After Nathan 'woke up' from the state Hesroth put him in, Xue Mo stopped torturing him. He wasn't doing it out of kindness. It was because he was thinking of what method to take next.
Torture isn't as simple as inflicting immense pain on someone and hoping that they will obey you from now on. Suffering is an art that not just anyone could use. Xue Mo needed to plan how and what method to use to make Nathan ultimately become his lackey.
It didn't take long for him to plan. Nathan had enough time to get swayed and affected by what Xue Mo said, which made him believe that it was all his son's fault.
CLANK!
Xue Mo returned to the table and chose a small hammer. Just like the other devices, it also had runes on it. That is because some players invest all their stats in strength, which makes injuring them hard.
The sound of Xue Mo moving and picking the weapon up woke Nathan from his inner thoughts. Sweat trickled down his head as his eyes squinted in dread. With crackling teeth, he begged, "p-please-e stop. I wi-il bec-come your follower!"
Xue Mo ignored him and continued approaching with slow steps to make him more fearful. Unknown to Xue Mo himself, he had a happy face as he walked forward, enjoying the situation, which made Nathan even more scared.
"Have you ever imagined yourself being in this situation?" he curiously asked. "You, a king all your life, suddenly degrading to a status that is worse than a slave. How does it feel?" Xue Mo kept asking, trying to make Nathan even more afraid.
Even though he didn't like slavery, or anything related to it, he wouldn't mind using it if it meant making someone obedient. After all, oaths are like slavery. Even in his previous life, some used oaths to enslave others… something that he didn't want to remember.
After hearing what Xue Mo said, Nathan, whose pride got assaulted, fought back just as he expected. He tried channeling Mana to cast spells, but he was surprised to find it not working!
"w-What's happening?" he couldn't believe it. "What did you do to me?" Nathan looked down and said softly but didn't receive a reply. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!" Nathan repeated.
Xue Mo decided to answer him to see what expression he would have next, "nothing." The calm answer didn't satisfy Nathan.
"LIES! Then explain why I can't use magic!" Nathan's bloodshot eyes met Xue Mo's blackish gold eyes. It didn't last one second before Nathan averted his eyes, looking down.
Xue Mo didn't answer him anymore. He didn't have any reason to explain. He held the hammer and arrived in front of Nathan, checking him out. After scrutinizing what parts, he should hit to inflict most pain and least damage.
It wasn't Xue Mo's first rodeo, so he immediately found the spots and started acting. Holding the hammer without a change of expression, Xue Mo targeted Nathan's left hip.
SNAP!
Nathan's face grimaced as he gritted his teeth. His bloodshot eyes looked redder after the hit, but Xue Mo didn't care. As he was about to continue, he whispered like before, "don't look at me like that?"
SNAP!
This time Xue Mo broke Nathan's right wrist. The hammer in his hands not only breaks bones but completely squashes it to dust, which made Nathan's hip and wrist deflate and become dark blue.
"This is all for your good." If before Nathan only saw Xue Mo as a devil because of his look and whispers, at that moment, Nathan imagined Xue Mo as the manifestation of the devil. "This is your rehabilitation."
Every time Xue Mo hit Nathan, the latter endured and hadn't screamed. For normal people, this amount of pain would have knocked them unconscious or killed them. Yet, unexpectedly, Nathan, a pompous king, had such will power. This hugely impressed Xue Mo but not by much.
'Let's see how far he can last,' Xue contemplated before having an idea that widened his evil smirk. "This hammer is too much, isn't it?" Nathan was barely able to hold his pain and didn't answer. Also, he didn't understand what Xue Mo meant.
"Hmm, it seems you didn't get what I mean. Where is the intelligence that a ruler should have?" the sarcastic taunt worked, but Nathan's state didn't allow him to retaliate. "Since his highness, the king doesn't understand, let me show through demonstration!"
Nathan's heart sank for some reason. Hearing what Xue Mo said and what he saw next made him struggle even more. He tried to leave his constraints, but it didn't work.
