Baines’s eyes flickered open, the darkness of the cell swallowing his vision.
The air was damp, heavy with the stench of mildew and blood, and the faint drip of water echoed sowhere in the distance. His body hung limp, wrists shackled above his head, ankles bound together, the cold tal biting into his skin.
A faint glow pulsed in his eye, where Eye displayed a litany of diagnostics:
[INTERNAL INJURY 40% HEALED, EXTERNAL INJURY 10% HEALED, SKELETAL SYSTEM 30%, NERVOUS SYSTEM 15%...]
Before this mont, Baines had programd Eye with precise instructions: keep his body teetering on the edge of death, healing just enough to sustain life but not enough to betray his resilience to his captors.
Rapid recovery in front of enemies would raise suspicion, and Baines was playing a longer ga.
His plan was audacious. He wanted to seize control of an underground organization through sheer dominance, wielding his Ashenfall energy to break their will.
However, the slave god’s weapon and Wick only made the task exponentially easier, but the path was still fraught with pain.
’Eye, dull the pain,’ Baines commanded silently.
[DISABLING BODY RECEPTORS]
’Wick,’ he called through their ntal link.
"Yes, Master," Wick responded instantly, its voice a mix of eagerness and apprehension, as if anticipating a command to free him.
-I grant you temporary authority over the slave chain,
Baines said, his tone asured.
The chains binding his wrists and shoulders shuddered, obeying his will. They unlatched with a tallic groan, slithering through the air to attach themselves to Wick’s ethereal form.
-Now, I want you to place everyone except the leader under the slave chain.
Baines instructed.
"Yes, Master." Wick’s voice carried a hint of worry, but it faded into the shadows, its presence dissolving like mist.
Baines hung in silence, his body a canvas of calculated ruin.
The cell’s walls, slick with condensation, seed to pulse with the weight of his captivity.
He could break free now, unleash Ashenfall, and reduce this place to rubble, but that wasn’t the plan. Not yet.
Hours bled into eternity until the cell door creaked open, admitting three n. The leader, a wiry man with cruel eyes and a scar bisecting his brow, stepped forward, flanked by two enforcers clad in leather armor. A torch in one’s hand cast flickering shadows, illuminating the leader’s mocking grin.
"You look well," he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt.
Baines strained against the chains, his movents feeble, deliberate. "Mm...mm...mm," he groaned, the chain across his mouth muffling his voice.
"Oh, your core is sealed," the leader said, settling into a rickety chair. "So whatever strange magic you wield is useless now." He snapped his fingers, and one enforcer stepped forward, yanking the chain from Baines’s mouth.
The leader leaned forward, eyes glinting. "Now, tell everything you know."
Baines remained silent, his gaze distant, fixed on a point beyond the cell.
"I want answers now." Another snap, and the second enforcer unfurled a whip, its leather cracked and stained with old blood.
’Activate body receptors,’ Baines commanded Eye.
[ENABLING BODY RECEPTORS]
Slash.
The whip lashed across his chest, tearing through already tender flesh.
Blood sprayed, splattering the stone floor.
Pain exploded, white-hot and unrelenting, but Baines bit back a scream, his muffled groan barely audible.
Why endure this when he could fake it?
Why not escape?
Hell, he could get out right now, however, he wanted to feel it.
Just a fraction of what his family all felt.
He was seven when he watched them whip his father and drew blood like this. His mother and sister collapsed, and his sister woke up without her leg.
His mother woke up, saw this, and collapsed again, not to wake up again.
Slash... Slash... Slash...
The whip struck relentlessly, each hit carving new wounds, reopening old ones. Blood dripped from his torn skin, pooling beneath him.
Every hit was a reaffirmation to himself.
’I CAN’T BE WEAK, NO, NEVER.’ He scread to himself.
Maybe it was self-tornt, but he made Eye replay those two events that occurred simultaneously.
Eye replayed mories in his mind—his father’s screams, his sister’s leg severed, his mother’s lifeless eyes—rging emotional and physical pain into a crucible of suffering.
Tears of blood stread from his eyes, his body a tapestry of lashes, barely recognizable.
The leader paused occasionally, repeating, "Tell everything you know." When Baines offered no response, the whipping resud.
To the enforcers, he was a sack of blood, a broken thing they could tornt without killing. They didn’t care about his condition, only their orders.
It was unknown for how long he was whipped and questioned, but the tir ca at that mont.
