The blue screen remained floating in front of Liam. However, this time it didn't disappear like before.
New words suddenly formed
(Do you wish to use your upgrade points at this moment? Yes or No)
The words glowed intensely.
"What kind of joke is this?" Liam murmured, running a hand over his face.
He extended his finger toward where it said "Yes," but as before, his hand simply passed through the screen without resistance.
Frustrated, he punched the air in front of him.
"Damn it!" he shouted, his voice echoing across the desolate landscape.
He stood still, thoughtful. If touching it didn't work… he remembered how the screen had appeared the first time, after killing the wolf. Maybe…
"Yes," he said in a low, clear voice.
Instantly, the screen changed, showing his stats again, but now with a new message at the top
(Which of your stats do you wish to improve?)
Liam looked at the options. Strength, Endurance, Speed, Agility.
All seemed equally useful in this place.
"Strength," he declared after a moment of consideration.
The screen updated again.
(Do you wish to use your 3 upgrade points on Strength?)
"Yes," Liam replied, still with some skepticism in his voice.
The moment he spoke, the number next to Strength changed from 4 to 7.
A strange sensation ran through him, like an electric current passing through his veins. His muscles tensed and then relaxed, feeling… different.
Denser.
More powerful.
The screen disappeared, but the sensation remained.
Curious, he walked toward a nearby rock that he would have previously considered too heavy to lift.
However, after crouching and placing his hands under its uneven surface…
he lifted it.
Not only did he lift it, but he did so with some ease, as if he were lifting less than 30 pounds.
"Holy shit" he whispered, dropping the rock, which made a loud crash as it hit the ground.
For the first time since his arrival in hell, a genuine smile appeared on his lips.
He had finally found a way to survive in this damn place
Killing the beasts somehow gave him the possibility to increase his strength.
The following…
he didn't know if they were days, weeks, or months, he only dedicated himself to hunting.
He started with the hell wolves
Now familiar with their attack patterns and supported by his increased strength, he could easily send them flying into the lava with a single well-placed blow.
Soon he discovered that different creatures gave different amounts of what the screen called experience or xp.
The wolves gave 50 xp, but some scorpion-like creatures he found in a rocky area gave 75, and some scavenger birds that attacked from the sky gave barely 30.
Each time he leveled up, he received 3 upgrade points.
Which he distributed as evenly as possible, this caused all his abilities to increase steadily without leaving one much weaker than the others.
This allowed a huge overall increase in his capabilities.
Upon reaching level 5, he noticed he needed more and more experience to reach the next level.
At level 10, the curve became even steeper.
But by then, his physical stats were all above 15, making him stronger, faster, and tougher than any human who had ever existed.
He could jump ten meters into the air, run at speeds that would make an Olympic athlete look like a small child, and lift rocks weighing around half a ton.
The beasts that once terrified him were now easy prey.
This new strength allowed him to explore beyond the valleys and plateaus where he had always reappeared.
He discovered that hell was vast beyond all comprehension.
He found forests of twisted trees whose leaves bled when touched, crystal deserts that cut your feet with every step, and mountains so tall their peaks were lost in the crimson mist.
Time passed differently for him now.
What would have been years for a normal human, for him felt like weeks.
His mind also processed information faster, allowing him to react in a superhuman way.
When he reached level 15, the blue screen as usual appeared again, notifying him of this fact.
He received his usual 3 upgrade points, but something was different.
Where it once said (Species: Tormented soul)
now it said
(Species: Tormented soul) "Ascension candidate."
"Ascension candidate?" he read aloud.
"Ascension to what?"
He tried asking the screen, but got no response.
The mysterious phrase stayed engraved in his mind.
-----------
Nevertheless, time kept passing.
It was during one of his hunting expeditions in his so-called "bleeding forest" that he heard familiar screams.
Not from beasts, but humans.
Following the sound, he found a middle aged man. Running desperately while three hell wolves chased him.
The scene was so similar to his early experiences that Liam almost felt nostalgic.
Without thinking twice, he stepped between the man and the wolves.
"Stay back," Liam said with an authoritative voice.
The wolves sniffed the air, recognizing in Liam a superior predator. They hesitated for a moment, but in the end, they attacked.
A mistake.
Liam dispatched them in seconds, his movements so fluid and precise that he barely seemed to exert himself.
A precise blow here, a well placed kick there, and the three wolves lay dead.
He turned toward the man, who had fallen to the ground, trembling uncontrollably.
"You're safe now," Liam said, approaching slowly.
In all his years, perhaps centuries in hell, this was the first time he saw another person conscious and relatively intact.
The other times had been fleeting visions of souls being tortured, corpses, or people about to die.
"Please, don't hurt me," the man stammered, crawling backward.
"I won't hurt you," Liam assured him. "I just want to talk. It's been… a long time since I've spoken to someone."
But the man seemed unable to process his words.
His eyes were glassy, fixed on Liam with terror.
"Don't burn me!" the man stuttered, stumbling as he tried to stand up hysterically.
"Burn you? Relax, I won't do anything to you."
The man shook his head frantically. "NO, NO, NO," he babbled.
Liam couldn't understand anything that was happening.
"Calm down," was all Liam could think to say.
But the man, ignoring his words, finally managed to stand and ran off.
Liam could have stopped him easily, but he didn't want to scare him more.
Instead, he watched him run… straight toward a cliff he hadn't seen in his panic.
"Wait! There's a…" Liam began to shout, but it was too late.
The man fell off the cliff with a scream that faded into silence.
Liam stood frozen, staring at the void where the man had disappeared.
Why had he reacted like that?
More questions erupted in his head, some he had been thinking about for a long time.
Questions like
"If this was hell, there should be millions, billions of souls.
Why did I almost never see other a person who is not dying?"
Liam had thought it was due to the practically infinite space combined with the fact that most die within minutes.
And wake up in a completely different place.
However…
"This place in theory should house all the sinners in history."
"I feel like I should have been able to talk to a lot of people. Over all these years."
But it was the opposite; besides, he didn't understand why just when he met someone, he seemed to go mad the moment he spoke to he.
It was in that instant
that his thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a voice that resonated in his ears.
"He simply wasn't at a level where he could perceive you."
Liam spun on his heels, instinctively adopting a defensive stance.
What he saw made him fall to his knees.
It wasn't a beast, it wasn't a demon, it wasn't anything he could describe with words.
It was like trying to look directly at the sun.
But…
Much worse.
His mind struggled to process what he was seeing, rebelling against the impossibility of it.
It was light and darkness, form and void, past and future, all simultaneously.
Instinctively, he lowered his gaze, unable to bear the direct vision.
His body trembled uncontrollably, not from fear, but from the overwhelming presence of what stood before him.
Every cell of his being screamed that he was in the presence of something that transcended not only his understanding, but reality itself.
"W-what are you?" he managed to stammer, his words barely a whisper.
The answer came again directly into his mind, soft but infinitely powerful.
"That doesn't matter now, Candidate. What matters is that you are ready to attempt ascension."