Going through a gate to hell wasn't exactly like what Tharon expected. Instead of it feeling hot, it felt like the sensation of absorbing Veil and burning it, but a hundred times worse. At the same time, however, it felt calm. The sickening turning inside of himself was all in sync, and everything was constant.
With General Ana's approval, he had followed Calyx into the gateway in order to keep his brother from going far and getting himself killed.
As time passed, the journey felt like it dragged on forever. Falling into hell was far more boring than he expected it to be.
Eventually, things began to slow down, and he blinked and found himself coming out of the side of a cavern wall, dizzy and disoriented.
"Oh. Hey."
Tharon felt too much like slime to punch his brother, who was leaning on the wall in the cavern they found themselves in.
"Nice of you to join me," Calyx said, twirling his knife around with a smirk. "I expected as much."
Tharon stumbled over and halfheartedly smacked his brother in the stomach.
"Might want to stabilize a bit before trying to beat me up." Calyx wrapped his arm around his brother teasingly.
"Shut up." Tharon broke free of Calyx's arm. "Why is it now of all times when you decide to be an idiot? You didn't know what was behind that gate."
"It worked out, didn't it?"
Tharon was about to quip back at his brother, but froze as his vision cleared. Only then did he take in the scene around him.
The caves were made of hard, black stone and the only lights were glowing orange crystals scattered throughout the cave. They seemed to be in some sort of tunnel, and there was an iron gate at the end, not too far away, likely man-made to keep anything from getting in.
"Cool, right?" Calyx went over to the gate, and peered out. Tharon came up behind him, seeing what lay beyond.
The cavern ahead was massive, and despite the fact that Tharon was on edge from the danger of the situation, he was entranced by it.
A lake of glowing orange crystal stretched across the cave floor, filling the cavern with a bright glow. Fiery bugs danced around the light, like wisps of flame meant to mesmerize anyone who came close. Crystal stalagmites were scattered seemingly arbitrarily across the lake, some reaching to the top and forming pillars.
To top all of it off, it seemed to give off a quiet hum. No sound filled the cavern except for a low hum that seeped into Tharon's ears, soothing his mind.
"It's hard to believe this is Hell." Calyx said, pressing his hand against the gate, inadvertently opening it.
Tharon didn't give Calyx the luxury of an answer, but he agreed. Despite the violent amounts of Veil flowing throughout the air, he felt at peace. Something about that almost felt unnerving.
"I guess we follow the trail of destruction." Calyx began to enter the bigger cavern as Tharon felt himself regaining the last of his hazy consciousness.
"The trail of what?"
Calyx was right. The cave had several signs of a fight, and some of the stones and crystals had scratches all over them, along with black stains that looked like blood.
Tharon drew his sword as he began to move forward, ready for an attack at any time. This was the first really hostile environment he had been in for a while, even if his senses were telling him to be at peace.
They walked for a while down the path of the struggle, both brothers' weapons raised as they anticipated an attack. Tharon wanted to use the time to lecture Calyx, but that could wait until they were out of enemy territory. Right now, they needed to be quiet and fast.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps that weren't his or his brother's. He ducked and pulled Calyx along with him behind a stone, and he saw something come around the corner.
Demons didn't look exactly like what Tharon had expected, although not to the same extent as the cavern. All three demons in the group had only one large red eye, and scaly brown skin on their small, hunched bodies. They whispered to one another in some indecipherable language, sounding like clicks and whistles.
It would be best not to fight unless they had to, so Tharon stayed silent. His brother had other plans.
Calyx jumped forward as soon as the demons walked past, and swung his cleaver into the back of one of their heads. It was much more precise than the last time Tharon had seen Calyx use a dagger, back when they first arrived.
Calyx obviously didn't know how channeling energy through his weapon worked, since yellow static came out of the blade, effectively doing nothing. Tharon guessed it was vitei he was channeling, but Calyx didn't know that vitei had no real use in combat.
