Chapter 228 - Heaven And Hell

After leaving Madam Cal's place, Laz had a lot of thoughts on his mind pertaining to artifacts, especially the two that he had on him. The pouch, after discovering it's use, was something that he had always taken advantage of and never really put much thought into. It was extremely useful. Besides that, he also had an advantage in that it had never been seen before, so he could get away with doing lots of things with it. For example, if he wanted to steal something, he could make it disappear without leaving so much as a clue.

But it did have limitations. He couldn't put anything living into it. At least, not anything with a complicated internal system. A plant, yes. An animal, no. It wouldn't even go in.

On top of that, there seemed to be a limited amount of space inside of it. He could fit a motorcycle in it, but there was no way he could fit a large truck inside of it. The area inside was basically equal to about a small room. He only knew this from trial and error.

He had done a lot of trial and error on the pouch to see what worked.

In comparison, he hadn't done anything with the sword as far as learning more about it. After he had no choice but to use it that one time and he figured out it was special, he hadn't used it again. That was because after that time, he had always made sure to keep a fire arm on himself as that seemed much more useful. Also, with the restoration of his abilities, Laz no longer had to fear finding himself unarmed.

This was just a normal way of thinking. But after his conversation with Madam Cal, it seemed like he would have to re-adjust his world view. That cane was crazy scary and not something a gun could handle or compare too. Laz also held a bit of fear towards it. He knew that he needed a better understanding of his sword so he was going to head somewhere quiet and do some experimenting. This wasn't something he could do in a house full of people.

What Laz didn't know was that Madam Cal had lied to him about the cane. There was no way in hell that it was that easy to drag someone's soul out of their bodies and slingshot it into another realm. That kind of energy wasn't something Laz possessed, much less Madam Cal who Laz noticed was only at the late condensation realm. Laz had felt a stronger power than hers coming from the shop, but it still wasn't outside of his range to handle. The surprising part was that the power he felt was also at the foundation realm, the same as him. Laz had no idea that it was so easy to get to this realm, forgetting that there was a year lapse in his timeline.

Fortunately, he hadn't lost that time for nothing as his body received tempering that no one else's could come close to. At least not yet.

As far as the cane went, it just created an illusion, one that was crafted by Madam Cal to match her d.e.s.i.r.e. In her case, she made it reflect what she knew the Untamed Lands looked like. How she was able to show Laz's form the way she did had a lot to do with the spirits she communicated with.

Why the deception? She knew very little about Laz and felt a strong sense of fear while being near him. As such, this deception gave her a bit of a security blanket just in case Laz turned against her. It's always better to be safe than sorry.

Of course he had no idea about that.

Interestingly enough, Laz wasn't paying attention to where he was going since he wanted to get lost. As far as finding his way back to the apartment? He could use his spiritual sense to backtrack. But becoming lost had it's own downside.

The big party that would soon grip the city hadn't began yet but that didn't mean that people weren't out and about. Laz spent more time than he had planned at Madam Cal's and it was now early afternoon. He could see various people wondering the street, going about their business. Street vendors were trying to sell their wares while food venders were trying to get people to buy the leftover food from the lunch rush. All and all, it was a picturesque scene.

When Laz had finally come back to himself, he noticed an attractive girl standing in front of him, waiting as though she had asked him a question.

"I'm sorry, what?" Laz asked, having no idea what she said.

The girl simply giggled in response.

"I said, you look a little lost and lonely. Why is such a handsome young man looking so lonely?" Laz was a little puzzled since the girl looked younger than him, but spoke like she was older. At most, she was school aged whereas Laz, now 18, looked like he should be in college.

"All good men are lost. It's the adventure of trying to find their way which makes them men. As far as being lonely? Perhaps? But I have the voices in my head to keep me company." Obviously Laz was making a joke. He had a feeling that this girl didn't just approach him out of nowhere. And since that was the case, he might as well see where this takes him.

Besides, he got a strange feeling from this girl. It felt like she was ... an infected? But she also wasn't.

Laz was curious.

The girl c.o.c.ked her head to the side before she started laughing. She seemed to understand that he was joking.

"You're pretty cute and clueless, aren't you?" She asked while still smiling.

"Cute? Me? I should warn you right now that I am currently broke. So if you're looking for a sugar daddy, the best I can do is maybe a Splenda daddy."

Hearing this, the girl just lost it and starting laughing while shaking.

"OH MY GOD... THAT... SPLENDA DADDY???" It took her several minutes before she stopped laughing long enough to stand back up.

"I was just going to invite you to eat with me actually."

"Oh? And why is that?"

"Well. When we give away a few free meals, it helps to draw customers to come back. Besides, once you taste what we have to offer, I'm sure you'll be more than willing to dine with us again." Laz might have been mistaken, but the way she said that seemed pretty weird.

