Note from Void_Scribe: đ Hello everyone! I know I promised to upload a chapter yesterday, but the truth is I went out shopping on Sunday, got caught in the rain, and ended up completely soaked. By the time I managed to get out of my wet clothes, several hours had passed and it was quite late. Consequently, I came down with a bad flu and fever yesterday. Luckily, after taking some medicine and getting a good rest, I am feeling much better today and am well on my way to recovery! A promise is a promise, so here is a double-chapter release to make up for the wait. I hope you enjoy them!
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CHAPTER 216: The Weight of Gold and the Vengeance of the Silver Dragon
The Return to Aethelgard and the Gaze of Greed
After catching her breath on the edge of the scorched crater, Aia took about ten minutes to summarize the details of her experience in the spiritual plane to the squad. She patiently explained how assimilating the Spear Art of the Sovereign Dragon of the Nine Heavens had triggered an uncontrollable martial trance in her physical body, unleashing that absolute annihilation.
The eleven Morningstar warriors listened in silence, exhaling deep sighs as they contemplated the magnitude of such prowess. However, in none of their eyes was there a single trace of jealousy or bitterness. They all thoroughly understood the generosity and the boundless arsenal of Samael's library; they knew full well that the clan granted equal opportunities and divine inheritances tailored to the merits of each member. Far from feeling envy, a genuine martial pride ignited in their chests witnessing one of their own grow to achieve such overwhelming power.
"So what are your plans now?" Dante asked, crossing his arms as he watched the smoke dissipate across the wasteland. "Are you heading back to the city immediately?"
"Mmmm... yeah, we should head back right now to turn in the..." Aia looked down at her palms, where the two gleaming Grade 5 cores rested, and fell speechless for a moment remembering that the physical bodies of the beasts had been completely destroyed. "Well... the cores were the primary requirement demanded by the guild contract. I suppose this will be enough to validate the mission."
"Perfect," Dante nodded with icy composure. "We will set out toward the depths of the underworld in a couple of days. It's time to establish ourselves in the shadows and begin the real work the Patriarch entrusted to us."
"Understood. If any unforeseen events arise, we'll communicate through the Soul Nexus. Take good care of yourselves," Aia said her goodbyes with a firm gesture.
Both divisions took different paths across the wasteland. After several hours of swift marching cutting through the southern wind, Aia, Varian, Ciro, Lia, and Ren sighted the imposing black marble walls of Aethelgard. They presented their Gold Rank credentials to the armored officers at the main gates and crossed the threshold without raising suspicion.
Advancing along the wide avenues paved with runic stone, the group arrived directly at the central headquarters of the Wandering Star Alliance. The main lobby was buzzing with activity, saturated with the gruff voices of mercenaries, the clashing of armor, and the acrid smell of spiritual liquors and dried blood.
With a light step, Aia guided her companions through the crowd until locating the reception desk where the blonde receptionist, Yue, was working.
"Hello, Yue," Aia greeted, resting her elbows on the counter with a friendly smile.
Yue, who was focused on reviewing a mountain of registration scrolls, gave a little start in her seat upon hearing that familiar voice. She jumped up and greeted them with surprise and reverence:
"Hello, guys! What brings you back here so soon? Are you here to request more detailed information on the beasts' territory?"
Lia let out a crystalline laugh and shook her head, taking a step forward:
"No, Yue. We came straight here to turn this in."
With a fluid gesture, Lia opened a small silk bag and placed the two heavy Grade 5 spiritual cores onto the marble counter. The orbs, charged with the pure scorching essence of the Abyssal Flame Lion and the crushing pressure of the Water Lioness, emitted a flash that illuminated the receptionist's face.
Yue stood completely paralyzed, her mouth slightly open and her eyes wide. She checked the runic clock hanging on the lobby wall and then looked back down at the cores. She had handed them the mission token just that very morning, and it was only now late afternoon! A group of youths who barely looked to be in their twenties had tracked, confronted, and eliminated two monsters at Stage 8 of the Saint Realm in a matter of hours.
Good heavens... I am witnessing the rise of one of the most formidable, precocious, and monstrous squads in the entire Alliance, Yue thought, feeling a shiver of reverence run down her spine as her attitude toward them shifted drastically into an almost submissive respect.
"Plâplease, give me just a moment. I will take the cores to the appraisal department in the back to verify their energy signatures," Yue said in a trembling voice, taking the orbs with utmost care before disappearing through an armored door behind the desk.
After a few brief minutes, the blonde returned holding a heavy pouch embroidered with gold threads:
"The inspection was completed with resounding success. The cores are absolutely genuine and of exceptional purity. Here is the reward stipulated by the contract: ten thousand middle-grade spiritual stones, minus the Alliance's twenty percent regulatory commission... leaving you a net total of eight thousand middle-grade spiritual stones."
Aia accepted the heavy pouch naturally, nodded in gratitude, and offered a polite bow to Yue before turning around to head toward the exit.
The instant the group stepped away from the counter, the temperature in the immense lobby seemed to plummet. The silence spread across the nearby tables; dozens of veteran gazes, laden with pure greed, sickening envy, and predatory malice, locked onto the backs of the five young Morningstars. In a market where mercenaries risked their lives for months for a few dozen stones, seeing newcomers carrying such a fortune in a single afternoon was an open invitation to bloodshed.
Ignoring the hostile pressure and the poisonous whispers of the crowd, Aia and her companions left the building and walked with a calm pace toward the safety of their inn.
At the same time, in the heart of Aethelgard's exclusive financial district, stood the Aurelia Mansion: an imposing architectural complex of white marble, jade columns, and golden domes from where the patriarch of the commercial division ruled.
