Linda was alone.

It was a rarity these days since the Hell Devouring Sect followed her pretty much anywhere. She had been surprised to find so many cultivation nuts who read the same stories in secret in such a small town.

However, they had quickly gathered together; some didn’t even know Xianxia stories, they had just been inducted by friends and quickly brainwashed.

Say whatever you want, Linda was now in charge of the strongest faction in St. Peter. People from Blacksoil, Woodsea, and Fort Oak had joined her Sect and were now getting slowly inducted into the shared cult mentality.

She loved stories of Immortal warriors who slapped faces right and left, never caring about norms, but only following their own path.

Their Dao.

And Linda was going astray the path that Jacob had sketched for her. Since she had a knack for them, she still learned Earth and Fire Magic, but she didn’t think of them as a ‘volcanic’ thing. She was starting to put together her own insights.

Earth and Fire didn’t make Lava in her mind, they made the most terrifying vision humans ever had of the afterlife.

Hell

Hence the name of her Sect, not just because her Cultivation Technique was named as such.

She had thought of asking Jacob since creating her own Spells sounded a bit too ambitious, but then, which Cultivator worth their salt would deem something ‘too ambitious’?

And so, she had embarked on a solitary journey of self-discovery.

She had always been a very short person, ever for a woman. And Linda had never liked commanding so little respect among people with her presence. So, her first Spell took two very precise aspects of her Affinities. And when she said her ‘first Spell,’ she meant the first Spell she was trying to craft for herself, not just a Spell to master from a tome or being guided by Epagogia or Jacob.

If she wanted to be the Head of the Hell Devouring Sect, she needed a Spell to be named after. In fact, after Jacob had told her about ‘Tyrants’ she had dreamed of becoming one.

Hell’s Tyrant

That, Linda decided, it would definitely get the respect she had always wanted at first glance.

After meditating for long and discussing with her own disciples, she had found that everyone was getting a different understanding of their Affinities, even if they shared the same. Some felt that Fire was the most destructive force in existence, some others felt that it was something to get people warm, to feed others.

So, Linda had meditated non-stop, trying to figure out what her powers were. She strongly believed in fate and in signs to decipher. If she got the Hell Devouring Technique, it was not by chance.

She had believed that one day she would have gotten her chance to something grand, to something truly great.

And this was it.

And Hell, if she was going to waste it.

She chuckled at her own joke.

Mirth and seriousness could go hand in hand, at least within her.

This is it.

She had matured some insights she believed would bring her to a new level, making her not just strong, but great.

Earth was the domain of the dead, the rightful domain. Undeath was the wrong place, the damned. But there had to be a place where things went once they dissolved and even Undeath unchained them.

And that was Earth. A resting place, a huge coffin, a gateway to a place below.

Humans in every culture had imagined hell below, and there was a reason.

Earth.

Earth was solid, impossible to see through. And it hid things from humans, including the mortality of their kin, that would one day affect them in the same way everyone had been affected.

It was a huge gate and a place of rest at the same time.

Fire, instead, was different.

To Linda, Fire wasn’t destruction nor something to cook with.

Fire was a guardian, something that embraced Earth to protect that eternal place of rest. And if Fire and Air could have been Heaven, because soul might fly up, Linda believed that not all the Soul deserved the same rest.

So, Fire was Earth’s jailer, the one cracking a blazing whip onto the backs of those who had tried to rest or to escape death into Undeath.

In fact, if Linda’s hunch was right, Fire wasn’t the greatest enemy of Undeath, nor it might have been a more divine power of Air and Fire combined. And that was because Air was easy to escape, too gentle, too open, too kind.

Therefore, what lied in Earth and Fire was something greater, something that spurred fear in those who couldn’t sleep at night for their bad actions, in those who had done things that would forever stain their soul.

Fire and Earth weren’t indeed simple Lava—no, they were much more.

Linda channeled her Mana in full-swing, not afraid of tapping herself dry if it meant she got to assist to some greatness.

Everything comes to a price.

She started feeding a great Spell she had imagined, one that would one day give her a title. And one that would give her purchase on the name of the Hell Devouring Sect.

She started chanting Latin words, the language she thought was more fit to create what was in her mind.

Hell’s Guardian

Translucent Fire materialized in mid-air, starting to distort the atmosphere around. Earth started surging and boiling underneath.

Something started to come out of the boiling pit of Earth.

People would often visualize Hell as a damned place, filthy and languid. But that was not accurate in Linda’s mind. Hell hosted the damned, but it wasn’t corrupted. It was a place to punish, and it belonged to the purest Fire capable of chaining the biggest monsters in existence.

Linda felt almost all her Mana leave her body, making her bend on her knees, wheezing. She felt faint, but she was not going to miss this for anything in the world.

A creature, a guardian, slowly emerged from the boiling pit of Earth, finding purchase into the translucent Fire that he so well knew, oh so well.

It looked at the human in front of him, and, as soon as he was completely out, it bowed its head toward its master.

Linda admired her marvelous summon and, in a bout of tiredness, she fainted.