Angels seldom leave Heaven.
Who would really want to leave a place that is perfect in every way?
At the sa ti, ordinary angels also can’t leave Heaven; they lack the power to open the gates between Heaven and the outside world.
But for an Archangel like Schiller, who was directly created by God’s spirit, leaving Heaven was not a difficult task.
Since an era that even the Golden Age had not witnessed, the Archangel Maisy had left God’s dream to go to the Mortal World.
And rely going to the Mortal World had caused this purely good Archangel to suffer greatly, filling his soul with scars.
If the Mortal World was like this, the Archangels were even more reluctant to ntion Hell, where the fallen and sinners gathered.
Yet Schiller yearned to see Hell for himself.
Thus, his figure arrived into Hell, his wings divine and pure white, which stood in stark contrast with the barren land beneath his feet.
That first layer of Hell, with its dim surroundings, offered no infinite skies but rather a canopy of red and black, resembling a vast, frightening cavern, nearly limitless in its expanse.
It was as if this was a land of eternal gloom.
Surrounding him were sand and stone; the ground he stood upon was utterly lifeless.
The chilly and silent wind swept through this desolate place where tortured souls wandered the wilderness in penitence, sighing incessantly in the darkness, assaulted by the harsh wind as they endured their punishnt.
The color of the earth was like darkened blood.
The souls lingering here bore lighter sins; they were also the closest to Heaven of all those in the nine layers of Hell.
As Schiller walked through Hell, he heard nothing but the sighs of souls, regretting the sins they had committed.
The Archangel surveyed this land, witnessing countless dim and ghostly figures of varying age, status, wealth, and race, all gathered on this barren ground, sighing over their past mistakes.
Schiller continued to walk on Hell’s ground.
The wraith-like souls surged towards him, looking up to the Archangel. So knelt, pleading for him to reduce their punishnt, willing to pay any price.
"There is no shortcut on this road,"
Schiller spoke thus.
The souls were greatly disappointed, and so even began to curse the Angel, berating and humiliating him.
"He is God’s own kin, yet he has not a shred of compassion!"
"I once thought angels were all holy!"
"You were only born in Heaven; had you been born in the Mortal World, you would surely have descended to Hell!"
People crowded around Schiller, for sotis when they cannot possess sothing, they seek to tarnish it, even destroy it.
The Archangel took these words to heart, and his fingers trembled gently.
Schiller gazed at this group of souls; though they were the closest to Heaven from Hell, their faces were so despicable, filled with malevolent glares when looking around.
Although there were always so in the crowd who understood and supported him, an insult was still an insult, hurt was still hurt.
Schiller spread his wings and soared into midair, looking down upon the souls as if they were re ants.
The cold wind ca from all directions, ravaging the barren land, while the souls suffered the wind’s tornt, wailing incessantly, and one by one bowed their heads, continuing their repentance for their faults.
"Do you only know to repent when punished?
Is this your endless, year after year routine?"
Schiller looked coldly at these mortals; had others witnessed this karmic scene, they would feel satisfaction, but there was never such feeling in the Angel’s heart.
The Archangel proceeded to the next layer of Hell.
This terrain was even lower than before; impassable cliffs separated the two layers of Hell, preventing souls from crossing.
In Hell, the greater the sin, the deeper the fall.
Not long after, Schiller saw scorching lava, and columns of steam rising, with heatwaves sweeping all around.
Solidified basalt and burning lava; the souls here were ravaged by the hot wind, having no leisure to care for anything else, thus few noticed Schiller’s arrival.
Half-man, half-serpent Schiller looked around; there was not much of interest in this layer of Hell.
So, Schiller swept past this place, heading directly to the next layer of Hell.
The next layer was a land of spikes where souls were dragged by galloping horses, constantly tortured by the spikes, reliving their sins through blood and pain; there were thousands of horses, tens of thousands of chains.
Schiller casually stopped a strong horse, grabbing the soul and questioning,
"What sin did you commit?"
The man, seeing the arrival of the Archangel, was both shocked and frightened, and tears stread down his face.
After a mont, the latter replied with a trembling voice,
"When I was young, out of re curiosity I falsely accused soone of adultery in God’s na, and that person was executed for it."
Schiller paused, then looked at him with anger.
"Just for curiosity, you killed soone? Moreover, in the na of God!"
The man shook violently and wailed,
"I have repented here for over a decade now."
Schiller let go of him, allowing him to remain in Hell and continue to suffer.
Although the Archangel had not suffered as Maisy had, it did not an that his soul was unshaken.
