Jonathan and Eliza explored the remnants of Cessation, trying to find where it ended, and the rest of the world began. Like with the fusion of the Ash Heaps and Mire, it was layered on top of the other realms. Jonathan didn’t know any of them, and would need to find out more about this strange new world he found himself in. There did seem to be some borders to the realm, but plenty of monsters had infiltrated Cessation from its neighbors.
The only problem was that there were no cities in Cessation. To find anyone who could answer his question, he would need to go further afield. Any cities in this realm would be the provinces of Tier 5s or above. Jonathan was confident in fighting most average Tier 5s with his new abilities, but anything beyond that was probably out of reach. Maybe it would be a different story upon reaching Tier 5, but for now, he had to be careful, Eliza even more. It all depended on how strong his Divinity upgrade had made him, something that was much harder to quantify than stats on a sheet.
It took them about two weeks to leave the boundaries of Cessation, time within which both leveled as much as they could on the undead of the realm. Eliza had mostly caught up to Jonathan, only a dozen levels beneath his own. He in turn was almost at Tier 5, standing at level 389. There were many powerful Tier 4 undead in Cessation, and in one memorable occasion, a newly ascended Tier 5 undead dragon. That kill had given almost a fifth of the total essence earned.
The edges of Cessation, not simply areas where it had merged with other realms, but where the entirety of its landscape ended, came up soon after. The bordering realm was oddly pastoral and peaceful for the Infinite Hells, a vista of rolling hills and farmland, crisscrossed by shining rivers. It was only when Jonathan looked closer with his augmented senses that he saw the truth. The fields were tilled by legions of slaves, working in chain gangs overseen by what looked like squat demons sitting on oversized palanquins. Thus far in the Hells, Jonathan hadn’t seen a true demon, but if they existed, these creatures were the closest that Jonathan had ever seen. Corpulent, scaled humanoids with forked tails and curling horns, the resemblance was almost on the nose.
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Each of the overseers were around mid Tier 5 in strength, with the slaves far below that. Despite their comical appearance, the demons could easily quell any uprisings.
Jonathan grimaced as he realized that there was little that he could do to help the enslaved laborers before him. Even if he could defeat all of the overseers, of which he could see almost a hundred within the nearest thousand miles or so, they obviously worked for someone more powerful. Perhaps even a circle lord. Jonathan wasn’t sure exactly what circle this land had been poached from, but there was an easy enough way to tell.
“Let’s take this slow,” he said to Eliza. “This isn’t the place for heroism or aggression.”
She smiled slightly in response. “I know. I’ve lived a lot of my life at the bottom. Trust me. I can keep my calm when I need to.”
Indeed, Jonathan had learned quite a bit about his companion’s life on Earth. She had been a farmer before dying, coming from a family of farmers. It was what she had known, and all she had expected to know. Despite this, she was quite knowledgeable, surprisingly so for how little access to education she had had.
Jonathan and Eliza headed over the border of Cessation, and into the pastures beyond. Weaving Aegis of the Void’s Dichotomy around himself in its original form, that of an obscuring cloak, Jonathan kept himself and his ally hidden from the view of the demonic overseers. While the skill hadn’t changed much since its conception, at least in terms of its basic premise and not the energy shield that it had become, it worked in a way that made it quite powerful. The Void was already naturally difficult to detect, meaning that there were almost no tells of their presence, physical or magical.
Moving in this way, they traveled through the freshly tilled fields, trying their best to ignore the plight of the slaves. To Jonathan, who had built a good bit of his psyche around his quest as the Hellbreaker, it was a personal failing that he could not save them. Despite this, he knew that mental brittleness would result in his quest ending before it could ever really begin. He would return one day, but for now, there was nothing he could do.