Still, Laz didn't have anywhere else to go and he had missed breakfast. So when the offer was put in front of him, he felt no reason to decline. He simply replied "ok" causing the young lady to smile even more. She quickly grabbed Laz's hand out of nowhere and proceeded to drag him forward, through the throng of people on the streets and down the sidewalk.

Her hand felt way cooler than it should have.

It wasn't cold to the point of being like ice, more like it was like cool water on a hot day. Considering how warm it was outside and the fact that the girl was pretty well dressed, her hand shouldn't have been so cool. At first, Laz didn't notice. But after a few minutes of being led by her, Laz figured out that her hand had remained unnaturally cool.

'Honestly though, why am I focusing on her hand?' Just as Laz was about to slap himself for paying attention to the wrong things, the girl came to a halt, causing Laz to halt with her.

In front of them was a large, old gothic style building. It looked like it had once been a massive church but had since been converted into a business.

'Was this the restaurant she was leading me to? A church? Why the hell is it a church? What are the chances I get struck by lightning when I walk in here?'

"AND WELCOME, weary traveler. Here, you will find everything a tired and lost man needs to feel refreshed. I promise that we won't let you leave unsatisfied." It sounded like the girl was reading a memorized script... and an incredibly suggestive one at that.

'Well. This has been fun. But I really shouldn't walk in here blind.' Despite letting things happen the way they would happen, Laz didn't stop being on guard. As such, he spread out his spiritual sense towards the building to check out it's secrets inside. Strangely enough though, his sense was completely blocked. He couldn't even take a close look at the stone the building was made from.

"Uh..."

"Yes. Welcome to Heaven and Hell. Come come, it will be fun. Come come, you can not run."

'Da fulk? Did she just say you can not run?'

Laz had all of about one second to process what was going on before the cold hand gripped his tightly and yanked with a strength that could drag compact car, directly pulling him through the front doors of the building that opened on their own. He just barely caught a glimpse of the signboard that said 'Heaven and Hell,' before things got really dark for a minute.

In less than a breath, a deep red light assaulted Laz's eyes, shining out over the massive room that looked like a toss up between a s.e.x dungeon and a mid evil buffet.

"Ha ha ha, looks like you have stumbled into hell today little boy." Before Laz could even formulate a thought, the nice girl who had dragged him here had ripped off her clothes using her immense strength. Underneath it was nothing but a skin tight, leather corset and black p.a.n.t.i.e.s. Her b.r.e.a.s.ts, which seemed rather large under her clothes before were now only covered by by black tape in the shape of an 'X' over her n.i.p.p.l.es, with little bits of pink sticking out from underneath.

From somewhere that only god could fathom, she had even taken out a leather bull whip which she had swung at Laz's b.u.t.t without any warning.

Sadly for her, Laz reacted instinctively, grabbing the whip before it could hit him and gripping it tight. She tried pulling it back a few times before she realized that he wasn't letting go and shot him a dirty look, as though he had ruined her fun. All she got from his face was a frozen expression, as though he was still in shock.

Even Laz didn't know that he had reacted to stop the whip.

The entire main room of the massive church was covered in red velvet carpet, red foot stools, and even red chairs and sofas. Girls and guys were lazing around everywhere, feasting and drinking from trays of food that had been spread out all over the area, sitting on individual trays that had been set up on wooden stands. The half n.a.k.e.d guys were fawning all over the girls dressed in fetish wear while being fed or sometimes even disciplined, depending on if they went too far. It really looked like some sort of freak fetish fiasco.

"Hey... Let go..." The girl complained while pulling on the whip after noticing Laz's blank face.

"Oh. Uh. Sorry. I guess I thought this was going to be something else... I'm going to go now. Yeah. That's it. I'm going. Thanks for the invite, but I kinda just wanted a free meal. SO.... K. Thanks. Bye." Laz awkwardly pointed behind himself at the door before he started to take a few steps backwards, as though he was going to flee in a moment.

Just before he bolted however, he noticed a girl making her way through the crowd. He used the term girl because she was literally under five feet tall with a face that looked like it belonged on a primary school bus. If it wasn't for her massive t.i.t.s that looked like they should have caused her to fall forward due to gravity, Laz would have guess she was ten at most.

Compared to the other girls, she was dressed like a queen. She had a long flowing, red silk gown, covering her body, elbow length red gloves, and covering her feet were white, tie up sandals with bells on them. As she made her way forward, the bells made a gentle, soothing sound, causing the men who had gathered here to get so tired, they all fell asleep on the spot. By the time she was in front of Laz, all of the girls had risen to their feet to stare at the stranger while all the guys were like dead sacks strewn out across the room.

Taking a closer look at the queen like girl in front of him, Laz noticed her dark, almost black hair had strains of dark red splashed throughout. The color closely resembled that of blood.

"Do you really want to leave when I have been waiting especially for you?"