On the top floor of the main sanctuary, Octavian sat behind an enormous centuries-old mahogany desk. Dressed in imperial robes of golden silk, the man reviewed accounting reports and sealed bank transaction scrolls with absolute deliberation, surrounded by a stable aura denoting his profound cultivation in the Grand Saint Realm.
Suddenly, the silence of his office was broken by an urgent knocking at the reinforced wooden door:
Knock, knock, knock!
"Mmmm..." Octavian slowly looked up from the scrolls, dropped his jade seal onto the table, and answered in a deep, authoritative voice: "Enter."
The door opened to admit a high-ranking servant trembling from head to toe, sweating profusely, and with a face as pale as a sheet of paper. Noticing the ragged breathing and purely instinctive terror in the man's eyes, Octavian's sharpened senses tensed; his intuition immediately warned him that something terrible had happened.
"Speak. What happened?" Octavian asked, narrowing his eyes coldly.
The servant swallowed hard, wiping the cold sweat drenching his forehead with a trembling sleeve as he stammered:
"MâMaster... LoâLord Octavian... something... something terrible, something infinitely grave has occurred in the ancestral hall..."
"Stop wasting time with useless beating around the bush and speak at once," Octavian ordered, slowly rising from his seat as his gaze became as sharp as two swords.
The servant fell to his knees on the marble floor, sobbing desperately:
"The... the life slip of Young Master Cassius... it shattered to pieces! The Young Master is dead!"
Those words crashed over the office like the crack of thunder in the dead of night. Octavian froze completely, stunned, his mind clouded by absolute confusion. His son? His heir, equipped with high-grade defensive artifacts, dead?
The disbelief on his face fractured in a second, transforming into a twisted grimace of demonic, unhinged fury.
"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!" Octavian roared.
Unable and unwilling to hold back, he unleashed the entirety of his overwhelming spiritual pressure as a cultivator in the Grand Saint Realm. The Qi explosion was so violent that the white marble walls cracked instantly; the heavy mahogany desk shattered into splinters, armored shelves collapsed, and the runic glass windows blew outward in a shower of sharp shards. The entire building shook as if struck by a tectonic earthquake.
"MY SON IS DEAD?! WHO THE FUCK DID THIS?!" Octavian bellowed, his eyes bloodshot, floating a few inches above the destroyed floor as his voice echoed across the entire district. "GO AND INVESTIGATE RIGHT NOW! SCOUR EVERY INCH OF THIS MOUNTAIN RANGE! BRING ME MY SON'S CORPSE, AND I WANT THE CULPRIT TIED UP IN THIS OFFICE BEFORE DAWN! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! GET OUT!"
The servant, his ears bleeding from the sonic pressure, scrambled to his feet and sprinted out at top speed to relay the supreme commands to the guard generals, the assassin networks, and all the armed forces subordinate to the Aurelia clan.
In less than an hour, the entirety of Aethelgard entered a state of maximum military alert. Like a trail of lit gunpowder, the news of the Aurelia heir's death spread through every alley, tavern, and teahouse in the outer ring.
"Hey, did you hear the rumors? They say that arrogant, drinking playboy from the Aurelia family was found dead..." whispered a mercenary at a street stall.
"SHHHHH! ARE YOU CRAZY, YOU IDIOT?! DO YOU WANT TO DIE?!" his companion scolded him, clapping a hand over his mouth in terror and looking paranoically toward the rooftops. "Don't ever mention that name out loud again! The Aurelia guard is raiding inns and executing suspects without trial. Shut your mouth if you value your head!"
While the metropolis boiled in panic, paranoia, and frantic manhunts beneath the northern moon, those absolutely responsible for that calamity rested peacefully in their inn rooms, submerged in deep, restorative sleep following their lucrative day.
â Somewhere â
Two days before chaos erupted in the streets of Aethelgard, deep within a dense southern forest, the assault division composed of Eliam, Ignis, Nylas, and the rest had just completely leveled the main base of Scar's mercenary guild.
The camp was a wasteland of destruction. Bandit corpses lay scattered among burning tents and shattered barricades; the only mercenary leader left alive was Scar himself, who had been captured and stripped of his weapons.
After securing the perimeter, the squad meticulously searched every corner of the underground stronghold for loot and resources. However, in the storage vaults, they found only rusted scrap metal, low-grade weapons, and a few bags of ordinary coins. But what they found in the deepest, darkest level of the dungeon ignited an unquenchable fire of hatred in the heart of every young Morningstar: dozens of iron cages rotting in the dampness, holding captive women of all agesâyoung girls, teenagers, and adults who had been abducted from peripheral villages.
Witnessing the abominable condition of the prisoners, the group's atmosphere turned to ice. Seeing bodies lacerated, malnourished, covered in infections, and with gazes completely lost in an agonizing void made the youths feel a rabid urge to resurrect every dead mercenary in the camp just to kill them again while making them suffer threefold.
Unfortunately, a quick assessment revealed the cruelest truth: all of those women were irreparably damaged. Their spiritual channels had been shattered by violence, their internal organs were failing, and their minds had broken beyond any possibility of recovery. Upon being freed, none of them showed relief or a desire to escape; collapsed on the floor, they begged with tears in their eyes to be allowed to cease existing.
Understanding that forcing them to live in that state would be the greatest of tortures, Eliam stepped forward with a darkened expression.
Extending his right hand, he summoned his weapon: the [Mercury Heart]. The silver orb floated above his palm and dissolved instantly, transforming into thousands of liquid silver needles that hung suspended in the air, emitting a compassionate hum.
