The first thing azael felt was the kind of cold that goes straight into his very own soul deep inside him.
It was not only biting his soul, but also it's biting his every bones, nerve system, his heart, his brain. And even the outside isnt spared as he felt his skin frozen to oblivion.
Azael tried to move. But his body wouldn't listen. His left arm was numb, his fingers stiff and blue. Snow piled on his chest, his legs, his face.
He forced his eyes open. only to see nothing but a raging snowstorm on a thick and hard snowfield.
"Where… am I?"
He shifted his left arm just an inch and white-hot agony lanced up his nerves. He screamed. The sound died instantly in the wind. Then a sharp click echoed in his skull.
[ System Initialization Complete. ]
[ Welcome to Hell, Azael. ]
A black screen flickered in front of his eyes. White text glowed in the dark.
"Hell? What the hell are you talking about?"
He read fast, squinting through the storm.
[ You are missing your memories, Azael. But your sins have earned you this place.
To ascend to Heaven, you must:
— Recover the required amount of Sin Fragments
— Reclaim your memories
— Repent, truly and wholly.
Only then may God consider your forgiveness. ]
Azael's stomach dropped. He clawed at his head, trying to remember something anything. A face. A place. A name.
But nothing came in his mind. It was like he'd just been born here at this second. And yet, his chest ached like he'd done something terrible.
"So it's true," he whispered. "was I truly bad enough for this?"
The screen had a [NEXT] button. He struggled to lift his finger to tapped it. And when he does, a new text shows up on the black screen.
[Current Floor: 66 — Satan's Treachery]
[Objective: Defeat the Floor Sovereign]
Another tab glowed: [PROFILE]. He tapped it.
[ Name: Azael Caelum ]
[ Rank: Sinner ]
[ Soul Energy: 0/100 ]
[ Invocation: ——— ]
[ Achievements: ——— ]
[ Contracts: ——— ]
[ Personality: ——— ]
[ Sin Fragments Collected: 0/66 ]
He didn't understand half of it. And right now, he didn't care. He tapped [EXIT] on the bottom of the window. And the screen vanished.
Shelter was all azael needed. Something to stop the cold from freezing him to death
He tried to move his left arm again. The moment his muscles twitched, white-hot agony shot up his shoulder and exploded behind his eyes. It wasn't just pain, it felt like his nerves were being ripped out one by one. He gasped, tears springing to his eyes. But in this storm, tears didn't fall. They froze the instant they formed, sharp little crystals clinging to his lashes, pricking his skin every time he blinked. He had to wipe them away carefully, fingers trembling, before they cut into his corneas.
Somehow azael overcome the pain and stood up, only for a sharp sting went straight into his brain, he hissed at it.
He was wearing a thin, White ragged tunic. It was useless in this environment. The wind cut right through it
He walked. One step. Then another. Each step sent fresh jolts of pain through his frozen limb, but he kept going. He had no choice, azael brushes his blonde hair that was already frozen due to the harsh weather.
He saw his surrounding to see if there's anything else other than snow, but he could barely see far as it was pitch black all around him. And if he opened his eye to long, the snowstorm will spike his eye, damaging it, so azael decided that he needed to walk until he found anything other than snow.
-----
Azael has been walking for what felt like hours or even days, but he couldn't tell since there's no time in hell. worst of all, The landscape never changed. Just snow. And snow everywhere he went.
Then his boot sank into something soft. Azael was startled, since all this time walking, the snow has always been rock hard. He looked down.
Too see that it wasn't a snow. It was blood. frozen to his bare feet. Azael was in terror seeing this, he turned and what he saw made him wanna puke.
"Is that a— a HEAD!!" azael screamed so loud but the snowstorm swallowed it.
The head Crushed into the ice. One eye staring at nothing the other empty and hollow, hair squished in the person head.
Azael gagged. Nothing came up but bile and frost.
He ran. Pain vanished due to adrenaline. Fear took over. Legs pumping, lungs burning, mind blank except for one desperate command Get away. Get away. Get away.
He ran so fast that he didn't see the cliff. when he notice it, azael make a brake to stop his running, just enough to be peering on the edge of the cliff. His heart hammering, but he smiled.
"finally, finally something else other than a thick snowfield!" He then he heard a sound. Like something is digging on the snow.
"Hello?" he called out, hope stupid and small in his chest. "Is someone there?"
He peered over the edge.
Something moved below. Azael squinted to see what's below and he sees a silhouette of what looks like a bear. It wasn't digging with its claws. It was using its tongue.
The tounge are long. Black and thick. It slithered into the ice, then yanked something, a body came up with it. It's a man. Still alive and thrashing.
"NO! PLEASE! I'M BEGGING YOU—!"
The creature didn't hesitate. Didn't even glance back. It turned and lumbered into the storm, dragging its prey into the void. The screams faded, swallowed by the wind.
Azael stood there shaking.
"That definitely wasn't a bear," he whispered. "It littreally harvested him."
His hope shattered. But a new thought came.
Where it went… there might be shelter.
He knew it was insane. Following a monster that takes people with its tongue.
But standing here, slowly freezing to death in an empty wasteland? That was slower. And lonelier. Azael took a shaky breath. Wiped the ice from his eyes.
And stepped toward the edge.
He looked down. The creature was gone, but it left a trail of fresh blood on the snow floor, "ok ok azael, here's the plan. I'll find its den. kill the monster, than take it's shelter."
