Agnar and Yuwaku started shoveling the snow that buried the shelter. Even Obelisk started helping them, and of course, they didn’t let Filly off the hook either; she had to work. All hands on deck, clean the place so they can warm up beside the flames.

As long as her help is needed, Agnar would work her to the bone. Usually, Agnar wouldn’t like to have a slave, let alone abuse one. But when that slave is a succubus who tried enslaving him, a kid... he wasn’t going to show her any mercy.

But then, the ground started shaking, and a loud rumbling vibrated the entire forest, dropping what little snow remained on the branches of the ancient oak and spruce trees.

Their hands stopped moving, and Agnar glared at the shaking snow beneath his feet. He frowned and looked around... they were just starting to clean the place!

"Don’t tell me... an avalanche? Was there a mountain nearby?" Did their fight cause it? He growled, turning toward Obelisk, who knew the place better than they did. He did remember seeing a mountain close by, but was it big enough? Is an avalanche possible?

"No! There is no mountain anywhere near here where such a thing could start." Obelisk growled, her eyes narrowing. She felt the magic rushing from beneath their feet, and it was already too late.

"Run!" She screamed, her calm and emotionless face quickly breaking into a worried frenzy.

But before anyone could move, the earth beneath them exploded into a cloud of dust and debris. The snow was splattered everywhere, and the shelter was wiped out, blasted into the sky alongside everything that was remotely close.

The succubus flapped her wings, flying up as Yuwaku latched onto her hand. Ignis glided away, and Obelisk pulled herself away using her slimy tentacles.

But then, they saw Agnar falling into the ground. Right at the bottom of the newly forming hole, a massive, boiling red gate awaited with endless hunger rippling in its crackling expanse.

"AGNAR!" Yuwaku screamed, "Go! Catch him!" She shouted, and the succubus was forced to let go of her and fly down as fast as she could. From above, Obelisk also extended her tentacles to catch them.

That was the hell gate where the devils came from. Something happened to it, and it’s now going berserk, sucking in every living being that is nearby into hell.

"Don’t! Get away!" Agnar shouted back a moment before falling into the hell gate. His vision turned black, and the last thing he saw was the succubus flying toward him, Yuwaku falling, Ignis barely latching onto the crumbling walls, and Obelisk’s terrified face as her tentacles extended down.

But in the end, Agnar still fell through the hell gate, followed by the succubus and Yuwaku right after. Obelisk’s tentacles touched the gate, so her whole body got pulled in. Then, the gate disappeared, only leaving Ignis alone, latched into the crumbling walls of the newly formed hole.

Agnar opened his eyes, finding himself alone in an endless and desolate land of dried red earth, lightning-infused black clouds, exploding volcanoes, and steaming ponds of rotting acid.

All of his senses were immediately assaulted by the horrid smell, the acidic air, the heat, and the unnaturally daunting mana in the air. This entire place was cursed, and everyone in it was forced to live by that curse. Ever immortal, but damned to suffer pain and agony.

This is hell.

Agnar didn’t know which layer he was dropped in, but he was certain it was not the fifth or eighth layers, because those two were always frozen.

But that didn’t matter; being in any layer of hell is deadly, and he has to escape quickly.

Funnily enough, he has a ticket out of here, his contract with Maharaja. He can ask her to pull him out of hell, of course, as long as he isn’t chained. So before he dies, he has to call her.

It wasn’t an ability or anything. Since she was his patron, he could ask her for a favor, usually at a cost. But she tended to be quite lenient with him. She had once said that she could get him in and out of hell if he wanted to see where she lived, but he refused. Why would anyone want to see hell or go into it?

He was about to do just that and leave, but then he saw something explode on the horizon. A massive dark castle reached into the clouds with black spires, flowing lava, and flocks of flying devils. In its bay, a titanic demon was rampaging.

Obelisk was there... meaning that Yuwaku must’ve fallen here as well, probably even Ignis. He wanted to escape; he wanted to leave this place at once, all of his senses screamed to do just that.

But he didn’t, he knew that Obelisk might be fine, even Yuwaku. For all he knew, she could just use Arad’s void and escape into the safety of his stomach.

Both of them were far stronger than he was. They didn’t need someone as weak as him to come and save them, and in fact, he might just be a burden.

Will he run away? Obelisk was fighting. Why isn’t she running away? Maybe she can’t while under assault by many devils. Did that matter to him? Time is running out; the longer he spends standing there without doing anything, he’s risking death and getting bound to this cursed place for all of eternity.

But then, he growled. "Damn it all!"

A massive swarm of imps was approaching him like a dark cloud, hundreds, maybe thousands of them all at once. All of the powerful devils of this area were probably busy with Obelisk, so only the weak ones came to hunt him down.

"Fine!" He smiled, taking his two jackets away, then even stripping his undershirt off, staying only in his tank top and pants. This place was hot, hotter than any summer he had ever seen, and he didn’t want to risk passing from heat before getting killed.

"You want a piece of the blade? Come, I’ll shove it down your throats." He lunged forward, slashing the first of the imps in half with a single swing of his sword, and using that momentum, he cut two more, and then kicked another.

An imp slashed him across the back with its claws, and Agnar ignored the hit and pain, rushing forward to slash more of the imps and keep advancing toward the dark castle as fast as he could.

If he slowed down, he would get surrounded and eaten alive. He must keep moving, cutting his own path. Dealing with a few imps was easy, but when they came in a swarm, it felt like fighting the wind. You cut one, and ten show up.

Deep cuts and gaping wounds quickly accumulated on Agnar’s small frame. He wasn’t fast or powerful enough to rush through the assault. His back, chest, legs, face, and even his neck hurt; every place was now painted red with blood. It didn’t take the imp swarm more than a minute to almost skin him alive, and he knew that death was near.

Agnar had lasted long, longer than any kid had any right to last in hell. A single imp should’ve been able to kill a hundred kids of Agnar’s age and build. He had performed far too well, but this was the end of the line.

As his vision slowly darkened and he could feel the burning claws and fangs of the imps impaling him, his fingers touched his sword, clawing at it.

"Roar! Maharaja!"

Black lightning washed over his body, and from that, a black jaguar leapt into the horde of devils, biting one in half and cutting several more with its deadly claws.

A bestial roar escaped Agnar’s massive maw, his opal fangs marred with the imps’ rancid blood. This was it, it’s either him or hell.

The imps descended on him like a school of hungry piranhas, and Agnar bit back with feral violence. They tore and ripped his skin apart, and he munched and ate their bodies alive, biting any head that dared get close to his face.

The more they cut him, the angrier he got, and the angrier he got, the more he ate, and the more he ate, the faster his wounds healed.