The King of Hell [1]
Natae’s curtain of sloth remained as quiet as ever.
His first moment of rest after building a grand library in his mental world and reclaiming his prime body from that worn-out, creaky middle-aged shell.
Sunk deep into the sofa, he savored the intoxicatingly sweet comfort coursing through every vein.
…This is it. Exactly this.
A lazy sigh of satisfaction slipped from his lips. No more fear of losing himself. All his memories were safely archived on the library shelves, and his body brimmed with overflowing sloth force, like a freshly charged battery.
His mind was clear, his body light. The absolute right to do nothing—that was Hell’s greatest gift to him.
The distant screams from beyond the curtain now felt like pleasant white noise. Like a child cradled in the world’s most comfortable bassinet, he sank once more into the depths of his consciousness.
The black sea within him, his sloth force rippling gently, guided him toward even deeper repose. He could stay in this blissful silence for years, decades even.
Feeling the faint warmth through his closed eyelids, he murmured softly.
“Ahh… so peaceful.”
Before the words could even scatter beyond the curtain—
Kuuuung—!
His sanctuary, which had never once trembled, shrieked under a massive impact. The impenetrable curtain of sloth.
“…?!”
His sense of peace shattered, Natae’s eyes snapped open on reflex. Over the transparent barrier woven from his sloth force swirled an intense, alien radiance that even repelled Hell’s blood-red atmosphere.
As if the heavens themselves were mocking him, it obliterated the word “peace” he’d just uttered.
He slowly opened his eyes. Beyond the transparent dome, a woman hovered in Hell’s crimson sky.
Crimson-black flames enveloped her body. No—they were her clothes, her very skin. The flickering blaze wrapped around her like living petals, and the heat she exuded was melting the edges of his curtain just by her presence in the air.
“…Wow, seriously. This damn mouth of mine. Fucking hell.”
Still seated on the sofa, he pinched his brow and muttered.
He wanted to slap the lips that had just smugly declared “so peaceful.” It hadn’t been long since he’d exhausted himself building the memory library, and now this—a “real deal” that made those pathetic low-level demons from before look like a joke by comparison.
He didn’t know her name or identity. But instinct screamed: this woman was a colossal disaster, utterly out of sync with this ecosystem.
Maybe if I pretend to sleep, she’ll leave?
No such luck. Her gaze from above pierced straight through the curtain to him inside.
Her eyes burned with Hell’s karmic flames, yet her expression was strangely serene, profoundly solemn.
“You there. I sensed a force disrupting this land’s order and came to investigate.”
Her voice was low and composed. No disdain or mockery. It carried the heavy respect befitting one at Hell’s pinnacle.
“I am Bael. Guardian of Hell’s providence.”
Hovering in the air, she lowered her gaze to meet his directly.
“I was willing to overlook it briefly. But as your repose edges toward eternity, this place’s causality loses its flow and begins to reek. The ‘hole in time’ unpermitted by Hell’s master must now be sealed.”
…A hole in time?
Suddenly, he noticed the low-level demons flailing beyond the curtain. He’d slowed time there a hundredfold to punish them for daring to disturb his sleep. An eternity of torment for them, but for him, just a “long-term noise blocker.”
Ha… no wonder it was devouring sloth force like crazy. Twisting the time axis was the real issue, not just torture.
Internally cursing as realization dawned, he kept his outward expression lazily relaxed. No way he’d back down now—the sloth force he’d invested was too precious.
“Hole in time? Bit of a harsh label. Might be a bug to fix for you, but…”
He narrowed his eyes lazily in response.
“To me, it’s pretty meaningful. Teaching those idiots the heavy price of interrupting my sleep.”
Grudgingly, he rose from the sofa. Her heat was starting to seep in. No AC, not even a fan breeze—just scorching hot wind.
“I ask you now.”
Bael extended her hand slowly. Crimson-black flames condensed in her palm, forging a longsword forged from Hell’s every grudge.
“I wonder if the vast silence you wield dreams of Hell’s ruin… or heralds a new order.”
A voice so calm it carried no killing intent. But the pressure within was on another level.
“Understand this. If your answer is wrong, the repose you seek will be fulfilled only in death.”
A lazy smile tugged at his lips.
“No grand dreams here. Ruin or order—that’s for busybodies.”
He flicked a finger toward the demons beyond the slowed curtain.
“I just need a decent wall to keep my sleep uninterrupted. Don’t know what your ‘wrong answer’ is, but if kicking me awake is your ‘right’ one…”
His surrounding sloth force rippled heavily, pushing back against her overwhelming presence.
“I won’t hold back either. Waking up puts me in a really bad mood.”
