In Xie De's imagination, Hell should have had magma flowing everywhere, screams and agonized groans ringing out at every turn. Or perhaps even the sky would be black, with black devils imprisoning sinners with chains and pitchforks.
Or there would be a horned judge wearing a curly white wig, seated high on the bench and pounding the desk with a gavel.
Sentencing people to some arbitrary level of the eighteen layers of Hell.
But as it turned out, his imagination was sorely lacking.
Xie De crossed the cracked earth and cautiously entered a city packed with skyscrapers. It looked remarkably like a city in the Real World, with colorful street numbers hanging on storefronts, neon lights flashing among them, and cars coming and going before crashing into each other with a bang.
The biggest difference was probably that there were no traffic cops to sort things out.
Two people crashed into each other, pulled out knives, and hacked away at one another.
Delinquent youths who looked like street punks sat along the road, staring viciously at Xie De. The things they said were anything but pleasant.
"Hey, Father, did you end up in Hell for molesting little boys?"
Xie De ignored them and kept walking. His high-collared monk's robes covered his entire body, and close-fitting gloves covered his hands. Like an utterly unapproachable bishop, he surveyed this sinful city with an impassive gaze.
The logic governing this place was that there was no logic. There was no order whatsoever, and it was impossible to tell which cars on the road were driving against traffic.
Presumably, after a collision, whichever car's driver died took all the blame.
455 anxiously studied the map. "730 and I shared our locations. Hurry, let's go find them... oh shit, they're in another city!"
455 was