The main hall of West Blood City is adorned with torture chambers made of transparent glass.
The building itself is ten floors high, towering over 500 meters. Each floor boasts a very high ceiling, over 50 meters, accommodating the of many tall demons who cannot enter rooms with low ceilings.
Although they could use shrinking magic to enter, for convenience and efficiency, the building was designed with high ceilings. Demons taller than approximately 50 meters must use shrinking magic before entering.
The transparent torture chambers occupy the right side of each floor, where demons are continuously busy tormenting poor mortals for the enjoyment of visitors.
Thousands of visitors come to the city every day. All residents are slaves of Lord Red Horn, the mayor, but not all slaves are equal.
There are distinctions even among slaves.
The bottom rank comprises slaves ranked 0 or those with no magic power, usually referred to as "meat." They are considered the most worthless, and there are countless of them in the city.
Slave farms can produce as many as needed in a few months, depending on the species. Nine months is sufficient for humans; for wood elves, it takes longer, usually two years.
They can use magic to expedite their growth, avoiding the natural wait for them to reach adulthood. There are also ways to hasten the birth. For example, with magic, it's possible to give birth to elves in just a few weeks. However, they usually avoid this method because magic, being only ranked 1, can cause the death of the 'product,' which is children in the womb.
Slaves ranked 1 to 3 are called by a more respectable title: servants. They can perform various jobs and help run the city, including managing slave farms.
Ranks 4 to 6 are chief servants, acting as middle managers overseeing the lower-ranking servants.
Ranks 7 to 8 are managers, typically holding high positions in the city.
Rank 9s are honored with titles like "Your Evil Highness" or "My Demonlord" and are considered higher-ups involved in city decision-making.
Everyone has the opportunity to advance; there is no law that precludes, for example, humans from becoming rank 9 and being involved in the city's higher-ups, but still, rarely can a human reach that level.
Nearly all rank 9s are pure demons.
West Blood City itself is relatively small compared to its suburbs, which extend far beyond the original city and have a population exceeding ten trillion.
The Demon Army is the largest employer in the 55th West Hell. It recruits any demon who wishes to join. If the quota isn't met, the army conscripts demons randomly.
The 55th West Hell often engages in battles with the 56th and 54th West Hells.
Occasionally, it joins forces with other West Hells to combat the East Hells; those battles are very bloody, and countless die in each of them.
Other special occasions include world wars, in which all hells fight until 99% of all mortals die. Only the strongest survive world wars and are rewarded with special evolution blood.
In addition to special evolution blood, in the process of wiping out 99% of the population, many smart ones use various opportunities to obtain suitable evolution paths and evolve into powerful mortals.
World wars present great opportunities; for example, Lord Red Horn is one of the survivors of the last world war, and using his gains from that war, he now possesses quasi-rank 10 power.
In addition to wars between different hells, there are also many wars in the 55th West Hell.
There are five major population centers in the 55th West Hell. The biggest one is Westblood City and its suburbs, which is the capital and the strongest.
There is also West Bone City, West Sword City, West Mace City, and West Mirror City, each with a population in excess of 10 trillion and threatening West Blood City. There are also many smaller cities, but they are usually nothing to be worried about; as long as they remain disunited, big cities can crush them.
...
Looking at the state of the city center, Bertha was furious.
She was never an evil person; even her atrocities to humans in Nature Paradise were because she wanted to protect humans.
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The state of this city was ... Hellish.
"Zagronan has given us the entirety of 55th West Hell, so he doesn't care if I kill the mayor, right?" asked Milan. It was rare for him to lose his composure and speak like this, but now he did; his eyes were red from rage. He didn’t want to move to this hell world, but now that he is here, he cannot tolerate such evil.
Sure, he is billions of years old, but he was never in a situation to witness such scenes. He always lived in peaceful worlds, be it the heaven world, which he lived in for many years, or Nature Paradise. Both were amazing, and everyone loved each other.
This true hell, though, was the absolute polar opposite of those.
"Yeah!" Bertha snapped, and all glass torture chambers broke! The demons responsible for torturing were reduced to mists of blood, and all injuries on the torture subjects were healed.
At such low levels, Bertha doesn’t need to cast spells and can fix everything with a snap of her fingers.
"Let's make our own Nature Paradise in this 55th West Hell," said Bertha with a smile as she moved to one of the torture subjects, which was unconscious.
She was a wood elf child who was soundly asleep. The torture she was experiencing before Bertha saved her was called under-the-skin torture, which basically involves skinning until under the skin is visible.
