Having traversed countless realms, can you possibly be as clever as me?

They screamed, their lips opening and closing but unable to utter a complete sound; only their hatred-filled will pressed down on them like a physical entity.

These are all sinners, these are all living, breathing sinners!

And each of them is suffering eternal and inescapable torment here!

This is a pain that even the most cruel sinners cannot imagine or dare to think about. They do not know what sinners immersed in hatred have gone through, but just looking at them fills their hearts with fear!

Shirley swallowed hard, then yelled at the others.

"Don't be afraid, it's an illusion, it's just a dream!!!"

"Even in hell, demons have the right to dream."

Tsurugi's soft voice rang in Xia Li's ears. She turned her head sharply, but could not see Tsurugi's figure.

All sinners cannot see him, yet all sinners can hear his voice.

This applies to everyone, from the most ordinary sinner in hell to the lord of hell.

Vox wanted to escape this dream and leave, Camilla held her daughter tightly, while Zaisi looked silently and sadly at the black ocean.

Alastor and Rosie were the only two hell lords who did not enter this dream world.

But none of that matters anymore; this is merely an announcement of a war that has already been decided.

“There are 487,000 sinners atonement here, occupying and filling my entire soul.”

Tsugumi's voice continued to ring in Shirley's ears, but this time, it was completely different.

There was no compassion, no kindness, and no feigned indifference, only a growing, undisguised hatred!

"Even if the word 'hatred' were engraved onto every micrometer of the skin of these hundreds of thousands of sinners, it wouldn't amount to even a fraction of the hatred I feel for you, these sinful yet unaware beings, in this very moment!!!"

"In the short time I've been in the Pride Ring, I feel hatred, loathing, disgust, and revulsion towards you!!!"

Tsurugi's voice was filled with undisguised malice and hatred, piercing the heart and soul; even the Lord of Hell trembled at such hateful words.

"From beginning to end, it is you incurable sinners who have been creating hatred, stretching this disgusting black ocean. It is you, entirely you!"

“If I were you, I think I would die because of this! But I am not, and you sinners, you will not die because of this!”

The vast ocean began to pulsate, and countless sinners screamed as they glimpsed the colossal creature lurking beneath this endless sea of ​​torment and hatred!

The enormous, scorpion-like, black tail writhed in the seawater, and the terrifying claws filled their hearts with fear with just a fleeting glimpse.

Countless wailing sinners erupted in even more terrifying and shrill screams as the colossal creature beneath the sea moved.

“I assure you, I assure you, because I am here, I am at ease, I am forever (I AM).”

The deep, hateful roar grew louder as the colossal creature from the seabed broke through the surface.

A silhouette darker than darkness itself, like a sunken mountain rising upwards. The seawater is pushed up by it, forming a massive bulge, and the whirlpools freeze in that moment, as if time itself is too frightened to move by the rising thing.

Then, every person, every sinner, heard the whispers of hatred.

"Vox! Did your mother know you were a fraud? Did she know how you murdered your colleagues one by one to climb the ladder? It's laughable. You did evil your whole life, and in the end, you were killed by a TV smashing your head open. But even after you died, someone will still cry for you, your mother!"

"Do you know what happened after you died? You were forgotten by the masses in three days, and only your abandoned mother remembered you. But she didn't live a good life. All the evil you committed was punished on her, and she couldn't go to heaven after death. Instead, she passed you by in hell one day and died by the sword of an angel!"

813 >>

“Camilla! Do you remember the last words your husband said before you drove him insane with drugs? Do you remember? When they locked him in that little iron coffin, he was there like a pitiful little animal, saying to you, ‘I didn’t make too much noise, did I, darling!’”

“That coffin was truly cold and hard, made of steel, like Camilla. There were no windows, and no way to leave. How long did he stay in that coffin? Do you remember? Ten years? Twenty-five years? Or your four hundred and twenty-six years in this paradise for sinners!”