The demon Calyx struck fell limp instantly. The other two made distance and grunted, both regurgitating small, thin spears from their mouths. Tharon noticed that the spears couldn't possibly fit inside their stomachs since they were too small to physically hold something that long, but it was probably some kind of magic they had.
Tharon stayed back behind the rocks, mentally cursing his brother's stupidity as he waited for an opportune moment to jump out and surprise the demons. He could tell from Calyx's strike that their scales weren't tough enough to be too much of a problem, and the head would be a preferable place to strike, since their heads were rather big.
As the demons came towards his brother, Tharon took the opportunity to sprint out the second they passed him to get closer to Calyx, who was backing up. He thrust his sword straight down onto one of them, and split it clean in half.
"Guess you have a talent for cutting enemies in two, huh?" Calyx said as the last remaining demon stood between the two brothers, seemingly wondering what to do.
Tharon simply nodded as he came towards the last one, expecting an easy fight.
He was wrong.
While the demons didn't seem strong when caught off guard, the actual combat skills of them were shocking. Tharon swung his sword only for it to be knocked aside by the demon's spear, which was followed by the demon thrusting it forward and landing a volley of strikes on Tharon. While his armor prevented him from getting cut or stabbed, the force nearly knocked him over.
Tharon recovered fast enough to knock the tiny spear out of the demon's hands, but it quickly rushed over to retrieve it.
How was the little thing so strong?
Calyx jumped at it as it lunged for the spear, but he narrowly missed as the demon got back its weapon.
"What is this thing?"
Calyx relentlessly clashed with the spear while Tharon tried to get behind it.
Unfortunately for the demon, it wasn't quite fast enough to block two opponents at once, and Tharon landed several strong blows, leaving it too wounded to keep fighting.
Calyx finished it with his cleaver while Tharon caught his breath, glad to be done fighting the thing.
"I didn't know they would be that fast." Calyx said, slightly panting. "It's a good thing we took two out with sneak attacks."
"No," Tharon grunted. "We wouldn't have had to fight them if you just stayed in hiding like we were supposed to."
"You never told me to stay hidden."
"That's because we needed to be quiet!" Tharon exhaled sharply, exasperated. "You need to understand the stakes here better."
"Maybe we should stop arguing and get back to the mission." Calyx said, ignoring Tharon. As much as Tharon wanted to keep yelling at him, Calyx wasn't entirely wrong. The longer they were here, the more dangerous it would be.
"Fine." Tharon facepalmed.
Tharon was more cautious as they continued down the ominous cavern. He began to look around for things to memorize, so they wouldn't get lost if they went deeper.
"Y'know, we don't actually know what this scout looks like." Calyx looked around at the scene. "He does seem to be leaving a lot of holes around, though."
Calyx was right. The path they were following had lots of demon blood and spear marks on the black stone, but it also notably had several holes in the stone that were about as thick as Tharon's index finger and about as deep. They were odd, but everything here was odd.
"Maybe if you got information before you leapt in here, we wouldn't have this problem."
Calyx rolled his eyes and ignored him once again.
Just then Tharon heard something that sounded like a gunshot.
"Duck."
Both of them ducked behind stalagmites, and more and more gunshot sounds rang out through the cave. Tharon wondered what was causing them, since this world didn't use guns.
As he peeked around the turn in the cavern, he saw a small demon resembling the ones they fought earlier getting thrown against a wall.
After another 'gunshot', the demon thrashed and fell to the ground dead.
"Hey Tharon, we're not the only ones who heard the fighting."
Tharon looked over as Calyx tapped his shoulder, and saw a demon coming over from the same direction they came from.
This demon was bigger than the others, and was about the size of a person. It had a mace, three eyes, and a row of teeth running down its entire face. It had the same brown scales as the others, but looked much more dangerous.
And it noticed them.
Calyx backed up as it began to run towards them, surprisingly fast for its size. Tharon readied himself for its attack.
But before it could get close to them, another sound rang out and a hole appeared in its head, sending it crashing down to the floor.
"Guess I'm not surprised 'phora would be worried about me."
The man's voice was deep and low, and Tharon froze as he looked over at the man who saved them.
