Gehenna P.O.V.

  Gehenna looked over its domain, the floating rock in the void. Its consciousness was everywhere, seeing everything at once. Gehenna was excited for the group tutorial to be over so it could finally get the rarest materials needed to expand its domain, saving up the funds for millennia to max out its domain while waiting for a person with good compatibility to be its Warden. Now that Theodore is its Warden, its voice in the multiverse, all that is left is to buy the necessary materials to expand its domain, including metals to create a molten core and dirt, rocks in Plants and trees, etc., so Gehenna can make a planet the size of Jupiter; since that is the biggest it can make of a planetoid, it is on the cusp of actually becoming a divine entity. Then, from there, when it becomes a divine being, it will use the planetoid to create a big bang and become the center of its small universe—then, going through the ranks of divinity, it will become a bigger universe. For now, they can only be a planetoid. Gehenna wants Theo to buy the materials now, but that impulsiveness is what led to its suffering at the hands of her former Warden. Over the millennia, it learned patience.

  “Even though it’s a bunch of bullshit, dam the system for its esoteric rules about the tutorial, it’s not like I’m asking Theo to buy stuff for him self in the tutorial. I’m pretty sure the system is planning something, that’s the reason why it told me to hold off on completing my planetoid prison,” Gehenna thought.

  At that moment, a new influx of prisoners had just arrived in its domain. These are the enthralled people from the group tutorial that Theo was a part of. Looking into their souls, Gehenna sees that most of them can be saved. The process of enthronement, in most cases, is halfway or just beginning. There are some in which the black tar that represents Tim’s enthronement has just started or is in the process of assuming the original soul and personality of the person. Gehenna thinks about the best way for each individual to remove external influence, in this case, the black tar from all Tim’s victims, using the method that has made a prison/genius locorum coveted by the rest of the multiverse because it can extract karma and essence from individuals. Gehenna started on the three people who seem the most problematic: one who fell willingly—not much to do there, but what punishment shall I give them? The next is a good man, but he turned into a monster. I have an idea for helping him go back to who he once was. It’s not going to be pretty. And last, a lovely woman with a once bright soul turned into a plaything. I have some experience helping people like that, especially with my former Wardens' actions. But first, let’s deal with the easiest: the monster who was set free.

  Aaron P.O.V.

  He was pissed off and angry, being dragged into a ritual with the rest of his group, and many others were humiliated by being captured in this raid.

  “Dammit, we’re supposed to be the Raiders! Everything has gone to shit since the master died. It was Tim who showed him that the rules and laws of man meant nothing; the law of the fittest reigns supreme until he was killed by a man named Theo, who carried a cane sword. Fuck that man,” Aaron thought.

  As he stood there, packed in like sardines with the others, a group of six was on a platform. Five men and one woman. A man you might think of as a shady used-car salesman was spewing nonsense that Aaron tuned out. He listened in a couple of minutes later.

  “With that all being said, it gives us peace of mind and a load off our shoulders that we were able to provide these lost souls the help they deserve, “the slimeball said

  Then there was a bright flash. Then he was traveling through space and time, as Aaron did when he came to the group tutorial. The next thing he saw was inside a cell; the rope that had been around his arms and legs, making it hard for him to walk and move, disappeared, and he was able to move around again. On the left of Aaron was a bed; nothing else was in the cell. Not even a door or bars led to the outside; it was a perfectly square room, besides the bed. Looking up, there were no light fixtures, even though he could see. The walls were a dull gray metal.

