BENEATH THE LIVING volume 2

The descent continues. In Volume 1, you walked through the gates of Hell. You descended through Dante's Nine Circles, crossed the River Styx, stood before the throne of Hades, and witnessed the judgment of Anubis in the Egyptian Duat. You saw the architecture of punishment, the geography of sin, the eternal consequences of mortal choices. But the underworld is not confined to a single vision. It is not the property of one culture, one religion, one mythology.
Every civilization that has ever existed has imagined what lies beyond death, and each has created its own map of the afterlife. BENEATH THE LIVING: Volume 2 takes you deeper into the darkness. This volume explores twenty-five more visions of the underworld, drawn from mythologies and religious traditions that span the globe. You will encounter the frozen wastes of Niflheim, the Norse realm of the dishonored dead ruled by the goddess Hel.
You will descend into the Buddhist hells of Naraka and Jigoku, where souls are purified through suffering before rebirth. You will journey through the nine levels of Mictlan, the Aztec underworld presided over by Mictlantecuhtli, the skeletal lord of the dead. You will enter Xibalba, the Mayan place of fear, and face the Death Lords who rule it. You will cross the River Acheron, witness the complete structure of Dante's Inferno, and stand before the frozen lake of Cocytus where Lucifer himself is imprisoned.
These are not places of mercy. They are places of consequence, judgment, and transformation. Each vision is accompanied by a haunting black-and-white illustration in the style of classical engravings, inspired by the works of Gustave Doré and the dark art of the Victorian era. These images are stark, unflinching depictions of what humanity has believed awaits us after death. BENEATH THE LIVING: Volume 2 is a visual and narrative exploration of the afterlife's darkest realms.
It is a journey into the mythologies of the Norse, the Aztecs, the Buddhists, the Celts, the Incans, and the Japanese. It is a confrontation with what lies beneath the surface of life, in the places we do not speak of, in the darkness we do not acknowledge. The underworld is eternal. And it is always waiting.