Javan was preforming his tasks in the headquarters of the fort as a high ranking general and the official head of the fort. His responsibilities were many but for an angel it was quite easy to deal with everything at hand.
As he was sitting at a table and going over the reports of the fort with the person who delivered the report at his side, a low ranking angel knocked on the door an entered without waiting for a response since such actions were pointless in the view point of angels.
The low ranking angel's face was quite upset and worried as he spoke, "The mission has failed".
Javan looked at the angel with a confused look, he was wondering which mission failed since there were so many and so little that could even fail, so he asked, "Which one?".
"The demon on the human realm" responded the angel.
What followed after was a very long silence, Javan did not know how to act, he had failed to a mission as important as that twice and most importantly, the mission should never have failed.
Then Javan said, "The report?"
The lower ranking angel handed the report to the general which stated that the 4 angels were dead and only one arm and their weapons was left for each angel. Javan was stupefied and furious because he thought of the remains as provocations by the demons that were meant to warn the angels to stop perusing them.
But in reality it was only one demon and that demon just consumed the angels for their benefits and nothing more.
Javan knew that the demons were also no longer present based on the report meaning they probably went back to the abyss. He no longer had the option to deal with it himself since he also lost 4 mid ranking angels which would anger the higher ups. He could only resort to reporting the situation in detail to higher levels of authority, Archangels or Principalities at the least.
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Leigh landed in the center of the tower's roof. He then used his improved sense of sight to gaze around the perimeter through the bars around him.
Leigh's vision permitted him to see at least 12 kilometers out, but more than that based on his surroundings and scenario. According to what Leigh could see at the time, the surroundings were identical to the location Leigh had previously investigated.
It was all barren regions that seemed to go on forever, with no trace of life or anything strange.
It was a terrifying image for Leigh because he felt he would never find a sign of life; after all, he was still struggling with loneliness, belonging, and fear.
What Leigh didn't realize at the time was that the area he was in was extremely similar to the deserts of the human realms, with the exception that it had no resources, not even a twig, which is why no life existed there. Living beings, even demons, just left that location because it was inhospitable to any normal creature for an extended period of time. At the very least, no creature that required basic necessities such as food or a companion.
After failing to discover any evidence of life or anything comparable, Leigh decided to simply take a random path and follow it until he found something, as there was no sign or land mark to guide him towards more alive sections of the underworld.
Leigh then took his extremely low density form, which allowed him to fly, and flew out of the tower's top foundation by flying straight up to avoid the bars. He then went in one direction, hoping to find something other than an abandoned and deserted plot of land.
One thing that astonished Leigh as he continued his exploration was the lack of lava. All of the legends he'd heard about, combined with the high temperature of his surroundings, caused him to assume lava lakes to exist, therefore their absence surprised him.
Although it wasn't a big deal, Leigh realized that hell was probably nothing like what he or anybody else imagined it to be; it was just another realm. There were no imps flying around, no spike-like rock hanging from the ceiling, and there wasn't even a ceiling to begin with!!
At this stage, hell appeared to be just another region made of strange and unknown materials.
These were the kinds of thoughts Leigh had during his long-distance flight. To deal with his boredom, he used to think mostly useless thoughts. Leigh had learnt to have some side ideas when flying; he couldn't focus on the outer world very well, but he could at least have some thoughts of his own.
This may appear minor at first glance, but it was a MAJOR IMPROVEMENT.
The ability to think was extremely important, especially when going through an unknown environment, which is why his recent progress was so significant.
Leigh continued his quest for hours and hours, contemplating more about hell in his thoughts, in the hopes of finding something different and more gratifying.
As Leigh failed to locate anything, the hours turned into days, and the days turned into weeks. Because Leigh's willpower was still insufficient, he began to feel pessimistic, and his prior 'I will find something soon' had morphed into a 'I hope I can discover something at some time'. He didn't care what he found; all he wanted was to see something other than the arid regions with towers and rocks.
Even the intense light he saw a few weeks ago never showed again on his walk, as if it were a one-time occurrence that he luckily discovered but never approached owing to his dread of the unknown.
But Leigh wasn't about to give up because he didn't have an option, so he continued his quest without regard for time.
He just flew like a lifeless being, with no thoughts except for the few intervals when he thought about foolish things just to keep himself sane.