"Did he die today? Yesterday? Or maybe tomorrow...?"
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In the depths of Hell, where there is no place for the living, stretched the boundless desert of Samattha. Once, it had been utterly barren. Now it was choked with heaps of mangled bodies, soaked through with the iron stench of blood.
Not long ago, there had been an army here. A host of merciless devils, striking terror into anyone who crossed their path.
Now everything stood frozen.
Only time continued its funerary rite.
The blood was gradually clotting. The wind blew with renewed force, and the hot sand inexorably formed new dunes, hiding the traces of a desperate battle.
In the dead silence, a lone male figure knelt amid a sea of corpses.
He looked like a broken statue, imbued with an aura of sorrow and loneliness: lifeless eyes, limply hanging hands, a face covered with blood and ashes. This figure's gaze never left the horizon for a second, where the ranks of his fallen comrades stretched to the very edge. Consumed by pain, he was unable to move.
Only a single transparent drop rolled down his dusty cheek...
This shattered figure was the newly minted ruler of Hell, known by the title of "The Mister". He was a legendary being whose name alone could make devils fall prostrate in reverence and send monsters fleeing with their tails between their legs. He was both praised and feared.
But now only a shell remains of this legend...
Driven by his ambitions, he challenged the lord of Hell — Lucifer himself. He coveted the throne. At his command, entire legions raised their banners. Every soldier burned with a thirst for blood. Their ferocious aura was enough to rend the heavens.
And he achieved his goal. He won. He bent Hell to his will.
But the Mister could not even imagine that he would be the only survivor...
What a ridiculous joke. He started a war that that cleansed Hell. There wasn't a single soul left on the ninth layer. All the mightiest devils fell in the desert of Samattha. He had won, yet there was simply no one left to rule. All of Hell stood empty…
Was he prepared for the sacrifices? Yes.
It would be a complete folly to hope to defeat Lucifer without them. That was the obvious truth.
The fallen archangel has ruled Hell since the beginning of existence. He was the epitome of power, an unattainable peak. The Seven deadly Sins served him as generals. Bamal, Mammon, Asmodeus, Beelzebub — all the dissidents who dared to encroach on his throne were suppressed two eras ago. He ruled with an iron fist. No one dared to challenge him.
No one — except the Mister.
His troops also knew this simple truth, but they still followed him.
The madmen. The fanatics. The idiots.
They understood that it was almost impossible to survive, but they rushed into battle anyway. Life for life—a fair trade. Life for two—an obvious profit. It was an honor for them to give their lives for their Master's glory and goals.
And they gave. They gave their bodies, their blood and sweat, their hearts and souls. They gave him everything.
And they all fell.
Only the Mister remained to fight. One against countless legions. Like a whirlwind, he tore across the battlefield—fearless and merciless. Relentless, like the embodiment of death.
Thousands of commanders fell by his hand. Dozens of generals lost their heads. He personally struck down Lucifer. He wrenched victory from his grasp! And as proof, he held the black serrated crown, its sharp points biting painfully into the flesh beneath.
Yes, he had achieved his goal. However, at what cost?
His loyal army. His comrades in battle. All were dead.
They fought for him and his ideas, and what did they get in return? Only oblivion. They didn't even have graves.
For three days, the Lord had knelt, unable to get up. He had thought he was prepared for such an outcome. He had thought he would accept it without hesitation. Yet now, amid the ruins of victory, he could not stop doubting.
Why had he started all this? Why had he gathered countless armies? Why had he sent them to certain death?
He had literally sacrificed everything to reach his goal, and he was utterly broken.
Yes, it's Hell. Yes, murder is a common thing here, but there is no mercy. Existence itself is synonymous with the words "pain," "despair," and "fear."
But even the most merciless devils have limits. Limits that the Mister had crossed.
He had to remember why.
Broken, he let his thoughts drift away—away from the dark scene, away from the endless grief and self-reflection. He turned to his earliest memories to understand how it all started.
He remembered how he had first appeared in Hell, still utterly green by the standards of that merciless place. He had been an ordinary mortal. Weak. Helpless. Like everyone else, he had begun on the first layer. He could not even imagine that one day he would force all of Hell to its knees.
Every step across the surface of Hell felt like walking on shattered glass. With every breath, flames burst into his lungs, inflicting unimaginable pain upon an already scorched body. Thirst and hunger became his constant companions.
And the worst of all is loneliness. For a thousand miles around, there was not a single soul.
That time had been pure torment. Back then, death seemed like a beautiful dream. He could only long to escape the endless agony.
He simply walked, not knowing how long, why, or where—only to find, without knowing what.
He walked, sifting through happy moments of his past life, grain by grain. A life that had ended all too suddenly.
