Descending the winding staircase with an aloof expression, Harita and Bian alighted the tower of the Council of Manas.
"I didn't think you'd have such strong opinions." Harita muttered as soon as they left the tower, his expression still aloof.
Bian shrugged, seemingly aloof herself. "Well, somebody had to. You were too one-sided, though you were right.
"Did you see the look on Barn's face? It must have been so awkward for him."
He grimaced.
"Still, something has to be done about that beast. People are suffering." He set his own two cents about the matter.
With a grin, Bian moved closer, hushing her voice as she said:
"Oh, really now? And here I thought that you're just making your own rescue team for that kid. Silly me." Her tone shifted from wondering to teasing.
Harita glared at her, then sighed. Recently, Bian had become more brazen, her tongue sharpening.
And as his vowed partner, he was bound to deal with the full brunt of her seemingly endless cutting words.
'Is she a Bard now? Damn, maybe I should…'
At that moment, a sudden terrible, reverberating noise emanated from the skies, as if to tear it apart.
*Shrieeeeeeeek*
"What was that?!" Somebody nearby exclaimed.
Meanwhile, everybody else just looked at him incredulously. Not a single soul had not known what happened in the past two days.
Looking up, Harita took in the sight of the Legend of the Dead Sea; the Lord of Storms.
Even here, far away from the rural parts of the godforsaken city where the beast was being contained with help of a couple of barrier mages other defense-oriented Adorned.
It was just a casually chaotic day for the residents of New Mireton.
Still, though, the unrest was palpable. The people couldn't stop working, whilst most have decided to evacuate to various shelters, like the one the Myth he had met and freed under a binding Vow completely eviscerated.
…Come to think of it, his promise should be close to fruition. Just a day, but no more than two.
"Just a little longer…" Harita unconsciously muttered, his words seemingly flowing like water.
Bian glanced at him from the side, her face carrying a look of doubt and suspicion. "Do you really think it'll fulfill its promise? That… thing, I mean. The weird darkness creature."
The two continued walking down the street, gradually moving to the shadows as they neared their destination.
"It's not a matter of promises or belief." Harita said after a long while of ruminating over the answer to her question. "It's a matter of consequence.
"I've already fulfilled my end of the Vow; there are virtually no more risks left for me. But the case isn't the same for 'it.' It's still bounded until it fulfills its Vow.
"And even if it did break the Vow, then only Hel awaits them. The punishment for a breaking a Vow is not cheap."
As a Paladin who has mastered the principles of an Oath, Harita was particularly experienced in this topic.
"…That so? Fine, then. Have it your way."
'...'
"Why do you sound offended?"
"No reason."
As the world revolved, and the residents of the city of New Mireton kept on living its life, the two bound souls moved. Separate.
◇◆◇◆◇
He felt… weak.
"I'm awake."
Lieren's words echoed in the dark cell he unfortunately found himself in. Lucidity eluded him, making his eyelids droop with illusory weight. With no mana to spare, all he had was his fading willpower to stave off the falling feeling.
Umbra, the girl in the neighboring cell beside him, said hurriedly: "About damn time.
"Listen, the guards here can't hear our conversations. We're too far back from the end of the corridor where they're positioned. It's why I even took the risk of talking to you in the first place.
"Our conversations up to this point has mostly been undiscovered. At most, they've maybe heard snippets, but nothing too conclusive. Besides, they're quite confident with themselves. To them, escape shouldn't even be something that has crossed our minds."
Lieren listened intently, fighting the subtle urge to fall unconscious with his remaining clarity. The fatigue of immolating torture had waned him down considerably, burning through his well of energy each time.
And with his mana nearing total exhaustion, he couldn't Augment his body to be just a little more resilient for even a second.
Also, with the direction Umbra's dialogue was going, it was would seem that he would need as much mana he could. Trouble was brewing and he was bound to be a part of it.
She continued, her speech fast and concise:
"I need your strength. You still have mana, no? I—I can tell. If you didn't have something to busy yourself with, then I doubt you would have stayed as sane as you do now.
"You're different. Unlike others, you don't break so easily. If you and I band together, then we might just have a chance to get out of this hellhole. Just follow my lead.
"We can do this."
Umbra's voice was uncharacteristically… bright. It was like she was a ball of radiant light, infecting hope and courage to all those that heard her soothing voice. She was being very mellow.
And Lieren didn't even try to resist it. In his exhausted state, where even a second of lucidity could be considered a marvel of a feat, her words were like an angel's.
Radiant. Shining. Hopeful.
Hope, in particular. He was quite vulnerable to it. Just the smallest amount of it was quite the dangerous toxin for him.
Without another second of deliberation, he said hoarsely:
"…I'll do it. I'll escape with you. It's just… my shackles, they're enchanted. Every time I try shape my mana, it drains it away. I've only been able to keep a little bit of my mana by keeping it dormant." He said, not keeping anything hidden other than his mysterious Resistance.
Even now, the gnawing feeling that he had barely scratched the surface of what his mysterious ability could do was eating away at his psyche. He was holding himself back.
"That's… enchanted shackles, huh. I understand. I'll try to do something about them. For now, you should just rest and conserve you strength. Wait for my signal."
"Got it—"
The moment he said that, his consciousness had already fade away.
…In the cell neighboring Lieren's, a shadowed figure sat in the center. The floor glowed with dark engravings—runes that spiraled with the figure as the source.
Violet light flowed out of the runes, lighting the shadowed figure's face. It was a young woman.
She had raven-black hair and pitch black sunken eyes, with a pair of dark circles accompanying them. She sat with her legs tucked beneath, as if prostrating.
That couldn't be further from the truth.
