Zeke stepped into a setting he very much did not expect.

“What the…”

It was clearly a city, but one that had been abandoned for centuries. The sun beat down from overhead with enough intensity to create a heat shimmer that distorted his vision. The buildings themselves were unremarkable, though they did remind him of some of the urban areas he’d seen back on Earth. However, there were a few key factors that made all the difference.

For one, they were all the same, with absolutely no variation in size or structure. Second, there were no windows – just blank walls of what looked like mud brick. And third, everything was a dull brown that was anything but pleasing to the eye. It was as if someone had been tasked with building a series of apartments, but hadn’t cared one little bit about beauty or the occupants’ sanity.

“I know this place,” Eveline remarked.

“Do you? What is it?” Zeke asked.

“Hell, Ezekiel. Keep up.”

“Eveline…”

She gave a mental roll of her eyes. “It’s a joke. Relax,” she said. “Or don’t relax. O’lak is an extremely dangerous place.”

“O’lak?”

“That’s the name of this city. Or it was before it was destroyed by a plague of cinder locusts,” she explained. “See those holes at the tops of the buildings?”

Zeke looked up, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. It was much brighter than it should have been, which was as expected. Hell didn’t follow the same rules as the world he was used to. His first experience in Mal’Canus – which was the name given to the Eternal Realm’s hellish counterpart – had supported that expectation, but he’d long thought it was an isolated and unique location.

It was not.

Unique, perhaps, but much of Hell was comprised of very specific biomes that often made little sense. For instance, the sun that currently tormented them was assuredly a trait specific to O’lak. When he left the area, he could suddenly find himself mired in complete darkness. Or an icy tundra. It could change in a single step, and usually without much in the way of warning.

“Hell is tricky like that,” Eveline said. “But once you get the hang of it, it’s not that difficult to navigate. And by ‘getting the hang of it’, I mean getting strong enough that it doesn’t kill you outright.”

“Well, not much I can do to progress for now,” Zeke said. He’d been working to get the most out of his incredible attributes, and he’d learned to flare them so that they affected the world on a conceptual level. However, progress on that front was slow going, and he’d already reached the peak in terms of levels. Finally, with his Will locked away, he couldn’t even work on upgrading his skills.

In a lot of ways, it felt like he’d already begun to stagnate, which was one of the biggest reasons he was so eager to reach the Pit and begin his descent. Once he was on the next plane – the Ethereal Realm – he would regain access to his divine energy. Thus, he would unlock his skills and be free to once again progress normally.

“There’s nothing normal about you, Ezekiel,” Eveline pointed out. “Besides, you have no guarantees Oberon will release you when you reach the next realm. I certainly wouldn’t.”

“What? Why?”

“Control,” she answered. “That’s what all of this is about. The sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be. You’re a weapon, Ezekiel, and a potent one that could tip the balance of the next realm. But do you know what people do with weapons they can’t control?”

“Destroy them.”

“Exactly. They scrap the failed experiment then move on to the next. That’s what you need to avoid,” she advised. “Otherwise, you’ll spend the rest of eternity under someone else’s thumb.”

Zeke didn’t disagree, but he also had reason to trust Oberon. The dwarf had been his first contact after being reborn – well, before, to get technical – and he’d steered Zeke in the right direction at every turn. In addition, he’d saved Zeke’s life on multiple occasions, which was more than he could say about anyone but his closest companions.

Still, it wasn’t impossible that the dwarf – or deity, really – might be playing the long game in an effort to manipulate Zeke. He was functionally immortal, after all. He certainly had the time to let his plans play out.

“No,” he said aloud, his voice echoing strangely through the city as he finally sighted in on the holes at the top of the buildings. Given the perspective, he expected that they were around four or five feet across. “If I go down the road of questioning everyone’s motives, I’ll never known any sort of peace. I’ll accept his good intentions until he gives me reasons to do otherwise.”

“Whatever. Just be careful. That includes speaking aloud. Cinder locusts have very good hearing,” she stated.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The moment those words flitted through Zeke’s minds, a sound like a thousand helicopters echoed throughout the city. A second later, Zeke saw something emerge from one of the holes at the top of the building.

It was clearly insectile, but to him, it looked more like a beetle than a locust. Zeke was no entomologist, though. To him, one bug looked much the same as any other. What he did know was that this particular species was big – probably around three or four feet long and almost as wide – and equipped with huge pincers at the front of its tiny head.

It leaped free of the hole, and for a moment, Zeke thought the thing was destined to plummet to its death. However, after only an instant, wings of flame erupted from its back. They moved so quickly that Zeke could scarcely see them. Rather, it looked more like a halo of fire had suddenly appeared over the insect’s back.

“Cinder locusts. Fire. Gotcha,” Zeke muttered, already having summoned his hammer. He’d already used [Titan] before entering the portal, so that meant he was as ready as he could have been.

“Speaking of the portal…”

Just then, it disappeared, leaving Zeke entirely stranded. Of course, he could always summon a gate and head back into the tower, but that was the last thing he wanted to do at the moment.

