AN: Let's begin the final volume. Approx. 20 chs or so.
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The first year in Hell felt longer than entire lifetimes.
John stopped trying to count the days after the first few months because time moved strangely in hell. Some moments dragged endlessly while others vanished before he fully noticed them passing. The underworld itself never changed. Endless black stone stretched across the abyss while ancient doors lined the lower sectors forever, each one hiding another damned soul trapped inside punishment cycles designed specifically for them.
The screaming never stopped.
At first, John thought the noise would eventually fade into the background.
It didn't.
Every scream carried emotion behind it like rage, regret, fear, or madness. Some souls begged for forgiveness while others cursed Heaven, Hell, humanity, or God himself until their voices finally broke apart into raw animal sounds.
Hell fed on all of it.
He managed to maintain his sanity thanks to the Courage of Mehen and Achilles.
John sat on the throne during his first week while several high-ranking demons stood below him waiting for orders. But none of them respected him. He could see it clearly in their eyes. To them, he was just another temporary ruler Lucifer dumped onto the throne before disappearing again.
Then, after a month or two, one of the demons tried stabbing him through the back of the skull.
John caught the infernal blade without even turning around.
The power Lucifer gave him had already started changing him by then.
Infernal energy flowed endlessly through his body. His senses expanded rapidly while the Wisdom of Zehuti and Solomon absorbed and processed Hell's structure at terrifying speed. By the time the demon realized the attack had failed, John already understood exactly how infernal authority worked.
He crushed the demon's head with one hand as black blood splattered across the stone floor beneath the throne. Then he openly slaughtered everyone who was planning to dethrone him.
Nobody challenged him openly after that.
The next few months became pure work.
John learned how soul judgment works. He discovered how punishment cycles operate and how infernal contracts relate to different dimensions, magic, and suffering. Hell is not the random chaos that humans think it is. It runs like an ancient machine that constantly processes sin, punishment, corruption, and consequence.
And the machine never stopped moving.
John adapted quickly because he had no choice.
Eventually, he realized handling everything personally would become impossible long-term if he were to achieve his goal of becoming the strongest. That was when he started creating shadow clones.
At first, the demons hated them.
The clones looked identical to John except for the shadows moving unnaturally beneath their skin and eyes glowing slightly darker than normal. Each clone carried enough power to terrify most infernal entities while sharing information directly back with the original instantly.
One clone oversaw punishment chambers deep below the lower sectors, where damned souls repeated their sins endlessly until their minds broke apart piece by piece. Another clone remained buried inside ancient infernal archives studying dimensional structures, soul contracts, forbidden magic, and the deeper systems maintaining Hell itself. A third clone spent every waking moment training in isolated dimensions hidden far away from the main layers, where entire landscapes had already been reduced to ash from repeated magical experiments.
John divided Hell apart piece by piece until the workload became manageable.
Maze watched all of it happen.
The first time she saw the clones walking through separate sectors simultaneously, she laughed so hard she nearly fell off a balcony overlooking one of the punishment pits.
"That is deeply unsettling," she told him afterward while walking beside the real John through one of the upper corridors. "Honestly, I kinda love it."
John ignored her while reviewing several infernal contracts floating beside him. "Good for you."
Maze studied him openly while they walked.
"Wanna gangbang me with your clones?" She asked with a smirk.
John didn't reply and simply walked away.
Time passed...
After spending months in Hell, the human still had not broken.
That genuinely surprised her because Lucifer had conducted certain experiments before, to escape his responsibilities by trying to find a replacement for himself. But things didn't exactly work out as he had hoped for. Most souls eventually collapsed under the pressure surrounding the throne. Some became cruel. Others became paranoid. A few lost their sanity completely after hearing endless screaming for too long.
John became quieter instead...
...Colder too.
But surprisingly, he didn't become evil.
Maze noticed things other demons missed because, unlike them, she actually paid attention.
She noticed John rubbing his temple when too many memories from his shadow clones returned at once, and the way his eyes darkened after he spent hours judging especially unpleasant souls. She loved the way he stared into the abyss beneath the throne with those cold eyes when he thought no one was watching him.
And she definitely noticed how attractive he looked while covered in blood and infernal fire whenever he kills anyone who dares to rise against him or disobey his orders.
That part became a problem surprisingly fast.
One night during the eighth month, Maze walked directly into the throne room wearing black leather straps that barely covered anything at all. She carried a bottle of liquor in one hand while casually stepping over the corpse of a sinner ripped apart earlier that day by punishment hounds.
"You know," she said while climbing onto the throne armrest beside him, "there are easier ways to spend eternity."
John continued reading a floating text without reacting. "I'm busy."
"You're always busy."
"That's because Hell doesn't exactly run itself."
Maze leaned closer while slowly dragging one finger across his chest. "Lucifer usually took breaks."
"I'm not Lucifer."
"No shit."
She looked at his face, noticing the fire in her eyes. John looked good sitting on the throne. He seemed dangerous, calm, and cold in a way she found oddly attractive.