"With this, you won't feel any pain..." Eliam whispered in a voice laden with infinite pity and sorrow. "I truly hope your souls manage to be reborn into a kind and luminous world, where you never have to go through all this suffering again."
Before the needles descended, one of the youngest women raised her eyes slightly and whispered in a thread of a voice barely audible:
"Thank... thank you so much, young hero..."
Eliam closed his eyes and nodded solemnly. With a subtle flick of his fingers, thousands of silver light beams shot forward in silence. The needles pierced precisely into the heart and head of each captive, shutting down their nervous systems in a second, granting them an instantaneous release entirely devoid of pain.
When the last body peacefully slumped onto the dungeon straw, Eliam turned around and walked outside in silence. Ignis stayed behind for a few minutes; summoning the sacred fire of his bloodline, he enveloped the entire underground structure and the women's remains in a purifying flame, reducing the dungeon to a bed of immaculate white ashes.
Gathered outside the camp, the Morningstar squad maintained a long silence. Those youths who had previously joked and laughed among themselves had received an indelible lesson on the brutal reality of the outside world: in this martial plane, the world was a relentless meat grinder that mercilessly devoured the weak. The only way to uphold their principles and avoid ending up like those victims was to continue growing infinitely stronger. They knew they needed to immediately begin cultivating the body technique the Patriarch had entrusted to them, but before diving into meditation, they had an unsettled score to clear.
Eliam walked with slow, deliberate steps across the camp's bloodstained earth. His thoughts formed a dark, oppressive whirlpool inside him, a sea of cold rage demanding a tribute of flesh. He halted his advance before a reinforced stone structure that used to serve as the camp's command office.
Standing in the doorway was Nylas, with his arms crossed and his back leaning against the frame.
Seeing Eliam approach, Nylas watched him seriously and murmured:
"I see it wasn't a pleasant sight down there... looking at that expression on your face is enough for me, Eliam."
The two had known each other for years. Nylas could read his companion's body language perfectly; Eliam's gaze at that moment was cold and completely devoid of emotionâan expression that didn't reflect blind rage, but the promise of prolonged, unbearable pain.
Without uttering a single word, Eliam brushed his hair back from his forehead and crossed the threshold, stepping into the large, gloomy room. The place was entirely stripped of furniture; in the center of the stone floor, bound and kneeling in his own blood, was the only living person left in the camp: Scar.
Hearing the echo of footsteps, Scar raised his battered, bruised face and opened his mouth, intending to spew a curse or beg for his life.
But before he could articulate a single vowel, an overwhelming bloodlust erupted from Eliam's body like a mountain plummeting from the sky. The killing intent slammed down onto Scar, crushing his face against the stone floor with a wet crack.
Floating and orbiting by Eliam's shoulder was the [Mercury Heart]: The orb lacked defined edges; its surface continuously shed floating drops of liquid metal that danced around it, while at its very core resided a Star Tear radiating a dark purple glow, bending the room's light into hypnotic spirals.
With a thought from Eliam, the sphere deformed and fired multiple streams of liquid silver that solidified instantly, transforming into heavy spiked chains that coiled around Scar's limbs. The metal took on a life of its own, hoisting the prisoner into the air until he hung suspended a meter off the ground, chained by his hands and feet.
Eliam walked toward him. The soles of his boots echoed against the cold stone in a relentless countdown: one step... two steps... three steps... until he stood mere inches from Scar's hanging face.
"It was nice, wasn't it?" Eliam asked in a voice so smooth and serene it made the skin crawl. "You enjoyed it. You had so much fun doing it... didn't you?"
Scar blinked, confused for a few seconds, unable to process what this young monster was referring to. Suddenly, a memory hit his mind: the underground dungeons. Realizing it, the mercenary's face twisted into a wide, grotesque, completely unhinged smile, revealing yellowish, bloodstained teeth.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Scar cackled with demented euphoria. "YES! YES I ENJOYED IT, DAMN IT! EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE WHORES' BODIES, EVERY DETAIL, EVERY SCREAM! I'D DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN WITHOUT HESITATION! OR DO YOU WANT A TASTE TOO, BRAT?! YOU'LL LOVE THE FRESH MEAT! HAHAHAHA!"
"Shut your fucking mouth, worm," Eliam whispered.
In that second, Eliam's voice underwent a chilling mutation, resonating with a metallic, primordial cadence. Guided by his martial bloodline instincts, his blood awakened: his pupils dissolved completely, and his eyes transformed into two perfect spheres of liquid silver with no visible pupil. An imposing ancestral dragon aura exploded behind his back, projecting the silhouette of a silver-scaled dragon that fixed its predatory gaze upon the prisoner.
Sensing that divine-level pressure and beholding those silver eyes that looked like two black holes capable of swallowing the soul, Scar's demented laughter was cut short. A primitive, paralyzing, uncontrollable terror froze his blood; his entire body began trembling convulsively in the air, unable to look away from the monster before him.
Entirely oblivious to his own physical transformation, Eliam tilted his face and continued coldly:
"Since you admit it with such pride and without a single drop of remorse, I can proceed without the slightest reservation. And let me make one thing clear to you, scum: death will be your only true salvation... but you are going to have to earn it."
Smiling with freezing calm, Eliam clenched his right fist and delivered a shattering blow to Scar's stomach.
CRACK!
The impact shattered the mercenary's abdominal musculature. Scar doubled over in mid-air, letting out a choked grunt as he spat a mouthful of blood. Giving him no time to breathe, Eliam opened his hand, imbued his fingers with a thread of severing Qi, and plunged his palm straight into Scar's torn abdomen.
