While observing the scenery in front of me, I then thought about what Hellraider had just done to me. Was it true that he had known from the beginning that my main objective was to follow him from behind? Why was he so unwilling to let me see him from a distance that was neither close nor intended to directly intervene with him? Had he truly accepted his entire fate just like what existed in the game The Mayhem?
I let out a sigh. These thoughts and feelings of mine were indeed very strange. He had truly tried to kill me, yet I was no longer traumatized by him. Could it be because I had continued to survive here all this time that I could no longer feel what fear was?
I recalled the goal that I had determined while on the headquarters balcony, and I was already in hell and it felt impossible to return to my world. No matter how many monsters, rulers of the hell territories, and even my own idol Hellraider himself who tried to eliminate me, I would continue to survive so that I could see the end of all this.
After sufficiently restoring my mind and body, I stood up and continued my journey again. I saw that the edge of this cliff also formed a footpath. I walked carefully along the cliff of this lava lake. Finally, I arrived back on flat land. It turned out that this was not an ordinary lava lake, but one of the downstream sections of a massive lava river.
I then took my binoculars and observed the surrounding situation. The area around me appeared like a swamp region, but the difference was that the water was replaced with lava. To the west, I once again saw something that greatly caught my attention. From quite a far distance, I saw a magnificent palace building as well, but this time it appeared to be glittering as if it were built from gold. I could immediately determine what that place was.
Yes… it was the palace of another hell territory ruler named Mareketh.
Perhaps this was my next destination. But I thought again, would I use the same tactic as when I entered Zigurath Palace? What if I encountered something unexpected again? What if I had to fight Mareketh again? If Hellraider came again and caught me once more, would he immediately kill me at that moment?
I was still thinking about those possibilities, but suddenly my instinct, which I felt had already become another part of myself, said something like, "Just move forward first." Indeed, this was the best thing I could do for now rather than standing here thinking for too long.
I continued my journey again. At this time I entered a plain area that was heavily surrounded by flowing lava. Mareketh's Palace could be seen with my naked eyes, so I did not really need a compass. However, due to the many branching lava flows here, I often had to take detours in order to keep heading straight toward Mareketh's Palace.
As I walked along the edge of the lava flow, suddenly I saw something swimming on its surface. Instantly I could recognize what it was, and that creature was a Licoth.
Licoth was described as a kind of hellish worm of enormous size, having a posture like a large adult crocodile with a length of more than six meters and a thicker middle body. Its head was like a large circular mouth. On the outermost part there were four large claws, and around its mouth were filled with sharp teeth.
In the gameplay of The Mayhem, Licoth was not a monster that Hellraider had to defeat, but merely served as an environmental mechanic of hell itself. If Hellraider stayed too long at the edge of lava or deliberately plunged himself into it, Licoth would immediately attack and drown him, and the player would have to restart from the previous checkpoint.
In my opinion, this mechanic was the most illogical because it contradicted Hellraider's title as the greatest terror in this hell.
I immediately moved away from the edge of the lava flow because after that many Licoths began to appear. Perhaps when I was knocked down by Hellraider and failed to grab the protruding rock on that cliff, I would have immediately become Licoth's feast.
After I managed to pass through many lava flows, suddenly I heard an explosion from the east. From a distance, I saw a plume of smoke rising into the air. Was there a commotion there? Could it be that there was also…
I immediately ran up the hills leading toward the source of the explosion. I took my binoculars and tried to look more clearly in that direction. What I was seeing felt like watching an action movie in a cinema.
There were many monsters running toward Hellraider to attack him. However, Hellraider swiftly exterminated many of those monsters with his Obliviator weapon. Several humanoid monsters were seen leaping toward Hellraider, but he deftly caught them, slammed them to the ground, and crushed their chests or heads with a single stomp.