The control Xue Mo had over his new body was almost perfect after getting accustomed to it these years. The innate abilities that he could use were practiced in his free time reached new levels, and among these abilities, his shapeshifting was one of the best.
Xue Mo's right hand morphed into the shape of a hammer. The reason Xue Mo did this was apparent. The previous hammer was reinforced too much and ground Nathan's bones to dust. This also made it easier for Nathan to handle the pain and less fun for Xue Mo.
However, Xue Mo thought of another method. If he went to bring a hammer that can handle Nathan's stats, it would give him time to recover that he didn't want. So, he transformed his hand into a hammer, and with his current body's power and energy, he could easily adjust how much strength he could inflict upon Nathan's bones.
After transforming his hand, Xue Mo hit Nathan's other hip but didn't break it. He kept hitting it while adjusting the strength. The bones structure quickly destabilized, and a cracking sound came out of it.
SNAP!
"AGHHHH," Nathan screamed in pure agony. After all this time, he finally relented.
"I knew you had it in you!" Xue Mo exclaimed and praised. To Nathan, Xue Mo appeared utterly deranged.
Xue Mo started breaking Nathan's bones. After his right hip, he broke his left wrist, then moved to his legs and hands. Finally, he finished with his Clavicle. Although breaking the Clavicle was dangerous as it could hit Nathan's neck or heart, Xue Mo's precision avoided that, allowing him to break it successfully.
Whilst doing that, Xue Mo didn't forget to whisper in Nathan's ears. He even changed his face to William's, Nathan's, and even other people that Nathan cared about. Xue Mo was going to make him hate everything.
When he stopped breaking Nathan's Clavicle, Xue Mo admired his handiwork. Nathan's legs and hands only had skin in them, and blood coated them. The dark blue color on all the broken parts was gruesome. His caved in chest looked as if Nathan had aged another ten years.
Xue Mo stopped and kept William's face. He made sure that Nathan concentrated on his face as he fell unconscious and left the room with Lu Yao. Xue Mo did this every day for half a month.
Each day he would come to torture Nathan with the same method, sometimes deviating to others, and once Nathan fell unconscious, he would take out a pill and pop it in his mouth. That pill would make Nathan remember the last person he sees as the one who had been with him for an entire day.
No matter what Xue Mo did, as long as Nathan saw the face Xue Mo wanted him to know before he went unconscious, Nathan would only think of that person. This pill also had a healing ability, which helped Nathan recover somewhat so that Xue Mo could torture him.
'I should thank Hesroth for the detailed report,' Xue Mo thought suddenly. Thanks to Hesroth giving Xue Mo a detailed report with pictures about Nathan's relatives and life, Xue Mo successfully broke Nathan after half a month.
'Now comes the reward,' he thought before reaching out to his Samsara Parasite Ring and taking a pill from it. Xue Mo popped the pill in Nathan's mouth, which dissolved as soon as it entered. Slowly Nathan, who was almost unconscious, jolted. This pill was a healing pill with better effects than the one Xue Mo kept using and didn't have other effects than healing.
"Poor man, who did this to you?" Xue Mo said with a believably saddened face. It was full of pity as if he didn't know. Due to his mind being confused and rattled thinking about how all his family and friends turned against him and tortured him, Nathan forgot Xue Mo.
Xue Mo looked as if he was hurt seeing the state Nathan was in, so he said, "don't worry, you are safe now!" Thanks to his plan being a success Xue Mo fooled Nathan, "no one will dare come here for you."
Nathan looked at the kind face with purplish-white hair; he was still confused, yet Xue Mo felt like a person he could trust for some reason. "Thank you…"
Nathan whispered before falling asleep. After making sure that Nathan was genuinely asleep and not acting, Xue Mo turned to the stunned Lu Yao, who had been silently watching all this time. "This is how you turn someone into your subordinate."
Lu Yao just nodded at him and said, "this is… art at its finest!"