The sound of tearing flesh and shifting internal fluids filled the room (SCHLICK!). With chilling composure, Eliam dug around inside the wound with his fingers until grasping his intestines. With a firm grip and a merciless smile, he yanked hard outward!
"AAAAAAAGH! BY ALL THE GODS! AAAAAAHHH!" a tearing, sharp, inhuman shriek erupted from Scar's throat, echoing off the office walls.
The conceptual pain Scar felt had no name; it was as if a thousand red-hot needles were stitching his nerves from the inside out, burning his soul. Every inch of his flesh screamed at the atrocity. The heavy runic mercury chains began thrashing violently against the floor and the iron posts where he was tied:
CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, RATTL-RATTLL!
The metal clashed furiously as the mercenary writhed like a trapped animal. An entire length of his own organs hung exposed to the cold air, dripping thick liquid onto the office floor. Knowing the extreme pain would cause a fatal shock that would kill the prisoner, Eliam channeled a continuous stream of his vital Qi and pulled a handful of high-grade regenerative medical pills from his ring, crushing them and injecting their pure essence directly into Scar's bloodstream.
The medicine forced the victim's lungs and heart to keep working at maximum capacity. His chest rose and fell in violent spasms. The medical energy burned in his veins, denying him the relief of fainting and keeping him lucid and awake to experience every second of the torment.
Holding the bloody intestines in his left hand, Eliam used his free right hand to grab Scar's jaw, squeezing his face until forcing his mouth wide open. Scar shook his head frantically, weeping tears of blood and trying to close it. The mercury chains pulled taut to the limit, groaning under the brutal pressure on his neck:
CREEEAK, CLANG, CLANG!
"It's dinnertime," Eliam whispered sweetly.
With a violent shove, Eliam stuffed the raw flesh of Scar's own intestines into his open mouth. The mercenary began thrashing wildly in the chains, gagging violently and trying to vomit it out. His teeth clashed chaotically, and the metal of his bonds rang endlessly across the room:
CLAAANG, RATTL-RATTL, CLANG!
"MGGGGH! NNNGH! AAAAAAHGGH!" Scar's desolate screams were smothered behind the mass of flesh, turning into guttural, desperate wails bubbling through the blood.
Eliam released a pulse of Qi that temporarily sealed the gag reflex in his throat, forcing his jaw muscles to move up and down. The sound in the room became an auditory nightmare. A wet, viscous, grotesque chewing began to fill the air:
GLUP, SLOP, SLOP... CRUNCH!
Every bite broke soft tissue with a dull snap. The raw flesh crunched between his teeth while blood brine dripped down the prisoner's chin and chest, staining the runes on the floor.
SLUUURP, GLUP, SLOP!
The echo of wet chewing and the viscous sliding of flesh inside his mouth resonated with repulsive force in the silence of the office. With his eyes wide with absolute horror, bloodshot and fixed on Eliam's smile, Scar was forced to swallow his own flesh amidst a final, agonizing, muffled groan.
"A-AGH... P-PLEASE... NO...!" the last chunk slid down his esophagus, leaving a trail of thick bile. Scar tried to stammer a plea with a broken, trembling voice.
But without letting him rest for a single second, Eliam slid a short hunting knife from his sleeve. The metal gleamed under the office light. With a swift, sharp upward slash (CHACK!), he severed his male organ right at the root!
A torrent of hot blood pressurized from the open wound, forcefully splashing Eliam's boots and the white saltpeter floor. Scar opened his mouth wide, his eyes practically bulging out of their sockets from massive trauma. He didn't even have time to let out a scream for the genital amputation; the air caught in his lungs before Eliam scooped up the bleeding piece of flesh and violently stuffed it deep down his throat.
GULP!
The chunk of flesh clogged his airway for a moment, making him convulse. The runic chains reacted to the violent spasm, groaning and slamming against the posts with an incessant metallic din:
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG, RATTL-RATTLL, CLANG!
"Come on, don't stop now, we're just getting started!" Eliam laughed with a tone of icy euphoria, his silver-blue hair swaying crazily. "Enjoy your meal! You're too old to be spitting out your food, and you should be eternally grateful that I'm taking pity on you and feeding you with my own hand! You are a highly privileged prisoner! HEHEHEHEHE! COME ON, EAT MORE! CHEW IT WELL! That filthy thing is what you used to stain and destroy the lives of those poor girls and women, isn't it?! DO YOU LIKE IT?! HOW DOES IT TASTE?! HAHAHAHA! COME ON, SWALLOW!"
Driven to the very brink of madness by humiliation and biological agony, Scar's brain collapsed into primitive panic. His jaw began to move purely out of survival instinct, compelled by Eliam's Qi preventing him from suffocating completely. The chewing became rhythmic, disgusting, and heavy:
SLOP, CRUNCH, SLUURP!
He chewed and swallowed his own amputated flesh amidst hysterical sobs. From his nose and the corners of his mouth streamed threads of bile, foam, and blood that fell to the stone floor with a dull drip (plip, plip, plap!). His hanging body, entirely drenched in sweat and fluids, shuddered in uncontrollable spasms that made every mercury link vibrate:
CREEEAK, CLANG, RATTL!
Suddenly, Eliam stopped laughing. The silence that followed was instantaneous and suffocating, heavy as the abyssal water of his bloodline. His breathing paused completely, his liquid silver eyes narrowed into two infinitely dark slits, and he locked his cold, calculating gaze onto the puddle of vomit and foam staining the floor.
