...A Sultan
A man like him.
Or... was like him.
His dead eyes stared at the sky.
His mouth was open, frozen mid-word.
Mid-command? Mid-prayer? Mid-scream?
It didn’t matter; he was gone.
Malik kept standing there, staring.
He understood what happened.
This, before him, was...
It was another who tried...
Soone who had failed.
"...Mm."
A hum.
Barely a sound.
He was acknowledging him.
A mont after, his eyes returned to the realm.
If there was no Path ahead, he’d make one.
***
{Outside The Projection}
Many gasps were heard, echoing in the hall.
Most of them were loud and collective.
...They couldn’t believe it.
"...Wait."
"Wait. What... was that really...?"
"No way..."
They saw it right.
There, on the ground.
A human body, one that didn’t burn.
A Sultan like theirs, only dead.
It made them realize a new, obvious truth.
One that snapped through the entire world.
"...He... He wasn’t the first..."
Huda breathed.
"Another... soone else ca here before..."
Layla followed, grabbing Safira’s arm for support:
"They tried, just like him. They tried..."
Safira wobbled, not doing much better.
"He wasn’t the first to think of it... Soone else... another Sultan..."
Duban, standing behind her, was much the sa.
"...Then... then it wasn’t truly impossible. It wasn’t a Path of failure."
Roya, of all people, followed their words, seemingly more shocked than anyone:
"Soone else... tried to save us the sa way... I... I never knew."
Huda wiped her tears, looking between the projection and her own hands.
"...How many tis...? How many tis did they try... without us even knowing? Did my..."
She let out a trembling sigh.
"Did my uncle try too? Is that why he was Corrupted?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
A heavy silence was the only reply she received.
For a mont... the crowd wasn’t scared anymore.
It wasn’t just Hell anymore.
It was history.
Their history.
A story no one ever told them.
A story of Sultans that was only passed down to other Sultans.
Cyrus’s apology at the end of his life held a lot more aning now.
He wasn’t only apologizing for the punishnt he bestowed upon Malik, but also...
This.
Sultans who were mighty enough to go through what he did... Fell here.
They Fell on the edge of damnation, going after what he now did.
"Then..."
Zafar looked down and muttered:
"Just how many more Sultans are down there?"
The hall’s eyes shifted, returning to uncomfortable nervousness.
Just what in the Seven Hells was Malik going to face next?
***
{Inside The Projection}
Yeah. Malik wasn’t the only one.
Not the only fool crazy enough to drag himself all the way down here.
In the re minutes he’d spent stepping around Hell’s First Gate, he felt them.
Right, everywhere his eyes swept, he felt echoes and remnants.
Leftovers of Sultans and Mithqals of titles unknown.
Every one of them had figured out their own stupid way to get here.
Each was likely more complicated than the last.
So must’ve bargained with God, so probably devoured their way here, others... who knows. Perhaps blew up half of Fam Iblis in sacrifice, which would explain a few points in history. Maybe they tried to comprehend their Laws, or trade their souls for the dead, or just walked in because nobody was watching the doors that day.
Malik didn’t care for the ’how.’
He never believed himself to be the only special one around.
He was here now, and he had one job.
Get down.
Which was easier said than done.
Yeah, the place looked like a burning nightmare drawn by a schizophrenic, but that wasn’t the problem.
The problem was... how the Hell does one go deeper into Hell?
In all of Malik’s scanning, he found nothing but flas and suffering.
He needed to find a clue; every corpse he checked was useless.
His eyes trailed back to a dead Sultan nearby.
This one was too.
Malik already stripped it for information and found nothing.
So he walked...
Past mountains made of teeth
Through rivers of bright liquid fire.
Around pits that scread at him to jump.
Until...
There.
In the middle of a flat plain.
Exactly what he was looking for.
Another body, this one slumped against a boulder.
His robes were half-burnt, gold threads dangling, jewelry shattered into dust at his feet.
Malik paced over and looked down.
The man’s face was... weirdly peaceful.
But what caught Malik’s eye wasn’t him.
It was the thing next to him.
A scroll.
One wrapped in chains.
Sealed with wax so lted it was barely holding.
Malik crouched, snapped the chain with two fingers, and opened it.
{Welco, fellow Sultans... I’m Maruf.}
It was a final will, a ssage to those who ca next.
{We’re in a realm where even Angels fear to tread. I don’t know about you, but... I don’t get why I ca here. Madness, probably.}
A desperate one.
{My people... they don’t deserve . I thought... if I reached Jahannam...}
The guy scrawled everything as if he were trying to make himself morable.
{I could do sothing extraordinary. Reach the Seventh Gate, end what my predecessors constantly delayed, what they were too afraid to face. Achieve what no one ever achieved and go back to the Fam Iblis... Make them kneel to their savior. .}
The writing turned solemn.
{I was wrong.}
Even more than earlier.
{I’ve been here... I don’t know. Centuries? A few millennia? Ti’s broken. The fire never stops, the screams never stop, and neither does my suffering. This... this is beyond anything I expected. I’m the only one remaining. All of them died. All of them. The expedition was a complete and utter failure. I tried... I tried to get out. But this is Hell. There is no ’out.’}
Malik’s eyes flicked past the rambling and despair.
He skimd until—
{But...
I finally understood... how to descend.
How to go down to the Second Gate, Al-Laza.}
He slowed down his reading.
{It wasn’t a pit or a gate or anything the mind can comprehend.}
His eyebrows raised slightly.
{It’s bowing.}
He blinked.
{Prostration.}
He blinked again.
{Submission.}
He blinked a third ti.
{You must kneel. Lower your head into the cursed earth. Not to ’Him,’ the owner of this Divine Kingdom, this Bassorāh... but as soone who accepts this tornt, its fire. Soone who embraces it. Only then... only then will the fire swallow you whole and drag you deeper.}
Malik stared at those lines for a long ti.
He didn’t say or do anything until he suddenly... nodded.
Acting like it made perfect sense.
Because yeah.
Of course Hell would work like that.
The final scribbles on the scroll were shaky.
{I... I am too weak now. I don’t think I can make it. If anyone actually finds this... good luck. May you be stronger than . May your expedition find success.}
Malik, a one man expidition, rolled the scroll up and laced it back beside the man.
Then... quietly, carefully... straightened the guy’s body.
He folded his hands over his chest, adjusted the torn robe, and brushed soot off his face.
"...Thank you."
That whisper was chanical, but hey, he ant it.
After a mont, Malik stood and faced the cursed ground.
If this were simply a lesson of humility...
’It could never faze .’
Slowly, he lowered himself.
His knees touched the burning stone.
His hands pressed to the cracks.
His head... lowered.
Forehead to the ground.
The flas trembled, the earth cracked, and the screams paused.
Right beneath him, the fire opened, and then...
It swallowed him whole.
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