"What were your exact orders?" Yang asked without preamble, his imposing frame casting a long shadow over the prisoners.
The man with the spider, still dazed, blinked several times before responding. "Just... they just told us to take the old folks. We didn't know anything else." His voice wavered, a thin thread of desperation woven through his words.
Ren, who had silently approached from behind, frowned. The mushrooms in his hair pulsed rhythmically, his eyes capturing the subtle fluctuations in the man's mana.
"He's lying," he declared with certainty.
Lin needed no further confirmation. Her hand moved with supernatural speed, connecting a precise slap that made the man's head violently jerk sideways. The sound echoed sharply in the confined space of the pit, a crisp crack.
"Try again," she suggested with a smile that never reached her eyes. "And this time, remember that we have ways of knowing when you're lying."
