Peter P.O.V.

  Peter was on the edge of the ritual, on the other side, where the stage is. He could barely hear the person who was speaking on the stage; he also could not see them because he was hogtied on the ground. All he could see were legs and some people kneeling in front of him, but focusing back on the voice, he could vaguely hear, with no real detail, what was said. He could tell it was a man speaking, but that was all, and that was that. After a couple of seconds of silence, there was a big flash of light. He ended up traveling through the void again and found himself in a cell, lying on the ground in the same position he had been in before the teleport, but now he was no longer hogtied. Getting up, he looked around. In front of him was a bed, and looking to the left and right, it was just a gray wall. Turning around, expecting to see a door or the cell bars, but no, it was another gray wall. Eyebrows going up to his forehead, Peter went to the bed and sat down, looking at his hands, praying to his dead Master.

  “Master, it’s my fault you died. We knew he came from a solo tutorial. He was not the first. We knew he had some trump cards, but from all the others we brought into the fold under your guidance, that came from a solo tutorial or were questioned by the other towns, we did not expect him to be that capable. He moves so fast that even standing a couple of feet behind him, I wasn’t able to do anything when he took your head off and cursed that man for using some unique fire spell I’ve never seen before and burned your body to a crisp. I could do nothing to stop him at that moment because of the pain when your guidance was lost to me after you died. It took us a while to gather ourselves from that ordeal. I personally gathered information from the group that Theo met and the people who saw him, including myself. We got a good description of what he looked like and the gear he was wearing. Some of our agents who were not publicly affiliated with us went to other towns to notify our spies, but they had already been captured. Days passed, and we heard talk that our town was going to be stormed by a large group. I called everyone back for the last fight to "Defend your town." I’m sorry, Master, I have failed you once again. Theo, I will hunt you down wherever you are,” Peter said while tears fell down his face and landed on his pants as he stared with blurry eyes into his hands.

  After a while, he felt tired and went to bed. Next thing he knew, he was in the void again with a being made of rock with lava flowing through it. The being, with both arms, grabbed him and started to pull him apart under great pain. Peter began to scream and then blacked out. After a couple of seconds, he thought he woke up again, still screaming as the pain did not stop. Turning to his left, he could see that the being’s hand was holding him steady. Turning to his right, he could see the other hand of the creature grabbing a dark silhouette. An arm that looked like his arm, looking up the arm connected to his shoulder. A soul-wrenching tug from the creature pulled more of the silhouette out of him. With a final tug from the being, the black silhouette of himself was yanked free of his body. Dry heaving and gasping for air at the same time, Peter could see there were tendrils connecting him to the dark specter of himself. For the first time in months, his mind was his own; there was no longer a dark haze on his thoughts that dictated his every move.

  “Where am I? What’s going on? What the fuck is that?” he just noticed the dark silhouette in front of him.

  “Tell me, Peter, what is the last thing you remember?” a creature made from stone and lava, sounding like an avalanche, said to him, letting go of his left arm as he talked.

  Jumping back and falling on his ass, Peter said in a shaky voice and a higher octave, “Who in the hell are you and what are you?”

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  With a sigh sounding like wind going through a mountain, “I’ll give you the abridged version of who and what I am because I think it will help you understand what is going on, and it makes it easier for me to help you get rid of that,” he gestures towards the black silhouette of himself. “My name is Gehenna. I’m the progeny of Tartarus, so where you are and what I am is a prison," Gehenna said.

  Peter tried to speak, but he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth.

  “You’re in my domain; I control everything within it. So if I don’t want you to interrupt me, you won’t,” Gehenna said.

  Peter could feel it glaring at him and forced himself to relax, sitting on the ground instead of scooting back.

  “As I was saying, you were brought here because you were enthralled, and I can break that enthronement. What Tim did to you was insidious. You’re a good man, Peter. He had to slowly corrupt you to his way of thinking, so his hooks are into you deep, even after his death, as you see by these tethers. So I’ll ask you again: what is the last thing you remember, Peter?” Gehenna asked in a tone that sounded like the howling of the wind in a valley between mountains.

  “Tim and I were discussing ethics and morality,” Peter said with a shiver down his back.

  “I see that as the starting point of his manipulation, and that’s where we will begin the journey to help you,” Gehenna said.

  “Why are you helping me? What do you get out of it?” Peter asked. The void changed into a vision of many cells holding people, all lying on beds, and in the center of the room was a pedestal with an orb slowly growing darker on top.

  “What am I looking at?” Peter asked.

  Peter blinked, and he could see that all the people had a black tar substance overlaid on the yin and yang inside each person, but for all, the black tar was being drained from them and sucked into the orbit at the center of each cell.

  “Tim had a bloodline; a very insidious and evil bloodline. He could warp someone’s psyche and soul and supersede it with a fragment of his that feasted on a person’s soul until there was nothing left, until a perfect drone for him to use. Luckily for almost all of you, he was new to his power, and even underneath his control, your subconscious fought back every step of the way. If he didn’t take over the town and had so many servants at once, he would’ve been a lot quicker in the process of taking over someone completely. What you see before you is this process, the black tar is Tim’s influence, as you can see what I’m doing is siphoning the black tar substance out of everyone,” Gehenna said.

  “you said for most what about the ones that are fully taken over by that?" Peter gestured towards the black tar substance.

  "For those people, they fell willingly. They were already monsters in human skin. All Tim had to do was give them a little pep talk to take them over fully. They will die here and be reincarnated back to the cycle,” Gehenna said.

  “When we are freed from Tim’s influence, will we be sent back to the tutorial?” Peter said with some hope in his voice.

  “No, you will not be sent back to the tutorial; you’ll be sent back to Earth or to a planet that is no longer in strife, depending on the individual choice, after the tutorial is done,” Gehenna said.

  “But why?” Peter said with a hitch in his voice.

  A piece of paper materialized in front of him. Looking at it, he realized it was a contract. Reading through it, it basically stated that all the people who had been enthralled shall return to Earth or to a planet of their choosing if they do not wish to seek further conflict. They will also receive fair market value for the karma that was extracted from each of them.

  “What is this karma that is referenced in the contract? I’m pretty sure it’s the black tar, right?” Peter asked.

  “Yes, you’re correct,” Gehenna replied.

  “Who will buy that wretched substance?” Peter inquired.

  “Dark gods or demons that grow on negative karma, and you’ll get a good price because that stuff is potent,” Gehenna said.

  Peter nodded in affirmation and continued reading. Then, when he got to the bottom and the mana signature that authorized the ritual—Warden Theo and Genius locorum Gehenna—hearing the name Theo sent unbridled rage through him to the point he was hyperventilating. He could also see his counterpart trying to lash out in every direction for a moment, then it was forced to its knees, and the black silhouette of himself became still once again. At the moment the silhouette quit moving, Peter could think again and got his breathing under control.

  “What was that?” Peter said while gasping.

  “We will get to that later. I’m afraid that if I go into detail now, it will set you off again, so let’s begin by breaking the chains. ” Gehenna said.