Hell
Chapter 2
Caught off guard, my surroundings changed once again. Before I could get a good look, I heard another notification pop in my head the same time my body began to melt. I tried to scream, but I had no mouth. My entire face was melted down to the bone, and I even felt my bones melting! The pain was more than I have ever experienced as if it was very slow doing it. I should have passed out from that pain, but I didn't. I was very aware of my entire body melting.
I felt like the entire process took two hours to finally kill off my entire body leaving me as some kind of coconut shell around my brain. I understood that this part of me would not be destroyed, not even a god could destroy it. How did I know that? The problem was the pain of my entire body never stopped!
Then the pain was taken away in an instance. As soon as it was, I felt something in my mind cutting off that pain. 'Gabe'? I asked in my mind thinking that Gabe must have done something.
'Sorry Bert, it took me a second to realize what happened to you. I have cut off the pain receptor in your brain.' I could hear Gabe struggling to keep his focus as he struggled still with his invisible prison. 'I can tell you that a Deity's aura is what melted your body. Being so close to a mortal body would do what had been done. I have no idea how we are still alive. This must be some kind of immortality to make you suffer in hell.' Gabe screamed in pain, then refocused on the invisible prison shutting off his link to talk to me.
With the pain gone, I tried to feel what was around me. I could feel the pain in the background, So I knew I no longer had a body. I could even feel my body trying to heal and grow back, but the aura that destroyed my body was still around.
What could I do? I tried to focus on the notifications I got, which took quite a bit of focus before something appeared.
System Hellgate1 has granted you
Seeing the message, I again knew what it was. Gabe was right I was immortal to the point where a god couldn't even destroy me. I was the ultimate Immortality granted to the sinners of hell, so they could never truly die, so they could be tortured or killed over and over.
The weight of the pain on me began to intensify more and more. The Deity, Gabe was talking about must be getting closer. I didn't know what to do, could I do anything?
'Stats' I thought up in my head!
Name: Bertram Bullock, Race: RaceBody (Human), Level:0
(0/10) Health) (0/10) Power) (0/10) endurance.
Inventory: Nothing
Strength: 3
Constitution: 1
Dexterity: 2.3
Equipped Title: None Equipped.
(1) [Elder-God Spark] (This is a one-time use.)
*Travel to the Tutorial Zone, to learn how to use the new great system. Think (Yes), or (no).
[Title Equip] You have one title you can equip. "Ragnarök."
[Summon Jhinn Weapon] (Ancient Weapon) "Golden Spear." Duration: until no longer touching then it disappears. Cooldown: 5min
[Summon Jhinn] ("Elder Arch Angel" Gabriel) duration: 1 hour, cooldown: 24hrs.
[Astral Project Meditation] duration: 5min, cooldown:5min
[Sinner's Immortality] You are Immortal! At least your brain is. You can never lose consciousness.
The only difference appears to be the added Sinner's Immortality. But my astral project skill! I allowed my brain to fall into that meditation. It was difficult but I could slowly start to sense or see what was around me, and I was blown away by what I was seeing.
There were brain eggs just like me everywhere! Walking among them was a figure that looked like a street bum walking around looking at all the eggs. The figure seemed to get a surprise as it looked right at me floating above my egg.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here. A Ragnarök candidate that can Astral Project!" While I couldn't hear the figure or see because I had no body, when you are in an astral state you can sense (see and hear). But it's all in black and white, and you see in a bird's eye view. Looking down to my own egg, I couldn't tell which was which. There were so many eggs, and the deity walking over to me had many in his hands.
The aura coming off this Deity figure was of pure evil. I could taste it. I had to do something, but I had no body. Summon Jhinn! I fell into my meditative stance while in my spirit form floating above my egg. Then I looked at my skills and concentrated on [Summon Jhinn], hopefully Gabe could better my situation.
'Summon Jhinn' I screamed in my spiritual form to activate it, but it didn't activate.
'Wait, I cannot help you against a Deity. This Deity will not be able to kill you. Let's wait and see what he does first.' Gabe explained very quickly again still struggling against his invisible prison.
