Roxanne lay face-down on a carpet that felt entirely too expensive for her current tax bracket.
It was a deep, velvet crimson, smelling faintly of expensive tobacco, aged red wine, and just a hint of sulfur.
Her entire body felt like it had been violently yanked through a keyhole, stretched into a piece of human linguine, and then slapped onto the floor.
“Oh Shit!
Where in the world am I?” she groaned into the fabric, her voice muffled.
[DING!
DING!
DING!] the System’s voice blared inside her head with the ear-splitting, upbeat jingle of a casino slot machine.
[Host has successfully survived the dimensional rip!
Welcome to the Underworld Regional Map!
But oh no, girlie!
The local high-tier entity is looking at you, and you look like a total swamp monster!
Time to turn on the charm!] A massive, glowing hot-pink screen locked over her vision, completely blinding her to the room.
“Are you fucking serious right now?!” Roxanne screamed internally, her mental voice vibrating with pure, unadulterated rage.
“I just fought an ancient deity on a freezing mountain!
I am covered in ash, dragon grease, and my dress is torn down to my goddamn thigh!
You want me to play a fragile maiden for a guy who have a huge goat horns?!
Can’t I at least have some time out?!
Since I got here, I’m in a complete mess!” [Timer starting now, sweetie!
10…
9…
8…] “Fine!
Damn!
Fine!” Roxanne mentally waved a white flag, cursing every line of code in the universe.
The system’s compliance override slammed into her nervous system like an electric shock.
Her muscles moved entirely against her will.
She forced her body up into a kneeling position on the velvet carpet.
Her hands, still raw from holding the hot key, dropped pathetically into her lap.
She forced her eyelids to stretch wide, blinking rapidly until her eyes naturally watered from the dry, sulfurous air, giving her the perfect, tragic, watery gaze.
She bit her lower lip until it flushed a deep, pouty red, and looked up at the stranger.
The man was, unfortunately, ridiculously handsome in a deeply unsettling, corporate demonic way.
Two massive, polished black horns swept back from his silver-streaked hair, catching the light of a floating crystal skull chandelier above.
He wore a sharp, perfectly tailored charcoal three-piece suit, and his hands were tucked casually into his pockets.
Roxanne took a deep, shaky breath, her inner self crying tears of pure, unadulterated cringe as her vocal cords were forced to emit a soft, breathy gasp.
“Oh my,” she said, her voice dropping into a high-pitched, fragile coo that made her want to claw her own eardrums out.
“What a…
a big, scary castle…
wherever shall a fragile, lost maiden like me find shelter from the cold?” The silence that followed was heavy enough to suffocate a horse.
The horned man stopped adjusting his silk tie.
His sharp-toothed smile froze mid-purr, his amber slit-pupils widening as he stared down at the disheveled, soot-covered girl who had just blasted through a dimensional rift, exploded a goddess, and was now looking at him like a wet kitten.
Above his head, a bright neon-pink text box snapped into existence, glowing like a casino billboard: Target: Lucifer (High Demon Lord / CEO of Hell) Affection Level: 20% (Utterly Bewildered / Highly Amused) True Thought: What in the seven circles of hell is this creature doing?
She smells like a greenhouse exploded in a perfume factory, her dress looks like it was chewed by a hellhound, and she’s talking like a cheap theater actress.
But her eyes are actually quite large.
Is this a mortal interrogation tactic?
Why is it working?
[Ding!
Ding!
Quest Completed!
Clean underwear sent to inventory!
OMG Host!
The Demon Lord’s interest has been piqued!] The moment the system gave the green light, the invisible strings holding Roxanne snapped.
Her face instantly dropped into a cold, deadpan glare of pure venom.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her dirty hand, letting out a loud, aggressive click of her tongue.
“Alright, you horny corporate bastard,” Roxanne snapped, standing up and aggressively dusting off her ruined purple skirt.
“Where the fuck am I, who authorized your tailor, and how do I get back to the four idiots I left on the roof?” Lucifer blinked.
He looked down at the carpet, then back at her, his sharp-toothed grin slowly returning, wider and more intrigued than before.
The neon subtitle box above his head flared a deeper, chaotic magenta: Ah.
The act was a farce.
She has claws.
Delicious.
“Fascinating,” Lucifer murmured, his voice a smooth, low baritone that vibrated through the floorboards.
He took his hands out of his pockets, taking a slow, predatory step toward her.
“You drop directly into the high court of the Underworld, bypass my outer defenses using a royal artifact, and the first thing you do is complain about the decor?” “I’m complaining about the service,” Roxanne shot back, crossing her arms tightly.