He had short, green hair and a face mask the exact same shade. In fact, his entire armor was trimmed in dark green. He was very tall, even compared to Tharon.
"So, are you the scout we came here for?" Calyx asked, taking in the man himself.
"I don't know of any other scout it could be." The man said. "Name's Daevar."
"I'm Tharon Cook, and this is my brother Calyx." Tharon introduced. "We weren't exactly sent to find you, but Calyx took it upon himself anyway. I just have to make sure he doesn't die in the process."
"I see." Daevar scratched his chin. "Probably shouldn't have stayed so late collecting demon corpses."
Only then did Tharon notice the giant sack on Daevar's back. It seemed to be full of something, and he guessed that something was dead demons.
"How did you do that anyway?" Calyx pointed to the hole in the larger demon's head. "Do you have a gun or something?"
"Concentrated air." He said. "If you learn to control energy perfectly, you waste much less of it with each shot."
Daevar demonstrated by opening his hand, as a small vortex of air gathered into a tiny green speck on his palm. He flicked his hand, sending the compressed air forward and blasting the tip off a distant stalactite.
When he did so it made a gunshot sound, just like the ones before. Tharon knew it didn't use gunpowder, so it was strange that it made the same sound.
"I guess I should be heading back." Daevar said. It was pretty clear he didn't care too much about being late. "You two can carry the big one. My bag is full."
Tharon didn't think it would be a good idea to argue, so he complied with the scout as he and Calyx dragged the corpse along behind them.
"What do you even need these for?" Calyx asked as they walked.
"Research, for now." Daevar responded.
Daevar walked quickly and didn't slow down to see if they were falling behind. Tharon was exhausted from keeping up with him, which was surprising since his body in this world had remarkable endurance.
"This way is faster." Daevar turned down into a small tunnel, and they followed him. It felt a bit claustrophobic, but Tharon was ready to get out of hell as soon as he could.
Eventually, they reached the gateway they had entered from.
"I'm not looking forward to this again." Tharon looked at the gate that had made him want to puke his guts out on the first time through.
"It would be much worse if it didn't slow down time." Daevar said.
"Huh?"
"It slows time down while you pass through it." Daevar repeated. "If it didn't, the Veil would overload your senses and you'd probably die painfully."
It wasn't exactly a comforting fact, but it was what it was.
"Let's go." Calyx dragged the demon corpse through the portal, pulling Tharon along with him. He was dreading this from the moment they had left the portal, but he didn't have much of a choice.
~=~=~=~=~=~
"...There you are."
General Ana was waiting for them when they almost literally shot out the gate. Apparently the momentum they gained while going through it wasn't just a feeling.
Tharon was caught by some sort of cloud and gently lowered down to the ground. The demon he'd been helping carry was dropped on top of him.
"Ew." Tharon rolled over as he felt the black demon blood on the back of his neck, shoving the corpse beside him.
Either that was a cruel joke, or the cloud was automatic. Seeing as nobody but the general was in the room, he guessed it was the latter.
"We did it!" Calyx landed on the other side of the gate, quickly getting up as if his insides didn't feel like they went through a blender.
"You still went against direct orders." General Ana noted halfheartedly, thankfully not sounding angry.
"Yeah, but it worked out." Calyx said, not too worried about the predicament he got himself into.
"That's not the point." Ana sighed. "Disobedience needs to be punished so it doesn't happen again. Just because you got off easy this time doesn't mean it will work out next time."
Tharon saw Calyx's face shift a little as that started to set in. As smart as his brother could be, he was a real idiot sometimes. Most times, actually.
"I'm not good when it comes to… moral discipline, so I think the person you caused the most trouble for should carry out the punishment." The general told Calyx.
"Who?"
"Your brother, of course."
Tharon didn't expect that, and Calyx didn't seem very happy with that answer either.
"So, Tharon." Calyx seemed nervous for the first time since coming here. "No hard feelings, right?"
Tharon began to smirk. There wasn't a world where he wouldn't use this opportunity to its fullest.