The Rise of the Black Plain
chapter-2778

Minos moved on with his journey after saying goodbye to Qhava, traveling alone through the vast Hell.

His goal was simple. To deal with his competitors and gain territory.

Hell had a fairly simple division. Basically, one had to dominate areas where there were Reincarnation Wheels, something difficult that went beyond saying that a particular area was one's own. Achieving recognition of an area where there was one of these special phenomena went beyond beating the owner of the area.

But the more Reincarnation Wheels one had in their domain, the greater their benefits in the Hell and the greater their influence.

Above a certain value, one could even claim the position of a Devil and remove someone other than their own master from one of the Devil positions before attempting to conquer the Throne of Hell.

In other words, the Devils, despite accepting disciples and placing them as the principal players in the contest for the throne, were actually the most important competitors. As long as someone in Minos' position didn't become a Devil, they would have their conquests as part of the Devil's territory of influence over them. Only by reaching a certain level and being able to challenge another Devil and take his place could one change that with a challenge for independence.

The Hell was a place with plenty of possibilities for status changes, where one's strength and ability to advance against their opponents was the main differentiator behind the positions of those involved in the Hell's internal disputes.

But as well as setting out to compete and conquer his first Reincarnation Wheels under his command, Minos also had duties he knew he would have to fulfill amid his journey.

Besides the Hell's internal power struggles, which were significant to the inhabitants of this dimension, there were responsibilities that the inhabitants of the Hell had to fulfill that were just as important, if not more so, than their struggles.

All this competition for power in the Hell had its own deep reasons. The inhabitants of the Hell were not fighting out of boredom, but for the benefits of having more Reincarnation Wheels under their command. That was the path to power, the path to approaching level 130, the legendary Absolute level!

But to have these opportunities, one had to keep the Hell running, the Reincarnation Wheels running and a rate of deaths processed for a certain amount of time.

To fulfill these requirements, the inhabitants of the Hell needed to take on roles to defend the place, maintain its sovereign rules over the universes, prevent escaped dead from the area, among other things.

In the last great battle of the Hell and the Upper Realm, spatial cracks appeared between the two dimensions, making it possible for both dead souls to escape from Hell and irregular living beings to enter the Upper Realm. While the Entitled Deities and their minions took care of expelling invaders from the Upper Realm, it was the duty of the Devils and their subordinates to deal with fugitives from Hell.

Qhava's orders to Minos on this journey he was embarking on were clear. If he found any cracks in his path, he was to close them and use his Devil powers to recover those souls.

With these goals in mind, he began his long journey, using his Devil power to summon dogs from the underworld and a dark chariot.

He made these dark beings using the black crown on his head, which allowed him to do some interesting things. The Infernal Crown was like an identification for the inhabitants of Hell. They gave them rights to command souls and undead temporarily, to connect to a previously conquered Reincarnation Wheel and to use some of the Hell's guardians, beings specially made of energy and laws.

The dogs pulling Minos' chariot at the moment were some of these guardians, while his chariot was a mere condensation of the laws, the creation of matter, another interesting power of the Infernal Crown.

Minos made the guardians in front of him lead the way, but these Hell dogs weren't as powerful as the ones that had brought him and Qhava to the area months ago. These dogs were only as strong as Minos' infernal power, which was very close to the beginning by local standards.

Even so, the Hellhounds could take him faster to the places he intended to pass than he himself could at his speed.

While Minos' Hellhounds, only 2, his current limit, were taking him to his first stop, he had an open map in his hands.

He couldn't contest any of his fellow Qhava disciples' Reincarnation Wheel areas because they were his master's areas of influence.

Qhava had already been a Devil for a long time, long enough for him to have a journey of days ahead just to get out of her territory of influence.

But even though Qhava was powerful and well-known even outside the Hell, her area of influence didn't even cover 2% of Hell.

'I'll see if I can get anything from Abby, Ruth, and Gloria on this trip... But given the absurd size of the Hell, it's extremely unlikely that I'll find them.'

Minos looked at the map of Qhava's territory and then at the less detailed one, with everything that was supposed to exist in Hell.

Hell was a grandiose plan that was supposed to fit all the worlds Minos had passed through on his journey there!

There was no sea or forest in Hell. But while the areas were absolutely sparsely populated, there were special places in Hell. In certain areas, one could travel for months in fog and encounter all kinds of strange phenomena and even fugitives from the Reincarnation Wheels.

The Devils' domains were the most dangerous, but there were areas with extreme natural phenomena, both cultivation opportunities, and traps that were extremely effective at bringing down even Supremes.

Given what he already knew, Minos doubted, but didn't entirely give up on the remote possibility of him finding his women on this first solo journey of his into the Hell.

'I'll do my best to find them. Once I have them on my side, I can make them my subordinates by giving them crowns derived from mine. This will give them some powers and enable them to stay on my side.'

That was his plan for when he found them.

Minos was confident that they would stand their ground wherever they were. So he wasn't thinking 'if', but 'when'!

Thus began his journey of a few weeks' duration, with absolute peace for him to continue cultivating and strengthening until he finally left his master's territory.