She adjusted her grip on the sword and stepped forward in the air. That single motion shattered his sturdy curtain of sloth like glass.
Pang—!
Through the scattering fragments, her red eyes flashed.
“I shall test if your sloth burns hotter than Hell’s flames with this blade.”
With each step Bael took, Hell’s earth screamed and erupted. It wasn’t mere strength. She wielded the very authority of Hell’s space itself.
The heat flooding in as the curtain broke was unimaginable. Instinct bypassed his brain, screaming warnings. Goosebumps prickled his skin, and his prime senses forcibly surged his sloth force against his will.
“…Hoo.”
For the first time, he drew in a deep lungful of Hell’s acrid air. And he fully unleashed the seal on the black sea within—the sloth force. What had been mere ripples on the surface was now the deep ocean’s crushing pressure incarnate.
“Your aura has changed. I shall show proper respect.”
As Bael slashed her sword horizontally, Hell’s crust shifted, massive rock pillars rising to encircle him. Her swordsmanship was unflashy but exquisitely precise, each arc enforcing Hell’s physical laws.
But he was no longer his old self. His mind’s library held “worldly principles” she knew nothing of.
“Laws? I know a thing or two about those.”
Instead of resisting Hell’s gravity crushing him, he drastically increased the “density” of space around him. Sloth force’s nature was to sink and condense. He used it to pack surrounding air particles into a single point.
Before Bael’s flames could touch his skin, they refracted against the ultra-high-density sloth force wall. A space distortion that bent even light.
“What is this…? No physical substance.”
“Heard of nuclear fusion? Principle’s a bit different, but the efficiency’s similar.”
He extended his right hand and clenched the air. A book on “the sun’s principles” silently opened in his inner library. Brute force emission was for low-level demons. He divided his sloth force into invisible ultrafine threads, binding the high-heat particles that had infiltrated his curtain.
Compression.
Space in his palm warped grotesquely. The static, heavy weight of sloth force became an invisible colossal press, crushing the area.
Bael’s crimson-black flame particles were forcibly converged into his palm. The Coulomb barrier of positively charged atomic nuclei resisted fiercely, but his artificial gravity from sloth force devoured the law effortlessly.
Particles at 100 million degrees screamed as their distances shrank to collision.
And… ignition.
Chijik, Kwaaang—!
From his palm burst a transparent, pale brilliance utterly unlike Hell’s murky red—a primordial light from a star’s core.
Particles collided, fused, vanished in an instant. That tiny “mass defect” converted to destructive energy per Einstein’s equation.
A small sphere the size of his palm. But within pulsed an “artificial sun” mocking Hell’s physics. If Hell’s magic was energy for destruction, this was a byproduct of “fusion” and “creation.”
“…!”
Bael’s eyes widened in shock. Her karmic flames cursed souls, but this light in his hand was pure physical violence, decomposing existence at the atomic level.
“…Not Hell’s power. Stellar essence?”
“Uh… well, self-taught, so no fancy name.”
He tossed the destructive orb at her lightly, like discarding annoying trash. The lazy motion left a vacuum trail as Hell’s atmosphere evaporated along its path.
“Don’t get mad if it’s too hot. Control’s not my strong suit.”
Kwaaaaang—!
The artificial sun clashed with Bael’s sword, and Hell’s blood-red sky flashed white. Explosive fusion energy expanded spherically, pulverizing the rock pillars, raging as if to devour even absolute authority.
The blast wiped Hell’s sky white. The artificial sun’s radiance seemed to engulf Bael completely, atomizing all.
But from the blinding center came a low, chilling voice.
“…Consuming causality, I redefine Hell’s laws.”
With her words, the raging energy fell into eerie stillness. The pale light that had reached her nose scattered powerlessly in the air, as if blocked by an invisible wall.
Not mere negation. It was as if existence itself denied it permission, rendering it inert.
“…Huh?”
His sloth-infused fusion energy couldn’t fizzle out. Yet Bael emerged unscathed from the blast’s remnants, not a hair out of place.
Red runes coiled around her like chains, emitting strange waves.
“All causal actions harboring enmity toward me, Bael, cannot touch my flesh.”
Her declaration became Hell’s law. As Hell’s system admin, she’d spent vast causality for a temporary “invincibility law,” treating him as an equal.
“I acknowledge you are no mere demon. Your power threatens to shatter Hell’s ecosystem—yet it is wondrous.”
Bael slowly raised her sword vertically. Her once-calm eyes now thrummed with a ruler’s thrill and might.
“But deaths unpermitted by Hell’s master hold no sway here. No matter if your light holds stellar essence, it cannot erase me.”
She stepped forward again. This time, not just the curtain—the very ground beneath him rebelled. Hell’s space branded him an “intruder” and began expelling him.