Bertha healed her body, but those memories would haunt her for the rest of her life, unless ...
Embracing the poor child, Bertha caressed her head and removed all memories; at her level, it's very easy to do without leaving any side effects.
Now, the child won't remember those unimaginable memories and can lead a normal life.
Before, even if saved from here, no mortal could have a good life, but now, with Bertha here, it is finally possible.
Looking at thousands of tortured subjects, all of whom had passed out, Bertha sighed.
Originally, demons had given them drugs to prevent unconsciousness, but as Bertha healed them, the drugs were also removed. However, with all those memories, the mortal brains couldn't handle it, so without drugs to prevent passing out, all fainted.
With one snap, she removed all those painful memories from their brains. Now, they can live good lives if ...
"Let's set up a good ecosystem here first; we should provide good plant-based food for the people here," said Bertha. Of course, she couldn’t let them consume meat as food.
But, there is a problem; some species here, such as some races of beastmen, cannot live on a plant-based diet. Usually, Bertha wouldn’t have accepted such species, but looking at how their lives were so miserable before, her heart softened, and she decided to keep them.
With another snap, she spread throughout West Hell 55 a special plant that produced meat! Being a rank 11 immortal makes everything so easy.
These plants are produced by Alive, so their products are foolproof. Bertha didn’t need to buy a license because Zagronan already licensed these Plants for this world.
The seeds of the plant were placed in suitable places, and they would grow in a short time.
"Let's just tolerate them for a while; after a few generations, we throw them out!" said Bertha. She decided to let them stay, but in the long run, it's hard to tolerate those who consume meat.
Milan nodded; after so many years, he is nearly as radical as Bertha when it comes to diet.
After cleaning up the city hall, Bertha visited the other four big cities, ended all torture chambers, and saved all the victims.
But she noticed a problem.
Because of the long-term influence of the dark elements, even wood elves displayed evil behavior; they lacked positive emotions, such as compassion and love.
Bertha experienced the effects that light elements have firsthand. Those affected by light elements cannot feel any negative emotions; the opposite is true for those under the dark element.
To counter it, one must remove the dark elements; it's not possible to cancel out dark elements with light elements.
If she adds light elements now, the mortals here would lose all their feelings and not be able to feel positive or negative emotions; that is not much different from a person in a vegetative state.
Removing the dark elements, however, would be a problem; the 55th West Hell is closely connected with the 56th and 54th, and dark elements continuously enter from them. Closing those connections would cause further issues throughout the chain; Bertha is not allowed to disrupt dark element flow if it affects outside of 55th West Hell.
"It seems the only solution is dome cities!" said Milan, sighing. They have no other option but to create formations that repel dark elements from the big cities. That would leave most of 55th West Hell infected but at least protect most of the population.
Over time, Bertha and Milan would bring all mortals into the dome and protect them from the dark elements.
They began as quickly as possible. No one could obstruct them. As for small fries such as Red Horn, Bertha reduced him to mist with a snap. As a rank 11, killing a quasi-rank 10 demon was like crushing a fly.
Although Bertha would never crush a harmless fly, at her level, she can just throw it away, so why kill it?
But that red horn was so guilty and evil that Bertha directly killed him.
...
Bertha quickly constructed a dome for Westblood City; it was so quick because only a rank 9 formation was needed to keep the dark elements out.
The rank 9 formation is not foolproof; the dark elements would leak in if the concentration outside increases, but for now, she was in a hurry, so she just crafted a quick rank 9 formation.
Her hurry was because of the state of mortals in the city. As they were unable to feel any positive emotions, murder, theft, and many sexual assaults were prevalent; to prevent those, she froze everyone until the dome was built. But she didn’t like to keep them frozen for long, so she was in a hurry.
As for manipulating time and so on, she was unwilling to do it, as that would have cost immense energy. Time in this world is continuous throughout all parts, and, as a world with a rank of 12, interfering with it would cost a lot.
The laws regarding time in this world are quite open; otherwise, a rank 11 wouldn’t have been able to affect it at all. For some reason, Zagronan has left the time laws of this world quite prone to manipulation as long as one is willing to pay the price.
...
She built domes for all big cities; now, the hard part starts.
Even though she managed to stop the influence of dark energy, the mortals still have their memories of the past; their positive feelings might be restored, but they would mostly still only know how to act evil.
For this, Bertha can't snap-fix them because that would remove all their memories; the fix needs to be technical and delicate, not wiping out all their memories.