Chapter 701 - Another reason to hate

"You're in there, aren't you... Father?" Eisen asked with a melancholic, somewhat bitter expression. In his own mind, he didn't even know him, really. He had only heard a few things here and there, and remembered some random things that he spoke about with other people when it came to Eisen's father in this world.

But even then, 'Benjamin' had become 'Eisen' to the extent where memories didn't really matter anymore. This wasn't the first time that Eisen started feeling strongly in any way for the sake of his father in this world. Anger or sadness, they were emotions that he felt without even knowing anything in particular for that man that died a hundred thousand years ago.

Somehow, it made him feel even worse after realizing this fact. That he didn't know anything about him. He did feel fatherly love toward him, no matter if he could remember him or not. And not knowing anything about someone that you know you love is one of the hardest things that Eisen could imagine in his mind.

After hearing the old man's words, Heresy looked at Eisen with a surprised expression, "You can tell that it is him, when his soul is trapped there in an inescapable prison?" 

"Of course I do. I'm not as clueless as you might think I am." Eisen groaned, "But let me ask you, why did you bring me here in the first place? To make me feel bad?"

"...I would never." Heresy said in apologetic tone of voice, "But whenever you came to this realm in the past, you only did so to visit this place. To visit your father, even if he may not realize that you are here in the first place. I thought you might appreciate it if I could show you him again."

The Goddess turned her head away from Eisen and toward that huge mass of metal that the soul of Eisen's father was entrapped in. The old man felt quite angry about seeing what was going on, before approaching the invisible wall that held him back from actually getting closer to this 'prison'.

"Did I ever manage to break this barrier?" Eisen asked, but Heresy just slowly shook her head, "Neither you, nor any of us were ever capable of breaking this barrier. It was created out of the same cosmic materials that hold our universe together. Not even you would be able to break that apart, would you?" Heresy pointed out.

Eisen thought about that question for a little while. He wasn't sure if he would be capable of doing that, but... It felt off that it was possible for anyone to create something like this, but that it was impossible for anyone to break it apart. That didn't make sense.

And in the first place, this 'cosmic material' wasn't as stable or impenetrable as Heresy seemed to think it is. After all, this World, or rather Universe, was connected with the Universe that Earth was in. There was a clear path there. So it wouldn't make sense if it was impossible for anyone to get through this obviously lesser version of that.

The old man placed his palm onto the cold surface, thinking about what this might be. Eisen didn't know why he became so curious about this all of a sudden. Maybe it was just because he didn't want to think about the fact that his father was trapped in a place that not even the former Eisen was able to break through at his absolute peak. And that just for being Eisen's parent.

"Is there any way for me to properly communicate with him at all?" Eisen inquired, but Heresy slowly shook her head, "There is not." She explained.

She stepped toward the barrier herself, slowly looking inside of it at the huge mass of metal that was entrapping that great Giant, "You two live in different worlds, quite literally. I heard that this world runs at a quicker pace than the world you originated from, so the concept can't be unfamiliar to you. If we say that this space in front of us is another world, then it either runs either many, many times slower, or many, many times faster than here."

"...What do you mean 'either'? You don't know which it is?"

"How would I? This was here before I became the Mistress of this realm. I do not even know who it was that created it." Heresy told Eisen, but he was already fully aware of who it was. Eisen's hatred for that person just grew more and more the longer he thought about them. He wanted to just rip their head off and make them feel all the suffering that they inflicted on everyone else.

And then, as Eisen's mind was once more declining into extreme fury over everything that was going on, a certain Guide-Devil right behind Eisen chose to give their opinion on the matter, "Well... If the time there runs faster than here, then it might not be that great, but if the time runs slower than here, then it might have just been a couple of weeks or even days for 'im, right? It's a 50/50 chance. At least he wouldn't be suffering that much compared to others in this realm." Satel pointed out, as if trying to cheer Eisen up somehow. 