He walked, mindlessly repeating three words: "Gray," "Bella," and "Mom." Only those three names kept him from losing his sanity completely. They became his obsessive mantra, an anchor in a sea of madness.
Endless days of pain and solitude had dulled all his senses. Driven only by instinct, he had become a soulless doll. Without purpose, without hope, accompanied only by three names.
And suddenly — this meeting. A strange casual creature, furious and hungry, rushed at him with the obvious intention of tearing him apart. Her hideous dark tentacles moved like whips, and her mandible-like mouth was dripping with vile saliva.
At that very moment, a whole firework of emotions broke out in the young Mister's soul. Fear — sharp, piercing, made the blood run faster through the veins. But with it came something else...
Joy. The paradoxical, insane joy of not being alone anymore. That there was still something alive in this ruthless world, even if it was hostile and ugly.
This palette of conflicting emotions turned out to be so strong that even now, after millennia of battles and struggle, the memory of it caused the Gentleman to tremble slightly.
The memories kept scrolling....
Years merged into decades, decades turned into centuries, and he was still wandering through the first layer. Alone and without a purpose. His path had become an endless cycle of battles against monsters whose forms could only be called nightmares, born of the twisted imaginations of broken souls.
He fought and hid. I did everything to survive.
Hunger didn't leave him for a moment. Insatiable and burning, it forced to tear the flesh and drink the blood of enemies in order to feel alive at least for a moment.
It was an endless journey in which there was no room for mercy. Every blow, every movement was aimed at engulfing, destroying, wiping out all living from the face of the earth.
And so, step by step, drop by drop, the inexperienced youth disappeared. The most ordinary mortal was slowly turning into a ruthless killer worthy of the title of "The Mister. The Master. The Monster".
His body was covered with scars. His eyes, once innocent and full of life, now glowed red, betraying his inner essence—the essence of a predator.
His body became covered in scars. Eyes once innocent and full of life now burned with red fire, betraying his inner essence—the essence of a predator.
In this world of darkness, death, and pain, there was no place for the weak. Only the strongest survived, and he became the embodiment of this principle. He was willing to do anything to satisfy his insatiable desires. He had finally turned into an animal consumed by thirst for blood and flesh. He became a part of this world, became a part of Hell and its endless struggle.
This predator was desperately repeating:
"GREY, BELLA, MOM"
"Mommy, Grey, Bella"
"Bella, mother, Grey"
"Grey — Mom"
"Grey — Bella"
"GREY, GREY, GREY, GREY, GREY, GREY"
And then, after years of aimless wandering, he met another sentient being—just as lost as he was.
A humanoid under three meters tall. With horns on its head and scales on its limbs. He moved slowly, but every step shook the ground beneath him. He repeated "Pallock" monotonously, stubbornly, just as he himself repeated "GREY, BELLA, MOM."
The strange roll call of pain awakened a spark in the tortured mind of the young "Mister".
Inside, beneath the layers of rage, pain, and hunger, something long forgotten stirred.
The predator stopped. The eyes, glowing red, narrowed; not from anger, but from attention. He was watching—for the first time in centuries, he was just watching, not rushing into battle.
Instinct demanded: to tear, to drink blood, to absorb, to destroy. But another, quiet shadow inside whispered: wait...
The madmen's gazes met like two fierce flames. Two fading memories of a past life. A life when they were human, not devils.
Finally, unable to contain his thirst for blood, the young Mister leapt at the humanoid. His teeth lunged for the opponent's throat, but there was a strange, almost childlike playfulness in the attack—a flicker of curiosity he had not felt in an eternity.
He didn't want to kill immediately. He wanted to understand…
The creature growled, grabbing his body with massive arms. Dust and bone fragments flew up all around.
"Grey?" the young Mister let out an inarticulate wheeze, meaningless to anyone who heard him.
In response, the creature's eyes flashed: "Pallok."
A strike. Another. One more.
Their movements were sharp, hungry, and bestial—but without hatred.
The young Master's needle-like teeth closed on the humanoid's shoulder.
"Mom?" he croaked, loosening his grip for a moment.
"PALLOCK!" the humanoid thundered back.
The young Monster staggered back and began to tremble convulsively, as if trying to remember what he was even doing here.
"Bella..."
"PALLOCK, PALLOCK, PALLOCK!!!" — The creature screamed furiously.
The fight resumed, but in a different way. The murderous intent was receding. They weren't fighting to eat the enemy, but because they didn't know how else to express their thoughts. Like two beings long forgotten what companionship meant, they were rediscovering it. From their struggle, something new emerged—a flicker of recognition, an echo of a long-lost sense of connection.
After a long struggle, when their strength left them both, they lay side by side, breathing heavily and endlessly repeating now four words.
Again and again.
Two devils. Four names. Two sparks of memory.