But the cliff loomed like a death sentence.
His left arm was still frozen solid useless dead weight. If he fell wrong, he'd shatter it like glass.
"Okay… okay, Azael. You got this." His voice was thin, shaking. "I can do this."
He sat down at the edge, legs dangling over nothing. Took a breath so deep it burned his lungs. Closed his eyes. And pushed off. The world dropped away.
Snow screamed against his back as he slid faster than he expected, way faster. The cliff wasn't a slope. It was a chute carved by damnation itself, steep and endless. His threadbare tunic shredded against the ice, offering the barest shield. Without it, his skin would've been flayed raw.
Still, it wasn't enough. Halfway down, a jagged ice ripped through the fabric and into his left thigh.
He didn't feel it at first. Just a sudden wet warmth. He hit the bottom hard, rolling once before collapsing face-first into the snow.
For a second he felt nothin. Then the pain hit like a hammer.
His left leg was torn open from knee to hip. Blood pulsed out, freezing at the edges. Snowflakes landed in the wound and melted, stinging like needles.
"Fuck!" he choked out.
He tried to stand but he collapsed. Tried again. And successfully Made it to his feet, swaying like a drunk.Now he was messed up on both sides: left arm dead, left leg shredded.
But he continued walking despite the pain. Because stopping meant dying.
"Please," he whispered, limping into the storm, eyes scanning the void. "Just a cave. A hole. Anything."
The wind howled back.
His breath hitched. Tears threatened but he blinked them back hard. Couldn't afford ice in his eyes now.
"Damn it… fuck." His voice cracked. "If only I remembered… what did I even do?"
He thought of the System's words: Repent. Reclaim your memories. Be forgiven.
But how? How do you beg forgiveness for sins you can't recall?
"This is so unfair," he muttered, voice raw. "How am I supposed to repent for sins I don't even remember?"
Despite hus complain, no answer came.Only the storm. And the distant, guttural growl deep in the dark ahead.
He limped toward it anyway.
Because hope, was all he have.
-----
The ground trembled again.
Azael froze mid-step. Like something massive shifting beneath the snow. He scanned the darkness, but the storm swallowed everything past ten paces. It was like walking through an empty room that stretched forever. No landmarks. No sky. Just endless void.
He kept moving. One foot. Then the other. Blood from his leg had long since crusted over, frozen into stiff bands around his thigh. Every step sent fresh needles into his nerves. His left arm hung like a dead branch, numb except for the places where the skin had split.
Then azael saw a silhouette. His breath caught.
"Thank God," he whispered, half-cursing, half-praying. "It's the bear. It has to be.
But as he drew closer, hope curdled into something colder.
It wasn't the bear.
It was an igloo carved from snow, slick with old ice. And from inside… there's a scream.
Azael crept around the back, heart hammering against his ribs. He pressed himself against the curved wall and peered through a gap in the snow blocks.
His blood turned to ice.
The interior was painted in blood dried rust-brown streaks layered over fresh, glistening red. In the center crouched the creature. The bear.
And before it the man it had taken.
Or what was left of him.
Most of his skin was gone. Stripped clean like butchered meat. No hair. No eyelids. Just raw muscle, exposed sinew, and the glistening curve of his brain, pulsing faintly in the cold. His jaw hung slack, teeth chattering in silent agony.
Then the bear moved.
Its tongue long, black, segmented like a centipede slithered forward and pressed against the man's chest. With a wet rip, it tore a strip of flesh free.
"AAAAAAAAAH—!" The man's scream tore through the igloo, raw and broken.
The bear retracted its tongue, chewed slowly, eyes unblinking.
"Please… stop…" the man whimpered.
The creature turned its head. All six eyes glossy, multifaceted, like a spider's locked onto its prey. Its tongue flicked out again, not to feed but to silence.
It speared the man's mouth in one swift motion.
There was a sickening crack.
The man's jaw dropped clean off, hitting the snow with a soft thud. Blood bubbled from the ruin of his face. He couldn't scream anymore. But his eyes wide, trembling screamed for him.
Azael's stomach lurched. He stumbled back, bile rising in his throat. This isn't Hell. This is a slaughterhouse.
He turned to run quiet but fast, after only a few steps, something grabbed his ankle.
He yelped, whirling around.
A pale hand Buried in the snow up to the shoulder. It was a woman. Face half-frozen, lips cracked, eyes wide with terror.
"Please… please help me," she rasped. "I've been stuck here… for so long…"
Azael didn't hesitate. He couldn't.
He wrenched his leg back but her fingers clamped down on his left arm, right over the open wound. Her nails scraped his raw flesh. Pain exploded up his shoulder. He bit down on his tongue so hard he tasted blood, swallowing a scream.
"Get off me!" he snarled.
He scooped a handful of snow and hurled it straight into her face. It packed into her eyes, sharp and stinging.
"MY EYES! MY EYES!" she shrieked, clawing at her face.
Azael didn't look back. He turned
and froze.
A shadow loomed behind him.
Towering him. He looked up.
The bear stood there, blocking out what little light the storm offered. Up close, it was worse than he imagined. Its fur was matted with gore. Its breath steamed like a furnace. And its face…
Six eyes, All black.
Before Azael could move, its tongue lashed out fast as a whip and coiled around his head like a crown of serpents.
He knew what came next.
A bitter, disbelieving laugh escaped him.
"…Shit."