Time moved swiftly, chaotically, in hell's cruel realm.
The bloodied suns rose and fell in their bloody cycles, but Adam paid them no mind.
He was a man of singular focus now, his entire being bent towards a single, burning goal: the completion of the dimensional portal.
Every other desire; lust, ambition, even the addictive satisfaction of his victory over Saphira, was pushed aside, relegated to the depths of his consciousness.
He worked through the scorching heat of the hellish day, when the air shimmered and the ground grew so hot that even weaker demons sought shelter.
He worked through the thickening miasma, when the black, choking fog rolled in from the depths of abysses, reducing visibility to mere meters and making every breath a labor.
Furthermore, he worked through the random, sequenced bursts of mana that Roh had been assigned to release: the carefully timed 'crumbs' of power designed to keep the watching devils intrigued.
The pulses shook the obelisk, sent tremors through the basin, but Adam's hands remained steady, his focus unbroken.
Even as darkness once again claimed the basin, when the hellish light faded to a deep, oppressive gloom and most of his demons retired to their crude shelters or hobbit holes, Adam continued.
Usually, at this hour, he would head to his bed, to Lyra's warm, sexy body, to the indulgence of the flesh until exhaustion claimed him.
But not tonight.
His hell's Inheritance, that vast, instinctual library of demonic knowledge, guided his hands with the basics; the integration and higher knowledge was on him to decipher.
He traced the intricate, glowing lines of the dimensional runes, his fingers moving with a precision that put seasoned surgeons to shame.
The hardest parts, the most complex and the most delicate, were already laid out before him as the ethereal remnants of Arch Devil Gorael's original work.
The Arch Devil's power, though withdrawn, had left its mark on the obelisk, leaving a faint, lingering blueprint that Adam could follow.
Without it, without that foundation to trace, he would have been lost, his ambition beyond his reach. With it, he could do something that was forbidden.
By the time he was finally done, the hellish had long receded deep past the horizon, leaving the sky in shades of dark purple and faint, erratic red.
Agri and Blair, who had been channeling their demonic energy into the runes for hours, fell flat on their asses, their chests heaving, their bodies slick with sweat.
They panted, open-mouthed, their demonic stamina pushed to its limits.
The group of demons with high levels of mana control, the ones Blair had been leading, also let out collective sighs of relief as they backed away from the trio, their tasks complete.
Their eyes glowed with satisfaction, by having been allowed to work alongside their lord in completing such an important structure. Pride from completing such a job, but also greed for the rewards they could expect from serving their lord.
Even Adam, despite his superior power and relentless drive, was sweating.
A sheen of moisture covered exposed bare chest, tracing the lines of his muscles, dripping down his half-hidden abdomen. He was tired, his mental reserves depleted, but a fierce satisfaction burned in his chest.
The portal was finally complete!
For a moment, nothing happened.
The massive, circular archway, its surface a shimmering slightly; forming a faint mercury-like veil that was silently losing its opaqueness.
Adam stared at it, his heart pounding, his breath held in anticipation.
He had done it. He had actually done it!
"Wooom!
Then, magically, suddenly, the once-inactive portal stirred.
A low, deep sound emanated from it. Like a deep hum, but also a groan; like an infernal engine of war being roused from a long, deep slumber.
The mercury-like surface rippled, churned, began to swirl with slow, hypnotic motion.
Adam's brow furrowed.
"Hmm? What's going-"
"BOOM!"
He couldn't finish the thought.
A massive, overwhelming surge of demonic mana erupted from the portal's entrance as a shockwave of pure, unbridled energy that slammed into him like a speeding car.
The force was overwhelming, far beyond anything he had anticipated.
It was not the controlled, precise, systematic pulse of a rune activating: it was a raw, chaotic explosion.
A baby universe taking its first, violent breath.
A more like a universe opening its eyes and peeking back at him…
Adam was launched backward, his body tumbling through the air, his ears ringing, his vision blurring by the intense demonic mana that sizzled on his skin. The overpowering demonic mana washed over him, through him, like a corrosive tide that tried to tear apart his flesh.
But even as he flew, even as the world spun around him, his mind, honed by battle, sharpened by survival, reacted.
In that split second after he was launched back, he reacted.
He reached out with his will, his mental energy connecting to the obelisk's pedestal, and he activated the barrier.
It was different from the partial, translucent screen he usually maintained: the one that allowed sound and light to pass through, that was more of a mesh door than a true wall.
Now he pushed further, deeper, calling upon the barrier's full, dormant power; sealing it completely.
The shimmering, translucent wall around the basin vanished, thickened into something new.
A solid, impenetrable barrier of pure, absolute darkness.
It was no longer a wall of energy; it was a manifested void, a slice of nothingness, that allowed no light, no sound, nor no energy to pass.
The roar of the demonic mana wave, the screams of startled demons, the chaos of the basin; all of it was swallowed, silenced, erased the moment it touched the wall.
It was something Adam had realized was possible when he first connected with the obelisk's pedestal; a hidden function buried deep within the defensive rune's architecture. Or more like overclocking the mana input to the defensive barrier.
It worked similar to how the attack rune instantly used up the nexus's mana reserve to shoot out a mana blast that defied the rules of hell's 1st layer.
Such a defense barrier couldn't last long.
But he had never used it.
He never dared to.
Because a defensive barrier of such density, such absolute power, was an anomaly in of itself.
To activate it was to risk everything.
But now he had no choice.
The wave of demonic energy born from the portal's completion was something that obviously, loudly, dramatically exceeded the restrictions of hell's 1st layer. It was a flare, a glaring signal fire, that would be noticed across the realm.
The 100% barrier was a candle in the dark, but the demonic energy wave was a supernova.
One could be hidden or attract less attention: the other could not.