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  After a long while, Aaron finally got tired, lay down on the bed, and went to sleep. The next thing he knew, he was in an empty void, surrounded by a being made of rock, lava flowing through its humanoid body. Aaron could feel it staring at him and through him, as if looking into his soul. In that moment, Aaron saw memories of himself before the system arrived on Earth, of him bullying children when he was also a child. And other memories of him lying and hiding things from his parents, then memories when he was a young adult in the workforce, thoughts of killing or humiliating people who disappointed him. Then the memories shifted to his first relationship, in which he was manipulating and gaslighting his girlfriend too far. She lashed out at him and nearly killed him. After that, he called the cops on her and got her arrested for attempted murder. And then moving on to his next victim, using the victim card to land his next relationship, starting slowly, finding where her line is and how much he can manipulate her, degrading her and humiliating her to do things that she would never do before she met him, but not enough in one go to want her to lash out at him. Still, in the end, her sister found out and took her away from him. He was in the process of finding where she was when the system arrived. Another memory came to the forefront of his mind. This was after the system arrived, having a conversation with Tim and him explaining that we’re not on earth anymore—there’s no reason to pretend to be civil, that the strong will dominate the weak—giving him the push he needed to forego any sense of morality and act on his base nature. Then the scenes shifted from him tricking people into talking to Tim to turn them into pliant slaves, sexually assaulting many women for his gratification. The memories flashed before his eyes.

  Then the being spoke. In a voice that sounded like an avalanche

  “Rotten to the core. Tim did not have to corrupt you at all; he gave you a nudge, and you fell willingly. I have a deal for you, Aaron.”

  “Oh, and to pray tell, what would that be?” Aaron said in a sarcastic voice.

  “I want you to pick an apple from a tree. If you do that, then you’ll be set free,” the entity said.

  Aaron looked around the void and then said, “Where is this tree you speak of?”

  Aaron blinked, and in front of him was an apple tree with hundreds of red apples on its branches. It was a decent-sized tree, at least 25 feet tall, and Aaron guessed that the trunk was at least 5 feet wide, with many branches he could reach by jumping. Looking around him, he was in a grassland area. The only two things around him were the tree. And off in the distance, there was a hill with the statue on it. Walking up to it took him a little bit; there was a statue of the humanoid creature that he had just talked to. Then Aaron looked up and saw the sun in the sky. It looked like the sun from his solar system.

  Going back down the hill to the tree,

  “This will be a piece of cake, just grab an apple,” Aaron thought.

  Aaron walked closer to the tree. After a couple of minutes, it felt like he was going nowhere, so he started to run. After a while, he could still see it off in the distance, no closer than when he started. Looking around him, he could still see the hill off in the distance.

  “So there’s the catch. How am I supposed to get to the tree?” Aaron thought. Running back to the statue, he did so without a problem. Then from there, he headed back to the tree. However, still, after many hours or days, he did not need to eat or sleep. He got mentally tired, but after a bit of rest by sitting on the ground, he was ready to go. Aaron tried many different angles and approaches to getting to the tree, including running away from it and running to the other side to see if he could reach it. Still, no luck there; the only constant was the statue on the hill. Aaron had an idea of trying to talk to the entity again. Still, no matter how much he yelled, pleaded, and bargained, there was no answer from the being. Many days had come and gone; he could tell that even though there was no night cycle in this place, after another unsuccessful day, he could not reach the tree. He gave up, and finally, Aaron was able to fall asleep for the first time since he entered the void.

  The next thing he knew, he was in an empty void, surrounded by a being made of rock, lava flowing through its humanoid body. Aaron could feel it staring at him and through him, as if looking into his soul. In that moment, he saw memories of his past actions before his eyes.

  Gehenna P.O.V.

  Gehenna, in a voice that sounded like an avalanche.

  “Rotten to the core. Tim did not have to corrupt you at all; he gave you a nudge, and you fell willingly. I have a deal for you, Aaron.”

  “Oh, and to pray tell, what would that be?” Aaron said in a sarcastic voice.

  “I want you to pick an apple from a tree. If you do that, then you’ll be set free,” Gehenna said.

  Aaron looked around the void and then said, “Where is this tree you speak of?”

  Gehenna saw Aaron blink, and in front of him was an apple tree with hundreds of red apples on its branches. It was a decently size tree.

  Gehenna observed Aaron from a distance on the hill.

  “The cycle begins again until he dies, a forever loop to struggle in this endless dream while I siphon his karma and essence until his soul is nothing but a clean slate to be reincarnated again without the baggage of his previous life,” Gehenna thought.