Volume 1 : Path through Purgatory

Chapter 7 : Raging Inferno

“Youngster, we are finally here. Welcome to the first Naraka Hell : Raging Inferno.”

The two of them had landed on what seemed to be the base of a giant mountain. As he picked himself off the ground and dusted off the red sand clinging to his robes, he glanced up at the distant peak only to find thick smoke obscuring it. As his eyes spanned across the landscape, he realized that it was not a solitary mountain either, it was an entire range of volcanic mountains. Each one taller than the last, each one steeper than the last, this place would have been a dreamland for mountaineers.

The sky was of a vermillion shade. Instead of clouds, a large portion of it was covered by the smoke being bellowed by the majestic mountain range.

“That has to be a volcano”

In the distance beyond the sand desert, a lake could be seen- a lava lake. Its orange-yellow hue was reminiscent of the surface of the Sun. The ever continuing stream of popping lava bubbles on its surface made it seem like a boiling stew. The heat was great enough to cause the air above the lake to appear wavy. On the horizon, one could see a giant hemisphere well on its way to set. Just half of that sphere occupied more than a third of the sky.

A volcanic mountain range to the east, a lake of lava to the west with an expansive desert stretching from the north to the south.

“ The first hell… is an entire world?”

“Hehe, kid,it would be wrong to call this place a world,it is more of a dimension. Did you expect Hell to be in a building with instruments of torture scattered about?”

If this was the first layer of the narak hell, Zhang Gui could not understand how the Carefree Bliss Sutra would be useful. Apart from the occasional gust of sultry hot gale blowing his hair into disarray there was not much here to cause him irritation ,let alone pain.

The Old Monk was not bothered by Zhang Gui’s thoughts. His eyes were set on the lava lake as he started marching towards it. With nothing better to do, Zhang Gui could only accompany him. Perhaps Monk Di wanted to relieve his boredom or perhaps it was part of his eccentric personality,regardless of the reason he started to hum some tunes.

As the pair made their way through the desert towards the lake, Zhang Gui could feel the temperature rise rapidly. Beads of sweat built up on his forehead only to be wiped by his sleeves. Normally,he would have turned back to the foot of the mountain long ago but by squinting his eyes he could make out a faint outline of some ruins across the lake.

“Is that a city ??! How could people live in such a place?”

There were broken palaces and houses, even a towering pillar, which stood out amongst the rest of the architecture. Those ancient ruins gave him an inexplicable feeling. He even felt like those ruins were the destination of their little march.

It had never expected the lake to be so far away. They must have walked for hours. His legs could hardly bear his weight anymore. Each step felt like lifting a heavy stone out of quicksand. And yet all he saw was the boundless desert. Dozens of kilometres of just empty desert. At that point the old monk’s humming was getting on Zhang Gui’s nerves.

“Does this guy not know any other tunes? Who only sings one song?”

Almost as if he could read through Zhang Gui’s thoughts, the old monk stopped humming and turned around. Looking towards the peak of the volcanic mountain he said,“Youngster, while I appreciate your company I don’t think you will be able to continue this journey.” As he heard those words, Zhang Gui could feel a slight tremor through the ground.

*Rumble*

The land beneath their legs started shaking and with it, the mountains in the range started bellowing more and more smoke. This earthquake-like phenomenon lasted for only a few minutes.

“What did you mean by that Monk Di?”. As Zhang Gui turned around to inquire about his cryptic words, he found the old man to have disappeared. His footsteps had ended their trail right there and he could not be seen anywhere in sight.

He might have searched more comprehensively had it not been for the repeated blasts of scorching hot winds. They seemed to have grown more frequent. They were not even like normal winds that flow horizontally, instead these ones would emerge from the dark grey clouds of smoke and smash directly downwards at him.

As he stared apprehensively at the clouds anticipating the arrival of the next gale, some reddish-orange particles came to his notice aggregating inside the smoky clouds. With time, the incandescent glow grew brighter and brighter. An ill foreboding came over his mind and he started to walk back to the foot of the mountain from where he had started. But as if in response to that, a loud crackle resounded across the landscape from the clouds and multiple reddish-orange spheres of what looked like fire erupted out from the smoke. There were thousands of orbs all radiating a staggering amount of heat.

However against his expectations they did not rain down upon him immediately. Instead they remained still in air just below the clouds - floating silently. Then they started coalescing, from thousands to hundreds, from hundreds to a dozen. In the end, there were five orbs left, each much bigger than the original ones. As if that was not scary enough, the five orbs then started transforming. The spheres became cylindrical, a tail and fangs emerged, scales appeared covering the body of the newly formed snakes.

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“Snakes made of fire?! What kind of nonsense is this?”

Their serpentine eyes finally opened surveying their surroundings. One by one, all five of them focused on the lone figure of Zhang Gui. He felt a chill run across his spine as he felt their stares on him.

“ Are they sentient? How is that even possible? How can something made of flames be sentient?”

Unfortunately he did not have much time to deliberate on the matter, as another blast of scorching wind had descended upon him from above and with that wind came the five ferocious looking fire snakes. With their mouths wide open and their fangs prepared to snap a bite of Zhang Gui, these snakes caused him to lose all his wit.

He knew he could not truly die in the Naraka Hell, only his soul would shatter and then later reform. He had the buddhist Carefree Bliss Sutra and the japmala to protect himself. But in that moment of crisis what he saw fit to do, what he thought was the best solution was ……. to run.

And thus came about a scene that the Naraka Hells had probably never seen before. The five flame snakes chased after him as he ran across the desert hoping to avoid them. The sultry wind blasts were only getting more frequent and hotter. And at some point of the chase, they had turned his robes into ash. Even parts of his skin now exhibited burn injuries. And since they rained down from the sky there was no way for Zhang Gui to avoid them no matter where he ran.

