Chapter 25 - Constant Intense Suffering (I)
< Night, 12:27am >
At an underground base in a large cave within a mountainous valley surrounded by forest with numerous towering trees, tall lush green grasses and luxuriant vegetations...
_
The door to a large iron cage suddenly swung open to reveal a beautiful young woman who seemed to be in her mid-thirties, but she was actually around the age of fifty.
"Hey, woman. Get up." The male that opened the door said. While the woman who wore an outfit that was heavily stained with blood, refused to do as the man said.
Then with exceeding anger blazing in her eyes as she venomously glared at the man who stood before the heavy iron door to her cage, she abruptly screamed at him and unleashed a powerful wave that struck into the man and knocked him flying for many feet into the distance.
The others in the distance who saw how a colleague of theirs was abruptly knocked flying by a powerful, violet-colored fiery wave that suddenly blasted out from the woman's figure like an explosion, immediately rushed towards the cage to stop the woman from wreaking more devastation. It was like they feared her!
However, before they would get to her cage, she had already settled down. But her coldly gleaming eyes shone like the sharp edge of an assassin's knife. If looks could kill, the men that surrounded her would have died a hundred times.
"Why are you so rebellious? Do you want to be slayed by us? We really hate rebellious people. Look, the last three rebellious women before you were killed. So, if you don't take your time and behave yourself around us, you would be killed as well." One of the men said and threatened with a scornful look appearing in his face. But behind that scornful expression in his face, was a heavily suppressed feeling of fear that could erupt at any moment, if the woman in the cage gazed harshly at him and unexpectedly made a false move.
"Did I hear rebellious?" A young man that looked thirty but was actually three hundred and sixty-five years old, suddenly appeared before them with a brutal inhumane look manifesting in his face.
Immediately he appeared, everyone that stood before the door to the woman's cage, instantly vanished. They instantly gave a space of twenty feet between them and the man, showing how terrifying the young-looking man was.
Once the young man who wore a grey robe that softly fluttered in the wind appeared before the woman, the woman's skin began to crawl out of exceeding fear and horror.
Then with a cold devilish smile appearing in his face in the next instant, an illusionary giant black bell suddenly appeared and enclosed the woman's figure.
Bong!
The bell which was formed out of a mysterious, unearthly dark magic, suddenly chimed and caused the woman enclosed within it to instantly cough out a large mouthful of blood. It also caused her skin to turn pale-white, invoking the feeling that there was no more blood flowing within her body. But this was because the branching circulatory flow of blood in her body were fully reversed, which resultantly caused great stress to her heart and brain and made her blood vessels to be critically overloaded with numerous slight tears appearing in them.
These physically devastating effects that the woman traumatically experienced, were actually results of a 'single' bong sound that rang out from the bell.
Furthermore, a malicious and incomparably severe, horribly agonizing ache that could seemingly split her head into numerous halves, since it felt like her head was being viciously struck on by an heavy blunt axe that was wielded by a savage barbaric brute, erupted with great strength and intensity within her head with every passing second and caused her severe pain that afflicted her senses and brought about intensely painful sensation of paralysis to her whole body.
But that was not all that she suffered from!
So, other than the constant head-splitting aches and reversed blood flow that she physically experienced inside the large bell that fully encased her figure, she was having near-endless episodes of horrifying nightmarish visions that could snap her mind and cause her soul to break apart.
One of the seemingly endless visions that she saw which could rend her adamant-willed mind apart, was one where she saw herself being eaten alive by really terrifying towering devils.
They viciously broke off her fingers one after the other and threw into their mouths to chew, tore off her limbs with brute force and greedily chomped on them, gouged out one of her eyes with their long blood-dripping claws which they flattened to the ground, ripped off large amount of flesh from her abdomen, thighs and neck which they ravenously feasted on. Absolutely all sort of horrendous and devilishly barbaric things were done to her that caused her mind which interpreted them as real to nearly snap.
And to make matters worse, this particular scene played over and over again, like she were in a time loop where she was voraciously feasted on by berserk and malicious, blood-thirsting and flesh-lusting devils, which then caused her incomparably great pain and lamentable sorrow that she would simply give up her life without a second thought to escape from.
