Summary:
Libby is placed at the center of the arena and begins to understand her real purpose in Hell.
Notes:
Lots of big feelings in this chapter for Libby, so as always, mind the TW's.
This series actually started as a commission for one of the readers that follows another, 'slightly' less depraved series I'm working on. I wrote chapter 1 intending it to be a one and done, but when I received their blessing to expand it with the wild-ass ideas I had, well, that's how we got here. That person is also reading along for the first time along with the rest of you. Hope you're all enjoying the story!
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Ch. 06 - Let the Games Begin
Awareness slowly seeped back into Libby's body.
She cracked open her eyes, and fresh tears welled in the harsh, sudden glare. Voices bled through the haze, steadily rising in volume before crashing over her in a cacophonous deluge.
Her vision started to clear. Countless shapes in her peripheral blurred with movement, but she didn't turn to look at them. She stared up at the saffron sky through bleary eyes, oddly stricken by the realization that there was no sun here. Only those scorched, giant asteroids filled the atmosphere, the string of leviathans slowly tumbling end over end towards the horizon.
A part of her had once dreamed of leaving her solitary cell. Of seeing the sky again. But as she became aware of the cumbersome restraints around her neck and wrists, she knew she would give anything to be back down there once more.
She tried to move her head, but the scarred wooden planks of the stockade held fast and made it impossible to see anything behind her. She was bent over at the waist, the restraints forcing her to remain in a fully presented, ninety-degree angle, her pussy and ass on display for thousands of demons.
She'd been disrobed at some point, and now her legs were spread, her ankles fastened to the platform with heavy manacles to ensure they stayed apart. Despite all she'd been subjected to, she still felt the burn of humiliation blazing through her, recognizing this exposure was deliberate and calculated to break her even further.
"Citizens of Obduros—are you not entertained?" boomed a deep voice she recognized all too well.
A cry went up from every direction, vibrating the very air and thrumming all the way into the marrow of her bones. The acoustics of the sunken arena amplified every sound, and down here in its epicenter, the reverberation was nearly overwhelming.
High along the uppermost tier of the arena, a stone collar wrapped around the circumference of the sunken pit. Dozens of screens were mounted on it, giving anyone in the stadium the ability to see every detail, no matter where they sat. Half of the screens depicted Fenrow's grinning face and glowing eyes. The remainder showed her haunted face before flipping to close-ups of her vulnerable flesh, magnified images that captured every involuntary twitch and flutter.
"Four months." Fenrow let his words echo across the stands. "Four long months you've watched her bend, break, and blossom into something truly extraordinary."
The realization of how long she'd been locked in the darkness hit her at the same time the audience erupted into an uproar of applause.
"And what a magnificent creature she's become. Even the betting pools have reached record numbers, and wagers are still pouring in. You've been placing your bets on the crucial questions. How many rounds can she endure? How many champions will she take? Will she have what it takes to make it to the final trial?"
Libby's eyes scanned the upper level of the pit, searching for the terrace she knew was nested somewhere in its highest rung. She found it almost immediately. It was deep-set into the sheer rock wall just below one of the large screens.
At least fifteen stories above, Fenrow and Galen stood behind the glass partition. She could barely make them out from here, but it hardly mattered when their faces were displayed across every screen. Fenrow occupied the center, a cascade of fine gold necklaces delving into the billowing azure shirt that nearly plunged to his navel. Beside him, Galen leaned against a pillar, his arms loosely crossed over a black leather vest studded with silver accents.
"Clearly you all have opinions about how much she can take. Though judging from your bets, most of you think she'll break well before we even reach the intermission."
Libby could barely process what was happening, could barely think past the surge of fear that accompanied her despair. An intermission. The implications in that single word made her stomach drop. None of the other acts had lasted long enough to need an intermission, which meant whatever they had planned for her was going to be worse than anything she'd survived so far.
"Whether you were spawned here, did something so terrible that you were sent here, or ultimately chose to make Hell your home, Unification Day is the day we put our many differences aside and celebrate sin in all its forms."
A thunderous cheer followed in the wake of his words. After a few moments, he held up a hand to rein in their bloodthirsty enthusiasm.
