770 Paradiso

As she walked into the corridor, the blue flames flickered slowly and suddenly became brighter, revealing the extent of the corridor hallway. Pei, still in her fox form, did not walk through the centre of the pathway and instead quietly ran through from one pillar to another of the extended corridor hallway.

At the same time, she marvelled at the artwork along the corridor. It depicted a queue of cloaked humans cuffed by their chains awaiting the judgement of the executioner right at the end of the painting.

"Heh. I wonder if Moloch is aware that he seems to have copied the Divine Comedy, Dante's Inferno into his maximum security prison. Could it be that the writer was possibly a demon from Moloch's time as well? Nah, that seems too far fetched. It would be more likely that the writer had just come in contact with a demon… Hmmm." Pei thought to herself as she used her tail to shift the fox mask onto her face and take another look at the prison blueprints.

Whether the first 100 floors had anything or anyone special to pit against the foxes, it would not have mattered since Ixel managed to break through with his technique. However, the final nine floors were 'special' and the reason Kraft had assembled them all before venturing forth.

Moloch's blueprints indicated that the final floors were meant to create the true meaning of hell for the demons, humans or even half breeds who had committed sins in the Demon Metropolis.

Unlike Jin's world which required resources and money to revive, the Church of Afterlife who held onto the souls of the fallen was able to give anyone who had died a choice to resurrect again even if they did not have the money to pay for it. When they returned back to the living, they would then have to pay for the procedure with interest attached to it. (In essence, they worked like a bank, or maybe one might liken them to loan sharks.)

Given their infinite lifespan, it was not really an issue but more of a meddlesome affair that would stick. The only problem with that was the Church of the Afterlife would not allow someone to die permanently. Whoever had agreed to the deal, they would be revived again and again, as many times as necessary, forced to work off the entire debt, no matter how long it would take.

That was where Moloch's infamous prison came into the picture. The Demon Metropolis did not gain its fame, power and riches because of the wise rule of King Baal nor the accumulation of efforts by the previous generations of Demons. Instead, the city only bloomed after the creation of such prisons like Moloch had built as the Church of the Afterlife suggested cooperation to regain their debts.

Those who died while they were still indebted without the financial ability to pay back the Church of the Afterlife, were sent to these prisons for reforms. They would toll their lives in the hundred floors to make goods and products which would subsequently be sold and the proceeds, after the demons took their cut, were used to repay their debtors.

It was a win-win situation for the Church. They would not have to bother with every creditor who owed them money, but every debt would be paid regardless of the methods. Even if the prisoners escaped, it was no longer the Church's problem to deal with, since the responsibility would fall on the guards the Demon Metropolis had employed. All the Church had to do was pay enough taxes and money to the Demon Metropolis to make their problems go away.

Hence, the rulers of these final floors were the prison supervisors, reformers and guards, which enforced the punishment to the prisoners who escaped. Though these 'prisons' could be found in almost every major metropolis nowadays, none could compare to the unique design Moloch had used for the first of its kind, the maximum-security prison Paradiso. (It was #17 on the list of must-see tourist spots of the Dungeon World!)

However, Paradiso hadn't always been designed to work off the debtors of the Church. Initially, it was only made to imprison the worst of the worst offenders of the Demon Metropolis. Moloch would also be the only one to be crazy/ingenious enough to put the Demon Metropolis's Dungeon Core at the last hidden sub room on the 109th floor of Paradiso.

This was mainly because Moloch had created a so-called pity system for the prisoners in Paradiso. If they could win or kill the supervisors of the last nine floors, they would be replaced as the new reigning supervisors until their jail terms ended.

Luxurious food, a place to stay, a flow of steady income as well as the lust of power, had effectively satisfied those criminals to live while upholding the status quo. In years, Paradiso's final nine floors had seen so many challengers that the essence of the dead resulted in forming Dungeon Cores for each level.

These Dungeon Cores then evolved to become the Dungeon World's first prison cores and allowed those who lost to be shackled onto the core until a new owner came along. Whether the new reigning owner wished to unleash all the tormented souls or kept them for their dungeon would be up to them to decide.

Thus, Moloch used these new concept cores to protect the keys used to unlock the room which housed the Metropolis' Dungeon Core as part of the Metropolis defence against invaders. Only the absolute royalty like King Baal had access to the room without the need of those keys, and that was the authority of the owner of the Dungeon Core. Else, the invaders had to fight each and every level to get the keys to open the deadliest of defenders to acquire the dungeon core.

It was, however, a trap made by Moloch and King Baal since no one had ever beaten all nine floors altogether. And even if they did, King Baal would have been notified as soon as the first one fell into the wrong hands, which would give him ample time to protect his Dungeon Core.

Because of the achievement of creating such a wonderful defence system against invaders and his service to the throne, King Baal did not send Moloch into prison even after he betrayed him for taking his crown away.

… After all, he was still sane at that point and understood what Moloch had been talking about. King Baal wanted to take action by sending Moloch to a secluded place and hoped he could create a countermeasure of the crown he was wearing. Moloch knew the King wanted to keep such power in his hands (and in check), but through the years, things changed.

The crown had overpowered his mental will, and there were days he lost his 'sanity' check, causing him to crumble and suffer through the pain until the next sanity check where the crown would leave him alone should he pass. Kiva had slowly taken over him and further imbued the crown with his own magic whenever possible.

It was only a year after Moloch's betrayal that Kiva took over Paradiso as the overall supervisor in charge and introduced such an insane recommendation to put not only the Church of Afterlife debtors inside, but anyone breaking the law for the smallest infringement since most of the cells had been empty and unused.

By now, Baal had lost all reason to listen to sensible logic, allowing Kiva to do whatever he wished. Though it inadvertently became a moneymaker for the Metropolis, Paradiso turned into a defence system with capitalistic intentions, corrupting the very purpose of what the prison had once been created for.

Yet Kiva thought nothing of it. He believed no one would be such an idiot to invade Paradiso or more so, the Demon Metropolis. Thus, it eventually became a thing of the past, and only fools and debtors who wished to get out of the prison attempted this new 'myth' of Paradiso prison.

However, the Ravenous Lord had totally overlooked that the Guard supervisors were still serving their King and city. Money and food were also sent based on a cut from Baal's personal treasury. Even the King, throughout the years, had neglected this trivial issue because it had all been previously arranged by Moloch.

Speaking of Moloch, over the years the Minotaur Lord tried to come up with various plans in his seclusion, but they all had too many variables, and the more promising ones would need an amount of strength neither he nor his minotaurs had possessed.

That was why when Kraft proposed on getting the Dungeon Core, Moloch took some time to think about it. And the more he pondered about the idea, it made sense for Kraft and his skulk to capture the demon city.

By taking the Dungeon Core away from King Baal, he would lose his stat bonuses as King of the Metropolis. That should weaken him enough for the rest of Jin's group to defeat him and bring him to the System's side, regaining his former self.

Hence with this, he agreed to Kraft's strike plan and gave him the details of Paradiso to the best of his knowledge. From blueprints to the possible weakest points of the prison, he put it into memory stick with the System's help and that was why Kraft was busy typing away on his laptop during the entirety of the first invasion phase.

He might have sworn allegiance to Jin, but in his heart, the wish to help King Baal return to his former self, had never faded.