The figure stopped right in front of my spirit form and reached down, picking up my egg. It held about 10 eggs in its left arm, using his right arm to pick up the eggs. "I sense no pain, how very interesting." The being stated as it gave me a curious look. Then it shrugged and went about walking around the eggs. Stopping to pick up another one. "Another Ragnarök Candidate." It stated as it bent over and picked up another one placing it on his growing stacks.
The ground was littered with only immortal eggs. The surroundings I was now noticing was as if we were in some wet reddish yellow mist everywhere.
I tried to talk, but realized I had no mouth. Duh I'm in my spirit form. So, I thought towards the large deity. 'Who are you?' I asked, and surprisingly it worked the deity looked right at me. I also heard another message notification, but I ignored it concentrating on the figure before me.
'Two surprises, you must be a unique Ragnarök. Too bad you won't survive this dungeon; I've nearly become a god with all the
I didn't know what to say next, so I began to concentrate on where he was walking. The thick yellow-greenish fog made it so I couldn't see far. It looked like at his feet was Fluorescent Green swamp water that got no deeper than a foot.
The Deity walked up to a wooden table and tossed all the eggs down on the table. I could sense the other Ragnarök Candidates screaming in pain, it was very creepy. "I'm giving all the Ragnarök's a chance to complete this dungeon. The only way any of you have a chance at killing me is becoming the last Ragnarök amongst you all. This is a timed dungeon. If any of you are still here in ten days, you will continue to fall through hell's throat. If you win the dungeon, you will also fall through the dungeon but with rewards and will have a leg up against other deities. If another Ragnarök touches your egg and squeezes that will officially make it so you lose the Ragnarök title and will not be able to compete against the other dungeon's. That's right, only one Ragnarök will remain a Ragnarök. There cannot be more than one to clear the dungeon." With that he grabbed one of the eggs on his left side with his right hand. He then cocked back and blurred his throwing arm, launching the egg. Then as you realized that the egg looked like it was close to going into orbit, another egg already starts flying but in a slightly different direction. He followed this pattern faster than I could count until I was the remaining egg. He paused and looked really close to my egg. I could feel the pressure, but I felt no pain. "Skills are not stripped… Who is your god?" The deity asked.
I didn't know what I should do, so I said the only human thing I could think of. "What's your offer for this information?" I questioned back to him giving him a smirk.
"It matters not, no Ragnarök candidate stands a chance against a Deity. Ten days you'll all lose like always. I've been through this hundreds of times after I reached Deity status, officially making this dungeon unbeatable." The Deity smiled as he looked at my astral projection. "I will be sending you to the worst part of my dungeon. And the furthest. Perhaps your lesson in manners against your betters will go far for you. You can start worshipping me when you learn this lesson."
Before I could give a response, I could see my senses of the surroundings was going by too fast for me to truly understand how fast I was going. I felt the air heat up around me burning the chemicals in the air around me turning my egg into a large fireball. Having no pain, because of my 'guardian angel' I marveled at the beautiful colors that emitted around my eggshell. Then the fire seemed to ignite more chemicals Making the flame trail very long.
As the air slowed me down to the point where the friction wasn't lighting the air around me on fire, I began to sense more of the surroundings. The plants were very alien to me, but it looked like there was moss everywhere, even all over the tree's. All the tree's looked sick. Strange ooze leaking out of them, almost like sweat. Strange Pores were released constantly as if breathing from a few of the older ones. My Egg slapped a few of the higher branches then I landed smack into one of these sick ancient looking tree's. The Tree shook all the tree's around it at such a magnitude that a few of the younger tree's shattered. The tree around where my egg had smacked into was glowing red hot, the smoke filled up the entire swamp all around. The air seemed to cool down the embers around my egg, that the smoke began to weaken and clear up.
'You need to concentrate on your healing to increase your speed of resurrection.' Gabe quickly spoke, taking his concentration back away.
As I looked more at my egg, I could see a bone structure growing around the egg that was my brain. Concentrate on it? What was that supposed to mean. I focused on the slow growing bones that kept chipping away from the intense gravity. I couldn't imagine what it's like for all those other candidates that didn't have an angel blocking all the pain.
