March from Darkness | ✓ (to be edited)

TWENTY-NINE

DEMITRI

"Wait, what?"

This was Hell? This metropolitan cityscape was the most-feared place in Christian religion? That couldn't be possible; there was no way that this was the place of nightmares that my parents had tried to make me fear.

Sāma turned to look at me. "She is not misleading you, Daraya. This truly is Hell, just not the version that has been described in the religious texts of the mortal Plane." He looked out into the city, a look of appreciation in his eyes. "That version has long-since been altered, confining the suffering to No Man's Land."

"That place is the one that everyone fears," Laichia explained. "It is reserved for the worst of the supposed-Christians, Catholics, and Muslims of the Planes and Dimensions.

"Contrary to most other pantheons and their respective Dimensions, those of God and Allah are all accessible from Purgatory; the 'Seven Dimensions'-" she curled her fingers into air quotations as she started walking- "of Hell are technically only two: Hell, and No Man's Land. It is simply that No Man's Land consists of seven levels, each one watched over by one of the children of Sin."

"So, you rule over one of the levels?" I asked. She nodded. "It's the fifth, right?"

"Ah, so you have read the work of Dante." She grinned again, her teeth still blindingly white in the changing neon lights. "He was such a strange character to meet, but, yes, I am responsible for the punishments of those guilty of wrath, although it is the fourth. The city is considered to be the Limbo that Dante described. I also help my siblings, Preidya and Lucius, with their levels."

"Which ones would those be?"

"The fifth for Preidya, or Pride, and Lucius, the Envious, looks over the sixth."

Heretics and Violence.

Fitting.

"Why have you asked us to accompany you, Laichia?" Sāma asked, his very presence capturing the attention of most of the beings around us. It was strange to see so many different creatures in one place, especially ones that were clearly not human, unlike Soria, Sri, Talia, and the faes.

These beings looked far different than anything I could have imagined in my lifetime: some had unnatural skin colours, others had completely sharpened teeth that stuck out past their lips, and some just gave off an overtly powerful aura that was not unlike Phrer's and Forseti's. Others did look human, but it was their ability to be around these creatures that signalled they were anything but. Some just stared at me and my brother, almost as if they could sense what we were; a couple others looked at us with wide, lust-filled gazes that made me intensely uncomfortable and Sāma easily ignored. I had the feeling that he was used to this sort of reaction to his presence, and I knew that I had to look far different than I had when I had arrived here.

"Our family was instructed by Lucifer to keep an eye out for one of the Sons of Light. As Forseti and I had noticed when you two were sparring, all the heads of the Dimensions felt a disturbance that signalled the new presence of a First being reborn. There are quite a few pantheons that would love the chance to torture a First after the issues they faced when the Twins of Light receded into the Centre. Newborns are relatively weak and the others have yet to understand that with you two now in separate vessels, you are stronger than they can ever hope to take on.

"Lucifer, however, does not want to risk you being harmed any more than your soul has been tortured already. He has a treaty with the Norse pantheon and wishes to help you with facing the aversion with most of the other Gods without killing them. Your abilities are similar to his own, and your temperaments are identical," she finished.