"Zai Sixiu! Or should I call you Cain?"

"How did it feel to kill your brother? Cain, you stoned him to death out of jealousy! Tell me what you were thinking? Looking at your brother's corpse, did you find it as delicious as his sacrificial flesh? Hahahaha, Abel is already in heaven with his father, and you! Cain, perhaps you should be with your mother!"

The creatures underwater mocked these self-proclaimed lords with unbridled arrogance.

He saw through their hatred, saw through their souls, saw the consequences of their sins, and the hatred that those consequences created—all of this was no secret to him.

For the first time in hundreds of years, the lords of hell felt a bone-chilling cold and fear.

They were as if stripped naked, their very being stripped of their sinnerhood, forced to confront their most wretched past and most painful memories as the insignificant, weak humans they once were.

Vox watched his mother die penniless in the alley, only to fall into hell and then die by the sword of an angel. He wanted to feign indifference and mock her as always, but the constantly changing images on the screen showed that he couldn't remain calm.

The lord, who always appeared indifferent to everything except power, watched his mother die tragically beside him, completely unaware of his fate. All that remained on the television screen was endless static.

Camilla watched, her face deathly pale, as the man who had once been her husband was viciously framed and tortured by her. She dared not look at her daughters; the lord, who always spoke of her love for her family, was now utterly speechless.

Zai Sixiu... He could only remain silent. This former Cain, the first sinner to commit murder, simply watched all of this in silence.

All sinners have a vulnerable side to their souls, and no matter how arrogant they may be after death, they cannot hide the flaws in the corners of their souls.

Not only the lords, but almost all the sinners heard their own sins and the ridicule and disgust directed at them.

And under these soul-piercing words of hatred, many sinners with weak wills screamed and jumped into the dark ocean.

They fell into it, signed a pact, and their souls were consumed by the waters of hatred that tormented them.

"So go to hell, all of you go to hell! But you were already here all along."

It emerged from the fissure, five fingers spread out like five snakes emerging from the abyss. The nails were black—no, not nails—but flesh and blood exposed after the nails had fallen off, flesh and blood tormented for countless centuries, that grayish-white keratin that did not belong to any living being. The skin clung tightly to the bones, every tendon clearly visible, as if the skin had been peeled off alive.

Her fingers curled, gripping the edge of the stone tablet. The seabed seemed to groan within that grasp. Shirley saw the chains—those taut chains hanging from the cracks—snap off in an instant.

The iron rings shot out in all directions like beads from a broken string, crashing into the mud and sand, into the rocks, making dull, heavy impacts. Some chains disappeared directly into the darkness, as if crushed in the palm of that hand.

Finally, he rose from the sea.

His body stood there like a black tower, his head terrifying and hideous, a mixture of bone and flesh, with countless vertebrae trembling and extending like tentacles at the back of his head. His voice became a mixed echo of countless people in despair, like a chorus from the deepest depths of hell.

Only Shirley saw his true face, because the other sinners were immersed in their own sins and suffering.

"What do you think you'll find?" Tsurue's voice surrounded her from all sides. "Courage? Hope?"

“I will uproot it from your body,” he said, each word like a curse branded into Shirley’s soul.

"What are you?!" Shirley stared at the terrifying monster before her, her voice hoarse.

"I am the Lord of Universal Love." Tsugumi smiled before her, radiating holy light.

"I am the King of Hatred." A terrifying, dark, and indescribable force mocked with revulsion.

"We are sinners, yet we are not sinners; we are demons, yet we are not demons; we are saints, yet we are more than just saints!"

“I come from your sins and hatred. I will atone for you. I will torment each and every one of you for ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years, ten thousand years, a hundred million years!”

813>>>>

“Strip off every inch of your skin, cut away every piece of your flesh, and rub coarse salt on your wounds!”

“You will feel pain infinitely, for infinite time, until every drop of hatred born of your sins dries up.”