Then there was a Judgementor that charged straight toward Hellraider. But he quickly ran toward that Judgementor, then leaped high toward its face while grabbing its horns and moved to the back of its neck. While his left hand held the Judgementor's horns, Hellraider brutally punched its face repeatedly. The Judgementor roared with its face nearly destroyed. Then Hellraider summoned a fairly large shotgun with his right hand and thrust the shotgun's stock as deeply as possible into the Judgementor's mouth. Hellraider fired once, and the Judgementor's chest exploded into pieces. Hellraider jumped down and walked past the corpse of the Judgementor he had just slain.
I immediately stepped backward again because I was worried that Hellraider would directly notice me and chase me again. Watching his action was enough, and I had to head to Mareketh's Palace immediately.
I once again passed through the footpath that seemed to be getting closer to Mareketh's Palace. The monsters here appeared to be fewer than in the Zigurath territory. There were only hell hounds, hell humanoids, and occasionally those hell pterosaurs flew across the sky above me. This area also had fewer trees, and fortunately, as far as my eyes could see, there were no elite monsters anymore.
Finally, I was almost at Mareketh's Palace. I could see the gleam of golden metal that formed the palace's main walls, adorned with gemstone stones as large as river rocks and colored in many hues. What caught my attention was the location of the palace itself, which turned out to be situated in the middle of a massive lava river. The river had a width of about two kilometers. The palace had two gates at the front and back, located at both sides of the river, and a large road that appeared to depict the palace as if it were flanked by river bridges.
At the gate in front of me, just like the previous palace, there were dozens of hell knights standing guard, and on the road many hell knights were moving back and forth. I stood some distance away while thinking about what plan I should carry out.
The main problem was that there was no secret passage or smuggling method that I could use. The carriage would not appear at Mareketh's Palace according to the game's storyline. What I remembered was that Hellraider directly launched an open assault on the hell knights guarding the place.
Should I just wait here until an undefined time until Hellraider arrived here? Then, why was it that when I was still inside Zigurath Palace, those hell knights did not intercept or even attack me? Was it possible that when I entered the palace, Zigurath already knew that I would come and ordered his servants and guards to let me be? If I approached the gate guards now, would I also be allowed through like before?
Before I finished thinking about the possible outcomes, I did not realize that I had already been approached by two hell knights. When I turned my head, they had already drawn their flaming spears toward me. I was so shocked that I fell and sat on the ground.
"W-w-wait… wait first… I don't intend to cause trouble here…" I said in panic while raising both of my hands.
However, they advanced while pointing their spears at me. I immediately stepped backward while continuing to reassure them. I felt that they did not understand my language at all, unlike the ruler of the previous territory.
I kept retreating and realized that they were cornering me at the edge of the lava river. Damn it, every time I interacted with something in this hell, there was always an attempt to erase me.
Suddenly, an idea crossed my mind. I summoned my green Crystal Ball from the interface slot. Then I immediately showed the crystal ball to them. Suddenly, the crystal ball shone again. The two hell knights immediately stopped and pulled back their spears.
I could not believe it. This truly succeeded in stopping them. I never once thought that this crystal ball could influence entities at the level of hell knights.
Suddenly, one of the hell knights spoke to me in the local hell language, just like the servants in Zigurath Palace, which I did not understand at all. After finishing speaking, they turned around and left.
I remained still, trying to digest what they might have meant. Not long after, they stopped again, and now the other hell knight glanced toward me, speaking as if scolding me while swinging his hand as if beckoning me to come over.
"Ohhh… maybe they want me to follow them. But where will they take me? Into Mareketh's Palace? What will I do later?" I said in my mind while walking to follow the two hell knights.
As it turned out, my guess was correct. They brought me to the palace gate. At the entrance, the two knights stopped and spoke to the other knights on guard. Not long after, the two knights walked inside and I continued to follow them. The bridge at Mareketh's Palace was enormous and very long. I kept walking while observing my surroundings. However, what I saw besides the golden palace were only the lava river and other hell knights who were patrolling.
