It was dark.
Elion sat trapped in an unlit building. He squirmed, hoping to break free from his restraints, but it was useless.
After what felt like hours of nothing, a sliver of light sliced into the room.
The young cook looked up slowly.
Miss Shadow stepped in, followed by a hunched figure holding a book beneath one arm.
The High Lord looked exactly the same: a single horn, the same mask, the onyx blade that had tasted Elion's blood far too many times still at her hip.
And yet, something was different. It was subtle—imperceptible, almost—but Elion sensed it. Her aura was denser, heavier. More intense. More powerful.
Only someone like him—someone who had fought her countless times—could have recognized the shift.
He tried to speak, but the gag in his mouth choked the words in his throat.
The hunched figure approached him while Miss Shadow stood silently nearby. The man lifted his head, revealing dark, loose strands of hair and grey horns curling from his skull. He looked to be in his fifties.
He flipped through his book, found a page, then dipped his fingers into a dark, sticky ink and drew a rune on Elion's forehead.
The moment it settled into his skin, the young cook felt as if claws had burrowed deep into his brain. His nerves lit up with pain. The chair suddenly felt unbearable—wood biting into his skin as though it had grown thorns.
He squirmed, muffled screams spilling into the dim air.
Unbothered, the man calmly dipped his fingers again and traced another rune across Elion's throat. He felt the familiar, numb tingle of translation runes crawling along his gums.
When the ritual was complete, the man gave a deep bow to the High Lord and silently exited.
The room fell into a tense silence.
Elion's head throbbed, the rune on his forehead burning like wildfire.
The High Lord removed the gag.
"I'm sorry, Lady Shadow," Elion rasped with forced bravado. "I'm not really into that kind of stuff."
"How do you know our language?" she asked, ignoring his sarcasm.
"Ah, that. I don't really know it—just the basics. A friend taught me."
Her gaze narrowed.
"A traitor?" she murmured, then abruptly snapped her head toward him, studying his face closely, as if trying to see something behind his eyes.
"Are you connected to Myrrhiel?" she asked, gripping his jaw. Her masked eyes bore into his.
A flicker of fear twisted in Elion's gut.
This was different from the usual. He wasn't just going to be hurt and reset. If things went wrong here, he might not come out unscathed.
"I don't even know who that is," he said carefully.
"Bullshit," she snapped—and slapped him hard enough to knock both him and the chair to the ground.
Agony tore through his skull. It was unbearable—raw and immediate, worse than anything he had felt before.
"I suggest you avoid lying," she said coldly. "The rune burning on your forehead is made for interrogations—a way to amplify pain."
Elion writhed on the ground, breath ragged, as if the skin had been peeled from his face.
"And if you try to bite off your tongue," she added, "we've got a healer on standby. Don't even try it."
She yanked his head up by the hair and stared deep into his eyes.
"Now. What do you know about Myrrhiel?"
"I don't fucking know who your Myrrhiel is, alright?!" Elion shouted, wracked with pain.
Still, she didn't flinch.
"You're a tough one," she said, sounding disappointed. "You know, I don't really like torturing people; makes me feel dirty inside. But I guess you don't really leave me a choice."
Miss Shadow grabbed a sharp scalpel from a table shrouded in darkness.
She gazed at the gleaming blade, then at her captor.
No, no, don't come closer, don't you fucking dare come closer!
Elion thrashed and screamed. He desperately tried to get away, but he couldn't—he was still tied to the damn chair.
She pinned him with a knee to the chest, suffocating him with her weight, then dragged the scalpel lightly across his cheek.
"Stop! Stop!" he begged. "I'll tell you everything you want!"
She paused. Tilted her head.
"Go on."
"I… I know Myrrhiel. Alright?"
She didn't react.
"Where is she hiding?"
Where?!
Elion's thoughts raced. He knew nothing about the cities of the Third Age. There were no records—he had searched endlessly.
He was screwed.
"Inver," he lied. "She's hiding in Inver."
This was a prominent city in the Second Age, he hoped it would still be standing.
The High Lord stood still, studying him. Then, without a word, she drove the scalpel into his shoulder.
The scream that tore out of him was something not quite human. It was like he was being burnt alive while being frozen to death. Like he was being flayed and cut to pieces. It was pure, unbridled agony.
"Still set on lying, huh?" she said quietly. "You could've at least made up something believable."
Miss Shadow dragged the blade down his right arm.
Elion was simply swallowed whole by overwhelming pain. He couldn't think, couldn't move, just suffer. Worse, he wasn't fainting. It was like something was holding his brain awake and forcing him to feel everything.
"Last chance," she said. "Where is Myrrhiel?"
He didn't answer. He couldn't. The pain had eaten his mind.
She stared at him a moment, then shrugged.
"A shame. The former queen had such loyal allies."
She stood.
"I'm a busy woman, I don't have time for this, I'll leave you with one of my colleagues."
The door opened. A tall man in a tight black uniform entered, his ash-grey skin betraying his origin as a Dweller of the Depths. He sneered at Elion, then grabbed gloves to keep his hands clean.
"Let's get this over with…" he muttered, grabbing tools Elion had never even seen before.
The agony was beyond horrible, beyond unbearable. The only thing the young cook pitifully clung to was the fact that in four days, he would escape this hell. But even that was utterly crushed when he realized that what he thought had been three days had only been an hour.
He tried to bite off his tongue. Despite Miss Shadow's warnings. Despite his promise to Farha.
She wouldn't hold it against me, right?
He was on the verge of choking on his own blood when someone rushed in, sealing the wound with odd sorcery.
After the incident, the butcher resumed his twisted work with renewed fury. The setback had quite pissed him off.
Elion was nothing now—just a vessel for pain. It was all he knew. All he would ever know.
Time dissolved. Hours bled into days—into months, maybe years.
Eventually, something inside him snapped.
The scars left behind by the Class IV that he had so desperately tried to bury were laid bare again. The infinity of uninterrupted agony had peeled off the frail layers of the protection he had set in place.
He was sitting alone, hands bound behind the chair, his white hair falling over his face. Well, it had been white—now it was matted crimson with his own blood. His skin was covered in cuts, his flesh was laid bare and his cheeks were cut open.
And yet, he smiled.
A twisted, broken smile spread over his face, looking terrifying, considering his face was horribly mutilated and all his remaining teeth were showing, stained red.
But it was real.
It was the most genuine smile he'd ever worn.
There was no more hiding. No pretense. He had never been anyone, to begin with.
"…Mother…" he whispered. The word came out distorted and wrong.
A bitter laugh slipped from his mouth.
Right then and there, Elion realized something. He had been way too serious. He had lived his life like it was business, no space for humor.
But that changes today.
"I love my life," he mused.
The sound of cannons shattered the silence.
It was finally the fourth day.
But Elion wasn't ready to end everything now.
He crawled, dragging the chair with him. His bare flesh scraped against the filthy floor. He reached the door. Managed to open it with his teeth.
Outside was war.
Dwellers of the Depths scrambled. A dome of refracting light shimmered overhead. In the distance, a massive warship fired relentlessly at the barrier. It looked warped from here.
Elion spotted the mountain far on the horizon.
A final, guttural laugh escaped his lips.
"Just you wait…" he rasped. "I'll teach you what pain really means."
The world was swallowed by bright plasma.