This torture chamber exists deep within the king's castle. Making him suffer by burning Invictus' wife and daughter was not enough for the king. He wants to punish the miserable Invictus even more by slowly killing him in the process of starvation and mental stress.
When the quite long chanting was done, Damian and Corazon firmly held Invictus, even though the man lost all the strength to struggle and fight back.
Seeing his wife and daughter burned to ashes right before his eyes took away his will to carry on with his life. In his mind, he was already a dead man, waiting for everything to just come to an end.
"This will only sting for a bit, Invictus."
Human magic cores are located inside their right chest, acting as their second heart, so once the magic heart is destroyed, the worst possible outcome of this is death. It is a common occurrence for those that lost their magic cores, however, there were cases where others became crippled until it has become a practice in human society serving as severe punishment.
Vinyl's magic-sharpened hand pierced through Invictus' flesh to his ribcage, which led to having his magic core split in half, and the hand went
through his back.
Invictus felt a surge of excruciating pain, his whole body was trembling, and an excessive amount of blood began pouring out of his ears, nose, mouth, and even his eyes. He was losing so much blood and was in extreme agony, yelling his pain as the cleric among the group consistently heals him to prevent severe blood loss.
The reason why Vinyl coated his hand with magic particles was to prevent Invictus' death. Because once the magic core is destroyed, all of that person's mana inside their body will slowly disintegrate.
Therefore, prevention of the person's death will be attained once mana is transferred to the body to maintain the decomposition of cells that require mana.
However, it does not restore one's magic core or let the person use magic after it's done. Mana will only remain inside to sustain the magic-dependent cells.
"Uwah!"
Forcefully, Vinyl pulled out his hand, and the crippling process was done. Invictus lost consciousness afterward, and they threw him in the carriage whilst the four members of the group remained to clean and destroy the house given to Invictus as a gift.
"We will see you guys in the inn we are staying at."
"Yeah..."
The carriage parted, and a huge fire started engulfing the flower fields, the garden, and the whole house after being set aflame.
Being a few meters away from the burning house, they could feel the heat wave coming their way. They set up a barrier resistant to fire and stood there as they watched the whole place turn to ashes.
Through the dark alleys of the capital trotted the horse as fast as it could. Its hooves stamp loudly on the bricked path, resonating with each other as the people inside the carriage silently look after the unconscious Invictus.
"The king was right. None of this was Invictus' fault. The one he should
blame was his own bloodline and for encountering Uria."
The only female, Cleoantra, comes from the unique race of human ants.
With the characteristics of the tiny hardworking species, Cleoantra,
possessed the abilities of an ant with her exoskeleton and sheer strength.
However, she clearly does not have that many limbs, for she is normal in that specific feature. The only appearance she adopted from her race was the antennae protruding on her head like two cute long ahoges twitching whenever she sensed changes in emotions.
Not so long after that, they reached the king's castle. They were dropped off at the huge metal doors guarded by knights and in the watchtower.
The guards were told beforehand to let Cleoantra and the others inside the castle, so they easily entered, and headed straight to where The Oubliette was located underneath the castle.
Upon reaching the trap door leading down to the dungeon where Invictus will be thrown and will be forced to spend his life as he gradually dies, Cleoantra and the other three catch a whiff of the sickening smell coming from the depths of The Oubliette.
The smell was horrendously nasty. A mixture of dead carcasses and human waste resides at the bottom of the said torture chamber.
"Look at him," Cleoantra pointed out the tears coming out of Invictus' shut eyes, "he must be dreaming about his family."
They did not feel any remorse towards Uria and Austria. They have seen worse than that, and witnessing countless cruelties in the past made them immune to feeling any kind of pity or empathy towards people.
"For some reason, I feel like what we did will surely haunt us in the future."
"Huh? Don't be stupid!"
"Stop arguing, you two. Let's just finish this already and meet with the others."
Cleoantra opened the trap door leading to the place where Invictus will spend his days in agony and starvation whilst slowly perishing away.
As they were preparing to throw him down on The Oubliette, Invictus regained consciousness.
"Hmm?"
"Good thing you woke up, Invictus," said Cleoantra with her tweaking the man's hair, raising his face up whilst lying on his stomach. "It is just about the time we say our farewells to each other. We had a great time fighting alongside you. Really, we enjoyed that. You were just foolish enough to think that the moments we shared together brought us closer to each other, which was not true. It was all in your mind. Even if we are on the same page, a part of you, your bloodline, separates us from each other. That's why we couldn't be friends. Sorry, not sorry."
And so, Invictus was left inside The Oubliette to rot away and be forgotten forever... However, he will rise from the deepest pit of hell and take everything back from the people who trampled and ruined all that he achieved.
~