Zeke stepped forward with footsteps of thunder as a thousand pyres burned behind him. Every step shook the very nature of reality. Every twitch sent ripples of divine energy to scorch their way through the air. And his gaze carried with it the full weight of a demigod.

  With every passing second, his body cried out in agony as his flesh was destroyed, then remade by the very same power that made him so dangerous. He couldn’t ignore it. The only answer was to endure.

  He’d grown accustomed to that.

  Destroying the pyres had taken every ounce of willpower he possessed. One by one, the energy within the crystals that powered them burned his flesh and charred his bones, turning everything to ash. But he’d rebuilt himself, flooding them with power until they shattered, immolating the pyres with their own energy.

  It was cathartic torture, repeated thousands of times until he scarcely acknowledged the pain. It still tore through him with just as much vehemence, but it was just a fact of life. Like breathing. Or the need to keep moving forward.

  At last, though, his task was complete. The pyres were destroyed. The accusers were dead. And he was ready to move on.

  However, he knew enough to recognize that he wasn’t finished with the Circle of Heresy. One obstacle, no matter how unconquerable, would constitute an entire circle. So, as he pushed forward, he wrangled the divine energy within him and, with a force of willpower, pushed it back into his core. Confining it to that location wasn’t easy, especially when he needed to keep his skills available. But as he’d engaged in his personal war against the pyres, Zeke had learned to adapt.

  So, after a few more steps, the world stopped shaking, and reality was no longer in danger of being torn asunder. But for Zeke, the biggest difference was the lack of pain. In some ways, he almost missed it.

  He shook his head.

  He couldn’t think like that.

  He strode forward, leaving the burning pyres behind. For the first few days – marked via his internal clock, which he knew was likely inaccurate – passed without incident. The terrain was featureless, save for rocky pillars that, after a little inspection, he established were burned pyres.

  All in all, it took nearly a month until he found the edge of the pyre-pocked landscape and on the edge of a foreboding forest. Darkness enveloped the twisted trees, pervading the entire landscape until even Zeke’s eyes failed to pierce the gloom. He hesitated at the tree line, trepidation building in his heart.

  He was afraid.

  And he wasn’t certain why. After everything he’d endured, he questioned whether anything in Hell could truly kill him. Certainly, if he simply gave up, he could be destroyed. And maybe that was the point. After all, he’d lost count of the number of times he’d considered surrender, if only it would allow him to sink into the fugue of Hell-bound torture.

  He’d remained strong so far, leaning on his long experience to endure whatever agonies Hell could throw at him. However, that would not always be the case. Zeke had his own weaknesses, even if they were buried deep down beneath layer after layer of psychological malformities.

  Perhaps that was why he was afraid. The guilt that had come from the hurled accusations had nearly unraveled his will to endure.

  But if he could push through that, then he could make it through anything. With that in mind, he took a deep breath, smelling the dark decay, and stepped forward. Immediately, he was enveloped by shadows. He could still see, but only the barest glimpses of a shape here and there. Almost blindly, he stepped forward, his naked foot crunching something sharp and brittle.

  It didn’t pierce his skin, but he felt it. More distressingly, he knew that sound. For better or worse, he’d long since discovered that breaking bones sounded so much different than cracking sticks. So, he couldn’t convince himself that it was the latter. Not even if he truly wished that was the case.

  Soon enough, he stepped on another. Then another after that. Soon, he couldn’t deny the reality of his situation. He was trekking across a carpet of bones, and he wasn’t so na?ve as to believe they were anything but human. That wouldn’t really fit the theme of Hell, after all.

  In any case, Zeke pushed that out of mind and continued forward, feeling his way through the trees.

  Fear of the dark is, at its core, a fundamental human instinct. Whether it came from a natural fear of nocturnal predators or some chemical reaction to being in low-visibility situations, it was deeply ingrained in most people’s minds. And despite his nigh-invulnerability, Zeke was no different.

  He could easily shove that fear aside, refusing to let it affect his actions. But it was still there, lurking in the back of his mind and telling him that with every step, he might be assaulted by some creature from nightmare.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Or maybe he’d just step into a really big hole and end up falling for all eternity.

  Regardless of why he feared the dark, he did. And that stayed with him as he stepped on one brittle skeleton after another. On and on it went as days, then weeks passed him by. Zeke could go indefinitely without food or sleep, which made judging time even more difficult.

  That was part of the difficulty of his descent through Hell. It was so much more difficult to keep going when he couldn’t see the end of the road, and it was made even worse when he couldn’t reliably track the passing days.

  At times, he couldn’t see at all, and at others, the gloom receded somewhat, allowing him to glimpse the shapes around him. But never was his vision entirely unobstructed.

  Still, he had no choice but to continue along that path.

  And when something finally changed, he almost wanted to scream in triumph. He withdrew his hand from the tree, trailing something sticky but solid. Holding it only an inch from his face, he thought he saw what appeared to be threads reflecting the scant light. Zeke had encountered enough arachnid monsters throughout his reborn life to recognize a spider web when he saw it.

