When the body was dumped into the breeding site, the snake merely watched.
There was something wrong with him. It was not the hunched posture nor the weight of the books scattered across the floor, but the emptiness in his face, as if the mind were awake while the rest begged for rest. He dragged himself across the platform with slow, almost mechanical movements, pulling sheets covered in notes that no longer seemed to belong to him.
His hand trembled as it touched each line. Not from difficulty reading, but from the effort of continuing. His breathing came short and irregular, as if air were a favor granted second by second.
He murmured.
"Please..."
He said softly.
"Be quiet. Leave me alone."
Disconnected pleas. Apologies. Implorations that barely held together.
Medusa heard everything.
Though she despised the sounds that escaped Slady's mouth, she still understood the greater torment. A mind incapable of silence was worse than any shackle.
She approached slowly, until her face stood before the small creature in her eyes. Fragile. Easy to destroy, yet necessary.
Her voice came as a whisper.
"When will all this knowledge finally be put to use?"
Slady turned his head toward the sound, gripping the notes tightly in his hand.
"Today,"
he answered.
"... Just a moment,"
he asked.
"One single moment to prove it was not in vain."
The serpent coiled around her own body, hiding her face among the scales.
"Do not take long,"
she demanded.
The wall beside him reshaped itself.
Serpents emerged from the rock and wrapped around the male body, pulling him into the stone as if he were malleable matter. The passage was not movement, it was violation. They pierced his single arm, slid down his throat, seized legs and head, forcing him to contort in ways that belonged to no human body.
Every bend, every twist, was a reminder that he no longer controlled anything.
When he resurfaced, he was spat from the earth straight into the small alchemical laboratory.
The tongue curled back into the larynx, pulling the sword by its hilt and delivering it to the hands of the machines. The body moved on its own toward the vessel that siphoned the remnants of a decaying heart, insects fighting over what was left of that useless muscle.
Slady took the organ and threw it to the ground.
The serpents devoured it in seconds.
With a command, the vessel began to tremble. The substance condensed, dividing into small cubes marked as tests. One by one, he injected ingredients, agitating them with excessive care.
He connected a new syringe.
The needle pierced his skin.
He sat on the floor, bare back against the bench. For an instant, there was silence.
Then the body responded.
Slady leaned forward, bracing one hand on the floor as a red liquid escaped his mouth, accompanied by dense smoke.
"Ah...!"
His mouth tried to draw in oxygen, but failed.
The voice rose inside him.
It did not scream. It did not need to.
"Extracting Renkai Energy is no longer possible,"
said the voice.
"Not from this body. Not from this soul. What remains here has already been taken too far."
Slady shook his head in denial.
"There must... be a way... to get it out of me!"
"The only liberation is death."
His heart clenched in response. Not as a metaphor, but as real punishment. Slady groaned.
"Be quiet,"
he begged, striking his own chest.
"Be quiet!"
The laughter began.
"Be quiet!"
he repeated, trying to smother the sound.
"Be quiet, be quiet!"
He slammed his face against the wall, pressed the staff against his eardrums. His teeth ground until they ached.
Krythos commented, mocking.
"Do not look at me, Satan,"
the voice said with scorn.
"I am not the one to blame."
Slady cried silently.
"The choice was yours,"
Krythos continued.
"You sought vengeance against my children. You believed power and knowledge would be enough. You continued even after losing everything."
"I had no choice,"
Slady replied, his voice breaking with every word.
"You did,"
Krythos retorted.
"God limited you. An angel deceived you. And still, you went on, even when you could have simply given up and remained beside the family you loved so much."
Now there were no illusions. Only truth.
"Each day you breathe, I will destroy your soul a little more. Until the spirit yields. Until the body is nothing but an empty instrument, more than it already is."
Slady closed his eyes.
"Perhaps that way you will learn."
The voice showed no haste.
"You will see all those you love be destroyed. You will feel your own body as the stage of the catastrophe I will cause. And you will not be able to stop it. I will turn this world into a nightmare using your image."
"Please..."
Slady whispered.
"You will be conscious. Trapped. Watching,"
Krythos concluded.
When the last question echoed, Slady already lay sprawled in his own blood, trembling not from pain, but from understanding.
"Was it worth it, Slady? Was it worth spending your entire life chasing vengeance? Criminals who will return ever more violent and cruel? Trading your entire life for a minimal sense of justice...?"
the voice asked, with a final laugh escaping his hoarse, diabolical throat.
"And as it seems, you had your answer a long time ago, but never accepted it."
The wounds began to close. Skin and membranes reconnected as if nothing had happened. The machines resumed operation, working uncontrollably on the sword entrusted to him.
He was left alone.
Not at peace, but whole enough to continue.
"Nothing you do will fix your mistakes. And I know who you remember. That swordswoman who awakened something almost human in you. That policewoman who asked you for justice, and you even gave it to her, but it was already too late. And those girls you lost ten years of living with, ten years of what could have been the cure for all your hatred."
And that was the punishment.
"I do not even need to try to destroy your spirit, your hope. You already do it with every choice you make. I only need to finish burying the corpse that has already committed suicide."
It does not matter if he achieves his vengeance.
He would never again have the love of the people he promised to protect.