Chapter 3
Title: My punishment
"With out despair there can be no hope"-unkown
I walked through Gate 98 alone.
Fueled by divine power, rage, and guilt.
The terrain was just as brutal as before—blistering heat, scorched rock, red skies that bled into the horizon. I moved with precision, cutting through demons like they were made of paper. My blade sang with every swing, my body sharper, faster, stronger than ever.
I wasn't trying to sneak. I wanted them to hear me coming.
I wanted them to know death had come for them.
And then—I found her.
Bella was chained up in a room, arms limp, her body bruised but breathing. They hadn't broken her spirit. When she saw me, her eyes lit up.
I cut her chains to free her.
She collapsed into my arms, and I held her tighter than I ever had before.
We didn't speak, just moved.
I guided her back to the Gate. Every step forward was a step away from the nightmare. When we reached the gate I stopped, confused she grabbed my arm.
"Come with me," she pleaded. Her voice was hoarse, raw. "Please… you don't need to go back."
"I saw the core on the way in, I'm just gonna destroy it and run out. I'll be quick I promise."
At least, that's what I told her.
The truth?
I saw him.
The one who slaughtered my mother. The bastard who stood over her corpse like she was nothing. The one who tore her limb from limb, and violated her.
Even after ten years, the rage hadn't dulled. If anything, it burned hotter.
I shrugged off Bella's hand. She cried out, tried to hold me back—but I pushed her through the Gate and she vanished before she could stop me.
Then I began.
I tore through every guard, and every demon in my path, making as much noise as possible.
I wanted him to find me.
But it wasn't him who answered my call.
It was something worse.
The same being I'd seen before. The one who towered over me like a mountain made of shadow and blood.
Before I could react, my world turned black.
An attack so fast I didn't even know it hit me until I woke up.
⸻
I woke up in chains.
A dungeon carved from obsidian. The air stank of rot and blood. My wrists were bound to a stone pillar with thick manasteel cuffs that drained my strength.
The Demon who threw the spear walked into my cell. Above his head 'Atrox The Merciless (SS)'
The first few days, he didn't speak.
He just started… Torturing me.
Pain in ways I never imagined. Burned, skinned, electrocuted. Potions poured down my throat just before the edge of death, reviving me just enough to start again day after day.
And one day, he slipped.
He went too far.
killing me.
And twelve hours later, I came back.
The first time I had died, and I didn't even get to think about it.
He was… delighted.
His smile stretched from ear to ear. From that day forward, death became part of the routine. Each day: torture. Potion. More torture. Death.
Then revival.
At first, it broke me.
I started to believe that Bella was no longer coming to save me.
Then it numbed me.
Then I went insane, and started to enjoy it.
I would laugh as if he was tickling me.
And that lasted for years.
years of pain, screams, silence, and hate.
Eventually, he stopped pretending to care about keeping me alive. I'd wake up with him already standing there, tools in hand. His smile—unhinged.
Then one day, something changed.
In broken Lukeain, he said:
"Today is day we go up. Me no get to play. Wait for me, toy. I come back soon."
Then he laughed and walked away.
I understood what that meant.
The gate opens today.
And I—we—were going to lose.
I cried.
For my people.
For Bella.
For the hope that I failed to protect.
⸻
He returned later. Angrier than usual, for whatever reason I didn't know.
more years passed.
10 years total.
10 years of endless death.
Until mid-torture, the door to my cell exploded.
A figure stepped through the smoke and flame.
He was my size, wearing a black suit. Black hair. Black wings. A halo of dark flame burned above his head. And eyes—glowing red.
My torturer turned towards him and kneeled.
I just hung there, chained and broken, barely able to breathe.
And as if the insanity festering inside me took over I laughed hysterically.
Because if that monster kneeled, who the hell was this? No name appeared above his head.
The figure turned toward me.
"I am Raphelos," he said. "King of Hell. This here is Atrox the Merciless, my right hand. Tell me, what is your name Guardian… why can't you die?"
I muttered, through blood and broken teeth:
"Go fuck yourself."
He laughed. A deep, thunderous laugh.
"I like this one, Atrox. Good pick. But… unfortunately, we can't keep him."
He stepped forward, slow and casual.
"You're a problem, you see. A very inconvenient one. So I've arranged a little gift. A special box, just for you. My dear Atrox came up with the idea—runes that constantly drain your mana so you can't escape. Or at least that's what he claims."
He smirked.
"Though, personally, I don't think you could scratch the inside if you tried. That prison? I made it myself. It'll hold you until the end of time. Then we're gonna drop you and this box somewhere in the middle dimension where no one will ever find you again."
He turned to leave.
"Any last words?"
I spat blood on the floor.
He shrugged.
"Didn't think so. Goodbye, bug."
Then Atrox stepped forward and crushed my skull with one hand.
⸻
I woke up in the dark.
Metal walls. No sound. No pain.
Just silence.
When I sat up, a dim yellow light flickered on above me, and a screen to my right buzzed to life. I stood and immediately tried punching the wall. It didn't even leave a scratch.
So I did what came naturally. I infused every last drop of mana I had into my fist—wrapping it in raw, burning energy—and struck again. The wall gave slightly, just a shallow dent the size of a pebble. That was it.
That's when I realized the colossal mistake I'd made.
When a Guardian hits zero mana, the body doesn't just falter—it collapses under the weight of an invisible tide. It's like drowning in dry air. A wave of exhaustion hit me, and I dropped to the cold floor. That's when it all clicked.
Atrox had planned this.
