"You turned back time? How?" Acceber looked terrified just by knowing that Nicoletta was captured, imprisoned, and experimented upon.
Nicoletta closed her eyes and smiled.
- West Region, Winterland Lifeless City -
"Where is my brother? Why did you return without him?"
Nicoletta was taken aback when she saw her comrades return without saying anything. The war they fought was not in favor of their side. The losses they suffered in the war increased day by day. And Stephen Yin was nowhere to be found.
Nicoletta couldn't sleep one night, so she decided to go on patrol. The silence was deafening, as if no one was alive on the ship. The lobby and the halls were also empty, which was odd. As the top killer on the assassin's list, she was unafraid of trouble finding her. She suddenly heard eerie footsteps echoing in one of the corridors, making her hide in the dark and catch the culprit.
Instead of finding the culprit, she saw no one. She did not want to believe in magic or evil, but the sound of footsteps continued to travel even when no person was present in the scene. A strong arm suddenly prevented Nicoletta from screaming as it pulled her from behind.
'Who the hell is this bastard!'
"Stop moving. I don't have much time."
The familiar voice of her best friend, Dale, echoed in her ears.
The smell of blood was very strong, and all came from Dale.
"What did you do? The wounds on your body ruptured! Let's get you some medicine! I know medicine like the back of my hand!"
"Don't waste your time healing me! There are things that you cannot stop from deteriorating, and the wounds I got from those evil cultivators won't be saved. So let me tell you things that you need to know of."
Nicoletta's eyes were blurry with tears. She watched Dale grow up like a good buddy. They were orphans from the same orphanage and had each others' back no matter the circumstances. She was very afraid of losing him at that moment.
"Why did you return late? Anna and the rest of the team returned early. Why are you not with them?"
"You cannot trust them, Letta! They are no longer our team members. In the battle, I accompanied your brother to enter the most dangerous place in this city. Demons gathered in the place like a paradise. Anna and the team were left to guard the exit, but we saw their dead bodies on the monitoring system of the demon's lair. They absorbed their souls and turned their bodies into puppets!"
"How can that be? What about my brother? Where is my brother?"
"His soul was sucked to travel to another plane. Now, hold this scroll and escape this city!"
Dale handed an ancient scroll to Nicoletta, hoping she would hurry out of this hellish place.
"No! I can't leave you!"
Nicoletta held tightly onto Dale's sleeves.
"Don't waste everyone's life, Letta! You must live well after escaping! Hurry! Don't think about me and the team! You need to think about your future!"
"I can't..."
Nicoletta's pleading face tortured Dale's emotions, but he couldn't hold her back. So he pushed her away and told her a lot of bad things.
When he finally saw Nicoletta's back walking to the planned route for escape, he sighed in relief.
'I need to hold these bastards back! Even if I need to sacrifice my life and vanish out of thin air, never to be born in reincarnation again!'
Dale thought Nicoletta did as she was told, but he was wrong. Before he fell into despair, he saw the demons capturing Nicoletta. Nicoletta wanted to outsmart the evil cultivators, but she did not know that even with great power, without a complete soul, it would still be impossible for her to eradicate darkness.
'I thought I'd die right here, but I couldn't. They would never let me die.'
The next moment, Nicoletta found herself naked. Her feet were chained to the wall of a room. The walls were painted white, and the bed was made of metal. There were no visible cameras within, but she could sense that she was monitored.
It released an electric shock when she secretly tried to unlock her chains. The electric current was so strong that she felt like her body would be scorched and burned to death. But it did not end her suffering. The shock was only a trigger warning that could punish her behavior every time she attempted to escape.
Blood and drugs were fed to her every three days. No matter how hungry she went, those monsters would never give her human food. Even when she was raised as an assassin, the kind of torture she experienced within Hydra's cells was too much for her body to bear. It was also the time when she realized that she was not human at all.
There was something in her blood that the demons liked particularly.
'Why can't they kill me completely? I don't want to suffer anymore! I don't want to be their lab rat!'
One day, a female doctor entered her cell to stimulate her emotions.
"Do you want to know what happened to your brother?"
Someone cut off Nicoletta's tongue before she was imprisoned in the lab, so it became impossible for her to communicate with the demons. Her eyes were filled with coldness and murderous intent, but she could only listen to the woman's story.
"Your brother's eyes were very good! They helped the prince see the future and change everyone's fate. It's a pity your brother died early after the prince let his sister devour him. Do you know what's funny? It's that your brother did not want the body and face of the princess, who could be ranked on top of everyone in this galaxy. And yet he chose to commit suicide!"
Nicoletta's tears fell without warning. This wetted the sampling slides of the doctor. A loud slap echoed in the room. Then, blood dripped from Nicoletta's mouth.
"You bitch! You are just like your unworthy brother! If not because of the specialty in your blood that kept the prince addicted, I would have ended your life early!"