"I strictly forbade you from spitting out your food," Eliam said in a voice stripped of all human emotion, a tone so flat and empty it froze the air around him. "I clearly ordered you to eat everything."
Scar, trembling from head to toe, let out a sharp, pitiful whimper from the depths of his chestâan animalistic moan of pure political terror. The chains jingled weakly with his tremors: clink, clink...!
Eliam approached with slow steps that echoed dryly in the office. He reached out his right hand and violently grabbed him by his greasy hair, yanking his head back so hard his cervical vertebrae cracked. He forced the mercenary's disfigured face upward, making him look directly into those silver eyes that looked like two wells of the abyss, devoid of any trace of mercy.
"And since you've been a very bad, disobedient boy... it's time for punishment."
Walking slowly around to Scar's back, Eliam mentally manipulated the Mercury Heart. A section of the silver chains hanging from the ceiling flowed and reconfigured with a metallic screech:
CLINK-CLACK, CREEEAK!
The liquid metal solidified into the shape of a thick iron rod covered in dozens of sharp, three-centimeter-long spikes.
Hearing the metallic grinding behind him, a foreboding sense of absolute terror froze Scar's heart. Forcing the very last drop from his battered Dantian, he tried to invoke his martial Qi to shatter the chains or commit suicide, but Eliam's suppression instantly nullified his energy, leaving his meridians bone dry.
"NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOO!" Scar screamed hysterically, losing all control of his bladder as he tried to crawl through the air. The chains thrashed with savage fury from his desperation:
CLANG, CLANG, RATTL-RATTL!
"PLEASE! BY WHATEVER YOU HOLD SACRED, ANYTHING BUT THAT! NOOOOO!"
"This is only the beginning," Eliam replied.
Raising the silver spiked rod with both hands, he plunged it with brutal violence straight up his ass!
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!" the scream Scar let out tore his own vocal cords, turning into a shriek so high-pitched it shook the dust from the ceiling beams.
The internal flesh was shredded and torn apart in a second.
SCHLICK, RIP!
Torrents of dark blood gushed down the mercenary's hanging legs, dripping rapidly onto the stone floor: pat-pat-pat-pat!
"PLEASE! TAKE IT OUT! I BEG YOU, TAKE IT OUT! I'M DYING!" Scar wept with tears of blood and snot streaming down his emaciated face. The pain made him arch his back forward in violent spasms, rattling the ceiling hooks with an incessant screech: CREEAK, CLANG!
Utterly deaf to the pleas, Eliam attached a thin side chain to the end of the impaling rod and began moving it mechanically back and forth. The rod twisted and scraped against the internal walls in a perpetual sawing motion. The sound inside Scar's body was a wet, disastrous atrocity:
SCHLICK, RIP, CRUNCH!
Every twist tore through deeper layers, grinding soft tissue against metal. Scar's grotesque, sharp, guttural screams saturated the office, growing increasingly agonizing and dehumanized as his internal tissues were pulverized.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
To prevent hemorrhage and organ destruction from ending the subject's life, Eliam stood by his side for hours, administering with scientific rigor exact doses of regenerative Qi and Saint Grade medicinal pills. He healed the torn tissue just enough for the wound to partially close again... only for the spiked rod to rip it apart once more in an endless cycle of torment.
After endless minutes of continuous agony, when Scar's screams had turned into a hoarse, wheezing whistle of torment through his shredded vocal cords, Eliam stopped the chain's movement. The cessation of scraping brought a tense silence, broken only by the prisoner's ragged, agonizing breathing. Eliam walked around to the front and stood before him.
"Do you want me to stop?" Eliam asked calmly.
"Yes... plâplease... stop..." Scar babbled, coughing up clots of blood with every syllable. His eyes begged for death as the greatest mercy in the universe.
"You want me to stop? 'Yes, please'?" Eliam's expression became as cold as liquid nitrogen, devoid of any empathy. "I imagine those were the exact same words every single one of those girls and women said to you... begging while you and your beasts raped and destroyed them day and night. And you have the nerve to ask me to stop now? That will never happen!"
Eliam pulled an old hunting knife from his robe, its blade completely rusted and notched. Gripping the handle tightly, he began dragging the serrated edge across the skin of Scar's chest, slowly slicing layer by layer, peeling away strips of raw flesh.
The raw pain of rust penetrating his nerve endings caused Scar's sanity to shatter completely:
"AAAAAAAH! AHAHAHAHAHAHA! GODS! AHAHAHAHA!"
"YES! COME ON, SCREAM MORE! MUCH LOUDER! HAHAHAHAHA!" Eliam roared, infected by a euphoria of vengeful justice.
Changing the tempo of the torment, Eliam dropped the knife and grabbed the mercenary's right hand. With his own fingers, he took hold of the edge of the first fingernail. With a slow, sustained, agonizing pull, he began ripping it away from the flesh bed.
SCRAAATCH... RIP!
The keratin tore away from raw nerves with a fibrous, wet crack.
"GAAAAAAAHHH!!! NOOOO, MY FINGER, NOOOO!!! AAGGHHH!!!" a sharp, tearing scream shattered the ears of the room. Scar jerked backward with desperate force, thrashing the runic chains frantically against the iron: CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, RATTL-RATTLL!
Eliam didn't stop. He grabbed the second finger and pinched the edge of the nail with his fingertips. A sharp pull!
RIIIP!
"EEEEEGGGHHH!!! SWEET MOTHER, STOP, STOOOOOP!!! GYAAAAAAAH!!!" Scar's scream turned into a shrill screech that scraped the walls. His legs curled upward instinctively, jarring the spiked rod inside him, causing a fresh, loud tear (SCHLICK!) that merged his wails for his hands with those for his desecrated flesh.