After a long walk, I finally arrived at the entrance of the magnificent palace, also made of gold and heavily carved and decorated with brilliantly shining gemstones. The two hell knights stopped and spoke to me again. After they finished speaking, which once again I did not understand, the palace entrance door then slowly opened.
"Ohhh… they want me to go straight into the palace," I hummed quietly.
I then immediately entered Mareketh's Palace. There, my eyes widened and were filled with awe at the scenery inside this palace. This was truly not a hell palace in general; it was more like a golden palace built directly from heaven.
Almost all of the walls and ceilings were covered with corroded gold, gemstone ornaments were also attached to the walls and ceilings. There were countless artifacts such as goblets, crowns, staffs, treasure chests, and other furnishings made of gold and gemstones as well. Piles of gold bars and gold coins were scattered along the edges of the walls. Even the floor I stepped on felt as though it was made of precious stones that seemed to have never been found anywhere on the surface of the earth. This place was like a very beautiful dream for almost everyone in the world, including me.
A sense of admiration continued to envelop me, but I finally quickly realized that this was hell. Mareketh was a demon who symbolized greed, so his palace was also like this. I slapped my own cheek so as not to be lulled and to remain focused on my main objective. I then continued walking deeper into the palace.
My question now was what was I doing here? Did those hell knights earlier ask me to meet Mareketh? What should I do later when facing him? Would he still attack me like Zigurath did?
As I walked through the palace corridor while thinking about that, suddenly from the distance I heard something like many people noisily clashing with one another. The sound grew closer rapidly from behind me. When I turned around…
I saw a swarm of flaming skulls flying toward me.
Damn it, I had just remembered that there was an enemy here called hell Spectres.
I immediately ran to avoid them. In the game The Mayhem, these spectres attacked Hellraider by ramming themselves directly into the target's body and exploding. The explosion could knock Hellraider back slightly and inflict fire damage over time.
I kept running through the corridor so as not to be hit by their collision. However, what was unexpected was that several spectres instead rammed themselves randomly into the walls or the floor at the corridor intersections. I tried to avoid the effects of their explosions.
After running and dodging for a long time, finally all of the spectres were gone. I was very fortunate that none of them rammed directly toward me. I took a breath first and continued walking again.
At the end of the corridor, I saw a door, but its shape was quite strange and unique. When I reached it, I noticed that its color was dominantly dark red and filled with many strange carved inscriptions like spells. Where would this door lead? How would I open this door?
I touched and held the door and tried to rub the strange carved inscriptions. But unexpectedly, the inscriptions glowed yellowish red and the door slowly opened. This was truly very strange to me, why did it seem so easy?
I entered the room behind the door. The atmosphere was rather dim, looking like a large underground chamber surrounded by pillars. In the center there was a four-sided staircase forming a pyramid, and on top of it there was something like a large chest.
I walked deeper inside. Suddenly, the door closed rapidly, and the atmosphere became bright as purple flames appeared around the room. What shocked and frightened me greatly was that the chest in front of me suddenly exploded and burned with purple fire as well. I glanced upward and saw a massive plume of smoke with a glowing purple light within it. After the smoke disappeared, I could see what kind of entity had been sealed inside that chest.
It was Banasphate, a hell entity like a spectre but much larger, shrouded in purple flames and possessing horns like those of an adult male ram.
I once again remembered in the game The Mayhem that this Banasphate was Mareketh's right-hand man. He was known as the strongest sorcerer in hell, with magical power one level below Turgash. Hellraider fought him simultaneously with Mareketh. The question that crossed my mind was why he was imprisoned here.
"SOUL… SOUL… I CAN FEEL A LIVING SOUL… I WANT TO DEVOUR THAT SOUL QUICKLYYYY…!!!!"
Banasphate could speak the same language as me, but with a thunderous voice.
Truly, I could not believe that I had to face this creature alone once again.