Since the day Cain killed Abel, violence has always been humanity's answer, and silence became God's response.
So which is more evil, the hand that kills, the silence that allows it, or was it the devil all along?
Or perhaps neither is evil, perhaps the world is simply is.
***
In a shimmering teleportation circle pulsing with the ice hue of Lavinia's magic, enveloped them and transported them deep within the subterranean foundations of the floating city of Agreas.
As the light faded, the humid air of the deep underground pressed against them.
"So... this is the seventh circle," Lavinia muttered, her sapphire eyes widening as she took in her surroundings.
"This isn't what I expected at all,"
She had anticipated a dark place, underground, maybe with some flames, just like how the circles of hell are usually portrayed in books.
Instead, the cavern was a surreal myriad of light.
Massive clusters of translucent crystals protruded from the walls and ceiling like frozen lightning.
These formations acted as natural prisms, catching the faint ambient mana of the island and refracting it into a breathtaking myriad of colors that illuminated the tunnels with an otherworldly glow.
To Lavinia, it was easily one of the most beautiful sights she had ever witnessed.
Meanwhile, Jay scanned his surroundings.
His eyes ignited as the glowing X of Avesta began scanning the geological composition of the cave, especially the crystals.
"I see... so these are the crystals used to forge the Evil Pieces," Jay said, his voice echoing softly against the prismatic walls.
He had heard that Ajuka Beelzebub created the Evil Pieces using the crystals found on Agreas Island to help replenish the Devil population after the Great War, which had caused the deaths of countless Devils.
"But this... I thought these would be a specialized type of crystal that only resonated with devil attributes," Jay muttered, reaching out to touch a jagged shard.
"They don't?" Lavinia asked, stepping closer.
Jay exerted a fraction of his physical strength, snapping a piece of the crystal off the wall with his bare hand. He held it up to the light, inspecting its magical structure with a focused gaze.
"No... This is just an incredibly conductive, general-attribute material with high magical endurance. These are high-end crystals that could theoretically hold any form of energy," Jay explained.
To demonstrate, a flicker of purple flame from the Incinerate Anthem engulfed the shard in his palm.
Instead of shattering or melting under the intense heat of the Longinus' flame, the crystal simply absorbed the fire. It turned a deep, translucent purple, glowing from within as it stored the energy of the purple flames.
"Whoa~, it's beautiful," Lavinia said, leaning in to watch the violet light dancing inside the stone.
Jay nodded, impressed by the crystal's capability.
"See, this is what I meant... With any other mineral, the heat of my flames would have reduced it to ash instantly... But this is storing the energy perfectly."
"Then does that mean... let's say if the Angels used their holy energy instead of the Devils' demonic power, they could make something similar to the Evil Pieces? Reincarnated Angels, perhaps..." Lavinia wondered aloud.
Jay nodded.
"Using the same principles, the techniques Ajuka Beelzebub developed to produce modern batches of Evil Pieces without direct reliance on the Ars Goetia, the Angel faction should theoretically be able to achieve the same thing," Jay confirmed.
"That's... amazing, I suppose," Lavinia muttered. She looked around at the vast deposits stretching into the darkness.
"But, who created these crystals anyway?"
Jay shook his head, his expression thoughtful.
"I don't know. Even the Grail couldn't provide any information about the origin of these crystals. They are likely far older than the current Devil civilization, perhaps even predating their creation." Jay explained,
"It's also possible that knowledge of their origin is simply inaccessible to the Grail," Jay said, recalling how the same thing had happened when he tried to use the Grail to uncover the nature of his black flame.
"Ah..." Lavinia paused, her eyes sparkling with a sudden thought.
"Wait, Illya-kun, doesn't that make this crystal the perfect vessel for the Anthem of Life?"
Jay went still for a moment, weighing the possibility.
The Anthem of Life required a medium capable of sustaining immense amount of heat and energy without degrading.
"Now that you mention it, you are right. But that also creates another question... How should I integrate it into my body? I don't think I literally want a body made of crystal," Jay said.
"Eh~, what about your bones?" Lavinia suggested with a playful tilt of her head.
"We could replace your skeleton with these crystals... Yep! That should work!"
Jay looked at Lavinia as if she were crazy.
"Stop saying terrifying things, Lavi," he said, his expression completely flat.
"I'm just saying," Lavinia shrugged, her lips curving into a mischievous smile.
Jay fell silent for a moment.
"But... let's take a few, just in case," Jay decided.
The jet-black blade of Habakiri manifested in his hand, and with an effortless blurred slash, a massive cluster of the crystals was severed from the wall.
Before they could hit the ground, Jay swept them into his pocket dimension.
As he finished, he noticed the smug, satisfied expression on Lavinia's face and raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"Nothing~" Lavinia sang.
Making Jay even more confused.
He then signaled for them to continue.
They moved deeper into the cave, Jay using his domain to track the faint magical signatures of the seal while also keeping their trail through the Grail.