“Your strike was like a star’s birth. In respect, I answer with Hell’s origin.”
Bael thrust her sword skyward. Hell’s blood clouds swirled into a vast cavity, revealing a “gigantic sword” condensed from all Hell’s darkness.
A crimson-black greatsword kilometers long. Its mere manifestation warped gravity, floating nearby rocks skyward. If it hit the ground, tens of thousands of kilometers would vaporize without trace.
Feeling that overwhelming pressure, he gaped dumbly.
…What the hell? So I can’t attack her at all here?
He replayed her chant. Redefining laws via causality. In his past life’s fantasy novels and webtoons, causality was forbidden territory—tampering with world foundations risked erasure.
As far as I know, causality isn’t for casual use. It’s like her system admin privileges as Hell’s king, separate from my sloth force.
And the condition was brutal: no effects from enmity-bearing laws.
The more he attacked with killing intent, the more immune she became. Like a game passive of “reflect” or “nullify” always on.
“Ha… insane. Feels like suddenly facing the final boss.”
He scratched his head. The confidence from crafting an artificial sun—“I’m kinda strong”—vanished. He’d just adapted to Hell for a breather, and bam: no tutorial, straight to endgame boss drop.
The crimson-black greatsword filling the sky began its slow descent. His leather sofa creaked under the pressure.
Fighting to win? Efficiency’s trash. Can I even win?
His lazy brain spun rapidly. No enmity means it works? But does intent matter against that monstrous blade?
He sighed, gazing up at the sky-blanketing symbol of destruction.
The crimson-black greatsword filling the sky began its slow descent. The ground beneath him cracked and screamed under the pressure. If that insane mass dropped, defense or not, he’d be erased from Hell’s surface.
…Crazy. Block it somehow. Anything.
His brain whirred at overload. She wielded Hell’s laws. Normal defense wouldn’t work against enmity-nullification. That wasn’t mere metal—a conceptual crystal of billions of souls’ grudges and Hell’s causality.
That mass and drop height… head-on is suicide.
Physics laws flickered in his library. Kinetic energy scales with mass and velocity squared. Blocking that gained energy with a “wall” was folly.
Enduring isn’t enough. It’s infused with Hell’s laws—physical defense will pierce.
From his library’s deepest, darkest shelves poured forbidden tomes on cosmic ends. Arms spread, he condensed sloth force around him to a point. Not just heaviness—bending space’s curvature to infinity, creating a “closed system” causality couldn’t flow through.
Event Horizon.
From his fingertips spread a perfect spherical darkness blacker than black, from which even light couldn’t escape. No mere force release. Infinite space density decomposed all crossing “information” from atoms to bits—the universe’s cliff.
Kwaduk, Kwaaaang—!
Bael’s massive dark greatsword touched the black boundary. Mass to raze thousands of kilometers, infused with the king’s causality. Yet at the singularity’s maw, even that overwhelming authority was powerless.
The blade’s edge hit the boundary, time dilating to near-stop—then “spaghettification” stretched it thin. Hell’s laws? Invincible causality? Before the abyss collapsing time and space, noble laws and ruler’s might became mere data fragments, sucked in.
“…”
Bael watched from above, eyes serene. No panic at her power’s futile dissipation. Instead, strange fascination as she observed the black sphere, murmuring.
“That power isn’t destruction. Not erasure, but reverting existence to ‘never was’—an abyss unlike any Hellish sin. Truly alien math.”
She watched her colossal sword disintegrate like fine art.
“Devouring my causality yet holding space. Makes me reassess your caliber.”
Cold sweat trickled down his back as he squeezed more sloth force. Outwardly casual, but maintaining the event horizon tested his self’s limits every second.
“Inside here, even your grandpa, Hell’s king, couldn’t escape. Providence and all? Just ‘trash data’ in there.”
Over half the massive dark greatsword vanished into the horizon. His sloth-born absolute “nothing” sphere devoured Hell’s judgment whole, spreading unnatural silence.
The massive dark greatsword fully vanished beyond the event horizon. With the terrifying mass gone, an eerie quiet hung in Hell’s air.
He gasped raggedly, dismissing the singularity. Sloth force scraped bottom—extreme overexertion. But she above remained flawless, gazing down.
“…I’ve fully appreciated your power. A causality-devouring abyss—truly intriguing authority.”
Bael descended slowly to the ground. Her flame-wreathed feet touched the charred earth; she flicked her longsword clean.
“Then, let us now proceed simply.”
Her tone was as casual as a stroll. But her following decree was anything but.
“I engrave the law anew. My sword cannot be barred by any means, nor my steps hindered by any barrier.”
…
…Wait, what?