Detective Agency of the Bizarre-Chapter 1338 - Capítulo 1338: 178: Return to Hell

Capítulo 1338: Chapter 178: Return to Hell
The scorching wind that erodes the soul blew past the glimmering outline.
Lu Li stood in the barren, dark red world, beneath the ominous swirling clouds like a nightmare, rivers of magma flowing across the vast wilderness, Hell Creatures roaming the land.
This scene reminded Lu Li of an oil painting called “Heaven and Hell,” where the left side featured sunshine, white clouds, hills, rivers, and sheep grazing. On the right, the sunshine turned to a dark red glow, white clouds into vortexes, hills became barren, rivers into magma, and crawling Hell Creatures roamed.
Hell.
Lu Li had arrived again, after losing contact between the mortal realm and Hell.
Because of a devil’s curse?
Lu Li’s gaze fell on the inverted pentagram on the back of his hand, which was emitting heat and light. The Devil’s Daughter was on her way—or perhaps the devil itself.
Standing atop a small hill, Lu Li gazed out at the Hell Creatures wandering over the desolate sands. They seemed to sense the alluring essence of a soul brought by the scorching wind, approaching the small hill where Lu Li stood.
With humanoid outlines, they crawled on beast-like limbs; their frail, hairless gray-brown hide was covered in scars or missing patches. These Inferior Demons rekindled distant memories in Lu Li.
The heatwave baked Lu Li’s soul, but he felt no discomfort. The vitality represented by three shares of humanity allowed him to exist in Hell in soul form for quite a while—and was also quite alluring.
Usually only daring to hunt in groups, the timid Inferior Demons charged as soon as they neared the small hill, driven to madness by Lu Li’s enticing presence—
The burning sensation on the back of his hand suddenly intensified, like a red-hot branding iron searing it, sizzling to form the outline of a woman’s head topped with goat horns.
The approaching Inferior Demons whimpered and shrieked, fleeing further due to the aura of a Superior.
“I’ve come to fulfill my promise.”
Even though death was not the eternal slumber he had imagined, Lu Li didn’t mind completing the contract in passing—perhaps it was precisely because of the contract witnessed by the Ancients’ God of the Deep Sea that his soul was preserved.
“Did I not make it clear that you would arrive in Hell only after death, or was there some kind of accident?” The inverted pentagram on his hand dimmed, and the head of the Devil’s Daughter with goat horns and black skin stared complexly at Lu Li.
“You didn’t make it clear,” Lu Li said.
The Devil’s Daughter doubted his excuse but lacked proof: “Without the contract, I might even think you were deliberately dragging me down.”
“You should know I’m fulfilling the contract at the cost of my life,” Lu Li stated calmly.
The solid smoke thinned with the Devil’s Daughter’s deep breath, she avoided the subject: “Are your abilities still intact?”
The bizarre dream aura briefly appeared behind Lu Li: “They remain unaffected.”
“At least there’s some good news.” The Devil’s Daughter’s horizontal pupils softened: “For now, Father knows of your death, and the original plan is void as I bring your soul back.”
It warned Lu Li: “Exorcist, if you wish to return to the human world, follow my instructions.”
“What must I do.”
“Hunt those Hell Creatures and absorb nourishment to strengthen yourself before my true form arrives.”
“What can you do to help me during this?”
“Time. Twenty-five days, that’s the time I can delay for you.”
“Won’t my actions attract the devil’s attention?”
“The duke of this place is not Father, and would you notice an ant fighting in your backyard?”
Because of the contract, the Devil’s Daughter didn’t worry about Lu Li lazing about, and Lu Li didn’t worry about the Devil’s Daughter plotting something.
“How do you intend to deal with your father?”
“It’s not yet time to tell you… Hurry and grow…”
But it would still hide some things.
The Devil’s Daughter’s outline became savage and vanished with the dispersing smoke.
The Inferior Demons in the distance, who fled due to the Devil’s Daughter’s aura, lingered, instinctively approaching again.
Lu Li willingly moved to face the growling, charging Inferior Demons, but didn’t even need to unleash his Cursed Title as they merely crashed into the life-force turned barrier of humanity, crumbling to ash.
And the humanity harvested from them was like felling a tree.
Perhaps only an endless army of Inferior Demons attacking Lu Li could barely maintain Hell’s consumption of humanity.
The roaming Inferior Demons in Hell were nothing more than ashes spent without even residual warmth.
The last remaining Inferior Demon fled in fear, either from its companions’ deaths or isolation, but even before it left the small hill, it lost memory, and driven by greed, became a charred outline.
Lu Li looked out again, under the dark red sky like not-yet-cooled lava, where the land’s edge blurred by heatwaves was covered with streams of magma, with nothing but Inferior Demons roaming the barren, cracked land.
The place the Devil’s Daughter instructed him to eliminate Hell Creatures to enhance his strength was evidently not here.
Lu Li attempted to discern his position and direction.
As the Inner World related to the Main World, Hell is an expanded version of the Main World—a mere extinct volcano in Belfast in Hell becomes a mountain comparable to the Spine of the World Mountains, and the Ailen Peninsula extending from the Main Affinity Continent is more vast in Hell than the Main Affinity Continent itself.
From this gentle hill wilderness, Lu Li retrieved his memory of Midnight City’s location, then headed east.
The devil’s presence was in the Main Affinity Continent to the west, perhaps moving in the opposite direction would allow the Devil’s Daughter to delay even longer.
After all, a choice of direction must be made.
Before more ashen infernos incapable of burning, Inferior Demons discovered themselves, Lu Li stepped off the small hill, walking alone across the land distorted by heatwaves.
Perhaps merely a soul, perhaps reborn from death, Lu Li remained rational, composed, yet devoid of physical form and obsessions, he became pure. Initially, Lu Li had thought he might encounter acquaintances in Hell; seeing them again would be good, but here in the Barren Lands, when Lu Li set foot in the Barren Lands, Hell had already severed connections with the human world, and even if familiar ones once entered this wasteland, Hell’s vastness made it impossible for them to meet.
Lu Li was destined not to meet old friends here—whether friends or foes.
People typically describe weather as hot or scorching, while in Hell, descriptors change to searing, burning.
Boiling blood, roasting soul.
Merely because this is Hell, a barren land even oddities refuse to touch. Viscous streams of magma flowed in riverbeds, the pungent scent of sulfur drifted in the scorching air, and gushing pillars of fire carried a searing heat that incinerated all.
Lu Li circumvented and leaped over the magma rivers, dodged erupting volcanic flame pillars, gradually losing his way in Hell as time passed, hoping he hadn’t strayed too far off course.
Hell isn’t like the pure projection of ghosts’ Inner World; changes in the mortal realm won’t reflect in Hell;
After several hours’ travel, the only encounters along the way were Inferior Demons, but as long as humanity remained, Lu Li was unaffected and untired.
Hell had no night, only endless barrenness, searing heat, and figures trudging forward in desolation.