"Today only comes once every five years, and this year, the honor has fallen to Greed. It's been nearly five decades since we've had the privilege of hosting the Unification Rite in our gilded realm, so naturally, we had to craft something extraordinary. Months of preparation, no expenses spared. All to acquire the finest human offering we could find and put on the greatest show Hell has ever seen."
While she'd been going about her daily routine, they'd been planning every detail of this depraved nightmare. What criteria had they used to choose her? Why her? The thought of them evaluating her amongst a sea of other humans like livestock made her skin crawl.
"Originally, we'd organized quite the show for you. A beautiful virgin sacrifice, her innocence stripped away layer by layer for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately, our little starlet couldn't wait and decided to go and rehearse her act with someone else before we could claim her."
A clamor of hisses and boos rose up from each tier, and she caught words like "whore," and "slut," and "filthy cunt."
"I know, I know. A waste, to be sure. But do not despair, good citizens of Hell. At least now we don't need to be gentle."
A roar of laughter broke out across the stands, no one, not even Libby, believing that her virginity would have spared her from their sadistic appetites.
"To make up for this unfortunate turn of events, we've taken certain liberties with tonight's format. Let's just say this rite will test limits no previous offering has ever faced and break boundaries no other circle has ever dared cross." At the audience's howl of approval, Fenrow bared a sinful smile gleaming with gold-tipped fangs.
Throughout his brother's speech, Galen's face had remained quietly cold, almost impassive. And yet, even from her place at the bottom of the pit, Libby knew his burning eyes were fixated on her. It was impossible to read his impenetrable expression, but it prickled like the scrape of a physical touch across her skin.
"Now," Fenrow continued, spreading his arms wide. "Without further adieu, allow me to introduce the honored assembly who will be presiding over tonight's trials. Six thrones, six circles, six absolute monarchs who shape the very nature of damnation itself. I present to you the architects of sin and suffering, the Six Sovereigns of Hell."
Everyone in the stands rose from their seats, dropped to their knees, and bowed their heads in deference.
Libby cast her eyes upward. A blinding shower of gold coalesced at the apex of the arena, fluttering down to her platform and the surrounding sands before dissipating entirely.
From that shimmering mass, six stone platforms began to emerge. They descended as one, buoyed by an enchantment beyond her comprehension. They came to a stop twenty, perhaps thirty feet above the arena floor. Each platform was occupied by a demon wrought in the image of their circle, all seated on thrones as varied as their forms.
Half of the sovereigns were almost painfully beautiful to look at. The other half were anywhere from unsettling to downright horrific.
One was a specimen of male and female perfection, their sculpted body fused together and divided at the vertical meridian. Another was inhumanly pale with hundreds of gnashing mouths recessed into his flesh, a lattice of chains fastened across his actual mouth, a shroud of pin-straight black hair partially veiling his cruel-cut face.
She forced herself to look away from the sovereign at the far end, a massive thing of constantly shifting flesh, muscle and bone rearranging beneath translucent skin, sometimes bipedal, sometimes not, its true form never settling long enough for her to fully process.
Even their thrones varied wildly in aesthetic. Interlocking bones, sculpted marble, chrome and black leather, tufted velvet, an assemblage of tarnished silver. The last was an elaborate bench that resembled a gruesome maw, but she couldn't bring herself to look at the shifting thing seated upon it a second time.
"From the frozen wastes to the burning fields, from the halls of avarice to the pits of rage, they have each come to witness our offering's final transformation. Should any one of them find her lacking, should any question her suitability, then this mortal will discover firsthand that there are fates far worse than death."
If Libby hadn't been forced to remain in a standing position, her body would have dropped to the ground right then and there.
"Tonight, we carve out every last trace of this pitiful soul's humanity and shape her into a vessel worthy of our claim. Tonight, we will pursue Hell's greatest cause. Tonight, we will create the key that will shatter the barrier between us and the mortal realm!"
Her body felt distant, the arena around her beginning to blur, shapes and frenzied cries bleeding into indistinct smears of color and noise.
A key. A vessel worthy of Hell's claim.
Libby couldn't even bring herself to process what his words might mean for the people of Earth.
Not once in her life had she ever been more fragile than she was now. Even if she managed to cling to her sanity and survived these trials, even if some part of her could endure, would anything be left of her in the end?