Thus began the shared journey of two "highly evolved" predators.
They ceased to be mere beasts. They took their first step back—toward themselves, toward humanity. And that step led them to power.
Year after year, century after century, they fought side by side—shoulder to shoulder, claw to claw, name to name.
Their fame spread throughout all of Hell. They were feared. They were revered.
Yet every path has its end.
Now, amid the dead winds of the desert of Samattha, the Mister stood, clutching in his hands the crown of absolute dominion over this cursed world.
Alone…
He slowly rose from his knees. A hollow silence throbbed in his temples. His legs were heavy, as if filled with lead. Each step echoed with pain—not in his body, but in his heart.
Pallock was lying in front of him.
His loyal friend and comrade-in-arms. His first general and instrument of destruction. The one who once spoke his name, awakening him from the madness. The one who was nearby. The one who stayed with him until the end.
Pallok's corpse resembled a statue of an ancient demon: dark skin the color of charred iron, a back split by massive bony spikes, growths along his arms and chest like frozen drops of lava.
The Mister lowered himself beside him, gently touching the rough, scaled skin. He pressed his forehead against the giant's cold brow.
"Goodbye, my first general. Goodbye, my friend... Goodbye, Pallock..." his voice faltered. Every word was difficult.
"Rest in peace. I hope there's no more pain where you went..."
The Mister felt his resolve waver. Part of him wanted to stay here forever, to mourn the fallen, to sink into sorrow and regret. But another part—selfish and merciless, the one that had carried him through thousands of years of suffering—whispered insistently:
'Don't stammer.'
"Don't look back.'
'Keep going.'
'You've chosen your path. And you shouldn't regret it. Death is not an option for us. The opportunity presented itself. You should have used it. Grab it with both hands and keep going.'
'We have no time for regret or mourning. You always knew that the road to our goal was paved with mountains of corpses and sacrifice.'
'We are almost there. Only one final step remains!'
The Mister turned away.
His gaze hardened once more. Grief and doubt were cast aside. He had to keep moving forward. For his own sake, and for the fallen. He just couldn't back down when the goal was so close.
He picked up the dagger and the katana. Their blades scarred with cracks and abrasions after countless battles. Then he set the bloodstained crown upon his head.
For a moment, he lingered on the Lucifer's mutilated body. Then—without words, without emotion—he shifted his weight and slowly crushed the fallen ruler's face beneath his heel. The sand greedily drank the blood, as it had so many times before.
A scorching wind rose, kicking up dust, but the Lord walked on steadily. He crossed several dunes, his gaze never leaving the goal.
Here, amid the dead sands, grew a tree—no taller than a bonsai.
Its thick trunk was desiccated, but alive. Its branches, like tongues of flame, stretched upward, glowing with a warm amber fire from within. Sparse green leaves seemed almost illusory, like mirages above the scorching sand. They trembled in the dead wind, as if struggling to cling to a world that rejected their very existence.
The tree clearly did not belong in the grim landscape of Samattha. Its presence shattered the logic of Hell, like a bone piercing through flesh.
The Tree of Reincarnation. A tree that had sprouted from the flames of a phoenix. A tree that had managed to nurture the Fruit of Life within the Realm of Death.
In a single word—a contradiction.
A single fruit, the size of a plum, swayed gently on a thick branch. It resembled a shard of crystal, glowing with a warm radiance from within. A barely perceptible LIVING scent spread through the air.
That scent drove devils mad. It made their hearts beat faster and their mouths fill with saliva. It awakened something long considered dead in Hell—hope.
All of Hell had plunged into chaos because of this fruit. It had destroyed millions. It had caused the fall of Lucifer. And it was so close.
The Mister raised his hand. His fingers were trembling. The broken katana vibrated faintly as he drew it along the branch. One smooth motion—and the coveted fruit fell into his palm.
"I did it… I did it!"—his voice broke from excitement and insatiable greed, turning hoarse and indistinct.
"Bella, Mom, are you watching this? Years of struggle and suffering. Centuries of loneliness and deprivation. Millennia of battles. I gave everything to obtain this fruit. And now I am here…"
"I entrust all else to fate. I hope I will see you again…"
His voice changed once more, becoming clear, resonant, filled with authority and power:
"By the authority granted to me by The Biblical Hell. I am GRAY, known as the Mister, the current rightful owner of dimension 169 563 271 458/V12, hereby declare my immediate abdication and depart for reincarnation!"
The black crown flared with brilliant light. The entire dimension trembled.
Without hesitation, the Mister greedily swallowed the fruit.
With one decisive motion, he plunged the broken katana into his heart, and the dagger—between his eyes. And… in the blink of an eye, he vanished from the blood-soaked desert, leaving behind only the echo of a final word, carrying across the boundless Samattha.