Hells Escape: A Journey of Redemption

Away from the fire's glow, Damien sat with Blythe's trembling hands cradled in his own. They were cold—soft, fragile things, smaller than his, but carefully maintained. He could feel the faint residue of her ability in her skin, like silk pulled taut over hidden bruises. She restored herself often.

Her fingers twitched.

Even with his eyes shut, Damien could sense the panic rising in her pulse, in the way she leaned slightly forward, wordless but desperate. She was begging for hope without making a sound.

He'd told her not to speak, that it would interfere with the vision, that silence helped him see.

In truth, Damien needed the quiet to buy time.

Time to forge the perfect lie.

Time to swallow the pain screaming through his body.

The shackle was active again, had been for longer than ever before, and the agony was evolving. No longer fire beneath his skin, or just the weight of punishment.

Now it crawled deeper, a raw spreading poison.

It burns so bad…

It's getting worse the longer I keep up my deception.

His body screamed at him to stop. The pain surged like lightning through his limbs, and he began to tremble uncontrollably. His jaw locked tight, muscles spasming as the shackle dug deeper into his nerves.

Then he felt her hands pull away

"Are you okay?!" Blythe cried.

Damien seized the moment. He opened his eyes with a sharp inhale and rubbed his temple, wincing as if emerging from a vision.

The wind screamed across the dunes, a cutting gale that blurred everything beyond arm's reach. Even in the low visibility, he could make out her silhouette, one hand over her mouth, eyes wide with alarm.

"Yes…" he muttered, his voice shaky but controlled. "Sorry. Sometimes… that happens."

He added a tired breath for effect, blinking slowly.

Luckily, James wasn't watching. The skeptic would've sniffed out the lie in a heartbeat, but his eyes were fixed on the fire, and Blythe was far too trusting for her good, not to mention his sin ability, a deceptive gamble that adds fuel to the fire.

She must be one of the high-virtue Hellbound Evalyn mentioned…huh

She's only here because of one mistake... I believe that now.

Blythe pressed a hand to her chest, visibly relieved, and her voice softened.

"I'm glad… So, did you see anything?"

Damien gave a slow, deliberate nod—his shackle returned, this time a controllable pain.

Noted...I can reset the shackles' pain by stopping my deception, then continuing.

Her face lit up instantly, bright and eager.

"What was it?!" she asked, almost shouting over the wind.

Damien could feel eyes pressing into his back.

The Grey Monk had long since turned inward, kneeling in his familiar pose with hands clasped in prayer, unmoving beneath the weight of the cold night. But Joseph was still watching. Damien didn't need to look to know it. The feeling crawled along his skin, a silent, simmering intensity that carried more than mere curiosity. It felt like jealousy, like suspicion, as if Damien being alone with Blythe had struck a nerve.

He took a quiet breath, steadying the lie already forming on his tongue.

"Like last time," he said, keeping his voice low and even, "my virtue wasn't very clear."

Blythe's face dropped immediately, her lips curling into a disappointed frown. The wind tugged at her dress as she waited, silent and patient despite her obvious longing.

"There were a lot of words thrown at me," he continued, lowering his gaze as if remembering some painful vision. "Most of them were meaningless, but a few stood out—two, in particular."

She looked up at him again, eyes wide with renewed hope. Her emotions were so open and unguarded that it made Damien's job far too easy.

"Three people," he said slowly, letting the phrase settle between them. "And forty miles."

She blinked, her brows drawing together. "What does that mean?"

Her voice rose slightly, louder than it should have been. He waited a few seconds before answering, allowing the searing pain of his shackles to subside before he spoke again.

"I can't be certain," he said at last, his voice carrying just enough gravity to sound genuine.

"But if I had to guess, it means your sister is traveling with three others. As for the distance… that's harder to pin down. Forty miles could mean a lot of things. She might be that far from the beacon, or us. She could be ahead or behind, or it might refer to something else entirely."

Blythe absorbed his words in silence, her expression caught somewhere between fear and fragile optimism. She wanted to believe him so badly, and that, more than anything, made lying to her feel effortless.

As he watched Blythe quietly process his words, another thought crept into Damien's mind—one he had been pushing aside for a while now.

My sin ability has been working overtime lately...Thankfully, it hasn't turned on me yet. I need to tread more carefully.

The truth was, Damien didn't fully understand how his sin ability functioned. Not in the way a swordsman understood his blade, or a caster understood their spellwork. He had theories, and most of them were based on patterns he'd noticed through trial and error.

He knew that his lies—already convincing on their own—were given a seventy percent increase in believability. That part was easy to track; people believed him when they absolutely shouldn't. The real danger, however, came from the rare but devastating backfire. A one percent chance, where the lie didn't just convince others, it convinced him.

But even that had its logic.

If he knelt and pledged false loyalty to someone, and the ability snapped back, he might truly become loyal to them. His thoughts would shift, his instincts bend, and he would serve them with sincerity.

However, if he told a lie, such as claiming he had three brothers, the result would be different. He probably wouldn't suddenly manifest siblings into reality. Still, he might start believing he had them, with fabricated memories and imagined faces, all stitched together by his mind to maintain the illusion.

The line between manipulation and self-deception was a fine one, and Damien was starting to feel how thin it was.

Blythe smiled, the warmth in her expression unshaken. "Thank you… It's enough to know she's still out there."

Damien parted his lips to reply,

Then froze.

His eyes locked onto the bland girl, as Jenna had left her alone near the supply box. Something was off. Her posture, her trembling fingers, the way her hands moved with unsettling precision.

She was reaching upward, slowly and deliberately, toward something invisible...the rune that said "Accept."

Damien's breath caught. Beside him, Blythe followed his gaze, confused, and across the camp, Joseph saw it too.

His expression snapped into panic.

"Riley!" he shouted, his sword bursting into existence with a crack of light.

In a single bound, he closed the distance.

A moment later, blood sprayed across the sand.

Riley's scream shattered the night as her hands hit the ground, severed cleanly at the wrists.

But it was too late; her body snapped out of existence, leaving everyone stunned.

The system's calm, mechanical voice rang out:

"Contestant Riley has accepted the offer."