It was something that the old man really didn't expect from them. It seemed nearly out of character for them, "...You're right. I should try and see it positively." Eisen said as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, slowly trying to calm himself down. With a bright smile that Eisen practically forced onto his own lips, he chose to turn around with a form of newfound determination. 

Determination that he was forcing onto himself, sure, but that was still better than none at all. At least in the old man's mind, that was.

"You do not wish to spend a little more time here?" Heresy inquired as she caught up to Eisen, and the old man slowly shook his head, "I don't. I still have something to do here in this realm, though. So I would appreciate it if you could prepare a gate for me near here that I can head through when I'm done with that?"

The Goddess turned to Eisen and 'looked' at him, although she had her eyes covered in a piece of cloth, and slowly nodded her head. To Eisen it seemed like she knew what he was trying to do, but was simply choosing to ignore it for now.

"Then I wish you great success throughout your travels. I know that you will succeed." The Goddess waved her hand to the side and created a large stone arch that showed the next realm beyond it so that Eisen could just go through there later. The old man greatly appreciated it, and after thanking Heresy, he activated his Draconic Demon King transformation and flew off, back toward the tower where Eisen was before. He wanted to find out the decision of the man with the eyes that could see the 'connection' between the worlds.

Eisen jumped through into the tomb. The moment that he stepped through the wall of flames there, he was surprised to see that the man had already made his decision. After all, he was no longer there, the shackles were laying on the ground next to the crystal bubble that was now filled with a new soul.

Eisen squatted down and picked it up, before opening his item storage, "Thanks for helping me out." He muttered quietly. Eisen placed the crystal bubble into the item storage and turned back around, ready to head to the next realm where he would be taking on another challenge.

Somehow, after finding out that his father was trapped here in this realm in the way that he was kind of reassured Eisen in some ways. Of course, it wasn't that he was glad or happy that his father was trapped. It was simply that he was happy that he had definite, tangible reasons to absolutely despise Samuel, more than he already did anyway.

After Eisen stepped out of this tomb, he watched as the opening in this tower's wall slowly disappeared, as if the rock itself was growing and regenerating to close a wound.

Eisen lifted off and flew toward the gate that Heresy had prepared for him, soon reaching the next realm with Satel right behind him. The old man thought about what he knew of this realm, and after taking a good look around, came to a simple conclusion as to what kind of task he would have to finish in this realm.

The Seventh Circle was the circle of Violence, so of course it would have something to do with combat in some form. Eisen looked at the plane in front of him, and quickly realized that he seemed to be right. Not too far away from him were large walls, erected as if they were supposed to keep something out, or maybe keep something in, in this case.

Eisen reached the gate that seemed to be the entrance to this realm and read through the notification that appeared on his way here.

There were three 'Rings' in this realm, and Eisen would have to beat the strongest enemy in each of those circles in order to keep going. If he remembered correctly, the first ring was for those that viciously inflicted violence upon other people, so this might actually be the hardest physical fight as far as he could guess.

Eisen reached a large open field, something like an arena, and in its center sat a humanoid figure. For the most part, it really did look like just any normal, middle-aged human male, but after taking a better look at him, his skin wasn't just incredibly white, but rather an extremely pale shade of green.

This being, this monster as Eisen assumed, looked rather sick. But as far as Eisen could tell, this was just their regular skin-color, so he didn't care too much about it either.

The monster was sitting there, its arms slung around its knees as if it was trying to cradle itself. Eisen felt pretty bad for it, really.

But the moment that the monster heard Eisen's footsteps, it pulled its head up and stared at the figure that was approaching.

"Person..?" It asked quietly to itself, and Eisen chose to stay away at a safe distance for now, "You person? Real person? Not seen person in long time..." The Monster muttered as it started to press its limbs down onto the ground, practically crawling over toward Eisen on all fours.

It showed its sharp teeth as it buried its claws in the dirt underneath its body, before lunging at Eisen with a madness-driven expression.