The Second Hell was an ocean hell. There was no land, no sky—only endless blue sea above and below. Ash flew between sea and sea, as if walking beneath the cliffs of a narrow gorge, with only one slit through which he could escape calamity. But that slit ahead of him had already been blocked by hundreds upon hundreds of demigods.
A wall appeared before Ash. It was built from every great authority capable of destroying life—thunder, flame, frost, time, storms, necromancy. It was not truly a wall; the Wonders were simply stacked so densely that there was not even a gap left for air, like a heavy wall occupying Ash's entire field of vision.
If this wall had a name, it would have been Death. Logically speaking, these spell Wonders, each studied to its utmost limit, should have been impossible to merge together. They should have clashed, annihilated, and weakened one another. The stronger they were, the purer they were; spells, like arcanists, forever lived in the zero-sum jungle.
But the greatness of life lay in creating a balance that surpassed everything. These demigod powerhouses, who in life could have beaten each other's brains out, had their colors perfectly harmonized by the balancing of the Stomach of the Great Serpent into a point where they could coexist in harmony. What a beautiful miracle. Even though his gap for escape had been sealed, Ash still could not help admiring this great crystallization of civilization and Wisdom. And it was not only ahead—behind him, left and right, every direction had been blocked by Wonders.
Only now did Ash finally feel that he was truly in hell. The enemies before him were endless, while he was alone, living like a fly in a sterile room, with no place for him in heaven