Kulkan Territory

Hours went by as Marick's body fell completely still. His heartbeat grew to a shallow and weak beat, while his breathing grew soft. He didn't know if he could be considered dead at this point, because time blurred together for him. The poison in his system was known as 'Pridemar', a concoction of the high devils to turn a body's natural immune system against itself, not much different than what modern-day cancer does to the human body. The insidious methods of these abominations knew no limits when methods of torment were chosen. This poison to give a person cancer was only one such example of their applications of malicious intellects.

His body continued to fight even when he didn't direct it. The nutrients in his Sustainance Blade fed his body like well-rationed troops on the front line of combat, giving him every possible chance to survive. The cancer-causing poison filled every cell in his body, attacking it at every level; Blood, Bone, Brain, Heart, and every organ. He would occasionally enter into sporadic seizures as the fight grew worse. But he still would not die.

Slowly, methodically, his body's cells seemed to have been infected by Marick's own 'will to live' and struggled ferociously; pushing itself beyond the human level entirely. Even the hell rocks still inside his torso wounds began to be broken down and integrated into parts of his body where the cancerous regions were most prominent. White cracked line patterns were seen through the veins in his skin due to the strange disease and fight going on in his body.

*Cough* *Cough* *Bleg*

He coughed up blood from time to time, shivering from physical weakness.

But eventually, his body started winning. He wouldn't give up the fight and stubbornly endured. It took 120 hours before the symptoms cleared up and his body recovered enough for him to move. A pile of bile, blood, and a white tar-like substance sat in the corner of the cave. This was not the most detail he focused on though, the wound on his chest, where he had used a hell rock to clot and hastily seal his lung had disappeared. In its place, was a clump of glowing white scar tissue, spreading like fissures in the ground across his skin.

In confusion and concern, he released his grip on his Sustainance Blade.

*Hiss* *Sizzle*

"Arg!" He quickly grabbed the blade again to stop the burning pain inside his body. 

It would seem, that his body had spread the hell rock throughout his body's insides and healed with it inside him. Bad news for him, his sword was even more crucial to his survival now, because without it his insides would boil from the hell rock spread throughout it.

He stood and performed some basic exercises to test his body's movements. He was moving at about x1.1 speed, even faster than his previous speed before he was poisoned. His body had once again undergone some kind of inhuman evolution and he needed to understand as much as he could.

He took his offhand dagger and made a small cut on the back of his arm while performing stress testing on his physical limits, recording the changes. Among the changes he noted, his blood clotted quicker than before, his endurance had improved again along with the tensile strength of his muscles, and finally, there were some changes in his appearance. The scar tissue on his left eye had reduced further, while his face looked to have changed back to 25 the 25-year-old body he had designed since he first arrived here 2 years ago. 

It would seem that his body's struggle against this 'super cancer poison' had forced it to compete with how cancer worked to fight it. He would need to continue his observation of these changes for the time being.

He had remained in this cave long enough and it was time to leave. If he stayed in one place for long, the demons hunting him for amusement might find him like before.

With his sword hanging from his side, he unrolled the stone and left. Walking deeper toward the center of this first layer of hell.

...

Deeper into the central region of the first layer of hell, Eternity.

Marick observed from a short distance away the strange new demonic creatures roaming before him. Round egg faces with dried skin like a patchwork quilt, replaced the usual human heads of the creatures in front of him. The real demon's body of this creature was this egg-face and the human body below it was a damned human soul's body. It would attach itself to humans who were frozen to the ground, forcing their bodies to move like puppets outside of their control.

The forced movement constantly tore the human bodies apart, as they felt the full effect of the immobility curse. The demons seemed to thrive off of the pain they inflicted on those humans, their facial expressions constantly twisted into a face of pleasure, as if a human savoring a good meal.

He had come to this area before and even managed to learn information about these demons from demons he fought. These were Kulkan's and this area was referred to as Kulkan territory by the demons. It was also a no-go zone for the demons, due to the Kulkan's ability to parasitize regular demons if they wished so. Marick originally had opted not to move through here, but now that he had reached a benchmark speed of x1.1, it was possible.

The Kulkan operated by moving in large hordes and numbers. Their human half slowed them down significantly to x0.5 his max speed. He only needed to keep watch that he wasn't surrounded and he could handle them without issue.

*Slash*

The Kulkan in front of him died silently as he stabbed his blade into him, freeing the human underneath from his torment.

*Freeze*

*Turning*

*Stare*

The rest of the wandering Kulkan around him froze and turned to face Marick's direction. There was an important piece of missing information in his knowledge about the Kulkan demons left out from the demon's explanations. They were a hivemind.