As they descended further underground, the environment began to shift slowly.
The wide, luminescent halls narrowed into confined, claustrophobic tunnels. The brilliant crystal deposits became sparse, then disappeared entirely, leaving them in a suffocating darkness.
Jay summoned a steady blazing orb of the Incinerate Anthem's violet flame to light their path.
He held his left hand firmly around Lavinia's as they navigated the uneven terrain.
"A date in Hell is actually not bad, isn't it, Illya-kun?" Lavinia asked suddenly.
"It's just a little bit suffocating... Ah!... perhaps that's what makes it even more exciting," Lavinia laughed lightly, her voice echoing strangely in the narrow space.
"I don't think this is Hell, Lavi," Jay replied.
Lavinia smiled. Jay didn't even deny that it was a date.
"You're right. When you mentioned that the underground of Agreas was divided into nine circles, I thought it was the same Hell described in The Divine Comedy," Lavinia said.
"That's not entirely wrong," Jay replied.
"The Grail informed me that this place was once where the Old Satans resided. They may have been drawn here by the crystals. Because of that, they likely modeled the underground structure after the real Hell."
"While the actual Hell is located at the furthest edge of the Underworld, beneath the land called Limbo," Jay continued.
"Ah, I've heard that too! The Governor General mentioned it when I visited the Underworld for the first time," Lavinia recalled.
Jay nodded.
"And Limbo is constructed with seven circles, just like this place, each circle representing the original sins. Then there is the seventh circle of Violence. And beneath that..." Jay stopped.
"It should be where Malebolge is located," Lavinia finished the thought.
"Yeah… This place was probably also used as an entrance to the other parts of Hell from the Devil World, because going all the way to the edge of the Underworld just to reach Hell would be far too much hassle," Jay said.
"Though the grail didn't mention it, maybe the entrance to the first seven circle and the last circle, which is the ninth circle of the hell, the Ice Hell cocytus is destroyed for some reason..."
Lavinia pondered this as they walked.
"But why wouldn't they also destroy the entrance to Malebolge?"
"That,... I don't know," Jay answered.
"Maybe they couldn't?"
"So something is preventing them from destroying it? Maybe the seals... Or there is something else?"
They walked a while longer until the tunnel suddenly opened up into a space of staggering proportions.
They had arrived in a giant cave hall engulfed in a darkness so thick it felt tangible.
Jay increased the intensity of the Incinerate Anthem flame, pushing the violet light outward to reveal the view of the room.
The cave had been carved into a perfect, massive dome.
Every available surface from the floor beneath their feet, the towering walls, and the distant, arched ceiling was covered in a dense thicket of ancient runes and glyphs.
They pulsed with a faint darkness that absorbed the violet light, written in a language that even Lavinia did not recognize.
"This..." she whispered, her voice full of awe and dread.
"This is the entrance to the Eighth Circle," Jay said, his voice dropping low.
"The entrance to Malebolge."
Hearing those words from Jay, Lavinia's eyes scanned their surroundings with a newfound intensity.
The air in the cavern felt ancient and stagnant, weighted down by the sheer density of the magic woven into the walls.
"Hm... So this is the seal that makes your Domain unable to reach this place," she noted softly.
"Yeah," Jay muttered.
Avesta ignited within his eyes, the light glowing fiercely in the dim, vaulted hall.
The X-shaped crosses in his pupils cast a haunting radiance against the stone, reflecting off the obsidian-like surfaces of the runes, as if the runes themselves were absorbing the violet light of his flames.
"Can you destroy these seals, Illya-kun?" Lavinia asked as she walked around the perimeter of the room, her fingers tracing the air just inches from the pulsating glyphs to inspect their structure.
"Of course... You know the saying, there is nothing that hasn't been written in Avesta," Jay said with a flat, emotionless expression.
Sending a subtle backlash to the memory of the deceased three-headed Dragon whose authority he now wielded.
Jay stood still for several minutes, his gaze darting across the walls as Avesta deconstructed the layers of the barrier.
Suddenly, hundreds of enormous, dark purple magical circles composed of Incinerate Anthem's flames materialized in the air.
They hummed with a magical resonance, casting long, violet shadows across the hall.
And slowly, the runes and glyphs, which appeared to be written in a substance of pure, concentrated darkness, began to degrade.
The darkness sizzled as it was overtaken by the heat of the Longinus.
And from the deconstructive magic, the runes suddenly glowed with a faint dying crimson light before they began to disappear one by one, like embers fading in the wind.
After a few tense seconds, the entire hall, which had been smothered in ancient writing, was swept clean. The stone was left bare.
But the expected doorway did not appear.
"Hm... Nothing happened," Lavinia murmured, her voice echoing in the sudden emptiness.
"Are there still some runes left? Where is the entrance?" Lavinia asked, looking toward Jay, who was still scanning the area with his ignited eye, searching if there are some hidden runes.
"Um... I don't know, but that should have been all of them," Jay said, his brow furrowing slightly.
