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BREAKING THE CHAINS (III)

Lino stared somberly at the spinning portal in front of him . The giant-sized hole sucked Devil Qi from its surroundings rapidly, purifying it and spitting it right back out . It wasn’t difficult for Lino to realize the location of the portal – it was built at the exact place where the Umbra Kingdom’s Palace used to be, or, rather, beneath it .

Naturally, the surrounding area was unrecognizable as such; ebony-dyed towers and spires arose in-between the massive walls, with dark-brick buildings filling up the empty space in-between . There was hardly a source of light to be seen, and any cultivator beneath the Void threshold would effectively be blind here .

Sighing inwardly for a moment, Lino shook his head and stepped through the portal . The sensation of the spacetime ripples soon overwhelmed him, He carefully observed the spatial tears outside the artificial tunnel; in their breaks, gazing beyond them, he saw the stars alight the vast cosmos . He pondered, inwardly, whether just like their own sun, those stars hosted life? They had to, he mused . After all, there were so many of them . Thinking back to the map of the cosmos Tim showed him a long time ago, Lino’s convictions became even greater . What they could see was a literal grain of sand, a droplet of water in all of the world’s oceans .

His thoughts were interrupted as he was spat out of the tunnel, thrust into a completely new world . His brows furrowed immediately; he couldn’t breathe without using Chaos to purify the insanely dense Devil Qi that surrounded him . Looking around, he saw sword-shaped erections spat out of the earth like pillars, some straight and some at an angle, dyed in ashen gray and black .

The landscape surrounding them was uneven, going up and down, forming hilltops and dented valleyways along the strange curvature . The horizon splintered due to the fog and mist his eyes could not peer through, though Lino immediately realized that Hell – as a world altogether – was actually physically larger than Noterra . Not by much, but enough to be noticed . It was not nearly as populated, however . After all, only Devils and Demons could ever hope to actually live here .

Lino was faintly shocked, wondering how the armies of Noterra had the capacity to even invade this land so many times over . Could it be that they also used their Qi to purify the Devil Qi? That would have cost them too much, however, effectively rendering them useless for a fight .

He landed squarely, grasping the handle of the Slayer and the Edge, taking slow steps forward while examining his surroundings . For the time being, he decided to simply wander around aimlessly . This was only the second time he’d found himself on a plane that was far away from Noterra, an entirely new planet at that . He found it rather strange and obscure to think about, yet couldn’t help but admit that, eventually, he’d have to figure it out .

As he walked, the scenery around him slowly began to drift . From low hills and dips, it sprung into a maw-like valley surrounded by skeletal mountains . The valley itself was ragged with scars and ruined stones, occasional flicker of smoke still billowing into the sky . He felt strange, slightly illusionary, as he realized that the world he perceived would occasionally splinter, throwing itself upside down, then looping through the spacetime .

"... hm?" he mumbled, frowning . "There’s... a higher dimension here?"

"There are higher dimensions everywhere," Ataxia replied all of a sudden . "They are simply constrained weakly within Hell so that they slip out occasionally . "

"... similar to that black hole?" Lino mused .

"Yes... and no . This place doesn’t have a multitude of higher dimensions; that black hole, however, does . "

"Doesn’t matter," Lino shrugged . "Space indeed is too mysterious . "

After leaving the valley, Lino found himself standing in front of a massive gash, similar to the Gorge back on Noterra . The difference, however, was that this was simply a river’s canal – a very deep, wide and massive canal, but a canal nonetheless . He could easily depict the riverbed which had tens of thousands of cracks splintering left and right like spiderwebs, but the ends and the beginnings of the canal eluded him .

He unfurled the pair of wings and flew over to the other side casually, landing and coming to a halt . Right there, in another crater-like dip, he saw a city rising . Though of similar make to the one back on Noterra, it appeared even more majestic, doused in tinkering, ashen-gray mist with screw-like spires piercing the high-skies above . Eighteen towers stood erect at the edges, persistent beams of black light shot off from their tips toward the converging center where they formed a spherical membrane, translucent, occasionally pulsating . Within, an accoyed shadow floated in the center, looping over itself from time to time .

Due to the size of the sphere, Lino calculated that the figure had to be at least a hundred meters tall altogether, and was clearly a Devil for six sets of horns stuck out of its head .

"... Primordial Devil?" Lino’s lips cracked into a grin . "Is this how they are born?"

"It is," this time around it wasn’t Ataxia that replied to him, but the corporeal apparition that suddenly appeared next to him . Lino didn’t seem startled, as though he was expecting it . "A culmination of Qi, Will, and Laws is shredded through the Arrays and Formations, concentrated into the Womb . It takes around eighteen million years for a single Primordial Devil to be born . "

"Oh?" Lino mumbled . "That one seems close to being born, no?"

"Hm," Ashtar confirmed . "It should be another million years, at most . "

"... you seem rather eager to spill your secrets," Lino said . "What if I go over and blow that womb up?"

"You’ll kill him . "

"... that’s it? No threatening retorts?"

"—upon birth," Ashtar said, ignoring Lino’s probes . "The Primordial Devils have the intelligence equal to a six-year-old human child, yet the strength that equals to the founding members of the Great Descent . Similarly, its temperament is largely unstable . On occasion, they had gone rampant, destroying the cities they were born in . It usually takes them around two thousand years to mature to the point of teenage perception, and another eight until full maturity . To be honest, whether cities decide to grow the Primordial Devils... is entirely up to them . Some calculate the risk to be worthwhile, some don’t . There are other ways to maintain their sovereignty besides risking their extermination . "

"Such as?" Lino pushed, glancing at the apparition .