"Master, it’s done."
’Yes, it’s done... it is done.’ Baines muttered, his voice a ragged whisper.
His heart core flared, unshackled, and Ashenfall energy surged, a dark purple torrent that tore through the cell. The building shuddered, walls cracking as the energy pierced the sky, a manifestation of Baines’s rage.
BOOOOOM.
The explosion consud everything: the enforcer with the whip, the chains, the chair, and the weaker n in the vicinity. The leader stumbled back, shock etched across his face, his bravado crumbling.
"Eye, now," Baines commanded.
[HEALING INTERNAL ORGANS...]
His body knitted itself together, bones realigning, flesh nding at an unnatural pace.
Wick also cast healing spells, golden light weaving over Baines’s wounds. The battered figure vanished, replaced by a man unscathed, his naked form cloaked in a purple ethereal mantle conjured by Wick’s magic.
"W-W-What is this?" the leader stamred, his body trembling, pupils constricting.
The air felt like death itself, Ashenfall’s oppressive weight crushing his resolve.
Baines tossed an Abyssal Lotus to the floor, its petals unfurling in a fog that thickened the air, amplifying his power. He drew his bladeless sword, its hilt pulsing with latent energy.
And if there was one thing he hadn’t realized. It was that his Ashenfall was still in effect while using Abysall Lotus.
Ashenfall’s first skill,
"Ashenfla," black flas ignited, forming a blade that scread danger. The air grew heavy, the fog swirling with malevolent intent.
The leader, a grandmaster of the 7th star, shook off his fear, closing his eyes and reopening them with renewed defiance.
His domain unfurled, a shimring field of control that bent the surroundings to his will. Astral energy, condensed and potent, wrapped around his fists, but it flickered, slipping from his grasp under Ashenfall’s influence.
His domain clashed with Baines’s energy, a fierce struggle of wills, but the Abyssal Lotus weakened his astral aura, tilting the balance.
Cut. Cut.
A low hum, the sa Baines had heard in his battle with the lich, grew louder, resonating in his bones. The leader let out a war cry, his speed blinding as he lunged.
Baines couldn’t track him, but he didn’t need to. Compressing Ashenfall into five stars, fueling Ashenfla, he embraced the destructive technique: Cut. He swung the sword, not at the blurry figure he couldn’t see.
No, it was that outline deep inside his body that was his target.
"Cut," Baines commanded, his will absolute.
Maybe that was what made Ashenfall so perfect for him. Ashenfall was forged from destruction, power, and the raw will to survive and do anything to achieve one’s goals.
And what part of this didn’t describe Baines?
The black fla bypassed causality, slicing through the soul’s outline. Unsated, it burned, consuming the essence rcilessly.
Crack.
With a sickening crack, the soul of the man shattered and burned, and with it, what was left of him collapsed.
However, that left him open to the full attack of the now-dead man
BOOOOOOOOOM.
Wick tried to shield him, but the force was overwhelming.
Baines’s body hurtled like a broken kite, crashing through walls, debris raining around him. When Wick reached him, the sight was horrific: half his stomach gone, holes riddling his body, his head dented, his chest hollow where his heart should be.
His eyes were dull, life fading. Ashenfall’s energy dissipated, leaving him a mangled husk. It wouldn’t be strange if he died at any mont.
"Master!" Wick’s voice trembled. Drawing on its vast knowledge, it acted swiftly.
"Termiutosos Statois," it chanted, engulfing Baines in a blue sphere etched with arcane runes, halting ti around him.
Wick tore through space, accessing Baines’s pocket dinsion to retrieve the death bones of the slave god. After another chant, it liquefied the bones, then infused them into Baines’s shattered fra.
The dark liquid coated his cracked skeleton, lded it together while turning it black, and reinforced it.
Wick then tapped the unabsorbed dark sun mana stored within Baines, crafting an empty magic circle in the sky. With a finger, it inscribed a formula, powering it with the mana.
"Asheal-sant-nel,"
Wick intoned.
The circle glowed and showered Baines with healing energy.
His bones solidified, wounds closed, organs and body parts regrew.
The process stretched for ten agonizing minutes, the air humming with magic.
The organization’s mbers, drawn by the battle’s chaos, gathered at the scene and entering the scene, they could see their dead leader, but they couldn’t do anything.
The slave chains were already on them.
And at that mont,
Baines’s eyes snapped open
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