Shurrmvin: "You wanna kill Chorn Torgash. You wanna free our people. Sure, fine. But no one can reason with him. No one can negotiate with him. So our only option is to kill him. And if we go down that path, Harv, thousands of orcs are going to die, innocents included. Sure, maybe we’ll free Kosslivo. And maybe we’ll save our people. But we’re not gonna be heroes. You know that. I know that. This path will lead to nothing but eternal damnation for the two of us. Are you really gonna sit there and tell me you're ready to go down that road?"
Harvon: "Yes."
—Harvon Mullok and Shurrmvin Colmz, shortly before becoming Anti-Heroes.
The Road to Hell...
is an ongoing Dark Fantasy web novel written by Tyk 5919, and the fourth entry in the Legatum series.
Kosslivo, a kingdom primarily populated by orcs, is taken over by a tyrant named Chorn Torgash during a coup. After claiming himself as the new king, Torgash wasted no time declaring wars on surrounding nations, and allowing vile acts to take place within Kosslivo, such as rape, torture, and slavery. Harvon Mullok, an orc soldier within Torgash's army, becomes fed up with Torgash's tyrannical rule, and decides to start a rebellion with other orcs who feel the same way he does. But Harvon soon realizes that The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized, and that things will get worse before they get better.
The Road to Hell... provides examples of:
- Apathetic Citizens: A lot of people in Kosslivo are fully aware that the king permits slavery, and it isn't uncommon for one to find orcs using slaves as target practice with bows and arrows, or to even come across an orc raping a slave in public. At a point in chapter 4, an drunken orc gets murdered in the middle of a busy tavern and no one, except for the orc's friend, reacts to his death.
- Ass Shove: Jervow kills Gurchun by brutally maiming him, followed by him shoving a claymore into his anus.
- Big Bad: King Chorn Torgash, the orc who's behind the coup, and the one who's responsible for the horrid state Kosslivo has devolved into.
- Black-and-Grey Morality: One of the two central themes. The story wastes no time showing that Chorn Torgash and some of his minions, like Psymarr, are horrible, horrible people with hardly any redeeming qualities, or showing that nothing that they do is for the benefit of Kosslivo. That being said, a majority of the soldiers in Torgash's army are either Affably Evil or Punch Clock Villains; they're not intentionally malicious just for the sake of it. Meanwhile, the "heroes" want to free Kosslivo of Torgash's wrath, but they're willing to start a rebellion that will more than likely result in dozens of innocents getting caught in the crossfire.
- Bury Your Gays: Agrox, Shurrmvin's mate, is Killed Offscreen in the first chapter. To rub salt into the wound, Torgash castrates him and tosses his copulatory organs in Shurrmvin's face.
- Camping a Crapper:
- Defied by Torgash. The orc king is all too familiar with this trope, so he made a law where his soldiers have to use their trousers as a toilet to prevent this from happening.
- In chapter 7, a soldier named Ornok decides to pee onto a tree instead of going in his pants like some orcs do. He's up getting his throat slashed by Harvon while he's urinating.
- Darker and Edgier: Easily one of the darkest entries in the Legatum series, which features lots of Gorn, utterly despiciable villains, morally-conflicted "heroes," slavery, torture, and rape. Contrast this to Help Not Wanted, which was just about some goblins trying to get money and going through a series of darkly comical hijinks.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- It's made evident in chapter 3 that Torgash's council is getting sick and tired of the way he's running Kosslivo. Almost all of them openly complain about his reckless decisions that have done nothing but worsen Kosslivo—one of which is bound to start a new war.
- Bereesa Torgash doesn't hesitate to tell her father that recruiting Mernal Mynwort is an awful idea, because even she thinks that he's way too hot-headed. Chapter 6 confirms her fears, as the first notable thing Mernal does is decapitate a member of the council just because he insulted him.
- Foregone Conclusion: The story takes place roughly twenty years before The Green Wanderer. Anyone who's read The Green Wanderer will know that the planned rebellion, which was known as the Uprising, will occur, and King Chorn Torgash will perish during said event.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Chapter 13 has Mernal Mynwort fighting off a bunch of rioting goblins completely nude.
- Groin Attack: Several.
- Agrox is castrated off-screen. His severed testicles and penis are later thrown in Shurrmvin's face.
- One of the centaurs in Kosslivo is simply known as "the Gelding," for obvious reasons.
- Psymarr mentions to Torgash in chapter 3 that the young girl he killed was sawed in half groin first.
