Sweat trickled down the malnourished face of the boy sitting in the dark corner of the torture chamber as he endured four hours of his skin being burned by tiny flames which had been used with such control that the flames only singed his superficial facia- muscles found directly under the skin.
His arms hung loosely to the sides as he didn't have enough strength to even open up his eyes, with his left eye stabbed he's right eyes sight was blurry due to being isolated from light his whole life.
There were parts of his body that had been chewed off by the hungry rats, or simply just cut off. The boy's hair was filled with dried blood and was unkept, so it grew to an unmanageable length. His elbow, shoulder, and knee joints were also torn off and stitched back together again. Scars ran across his body like tree roots.
Devoid of life, the boy held desperately onto the strings of life, waiting for a chance to be free of his suffering.
He stared at the oversized back of the haggard woman sitting across the cold room filled with many tools that were used to torment him.
A dimly lit torch stood on the wall of the underground chamber. The light of the torch reflected off the moss-filled cobblestone wall where a pale hand could be seen writing in an old yellow notepad on an already decaying metal table filled with many apparatus used for causing extreme pain.
Knives with jagged edges, needles, barbed chains, broken glass pieces, whips, and many other tools used for torture were all sitting on the table, covered in dried blood, showcasing that these tools have been used before.
"Test to see how much pain a living being can take. Proceeding with subject number 68. Years endured, six-teen. Pain endurance is abnormally high. The only subject still remaining."
The hoarse voice of a woman in her late sixties could be heard in the silent room, where the only other sounds present were those of the rats scurrying around.
The womens' back was crooked, but she still reached an astounding height of two meters. The aura she released was that of a B+ rank mage, so to the normal human boy laying in the corner of the room, it was quite suffocating.
"A mere unawakened boy has survived my trials that even an F rank tank couldn't handle, what outstanding willpower. Too bad it'll go to waste as you'll never see the light of day in your life," muttered the woman, sneering as she wrote.
"Endured the cutting of limbs, limbs still work after being stitched back on, vocal cords were torn from screaming, skin peeled off and muscles burned, rats eating on his body..." She continued for the next two hours documenting what she had done to the body so far.
"Okay! Next experiment."
The woman got up and walked to the bunsen burner on the table by the door, "it seems to be complete."
Taking the boiling liquid and pouring it into another vial, the woman threw in the eye of what looked like a lizard-type beast.
Walking over to the boy and peering over his small broken body, finding some beauty in her work she said to the partially deaf boy, "if you survive this then I doubt there will be any poison that will affect your body's system."
He winced.
Please, no more thought the boy.
A soft feminine voice responded to his plea, "endure it."
Oblivious to the internal conversation of the boy, the woman lifted his head up by his chin and forced the liquid down his throat.
As much as the boy resisted, in his state, he couldn't contend with the strength of a B+ rank awakened even if she was only a mage.
The liquid flowed down his throat, burning his throat as it went down. It felt like millions of tiny needles piercing his throat over and over, but the worst was yet to come.
When the liquid met his digestive system and fell into his stomach, it ate away at all the components making up his stomach. The boy wriggled and thrashed about on the floor from the immense pain he received from the poison.
Sweat covered his face and after two minutes of thrashing about, he began to cough out pitch-black blood.
The boy couldn't take note of his surroundings as his already dull vision darkened and he fell on his back. The boy lay still as his body was too weak to fight back anymore.
'Please just make it stop.'
The smell of the blood nauseated the lady, but she ran to grab her notebook, "subject number six, also referred to as Oslo, finally met his end when fed a full flask of four-eyed white basilisk blood, mixed with multiple components of the Mother Snake a rare breed of A-rank snake species.
PLEASE MAKE IT STOP! I CAN'T TAKE THE PAIN ANYMORE!
The boy cried out internally, begging, begging for a chance. A sliver of hope for a chance to escape this pain-ridden life.
The female voice responded once more, they're here, but the boy fell unconscious.
BANG!
The thick metallic door guarding the room was blown open and sent flying towards the far end of the room where Oslo resided, narrowly missing him by a hair's breadth.
A woman followed by five male soldiers wearing the same green and black colored armor ran in and surrounded the woman writing in her notebook.