Her hands placed atop her thighs, and the deathly-pale skin she wore, "Umbra" looked like a perfectly-preserved corpse. If not for the occasional twitch of her eyelids and fingers, one would have thought her to be a solid stone statue.
"Sweet dreams, Lieren. You're gonna need it."
Her insidious voice resounded like a dark whisper.
The shadows around her writhed, seemingly agitated, and they suddenly burst forth, stretching out into the cell neighboring her.
◇◆◇◆◇
"…Hey. Hey, wake up! Brad is almost here…"
Lieren awakened with a start, his eyes widening in shock as he suddenly stood up.
'…Huh?'
That's when it hit him.
"My shackles…"
They were gone. And then, belatedly, he noticed another thing.
"Tch!" Lieren clicked his tongue in annoyance.
No, not annoyance—pain. Lots of it. It was if he had been shredded from the inside by a vile monstrosity.
Looking down at his wrists, he glared at the ravaged skin and bleeding flesh of his own two arms. It was as if it had been shredded by tempestuous winds.
"Ow!" He exclaimed again, hissing and gritting his teeth. The injury was still fresh, it seemed.
Closing his eyes, he took deep breaths and deliberately trained himself not to instinctively expend his mana to Augment his arms to better his resilience. He needed that mana for something else.
Glaring, he glanced sideways at the neighboring cell beside him and shouted with a tinge of malevolence:
"What the hell?!"
Since his voice was still hoarse from screaming, his voice was extremely rough and dry. He sounded like a wraith with a vendetta, a specter of the past seeking revenge.
"Hey, what else did you want me to do? You wouldn't wake up no matter what I did!"
Lieren frowned.
'…What?'
"So you cut me up? That's why?! Also, how did you even do this? Couldn't you have been more gentle?!" He sounded panicked, erratic, and confused at the same time.
Emotions mixed, Lieren took deep breaths to calm himself down. They worked at first… until Umbra suddenly exclaimed:
"I couldn't help it! At first, I was going to warn you, but your lazy ass didn't even bother to wake up. So, I went ahead with the procedure. Even then, you still wouldn't wake up—wait, Brad is almost here. Shut up."
At her words, Lieren suddenly tensed up, and he moved closer to the bars of his cell, holding it and inching closer to take a peek when…
*Zap!*
"Ow!" A bolt of electricity ran down his entire body, making him reflexively stand back. His hands burned with an almost palpable heat, and couple with his maimed wrists, his arms felt like two hot steel rods had been inserted into them.
Lieren, barely able to keep his mind from shattering, let out a silent scream, tears flowing down his eyes. But he didn't use magic, at least not yet.
At the same time, grabbing onto a fading trace of intuition gnawing the back of his mind, he released some of his Resistance. With the mana-draining shackles removed, he didn't need to keep up it up as much.
As the milky-white aura thinned, Lieren gradually felt much more connected to the world. That thought eased his mind somewhat.
But it didn't distract him from the pain.
He began siphoning mana from the atmosphere once again.
*Tap**Tap*
Heavy footsteps resounded from down the corridor. It was his torturer.
Again, the towering man entered, carrying some wicked implement in his hand. It had a dim orange glow and was scorching—that much he was certain about.
Assuming a defensive stance—a pale imitation of master Feng's solid battle art—Lieren squared up and put up his fists. Though, fragmented, unpolished, and incomplete, his battle style was still that of a master's unique combat style.
Growling, Lieren exclaimed with fury:
"Come at me, you—"
But at the next moment, he suddenly found his body stiffening, his arms, legs, and appendages petrified by some unknown force.
If not for the fact that Lieren could still shift his gaze, then he might have thought of himself as dead.
His eyes upturned, he took in the menacing visage of the towering figure of his captor looming like a giant, ready to swallow his entire being whole.
'But… my… Resistance…' Lieren barely thought.
Even his mind was a mess of jumbled information. Incoherent and unfamiliar thoughts erupted from the depths of his psyche, devouring itself like some kind of gluttonous monster.
The dim glow of the immolating metal rod caught his attention when it started glowing much brighter than usual, but his torturer had been too close. He could not take a good look at it.
And so, he closed his eyes, wishing for it all to be over.
Reality always disappoints.
'…Ah…'
Pain…
He felt it before the immolating rod even touched his skin, trained and familiarized by the constant torture of his skin, flesh, and nerves.
Pain…
Lieren could not scream even if he wanted to. The binding force restricting his movements also preventing him from moving even a muscle.
Pain…
He could not cry, either. That part of him had been restricted, too.
Pain…
Thinking, as well. Imagining anything other than immolating pain enveloping his entire was extremely difficult; a near impossibility.
Pain…
If not for… something keeping him semi-lucid, then he would have passed away long ago from the immolating pain, his soul giving up on its vessel.
Pain…
Still, this harsh, terrible, traumatic sensation was nothing new. Unfortunately. He had gone through this before, from right after he arriver at this accursed place.
Pain… was nothing new to him.
What felt like an eternity passed before Lieren found that he can move again, and with it came the all-too-familiar immolating pain permeating his entire existence.
His senses, too, have also been restricted, but not as much as his body and mind had.
Perhaps that's why he didn't notice a different figure standing outside his cell. Adorned with a top hat with a yellow lace around it, the ace of hearts tucked in nicely in between, and a lime coat, the round man looked like an illustrious noble man… except for the wear and tear he parade around; then yeah, the man looked pretty darn noble.
'Who is that?'
Lieren did not recognize the wannabe noble, at first. But he did notice the chaotic aura the man exuded, as well as his ramshackle attire. He immediately formed a hyphotesis:
The Mad Hatter had come to say hi.