Max tucked in his last sandwich into his lunchbox and closed it, then stacked it on top of the other thirty lunchboxes forming a miniature mountain. Yeah,he had to be prepared. He sure wasn't going hungry down there since he had no idea how long he'd be staying. He'd packed all kinds of flavors: cheese, jelly, peanut butter, peanut-butter-and-jelly, ham,every variety he could think of.
He pulled out a scroll from his storage space, placed the lunchbox mountain on top of it, and they vanished in a puff of smoke. Max picked up the scroll just as it disappeared into his system space. He closed his eyes, focused and vanished with a woosh.
He reappeared in a dimly lit room, silent except for the light snoring coming from Constantine, who slept on the bed hugging a half-empty whiskey bottle to his chest. The man had fallen asleep drunk as always.
Max raised his right hand and lightly backhanded Constantine across the cheek.
"Wha-bloody hell mate! Couldn't you have knocked?" Constantine groaned as he lurched upright.
"I don't knock. Now let's get this done. I haven't got a lot of time," Max said.
"What time is it?" Constantine asked, rubbing his eyes.
"It's early in the morning."
"Of course. You just have to make things hard for me and wake me up at dawn," Constantine muttered. "Alright then,don't puke on me."
He muttered an incantation, the floor glowing beneath them before they vanished and reappeared inside the House of Mysteries. Constantine immediately clutched his mouth.
"Traveling this way isn't exactly the best when drunk," he muttered. He pointed at a small ring on the floor made of white powder, two overlapping stars drawn in the center. "Go and stand there."
"Was this what you were preparing?" Max asked, eyebrow raised.
"Yes," Constantine said tiredly.
Max stepped into the circle's center.
"Now stand still. I don't want to restart the entire process when I'm done. But before I begin,you need to know somethings."
Constantine straightened, his expression suddenly serious.
"Hell is not a place for mortals. You'll see things you've never seen and horrors beyond your wildest nightmares. They'll try to kill you, corrupt you, or tempt you with the promise of power. If you're not strong enough, you will not make it back, and you'll become a permanent resident of Hell—used for their bidding."
Max nodded silently.
"Now… Hell isn't fully chaotic everywhere," Constantine continued. "Some places are controlled by demon lords with incredible power. It's best for you to stay away from those."
"And how am I supposed to recognize them?" Max asked.
"You'll know when you see them," Constantine replied.
He clasped his hands together, muttering under his breath. His palms glowed yellow, and when he pulled them apart, a small glowing sphere floated forward toward Max.
"What's this?" Max asked.
"It's your return spell. Crush that sphere when you're ready to come back, then wait five minutes while it prepares itself. You'll teleport back automatically. Lose it, and you're not coming back. And I won't be able to help you."
"Understood."
Constantine exhaled, cracked his neck, then placed his hands over the circle and began chanting.
"Sarev etrof su, atnomed.
Sakram etnerevni, rotcod tsomla, rarrefni.
Roflehs eht nepo, arrow ohw llaf!
Sertnauq suareti niagni etnemele.
Tnemadnoc, tnemadnoc, tnemadnoc…
Porta ad inferos APERITE!"
The room trembled. Books fell from their shelves. The white powder ignited into crimson flames ,flames that weren't hot but radiated an ancient, unsettling evil. The ground cracked beneath Max's feet, red light glowing through the fissures like magma veins.
Constantine rose to his feet as the ritual reached its peak.
"Good luck, mate," he said with a shrug. "Hope you don't die down there."
The crimson flames surged upward, engulfing Max,and then abruptly vanished, leaving behind scorched floorboards and no trace of him.
Constantine yawned.
A faint shimmer appeared beside him as a purple, feminine silhouette materialized—the House of Mysteries' spirit.
"You just sent him to his death," she said flatly.
"I'm sure he knows what he's doing," Constantine replied, waving dismissively. "I did tell him what could happen. So it ain't my bloody problem if he dies."
He stretched, took a swig from the whiskey bottle he'd kept, and walked away.