“That old man, did he have to run away at such a crucial time?”

But not all hope was lost, what came as the light at the end of a dark tunnel for Zhang Gui was a cave-like structure he had spotted far off into the distance. At the very least it would protect him from the winds. As he made a mad dash towards the entrance of the cave, the snakes trailing behind seemed to receive a stimulus as well.

Just as he was inches away from the entrance of the cave he could feel the snakes closing in on him, widening their mouths to take a bite of him. There was no time to use the Carefree Bliss Sutra.

“No! Don’t get anywhere near me!”

What he had thought was a futile shout ended up showing tangible results. A repulsive force originated from his body sending the snakes flying back a couple of feet.

“This must be what that monk had mentioned. The first method: resisting the Naraka Hells.”

He wasn’t foolish enough to try it again after all the old man had said that the more one resists , the more aggressive the counterattack is. Instead, he used the time gained by the repulsive force to venture deeper into the cave. Only when he was certain that the hot blasts of winds won’t be able to reach him did he stop.

Sitting out with his legs crossed, he could not help but stare at the mala wrapped around his wrists. The four lustrous silver rosary beads were his only hope. With his right hand forming the dhyana mudra and his left hand clenching the rosary beads in between his fingers. Having completed his preparations, he stared towards the cave entrance with a vigilant look.

Soon after,a hissing sound announced the arrival of the five flame snakes. It was clear that they have become much more lethal since last time he had seen them. They seemed to have grown larger. The flames comprising them now possessed a never before seen purple hue.

“They already look so strong after being repelled only once. Resisting is truly not an option.”

As soon as the snakes spotted Zhang Gui sitting on the ground, a ravenous glint passed through their eyes as they leapt at his body. Tightly wrapping around his body, each snake bit onto his body. They had coiled around him with such strength that the pressure along was enough to suffocate him. Meanwhile, both his arms, legs and neck were all biten sending shooting waves of pain through his body.

Somehow using the adrenaline rush to his advantage he managed to start the incantation of the Carefree Bliss Sutra. One by one, the rosary beads kept on moving in his left hand. An azure aura erupted from his body for a second before dissolving back into his body. There was no other external indication pointing towards a successful incantation but just his smile was proof enough.

The smile could only be described as aloof and carefree as if the person was above everything else. The five snakes were devouring his entire body but Zhang Gui did not care. He could feel intense pain radiating across his body but at the same time he could also weirdly not feel the pain. If the sensation of pain remained but your ability to think about it was suppressed, would you still feel it?

His only concern was to maintain his incantation. Bite after bite, the snakes tore off pieces of flesh from his body. Not even his bones were spared, the ghastly noise of bones being crunched up echoed in the cave. Normally, a ghastly scene such as this would have terrorized Zhang Gui into fainting long ago but somehow he felt like the one experiencing the nightmare was not himself but some random stranger. As if he was looking at this scene from a third person perspective. In the time it takes for an incense stick to burn out, his body was gone.

In fact, Zhang Gui had already anticipated such an event to take place. He was by no measure an intelligent fellow but he was far from being a fool. If the lesser hells were going to shatter his soul, how could his body be unaffected? Regardless, the very fact that his body was a product of Vitality Thunder was enough of a reason for it to be destroyed by the Yama King. In fact, he was sure that had they not been certain of his body’s eventual destruction had the hands of these snakes, they would have already rid him of his body.

“Round two begins now!”

The body was gone but the soul still remained. In place of that fleshy body granted by ‘Vitality Thunder’ now stood the same soul that had walked the

Bridge of Karma. Like a cycle going full circle, he felt like he was back to where he had started - a soul stuck in a miserable position. But the snakes were still not done, to them it did not matter whether it was a fleshy body or a mortal soul. They still held onto his soul, biting him. This time the pain was real. No amount of rosary beads could possibly overcome the intensity of this pain.

"I salute that Buddha

The source of Supreme Bliss,

Whose grace makes the dumb man eloquent

And the cripple cross mountains."

The words of the Carefree Bliss Sutra were like a wave of rejuvenation washing his soul. He knew he was in the endgame now.

He could feel the snakes releasing a fiery energy into his soul from their fangs. Immediately, a game of hide and seek began. His primal essence being chased by those fiery energies. When they entered his legs, he shifted his primal essence to his hands. When they entered his hands, he shifted the essence to his chest. This was the highest stakes hide and seek game he would ever play.

Minutes turned into hours, hours turned into days but he just sat there with his legs crossed. He was constantly battling on the frontline. The pain was too distracting. Many times he had lost concentration and faltered the incantation of the sutra but the japmala seemed to always pull him up from the fire. His soul was already glowing red with all the fiery energy flowing within it. It was getting harder and harder to conceal his soul.

Slowly cracks began to appear on his soul. Like vines slowly growing along a wall they spread to cover his entire soul. And just like that even Zhang Gui’s soul was close to shattering. Like a glass vase breaking on impact, his soul was broken down to pieces.

His soul had shattered without the fiery energies finding his primal essence. It was a success!

Just then, footsteps echoed out in that once silent cave.

“ Oh! You managed to find quite a good hideout”

If Zhang Gui could, he would have already begun swearing every single curse he could conjure up in his mind. But alas, all that was left of him was scattered on that floor.

The snakes having now lost their target turned towards the old monk. However, their usual hostile attitude was suddenly replaced by a docile demeanor. They floated around the old monk rubbing their heads on him as if longing for a pat on the head. It felt like these were not some vicious monsters of fire but instead just adorable pets.

And with that bizarre scene, both the old monk and Zhang Gui- at least pieces of his soul- were teleported back to the Gate of Naraka.