Chapter Towers

"I am going to h.e.l.l as a living being and you are not kidding. This just got a lot more interesting."

    "Why do you think, Hel came to introduce the task? Last time you were brought into that s.p.a.ce, she just didn"t come to intimidate you, she actually left a mark on your soul. So that it would stay intact within the h.e.l.l without leaving your body."

    Sam frowned up on hearing this.

    Another person, that too a person that he hates with pa.s.sion messing with his soul is not something he is comfortable with. He closed his eyes and started looking for the mark on his soul.

    "Don"t even bother trying to find it. You won"t be able to do that. Do you really think that a G.o.d who is almost at the top of the whole foodchain even among the other G.o.ds leaves a mark that a mere Astral Plane cultivator can identify?

    It is impossible to do so.

    Anyway, don"t worry, it won"t cause you any harm. It is personally vetted by Gambler himself. He took extra care of making sure that it is completely fine because of your history with her.

    It is perfectly safe and everything is done with the constraints and the rules set up by the remaining G.o.ds.

    Also the G.o.ds whose candidates were already eliminated out of the game are acting as the overseers of the compet.i.tion now and they are extremely strict."

    "I am pretty sure, there are rules in place when Hou Yi took over Arkiv, and Hel acted as her own players. I don"t believe in a set of rules that are broken multiple times.

    I highly doubt these G.o.ds will ever think of completely obeying these orders."

    "I can understand your point. But all I can say is that you don"t have to worry about it. Anyway, let me explain what you need to do next and for that, we need to go to h.e.l.l."

    With that he snapped his fingers, both of them disappeared from the spot.

    They reappeared in a vast place. It is dark and the only light is coming from the dark red lava that is glowing on the ground around them.

    He noticed that there is a large pillar in the middle of area.

    Ling Tian looked around and at the pillar, before he spoke with a smile.

    "This seven-feet pillar is key to the task. It is the key to start, continue the task and even finish the task. Let"s take a look."

    Both of them walked closer to it.

    Sam looked at the majestic pillar. Even though it is just seven feet tall. It looked like it could support the whole world on top of it.

    He wanted to instinctually touch it and raised his hand.

    "Nope, you can"t touch it yet. If you touch it, the task will automatically start." Ling Tian stopped him.

    Sam stopped and waited for more details.

    "In this task, as I said, you will be using a very new method to breakthrough to the Divine Realm. Not just breakthrough, this is the place where you reach the Peak of the Divine Realm.

    The method we are using involves three things, Faith of people in you, the Sin you have acc.u.mulated and finally the corruption of h.e.l.l while you tame your sin.

    You are going to temper, your body and soul with these three aspects and breakthrough in each step.

    Your faith is the factor that is mostly decided by now. If you want to increase it anymore, the only method is for you to utilize the time you are going to be outside of this h.e.l.l to finish some more tasks in the middle.

    And the second thing the sin you have acc.u.mulated.

    Generally, that is the cleansing part, where people fight the effects of their sin through cultivation. But for you case, you are going to literally fight your sins. And every life you took, every place you destroyed, all the suffering you have caused, no matter how minor or major it is, it will be counted as your sin.

    You will have a chance to fight all of them. The more sin you cleanse, the higher chance you have to become stronger with each level. Of course, you can leave some of your sin unattended, but there are some other consequences for that, which you will learn about some other time.

    The final part, the corruption from h.e.l.l.

    Whenever you fight some of your sin, you will be absorbing some energy from h.e.l.l. Think of it as an energy that corrupts your soul by latching on to it.

    If you can process it, you will be strengthened, but if you can"t, your soul will be slowly merged with the h.e.l.l and its surroundings, making you a permanent part of it."

    "What are the consequences of leaving the sin without taming it?"

    "I will tell you after I explain the pillar and what you need to do with it."

    "Alright."

    "You need to place your hand on the pillar, it will calculate and manifest your sin into a tower. All you have to do is clear the tower as much as you want.

    You want to see how your peers did it and how their towers manifested before to get an idea?"

    "Yeah, why not?"

    Ling Tian waved his hands and a virtual screen appeared in front of them. The first screen is of Dayus who came first into this realm. When he touched the pillar a streak of black smoke came out of the pillar from all sides.

    The smoke manifested into various silhouettes. Silhouettes of animals, humans, elves, Barbarians etc. There are a bunch of different races that manifested and these flew to different sides.

    Soon a tower started manifesting around him.

    The screen zoomed out and soon Sam saw a large tower with around a two dozen floors was formed.

    The silhouettes flew to different floors of the towers and settled there.

    The screen changed and then came Noah"s tower.

    This time it is bigger and the creatures are different.

    k.u.mar"s is also different.

    "Every tower is different. They don"t have any similarity other than how they are formed. Each level of tower is not cla.s.sified based on the number or time of the sin committed. Rather they are formed based on the level of suffering you inflicted on them.

    The level of sin will be what makes them fall into place and each floor of the tower is its own world.

    Its vastness depends on the level of sins you have committed.

    Simply put, the number and the level of sins will decide how many floors do you have on the tower, how vast each floor is and how powerful each sin is.

    And the sins are not just from this world. You will be having them from your previous world as well. So, you will be facing a lot more sins that your peers I guess."

    "A lot more in an understatement.

    So, are you going to tell me what happens if I don"t tame all the sin? They seemed to have taken the shape of the creatures, so what is going to happen?"

    "The more time the sins are left untamed, the more consciousness they will gain. They will start of as pure hatred or agony, but they will process it and soon thoughts will start forming.

    They will look for other sins, consume them and manifest themselves into beings and finally they will leverage the h.e.l.l"s corruption and turn into various demons.

    That is who the first demons were formed and as more and more G.o.ds that are currently in the positions of power and ruling used this method, the demons started growing.

    One of the reasons that this method is forbidden is because of that. New sub species among the demon race were coming up everyday. And some times the people who challenged will be consumed and they will also turn into demons."

    "So, all the demons are formed like this?"

    "Not all of them. Some of them are created naturally. It is a much longer story and we don"t have time for that.

    Anyway, until you come across your next task, it is better if you focus on your tower. Of course it is not like you have any other choice. You are going to stay here and you are going to fight these things."

    "So, should I touch it now?"

    "Yes, please. I am looking forward yours and in fact so are your peers."

    "The other players are watching?"

    "Yes. You can actually watch each other"s progress also if you allow each other. Just like how you watched their tower formation, now they will also witness yours."

    Sam just shrugged and placed his hand on the pillar.

    He felt like an invisible and intangible force, invaded his mind. That force pulled all of his memories outside and connected the soul with a different force that seemed to have ability to see anything and everything.

    Sam felt like he connected with the whole universe.