The devil, wearing a chic summer dress that was tight around the torso and loose from the waist downwards, had a concerned look in her eyes. She glanced at my scepter. “Master, I implore you leave your phylactery in the living plane. The underworld is the devils’ domain, and they are verse in soul manipulation. I fear one may try to do something unsavory, Master.”

“I see.” I opened a portal and had a knight take my scepter to Tina for safekeeping, as well as that black robe I obtained from Venomknight’s loot in the Reuland dungeon. “Done. Now, if you will…”

Agares nodded and opened a portal as for us. There was a bright orange landscape as far as the eye could see, desolate and barren lands reigned supreme. Trees, mountains, rivers, and other normalcies in nature were all but absent. It was a large open land, like the desert without sand and instead with normal, tough dirt.

A feeling of terror ruptured through me, and a piercing shrill burst my eardrums into tatters. Then another slammed into my ears, and another. There was screaming, lots of it, and begging. The souls in this godforsaken place couldn’t even form their words properly. It was everything like I imagined hell to be, but a thousand times worse. Even the souls of innocent children were subject to the most creatively gruesome torture I’d ever seen. One could see the souls literally try to rip themselves away from the undying bodies, but they were caught and forced back in with magic. Limbs were ripped apart. Skin was torn and peeled off. Scalding torture tools were used to impale, burn, cauterize, blind, deafen, and just about every other cruelty you could imagine.

I wanted to claw my eyes out, as well as my nose. The scent was nauseating, like the cesspool of a billion souls was concentrated right under your nose no matter where you tried to escape to. If I were in any of my human vessels, I’d retch endlessly, until I regurgitated my very guts. Even the smell of burned bodies cooked alive in huge cauldrons of boiling oil permeated the air. There was no reprieve or moment of rest.

“Is there anything I can assist you with here, Master? You have but to say the word.” Agares encouraged me. Like a thrall, it appeared she derived pleasure from serving me.

“I wish to release the elves from their pact. Do you think it’s wise to challenge the devil that’s behind it?” I asked.

Agares smiled at me, and exuded an aura that almost seemed, motherly. “No. A devil is a unique existence. Master does have the power to force what she wishes out of any of the ten devils in the underworld, but I advise against that.”

“Why?” I mounted Dreadhoof and summoned an undead warhorse for her. Instead of teleporting directly there, I let her lead me, and we spoke while on the way.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“In essence, a devil is an existence that has lived through uncountable lifetimes. We,” she looked a bit forlorn, “know how things work, in and out of life. It won’t be very difficult for a devil you wronged to get back at you in your next cycle of life, Master.”

My next cycle of life? “But, I’m immortal. Are you saying I can die?”

She nodded. “You are defined as immortal within the limitations of the world you come from. In truth, all living beings from all different worlds die eventually, one way or another. The only true immortals are the gods.” A pleasant simper crept about her pretty face. “Like the one that placed you into his old body.”

“Huh?” I tilted my head and stopped our horses. “You mean Niran?”

“Yes. A being as lowly as I dare not speak his name.” Agares came closer to me and held my hand, a show of emotion and care that I wasn’t expecting. “A word of warning, if I may, dear child, never defy a god. The fates of the souls you see here in the underworld will seem like a slap on the wrist compared to what a god can do to you. Now,” she released my hand and appeared to revert to her servant mode, “shall we continue, Master?”

“Y-yeah.” That shook me. This hell? A slap on the wrist? I rued imagining the things that gods were capable of. And what was that about my fake immortality? How did that work? The more I understood about this new world, the less I realized I understood about life. Agares was a treasure trove of experience and wisdom if devils really did experience countless lifetimes.

Finally, we arrived at a wide, and perpetual flight of stairs. It felt like we were flying towards some kind of monk temple. At the plateau, a six-legged creature overlooked the barren plains of torment below. I’d call it a half-man, half-beast creature like Venomhide, but I had no idea if his upper half was man and if his lower half was beast. Rather, he felt like a pure demon. His hairless dark violet wrinkled skin and eyeless head were strikingly, nasty? His mouth had a gazillion teeth like a whale and it was vertical, starting from his forehead and ending at his chin. And another thing, he was fairly big, I reckon two to three times larger than an African elephant.

However, his fifteen-year-old teeny-weensy voice totally threw me off. “Agares? How are you? What are you doing here?”

“Hello, Knerog. I see you’re bored as usual.” Agares casually greeted him and struck up a conversation. “You really should find someone to devote yourself to. Doesn’t make sense putting it off.”

“I know, Agares. But I don’t want to screw up. I’m still new here.” He complained, like he just got hired for a job or something.

“Don’t be foolish. Your duty is to manage the souls and expedite their reincarnation, not acquire new souls. The number doesn’t matter, Knerog.” She put a hand on her waist. “You should know this by now.”

He shrugged with his burly arms. “I, guess you’re right. Well, what about you? You’ve been transforming a lot lately.”

“Ah, you noticed?” Agares spun around. I couldn’t make head nor tails about what was going on. “I found myself a master and she likes this look.”

Knerog laughed, saliva flying out his rather special mouth. “Lich God Deidre, is it?” His head turned towards me. “I’m Knerog. Your god must really like you to give you all that power.” He laughed again, quite an amicable fellow.

Meanwhile, my mind was doing backflips. What the fuck is this conversation?