Then he proceeded with the third...
RIIIP!
"AIAAAAAGH!!! KILL ME, PLEASE, KILL MEEEE!!!"
The fourth...
RIIIP!
"UUUGGGHHH... AAAAAHHH... AAAAAAAHHH!!!" the screams began losing coherence, turning into animalistic, hoarse, wet groans of pure suffocation.
Eliam systematically alternated between hands and feet. The mercenary's suffering reached such an abhorrent, unbearable level that Scar blacked out multiple times, his head slumping limply to the side. Yet each time, Eliam slapped his face with a blast of Qi, instantly resurrecting him from the darkness to force him to feel the tearing of the next nail.
RIIIP, RIIIP, RIIIP!
The metal of the Mercury Heart rang endlessly with every spasm of agony shaking the mutilated body: CLANG, RATTL, CLANG, CREEEAK!
The process continued systematically and mercilessly until all twenty nails from his hands and feet were completely ripped out. His fingers were ten bleeding, raw stumps; the skin on his arms and torso was flayed into hanging strips, and his backside remained desecrated by the spiked rod, leaking a continuous drip of blood and fluids forming a macabre pool beneath his feet.
After hours of continuous torture, Scar hung limply from the mercury chains. He no longer had a voice to scream, his tear ducts were bone dry, and he couldn't even formulate a plea in his shattered mind.
Eliam watched him in silence for a few seconds. Reaching into his storage ring, he pulled out a heavy burlap sack: it was a fifty-pound bag of salt.
Hearing the rustle of the opening sack, Scar heavily tried to lift his head. His agony-clouded eyes looked at the white powder in the youth's hand.
Without the slightest hesitation, Eliam grabbed two massive handfuls of coarse salt and violently hurled them straight onto all the open wounds, the flayed skin of his torso, and the raw, bleeding nail beds of his twenty torn-out nails!
In a fraction of a second, the prisoner who had seemed mere seconds away from dying of exhaustion resurrected in a biological explosion of pain. The salt burning his exposed wounds tore the most grotesque, guttural, shrill, dehumanized scream of the entire day from his throat.
"WWWWAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! HAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!!!! IT BURNSSSSSS!!!!!! AAAAAAAAGGGGGHHH!!!!!!" the few remaining fibers in his vocal cords snapped, producing a harsh sound like rusted metal being dragged across stone.
Scar thrashed and convulsed in the chains with such violence his own bones cracked trying to escape the chemical abrasion devouring his flesh. The mercury bonds thrashed in an absolute chaos of deafening metallic crashes:
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG, RATTL-RATTLL-RATTL-CLANG!!!
The brutal thrashing caused the internal spiked rod to grind up what remained of his tissues, while the salt seeped deeper and deeper, dissolving into the hot blood of his exposed finger stumps.
Watching the convulsions with a faint, icy smile on his lips, Eliam stepped forward and gripped Scar's head by the temples with both hands, locking it in place and stopping his skull's violent thrashing.
"Look at me," he whispered.
Slowly, with chilling precision, Eliam raised his two thumbs and pressed them into Scar's eye sockets. Pushing against the eyeballs, he began pressing inward very slowly, millimeter by millimeter. The soft tissue gave way under the extreme pressure:
SQUISH, POP!
The internal fluids of the eyes ruptured with a wet, sickening pop, splashing the youth's fingers. A gurgling shriek of fluid and blood erupted in Scar's mouthâa muffled, pasty wail:
"MGGGGHHH... HHHUUUGGGHHH... AAAAAGGGHHH!!!" his already shredded vocal cords vibrated amidst the carnage in his own mouth as the pain plunged him into an eternal blindness of pure agony, kept tethered to life solely by the thread of absolute torment.
Without halting his martial work, Eliam picked up the rusted knife from the floor. He walked over to the mercenary's left thigh and began crudely sawing through the flesh. The wet sound of notched metal slicing through muscle, fat, and nerves echoed through the room for long minutes:
RASP, RASP, RASP... SQUELCH!
The progress was clumsy due to the blade's condition, tearing through tissues instead of severing them cleanly, until it finally struck the hardness of the femur bone with a dull metallic thud. Flatly refusing to use his martial Qi to make a clean, quick cut, Eliam applied pure physical force and body weight onto the rusted knife.
He sawed relentlessly, scraping the notched metal against the solid bone structure. The sound of splintering bone (CRUNCH, RASP, CRUNCH!) and tearing tendons, nerves, and major arteries continued with a heavy rhythm until, finally, Scar's left leg detached completely!
SPLAT!
The mutilated limb fell heavily into the pool of blood on the floor, sending up splashes that stained the walls. Immediately, Eliam injected a pulse of Qi into the open thigh stump, cauterizing and halting the massive arterial hemorrhage instantly to prevent a premature death by exsanguination. He stood up, wiping sweat from his forehead, and contemplated his floating macabre canvas.
However, the whistling, gurgling, raw sound incessantly emanating from Scar's broken throat bothered his ears. Every one of the prisoner's breaths sounded like a wet, bubbling whistle of pure agony.
"Hehehehe... let's fix that noise," Eliam chuckled quietly.
Stepping forward, he shoved his right hand into the prisoner's bloody mouth, ignoring the dying man's gags. He firmly grabbed the base of his tongue and the back wall of his throat, and with a violent outward yank:
SCHLICK, RIIIP!!!