"I am so compassionate that even you damned sinners can find a chance to go to heaven through me," Tsurugi said mercifully.

"Use endless years to redeem the mistakes you made in your lives, and everyone will have a second chance."

"Hatred!" "Compassion!"

"Pain!" "Hope!"

"You will suffer for a long time in my realm of hatred!" "You will find your chance for redemption here!!!"

Shirley was driven almost mad by the countless opposing and overlapping words. She knelt on one knee on the sand, feeling her soul being pulled and torn apart inch by inch by that hateful force.

She saw countless sinners who believed in Dongjiang pleading with their Lord, but Dongjiang cruelly and coldly told them—this is the path to redemption.

You have made mistakes in your life, and you must repay those mistakes a million times over after you die!

All this suffering ended with the arrival of a song.

"O soul wandering in the darkness, do you still remember the taste of freedom?"

The song rose from the chests of every sinner, seeping from the cracks in their hearts clenched with fear, like an invisible thread slowly pulling them back from the brink of drowning.

"Didn't anyone tell you that living means indulging yourself? Didn't anyone tell you that tears shouldn't be shed for others?"

Shirley jerked her head up. She remembered the song—deep, languid, like a cat stretching its limbs in the afternoon sun. It wasn't the restless song of an angel or the indulgent song of a devil.

"Your freedom, your desires, every night you strayed—they are not sins. They are evidence. Proof that you are alive. Proof that you are still breathing. Proof that this world has never been qualified to judge you."

The singing grew closer and closer. It didn't come from just one direction, but from every direction simultaneously, as if the entire sky of the Pride Ring had been stitched together by this sound.

An invisible magic spread with the song, and black waters of hatred rippled outwards amidst screams, revealing the pale, huddled souls of sinners who had been submerged for who knows how long. Their eyes opened.

"No need to kneel, no need to repent, no need to nail yourself to the cross. The only person you owe is yourself."

One foot stepped onto the black sea.

It wasn't walking—it was standing. Beneath that foot, the black seawater receded as if scalded, revealing a ring of dry, clean ground untouched by hatred.

It was a woman with a face similar to Shirley's, but without the clown-like makeup. She had long golden hair, deep red horns, and wore a black crown.

Her long hair swayed in the still air. Her skin was so white it was almost translucent, and the dark red mole below her collarbone looked like a drop of congealed blood in the black and white world.

She walked slowly in, dressed in a deep red evening gown, like a singer performing in a grand theater, her voice sung as she sang.

Upon seeing her, Shirley's expression shifted from surprise to delight, followed by a look of grievance.

"Mom!" Shirley called out, her voice choked with sobs.

Lilith, Queen of Hell

814

533. Awakening from a Dream and War

After falling into the abyss together, Lucifer and Lilith jointly governed Hell. However, compared to Lucifer, who devoted most of his work to the demon world, Lilith was the true ruler and queen of the Pride Ring.

This is generally acknowledged; Lilith's exalted status stems from many sources, but the most crucial of these is the 'song' she bestows upon sinners.

The sinners' power comes from Lilith's songs; without them, they cannot wield the almost magical hellish powers. Although the sinners no longer need to rely on Lilith after she bestowed her voice, their awe of the Queen of Hell remains.

Compared to the lazy Lucifer and the clueless Shirley who never demonstrated her authority, Lilith was the sinner's true recognized leader and ruler.

Even seven years ago, Lilith held a supreme position of dominance in the Ring of Pride, and at that time she even rallied all the Lords of Hell to propose an attack on Heaven!

However, after making that suggestion, Lilith suddenly disappeared.

No one knows where she went or what happened to her, but it was Lilith's departure that made Shirley determined to start her own business.

At this moment, in this illusion that forcibly drags all the sinners of the Pride Ring into a terrifying and torturous realm of hatred, the Queen of Hell returns like a savior.

Dongjiang tilted her head slightly; it seemed that Lucifer had called her over.