The chamber was massive, built out of polished black marble.
Massive arched windows lined the walls, but instead of the sky, they looked out into a vast, underground cavern filled with rivers of glowing red lava and the distant, towering silhouettes of obsidian skyscrapers.
It looked like a demonic cross between a fantasy castle and a modern metropolis.
“You are in Hell, little bird,” Lucifer said, stopping just a foot away.
He carried a heavy, oppressive aura of ancient dark magic that made her Dark Magic Shield hum in her veins.
He leaned down slightly, his amber eyes locking onto hers.
“And as for your friends…
I’m afraid they are currently dealing with the mess you left behind.
The collapse of the surface seal tends to draw a crowd.” “Great.
Fantastic.
Another goddamn mess,” Roxanne groaned, rubbing her temples.
“Look, Lucy, I don’t care about your underworld corporate empire.
How do I get back up?” “Lucy?” Lucifer’s left eyebrow arched, a low chuckle escaping his throat.
Above his head, his neon thoughts read: No one has called me that since the First Age.
She really has no fear.
Or she is incredibly stupid.
Either way, I want to keep her.
“The rift you opened was a one-way street.
To reopen it, I need something from you.” He pointed a clawed finger toward her right hand.
“I want the key.
The Royal Key of the First Land.
It’s currently fused to your life force, which means to use it, I need your cooperation.” “I don’t have a choice, do I?” Roxanne muttered, her teeth clenching.
Before Lucifer could answer, a deep, booming alarm suddenly echoed through the palace.
The red rivers of lava outside the windows flared violently, turning a blinding, angry white.
The heavy, obsidian double doors of the throne room were suddenly blown off their hinges with a deafening crash, flying across the room and shattering against the marble pillars.
Through the dust and smoke, a massive, heavily armored figure stepped into the hall.
It wasn’t a human, but a towering demon knight covered in jagged black plate armor, its face hidden behind a horned helm.
The creature was panting heavily, its massive broadsword dripping with a thick, glowing green slime that Roxanne recognized instantly.
Dragon rot.
“Lord Lucifer!” the demon knight roared, dropping to one knee as black blood seeped from a massive crack in its chest plate.
“The lower gates…
they have fallen!
The Abyssal Dragon has broken its ancient chains beneath the lava rivers!
It’s tearing through the commercial district!” Lucifer’s smooth, corporate smile vanished instantly.
The ambient temperature in the room plummeted to absolute zero, frosting the black marble floors.
His amber eyes shifted, turning into pits of pure, consuming darkness.
“The dragon?
The seal on the lower abyss should have held for another millennium.” “The catalyst’s blast on the surface,” the knight rasped, coughing up a glob of dark fluid.
“The shockwave rippled all the way down to the roots.
It cracked the foundations of the lower gates.
But that is not all…” The knight hesitated, looking up at Lucifer with a gaze full of terror.
“Something else entered the rift right before it collapsed entirely.
A mortal presence.
One of the surface champions…
he threw himself into the tear.” Roxanne’s breath hitched.
“What?” “He did not arrive here, my Lord,” the knight continued quickly, his voice shaking.
“The violent distortion of the closing rift deflected his descent.
He was thrown deep into the unmapped territories of the Outer Ashen Wastes.
But he is…
changing.
The dragon rot in the rift has overtaken him.
He is hunting for the woman who fell, and he is slaughtering everything in his path to find a way into the city.” Lucifer turned his dark gaze back to Roxanne, a cold, calculating micro-expression crossing his handsome face.
Above his head, his neon text box flickered wildly: Lucifer: A mortal survived a fractured dimensional descent?
Absurd.
The raw desperation required to anchor one’s soul through a closing rift is unprecedented.
If he reaches the city while corrupted by the rot, he will level the western sectors.
Before Roxanne could process the absolute horror of Julian—or any of the others—being mutated and lost in a hellish wasteland, her vision was violently hijacked once again.
The pink system screen snapped into place, flashing a brilliant, demanding crimson.
[MANDATORY SYSTEM QUEST: The Melancholic Maiden’s Fainting Spell!
Objective: The situation is too stressful for your fragile feminine heart!
You must let out a delicate, high-pitched gasp, clutch your chest dramatically, and faint directly into the Demon Lord’s arms while whispering: ‘Save him…
my dark prince, I beg of you!’ Timer: 5…
4…
3…] “Oh, you motherfucking piece of system trash,” Roxanne whimpered out loud, her knees already beginning to buckle against her will as the compliance override took complete control of her muscles.