Between Hell

On the bed,

Luo Di stared at the possessed Girl before him, who was both Anna and not Anna,

staring at her fully assimilated, granular eyes and scorch-mark-covered skin.

He had never considered anything between men and women.

The only thing on his mind was how to break the deadlock and keep the "friends" he had finally made alive.

Though they had only spent these two days together, they were already the closest companions his age Luo Di had ever had since birth.

Besides, he was not afraid of death. As a movie fan, he even somewhat wanted to experience being possessed for himself.

He looked at the mouth structure before him, like a passageway to hell—fully exposed teeth and gums, along with two forked tongues extending to either side like greeters.

Luo Di slowly moved closer to her face, slowing the process as much as possible to buy Gao Yuxuan the most time he could.

But Anna seemed to be growing impatient.

Now that Complete Possession had been achieved, the scorched patterns had spread across every part of Anna's body.

Whoosh! Sharp barbs grew from her wrists and sliced through the bandages binding her.

At the same time, the silver needles inserted throughout her body were all forced out.

Her movements were no longer restrained in any way.

Her arms suddenly wrapped around Luo Di's neck.

Her legs clamped around his body as well. Luo Di, who had only been standing beside the bed, was forcibly pulled onto it by that brute strength and pinned atop Anna.

Their bodies pressed together, soft and scorching hot.

"Don't be so slow~ Hurry up, I can't wait anymore!"

The arms around his neck exerted their full strength, pressing their lips tightly together.

Before Luo Di could even stick out his tongue, he felt two soft things worming their way in.

They were more nimble than fingers.

Twining,

spinning,

binding.

There was none of the expected moisture or softness.

Instead, there was dryness, heat, and peeling.

Bzz...

Suddenly, a fine ringing filled his skull, spreading like dust and drowning out every other sound.

The whole world instantly fell silent.

A peculiar sensation of falling swept through Luo Di's body. It was unlike the downward fall caused by gravity; it was a dragging sensation, as though every part of his body had been seized and pulled into the depths by an irresistible force.

He could feel his consciousness being stripped from his flesh.

It was a bloody, brutal separation, plunging toward an unknown world.

After the brief peace brought by silence and darkness,

a sulfurous stench burrowed deep through his nose and windpipe, wreaking havoc between his lungs like rats. The intense, burning irritation jolted Luo Di awake.

This was no longer the small mountain in the training area, nor the old mansion with the revived zombies.

It was an ash-gray world where sulfurous fire-rain constantly fell—hell.

Beyond the scorched yellow backdrop,

the ground surged with a rich crimson.

The crimson flowing from the cracks in the ground seemed to come from every human tortured within hell,

turning the already scorched earth damp, soft, and even alive.

It made raised rocks grow like trees, sprouting branches resembling arms and bearing fruits like blood and pus.

It added an intoxicating bloody scent to the sulfurous stench of hell.

Scorched yellow and crimson.

Those were the colors of hell.

And Luo Di, a human who had just arrived in hell, became another contributor of blood.

His body was fixed to a stone cross more than ten meters high.

His limbs and neck were all wrapped in dry, rough dead tongues.

Many parts of his body had been cut open by sharp blades. Blood ran down the cross, joining the blood shed by other sufferers.

Sizzle! A burning sound rang out.

He had happened to encounter hell's "rainy season."

The incessant Sulfuric Acid Rain caused corrosive burns with every drop that landed on flesh. Melted skin and scorched hair flowed down mixed with blood.

Once everything had drained away, Luo Di's consciousness would die here, and his body would be completely taken over by The Devil outside.

In such an extreme environment,

human biological instinct would force a person to shut their eyes and focus on resisting the pain. Either the acid rain or the extreme dryness was enough to blind someone in a short time.

And pain itself would quickly make an ordinary person lose consciousness.

Yet Luo Di gradually endured the pain, as if he had experienced something even worse before.

His "battle plan" had already been completed. The information had been conveyed before he fell into hell. Whether it could be carried out now depended entirely on Vice Class Monitor Gao.

Since he now had the chance to personally enter hell, perhaps even remain here forever, Luo Di wanted to see what this place truly looked like before losing consciousness.

He resisted his biological instincts, opened his eyes, and took in the sight of hell.

Quite a few protagonists in the B-movies he loved had connections to hell.

However, Luo Di was not shocked by the scenery of hell. Instead, before his vision was taken away, he looked as far into the distance as possible, trying to see as much of hell as he could.

"What is that?"

Nearly a hundred kilometers away from Luo Di stood an enormous, pitch-black volcano.

Perhaps because of the sulfurous weather, the scorched yellow smoke spewing from the crater formed an extremely hazy, strange color in the sky, like some special symbol.

It was far too blurry and hidden behind Thick Fog to be seen clearly at all.

Then,

a drop of acid rain fell onto his eye. Though his eyelid tried to block it immediately, it was instantly corroded away. His entire right eye rapidly shriveled, and his vision blurred along with it.

But Luo Di did not close his eye because of that. He continued to hold on desperately.

He could not say why. He simply wanted to see that symbol clearly.

Strangely,

although his vision was blurred, although he could barely even see the ground beneath his feet, he gradually began to make out the once-blurry symbol in the sky.

Sizzle~ The other eyeball was also struck by acid rain and rapidly corroded.

His completely blurred vision quickly approached darkness.

None of hell's scenery could be seen anymore.

Yet at that moment, Luo Di truly saw the symbol above the distant volcano, hidden behind Thick Fog.

It seemed to be a special symbol representing hell.

Bzz!

The ringing returned.

Very little blood remained in his body. The symptoms of hemorrhagic shock swept through him, and his consciousness began to fade.

The darkness called death was about to carry Luo Di to the other side of the world.

The final drop of blood fell from the tip of Luo Di's toe.

Drip~

He should have been swallowed by the silence of death, yet he unexpectedly heard the sound of blood hitting the ground. He heard it clearly—more clearly than ever before.

Bzz!

His eyelids, which should have been corroded away, opened on their own.

His blurred vision gradually became clear.

His body no longer hurt. Instead, it felt more relaxed than ever before.

Before him was no longer scorching hell, but a cold, clean private hospital room.

As for the sound of liquid dripping he had just heard, it was not his blood, but the IV hanging from its stand.

Luo Di touched the call button strapped to his hand with a finger.

A nurse specially assigned to him immediately entered to check on him. Just as she was about to notify the attending physician to examine him in detail,

Smack!

Luo Di grabbed the nurse's wrist and sat up with her.

"Do you have paper and a pen?"

"Yes..." Startled, the nurse instinctively handed him the notebook she carried with her, but immediately realized something was wrong. "Lie back down right now. You can't sit up yet."

However, Luo Di had already torn a page from the notebook and recorded the Hell Symbol, which could be erased from his memory at any moment.