Author’s note: I use his/he and its/it both to refer to the main character here. Why? Because souls don’t have a gender though they may be in the form of one or have a preference of which gender they’d rather be. It is also hard to see the details of a soul’s form especially if it is a weaker soul or from a distance. Since the MC is at the back of a long line Diyu can’t clearly see his form until he gets closer.

Pre-prologue part2: Hell

Location: Entrance to hell, mortal hell court 4(minor entrance).

Viewpoint: Administrator Diyu

I sit at my desk in front of a line of souls in one of the processing pavilions at an entrance to hell. This entrance is for mortal souls and I’m one of the administrators who select which level of hell a soul goes to. Along with processing souls I’m also in charge of two junior administrators in the other pavilions at this entrance and 5 minor guardians, at least for the next year before I go on vacation. Celestials working in hell are given quite a few benefits for working in this place. Even the entrance is irritating with the heat, hence the pavilions instead of an actual building.

I don’t like my job, the heat is irritating and I have to deal with the nearly the worst of souls. I hope that after my vacation I can work elsewhere. I’ve been stuck at this job for three cycles thanks to an ability I developed working in the courts as a secretary. I don’t like looking at the horrors mortals inflict upon each other so frequently which I see during a soul scan, so I worked on looking at the karma instead. This method is actually faster, less intrusive, and less draining than a scan but the way to read negative and positive karma is different. Since I wanted to avoid looking at so many mortal crimes I focused on reading negative karma, however the efficient technique landed me here. During my vacation I’ll train at reading positive karma and hopefully I can get a position either in heaven or teaching this technique.

Hell has three purposes, to punish souls for their crimes, to teach souls to be better, and to remove unbalanced negative karma from souls. Souls are sent to different levels based on their crimes and karma. I generally focus on karma level so I don’t have to scan or read the souls, the darker the color from negative karma the lower they go. I take the next file turning the page to the negative karma breaches as I look at the soul; light gray no major crimes lvl1. Light gray but had armed robbery lvl2, gray lvl4, and so on and so on.

While taking a look at the next soul in line I notice the two guardian’s with me shifting. I look to the sides and notice both have their hands on their weapons and are looking near the end of the line. I follow their gaze to see what has put them on edge and see a newly arrived soul, a soul that shouldn’t be here. First what has set the guardians on edge is that this soul has formed two swords out of its essence and power. I take a second look just to be sure of what I’m seeing; this soul shouldn’t be here and someone messed up, BADLY.

First this soul has the strength of an immortal, and a skilled one at that since it can form a soul blade. Second this soul still has positive karma attached which should never end up in hell and will cause all kinds of problems if the hell-beasts sense it. Negative and positive karma repel each other weakening the attachment to the soul. When judged the balanced portion of karma is removed before the soul is sent to its destination. Finally this soul has a positive karma balance which should lead to heaven not hell.

At least the soul has sheathed its blades, which let the guardians relax slightly. It didn’t absorb them however so while they take their hands off their weapons they keep watching it as it picks something up off the ground. I motion the guardians close.

Diyu: “Send a message to the chief administrator and guardian captain that there is an immortal soul with positive karma here. Have the guardians at the other pavilions head back to support the one guarding the entrance and take positions between the pavilions.”

I turn back to the immortal but there is another soul in the line that is strange. I see a soul that has a densely packed, pitch black, ball of condensed negative karma. I look at the face and see a crazy and frozen eyes. A shiver goes down my spine; that karma color is darker than the souls that get stripped even if it isn’t throughout plus he looks like hell will be a pleasant trip to the park. First I need to deal with the positive karma, hopefully without the hell-beasts noticing and coming up from the lower levels. Then I’ll call the guardians back before dealing with the dark soul.

Diyu: “You with the swords come here.”

The soul walks forward along the line with the guardians’ watching every step as it still has swords, if sheathed. Coming closer I can tell it is in the form of a male humanoid warrior. As he passes the dark soul I see the dark soul’s eyes narrow before his grin gets wider, now looking more like a feral beast bearing its fangs. When the soul is in front of me I see that he still has what he picked up from the ground earlier. It looks like a piece of ivory that comes to a sharp point, a horn or tusk maybe. But where would he have gotten such a thing here, or how did he bring it here.

Regardless I scan his soul before picking his file out of the pile on my desk and opening it. He does have a positive karma balance, enough that he should have been sent to heaven. So the judgement I see at the top stuns me.

Judge: Senior Judge Hao

Verdict: Hell: Level 8+

Judge Hao is known to follow the karma guidelines as though its law. While some judges will adjust the verdict up or down based on the circumstances Hao NEVER has. So it is surprising in the extreme that he would send a soul with a positive karma balance to the lower depths of hell. This soul has also been marked as an enemy by the same judge. I send a message to the chief secretary I worked under at the courts asking for an impartial chief judge for arbitration.

After sending the message I move to continue reading the file only to be interrupted by a clamor and shout behind me. It seems that the hell-beasts did notice this soul’s positive karma and a pair managed to break through. This will cause trouble both here and at the nearby entrances. I motion for the guardian to my left to go deal with the strays and support those at the entrance. At the same time the right guardian moves in behind the soul at my desk, hand on sword. I skip to the crimes part of the file to see if there is anything serious that might have angered Judge Hao but they are all minor infractions except vigilante execution, I read that incident from the karma and can see the victim was a nasty piece of work who had played and bought his way out of multiple crimes for rape, murder, kidnapping and more. While there is only a quarter page of crimes there are two pages of positive karma actions.

