Infinity: Kill your way through the movie world.

The leader was a demon of exceptionally large build, who was probably a Teutonic Knight in his previous life.

It tilted its head, two clusters of sulfur flames flickering in the depression of its skull, sizing up this being who dared to step into hell alone.

"Humans," its voice sounded like a rusty iron door rubbing against a doorframe, "Do you know where you are?"

Wu Heng did not answer.

He raised his left hand.

The energy circuits on the gloves were recalibrated the instant they entered hell.

Blue-gold light exploded from his palm.

The shockwave, accompanied by the explosion, spread instantly, unleashing a restraint on darkness and a banishment of shadows.

Wherever the energy passed, the bodies of low-level demons, like dried corpses exposed to the sun for thousands of years, were carbonized, cracked, and turned to ashes from the point of contact with the flames.

There were no screams, no struggles; they didn't even have time to understand what was happening before the hellish energy that constituted their existence was neutralized, disintegrated, and completely annihilated.

The Teutonic Knight demon only managed to take half a step forward, letting out a muffled hissing sound.

Then it solidified.

Starting from its chest, a bluish-black light seeped inward, like concentrated acid corroding paper. It looked down at the rapidly expanding hole in its breastplate, and the sulfurous flames in its eye sockets went out.

Three seconds later, it crumbled silently into a pile of charred remains, like a weathered stone statue.

All thirty-seven low-ranking demon guards were wiped out.

Time taken: three seconds.

Wu Heng withdrew his left hand and continued walking forward.

His boots ground over the still-smoking ashes, his pace neither quickening nor slowing. His gaze remained calm, not even glancing at them twice.

More demons are gathering on the road to the palace of hell.

The second wave consists of mid-level demons, who were once knight commanders, tribal chiefs, or survivors who had endured hundreds of years of torment in hell and had luckily devoured the power of their companions.

They were more experienced than the lower-ranking demons, and the moment they saw the blue-gold light, they made a judgment: this was not an enemy they could confront head-on.

But they did not retreat.

Because Crowley, who had sensed the commotion and returned from his throne in the Hell Palace, was watching this place through the dimensional rift.

Retreat means being treated as a traitor, stripped of all power, and thrown into the depths of hell to become food for other demons.

"Stop him!" a demon, who was probably a Mongol centurion in life, roared in Old Turkic.

Thirteen mid-level demons pounced on them simultaneously.

Wu Heng raised his hand.

There were no superfluous incantations, no complicated gestures.

The puppet spirit's energy surged from his fingertips, condensing into thirteen hair-thin beams that precisely pierced the center of each demon's forehead, the point where the core of hellish energy connected to the demon's remaining consciousness.

The thirteen bodies, like puppets with their strings pulled out, simultaneously went limp, slid down, and turned to ashes.

Wu Heng stepped over the still-smoking wreckage and onto the last staircase leading to the palace of hell.

The demons that had been stirring around fell silent.

They watched as the dark blue light, like an inextinguishable holy candle, approached the core of hell's power step by step. No one dared to step forward, not because they didn't want to, but because they dared not.

With each step the figure took forward, they retreated a step. When Wu Heng pushed open the gate of the Hell Palace, forged from the bones of thousands of people, there was not a single demon within a hundred meters behind him.

There was no smell of sulfur in the palace of hell.

The air was cold, carrying a complex scent of metal, leather, and expensive red wine.

The floor was covered with a deep red handmade carpet, which was no ordinary item; it looked like an antique that had been completely torn off from a medieval castle occupied by demons.

The walls are covered with oil paintings by Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Titian, each of which has been on the list of stolen works for over a century.

Deep within the palace, a colossal throne forged from hellish bone spikes and molten alloy dominates the visual center.

The throne's backrest is made of seven curved dragon ribs, their surfaces engraved with demonic contract runes. The armrests are inlaid with a dozen fist-sized soul crystals, each imprisoning a powerful being from a previous life.

Crowley sat on this throne.

He was wearing a custom three-piece suit, dark gray, with a platinum tie clip.

Holding a glass of Romanée-Conti, the red wine appeared almost blackish-red under the candlelight.

His posture was relaxed, even lazy, with one leg crossed over the other, the tips of his leather shoes tapping lightly in rhythm.

But his eyes did not relax.

Those blood-red pupils were fixed on Wu Heng, as if observing whether a wild beast that had stumbled into a trap had actually triggered it.

“President Lor,” Crowley said, his voice steady, even carrying a hint of deliberate nonchalance, “What a rare guest. The Hell Palace hasn’t received such a… um… high-level human visitor in over a thousand years.”

"Would you like a glass of '82 red wine? Although you humans like to talk about that year, the '89 vintage is actually even better."

Wu Heng did not answer.

He walked past the priceless antique carpet, past the demon guards on either side whose wings were trembling with tension, and step by step, he reached the throne.

Then he sat down.

It wasn't the throne itself—that thing covered in bone spurs looked uncomfortable—that he sat on the velvet-covered low chair to the right of the throne, probably prepared for the chief advisor or a favorite concubine.

He sat very naturally, as if he were sitting on the sofa in his own office.

Crowley's words came to an abrupt halt.

His hand, holding the wine glass, froze in mid-air.

The entire hell palace fell into a deathly silence.

The twelve high-ranking demon guards standing on either side of the throne looked at each other, unsure whether they should draw their swords. One of them had his hand on the hilt of his sword, but his knuckles were white and he did not dare to exert any force.

Wu Heng took out a thumb-sized, translucent dark gold crystal from the inside pocket of his trench coat.

Angel Energy Crystal Core.

He held the crystal core between his index and middle fingers, examining it closely in the candlelight. The angelic essence sealed within slowly circulated within the crystal core, reflecting fine, vein-like golden patterns.

“This crystal core,” Wu Heng began, his voice calm, as if he were explaining an experimental report, “originated from a high-ranking angel, Barthimus, who belonged to the combat sequence and had about seven hundred years of combat experience before his fall. He attempted to resist in Chicago but was killed by Dean and Sam. After his death, his grace dissipated for forty-seven seconds, and I recovered thirty-one percent of it.”

Crowley stared at the crystal core.

His throat bobbed almost imperceptibly.

“Crowley.” Wu Heng twirled the crystal core between his fingers, casting dappled blue-gold light on his palm. “When you first unified Hell, your sphere of influence was limited to one-third of the entire Hell. The Parliamentarians, Radicals, and Ancients each held their own territory. It was estimated that it would take you thirty years to incorporate or eliminate them all.”

Crowley's lips twitched. (End of Chapter)