But then, suddenly-
FWUOOSHH
Both of their eyes widened as an enormous surge of energy erupted violently from the ground.
An intense searing heat flared upward, threatening to burn them both to cinders in an instant.
Sensing the incoming thermal wave, Lavinia reacted with a blur of speed, instantly enveloping both herself and Jay in a protective sphere composed of Absolute Demise energy.
The whitish frost-like aura of her magic clashed with the rising heat, creating a volatile hiss of steam.
A massive shockwave followed, vibrating through the very foundation of the ground beneath their feet.
Sensing that the ground was about to collapse entirely, Jay teleported to Lavinia's side and gripped her hand firmly.
And just as expected, the ground beneath their feet instantly collapsed, shattering into millions of fragments and revealing a yawning, endless abyss.
"What happened!" Lavinia screamed, her voice barely audible over the thunderous sound of the fissure opening beneath them.
The blazing Black Grail appeared at Jay's side, its dark flames flickering wildly as Avesta burned bright in his eyes.
"Don't worry, I think this is the entrance gate!" Jay shouted back, raising his voice to be heard over the roar of the collapsing earth.
Suddenly, as if they were caught in a powerful gravitational pull, both of their figures were yanked downward.
They fell into the endless darkness of the abyss, the light of the upper cavern vanishing in a heartbeat.
The void engulfed them, and for a moment, time seemed to slow down, making it feel as if they were suspended in a state of Limbo.
They fell deeper and deeper into the throat of the world.
And after a couple of minutes that felt like an eternity spent in the lightless silence, they finally saw a glimmer of crimson light below.
Preparing for the landing, Lavinia channeled her flight magic, as white magic circle beneath appeared beneath their feet and slowing their descent as the air began to grow thick and sulfurous.
As they emerged from the darkness portal, they were welcomed by a view straight out of nightmare.
Before them lay a desolate wasteland of red earth and jagged mountains, all of which were being consumed by perpetual, blazing crimson flames.
Beneath the cliffs, a literal sea of blood churned and boiled.
As they finally landed on the scorched crimson ground, the heat was so oppressive that it would have turned their clothes to ash instantly if not for Lavinia's Absolute Demise energy shielding them from the radiation.
"So this is hell... No, Malebolge. The Evil Ditches," Jay said, his voice flat as he surveyed the ruinous landscape.
"I should have picked fire-resistant clothes...," Lavinia muttered.
Despite the forzen shield blocking the direct heat, the visual of the burning world was stifling.
As they scanned their surroundings, a blast of golden energy suddenly manifested out of thin air, swirling around Jay.
It coalesced into a heavy, ornate golden robe that draped over his shoulders. The sudden appearance of the garment left both him and Lavinia completely confused.
But then,
SPLURRT
Jay's eyes widened in shock as blood suddenly splattered from beneath the golden cloth. Deep, jagged wounds opened across his body as if he were being flayed by invisible blades.
"What..." he muttered, his breath hitching as the golden fabric began to turn red.
"Illya-kun!" Lavinia cried, her face pale with worry as she reached out to him.
Jay gestured with his hand, stopping her.
"No, it's okay."
With a sudden burst of purple flame, Jay ignited his own aura.
The golden cloak was instantly engulfed in the violet fire of Incinerate Anthem and burned to gray ashes, revealing the gruesome, bleeding wounds beneath his shredded clothes.
With a flicker of the black flame on the Grail, a dark, restorative light washed over his torso, healing the wounds instantly.
However, Jay's eyes did not leave the horizon.
"What was that just now?" Lavinia asked, her heart still racing from the suddenness and the bizzare nature of the attack.
Jay shook his head slowly. "I don't know, but... Do you feel it, Lavi?"
"Hm? What do you-"
Lavinia's words were cut short as a violent earthquake rocked the ground beneath them.
Suddenly, a dozen pillars of malicious energy shot up into the sky in the distance.
The aura they emitted was so ominous and full of malice that it felt almost comparable to the presence of Azi Dahaka himself.
"Don't tell me..." Lavinia whispered, her sapphire eyes reflecting the dark crimson energy that was now towering into the heavens.
"Yes... This is the reason why the entrance to Malebolge was the only one that wasn't destroyed. The seal wasn't actually meant to hide the entrance itself. It was meant to keep these things inside," Jay explained.
As the Grail's black flame danced on its rim, it fed information directly into Jay's mind, deciphering the energy signatures vibrating across the horizon.
"Long ago, the original Four Great Satans created twelve living weapons. They were forged in secret using those very special crystals we saw earlier... They created those weapons using the Sacred Gears that God of the Bible created as a reference," Jay said.
As Jay spoke, memories began flooding back to Lavinia.
She had heard this information before from the chief general of Grauzauberer, Mephisto Pheles.
"Those weapons go by various names. The Evil Claws... Twelve Convicted Sinners... The Guardians of Hell... but the most well-known name is..."
Lavinia finished the sentence, her eyes narrowing.
"Malebranche."