For a moment, if not for the subtle weight in the air and the strange stillness, this could have been some remote icy wasteland in the human realm.
Michael stood very still and let his senses adjust.
One should not be deceived.
Just because it was called Hell did not mean everything was fire and lava. There was a reason people said each floor was like its own world.
He knew that.
Yet seeing it with his own eyes was different.
It did not feel like he had entered Hell at all.
Michael drew in a slow breath.
He released that breath as a misty cloud that drifted away on the cold wind. Then he closed his eyes and let his senses expand.
One hundred meters.
A thousand.
Two thousand.
Five thousand meters.
His awareness settled across the frozen plains, tracing every shift in the wind, every disturbance in the snow, every flicker of movement across the icy surface.
Nothing.
No demons, no other races, no lurking beasts.
More importantly, no other students.
