After jumping from the tree, Hadeon found himself surrounded by nothing but black smoke; miraculously, he didn’t find it suffocating. His velocity started to increase as he felt something pulling him down, but the tunnel gradually narrowed.
After a while, when there was not much space left to slide through, he found himself stuck in what felt like the squishy innards of a monster.
’Fuck! What’s with this weird texture? It feels like I am passing through the guts of a colossal giant.’ Hadeon cursed inwardly feeling disgusted.
He tried to force his way down, but both his hands were already useless— locked by his wide chest.
He tried to force the air out of his lungs to loosen his hands, but it barely made any difference.
Before he could think of other ways.
The black smoke started to act vigorously as if it had a will of its own, pulling his body down into the narrow passage even more.
In the next instant, Hadeon found his body elongating, transforming into a thin noodle.
’’Shittt!’’
’W-What’s this?’
He shouted from the top of his lungs.
NOOOOOOO!
Ooooooooooo!
But even his scream felt stretching, only to be silenced by the mysterious black smoke.
Hadeon suddenly felt an unexplained feeling, as if someone was pulling his legs, but at the same time he didn’t feel like it; his chest caving in and yet it wasn’t.
The Tunnel getting narrower and narrower, his vision distorted into a blurry spin of gold and black.
He didn’t feel like going down anymore, but it felt as if he was pulled into a circular loop, with no distinct direction; there was no up and down.
Only spinning in an unending loop.
Although he didn’t feel any pain, his consciousness started to fade.
Before he knew it, his elongated body started to disintegrate slowly, turning into flakes of yellow crystals and then into fine mist and finally transitioning into golden light as it descended abruptly into the dark bottomless abyss.
***
[ Host, welcome to the first layer of hell! ]
[ The path to the ascension has been opened!!]
[ You have been chosen to walk the path of ascension.]
< The first seal has been broken.>
< Awakening the host soul core... You have obtained an extraordinary grade soul core!>
[ Congratulations! You have awakened.]
< Awakening the dormant talent.>
Talent– Pyromancy (mastery: initiate)
< Your soul bears the mark of an ancient lineage.>
You have gained a unique flame: Sacred Samadhi Flame.
[ Objective: Kill an awakened creature and absorb his soul essence.
Reward: Access to status window for more information. ]
Hadeon found himself lying on a heap of what looked like wet ash, awoken by the constant ringing of system notifications, his body half buried in ash.
A sense of relief washed over him as he was finally in hell without any casualties. It was a really troublesome journey going through the tunnel, but luckily he made it safely here.
Though his head and stomach were hurting as if he had been woken after drinking five bottles of beer. His vision blurry. And feeling a little tired and weak all over.
"Ahh!"
He shook his head and hissed.
’Where am I?’
’This place looks like a real hell for any newly awakened human.’ He sighed as his eyes wanderered around the strange dead land he was thrown into.
The sky above was black, covered by miles of nothing but thick clouds. A black dot in the sky replacing the sun. The surroundings were dimly lit even without any source of light.
Ash was falling constantly like snow.
Hadeon was in shock, even as a veteran hell explorer.
Not because he hadn’t seen anything like it. He had seen much worse things in his long life.
Ignoring his headache, he stood up, his legs sinking deep into the ash. He tried to force his legs out and move as far as his eyes could he saw nothing but a wasteland— filled with ash dunes and obsidian black trees, their leaves red and glowing like embers.
’An ash wasteland, huh?!’
’’It’s not a surprise. Why humans called this place the ’helliest of hell’!’’
’It could easily be one of the most dangerous and hard first hells for mankind to conquer.’
This place was sure famous back then, he had heard some bizzare stories regarding this barren land.
’Even the first hell I was thrown into back then wasn’t this terrible; compared to this situation, one could say it was a walk in the park.’ Hadeon laughed nervously.
*Inhale*
He took a deep breath, trying to calm his heartbeats, but instinctively puked.
’Shit! What’s with this smell?’
The air reeked of sulphur and ammonia as if something was rotting nearby.
Hadeon quickly covered his nose and started looking around for the source of the smell.
Not long after, he found the body of a creature buried deep in the ash, only a portion of its tail sticking out.
It was around a few meters away from the place he was dropped onto.
After pondering for a few seconds, he finally decided to take a look at the dead creature.
He removed all the ashes around the body.
’Looks like it has been dead for a long time.’ He wondered, his hands covering his nose and mouth.
The smell and sight were horrible!
If not for him being a regressor that has experienced these things before, he might have already vomited everything he had eaten this evening.
Even with his experience of decades as a hell explorer, his untrained body was not doing so well.
The smell was really horrible!
The creature was huge, easily three times bigger than an average human adult. It looked like a hybrid of a tortoise and a lizard.
The decaying body was missing its head, and a large chunk of its neck was gone. It had a massive hole in the middle of its giant white shell.
’When alive, this creature must have been a tyrant or at least a fiend!?’ He assumed, looking over the size and the density of the shell.
The monsters of hell were divided into seven different classes based on the quality of their cores— the one having flawed soul cores were known as Hollows. The ones with ordinary core as Savages. And those with extraordinary cores were known as Fiends, up to the highest purity, a flawless core— such creatures were known as Paragons, the very epitome of hell layers, often known as Rulers.
The quality of the core is innate to each individual, and it’s almost impossible to change its quality after birth.
’At least I haven’t heard of anyone changing their soul core grades after getting system appraisal, well, except there is another way.’
Hadeon himself only had an extraordinary grade soul core, but he knew a way to make new cores, but it was almost impossible and even if done correctly, it would cost a lot.
The soul core was the most fundamental thing to any hell creatures or human awakeners. The source of all their abilities and connection to the stronger will, or humans simply called it a system.
To grow stronger, one must hunt these creatures and harvest the soul cores and absorb their soul essence.
One might get lucky, and the creatures may give ability runes or even their spirits to summon in battles after absorption.
Though, it was so rare that many people had never seen any spirit in their whole life.
***
Hadeon, after looking at the corpse’s condition, decided not to stay near it. Who knows what killed this beast? There was not even a sign of struggle on the body, just a deep crack on the back of its shell.
’Someone killed it in one hit!’
’’I should better move on and find a safe location to hunt weak creatures first.’’ He murmured.
After walking some distance, he froze midway, struck by a sudden realisation.
He felt something warm stirring in his chest.
He turned and looked at the corpse intensely as if he was searching for something. Then suddenly his lips curled up; he had sensed a familiar energy emitting from the shell.
Ever since his regression, he was missing this warmth he always had for so long, the spirit energy!!
’’There is a soul core inside that corpse!’’