And worst of all?
He was completely uninterested in her.
Maze had existed for millions of years, maybe more. Seducing people usually required almost no effort whatsoever. Humans practically destroyed themselves trying to impress her half the time.
John barely reacted.
That started irritating her long before it became an obsession.
"You know I could make this very enjoyable for you," she murmured while leaning close enough for her lips to almost brush his ear.
John finally looked at her.
Maze felt a small rush of excitement immediately. 'Finally,' She thought as she licked her red lips. 'Grab my throat, push me down, and fuck me hard on the bloody floor. Or, I could do all the fucking, and you can just lie there and rest.'
To her surprise, he grabbed the paperwork floating nearby and shoved it into her hands.
"Good," he replied with one of his rare smiles. "You can help sort punishment schedules for the lower sectors."
'Eehh!? Wha-Huh?!'
Maze stared at the papers in disbelief.
"You are genuinely the least romantic man I've ever met."
John shrugged. "You threatened to peel my skin off during our second conversation."
"You say that like flirting can't evolve."
John snorted quietly before teleporting away.
That tiny reaction should not have mattered as much as it did.
Maze spent the next several weeks thinking about it constantly anyway.
By the end of the year, Hell already felt different.
Demons lowered their heads when John walked past them. Internal disputes dropped dramatically because nobody wanted to attract attention from the new ruler. Punishment systems became more efficient under the shadow clones, while several collapsing lower sectors stabilized completely beneath John's control.
And through all of it, Maze remained nearby almost constantly.
Sometimes she followed him openly through the lower sectors while demons tortured screaming souls around them. Other times, she sat beside the throne watching him work silently for hours while pretending she had better things to do. Then, in her private time, she'd masturbate for hours while whispering John's name.
John noticed.
He simply stopped questioning it after a while.
One evening, John stood alone near the edge of the abyss beneath the throne while countless doors stretched endlessly below him into darkness.
Maze walked beside him quietly before leaning against the stone railing nearby.
"You're adapting too well," she admitted after several long seconds.
John glanced sideways toward her. "That sounds like criticism."
"It kinda is."
He looked back toward the abyss afterward. After a moment of silence, he said, "You look different today."
Maze raised a brow. Tonight, she wore an actual jacket over a dark red shirt and black pants instead of her usual leather straps and strategically ignored fabric.
"Yeah," she said dryly. "'Cause I ain't walking around naked anymore. You kinda killed the mood and my confidence."
John let out a low chuckle and folded his arms loosely against the railing. "Good for you."
Maze narrowed her eyes immediately.
Something about how calm he sounded annoyed her more than if he had mocked her openly. She pushed herself off the railing and walked straight toward him until she stood close enough to grab the front of his collar.
Her eyes locked onto his.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she asked bluntly. "Seriously. You've been down here for a year surrounded by violence, torture, power, immortality, and me." Her grip tightened slightly. "Most men lose their minds after five minutes around me. You barely react. Fuck me already."
John looked down at her hand gripping his collar before meeting her gaze again.
Maze stepped even closer, frustration slipping into her voice now. "If you've got some weird fetish, just say it. I can work with weird. Hell, I can arrange other girls too if that's what you want." A crooked smirk pulled at her lips. "Demons, succubi, fallen angels or even those damned female souls. We could throw the biggest orgy this place has ever seen."
For a second, John said nothing.
Then his hand rose slowly and caught her gently by the jaw.
Maze froze.
He leaned closer until their faces were barely inches apart. She could feel the heat radiating from his body. His eyes stayed calm, unreadable in a way that always made her feel strangely exposed.
"Oh, Maze," he said quietly. "You look desperate."
The words hit harder than any insult should have.
Maze felt a small shiver crawl down her spine.
John's thumb brushed lightly against her cheek before he tilted his head slightly. "Doesn't it get boring after a while?" he asked. "Just chasing pleasure over and over for eternity without any real feelings behind it?"
Maze's smirk weakened slightly.
John kept looking directly into her eyes while his voice stayed calm.
A faint breath escaped him. "Sex is just a distraction to keep yourself from thinking too much, ain't that right?"
Something flickered across Maze's face then. Irritation mixed with something quieter underneath.
John released her jaw after that and pushed her back just hard enough to send her sliding several feet across the stone floor before she hit the wall behind her with a dull impact.
Dust shook loose from the black stone.
Maze stayed there for a second before slowly lowering herself onto one knee. She wasn't hurt. Hell itself probably would have cracked before she did. But the look on her face had changed. The teasing confidence was still there, though now it carried something heavier beneath it.
She laughed softly under her breath before looking up at him again.
"Feelings?" she asked with a faint bittersweet smile. "You need a soul to feel feelings."
John stayed quiet for a moment. Maze often talks about how demons don't have souls or hearts, which makes the job easier.
"That's the funny thing," he said. "You say that you don't have a soul." His eyes narrowed slightly. "But you sound hurt every time you talk about it. Why is that, I wonder?"
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