The Last Circle

Wretched Nameless One stared back with twitching eyes, though not out of fear, but rather out of disbelief.

'Satan?' he repeated to himself, peering out of the corner of his eye at the veiled jinn. 'The same Satan that sinned in the face of God?'

"Don't believe me, human?"

"No, I believe you," Wretched Nameless One crossed his arms, wearing a light frown as he grit his teeth, "especially since we're in the Seventh Circle of Hell. It only makes sense that you'd end up here."

"Ah, yes of course," replied Satan, his ethereal tone laced with amusement and malice. "Seems like you humans had it right all along..." He chuckled, making rotations around Wretched Nameless One as he studied the arid and black surface. "But, even with my... distaste for your kind—let's put it that way—I must say that you, alone, have earned my full hatred."

Wretched Nameless One's fiery eyes followed him, squinted and wary. 'Still racist even after being tortured in hell, huh?' so he thought, before asking:

"And why me?"

"Why you?" repeated Satan, stopping to look straight into the fiery eyes, which ended up being a mistake, causing him a great deal of pain on his very essence, though he hid it well. "Because you stole from me the gift I should've received."

"What are you talking about?"

"When you stood there with me as the final two to be judged—though there was no need for it—you proved to be a human, who in his life span that is merely a blink of an eye to me, still outnumbered my tally of sins." He turned back, watching the dancing pillars of flames off in the far distance, reaching the frenzied sky. "The gift of losing memory over oneself."

Wretched Nameless One scoffed, shaking his head as the corners of up mouth curled up. "That's a stupid thing to want."

"Of course you wouldn't understand... After all," he looked back over what was supposedly a shoulder, letting his dark image see the young man before him, "I've lived through the creation and the end of your kind. You haven't even began to live a fraction of my lifetime back on Earth."

Wretched Nameless One raised a brow, crossing his arms as he drew a deep breath, wondering why Satan was even holding a conversation with him. "So? What now? Are you going to kill me?"

Satan chuckled. "No... not yet, at least. Besides, no one dies once they've reached Heaven or Hell, and if they do, they simply come back."

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked, taking a few steps back as his shoulders tensed, trying to understand Satan's motives.

"I'm telling you because I want you to know," he raised a shadowy hand, pointing to the sky, "that I will do all in my power to stop every last soul from reaching it. I will have you all suffer here with me for eternity, and I want you to be there on the First Circle of Hell, so that I may enjoy killing you over and over again, no matter how many times you come back."

Wretched Nameless One stared at Satan's hand with bemusement written all over his face, gulping as he clenched his jaw.

Aside from Satan's words, what caught him off guard was what [Eternal Witness] was feeding into his mind. He was surprised to learn how efficient it was, especially without it causing any visual clutter whatsoever.

'His only weakness is light,' so he thought, 'but his epithet, The One Who Challenged God, it's true then. I wonder what kind of powerful attributes he has? At least he doesn't have a talent either.'

"Make sure you reach the First Circle, Wretched Nameless One," continued Satan, floating away as he spoke. "You are my greatest enemy now."

Wretched Nameless One stood silent as he watched Satan travel for several minutes, until the jinn was nothing more than a pixel off in the distance. He sighed, dropping the pent up tension in his upper body as he touched the tips of his thumb and pinkie, bringing up the panel once again.

"To get a talent, I need to ascend this Spire of the Infinite Corridor, but what is it?" he asked aloud, hoping the panel would give him an answer, though there was no response. He looked back, taking notice of a towering structure just barely faded away with how far it was.

Though its image was hazy and diminutive, he could tell just by looking at it that the structure was taller than the pillars of flame that once fed upon his flesh.

'If there's a spire on this circle, then it must be there,' so he thought, issuing the command to close the panel as he walked off.

Though, not many steps into his journey, he'd remember about the Fragments of Divinity and the Seeds of Corruption, retracing his steps back to where he watched the space black beast become obliterated.

'Right, I need a million of those fragments...'

He paused, scratching the side of his face as he walked, wondering just how long that would take. Again, the thought of others being on the upper Circles of Hell disturbed him, knowing that his chances of returning to grace were slim, if not none, thanks to the number of sins he'd collected in his previous life, along with the required fragments to ascend.

Within a couple seconds, he found the boulder that was being used to crush him, which was at least a hundred times his height.

'I can't believe I was being tortured by this thing this time around...'

He thought back to the many different forms of torture he had endured—or rather, suffered. From having to standing on hot rocks that burrowed into his feet, to drinking boiling water, to being lacerated, whipped, crushed... There were too many things to name, and it all made him feel like throwing up.

Each moment spent in Hell was retained in his memory as though he had just arrived, and it bothered him that even so, he could not remember who he was.

He knelt down, taking a look at shadowy, inky, and small orb that was no larger than an eyeball, before taking it into his hands. He looked up upon noticing that the panel had returned on its own, displaying an image of the object, along with several lines of information.

[Item Name: Seed of Corruption]

[Item Type: Key Item]

[Item Description: Long ago, before the creation of humans, the creatures of Hell were created with one purpose: to punish its dwellers. For endless centuries, their lust for torturing the long awaited Hell-dwellers remained unrequited, until the Day of Judgment had finally come, letting them bask in their violent nature.]

He looked to the bottom of the panel, where it said:

[Store Seed of Corruption into inventory?]

"Yes," he answered, watching as the item vanished as a white light engulfed it, leaving behind faint traces of the aura that dissipated into the air.

He navigated to his status menu, seeing that the panel still posed the question of whether or not he'd like to move onto the next part of the tutorial, looking back at the distant structure.

'Guess I may as well figure out whatever I can while I journey to that structure.'