Sixty Thousand Levels Underground

"Where are you?" Once he was sure he had left Beelzebub's surveillance range, he sent Xiqisi a message through the blood pact.

"I can see you."

Yicha looked up and saw a blurry blue-violet birdlike figure standing on a distant platform of Kishino. A huge pile of hellhounds was gathered at her feet.

"I'm coming over," Xiqisi sent.

"Don't come over," Yicha sent back.

"Huh?"

"It's hard to explain. You can think of it as me having caught an extremely severe plague. If you get close to me, you'll die."

"What plague?"

"..."

"Just kidding. Heehee. Fine, then. Are we still going?"

After thinking for a moment, Yicha sent:

"You go ahead. Take the dogs. I'll follow you."

The blurry blue-violet figure in the distance took hold of a hellhound larger than herself, looked up to survey her surroundings, spread her four narrow, beautiful wings, and flew toward the direction directly opposite Flame Cliff.

She then circled along Goosehead Grassland and flew into the Underground Judgment Arena within a hollow in the mountain.

Why did it have to be here? Yicha thought.

To keep any traces of betrayal from being reflected onto Xiqisi, he had originally thought he only needed to follow behind her at a certain distance.

But the Underground Judgment Arena was a circular structure that spiraled continuously downward. If Xiqisi descended to a level below his and left his field of vision, it would be easy for them to end up vertically very close to one another.

Even if he kept the blood pact activated to sense Xiqisi's location, by his rough estimate, they still needed to maintain at least ten levels of vertical distance.

With that much obstruction between them, if Xiqisi ran into any thorny trouble, it would be difficult for him to reach her in time to provide support.

But there was no helping it...

He would go in first.

Yicha waited at the entrance to the Underground Judgment Arena for a while. Only after confirming that Xiqisi had descended more than ten levels did he slowly proceed along the circular route.

The Underground Judgment Arena was dark and damp, with no lighting whatsoever. Before long, all light was completely blocked out. Fortunately, their demon bloodlines allowed them to see in this ordinary darkness.

At the center of the Underground Judgment Arena was a pitch-black, bottomless shaft stretching straight down. Around it was a ring of rooms, their number once again corresponding to that evil number—six hundred and sixty-six on every level.

The cells on the top several dozen levels were all filled with dusty skeletons of every kind. Further down, shriveled corpses gradually began to appear, followed by less shriveled corpses, corpses that still retained some moisture, relatively plump corpses, freshly dead corpses—

"Why are the top few levels all full of dead bodies, while there are living demons lower down?" Xiqisi's message came through the blood pact.

It seemed she had already gone quite deep.

"That has to do with how the Underground Judgment Arena is used," Yicha replied. "Demons who have been judged are thrown directly through the hole at the center of the arena to the very bottom, then sucked into the empty cells there. Their cages rise one level at a time over time. Demons who survive until they reach the very top are released."

"Can't they fly up?"

"You can't fly in the shaft."

"Have any demons ever been released?"

"What do you think?"

"How would I be able to see those who were released?" Xiqisi was suddenly, unexpectedly clever.

"Legend says there have been. I've never seen one."

"Tch. Oh. All demons who have been judged are thrown down this hole?"

"Either thrown down or executed on the spot."

"Is there really no greater distinction between one crime and another? Then why even judge them?"

Yicha discovered that although Xiqisi was half demon, she severely lacked any basic knowledge about demons. It seemed Yifomiet had not taught her much.

"The judgment only determines whether you're guilty or not," he answered, slightly helplessly.

As he descended, he gradually began to see plump corpses giving off foul vapors. Cute little maggots also began crawling about on the ground.

"Thrown down. Waiting to die. What a monotonous way of handling things." Xiqisi started the conversation again.

"Those judged innocent are naturally all handled the same way," Yicha said.

"Huh?"

Yicha sensed Xiqisi stop.

She seemed quite agitated. So he stopped as well—the distance between two levels was not enough for him to fly.

"The innocent get thrown down here?" After a while, a message laden with turbulent emotions reached Yicha through the blood pact.

"Mm."

"Then what happens to the guilty?"

"Executed directly. I think I already said that. Either executed when they're caught, or executed in the plaza outside."

"Ah-ha?" Xiqisi still had her usual disdainful attitude, though now it was mixed with disbelief.

"Mm."

"Why does it sound like being innocent has a worse outcome than being guilty?"

"Of course. For demons, being guilty is naturally better. There is only one exception: betrayal. Betrayal is the worst."

In truth, this was a shift in the trend of the past few thousand years. Yicha did not explain it in too much detail.

More precisely, it was a change that had occurred after Beelzebub rose to become the King of All Demons. Though factions had long advocated that evil, crime, and aggressive violation should serve as demons' proper code of conduct, Beelzebub was the first leader to put that tendency into practice.

She altered many rules that did not suit her tastes because they were not evil enough. Then she changed some of them back without telling the other demons which rules she had changed.

That made what remained even more evil, and the entire process even more chaotic.

Beelzebub had a talent for this.

"What happens to traitors?"

After a while, Xiqisi began moving downward again.

"Having their souls stripped away. Torturing their souls. Things like that. Humans should be quite skilled at this too. Haven't you always lived among them? You should understand."

"I only understand half of it," Xiqisi answered with complete honesty.

She only had half a soul, the half that came from her demon side.

"Mm." Yicha thought for a moment and decided to say more. "If their souls aren't stripped away, there isn't much difference. Whether they are executed immediately or wait here to die, everyone goes to Gamenity."

"Gamenity?"

"Where demon souls go."

Yicha pointed upward, then sent that element of the gesture through as well. He was actually a little surprised that Xiqisi did not even know this. This was something Yifomiet should have taught her, he thought.

Demons' bedtime stories were filled with every sort of tale about Gamenity. Even fledgling demons who had just learned to fly knew a hundred horror stories about the City of Mercy.

And yet she had never even heard of it.

He suddenly felt a touch of sympathy.

Xiqisi lacked quite a bit of common knowledge because of this.

"Sounds interesting," Xiqisi replied slowly. Her emotions calmed down, and Yicha suddenly realized that his own feelings from earlier had also been transmitted through the blood pact.

"For most demons, it would be better to simply be annihilated. That would be preferable. Of all the methods of murder, I think the best is to kill the soul along with the body. It may not be interesting, but at least it isn't painful," he explained patiently.

"Why?"

"When your half of a soul goes to Gamenity, you'll have plenty of time to understand why." Remembering something important, Yicha ended the idle conversation.

"By the way. Let me ask you this: if you know nothing, how did you find the Chaos Child here?"

"When I was wandering around, I heard a voice calling to me. So I followed it down here, and along the way..."

"You didn't encounter any guards?"

"A few. But I killed them all... sent them to Gamenity. Hmph."

Strange.

The guards here should not have been so weak. How could Xiqisi, whose divine power had dissipated, kill them so easily?

Yicha quickly thought of a possible explanation, so he changed the subject.

"How did you identify the Chaos Child? Have you seen him?"

"Not exactly. But I know he's there. You'll know too once you see it."

Xiqisi's message came through.

"There. He's one level below me."