Chapter 144: The Scenery of Hell, Underworld-Earth's Worries
What exactly was it that blocked Shirazawa's view?
It was a pair of crisp, form-fitting black thighs-highs that reached all the way up to the knees, coupled with a pair of towering peaks and a slender, supple waist...
Suddenly, a sharp pinch at his side snapped Shirazawa right back to reality.
"Honey, do they look good?" Shiro asked with a sweet smile, leaning in close with a gentleness that felt thoroughly terrifying.
"Ahem—"
Shirazawa let out a couple of dry coughs to mask his embarrassment. "I couldn't help it. Everywhere you look, it's just more of the same. It's practically impossible *not* to see them," he quickly explained.
"Oh, really? What a shame then~" Shiro didn't press the matter any further and began to look around at their surroundings.
It was quite different from the version of Hell they had expected. Instead of a bleak, eerie, and horrifying landscape, they were standing inside a staggeringly massive city.
The city's overall aesthetic leaned toward a fiery crimson color palette. The streets were wide and immaculate, with every single cobblestone seemingly treated with a special polish that cast a dazzling reflection under the sunlight.
Sunlight?
To think that Hell actually had sunlight.
The couple raised their heads. The entire sky was dominated by a colossal demonic eye. The main body of the eye was a pale blue, but its central pupil was so vibrantly red it looked exactly like fresh blood, occasionally pulsing with a faint purple glow. The demonic eye spun in a slow, hypnotic rotation, looking down as if it were observing the entire world.
The light source itself radiated directly from this demonic eye, washing over everyone below and instilling a wave of absolute comfort. To be exact, any internal discomfort, dread, or erratic emotions were systematically absorbed by the eye, leaving a person feeling completely tranquil.
Far out into the distance, right at the absolute edge of the horizon, nine colossal Hell Gates stood tall, bridging the gap between heaven and earth. Even from an immense distance, one could distinctly perceive the terrifying presence radiating from them, making anyone think twice about approaching.
The Hell Gates were opened by about a third. Infinite torrents of deceased souls stood in a massive line, being systematically herded through the threshold by aggressive demons before vanishing entirely. Faint, agonizing shrieks echoed out from beyond the gates; evidently, the world on the other side was anything but pleasant.
"Follow me. This sector falls directly under Big Sister Underworld-Earth's administration, so the public security here is the absolute best. You won't have any brainless idiots popping out to cause trouble."
Menka seemed completely desensitized to this grand welcoming style. After all, the number of Underworld Deities trying to suck up to her was completely endless; no matter where she traveled, people would always line the streets to welcome her arrival.
Of course, the primary factor was her unique title as the Underworld Patrol Envoy granted by D herself, meaning she effectively represented the Supreme Goddess while surveying the Underworld. It was an absolute position of being above tens of thousands, second only to one. Aside from the three supreme rulers of Hell, the Abyss, and the Yellow Springs, anyone who ran into her had to treat her with a decent amount of respect.
*But seriously, why is it always succubi every single time? Who on earth keeps leaking my personal preferences? Dammit!*
Led by the group of succubi, the trio made their way directly to the absolute center of the city. A towering skyscraper of a tower stood anchored right in the middle, its pinnacle piercing straight through the firmament, pointing toward an unknown height.
"Big Sister Underworld-Earth lives right up there," Menka introduced. Stepping onto a levitating platform, she guided the couple as they soared straight past the cloud layer.
Once they broke through the clouds, the view suddenly opened up. Under a completely clear, endless blue sky, a grand Demon God Palace filled their vision. Well-dressed butlers and maids moved briskly back and forth across the grounds, and every single one of them exuded the distinct aura of a Lower God. Even the elderly staff sweeping the courtyard and dusting the trash cans possessed the raw strength of a Demigod.
*As expected of Hell. Any random bystander you run into is a total powerhouse,* Shirazawa silently marveled.
Lower Gods were relatively easy to churn out, but Middle Gods were exceptionally rare; the couple hadn't caught sight of a single one during their entire journey through the sector.
Menka took a moment to explain, "Middle Gods represent the core backbone of Hell's fighting forces. Most of them are actively deployed across the multi-realms handling operational missions, so they rarely ever check back into headquarters."
"Ah, got it." Shirazawa nodded in understanding, gaining a significantly sharper picture of how Hell's overall layout operated.
"Lord Menka, Her Eminence has been expecting you for a quite some time. Please follow me." A maid sporting a pair of goat horns on her head stepped forward to greet them, escorting the group straight into the main hall of the Demon God Palace.
The moment Shirazawa and Shiro stepped across the threshold, a massive wave of pure divine pressure washed directly over them. The sheer density of that presence felt as deep as an abyss and as heavy as hell itself, instinctively making a person want to drop to their knees in absolute worship. Shirazawa's brows knit together slightly, though he quickly returned to his usual calm demeanor.
At the highest point of the grand hall stood a remarkably lifelike statue—and who else could it possibly depict but D herself.
Right beneath the statue sat a throne crafted entirely from black crystal. Underworld-Earth sat perched upon it, dressed in a full maid outfit, while a pitch-black scythe hung against the wall to her right, radiating a bone-chilling coldness. At this very moment, she was aggressively scratching her head over a massive stack of official paperwork, her smooth, long hair completely disheveled like a literal bird's nest.
It was blindingly obvious that Underworld-Earth's current mood was anything but beautiful.