- When Harvon catches an orc masturbating to a slave getting raped in chapter 4, he immediately picks up the orc's sword and slices off his hand and penis.
- In chapter 7, Harvon attacks an orc by striking him between the legs with his axe.
- It's not blatantly stated, but Aerotan had her ovaries either mutilated or cut out by Psymarr. It's mentioned in chapter 7 that she can't have children, and earlier on when the same incident is brought up in chapter 5, Aerotan says she can't replace what was taken from her, and then self-consciously covers her groin.
- In chapter 13, Mernal is struck in the groin with a club. The same chapter features him bifurcating a goblin by repeatedly striking him with an axe pelvis-first.
- Lesser of Two Evils: The other central theme, as shown in the page quote. Harvon is perfectly fine with starting a rebellion that he knows will result in collateral damage, if not cause a civil war. This option is much better than fighting for a tyrant who not only butchered his family, amongst many others, but goes around starting wars just to show how dominant orcs are, permits slavery and rape in Kosslivo, tortures and/or kills his own orc brethren if he deems them useless, and encourages training teenage orcs to become heartless soldiers just to increase the size of his army.
- Off with His Head!: How orcs often slay their enemies. Most notably is the scene in chapter 1 where Torgash and his loyalists murder Harvon and his friends' families' and dump their severed heads in front of them.
- Potty Failure: Invoked. Torgash created a new policy where his soldiers have to soil themselves should they need to use the bathroom. When two of his subordinates question why, he lists a few orcs in the past who all died because they were too busy urinating or defecating to notice they were in danger.
- Punch-Clock Villain: A lot of the orcs in Torgash's army are Just Following Orders and act like regular soldiers. Hardly any of them are outright sadistic or malicious, despite the fact that they willingly go around slaughtering innocents whenever Torgash wants them to.
- Sacrificial Lamb: Gurchun, the orc who gleefully tortured/raped slaves in his free time, serves as a villainous example. While Harvon and his crew aren't clear-cut heroes, Gurchun's death shows why Harvon and his allies are starting the revolution: people like Gurchun can't be reasoned with and have to be put down for the sake of helping innocent people.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Torgash passed a law where he excepts soldiers and guards to willingly soil themselves as opposed to using chamber pots or disposing of their waste properly. Sollox and Vulxcon inform him that a bunch of new recruits have gotten physically ill because they've spent so much time stuck inside the same fetid facility without bathing or changing their soiled pants.
- Harvon is not the only person in Kosslivo who's tired of Torgash's brutal laws. Other residents in Kosslivo, like Krun, openly hate him and would gladly enjoy watching him die just so they won't have to deal with his sadistic behavior any longer.
- On that same note, it's mentioned that someone else within Torgash's kingdom is trying to topple his empire, and they're secretly freeing some of his slaves.
- In chapter 4, Harvon is disgusted when an orc is killed in the middle of a tavern, and no one around him—not even his best friend Shurrmvin—is remotely fazed by it and continues going about their business. Considering that many residents in the kingdom are either killed or mutilated for even attempting to defy Torgash's empire, this kind of behavior isn't all that uncommon.
- It's mentioned in chapter 3 that Torgash ordered his troops to sack a city during a parade. Two Royals from a neighboring kingdom called Myllgard were slaughtered in the chaos, which will no doubt result in a war he initially had no intention of starting.
- Harvon, Shurrmvin, Hykler, Jervow, Aerotan, and Gendyl are all forced to kill an entire platoon of their fellow orcs in chapter 7. Except for Aerotan and Gendyl (the former being The Stoic, and the latter a borderline sociopath), all of them are devastated at what they did and come close to having an emotional breakdown.
- Chapter 13 has Mernal fighting off goblins while he's naked. This makes it easier for one goblin to strike him in the groin and another to shoot an arrow at his buttocks, both of which seriously wound him.
- Running Gag: The various soldiers who complain about Torgash's new law that requires said soldiers to treat their trousers as though they were a diaper.Harvon & Hykler, simultaneously: "No."
- Time Skip: Most of chapter 1 is actually a flashback detailing Harvon's life with his family. After his family is killed and Torgash has taken over Kosslivo, the story jumps into the present, at least twenty years after Torgash's coup.
- Villain Episode: Chapters 2 and 3 are told entirely from Chorn Torgash's point of view, while chapter 6 exists solely to introduce a new major villain, Mernal Mynwort.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Hykler wastes no time chewing out Harvon for killing his fellow soldiers in chapter 7, especially considering some of the soldiers he killed had their own loved ones back at home.