The woman in armor pressed her long sword against the other woman's neck and shouted, "for the crime of buying, selling, torturing, and killing unwakened and awakened beings for forty-nine years, you Mrs.Woodridge are placed under arrest by the order of The Kingdom of Thane's safety bureau. Any attack done to me or my men at this point in time will give us the golden opportunity to kill you on the spot, and we would love a reason to get rid of the unsightly monster standing in front of us faster."
Smiling, Mrs.Woodridge remarked, "after all these years, after all the research I've put into researching and creating the ultimate being, this is how I'm thanked?"
Energy surrounded Mrs.Woodridge as she muttered something under her breath.
SHEEEEK
The female soldier gave her no time and decapitated Mrs.Woodridge, at a speed that created an afterimage of her previous self.
"That would've been so much more difficult if she was a warrior type, we just got lucky since we're no match for an actual B+ rank mage."
She paused.
"Let's not dwell on it, for now, our mission is complete. Let's destroy this wretched place and make our way back to the capital." shouted the woman, displaying her leadership role in the group.
"Ma'am, what are we to do with this?"
The group turned in unison and looked at the figure laying on the floor in the corner of the room.
"If the boy is alive, give him the best healing potion we currently possess, and we will bring him back with us. If he is dead, leave him there." commanded the captain, turning around and exiting the room.
One of the soldiers walked over to the boy and checked his pulse, "the boy's alive!" he exclaimed.
The soldiers stared at the boy, while the soldier who checked Oslo's pulse forced the content of the healing potion down his throat.
At first, the boy gurgled and the liquid wouldn't go down, but after a few tries the soldier helping the boy succeeded.
"Larry, you bring him up," instructed the soldier that just helped the boy.
A soldier who had no other weapons on him, but a staff, walked over to the boy and muttered something under his breath. The boy slowly rose from the ground as if he were being pulled by strings. "Let's go back now boys," he yelled.
The soldier who left last turned around and shouted.
"Fire from the abyss, feed thyself with the feast I have laid out for you."
A small speck of fire formed in the middle of the room and slowly grew, eating at everything that was once known to a certain boy as his home, the only place he ever knew.
...
On the carriage ride back to the capital.
"The bruises on his body..."
"Yeah, I doubt that I would be able to survive that amount of pain, let alone endure it."
"Silence men, have I not taught you not to speak of people behind their backs? And if he truly survives this ordeal and can be brought back to perfect health," the women shuddered, "I'd love to see him grow into a fine warrior in a few years' time."
The men grimaced, knowing that the words of their leader should not be taken lightly.
"But by the way he looks right now I doubt he'd recover fully, so let's stop talking about him and focus on the road, we still have a few hours before we reach the capital and the beasts in this area are pretty strong."
...
Darkness.
The same darkness that engulfed Oslo for the past sixteen years.
The same darkness that Oslo took comfort in every time he fell asleep because what lay in the darkness was none other than the woman who stayed by him and comforted him during his days of extreme torture and pain.
A boy sat on the floor that represented the endless void of darkness, his hair slicked back and his thin body sitting upright he feigned a smiled at the angelic woman in front of him and exclaimed.
"How'd you speak to me in the real world?"
In a monotonous tone, she replied, "I used some of my powers that allowed me to stay with you for all this time, but it seems my time has finally come to, leave."
The boy got up, and raising his hands in protest he shouted, "LEAVE? After all this time you're going to leave me..."
"I can't stay here any longer, I was tasked to look after you, and now that my task has been fulfilled I'm forced to leave you."
Out of curiosity, Oslo answered, "tasked by whom?"
"That I cannot say, but since you haven't awakened yet, I'll leave for you a gift."
The boy creased his eyebrows and responded in a sullen tone, "a gift?"
'I'll strengthen your innate ability by a tiny bit, and only because you have fallen behind your peers in this world.'
'Innate ability? What are you even talking about miss?'
'This world we are currently in, was created by your innate ability- Ego, and this is the sole reason why you were able to survive all these years, but you'll figure this out later when you awaken and gain your status screen. I can't stay any longer, but I promise you, this place is going to get livelier soon."
The woman then gave the boy a hug, "Oslo, your true journey begins now."
"B-but I'm not ready, you've only taught me how to read and write, and what if there are more people that want to do what she had done to me? What if I get killed without you here? What if I can't make these so-called, friends?"
"That paranoia, it reminds me of your mother."
"My mother?"
"Get stronger and you'll find out more, and also Oslo...don't die."
The angelic woman slowly floated away into the darkness of the abyss.