heart, or, in ancient times, was called a Sunkindler. It is an extraordinarily rare and powerful constitution, or, to be more precise, divinity. We’ve been waiting for you … for six thousand two hundred years.”

All their eyes stared at Aaron’s left chest.

“To find you, we had to pay a great price to our father so that he would get a prophecy from Lord Botis,” Tarisel said. “And that’s not to mention how hard we worked to make sure that spirit board fell into your hands.”

They chuckled a little before continuing:

“Lucky us, you idiot fell right into the trap without hesitation. That whole concept of ‘equal exchange’ is a complete joke. All we had to do was answer a few stupid questions, and we could claim an unawakened Heart of Everlasting Light for ourselves. If you hadn’t asked those questions, we wouldn’t have been able to create a bond of fate and drag you down into Hell. How does it feel now? Any regrets?”

Aaron clenched his fists and took a deep breath.

“What good would regret do me now? If you’ve been planning this for so long, sooner or later I would have ended up in your hands anyway,” he said with a bitter smirk.

“Smart boy. That’s exactly why you’d better cooperate with us, and if you don’t, we swear we’ll make you beg for death. If you perform well, maybe, just maybe, we’ll let you go home,” Tarisel said, their voice full of cruel amusement.

Hearing that made Aaron feel a small wave of relief. He didn’t believe this monster would ever let him go, but if Tarisel still needed him for something, then at least they wouldn’t kill him before it was done.

“So what exactly do you want me to do?” Aaron asked.

Tarisel straightened up, their massive frame rising higher. The bloody, skinless arms beneath their body began stretching outward, moving like legs.

They crawled down from the bone throne, slithered onto the platform, and approached Aaron, grabbing the boy by the collar and lifting him off the ground. Then, the enormous creature launched themselves into the air, dragging Aaron upward through the opening in the ceiling.

It was only once they had left the colossal structure below that Aaron at last beheld the world outside in full view. The dome was floating high above a massive volcanic crater. The entire mountain was pitch-black and towered high into the sky. From this incredible height, Aaron could make out the distant horizon without effort.

Tarisel flew toward the east. While they moved, Aaron couldn’t help but stare at the world around him in shock.

What is this place?

The sky held neither moon nor stars, and the ground below was a sickening black-red, the color of rotting flesh. Across the land, volcanoes erupted one after another, their lava spilling down and merging together into a massive river mixed with fire and thick blood.

Even from such a distance, Aaron could hear the faint screams coming from that river. But they were still too far away for him to see clearly what was happening there.

In the black sky above, a pale blue stream of light was flowing toward the horizon. Countless souls drifted within, and many slipped from the current, plunging into the fiery river of blood below.

The sight looked like an eternal rain of light.

Aaron was stunned by its glory. He asked:

“Is that … the Flow of Destiny?”

“Yes, you are correct. It’s also called the Great Flow, the Unending Cycle, the Current of Chaos, the Aether Stream, and many many more names,” Tarisel answered, smiling.

Aaron bit his lip; his expression darkened a little bit. Since this demon had captured him, their mood seemed to be getting better by each second.

“It is the origin of all things, and at the same time, it is the end of everything. It is the supreme law that governs life and death across the entire cosmos,” Tarisel added in a low voice.

“What about that one?” Aaron asked, pointing at the river of blood and fire below.

“That is Phlegethon.

Any soul that, in life, committed acts of violence beyond a certain threshold will fall into it and be cleansed of their sins before they can move on to the next judgement.”

Tarisel dropped to a much lower altitude, now flying only a few dozen feet above the river’s surface. Aaron could now see that innumerable wretched beings were thrashing about in the molten water. Their flesh was burned away by the unbearable heat, melting off their bones like wax.

When nothing remained but skeletal frames, the river healed them, and the torturous cycle repeated.

Aaron’s face turned pale. He retched, but because he was in the form of a soul, nothing came out. Tarisel grinned and said:

“If you fail the task we give you, we will throw you down there.”

The demon then skimmed even closer to Phlegethon. Thousands of hands from the tortured souls reached up toward them, trying to grab hold, but the moment any of them touched Tarisel, they dissolved into a spray of blood within a blink.

The fifth head bent down, took a long gulp from the river, and then let out a satisfied sigh. Aaron’s stomach churned again at the sight.

Tarisel rose into the air once again and continued flying eastward.

After a while, the world before them began to glow brighter. At the edge of the horizon, a land engulfed in brilliant golden flames appeared.

All of a sudden, the demon asked:

“Do you want to hear a touching story?”