And even if there was, could she truly call that remnant 'herself' anymore?
Her eyes cleared just in time to see a winged demon a fraction of her height flutter towards the dual-gendered amalgamation. A chalice was gripped in the gangly imp's outstretched talons, the jeweled cup easily three times its size. The split sovereign was completely nude, a heel propped on the aubergine velvet throne beneath them. The corner of their mouth curled upward as they slid a masculine hand down their defined abdomen and parted hairless, plump lower lips. A thickly veined cock emerged from the vaginal canal, the shaft long, broad, and disturbingly human.
With a few quick strokes, they ejaculated into the chalice, a bifurcated male and female moan accompanying their excessively long release.
The many-mouthed one went next, laughing through his gag maniacally the entire time. A horrified shudder rolled down her spine when she saw that more gaping mouths sprouted along the swollen length of his engorged cock, their tongues twisting and licking at the fingers stroking over them.
Not one of the sovereigns bothered to look at her, not even once. They looked at the audience, at each other, at Fenrow and Galen. In their estimation, she probably ranked somewhere even lower than the dirt beneath their feet.
"Lust and Envy have added their tributes. As always, our sovereigns are most generous to even the most undeserving."
More vulgar taunts were hurled at her, some so vile they made her insides contort with disgust, others so terrible they made her want to scream until her throat bled.
Libby sank her teeth into her tongue until she tasted copper. She wouldn't scream, she wouldn't beg. Her silence was the only power she had left, the one thing she wouldn't let them take from her. No matter what happened, she wouldn't give Galen, Fenrow, the audience, or the sovereigns the satisfaction.
The rest of the lounging figures spilled stream after stream of cum into the fluted receptacle until it nearly sloshed from the edge. Libby looked away, torn between the urge to gag and the obscene desire to tip the entirety of the chalice into her mouth.
For all of Fenrow's cajoling, he did not explain why they were collecting the semen of each sovereign. It was either a ritual everyone was already familiar with, or he was intentionally avoiding the subject to allow her mounting dread to build.
"As a prelude to the trials, why don't we start by revealing the truth about the shameless whore in our midst?"
At first, Libby didn't understand what she was seeing, but the moving images became clearer the longer her eyes focused. It was her image, repeated several times along the curving screens. She was in her bedroom. The video had been taken from directly above the bed, as if a camera had been hidden somewhere on the ceiling fan. She was sprawled on her back, her expression caught between boredom and discomfort. Brandon's swimmer's body was above her, his underwhelming cock sliding in and out of her pussy in jerking, rhythmless movements. They'd even included the audio, the thin grunts that punctuated each of his thrusts echoing across the arena.
For a moment, her mind refused to understand, as if the person in the recording was someone else. Then the truth struck her deep in her core and left an empty chill so deep it wrenched her heart from her chest.
The video changed. She was on her back again, only this time, a masked guard was plowing into her weeping channel, spreading her vulnerable pussy wide open with gloved fingers. Fenrow kept her arms pinned above her head, an unhinged gleam shining in his fake human eyes. The playback of her guttural moans were almost deafening in her ears, her pleas of more, please more and faster, faster punctuating each snap of the guard's hips and Fenrow's flicks over her clit.
Oh god, oh god. How—but she—oh god, she'd forgotten that Galen had been recording the entire sordid affair. Libby made a horrified sound, a noise caught between a hysteric laugh and a broken sob.
"Exquisite, isn't she? You can see why she is the perfect offering for the rite. Though of course… none of this is new to us, is it? You've already seen her footage across every viewing screen in our great city of Obduros, haven't you?" Another series of cries broke out across the crowd, and Fenrow's feverish, cruel mask was captured in precise detail on the projections above.
Nausea rolled through her. They hadn't just violated her body, they'd put her on display. Had turned her into a citywide attraction, broadcast her at her lowest to every corner of Obduros while she'd rotted in that cell, oblivious.
"Eighty thousand of you sick bastards paid to feel what our eight masked champions felt that night. Tell me... was her tight cunt everything you hoped for and more?" The stands exploded into a collective howl, their feet stomping, all forms of grotesque appendages waving.