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Taking another look at the warrior in front of me I see that the dark soul is now near the head of the line. My eyes grow wide as the sphere of negative karma in the soul seems to expand and open up, but it isn’t only karma. The energy inside of the sphere is twisted and sickening. I try to shout a warning to the guardian as it pounces, but I was too late. It changes shape in midair and crashes on the guardian’s back before he can turn to face it. Having too much of his attention on the warrior the guardian couldn’t turn around in time as the monstrous beast claws at his back and takes a bite out of his shoulder.

I take a look at the warrior, just in case he takes this chance to attack, but he is facing the fight swords drawn and a grim expression on his face. The guardian manages to throw the monster off and awkwardly draws his sword with his left hand, his right arm limp at his side. The beast now facing him looks like a four armed gorilla, but with claws on its hands, fangs in its mouth, and tentacles coming from its back. I have never seen a soul take that form, and its power level grew like crazy. The soul originally had a strong mortal soul but it grew to an immortal level power when it opened the sphere. Now its power level is growing to that of a god!

Diyu: “What is that thing!? It doesn’t feel like a hell-beast or void-beast but it isn’t a natural creature, and how did it increase its power so much.”

MC: “It’s a Nightmare, creature of Tartaro. They feed off of souls and power to get stronger and to create more of themselves, I’m guessing that the flesh and power of a celestial gave it quite a boost.”

The warrior in front of me turns dark red, and at the edges of his form is a sickly green color. This is a dangerous technique that uses one’s own soul to shred that of the opponent, it is also a suicide technique. At the least it will reduce the power the soul has, more likely strip parts or all of the soul, and potentially destroy the soul completely. At this level it could even slightly wound a lower celestial like myself if he was to sacrifice his soul.

Diyu: “H-h-high Level P-poison Soul!”

MC: “Never let a nightmare get ahold of your soul, better to be stripped than go through the process of turning into one of them. Besides that the only way to destroy it permanently is to completely shred the soul anyway.”

I guess if your soul is going to be shredded and twisted like this thing’s then it would be better to do so. Plus it would keep it from stealing your power like what happened to the guardian. The warrior has moved to support the guardian but even so they are still being pushed back. While celestials are much more powerful the gods the guardians sent to the mortal entrances of hell are the newest of trainees. They can deal with mortals, immortals, and low level hell beasts without breaking a sweat, but now they are faced with a surge of hell beasts from different levels, and a god level monster. Normally a skilled high god versus a lower celestial would still favor the celestial, but now the minor guardian is weakened and facing a god that can steal his powers. Even with the warrior helping they are being pushed back.

I summon my own sword and move to attack from the side, managing to wound one of the monster’s arms. I may not be skilled in combat but my power is still that of a lower celestial and now we are pushing this Nightmare back. The advantage is definitely ours but the beast jumps back and sends it tentacles after the mortal souls. One of the tentacles stabs a soul causing it to disappear, and at the same time the wound in its arm is healed. The warrior moves to protect the souls and I order the other administrators to do the same.

Now the battle is at a stalemate. While we are more powerful we have to protect the souls and keep the nightmare from stealing any of our power. Both sides test each other with feints and minor attacks with neither side fully committing. I send out a broad call for help, hoping someone answers, but the only reply I get are other calls for help from nearby entrances. It seems that high level hell-beasts are trying to get through some of the bigger entrances. I try to send a message to the guardians still at the entrance to seal it as soon as they can and come back, but who knows if they got it in this confusion. I worry that one false move will allow the nightmare to escape.

MC: “Get back!”

The guardian and I both jump back at the shout before a golden curtain comes up in front of us. While we have been skirmishing with the nightmare my two juniors and the warrior formed a triangle seal. The nightmare studies the seal before turning to attack the warrior’s point, the weakest member of the formation. He won’t be able to hold long, even with support from the other points of the formation. I quickly move to replace him, but….

MC: “No the guardian and I should hold this point, the seal has an open fourth point to make it a pyramid seal. Go high and take that before it forms wings to fly out!”

I look and see the nightmare is indeed starting to form wings from what used to be a mass of tentacles. I push power to my feet to jump above the formation seal and take the fourth point as the guardian lends his power to the weakened point. Bending the seals walls towards me I turn the triangular prism into a triangular pyramid. As soon as I do the formation snaps shut and a golden glow appears on the ground as well. Luckily so because when it saw the sky sealed the nightmare immediately tried to dig, before it returns to pounding on the seal.

The nightmare is contained for now, but while we might keep the formation up for a few hours eventually the battering from inside will wear us out. We also have worry about an escaped hell-beast coming to attack us because of the positive karma of the warrior. The guardian’s wound is draining him, and the junior administrators are not that powerful. I send one last call for help before focusing all my attention on the formation. We can only hope that help comes before we can no longer hold the formation, and that whoever comes has enough power to destroy the nightmare when the formation comes down.