This woman, was Maxmillan's mother, Lenna. She had ended up in the hands of Enslavers who targeted her for her beauty and youthful stature, despite her fifty-some age. They planned to sell her off to a faraway House Master in another land. So, they were trying to tame her to be docile, or if not, she would be killed just like the many others before her.
Bong!
The bell rang again. While the aching pains and visions that she experienced to no end, intensified the more. But this caused her to cough out more mouthfuls of blood and wail at her absolute highest, as the pains that she experienced was overly excessive to bear or endure, even at the slightest.
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!...
The bell rang for a total of twenty times that when it stopped ringing a moment later and instantly vanished to reveal Maxmillan's mother Lenna, she could be seen lying on the ground in a fully unconscious state with pieces of her clothing fully stained with blood that still flowed in thin streams out of her eyes, nostrils, mouth and ears.
"I believe that when you awaken from your near-death slumber, you will behave yourself. Hahaha!" The young man said and walked away with pleasure at his exceeding cruelness, filling the very depth of his maleficent and baneful heart.
***
Maxmillan suddenly awakened from a sweat-covering nightmare that he was having at the rooftop of a high building which he leapt to using the soundless exomechanical boots that he code-named Boots A1 to rest for the night.
"Is my mom greatly suffering wherever she is? Oh no. I hope this isn't true. But what have I done, really?" Maxmillan who had immediately gotten up to his feet with the aura of regret unendingly exuding from his body, began to pace restlessly on the rooftop with heart-wrenching sadness and heavy sombreness weighing down upon his whole being.
"I have to find her, by every means available to me. Even if it means turning the entire city upside down to look for her. I just have to find her" Maxmillan said further with a sky-piercing determination appearing in his heart.
"I will go to the garage first thing in the morning to see if they have produced the driver that conveyed my mom to the city on that day, which I strongly hope they have. Or I will cause heads to scatter apart and fountains of blood to shoot without end to the sky." He said with a terrifying beastly expression surfacing in his face.
"Mom, wherever you are, please be safe. And forgive your son. He didn't know what he was doing when he chose to stay away from you. That is his only regret. My only hope now is that you aren't suffering painfully or agonizingly wherever you are. But still, I am really sorry for the stupid act I blunderingly committed." Maxmillan said with fear in his tone as he really hoped that his mother was alright wherever she was.
***
"Sky Bridges Lord, a young man came to the garage yesterday in search of this person in the picture." An old man said and placed a picture held in his left hand on the table before a young man that looked to be in his thirties and was called Sky Bridges Lord.
"Oh really? What about this person? What's so interesting about him that you have to report this to me?" Sky Bridges Lord asked with his brows furrowed as he looked at the old man before him with a light of deep curiosity in his eyes.
"Sky Bridges Lord, I was told that the young man that came in search of her, was someone that couldn't cast any magical effect. But a weapon which he wielded, was absolutely terrifying that he instantly annihilated a stubborn driver from afar with the weapon that made a really tiny hole in his head. Nobody could even see when the attack was made. It was abrupt and terrifying that everyone of them immediately succumbed to do as he instructed. Or they definitely won't know how they died, or what killed them." The old man said and shook his head in awe.
Even he, an Astra Spellcraft Commander, couldn't help but be amazed at the power of such a weapon that was capable of killing someone from a far distance without producing any warning effect of an incoming attack. Just a sound, and a life had been effortlessly and entirely snuffed out. If he was to be in that person's shoes, there was no guessing or speculating the result, as it was also instant extermination for him. Then he fearfully shivered at the thought of someone pointing such a terrifying weapon at him when his defenses were down.
Then he continued, after seeing that he had caught the full interest of the Sky Bridges Lord, "Other than the horrifying weapon that he used, he was said to be really strong, fast and agile. A single punch would send someone twice his weight flying for many feet. And his movement speed was incomparably high that he invoked fear in all of them. He was simply like a demigod in their midst, and could have easily butchered all of them if he wanted to."
"Although they are common casters of Astra Mystralis, but hundreds of them were effortlessly beaten by this person since he didn't even break a single sweat in his face when dealing with all of them. It was like they were too easy for him and would beat them over and over again with his eyes closed and his hands bound. They were simply like snails around him who was an astonishingly fast cheetah and a ferocious tiger at the same time."
"My Lord, you have to kill this person before he arrives at our lair in search of that woman, as we don't know his other hidden capabilities, and the terrifying weapons that he may wield!"