[Ishmael]

  I turned into a pillar of light. My body felt formless, shapeless, like the air itself, as a strong force pulled me upwards higher and higher.

  I could see the entire realm of Hell below me, slowly building up from the Bowels to the peak of the mountain that I had just departed. I thought about their own smaller conflicts, endlessly occurring on the ground below. I wondered how many of them meant something to the greater scheme of this creation. I wondered if someone felt the same way about my own conflicts.

  The light grew brighter than my eyes could handle. With a blink, the light was gone and I stood solitary inside of a massive city.

  It looked ancient, much like the city created inside of Want’s Cave of Starvation. Short buildings crafted from marble, no taller than a couple stories, created row upon row of streets. They were all empty; they may have never been occupied at all.

  In this distance, I could see a massive palace that you could only find in paintings about antiquity. It was a superstructure of stone carved into beautiful curves and arches. Columns of winged men held up the entryway.

  I felt a magnetism to that entrance. The conclusion of my fighting would be found inside. The throne waited for me to be able to shape the very future with my own hands.

  What that future was, I wished that I had a better idea.

  Notice

  Welcome to the Hall of the Arch Demon (Level 100)

  You have reached the maximum level that can be obtained.

  Congratulations, you are the 924th person to arrive in this realm. You are the 6th to reach Level 100 without dying. You have received a free Signature Ability.

  You have joined the Elites of Hell and have obtained voting rights. Please review the proposed measures, vote according to your wishes, or propose your own. All effects caused by voting will be nullified upon the crowning of the next Arch Demon.

  Quest

  Initiating Main Quest: Keys to the Kingdom (3)

  You have now witnessed everything that Hell has to offer. There is only one frontier left to conquer, a realm that only a select few have ever been able to witness. Now, all that remains is the final march to the throne. Will the crown and scepter be earned through violence, scheming, or compromise? No matter what is chosen, only one may ultimately call themselves the Ruler of Hell. Will it be you?

  “Another Signature Ability, how lucky,” I said with a chuckle. “What should I spend it on?”

  I looked around to make sure I had any time available for my thoughts. In fact, I welcomed the chance to be pressured so soon; it’d be a fine welcoming party.

  There was no red carpet yet rolled out for me. Maybe they weren’t notified that I had arrived yet. Perhaps they were conversing amongst themselves, scheming in the way that those below us schemed. Either way, it was eerily quiet for a place that was meant to be the final battleground. I couldn’t hear or see a single clue of combat.

  The flesh beneath my scales quivered uncomfortably as though it wished to leave this place. It wasn’t a fear response created by some long outgrown survival instinct. Instead, it felt more like the strange feeling you get when you are in a liminal space; when you are in an uncrowded regional airport late at night. Your mind, for some reason or another, fails to reconcile the expectation to the emptiness. Is it the way that the fluorescent bulbs shine down on you? The endless white tile? That’s what I felt here, some sterility that made it feel hostile to a living entity. A pollution of existence.

  I could do some remodeling afterwards. For now, I should decide on my newest Signature Ability. The last one had served me so well that I couldn’t possibly turn down another. I imagined that most, if not everyone, here also had multiple Signature Abilities.

  The question was, what should I do with it this time?

  Last time, I foolishly believed that I needed nothing to add to my fighting style. My run-in with Master proved just how stupid that idea was. I no longer had the delusion that my style was perfect, but now, I couldn’t figure out what I needed to add. It was a matter of not knowing what I don’t know.

  I have my base martial style that I augment with stats. I had abilities that add range to my attacks, abilities that can be used to manipulate the battlefield, and even an ability that will prevent my death for a limited time. Where was the gap?

  No, instead of thinking about what I lacked. I should think about what my enemies will have. What will they all use to try to kill me?

  “Is it possible that this gift is the strongest when I haven’t used it?” I asked myself.

  I could speculate and guess and build, but, until I faced them myself, I wouldn’t know what I needed. There was no rule about building an ability mid-combat. If I ever got cornered, I could tear my way out of it with the perfect ability.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  For now, not knowing what I don’t know, I decided to pocket the Signature Ability until I gained more information about my opponents.

  Before I went wandering around the city in hopes of stumbling across someone to kill, I decided it would be best to do some research on the rules of this realm. From the way the notification described it, it was likely that it didn’t match the rules below.

  What I didn’t expect to find was that there was only one passed rule, a duel for the throne. Anyone could offer a one versus one without any interference from others.

  Outside of that one rule that may or may not be a pre-existing facet of this place, there were no other rules. However, there were hundreds upon hundreds of proposed rules, but not a single one of them passed. Each one was three votes to three, right down the middle.

  This, in itself, told me a lot about the mentality of the Elite Demons. They were engaged in a zero sum game. All rules proposed, even if it benefitted all, likely benefitted one of them more than the others. And, more interestingly, none of them were rejected. There was an endless threat that if something ever didn’t go someone’s way, they could flip their vote and pass or fail it in an instant. It was eternal leverage.

  “No wonder they haven’t gotten anywhere in so long.”

  But, there was one measure that excited me greatly. It was the big red button that could bring this entire place down in one fell swoop.

