The transition was not a journey; it was a violent expulsion. One moment, I was a being of thought and will, leaping into a swirling vortex of impossible physics. The next, I was slammed back into the brutal, unforgiving reality of a physical body, the impact driving the air from my lungs in a silent, agonized gasp.
I landed hard on a surface that was not sand or stone, but a jagged, uneven plain of black, glassy obsidian that was still warm to the touch. The edges were sharp as razors, and a dozen small cuts opened on my hands and knees as I pushed myself up, the pain a sudden, grounding shock after the disembodied chaos of the portal.
The air itself was an assault. It was hot, thick, and heavy, tasting of sulfur, burnt metal, and a dry, ancient dust that coated the back of my throat. I looked up, and my breath caught in my chest. The sky was a roiling, permanent sunset of blood-red and bruised purple, a celestial canvas upon which two dead, black suns hung like holes in the universe. There was no gentle, familiar blue, no comforting white clouds. Only this eternal, oppressive twilight.
I stood on a jagged cliff overlooking a landscape torn from a madman's nightmare. A vast canyon, carved by a river of sluggish, glowing lava, snaked its way through a plain of black, volcanic rock. In the distance, twisted, unnatural spires of obsidian scraped at the blood-red sky, looking like the fossilized bones of some long-dead god. The only sound was the faint, distant hiss of the lava, the whisper of a hot, dry wind, and the echoing screams of things I could not see and did not want to imagine.
This was hell. Not a metaphorical hell, but a literal, geographical location. And I was standing in it.
My first, instinctual act was to reach out with my mind. "Elizabeth? Luna? Lyra?"
The silence that answered was the most terrifying sound I had ever heard. The constant, warm presence of Luna in the back of my mind, my 'Shared Senses' link, was gone. Severed. The line was dead. The empathic feedback loop that had become my anchor was just… empty.
I was alone.
The thought was a physical blow, a fist of ice closing around my heart. In all my trials, in all my deaths and rebirths, I had never been truly alone. ARIA, Elizabeth, Luna, Lyra—they were my system, my advisors, my pack. Without them, I was just... me. A programmer from another world, trapped in a stolen body, standing on the shores of damnation.
Panic, cold and absolute, began to rise, threatening to drown me. I clutched the satchel at my side, the heavy, solid weight of ARIA's book the only familiar thing in this alien world. Her faint, digital heartbeat was still there, a weak, thready pulse, a single flickering candle in an infinite darkness.
Protect the book. Protect her.
The thought, her final, fading command, became my mantra. It was the one piece of solid ground in a universe that had dissolved into madness.
The programmer in me wrestled the panic back into its cage. Despair was a recursive loop with no exit condition. It was inefficient. I needed data. I needed to assess, analyze, and formulate a new strategy.
I called up my status screen. With ARIA offline, the process was clumsy, a conscious act of will rather than an instant thought. The familiar blue UI flickered into existence, but it looked... glitchy. The edges were frayed with red static, and some of a text was corrupted, displaying strings of runic characters I didn't recognize.
STATUS
Name: Kazuki [DATA CORRUPTED] Silverstein Level: 1 Class: Glitch Sovereign [CONNECTION LOST] Title: Trollbane, Champion Slayer, [NULL]
HP: 115 / 115 MP: 12 / 225 [RECALIBRATING...]
STATSSTR: 15 DEX: 18 CON: 23 INT: 83 WIS: 75 CHA: 23
ACTIVE EFFECTS:[REALITY DISSONANCE (SEVERE):] Your soul is not native to this dimensional frequency. All abilities are operating at 20% efficiency. Mana regeneration is offline. Your connection to your previous world's 'System' has been severed.
My blood ran cold. 20% efficiency. The immense power I had just acquired, the strength of a mountain, had been reduced to that of a hill. My Geode Mana Core, my symbiotic link to the earth, was cut off from its home soil. The earth here was different, its 'code' written in a foreign language my powers could barely comprehend. And my mana regeneration was gone. The 12 points I had left were all I had. Once they were gone, I was just a man with a rusty sword.
A dry, rattling skittering sound from nearby snapped me out of my horrified analysis. I spun around, drawing my sword, my heart hammering in my chest.
Three creatures were crawling out of a fissure in the obsidian rock. They were about the size of large dogs, with bodies like emaciated greyhounds, but their skin was a chapped, ashen grey, and their limbs were too long, bending at unnatural angles. Their heads were insectoid, with large, multi-faceted black eyes and a pair of sharp, sickle-like mandibles that clicked together hungrily.