I need to focus! I concentrated on the skull that kept getting chipped away before anything strong could grow. I need stronger! I started to focus on the white bone trying to harden and imagined that it was harder!
To my surprise the skull started growing better. Did I do that? I began to focus my attention to the skull and kept willing it to be stronger that it could handle the pressure and the gravity of this new world. I could tell it was working, but large amounts that's amazing I thought.
Continuing this cycle, I was able to get to where I was making my skin tougher and open my new eyes to this harsh new world. The next problem was breathing. As soon as I took a deep breath in from my heart starting the thumping, I choked on my own blood. I got to the point where going black out was the only option, but it never came. I continued to feel the acid air eat all through my chest and throat. The lack of air continued, and I continued to puke up blood.
This continued for far longer than the entire body healing, but again I didn't have any pain. Although I did keep getting itches that I couldn't itch. Keeping my focus on healing started turning into my way to battle boredom. When I received this notice, I decided to turn it up a notch on concentration.
*Congratulations you have mastered a skill that you don't have. You have received the skill [Increased Healing(1)]
Before I could question what the one was in the increased healing skill, I realized again that I already knew. Skills could also level! These were call progressive skills. My new passive skill [Increased Healing (1)] is level one.
After too much time to count, I got to the point where I could breathe the air and it just felt hot. I received two additional skills called [Acid resistance] and [Poison Resistance] leveling those and [Increased Healing] to level 25. It still caused me damage, but I was no longer puking up blood. And I was healing faster than the acid could cause damage.
My next problem was the air, If I caused motion through the air, it would put me down on the ground making me sick once again. As I kneeled on the ground controlling my breathing and again focusing on the healing to make everything stronger. I realized I was being watched. I heard a crack and looked behind me to see the ancient tree that I had hit had eyes that appeared and were staring at me with a face of anger.
Before I could react, it pierced me with one of its many branches through my torso making me scream in pain at the top of my lungs. The Hot burning of the wound was quickly softened as Gabe once again took the pain away. That Pain was excruciating, and I feared that it would happen again. My guess was that it happened so fast and with Gabe trying to concentrate on not dying he couldn't always react as fast. I didn't want to ask about this, I didn't want to distract Gabe from not dying in the collapsing realm that he had told me about.
I grabbed the end of the branch and with an ire feeling, I pulled it out of my stomach. I didn't feel the pain, but I felt the pressure. This was enough for me to once again, start dry heaving repeatedly in an insane fit. Before I could fully heal from the wound I was stabbed again, except this time the three lifted me up high in the air letting gravity keep me deep within its branch that was stabbed through my chest. Hearing my heart trying to thump and blood shooting out of my chest and nostrils from the weak heart brought me back to the dry heaving fit.
I observed myself die once again, but even with the heart no longer pumping I continued to feel the pain of the tree rip my body to shreds. I decided to focus again with heavy meditation and increase my healing and resistance, after the tree had finally thrown me far into the swamp to slowly heal once again.
*Warning* you have three hours left before you fail this dungeon.
The notification surprised me as I was thinking I would get another level on my resistances and healing. Had it already been that long? What was I to do? If I failed this dungeon, then I could never leave hell. Yet, like the Deity had explained there was nothing he could do. Not only was he far from the deity, but he couldn't even beat these tree's let alone a being that was slightly weaker than a lesser god. How I knew this also disturbed me. What another knowledge did I know that I needed to think about first before I knew it?
'Use the tutorial, it's the only way. You need to level up there and take advantage of it as best as u can before it teleports us back here after your completion. Hopefully…' Gabe paused as he panicked from the collapse eating at his skin before he finished. 'Hopefully the time resets when we come back' Gabe finished as he again turned all his focus back on his realm collapse.
Yes, I believe he was correct... even if he was wrong about the time resetting, it would be wiser to use it now and have the three hours as a stronger person. I quickly closed my new Eyes and concentrated on the skill. Seeing it I imagined activating it, even saying it in my head. 'Yes', I thought to the tutorial question.
This was the first time any being has ever made it out of HellGate1. As a candidate as a Ragnarök, no god would get the notification. I then never knew the significance of that but later I learned it. I was teleported out of the dungeon too something called the tutorial.