The second Malik stepped through that Gate...
There was no void, air, or anything in between, only heat, a suffocating, crushing pressure that made him feel pain in its rawest form.
The ground beneath his feet was cracked black stone with fire living through, breathing out, and screaming.
Around him were endless pits vomiting flame, mountains of embered flesh towering into a sky split by rivers of something worse than lava.
Above him was a bridge that went as far as his eyes could see, a bridge finer than a hair and sharper than a sword.
...This was Jahannam.
Malik stood there, feet planted directly on fire.
He was unburned, unscorched, and unmoved, even though it was a sight that brought nightmares, a heat that melted flesh from bone, a type of flame that clawed at his skin like a starving animal.
It didn’t touch him, not physically or mentally; rather, it welcomed him, ushering him home.
Malik, accepting this welcome, slowly dragged his eyes across the landscape.
He noticed what was only of course.
All around him were demons, devils, and djinns.
The creatures mortals loved to write about in bedtime stories.
Great hulking creatures with faces stitched shut and arms chained behind their backs, being dragged along by invisible forces as their horns snapped and wings burned to stumps.
Their bodies, no matter the state, regrew again and again as black ichor dripped from their every orifice.
Those ethereal, mainly the djinns, were turned solid by the curse of this Divine Kingdom, ensuring punishment would be administered.
Their broken bodies were wrapped in barbed wire made of light, something holy, forever torturing them, forcing their forms to flicker between ash and skin.
Humans were here too, many of them, too many to count, but most were lazily thrown in this realm, piling up at the rivers of liquid flame, swimming, or rather, drowning in what killed them.
Some of them were outside those death pits, but they weren’t doing much better, far from it, forced to be roasted alive over and over again on the very ground Malik so easily stood on, their skin healing back up after each death.
Now, Malik watched them for a while, seeing them kneel, shake, and claw at the burning ground, trying to dig holes to find a moment of reprieve.
Though the ones that did that weren’t many.
Most were... simply crying.
{Outside The Projection}
They felt something crawl under their skin just watching it.
This was a place built for suffering and punishment.
A place made by the True Sultan.
’His’ Divine Kingdom.
Demons. Devils. Djinns. Humans.
It didn’t discriminate.
Yeah... nobody doubted it now.
Their Sultan, as the projection stated, was back home.
Malik had reached the Mouth of God and used it...
With unlimited Aether at his disposal, he made himself a black hole.
He linked himself to it with a Goddamn tether of rebirth.
Even thinking about what he did spun their minds.
The fact that he did it, and the fact that he succeeded, was something else altogether.
Again, Fam Iblis’s mortals, maybe even their Magi, would likely soon start praying to him.
But those who already prayed to someone didn’t need anyone to wait to see them praying.
"Are we... are we actually watching this?"
Yes, all of them believed in the existence of Hell, but there was a difference between belief and actually seeing it before their very eyes.
It further strengthened their attachment to their religion, making them feel euphoric.
Too euphoric, that one of them, some random Magi in the crowd, whispered:
After a moment or two, someone followed:
Even to those who didn’t pray.
It was a chant of worship.
But also a chant of fear.
Of people admitting that whatever they were seeing...
Was far above anything they’d ever understood.
Safira, Duban, and Faqir were the loudest of them, and yet some didn’t bother to join them.
Ignoring Dunya, Sinbad, and the Lady, who only watched, never one to participate, Layla and Huda remained silent, still stuck on what he did.
Azeem’s head had dropped, his palms pressed together as he whispered something incomprehensible under his breath.
Noor remained frozen; for once in her entire life, she saw something, someone, other than Malik as above her, almost forced to acknowledge it, even though the same was true for many others, something which still...
Didn’t break her pride.
’He’ was a God, after all.
Zafar, like last time, only watched them.
Whenever people saw or heard how lucky he was, they always said that he was Blessed by God.
Though they had celebrated him, they always chalked up whatever he did to ’Them,’ thanking ’Them’ for making him so damned talented and lucky.
That naturally didn’t make him a fan of ’Them.’
So really, it never mattered to him whether Judgement Day and Hell existed or not.
He would live long and, perhaps one day, become someone above such matters.
Become someone like his Lord, his Sultan.
Surprisingly, and unlike those two, Roya revealed a face full of shock.
She knew a lot about Hell; she always knew of its existence.
But somewhere deep down, she doubted it.
There couldn’t be such an accursed place, could there?
And yes, accursed, because, again, she knew all about Hell.
She knew more than anyone in the hall, maybe even the entire world.
So she knew what was waiting for Malik, the sights he was about to see...
The pain he was about to experience.
A pain that even she wouldn’t wish on anyone.
{Inside The Projection}
Indeed, this was home.
But there was an intruder in his home.
A human body that wasn’t screaming.
That wasn’t writhing or burning.
It was just... there.
Lying still, face up, dead.
Judging by his physique and the royal robes that were somehow still intact, he was a man.
Right, gold embroidery blackened by soot, but... still intact.
Likely a very strong Mithqal, maybe even one in the same position as him...
After all, just like Malik, his body was untouched by the flames.
Somehow, his flesh had yet to melt off, and of course, it didn’t decompose either.
This was Hell; even incredibly tiny cells such as bacteria and the like couldn’t exist, burnt to nothing.
The man’s skin remained a tanned white, uncharred, even after however long he spent here.
Curious, Malik walked closer, step by slow step.
Those being tortured around him parted instinctively, even as they laughed in pain.
A predator walked among them now, something worse than what burned them.
When Malik stood over the body, he stared for a long... long time.