[Hostile Entity Detected,] a new, cruder notification system popped up. It was not ARIA's elegant UI. It was a bare-bones, text-only system, likely a default diagnostic program from my own glitched soul. [Species: Ash-Hound. Level: 5. Threat: Low (Individually), Moderate (Pack).]
Three of them. They fanned out, circling me, their movements low to the ground, a predator's silent, coordinated stalk.
In the arena, I would have ended this in a second. A single 'Terraforming' command would have turned them into pincushions on a bed of granite spikes. But here... here I was weak. I had to conserve my precious mana.
I adopted the basic defensive stance Elizabeth had so brutally drilled into me, my sword held ready. The memories of her training, the muscle memory she had beaten into me, were all I had now.
One of the hounds lunged, a blur of grey limbs and clicking mandibles. It was fast, but my DEX of 18 was still formidable. I sidestepped, the creature's sickle-like claws scraping against the rock where I had been standing.
I didn't counter-attack. I was on the defensive, trying to gauge their patterns. They were pack hunters, their movements coordinated. While one attacked, the other two moved to flank me, trying to get behind me.
Another one darted in from my right. I parried its lunge, the clash of my sword against its chitinous claw sending a jarring vibration up my arm. The creature was surprisingly strong.
This wasn't working. I couldn't just defend. I had to take the initiative.
The third hound lunged from my left. This time, instead of just dodging, I moved with it. I used my 'Kinetic Redirect,' not to absorb a massive blow, but to catch the creature's forward momentum. I placed my palm on its insectoid head as it shot past me.
[Activating 'Kinetic Redirect (Minor).']
A fraction of its kinetic energy flowed into me, a tiny trickle compared to the troll's blow. The 'KINETIC CHARGE' bar on my HUD barely registered, flickering to 5%. But it was enough. I redirected the force instantly, not as a blast, but as a focused push.
The Ash-Hound, its own momentum turned against it, was suddenly propelled forward and to the side, directly into the path of its packmate who was preparing for another lunge. The two creatures collided with a sickening crunch of exoskeleton and limbs, tangling together in a confused heap.
It was a small victory, but it gave me an opening.
I didn't hesitate. I lunged at the first hound, the one that had attacked initially. It was still recovering from its missed attack. I brought my sword down in a simple, vertical chop. My STR of 15, even at 20% efficiency, was enough. The blade crunched through its thin carapace, and the creature let out a high-pitched shriek before collapsing, its limbs twitching.
One down.
The other two untangled themselves, their multi-faceted eyes fixing on me with a new, heightened fury. They shrieked in unison, a sound that grated on the nerves, and charged together.
No more finesse. It was time for power.
I focused on the jagged, obsidian ground beneath them. I poured five points of my precious mana into a single, crude command.
SPIKE!
The ground trembled, but it did not erupt. It resisted my command, the foreign 'code' of this reality fighting against my will. The spike that formed was not the clean, sharp spear of granite I was used to. It was a stunted, ugly thing, a jagged shard of obsidian that only rose a foot from the ground.
But it was enough.
The two charging hounds, not expecting the ground itself to betray them, tripped over the sudden obstacle. They tumbled forward, their charge broken.
I was on them in an instant. I dispatched them with two quick, brutal thrusts of my sword. It was not clean. It was not heroic. It was desperate, ugly, and necessary.
I stood there, panting, my body aching, my sword dripping with a foul-smelling, black ichor. I had won my first battle in hell. And it had cost me nearly half my remaining mana.
I looked at the three dead hounds. They did not drop mana cores. Their bodies simply began to smoke, dissolving into a fine, grey ash that was carried away on the hot, sulfurous wind. There was no loot. No reward. Only survival.
A slow, mocking applause echoed from a nearby rock formation.
"Bravo, little glitch," a voice drawled, a sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement. "A truly pathetic display of swordsmanship, but your little earth-trick was moderately amusing. You managed to kill three starving pups. I am almost impressed."
I spun around, my sword raised, my heart leaping into my throat.
Perched on a jagged obsidian outcrop was a demon. But it was nothing like the armored, god-like general I had faced. This one was small, wiry, and looked... pathetic. He was vaguely humanoid, with skin the color of dried clay, cracked and peeling in the heat. He had two small, curved horns protruding from his forehead and a long, thin tail that twitched back and forth like a nervous cat's. He was dressed in a ragged collection of stitched-together hides and scavenged bits of metal. He held a long, crude spear tipped with a sharpened piece of obsidian.
