The lord slapped him tightly, a few teeth from his mouth fell on the ground, and Ivaan woke up from sleep.

  “Hello, do you know who I am?” asked the lord

  “You are the lord of Maharaurava,” said Ivaan in pain

  “Great thing that you still remember, I was thinking that your brain would have stopped working after the pain.” Said the lord

  Ivaan was just silently hanging in the air, tied by chains.

  “Oh… your body is stinking,” said the lord, “Are you okay with water being poured over your body?”

  Ivaan nodded.

  Then the lord poured a bucket over his body.

  After a few seconds, Ivaan started screaming loudly and his eyes got wide open.

  “Do you really believed that?” the lord laughed, “This is hell, and you are searching for comfort.” Ivaan found insects(kravyadas) all over his body, and they were chewing his flesh while he was screaming in pain.

  “These insects eat flesh, isn’t it fascinating?” said the lord while he was still screaming in pain.

  After some time, the skin over Ivaan’s body disappeared as insects ate all of it, and now only the muscles inside his body were showing and bleeding severely.

  “They were hungry, weren’t they?” the lord laughed. Ivaan was groaning in pain.

  “Okay, no jokes,” He showed him a bucket full with water, “here, drink this.” He started pouring the water in Ivaan’s mouth, but as the water reached his mouth, it got changed into insects (kravyadas), and they started eating his flesh from the inside, and he started screaming in agonizing pain.

  “You believed me again,” the lord started laughing, “don’t worry, your body will be whole again, only to be destroyed again.”

  The insects ate up all of his body, and only his bones were showing, covered with pieces of flesh, but magically, his body reformed again.

  “You’re lucky that I’m tied up to the chains,” said Ivaan when his body got recovered, “or else I would have shown you what punishment means.”

  “Is that so? What is punishing?” asked the lord with a grin, “I’m open to learning.”

  “This is hell, and here souls get punished for their deeds, so why do you think that you will be treated differently?” Said the lord

  Ivaan was just glaring at him.

  “Oh! I forgot to notice,” said the lord with a grin, “your body is whole again.” the he poured another bucket of flesh-eating insects on him.

  Ivaan started screaming and yelling in pain at the same time; he was also trying to keep his mouth shut so that he would not reveal the truth in pain accidentally.

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  “Oh! Oh! Please Ivaan don’t try to keep your mouth shut, it will only bring more pain” said the lord, “Well that is something that the previous lord should have said, but I’m not him” he smirked, “whether you say truth or not I’m not going to stop and also I’m not going to tell him that you told me the truth, even if you did, I will punish you…and I will keep punishing you because that is what I like.”

  The insects went inside the Ivaan’s body through his mouth and started eating flesh from the inside while he was just being tied up and screaming and trembling in pain, feeling like his nerves were going to explode because of the strain.

  “You’ll be thinking, why would someone do that?” Said the lord, “Let me ease your pain. We all may seem like we can do whatever we want; after all, we punish souls, so who else can punish us? But that is not true at all.”

  “We can only punish souls in a certain way and within a limit set by Lord Yama, and we have no option except following it.” Said the lord, “But you… you are an opportunity for us, we can try whatever we want until we get the true satisfaction, and we are not going to let it go that easily”.

  Major portions of Ivaan’s bones were showing as the insects at all over his body, and his body started recovering again gradually.

  “You are looking handsome,” said the lord, “where I was… Yeah, so it doesn’t matter that if you tell the truth to any of the lord, these punishments are not going to stop because we all have decided to do whatever we want to do to you until we get satisfied and after that we will tell the lord of Dandasuka, the truth, so be free to say whatever you want because nothing is going to change.”

  “You know what will happen if lord Yama found out about this,” said Ivaan.

  “Indeed, we all know very well,” said the lord, “but who is going to tell him, you??ha…or your friend Ekaksh?”.

  “What about him?” asked Ivaan with wide eyes

  “You are too late to ask that question,” said the lord, “what we did to his soul is beyond your imagination, we also kept him like you.”

  “Ahhhh,” Ivaan screamed

  “Screaming won’t change anything,” said the lord with a grin, “but I have to say he was not as strong as you are, but that is where the fun lies, seeing you break every moment feels so satisfying to watch.”

  “Keep wishing,” said Ivaan

  “Keep up that attitude,” said the lord, “it will only heighten our enjoyment, and that is all we want.”

  Ivaan’s whole body recovered again.

  “Oh, looks like you're whole again,” said the lord, and he was going to pour another bucket of insects, but then he stopped and rolled his eyes, “looks like my time is over, it is time to punish other souls, but don’t you worry, you will be provided services continuously from other lords.”

  He walked away from him and disappeared into the darkness.

  After sometime the lord of Dandasuka emerged from the darkness. When Ivaan spotted him, he grunted. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t because of the torture and continuous pain, screaming and yelling; his vocal cords weren’t functioning well.

  “Are you trying to say something?” asked the lord. “I couldn’t hear you,” Ivaan grunted.

  “Are you having trouble speaking?” said the lord. “Oh, that is bad, then how will you tell me the truth, and if you didn’t tell me the truth, the punishment will continue.”

  Ivaan glared at him. “See, I told you what can be the consequences of not telling me the truth, but you still chose this side, so it is clearly you’re own doing.”

  The lord walked closer to him, and Ivaan Panicked and tried to scream, but because of excessive strain, he stopped in between and started coughing.

  “Go easy on yourself, I’m not here to punish you,” said the lord, “although I would like to, but there is a time constraint, unfortunately, but I will come back for that.”

  “Anyways, you don’t need to speak anything,” said the lord, “just nod and I will understand that you are ready to tell the truth and there will be no further punishments.”

  Ivaan smiled at his face.

  “Okay, don’t blame me later,” said the lord, “I warned you already.”

  Ivaan started laughing without voice. A metal rod full of nails appeared out of nowhere in the lord’s hand, and he hit his chest really hard, such that a whole chunk of his meat got torn from his chest and fell on the floor, and he choked on his laughter.

  Due to such a heavy impact, one of the chain binding Ivaan broke a little.

  “I’ll see how long you are going to laugh,” he whispered in Ivaan’s ear and walked away.

  As he was coming out, a Yamaduta spotted him coming out of the place where there is no hell.