He ripped his tongue and vocal tendons out by the roots! The fibrous connections snapped with a dry crack. Scar thrashed in silent suffocation, convulsing against the runic chains that jingled weakly: clink, clang, clink! He spat a torrent of black blood that drenched the floor.
"Much better," Eliam sighed in satisfaction, tossing the piece of meat aside. "Finally some peace and quiet in this place. Although... I feel like the masterpiece is still missing its final touch. And according to my spiritual perception, night is already falling over the forest. Let's finish this once and for all."
Walking calmly around to the back of Scar's shattered, hanging body, Eliam made a fist with his right hand. Without channeling martial energy, using solely his physical strength reinforced by dragon blood, he lunged forward:
SCHLIIICK!!!
He drove his bare fist straight into the prisoner's lower back, punching through flesh and back muscles, past kidneys, until grasping the hardness of his spinal column! Clamping his fingers mercilessly around Scar's central vertebra, Eliam gave a brutal, sharp, definitive pull backward.
CRACK-SQUELCH!!!
The bone structure snapped in two with a horrifying crunch. The vertebra was ripped completely out of place, severing the spinal cord instantly and sending up a fountain in the air that bathed Eliam's face, robes, and hair in a shower of dark, hot, dense blood.
That definitive pull finally severed the bond tethering the mercenary's soul to his mortal body. Scar let out a final, empty sighâa faint whisper of air escaping through his shattered trachea (hhhaaa...)âand his head slumped completely limp onto his flayed chest. Dead at last. The mercury chains ceased moving entirely, hanging in sepulchral silence.
Eliam stood motionless beneath the shower of blood, holding the bloody bone fragment in his hand. He exhaled a deep, heavy sigh as his liquid silver pupils slowly returned to their natural color.
"I hope this punishment was enough pain and suffering to pay for all the souls whose lives you destroyed, you damned worm," Eliam murmured into the void.
Releasing a high-temperature wave of Qi from his meridians, he evaporated the liquid blood and filth covering his skin and clothes in a second, turning the impurities into a fine red mist that dissipated into the air. He knew, however, that he needed a long soak in the river waters before attending the strategic meeting with the rest of the group.
Stepping out of the gloomy torture office, he found Nylas, who was still leaning against the outer wall with closed eyes in a contemplative posture.
Hearing his brother's footsteps, Nylas opened his eyes and asked calmly:
"Did you manage to vent completely?"
Eliam nodded with a slight tilt of his head.
"I sincerely hope you made him suffer until the very last second," Nylas commented, pushing off the wall and starting toward the camp clearing. "Go take that quick bath in the river and hurry up. We need to gather with the others immediately to lay out our plans and decide our next moves in this territory."
"I'll be right there," Eliam replied, turning down a forest path leading to the current of a nearby river.
An hour after his purifying bath in the river, the eleven members of the Morningstar squad sat gathered around a large, makeshift wooden table, illuminated by the crackle of a night campfire. Resting on the tabletop was a vast, detailed cartographic scroll they had salvaged from the mercenary camp's archives.
Nylas stood at the end of the table, pointing his finger at a sprawling region in the center of the map:
"Now then, listen closely. Right now we are positioned in a remote, peripheral forest zone, but this territory is surrounded by formidable forces, ancient forests infested with high-ranking magical beasts, and several forbidden zones we can't tread into lightly. However, the supreme powers ruling and maintaining absolute order across this region are the Five Great Sects."
Nylas slid his finger toward a glowing golden icon marked in the center of the southern geography:
"In order for those five military and economic superpowers to interact, trade, and compete without destroying one another in continental wars, they utilize a central neutral stage. That place is the most important metropolis in the territory: the City of Celestial Amber."
The others leaned over the map as Nylas explained the metropolis's military architecture:
[Tactical Study: City of Celestial Amber â The Neutral Heart]
The Ancestral Barrier (The Peace Array): The city is built directly atop the intersection node of the continent's three largest earth spiritual veins. To prevent the destruction of their commercial hub, the five sects jointly funded the construction of the Eclipse Array, an ancient golden barrier projected by the Pavilion of a Thousand Seals. This array enforces an absolute rule: it forbids flight and open or destructive combat to any cultivator below the Grand Saint Realm. The Outer Ring (The Black Market): A chaotic, noisy ocean saturated with mercenaries, wandering cultivators, low-level merchants, and thousands of street stalls. Here, rules are lax; everything is bought and sold, from scrapped ancient artifacts and martial slaves to maps of forgotten tombs and defective or forbidden medicinal pills. The Middle Ring (The Five Towers of Power): The diplomatic and economic sector where the branch offices and fortresses of the five continental sects rise. Each tower is governed by a high-ranking Elder settled in the Saint King Realm(Stages 5 to 9), whose mission is to protect their sect's financial interests, recruit local martial talents, and oversee the flow of treasures entering the city. The Imperial Center (The Eclipse Platform): The pinnacle of the city. It is a massive island of immaculate white jade floating magnetically in the sky above the center of the middle ring. On this floating platform rests the Grand Amber Auction House.
"And what exactly are these five forces ruling this chessboard?" Ignis asked with interest.