The souls in Hell, they had committed many sins. Despite their repentance, the mistakes had already occurred, which Schiller found sowhat intolerable.
It was like... a perfectionist seeing sothing imperfect.
Schiller continued to move forward; he left the spiked Hell behind and went to the next layer, where he questioned a few souls. Even though their voices were genuinely remorseful, in Schiller’s view, they ought to have been pure and untainted, they should have been flawless from the start rather than wait until after death to repent.
Moving further down, Schiller reached deeper layers, the deeper he went, the more severe the tornt the souls endured, and the more dreadful their sins, terrifying to hear of.
This Netherworld housed all manner of sins.
Inside the fifth layer of Hell, Schiller saw Mira.
The girl was cradling the Primordial Embryo, surrounded by a blazing sea of blue flas that never ceased to burn, their souls being scorched; the land was filled with lantation.
Not long after, the sea of fire began to die down, these Netherworld Flas that scorched the souls would ignite only at intervals.
"These flas... they’re like washing away sins."
Schiller stared at Mira and asked,
"But... can they truly be washed away?"
Mira looked at Schiller with slight confusion,
"Why can’t they be washed away?
Schiller, a person is nothing more than a soul after death."
The Great Angel was silent and wordless. Although the Great Angel was likewise unclear about the aning of death, his thought process was not the sa as Mira’s.
In his eyes, anyone who had erred must suffer the full punishnt in Hell, never to transcend, not even after ten thousand years.
Schiller passed by Mira and made his way into the sixth layer.
Within this layer of Hell, the Great Angel saw Divine beings who were tornted by severe punishnts.
In the sixth layer, there were two Divine entities, one of them a Valkyrie of the Six Gods, who was bound to a massive boulder, where She suffered the agony of a thousand arrows piercing Her heart. The arrows streaked from the void, coming from all directions to pierce Her shell, causing Her to wail endlessly.
Schiller flew into midair, and as he approached, the Valkyrie began to confess her sins regretfully.
She pleaded with the Great Angel, begging Schiller to intercede with Her father on Her behalf.
Schiller watched the once-fierce Valkyrie, now pitiable and miserable, with no compassion in his heart.
He then passed by the Valkyrie and looked at another Divine being undergoing punishnt there—the Secret God.
The Great Angel looked down from above at this Divine being, who in Her pain did not speak but only occasionally let out suppressed groans, appearing more like the fearless Valkyrie She once was.
Schiller ca before Her and asked aloud,
"The Secret God, is it?"
The latter nodded almost imperceptibly.
The Great Angel gazed at Her and asked again,
"I have heard from others that you were the most reclusive among the Gods. Why did you choose to rebel against the Law then?"
The Secret God looked at the Great Angel and did not answer but instead asked,
"Are you here to question on behalf of our father?"
Schiller said coldly,
"I represent only myself."
The Secret God took a deep breath and slowly said,
"I’ve never been dissatisfied with the Law. I was coerced by Them, which led to cause a great disaster.
By the ti I saw the full picture, it was all beyond redemption,
That’s why I’m here instead of fallen in the eighth layer with Dragon God Endora."
Her explanation was so succinct and reasonable.
Schiller, seeing Her calmness amidst suffering, asked again,
"Why are you so calm? You should know, that once Valkyrie pleaded with ."
The Secret God sighed and said,
"Everything must bear consequences.
I’ve just learned to accept it. By doing so, I hope to leave this place sooner."
Her words made so much sense.
Yet Schiller felt like he was punching into cotton.
The Great Angel wished to see the souls here beco self-degraded even amid their punishnts, never repenting so that they would remain in Hell forever, millennia after millennia.
With frustration in his heart, Schiller moved deeper still.
The Great Angel passed the seventh layer and ca directly to the eighth layer of Hell, where the suffering souls were all extrely sinful; even across tens of thousands of years, the souls that fell to such a level were still rare.
Schiller walked down from the mound.
Suddenly, a wail that shook the earth itself echoed in his ears.
"My father, my father, I curse you!"
That was Dragon God Endora, enduring unimaginable agony here, wailing almost madly. Over the desolate wilderness, for thousands of miles, there was no living soul; this place seed like an isolated island.
Mad Hell.
The souls here alternated between madness and clarity, regardless, they had to endure the greatest tornt, which was the nearly endless, soul-piercing suffering. Such pain that couldn’t be expressed or articulated, as if aggregating the pain they had once inflicted on others, directly impacted upon themselves.
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