[Entity Detected,] my system's bare-bones interface supplied. [Species: Imp (Scavenger Caste). Level: 12. Name: Xy'loth. Status: Curious, Cautious, Hungry.]
The imp, Xy'loth, gave me a wide, toothy grin that was filled with far too many sharp, needle-like teeth. "Don't look so tense, void-touched," he said, his voice a raspy whisper. "If I wanted you dead, I'd have let the pups chew on you for a while longer before I finished you off. Much easier that way."
"What do you want?" I asked, my sword still held steady.
"Want?" he chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. "I want to know what in the nine hells you are. You fell out of that... sky-wound... a few minutes ago. I saw it. But you don't smell like the other void-touched. The ones in the black armor. They smell of cold, hard purpose. Of order. You... you smell of chaos. Of stone and lightning and... confusion. You smell new."
He hopped down from his perch, his movements surprisingly agile. He kept a respectful distance, his eyes darting from my face, to my sword, to the book at my side.
"You're an anomaly," he continued, his eyes gleaming with a scavenger's cunning intelligence. "And anomalies are interesting. Interesting things can be valuable. And valuable things can be traded for a better slice of the carrion pile. So, let's make a deal, little glitch. Information for information."
"What kind of deal?" I asked, my caution warring with my desperate need for answers.
"I will tell you where you are, what dangers you face, and how not to get eaten in the next five minutes," he offered. "In exchange, you will tell me where you came from, what you are, and why the big, scary things in the black armor are suddenly so interested in this forgotten scrap-heap of a sector."
It was a fair trade. I was operating with zero information. Any data was better than none.
I slowly lowered my sword. "Alright, Xy'loth. You have a deal."
His grin widened. "Excellent! A pleasure doing business with you."
For the next hour, as we sat hidden in the relative coolness of a shallow cave, Xy'loth gave me a crash course in Demon Realm Survival 101.
This world, he explained, was called 'Sheol.' It was an ancient, brutal place, governed by a simple, unyielding hierarchy of power. Might made right. The strong ruled, and the weak were either their servants or their food.
Society was divided into castes. At the bottom were imps like him, the scavengers, the survivors, living on the scraps left behind by the greater powers. Above them were the warrior castes—the brutish, ogre-like demons, the cunning, pack-hunting fiends, and a hundred other varieties of nightmare. And at the very top were the Demon Lords, ancient, god-like beings who ruled vast fiefdoms from their volcanic citadels.
"The ones you call the 'World Enders,'" he explained, his voice dropping to a fearful whisper, "they are a special case. The 'Ashen Legion.' They are not a normal caste. They are a cult, a death-cult. They serve a single, silent, unseen master. They do not seek to rule. They seek only to 'cleanse,' to 'purify.' They march from world to world, bringing their Great Silence. Most demons think they are insane. But they are also impossibly powerful, and they answer to no Demon Lord."
"The general I fought..." I began.
"Was likely one of their high commanders," Xy'loth finished. "If you fought one of them and lived to tell the tale, then you are either the luckiest glitch in all of creation, or you are far more powerful than you look."
He then confirmed my worst fears about my companions.
"I saw the others fall," he said, picking at his teeth with a long, dirty claw. "Three of them. Scattered across the wastes by the sky-wound. A tall one, wreathed in ice. A wild one, with the spirit of the wolf. And a small, quiet one, with the eyes of a hawk."
My heart seized. "Where are they? Are they alive?"
"Alive?" he chuckled. "For now. This is Sector 7, the Ash-Strewn Wastes. It is the arse-end of hell, the dumping ground for the weak and the exiled. But even the arse-end has a king."
He gestured with his spear toward a massive, smoking volcano that dominated the distant horizon. "That is the fortress of the Warlord Gorgomoth. A brutish, stupid, but powerful Fiend-class demon. This is his territory. He and his war-band of lesser fiends patrol these wastes. Anything that falls from a sky-wound is considered his property."
"He captured them," I said, my voice a dead, flat tone.
"Indeed," Xy'loth confirmed. "I saw his patrols round them up not long after they landed. The wolf-one fought like a cornered devil, I'll give her that. Took down a dozen of his best warriors before they brought her down with poisoned chains. The ice-one was smarter. She surrendered, likely to conserve her strength. The little one... she just vanished. Melted into the shadows. She is either very clever, or very dead."