After all, it had been a little while since his last fight, and after spending so much time on administrative tasks, he was itching for a nice tussle.

“Brute,” Eveline mumbled, almost to herself.

“Can’t argue with that,” he admitted.

Even as he spoke, a thousand more cinder locusts erupted from the various holes in the buildings. They swarmed into the air in great clumps, trailing huge tails of fire – like insectile comets – before finally zeroing in on the source of their disturbance. As one, they looped around, each flow of locusts joining to create one enormous wave.

For a moment, they blotted out the torturous sun. Then, without further hesitation, they dove.

Zeke felt the heat well before the creatures reached him, but because of his inflated resistance to fire, he merely found it mildly annoying. Clearly, the locusts hadn’t expected that, because the first few in line hesitated for a moment. Yet, the others pushed against them, creating so much momentum that they could never hope to change directions.

And that was perfectly fine by Zeke, who met them with a projected version of Voromir. The huge, crimson hammer smashed into the first wave of insects, and Zeke was rewarded with the collective sound of a hundred cracking shells. That was soon followed by a chorus of agonized screeches.

It was music to his ears.

“God, I missed that,” he said inwardly.

“You have issues, Ezekiel. And this is coming from a demon.”

“Former demon.”

“Whatever.”

There wasn’t time for further conversation before the first few locusts closed in on him. [Inspect] was one of the skills that had been locked away, but Zeke had enough experience with monsters of various degrees of power that he could estimate the locusts’ level well enough. It wasn’t perfect, but it was accurate enough that he couldn’t think of a reason to ignore those instincts.

In this case, the way the monsters moved, as well as how well they first few took hits from Voromir, Zeke judged that they were around level eight-five. Maybe a few had reached level ninety. He was certain none of them had reached the peak. They were far too weak for that.

Never was that clearer than when Zeke smashed the first one with his hammer. It didn’t just crack. It burst entirely – not unlike a bug hitting a windshield on the interstate – covering him in sticky and boiling goo. It didn’t even burn him, though, so he had no issues ignoring that slight discomfort as the rest of the swarm reached him.

Zeke swung again, smashing his hammer’s head into another, and to similar results. The next one fared a little better, but that only meant that it shattered into slightly larger pieces.

Soon enough, Zeke felt an elation he hadn’t felt in quite some time. Finally, he could do what he did best, and he didn’t have to worry about how it affected everyone else. He was fighting for the sake of the fight itself, slaughtering dangerous monsters indiscriminately without having to account for morality, freeing slaves, or rendering judgement until evil people.

And after a few moments, he found himself laughing at the sheer joy of it.

The battle – if it could even called that – lasted for hours. The locusts just kept coming in droves, and Zeke slaughtered them with cathartic glee gripping his mind. It wasn’t the killing – not in and of itself, at least. Rather, it was the unburdening of his spirit that coming to Hell and letting loose represented.

And it was absolutely necessary.

Eventually, the levels of the creatures climbed as the true elites of the swarm descended upon him. They were larger by at least fifty percent, and their fires were far more potent. In addition, they could spit flames from dozens of feet away. Those actually cut through Zeke’s titanic flesh, but any damage they did was almost entirely superficial and easily healed by [Hand of Divinity].

The only issue was that they had a preference for hovering just out of range, which necessitated a change in tactics. Before, he’d simply stood his ground and weathered the fiery, insectile storm. Now, he found himself leaping through the air and tackling the car-sized creatures. They were more than capable of supporting his weight. What they couldn’t do was buck him off.

Each time he mounted one of the monsters, they zipped around in a burst of panicked adrenaline. Meanwhile, Zeke dismissed his hammer and used his bare hands to rip their exoskeletons to pieces.

That, too, was cathartic.

Because if there was one thing that defined Zeke, it was his propensity for destruction. Some people liked to build things. To develop them. To nurture their creations to prosperity.

Zeke liked to topple buildings and rip his enemies apart.

It was just one of the many ways he differed from most, and at last, he was free to finally embrace his nature to the fullest extent. As much as he liked the notion of protecting and developing the kobolds, it went against his fundamental drive. Until he’d entered Hell, Zeke hadn’t even realized the toll it had taken on his psyche.

Now he did.

And he reveled in the lack.

Gradually, he leaped from one monster to the next. In between downing those higher-leveled creatures, he slaughtered plenty of their weaker counterparts. At some point, Zeke lost track of time. The enormous and sweltering sun never moved, but he knew that more than a day went by. He didn’t care, though. He was having too much fun.

Then, at last, he finished the last locust off. It thudded into the ground, kicking up plenty of dust before it hit one of the unnaturally durable buildings. Zeke climbed free of the pile of insect parts, covered in so much goo that his silver body looked entirely purple.

It was at that moment that he heard the slow cadence of a clap.

It didn’t take Zeke long to find the source. A lone figure approached, slapping his hands together once per second. Zeke’s eyes flicked in every direction, and he determined that he was surrounded.

“Impressively brutal,” came a voice from the clapping figure. “I have use for someone like you.”