---
Michael – Hell, Layer 2
The screams were constant.
They didn't rise and fall like normal voices.
They lived in the walls. In the wind. In the very air Michael breathed.
As he walked across cracked black stone, the souls of the damned reached toward him with charred fingers — not to attack him, but simply to be seen.
He didn't look twice.
"Weak," Michael thought to himself with disdain.
"This isn't a battlefield. It's a graveyard."
And he wasn't here to mourn.
---
Ahead loomed a temple of ash and bone. Its walls pulsed like breathing lungs. From its top spouted a black flame, silent and seething.
A figure in blood-stained robes stood at the entrance, arms spread wide like a preacher welcoming the end.
---
Gatekeeper #2 – The Blinded Priest of Ash
Appearance: Skin like cracked marble, blindfolded by bloody silk, robes that trailed ash across the floor.
Power: Ash Illusions — creates personal hells from guilt and regret.
Aura: Stillness. Reverence. The suffocating peace of surrender.
"You," the priest intoned, "do not belong in this realm."
"I've noticed," Michael replied, eyes flat.
"Then repent. Let your burden unfold. Let guilt consume what remains."
Michael said nothing.
The priest raised a hand.
Ash exploded outward — and reality shattered.
---
Illusion World: "Throne of Regret"
Michael stood alone on a field of corpses.
All clawing toward him.
All whispering: "You let us die. You abandoned us. You could have saved us…"
The world burned. The sky wept blood.
Michael stood still.
Then scoffed.
"What regret?" he thought to himself with a flicker of amusement.
"I've never cared about anything long enough to regret it."
The illusion cracked.
He stepped forward.
The world shattered.
---
The Priest gasped as Michael emerged from the ash storm, eyes glowing faintly.
"You... have no guilt?"
"No. Just a goal."
Michael grabbed the priest by the throat and lifted him off the ground. His hand crackled with raw red energy.
The priest trembled — not from pain, but from fear.
Fear of nothingness. Of meaninglessness.
Michael crushed him.
---
Then It Happened…
The temple trembled.
The walls cracked.
From the ash, shapes began to rise — souls.
Spectral humans with hollow eyes and broken bodies floated upward, untethered from their prisons. The illusions were gone. The ash was gone. The guilt had no more power.
One by one, the souls rose into light — and vanished.
Reincarnation.
Michael blinked.
"So they were being used," he thought to himself with cold curiosity.
"This place feeds off pain."
He clenched his fist.
His body pulsed with new strength.
---
Gatekeeper #3 – The Maggot Queen (Layer 3)
The descent to Layer 3 reeked of rot.
The walls moved. The floor squirmed. Maggots the size of fists writhed in rivers of pus. And at the heart of the nest sat a bloated demoness — flesh sagging, crown of worms twitching, wings made of stitched bone and skin.
---
Appearance: Abomination of motherhood, half-woman, half-worm.
Power: Swarm Queen — commands all insects in Hell.
Twist: The swarm is made of transformed humans — former sinners twisted into flesh-hungry bugs.
"Join us," she crooned. "Feed. Multiply. Become hive…"
Michael's eyes narrowed.
"Those things… they were people once," he thought to himself with disgust.
"And she feeds off them?"
The Queen hissed. The swarm lunged.
Beetles tore toward him. Larvae hissed. A tidal wave of buzzing death came from all sides.
Michael raised a hand.
[Absolute Authority – Swarm Override]
The swarm froze.
Then turned.
They didn't stop at hesitating — they attacked her.
The Queen shrieked as her own children tore her to shreds.
Michael walked past her corpse without emotion.
---
Again… the Light Returned
As the bugs died, their forms began to melt — not into blood, but into light.
Human shapes flickered back into view. Faces. Fingers. Voices.
The hive collapsed.
The flesh walls stopped moving.
The reborn souls floated upward — free from her command.
Michael didn't smile.
But he felt the surge again — strength flooding into him like a gift from something divine.
"I kill demons," Michael thought to himself,
"and souls escape. This place breaks when I break it."
He didn't care why. Only that it meant he was getting stronger.
---
⚖️ Gatekeeper #4 – The Laughing Judge (Layer 4)
Layer 4 was a courtroom made of black stone and bone.
Torches lined the walls. Every bench was filled with screaming, laughing souls — not alive, not dead. Witnesses of endless trials.
At the center stood a skeletal figure in a judge's robe, its mouth too wide, a gavel clutched in one hand and a floating Book of Regret in the other.
---
Appearance: Gaunt, pale, permanently smiling.
Power: Judgment Projection — uses victims' pasts to weaken and trap them.
Twist: The book is bound in the regrets of the souls trapped in the first four layers.
"Michael," the Judge boomed. "You stand accused of pride, cruelty, and ambition."
Michael tilted his head.
"And?"
"Do you deny your sins?"
"I deny that you matter."
"Judgment: GUILTY!"
The chains came fast.
Michael's arms and legs were wrapped in glowing bindings. The courtroom twisted. The souls rose, their mouths open, condemning him. The book pulsed with power.
Michael stood motionless.
Then grinned.
"That book," he thought to himself with clarity.
"It's made of them. It's what's keeping them here."
He broke the chains with brute force. Jumped. Grabbed the book mid-air.
And tore it in two.
---
Final Release
The courtroom shattered.
The gavel cracked.
The Judge screamed as his robe turned to ash and the mask peeled from his face — revealing just another sinner trying to wield power.
Michael didn't bother finishing him with finesse.
He slammed his foot down.
"Next."
All around him, souls began to rise.
Thousands. Released from trials they never escaped. Some smiled. Some cried. Some whispered thanks.
They rose into the light.
Michael watched them vanish into reincarnation — all while power coursed through him again.
---
🪨 Layer 5 – Iron Golem of Sin (Coming Next)
He stepped into Layer 5.
The sky was dead silent.
At the center stood a massive golem, twenty feet tall, made of rusted plates carved with demonic scripture. It held no weapon.
It didn't speak.
It waited.
Michael smiled.
"Finally," he thought to himself with anticipation.
"A fight."
---
Meanwhile… Mavel
Mavel stared at the screen, mouth half-open, soda forgotten.
Clone Cam #1 was glowing.
Clone #1 – Michael
Layers Cleared: 3
Souls Freed: 12,439
Power Level: Rising
Emotional Awareness of Creator: ❌
Threat Level: Demon Lord (S-)
----
"…I made a demon king who doesn't even know I exist," Mavel thought to himself with half a laugh.
He leaned back.
"He's freeing souls. Getting stronger. Accidentally doing good while acting like a villain.
This clone's a menace."
He reached for another chip.
"Hell's not ready for you, Michael. Keep climbing."