IV V VI

Mikhail fought the demon of greed in the vastness of the caves full of gold. With long wings and a tail, Plutus easily moved in the air and between the stone columns.

"This experience helped me to "level up". Everything looked like a game, for me it was reality."

Plutus trapped Misha and hung him on his own tail, sitting on top of a column. Mikhail couldn’t cut off the tail with his bone blades, since it was armored and easily dodged. Then Misha strengthened his legs and brought down the entire column with a powerful blow. And when he found Plutus stuck in a pile of gold, he finished his job. However, after that, Misha was left alone in the middle of a sea of ​​gold.

He wandered for a long time looking for an exit in the darkness of the cave, illuminated by the glow of gold.

Mikhail sped up time even more, but even so, it seemed like an eternity had passed. "H-how long were you there?.."

"Enough to think about everything in the world."

It was only thanks to the Black Rabbit outside that he managed to escape from virtual slavery. Keshita rubbed his cheek with nostalgia.

"A slap at the right moment works wonders…"

"People spend huge amounts of money to buy something practically immaterial, which is valuable only in their minds. When these resources could have been spent on useful things."

"A sad, but natural order of things."

"That's what I wanted to change. The real spendthrifts were still ahead…"

Mikhail rewound his memories. After the shopping mall, Misha ran away from the Black Rabbit, not trusting her.

"Again…"

"Ha-ha. And then there was that episode with falling into the water. I myself am amazed at how similar our actions and events are."

“…”

“In the cave I realized that the Black Rabbit had appeared next to me for no reason, so I decided to escape. Then I went to Bolotnaya Square, which was next to the Moscow River. There I got rid of my phone. Fortunately, I always carried a player with me, so I wasn’t left without music.”

“But…”

“I know all the insides of the player thoroughly. Of course, I checked it.”

“I took a risk for the sake of music…”

“There was a rally against corruption in the square. I was overwhelmed by the thoughts of tens of thousands of angry and despondent people, unable to put their desires into action.”

The square was located on a small island connected to the rest of the city by several bridges. Beyond the Moscow River — the fiery river Styx — there was a red fortress with a bloody pentagram on top — the Kremlin. The shadows chanted slogans against corruption in Hell, as well as for freedom of thought, the rights of souls, and more. Among their multitude, several active ones with megaphones stood out, accumulating the thoughts of protest, translating them into words.

"I wasn't particularly interested in politics before. But then I dove headfirst into reading the thoughts of the soul and their leaders and… I was so horrified that reality seemed like a bigger hell to me than all of this."

"Is everything really that bad in Russia? I'm not good at politics either. In Japan, the centuries-old history of the yakuza is gradually coming to an end, the police are taking them under their control. Politicians and the people have performed an economic miracle and made the country one of the centers of technological development on the planet…"

Mikhail snapped his fingers and showed reality with additions. Misha enlarged the embankment, where many historical buildings, luxury hotels and other high-rise buildings were located. Information about the owners was displayed opposite them.

"All the owners of luxury real estate are famous politicians, their cronies. Almost no one earned their money by honest labor. Bribes, murders, betrayals, corporate raids, connections, theft at tenders and failure to fulfill obligations."

As he spoke, Mikhail visualized the thoughts of people, among whom were journalists, economists, politicians, lawyers and eyewitnesses of the events.

"In Russia, almost half of all natural resources were appropriated by a small group of people, using power for other purposes and insane violence."

"B-but how is this possible in the modern world!?"

"Easy. This is happening in real time, and you, for example, didn’t even know about it. Can anyone stop a nuclear power from doing this? Especially when propaganda, sponsored by an endless stream of money, presents the world with a picture that this is the will of the people themselves?"

"I knew that the world was cruel, but I turned a blind eye. Or rather, I went about my business."

"The murder of political opponents, the reduction of the population to slave poverty, the repression of the undesirable, the liquidation of democratic institutions - this is the continuation of the established totalitarian regime, the oligarchic dictatorship."

"And the protest? People have rebelled throughout history!"

"The billions of dollars that the government spends on propaganda effectively cope with brainwashing. So much so that they’re even happy with this stable slavery. The police, the army, the courts and everyone else are also in the pocket. The whole country is saturated with evil. There are too few of us and we’re weak."

"Madness… That's why you…"

Mikhail clicked, returning the display of Hell. The active suppression of the protest began by humanoid hounds in black uniforms of the "Guardians of Hell". They used shields, clubs, bombs with poison gas. The shadows ran away in panic, unable to resist them, although some tried. The leaders of the protest were brutally detained and beaten, promising them hellish torment. Misha decided not to aggravate his situation and ran away.

"Have you thought about using your strength?"

"I hadn’t yet realized what had happened and believed that one person couldn’t cope with a huge "system". The rest were even weaker and didn’t realize the consequences of cowardice."

When Misha from the vision ran across the bridge, four hellish dogs stopped him, asking for documents. When the guy tried to find them in his pockets, the dogs, without waiting, grabbed him and dragged him into the hellish machine for transporting prisoners. Misha resisted, but he couldn't handle the group of thugs. They decided not to torture him for long and threw him into the river Styx. Suddenly the Black Rabbit came running.

"This is a moment from the fog…"

"I felt the "law enforcement" lawlessness and the heat of the Styx magma on my skin. My whole body was engulfed in flames, and the souls from the bottom grabbed me and dragged me to themselves. Then…"

Misha was overcome with such anger at the injustice, at the boundless evil that was happening, that the inner fire of his hatred awakened a primal survival instinct. The flame of his "soul" burned even the shadows in the boiling Styx.

"Then I wanted to kill them all, burn these… creatures of evil to the ground. But…"

Suddenly Misha saw a hand that once again rescued him from the "water". When he saw the white hair under the Black Rabbit's hood, Mikhail's ardor cooled, and his hand reached for his pocket to check something.

"Have you trusted again?"

"That familiar snow-white hair could always cool me down… The amnesia weakened, and I read the Black Rabbit's intentions and realized that she wasn’t my enemy."

"Just like…"

"I'm starting to doubt if we’re brothers?"

When the Black Rabbit pulled Misha out onto the shore, a tall, skinny demon with a huge club at the ready was waiting for them. Furies circled around him like a flock of crows.

"Phlegyas is the guardian of the fifth circle, the Furies are the sixth. The latter, with the help of special vision and wings, watched the entire city and transmitted information about the objectionable and heretics to Judge Minos, as was the case with the leaders of the protest. They threw them into red-hot graves, condemning them to eternal torment. Phlegyas pitted souls against each other, forcing them to fight on the bodies of their fallen comrades, which is what Styx was."

Mikhail skipped the battle to its climax. Misha used the wrath of Styx against its creators. He launched a powerful bone blade from hand straight at Phlegyas, who didn’t have time to parry the blow with his club. Piercing him, Misha released bone spikes in all directions, tearing the guardian from the inside and simultaneously striking the harpies and Furies.

"Izanami used similar furies to catch up with her husband Izanagi, who had escaped from the land of the dead…"

"Evil is the same in all guises."

Misha heard stomping. This sound had been haunting him since the protest but was hidden behind the crowd of shadows and hounds. Suddenly, Mikhail was covered by a large shadow from a huge creature that jumped from the bridge, landing with a crash next to them, breaking the ground in half.

Aura of violence.