Two neat rows of butlers and maids stood silently along the sides of the hall, seemingly waiting for the young girl on the throne to hand down her directives. The overall atmosphere was incredibly suffocating, and nobody dared to even breathe too loudly for fear of triggering the explosive temper of the resident Demon Sovereign.
"Big Sister Underworld-Earth, did you miss me~?"
Right at that tense moment, Menka completely brainlessly burst into the hall, dragging the couple along behind her. The surrounding maids immediately began throwing desperate frantic winks her way, trying to signal that Lord Underworld-Earth was currently in a massive loop of frustration and not to walk straight into the firing line.
"Get out! Can't you see I'm completely buried in work right now?!" Underworld-Earth glared at her with absolute fury.
The look caused Menka to instantly pull her neck back in fear, feeling incredibly wronged. She hadn't even done anything wrong yet~
"Right away! Rolling out!" Menka grabbed the couple and obediently began backing out of the hall, leaving the group of resident maids behind wanting to cry but having no tears.
"Wait, get back here."
"Ayy, coming~" Menka came skittering right back, looking up at Underworld-Earth with a thoroughly pleasing expression.
However arrogant she acted in front of outsiders was exactly how pathetic she looked when standing before Underworld-Earth.
The Sovereign was already harboring a massive amount of internal rage over the fact that the Evil God loved running off to play hooky everywhere, leaving behind a colossal pile of administrative disasters for her to clean up. Now that a perfect little stress ball had willingly delivered herself to her doorstep, there was zero chance she was letting her off the hook easily. She couldn't casually vent her frustrations on her actual subordinates, but when it came to the cat-eared maid—venting a bit of operational stress was completely fine.
"There are a few incredibly thorny incidents sitting here. Sort them out for me." Underworld-Earth slammed her hand down on the desk beside her.
"But I'm technically still on my official vacation..." Menka grumbled quietly, but the moment she locked eyes with Underworld-Earth's icy, threatening glare, she instantly folded. Fine, she'd just treat it as forced overtime.
She miserably climbed up onto the crystal throne, swapping places with Underworld-Earth, and began flipping through the official documents at lightning speed.
A large portion of the paperwork covered internal affairs within Hell—to put it simply, localized turf wars and civil disputes. Ever since the Evil God left the sector, the Underworld's central administration had effectively ground to a halt, creating a massive backlog of deceased souls that were completely unable to enter the reincarnation cycle. Underworld-Earth was completely stretched thin; she had only been able to manually process a tiny fraction of the workflow, which amounted to a literal drop in the bucket.
The massive accumulation of lingering spirits across the Underworld had eventually triggered a series of major riots. It acted exactly like a powder keg, with the unrest spreading across the sectors at a speed that completely defied expectations.
Among all the sectors, the one bearing the absolute worst of the damage was Hell itself, as it housed the single highest concentration of wicked and vile criminals across the entire Underworld.
Divine authority could not be utilized for personal whims; every single soul that entered the boundaries of the Underworld had a strictly designated destiny they had to fulfill. Those meant to serve sentences had to serve them, and those meant to reincarnate had to reincarnate. The moment those fundamental rules were compromised, Underworld-Earth's personal divine authority would also face a major destabilization. Otherwise, as a High-Tier deity, she could easily wipe these annoying pests out of existence with a single passing thought. This was exactly what was giving her a massive headache.
Similarly, after Menka finished scanning the documents, she also felt a massive headache coming on.
"Tsk~ What a bunch of annoying bastards."
Ending her complaint, she immediately pivoted into operational mode and began barking out commands. "Order the Third Hell Legion, the Sixth Hell Legion, and the Ninth Hell Legion to immediately pull back from the frontlines. Have them deploy directly to the Faithless Hell, the Heresy Hell, and the Tyranny Hell to execute a hard lockdown."
"Anyone explicitly flagged as a participant in the riots is to be thrown directly into the Rebellion Hell to serve immediate sentences."
"Send an official dispatch to the King of the Yellow Springs. Tell him to deploy Meng Po over here to thoroughly wash these idiots' brains out."
"Notify the Abyssal Demon God that he is to take over our operational frontline coordinates. The baseline condition is that we will assist him in locking down his local riots in exchange."
"Send a spiritual transmission to the Evil God. Request a temporary transfer of the Eye of Dread to anchor the heavenly trench. Explicitly tell her those are my exact words."
Countless executive orders were systematically handed down to the waiting butlers and maids. Holding the official transfer documents, the crowd sprinted out of the hall, traveling at maximum speed to deploy across the various sectors.
Underworld-Earth nodded her head in absolute satisfaction. The cat-eared maid really was incredibly useful; a massive operational crisis had been completely sorted out in a matter of seconds. If she had tried to handle it herself, her personal pride would have absolutely prevented her from reaching out to the Yellow Springs or the Abyss for assistance; she simply couldn't bring herself to lose face like that. But since the directive was officially handed down under Menka's authority, then it had absolutely nothing to do with her personal standing.
*Look at me, absolutely brilliant.*
"You two follow me. The Evil God left something behind and explicitly instructed me to hand it over to you."
Now that the immediate riot crisis was thoroughly sorted out, Underworld-Earth looked to be in a significantly better mood. She gestured for the two peanut-gallery spiders to follow her toward her private back garden.
What else could the two tiny, weak spiders even say? They could only obediently follow her lead.
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