Lyra and Elizabeth were captured. Luna was missing, alone in this hellscape.
My despair was a physical thing, a crushing weight that threatened to extinguish the last embers of my hope.
"A shame," Xy'loth mused, looking at my face. "They sounded like a strong pack. Gorgomoth will likely sell the ice-one to a soul-merchant for her magical potential. The wolf-one... he will probably keep for his arena. He enjoys blood sports."
A rage, cold and pure, began to burn away my despair. It was the rage of an alpha whose pack was threatened.
"Now, it is your turn, little glitch," Xy'loth said, his eyes gleaming. "Tell me your story. What are you? And what is in the book?" His gaze was fixed on the satchel at my side.
I knew I couldn't tell him the truth. But I could give him a version of it. I told him of my world, a world of different laws. I told him of my battle with the Ashen Legion, of my leap through the portal. I told him the book was a sacred artifact of my people, a source of knowledge and power.
He listened intently, his head cocked to one side, absorbing every word. He was a scavenger, and information was the most valuable treasure of all.
"Fascinating," he whispered when I was done. "A world of soft-skins with no claws and no horns, who fight with 'logic' and 'code.' And you are their warrior-scholar. A glitch in their system, and now a glitch in ours."
He stood up, a new, calculating look in his eyes. "I believe I have made a wise investment in keeping you alive, Kazuki Silverstein."
"Why help me?" I asked. "What do you get out of this?"
"Gorgomoth is a brute," Xy'loth spat. "He rules through fear. He takes what he wants. He leaves nothing for the rest of us but scraps. I have survived my whole life on scraps. I am tired of it."
He looked at me, his sharp eyes seeing the rage, the power, the sheer, stubborn will that I was struggling to contain.
"You," he said, "are not a scrap. You are a meteor that has just landed in his backyard. You are a power he does not understand. And I have learned that the best way to survive is to stand next to the biggest, strangest monster in the room."
He grinned his needle-toothed grin. "You want to get your pack-mates back. I want Gorgomoth gone. It seems our interests are aligned. I will be your guide, little glitch. I will lead you to his fortress. I will show you its weaknesses."
He was offering me an alliance. A pact with a devil.
"And what is your price?" I asked.
"When you have killed Gorgomoth and taken his fortress," Xy'loth said, his eyes gleaming with a scavenger's ambition, "I want the keys to his larder. And a seat at your new table. A fair trade, no?"
I had no choice. I needed a guide. I needed intelligence.
"You have a deal, Xy'loth," I said.
"Excellent!" he cackled. "Then let us begin. First lesson of the wastes: never stay in one place for too long. Gorgomoth's patrols are everywhere."
He led me from the cave, and for the first time, I felt a flicker of something other than despair. I had a goal. I had an ally, however untrustworthy. And I had a cold, burning rage to fuel me.
Xy'loth led me along hidden paths, through narrow canyons and over razor-sharp ridges of obsidian, always keeping us out of sight. He was a master of this terrain. After several hours of hard travel, he brought us to a high vantage point overlooking a vast, black-sand desert.
In the center of that desert, a single, massive volcano spewed a plume of black smoke into the blood-red sky. And carved into the side of that volcano was a fortress. It was a crude, brutalist structure of black iron and jagged rock, its walls patrolled by hulking, fiendish guards. This was Gorgomoth's citadel.
"There it is," Xy'loth whispered, pointing with his spear. "The Pit of Despair. The Warlord's throne. And your friends' new prison."
As we watched, a procession moved across the black sand toward the fortress gates. It was a line of chained figures, prodded along by fiendish guards on the backs of monstrous, lizard-like beasts. They were slaves, new acquisitions for the warlord's arena or his soul-markets.
And then I saw her.
In the center of the line, her head held high despite the heavy, poisoned chains that bound her wrists, was a figure of proud, defiant fury. Her silver hair was matted with dirt and blood, her leather armor torn, but her spirit was unbroken. She met the prods of her captors' spears not with fear, but with a low, rumbling growl of pure, untamed hatred.
It was Lyra.
My heart, which had been a cold, dead stone in my chest, ignited with a fire hotter than the lava rivers of this forsaken world.
The despair was gone. The fear was gone.
All that was left was a single, cold, and absolute purpose.
I was going to tear that fortress apart, stone by stone. I was going to get my pack back.
And I was going to show the king of this hell what a real monster looked like.