"Diverse Devil Bloodlines," Ashtar replied . "Origin Artifacts, Incantations... the world is full of mystical things, after all . "

"... is it, though?" Lino mumbled . "I found that, if you look hard enough, everything in it can be explained . "

"..." Ashtar said nothing, merely glancing at Lino before vanishing .

Lino sighed, glancing at the city once more before turning left and deciding to steer around it . He could destroy it, quite easily at that, but that wasn’t why he came here . These were the meandering outskirts, similar to the distant villages of Noterra . All lay at the heart of the world, he knew, which is where he decided to head .

Once he went past the city, he marched straight ahead for roughly ten minutes before suddenly coming to a halt . An incredulous sight appeared before him, causing him to suck in a cold breath . He stood at the edge of a boundless abyss, quite eerily similar to the Gorge, yet even greater . His horizon was empty, the hole in front of him so vast it seemed edgeless . He couldn’t peer downward deep enough due to the fog and the mist, and it stretched left and right as far as he could perceive and beyond .

It was similar to the concept of the ’Edge of the World’ . Lino, however, knew that wasn’t the case . Undaunted, he suddenly took a step forward and leaped off the edge, speeding through the fog and the mist fearlessly . Cold, burning winds grazed his cheeks, yet he remained calm . His clothes and hair fluttered as he reached speeds approaching those of light,

He couldn’t see anything around him which reminded him of the time he descended upon the Dragon Isles . However, the mist of the Isles was very different from this one; whereas the Isles’ mist was simply of a strange make, this one here was the result of the insane density of Devil Qi – and despite the fact that Devil Qi was merely an offshoot of the Chaotic Qi, it would still take Lino considerable amount of time to distill it enough to peer through it .

As he couldn’t be bothered, he leisurely cruised through it, letting the chill condense and break off his armor and skin . The journey, though somewhat exciting, was relatively short-lived, hardly lasting a couple of minutes . As he landed, the darkness that permeated the ’upper world’ vanished and was instead replaced by what Lino imagined Hell to actually be like – lakes and rivers of fire and magma flowing freely through the ghastly-looking mountains and fields, forming massive lakes whose surfaces bubbled, eerily spitting out dense smoke and fumes, corroding the air .

One way or another, Lino realized, it managed to converge toward the central point . Lino began walking over toward it cautiously, his brows furrowed . The stench was invasive, and the heat was insane; he was certain that nobody, short of him and the Devils, could physically withstand the heat without using one or another Art or item . Their bodies would either burst out into flames outright or be melted inch by inch .

The closer to the center he walked, the hotter the flames became and the more uncomfortable he felt . Though Devil Qi may be an offshoot of the Chaotic one, Lino realized, that was a distant past; it seemed, since then, Devil Qi had evolved considerably, effectively creating a completely separate branch of Qi, just as the exaggerated stories on Noterra would claim .

In less than an hour, he reached it – the Great Lake . It stood on top of a mountain of bones, hushed into the clouded skies, thousands of rivers of crimson magma running down its surface, mingling perfectly with the white ire of the bones . He climbed calmly to the top and stood on the edge, peering inwardly into a crater-like dent . It was full of flames, as ordinary lakes were full of water .

Black flames, crimson flames, coral flames, white flames, cyan flames... flames of all colors imaginable and unimaginable mingled in the fiery dance of eternity . Swirls and twirls bound about, bubbly surface shooting out colorful fumes of death . On the lake’s surface, several dozen paths trailed, broken off occasionally, converging to the center where a small, isolated island stood, seemingly impervious to the fire .

Lino, much to his shock, had to coat his body in faint Qi barrier in order to resist the sheer temperature . He was as certain as he was ever about anything in his life – it was hotter than the heart of the star, right by the lake’s side .

The island was no larger than a small patch of land, a courtyard of a somewhat rich merchant family . It had no decorations, no life of green or blue on it, just dark-gray, cracked rock and a single platform at its heart . A set of marble-white staircases coated in crimson flames led up to the top where an extensive throne overshadowed even the mountain itself .

Throne of Bones – Lino veered his eyes upward to try and find its top, but to no avail . It pierced well above the clouds, so much so that even his Divine Sense was useless . Perhaps, he mused, it went on... forever .

Pulling his gaze down, he looked at its bottom where a single figure was sitting, impervious to all around him . He took the appearance of a young man, somewhere in his thirties, donning a long, silver-white hair that draped gently over his broad shoulders and armrests that seemed rather uncomfortable . He was topless, a jade necklace wrapped around his neck, glistening in faint crimson .

His eyes reflected the color, long and narrow, staring at Lino’s . Ashtar – the Origin Father . Unlike other Devils, he bore no horns or even any other distinct feature of the Devil Race . His skin was sickly-pale white, and he appeared as tall as an average person . Slender, not overtly muscular, his appearance was more reminiscent of humans than it was of Devils .

A faint smile hung on his lips as he suddenly began clapping, leaning forward on the throne . His black, loose trousers fluttered faintly as he moved his bare feet forth slightly .

"Welcome," his voice still retained the imperial, ethereal and choral qualities, bearing the timeless vestiges with it . "Empyrean Blacksmith," his smile turned into a grin . "To Hell, and all its Eternal Glory . "