Nylas pulled out a second scroll containing intelligence notes and began breaking down the territory's balance of power:
Heavenly Sword SectRegional Status: The number one military force in the southern territory in terms of pure offensive power and linear destruction. Their overwhelming shock value forces the other four superpowers to maintain balancing alliances to avoid being subjugated. Sect Master: Sword Emperor, Ling Tian (Quasi-Emperor Realm, Stage 9). Territory: They rule the Ten Thousand Edges Mountain Range, an immense mountain chain whose peaks house endless mines of Stellar Iron. The mineral concentration in the air is so dense that the wind whistles laden with metallic particles capable of slicing the skin of any mortal cultivator attempting to climb without protection. Philosophy ("The Unyielding Sword Heart"): They despise any cultivation method not centered on direct, linear offensive attacks. They demand absolute devotion from all disciples and the severing of any familial, romantic, or emotional ties to the mortal world, maintaining that mundane emotions rust and weaken the purity of the "Sword Heart." Sacred Cauldron PavilionRegional Status: Though they do not compete in frontal offensive military might against the Heavenly Sword, they control the economy, banking flow, and absolute monopoly over the refinement and distribution of medicinal pills across the southern continent. No clan or sect dares offend them, as a commercial embargo from them would stagnate the martial progress of an entire generation. Sect Master: Grand Alchemist Master, Dan Xuan (Quasi-Emperor Realm, Stage 6). Territory: Settled in the Holy Land of Medicine, a vast, fertile valley protected by ancient climatic formations simulating diverse ecological environments to allow the cultivation of Saint and Divine Grade medicinal herbs. Philosophy ("The Fire That Nourishes All"): They do not seek territorial expansion through war and bloodshed; they conquer entire powers through absolute economic dependence. Their doctrine holds that wealth is the engine of destiny; if a rival sect wishes to break through a martial bottleneck, heal its patriarchs, or sustain a war, they must inevitably kneel before the Pavilion's gates to purchase their pills. Stellar Anvil SectRegional Status: They are the undisputed giants of heavy blacksmithing and the official suppliers of armor and defensive artifacts for the entire region. They maintain a strong commercial and military alliance with the Sacred Cauldron. Sect Master: Iron Elder, Kuang Shan (Quasi-Emperor Realm, Stage 7). Territory: Their main fortress is built directly inside the Volcanic Fire Valley, a chain of active volcanoes connected to the earth's core providing them with the inexhaustible magmatic heat needed to melt and alloy the hardest minerals in the mortal plane. Philosophy ("Metal Surpasses Flesh"): They disdain poetry, static meditation, and refined spiritual tricks. To them, the human body is born inherently fragile and weak; they hold that the only path to achieving immortality and surviving the destructive pounding of Heavenly Tribulations is the continuous tempering of flesh and the forging of unbreakable divine armor. Veiled Moon PalaceRegional Status: An independent, hidden, and highly lethal force. The other regional superpowers avoid provoking the Palace's wrath at all costs. Their disciples operate in the shadows as the most efficient intelligence-gathering, espionage, and assassination network on the continent, granting them unmatched blackmail power and strategic deterrence. Sect Master: Moon Matriarch, Qing Han (Quasi-Emperor Realm, Stage 5). Territory: Located on Ice Lotus Island, a floating landmass protected by a perpetual freezing spiritual fog. This fog dynamically shifts position following lunar cycles. Philosophy ("The Grace of the Night"): The Palace was founded millennia ago as a sovereign, exclusive sanctuary for female cultivators. In the ruthless southern cultivation worldâwhere women are often treated as mere dual-cultivation furnaces or bargaining chips between patriarchal clansâthe Palace takes them in, trains them, and fiercely protects them. They enforce immediate death penalty without trial upon any cultivator daring to abuse or humiliate a woman within their domain. Pavilion of a Thousand Cosmic SealsRegional Status: They are the absolute strategists and architects of the southern continent. They remain neutral in territorial conflicts, charging incalculable fortunes in spiritual stones to other sects for designing, building, and repairing the defensive arrays of their fortresses and cities. Sect Master: Grand Array Master, Mo Chen (Quasi-Emperor Realm, Stage 5). Territory: Settled on the Plateau of Stars, a mountain elevation where the convergence of the earth's mystical ley lines massively boosts the range of their formations and grants them control over the richest spiritual stone mines. Philosophy ("The Universe is a Chessboard"): They consider orthodox cultivators relying on the edge of a sword or the brute force of their fists to be ignorant pawns on the chessboard of destiny. To them, true, supreme power lies in understanding and manipulating the language of the universe: seals and arrays. They proudly assert that using a few formation flags and a handful of energy stones, they can suffocate and annihilate an entire enemy army without shedding a single drop of their own blood.
When the reading of the intelligence report concluded, a heavy silence descended over the campfire. The night wind fluttered the scroll against the wooden table.
Eliam, his silver hair glowing beneath the flames' light, rested both hands on the table's edge and fixed his gaze upon the map of the City of Celestial Amber.
"And those are just the five main sects ruling this area..." Eliam murmured with a serious smile, gently shaking his head. "This is absolute martial madness. Five Quasi-Emperors sitting in a single territory, backed by legions of Saint Kings and virtually unlimited resources!"
Eliam looked up, meeting the eyes of Ignis, Nylas, and the rest of his brothers-in-arms:
"It is obvious that at our division's current level, we cannot simply march into that city and challenge its laws without raising suspicion or putting ourselves at unnecessary risk."
A spark of cold, unshakeable determination flashed in Eliam's eyes as he clenched his fist over the map:
"But before we take our first step into the City of Celestial Amber or provoke any of these five powers... our absolute, non-negotiable priority will be to focus on cultivating and solidifying the first stage of the secret technique the Patriarch gave us. We need to master the technique before moving a single piece on this board. Is that clear?"
The other eleven fighters of the Morningstar squad stood up in unison around the campfire. Looking at their leader with absolute respect and a thirst for martial improvement that burned brighter than the camp's own flames, they nodded in silenceâready to plunge into the darkness and pave the way for their clan's dominion.
Note from Void_Scribe: đ
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