  Proposed Measure

  Measure to temporary disable resurrection in the Hall of the Arch Demon until the next Arch Demon is crowned.

  Yes: 3

  No: 3

  Would you like to vote of this Measure?

  A cessation of the most integral rule of all of Hell, the endless revival. Here it was, proposed so casually and held on a knife’s edge by a tie; begging for someone to upend it.

  That was something that I was more than willing to do for them. The newest arrival should always offer something valuable to the team.

  Notice

  Vote Passed: Measure to temporarily disable resurrection in the Hall of the Arch Demon until the next Arch Demon is crowned.

  Yes: 4

  No: 3

  As soon as the vote passed, a rumble shook the ground with great vigor. A plume of dust erupted over the horizon as if Mt. Vesuvius just erupted over Pompeii. There was no mistaking the direction or target of the carnage; it was headed directly for me.

  Notice

  The Aspect of Wrath Challenges the Dragon who Heralds the End to a Duel for the Throne.

  “I accept.”

  The city disappeared and I was in an expansive grassland; a savanna that I would see in a nature documentary. Long grass blew in the wind and sparse trees created the lone shade beneath the baking sun.

  Across from me stood a man of rippling muscles the color of a moonless midnight, a pure lack of color. He wore a lion headdress and a loincloth. In his right hand was a large sharpened rock tied to a stick.

  Numerous people with the same color of night stood in a ring around us. Their skin was covered in stars and constellations.

  Wrath looked at me and I saw two burning suns underneath the mouth of the lion. As soon as our eyes met, the figures began to grunt and drum on animal skin instruments. It was a clamor that came from a place long dead, from a people that were not yet the top of the food chain. The drumming sounded like a rapid heartbeat of a man who was running for his life, or, maybe, it was the heartbeat of a man chasing down a kill.

  “I’ve been looking forward to this,” I heard someone say.

  I turned to see a gathering of five people off to the side, near the edge of the ring. The one who spoke, Passion, was dressed in the garb of an ancient warrior. They wore no armor, just a bare-chested man with a red skirt and an axe of bronze in his hand. He grinned through his thick black beard and flexed his oiled, olive skinned muscles with great jubilation.

  The others, similarly, looked like gods of the far past. White robes and gold and jewelry covered their bodies.

  “Follies,” I greeted the five entities that gathered to observe. “I thought you were too busy for things like this.”

  “This is exactly what we had our hands full of, lizard,” Control spat.

  “Don’t be mean, Control,” Nostalgia chided like a kid telling his dad to put on a seatbelt. “He’s more than a lizard now, he’s a dragon.”

  “It’s true though,” Ecstasy said, this time speaking as a beautiful man. “We have been working so hard for what comes after this that it seems foolish not to witness it in person. Besides, we all have a very special connection with the one that opposes you.”

  “That’s right,” Passion said with a huge grin. “Ishmael, you would appreciate this. You are facing this first human that murdered.”

  My eyes widened at the accolade. If this were the biblical world, I was standing face to face with Cain himself; who murdered his brother. To some, he’d be the originator of evil.

  “It’s not who you think it is,” Control said with a sigh. “This is simply the first human who we had stray away from our sibling’s light. It was when we first learned the capacity for your violence and the intense emotions that reside within your hearts.”

  “I made him fall in love,” Passion said proudly.

  “I made him obsessed with her and implanted a feeling in his heart that couldn’t be replaced,” Ecstasy added.

  “I made her remind him of his mother and the past where he was safe,” Nostalgia said with a giggle.

  “I attracted a rival suitor to here to see what he’d do,” Want explained.

  “I made her have feelings for them both,” Passion and Ecstasy said in unison.

  “And I told him that killing his rival was the only way he’d be happy and safe and in control,” Control concluded. “Sometimes, your best works are some of your earliest. We’ve been waiting for you to make your move, Wrath. Though I wasn’t expecting you to take on such a gaudy moniker. Who gave it to you?”

  “RAAAAAAAAH!” Wrath bellowed. It did not have words, but it sounded to me like an order. Be gone. His bellow flattened the grass and the Follies disappeared into the mist and leaving just the two of us.

  “Kill.”

  A shiver ran down my spine. It was just like when I heard Master’s voice for the first time. But this one was somehow even more violent and blood-thirsty. This one was full of countless deaths, of tens of thousands of years of nothing but violence and killing. In the face of an ancient master, I was nothing but a child.

  “Kill.”

  The drums intensified and feral shouting escaped from the lips of the drumming people. They hopped on their feet and shook the world. Though their screams had no coherence, I heard a word all the same.

  “Kill.”

  Wrath hefted his rock club. I could see blood and viscera cover the tip of the pointed rock. This was the murder weapon, the one that killed the first person in cold blood.

  “Kill.”

  I felt exuberance. I felt like I was buzzing. There was so much honesty in his intentions. He stood with his chest out, exposed. He clenched his club in his fist. It was going to be the fight that I loved most.

  He pointed at me with his club and screamed. He screamed, not only to me, but to all his rivals and even the Follies that were undoubtedly still watching.

  “I’LL KILL ALL OF YOU!”