_Chapter Begins_
"…I must say… this truly is Hell."
William was sitting atop a massive pile of mystical glass shards.
Besides the sinister smile stretched across his disheveled face—a smile almost as twisted as Adam's—there was one other detail that made him look even more unsettling.
He was missing an arm, a foot, several teeth, and chunks of flesh from his torso. Even parts of his head were gone.
Covered in blood, he looked less like a man and more like a zombie.
He had, at most, ten more minutes to live.
But for some reason, he didn't seem the least bit concerned.
William slowly turned his head toward a jagged piece of mystical glass standing about twenty meters away.
Then, his sinister smile turned into a frown.
"Damn… has it already caught up?"
Without warning, the jagged shard exploded into hundreds of smaller fragments that scattered across the ground.
Some of them flew straight toward him.
"Can't this thing just leave me alone?!"
William ducked his head as low as it would go.
A split second later, a sharp piece of glass sliced through the air where his head had been just moments ago.
It struck the wall of mystical glass behind him with such force that it produced a small shockwave.
The blast threw William to the ground, forcing a pained yelp from his throat.
Groaning, he lifted his head and looked toward where the shard had exploded.
Standing there was the monstrous figure that had been haunting him—an abomination made entirely of wood.
Its skull-like head had two hollow holes on either side, and within those hollows burned small purple lights—alive with madness and fury.
Its head was a grotesque cross between that of a dog and a horse, though calling it any kind of animal would be an insult to nature.
The abomination had two massive arms and legs, each roughly the same length.
When standing on all fours, the creature towered higher than any human could imagine—at least five or six meters tall, maybe even seven.
And that was while crouched.
If it ever stood upright, it would easily double that height.
But William wasn't surprised.
He'd already grown quite familiar with this monster's company.
"How many times now?"
His voice was rough, raspy—like that of a lifelong smoker rather than a young man.
Of course, given his current state, he wasn't far from death anyway.
"Ten? Or was it fifteen?"
The truth was twelve.
He had died to this horror twelve times—each death more brutal than the last.
"Well… I'll say it again… I'm impressed."
He had to admit, the system by which Hell operated was a true masterpiece of cruelty—worthy of admiration in its own twisted way.
Whoever had designed this place must've been truly passionate about making people suffer.
It had taken William about five deaths to understand what was happening.
At first, he thought he was stuck in a time loop. But after noticing how the terrain, situation, and even the monster's behavior changed each time, he realized that wasn't the case.
That left him with only two possibilities.
Either the purple orb inside him had granted some kind of regenerative ability…
or this was simply how Hell worked.
In this place, the dead were never allowed to rest.
Each time someone died—whether by their own hand or another's—Hell revived them, ensuring their torment continued endlessly.
The idea of ending your own life to escape suffering was useless here.
By his fifth revival, William confirmed the theory.
That same time, he had also awakened his first ability—granted by the purple orb inside him.
And that ability was what had allowed him to escape the wooden abomination… at least for a while.
But clearly, the thing had caught up again.
His power was an intriguing one. From what he could tell, it allowed him to travel through reflections.
He had managed to use the reflections in the shards to move around—almost like teleporting. But during that process, he discovered the ability's fatal flaw.
If the shard he was traveling through shattered while he was midway, the damage would strike not his body… but his soul.
And that was far worse.
But then you might ask—if it only damaged his soul, why was he in such horrible physical shape?
Well, during his sixth revival, the monster shattered a shard while he was inside it.
That was when he first learned the risk.
At that moment, a horrifying thought struck him:
Hell could restore his body, yes—but would it do the same for his soul?
There was no guarantee.
If his soul took too much damage, he might not come back at all.
So, from then on, William tried to rely less on the ability, using it sparingly.
But because of that, his speed decreased drastically, allowing the abomination to catch up to him again.
And since he no longer traveled through the shards, it could now attack his body directly.
Which was how he ended up like this.
His thirteenth revival—and still, no escape in sight.
The situation was truly hopeless.
But somehow, that was exactly the kind of situation William thrived in.
He managed to lift his broken body, swaying side to side like a drunk man.
A faint grin crept back onto his bloodied face as he locked eyes with the purple flames glowing in the abomination's skull.
"Well then… bring it on, you vile thing."
The creature lunged with such terrifying speed that it vanished from sight—only to reappear right above him.
William closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.
"This better work, dammit."
_Chapter Ends_