---
Max found himself falling from hundreds of meters above the ground. He twisted mid-air, adjusting his body, and halted just a few meters before impact,his sudden stop sending out a small gust of wind. He exhaled sharply, then looked down at the yellow orb Constantine had given him before storing it away inside his system storage space.
Only then did he take a proper look at his surroundings.
The landscape looked almost exactly like the Nether from Minecraft: endless pools of bubbling lava, withered red trees that looked half-dead, scorching temperatures that made the air shimmer, floating chunks of land drifting aimlessly, and a crimson sky with no visible source of light. A massive swarm of bats circled overhead.
'Wait… why is the swarm getting bigger? And why are the bats getting bigger?' Max thought.
As they drew closer, he finally realized what they were.
Hell Bats.
Probably the most common residents of Hell,and every single one of them was charging straight at him.
"Alright, time to get to work," Max muttered.
He channeled chakra into his hand and slammed his palm into the ground. A summoning seal instantly flared to life beneath him.
'Please let this work…' he thought.
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then Max forced more chakra into the seal three times what he normally used,and a massive plume of smoke exploded outward. When the smoke cleared, Max stood atop the enormous head of the Gedo Statue, which had half of its body submerged beneath the ground from the abdomen downward. A white bandage wrapped tightly around its eyes, giving it an eerie, silent presence.
Max exhaled in relief. He had genuinely thought the summoning wouldn't work in a different dimension. It required far more chakra than usual, but that didn't matter much,chakra wasn't his primary offensive tool anymore.
The screeching Hell Bats closed in.
Max suddenly raised his palm toward them. A yellow orb rapidly formed in his hand before he fired it. The sphere shot forward and exploded mid-air with a violent boom, unleashing a shockwave that scattered the Hell Bats like flies. Their bodies spiraled downward, stunned.
Good.He needed them alive.
If he didn't, he would've wiped them all out with a single attack. But dead demonic creatures or Hell Bats usually turned to dust, at least from what he knew, which made them useless. And he wasn't sure whether the Gedo Statue could absorb them alive or if he was supposed to kill them first.
That was problem number one.
Problem number two was their size.
They were way too small for him to bother using the Nine Phantom Dragons Seal on them.
Max sighed.
This was going to be tricky.
---
Hours later
Hall of Justice
Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Cyborg, and Flash stood around the central table, exchanging uneasy glances. Batman had called an emergency meeting of the highest level which is a first since the Justice League was established.
Which meant this was serious. Extremely serious.
Cyborg was the first to break the silence.
"So… can anybody tell me what's going on? Because my systems flagged this as a Level 6 alert, which is reserved for-"
"Planetary threats," Green Lantern finished, crossing his arms.
Flash shifted nervously. "I really hope this is a glitch, because Level 6 is the kind of label we use for Darkseid."
"I doubt it's Darkseid," Superman said, voice calm but tense. "But whatever it is… it must be just as threatening."
The doors hissed open.
Batman walked in, his presence immediately tightening the atmosphere even further.
Wonder Woman stepped forward. "Bruce, what's going on?"
Flash added quickly, "Yeah. Did you find out who was behind the attack on the White House?"
Batman said nothing at first. The silence stretched uncomfortably until he finally spoke.
"I need your help."
Every hero froze.
Batman rarely admitted needing assistance. Saying it outright meant things were bad.
Flash raised a hesitant hand.
"Okay, uh… going to be real here,those four words just scared me way more than they should have."
Batman ignored him.
"The Joker escaped last night."
Green Lantern blinked. "Umm… is that all?"
In his mind, Batman could handle Joker with one hand behind his back. Why call the League?
Batman continued.
"No. After escaping Arkham, he hijacked and stole a nuclear submarine."
Flash stared at him. "A… what?"
"Please tell me this is a joke," Green Lantern muttered. "No pun intended."
"It's not." Batman activated a hologram of a submarine trail. "I tracked it and located where he abandoned it."
"And?" Superman asked, stepping closer.
Batman looked at all of them before delivering the final blow.
"Three warheads are missing."
The room fell into stunned silence.
End of Chapter.
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