The floor was inscribed with runes, subtle but unmistakable, draining one mana point from me every second. With nothing left in my system to replenish it, the drain triggered the same suffocating reaction each time. I was being slowly strangled by the very essence that kept me alive.
I lay there gasping for breath, my chest heaving as if someone was kneeling on it. "That fucking bastard," I muttered, the words scraping out of my throat like sandpaper. "He made sure I'd keep getting my daily torture even after he was long gone."
I lasted four minutes the first time—gasping, clawing at the floor, trying to pull in mana from the outside. But the cube was sealed tight. No ley lines. No natural flows. No gaps to channel mana from. Just smooth, suffocating isolation.
So I died.
When I woke up?
Same flickering light. Same screen. Same countdown.
With only 170 mana to my name, I had barely three minutes and change before the drain suffocated me again. That became my clock. My twisted metronome.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Die.
And I did. Over. And over. And over.
In those short windows of consciousness, my thoughts began to unravel. What was I being punished for? Why me? What had I done to deserve this?
I spiraled—blaming my parents for birthing me, blaming myself for being too weak, blaming the Goddess for the curse of immortality.
And then, one day—I snapped.
Instead of spending my minutes searching for an escape or conserving mana, I started dancing. Laughing. Screaming. I'd whirl in circles, arms flailing like a lunatic. Then, with about thirty seconds left, I'd reinforce my legs with mana, sprint to the far end of the cube, and crash headfirst into the opposite wall.
Crushed my skull. Instant death.
I did that twice a day for fifty years.
That's 36,524 times I danced like a madman, then shattered my own brain. Why? Because deep down, I still had hope—some naive part of me believed that Sarien would need me. That someone would come looking.
No one ever did.
And eventually, it hit me.
Bella.
She didn't come.
After everything—I saved her, risked everything for her—and she didn't even try to find me. The woman I once fully trusted with my life, someone I saw as a sister, my own family she left me here to rot.
Stranded. Forgotten. Tortured.
The next time I woke up, I didn't scream or dance or bash my head. I just laid there and curled up into a bawl while crying. When the last sliver of mana left my body and the air vanished from my lungs, I closed my eyes and wished it would finally be the last time.
And at that moment I heard something.
A soft, almost imperceptible clink, like metal shifting.
When I woke up again, I crawled over and examined the spot. One of the countless impacts—headbutts, punches, or sheer brute strikes—had finally made a difference. There was a small bend in the metal paneling. A crack.
Microscopic. Barely visible. But there.
I screamed. Joy, rage, something—I don't even know. I immediately started pulling mana through the crack. It was like trying to suck a grape through a coffee straw—damn near impossible. I could only draw in about 0.5 mana per second, while still losing 1 mana per second due to the floor's runes.
Still, that small gap added three more minutes to my survival time.
Three minutes was something.
If I could just increase my Mana Control skill… maybe I could draw more in. Maybe circulate it more efficiently. Maybe hold on a little longer.
Then I could start forming a real plan to get out.
⸻
Skills Window
Basic Skills
Innocence (F) The king (A) Swordsmanship (A) Mana Control (D) Charisma (F) Crafting (B) Longsword Mastery (A) Mana Manipulation (F) Healing (C)
Unique Skills
Immortality (EX) Oversight View (EX) Haggle (SS) Misfortune (D)
⸻
Looking through my skills, a few things jumped out. My Mana Control was only at Rank D. If I could raise it—even to A, no, S—I might actually stand a chance of escaping.
My inventory was locked and I couldn't use my stat points.
I figured it must've been the king of Hell's doing, he was probably the only one who had enough power to do something like this.
I spent every waking moment learning to feel mana in ways I never had. Sensing its vibration. Its weight. Its movement.
A few years passed. Nothing.
I stayed stuck at six minutes of life per cycle.
I nearly gave up again. Considered going back to smashing my skull into the wall just to make the crack bigger.
*DING*
⸻
##Congratulations!##
Mana Control skill has leveled up to Rank (C)! You now have a better understanding of mana and can see mana particles in the air with focus!
⸻
It was the push I needed.
I kept going—pulling mana in through the crack, watching it form an orb in my lower abdomen, watching it thread through my veins.
Death. Mana. Death. Mana.
It felt like eternity in this loop.
*DING*
⸻
##Congratulations!##
Mana Control has increased to Rank (B)! You can now identify and separate different types of mana elements.
⸻
The streams shifted—no longer just blue particles. Now I saw colors: red, yellow, green, purple, and blue.
I started experimenting. Drawing in only one color at a time.
Purple resonated with me the most—it flowed smoother, entered faster, and replenished me better than the rest.
So I focused on it.
Every day. Every cycle. For two hundred years.
Until finally, I reached Rank (SSS) in mana control.
And the truth of mana became clear.
If you can maintain a mana circle around your heart, with a constant flow to and from the orb in your core, you don't need to pump stat points into INT. You can grow your capacity organically. Although my stat points didn't rise I felt myself getting stronger the more mana I had in my body.
I couldn't form a blue circle. My affinity was garbage. Same with yellow.
I had better luck with green but only managed to form a weak circle.
But red and purple?
They flowed like blood through my veins. Natural. Powerful.
I crafted twenty-seven purple mana circles around my heart. One faint green, and four red. Each circle increased my mana threshold by 1,000.
I didn't even notice it at first, but the mana had begun altering my body. My eyes turned deep violet, surrounded by a smokey black aura.
My mana capacity had hit 32,000.
Unthinkable. Divine.
Now, all I needed to stay alive was a few minutes of meditation. I could draw in 50 mana per second and was only losing 0.1 per minute.
From despair, I was born anew.
❧