  As soon as that thought crossed his mind, he felt something slap him in the chest. Raising a hand to dislodge it, he felt something else hit him on the shoulder. Another impact on his back told him that he was under attack, though none of the blows actually hurt.

  They kept coming, though, and it wasn’t long before he realized what was happening. Something was shooting webs at him.

  He took off running.

  He had no idea if he was going in the right direction, but he knew that if he remained in place, he would be captured once again. And after enduring the flames in the pyre the last time he’d been captured, that was the last thing he wanted.

  But escape was not to be.

  He ran, and for a long time, but eventually, the webs built up enough to slow him down. And that slowed pace only resulted in more webs hitting him. Soon enough, he was covered.

  That’s when he actually saw one of the monsters attacking him.

  He was wrapped in webs, but even so, the second he saw the creature, he tried to squirm away. It was useless, and what’s more, he couldn’t take his eyes away from the thing.

  It was a spider, and in terms of basic shape, it reminded him of the drachnids he’d killed so long ago. A humanoid torso, with an arachnid lower half. However, its skin was the color of a maggot, and its legs were those of a human. There were just eight of them, and they were oriented in all the wrong directions.

  The thing limped forward, surprisingly quick.

  Zeke wasn’t sure how he could see the thing. Perhaps that was part of the circle’s challenge. Regardless, he soon found himself wishing for darkness. The thing’s torso had been flayed and poorly sewn back together with large stitching. Like the accusers, its mouth had been sealed shut.

  This creature had eyes, though. They stared at him with unrepentant intensity.

  Then, a voice echoed in his ears.

  “Lies and deceit bind you,” it said.

  “You cannot escape your own dishonesty.”

  “Heresy is in your heart.”

  “Suffering is your only reward.”

  “Embrace it.”

  “Become one of us.”

  “Join those who came before and punish the liars who follow.”

  On and on the voices went, and with each one that echoed in his ears, another spider monsters entered his field of view. Then, Zeke felt an immense pressure descend upon him.

  The weight of his own lies. The guilt of his own heresy. The sheer pain of his actions. The webs constricted him, squeezing the life from him. He screamed. He writhed. He tried to escape. But his efforts were useless. There was no freeing himself.

  Then, he shouted, “I do not lie!”

  The sentence was more than just words. Instead, he’d unleashed the divine energy within him. The webs were torn asunder, freeing his limbs. What’s more, the ferocity of the divine energy was visible as he burst into white flames that illuminated the forest.

  The spider monsters screeched, but they did not run away. Instead, they tore across the carpet of bones in an obvious attack. One went high, springing off a nearby and gnarled tree, while another went low. Still another came at him in a limping gait that, as awkward as it was, harnessed a level of speed Zeke had rarely seen.

  He embraced the evolved [Shifting Sands], and the world went still. The white flames surrounded him, building to furor only he could see. He stepped forward, his footsteps rattling the trees as he leveled a simple punch at the rushing spider.

  It exploded at the touch of his fist.

  Channeling [Hand of Divinity] to remake himself in the wake of so much divine energy, Zeke threw himself at the next monster, and to similar results. Time accelerated, and he let out a roar that sent the monster skidding backward. Then, he was upon them, ripping and tearing and punching.

  They had no defense against his divine wrath. Whatever damage the managed to inflict upon him was easily healed by [Hand of Divinity]. He’d endured the attacks of a god. A few malformed monstrosities could never hope to permanently hurt him.

  But they certainly tried.

  Over and over, they threw themselves at him in wave after wave of deformed monsters. They hit him with plenty of webs as well, but the divine energy flowing through him burned them to nothing before they had a chance to hit his body.

  So, he fought on, tearing them apart bit by bit until, at last, there was nothing left. The divine flames faded away, and the darkness returned.

  That was when the whispers began. Lies and dishonesty, heresy and guilt – the accusations came hard and fast, but when Zeke whipped around, looking in all directions, he couldn’t find the speakers.

  Without any other options, he took another deep breath, then continued on.

  The forest was just as dark and oppressive as ever, but for whatever reason, he barely felt any more fear. Part of it was certainly the reassertion that the denizens of the dark could not harm him. However, there was something else there. A bolstering that came from within.

  It took a while for Zeke to trace it back to his core. A trickle of divine energy – more diffuse than any he’d ever experienced before – flooded his body. It wasn’t enough to burn him, and it was so diluted that it offered very few tangible benefits. But what it did do was banish the fear.

  He was grateful for that.

  On and on, he went, constantly accompanied by the accusations. Certainly, Zeke knew he should have been afraid. He could feel the forest trying to affect him. To force him to collapse and cower in terror.

  Yet, it had no effect on him.

  Days passed. Weeks. Months. He had no idea how long it took him to reach the end of the forest, but when he did, he couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of relief. Especially because it looked like he had reached some semblance of civilization.