Despite everything that had been done to her, revulsion bubbled up in her throat. Almost instantly, her revulsion burst into shocked indignation. How was such a thing even possible? If they had 'experienced' her through those nameless guards, then that meant every demon who'd paid knew exactly how she'd clenched and writhed and broke.
Libby already knew what would come next, even though she prayed it wouldn't. She bit off her plea with a bitter, self-deprecating laugh. As if any god would do anything for her here. If there truly was a god of some kind, she did not think they would ever come to this place, let alone deign to look upon on a ruined thing like her.
Her eyes flicked up to the highest level of the arena. Just beside the moving image of Fenrow's profile, green-washed footage of her naked body appeared. The room was clearly dark, but she could still make out every detail of her cell. She was beneath the stained square cut-out and tenderly lapping at a hideously warped, fleshy cock. Her fingers were toying with her clit, whimpers and moans escaping her mouth as the quivering length deposited its load between her hungry lips.
Her breaths were now coming faster, her aching heart pounding so hard it hurt. To know what she had done was one thing, to see it in such vivid detail was… was… there were no words to describe the volatile emotions churning inside her. All she knew was that if she'd been capable of it, she would have lost the contents of her stomach the moment that profane cock had come on screen.
"We know you've all been waiting for the final count. Would anyone like to guess how many unique cocks Libby serviced during her stay? A hundred? Five hundred?"
The audience shouted their guesses, and Fenrow grinned before holding up placating hands.
"The numbers have arrived, and the bets are officially closed. This cum-addicted slut sucked off an impressive nine hundred and thirty-six unique visitors. And the total loads the greedy little thing swallowed? Four thousand, two hundred and one."
Libby's vision went black, then white. Then she immediately gagged anyway, bile rising to scald her throat.
The scale of this violation was… indescribable. The magnitude somehow eclipsing the very degradations themselves.
It felt like she'd been skinned alive, every nerve exposed and mocked for their entertainment. Worse than the revelation itself was the knowledge that they were still watching, still wanting more. Every eye in this arena saw her not as a person, not even as a slave, but as a thing they'd already sampled and wanted to devour again and again.
"Esteemed guests, fellow degenerates, and valued patrons." Fenrow casually raked his hair back from his forehead with the sharp points of his claws. "The rules for this rite are deliciously simple. There will be six rounds and six chances for glory. The sovereigns have already selected their champions, who you will all be meeting soon enough."
When Fenrow spoke next, it was clear his words were aimed directly at her. "Given how easily our shameless mortal has thrown away her dignity in the pursuit of gratification, we've decided to introduce a new element to our little game. A single point will be awarded for every orgasm each respective circle forces from our lost lamb. An extra point can also be earned each time a champion and the offering achieve simultaneous completion in the allotted time."
Every inch of Libby's exposed skin crawled, and a cold weight settled just behind her diaphragm. Even though she knew trying to escape was useless—because where could she possibly go?—her instincts were stronger than her own will. She started to thrash in her bonds, fresh waves of panic swelling in her throat as she tried to break free. The wooden structure only creaked, none of the restraints budging in the slightest. Laughter and jeers went up, and heat rose to her face.
Without warning, the central opening of the stockade tightened around her throat. She had no choice but to give up and let her body go limp. After giving her another warning squeeze, it finally loosened, leaving her gasping and wondering how wood could be manipulated to expand and contract.
"But here's the twist. Rounds will have a time limit shared by the champions of each circle." On every other projection above, Fenrow held an hourglass aloft, the sand a neat pile of round onyx pebbles. "Once their time runs out, they must yield the floor, and our little whore's holes, to the next team. The winning circle will earn this rite's Crimson Crown, and, naturally, the glory that comes with it."
Her breathing was growing heavier, her heart pounding in an uneven staccato in her eardrums. She couldn't do this. She couldn't. She couldn't.She couldn't. A deafening static had been building in between her ears, and now it rose in volume until it rivaled her frantic pulse.
"For those watching from home, premium sensory feeds are still available for purchase until the end of the third trial. Once registration closes, you'll lose your chance to experience these devious delights for yourself. Which would be a shame because we have one a Hell of a show planned for you tonight. Citizens of Obduros, demons of all circles, I present to you… the final trial!"