Chapter 44: Ten Nights
The first three nights descended upon Liam like the wrath of forgotten gods, an unrelenting storm of torment that shattered not only flesh but the very foundations of his will.
His bones, once forged in the fires of countless battles and tempered by surging mana and unyielding aura, now crumbled beneath the invisible dominion of the Tower of Babel.
What he had once endured with clenched teeth and iron resolve now multiplied into abyssal agony, a thousandfold echo of every wound he had ever suffered. Ribs snapped like brittle branches in a tempest, femurs splintered with sickening, wet cracks that reverberated through his marrow, and vertebrae ground together like millstones pulverizing grain.
Jagged shards of bone tore upward through muscle and sinew, ripping organs and nerves in a symphony of internal ruin. Blood welled in his throat, spilled from nostrils and ears in thick, coppery rivers, staining the pristine white floor of the chamber.
The pain was no distant specter to be banished by willpower. It lived within him, breathing, pulsing, screaming in unison with every labored gasp. It was intimate, devouring, a living curse woven into his very being.
Throughout it all, the enigmatic figure stood unmoving, a simple stone tablet clutched in his grasp. His voice boomed like divine judgment, each word laced with ancient power that shook the soul and made the air tremble:
"Sin of slaughtering innocents. Sin of defying heavenly authority. Sin of concealing your true nature…"
With every proclaimed transgression, another wave of crushing force descended. Bones fractured anew. Flesh tore fresh. The Tower of Babel, that supreme construction talent, deliberately throttled Liam's regeneration, allowing just enough healing for the cycle to renew, prolonging the torment so that every fracture lingered, every tear festered, every suppressed scream built like thunder trapped in his chest.
The figure moved without haste, savoring each moment as a connoisseur might savor aged spirit wine. His expression remained serene, almost benevolent, as if bestowing a sacred trial upon a worthy disciple.
On the fourth night, Liam's spirit finally fractured.
"Please… kill me," he rasped, his voice a broken husk, hoarse and alien to his own ears. Tears of blood and saltwater carved filthy trails down his ravaged face.
"Just end it… I beg you… I cannot endure another breath of this hell…"
The figure's laughter came soft and low, a gentle sound that somehow amplified the torment, twisting the knife of despair deeper into Liam's soul. Slowly, almost reverently, he unwound the scarf that had bound Liam's eyes, revealing the gruesome, scarred sockets, empty voids of ruined flesh, horrifying in their emptiness.
"Perfect," the figure whispered, his gaze cold yet fascinated, like an artisan appraising a masterpiece. "You truly look flawless now."
His long, icy fingers traced the edges of those sockets with clinical precision, then delved inside. The touch, deceptively gentle, ignited white-hot agony that seared through Liam's skull as though molten mana had been poured directly into the hollows of his mind.
"Why do you conceal these scars?" the figure murmured, probing deeper with deliberate slowness, turning suffering into something almost poetic. "They are sacred marks of survival. Proof of a will that refuses to yield. Scars are the scripture of the strong, etched by the heavens themselves."
"Arghhh… stop… I beg you!" Liam convulsed violently upon the floor, his body wracked by uncontrollable spasms. Yet the figure paid no heed. He twisted his fingers within the ruined sockets, exploring the ravaged tissue with detached curiosity, as if sculpting pain into art.
"You should wear them with pride," he continued, his voice and visage as frigid as eternal winter peaks. "Tell me… do they shame you?"
He paused, awaiting a reply that never came. The agony had stolen Liam's voice, his thoughts, his capacity for speech.
The figure merely smiled faintly and resumed his work, treating the silence as the only answer required.
By the tenth night, the chamber had grown denser, the ambient pressure so immense that each breath felt like swallowing shards of shattered crystal. The figure had methodically harvested Liam's fingers one by one, slow, precise plucks like gathering rare spiritual fruits from a forbidden tree.
Liam lay withered, his once-mighty frame reduced to a pale, emaciated shell. Cheeks sunken, lips cracked and bleeding, every inch of him bore the indelible marks of prolonged torment. His powerful physique, honed through battles, now resembled a desiccated husk drained of all vitality.
"Venerable one… spare me but a single drop of water…" Liam whispered, his voice a pitiful thread on the verge of snapping.
The figure offered no reply.
Instead, he spoke conversationally, as though they were old comrades sharing tales beneath the moonlight:
"You see, the Tower of Babel stands apart from every talent known beneath the heavens. The Talent of Infinite Luck bestows endless fortune upon its bearer. The Talent of Eternal Flames grants dominion over infernos and countless variant magics. But mine… there exists only one of its kind. To the ignorant, it might appear the most humble, a mere construction talent, fit only for raising walls and shaping stone."
He let the words settle amid Liam's haze of suffering.
"What began as a humble means to conceal myself from colossal ancient beings evolved into a grand arena for slaying their kind."
Liam's exposed chest rose and fell in feeble heaves, yet his ruined sockets remained locked toward the voice, burning with defiance even in ruin.
"This regeneration… it borders on the insane," the figure muttered, a flicker of genuine irritation crossing his ancient features for the first time. "Even with my talent elevated to the pinnacle grid of Room Five, no matter the depths of torment I unleash, he heals. This is nothing short of an S-grade talent, worthy of the primordial eras."
His gaze drifted to Liam's bared chest, where a purple, pulsing centipede coiled tightly around the heart like a living, parasitic necklace, a heart-eating abomination subdued yet still writhing.
"But it seems already restrained," the figure observed with scholarly detachment. "If I were to extract it… would this one perish?"
He extended a hand, delicately freeing one of the centipede's barbed claws with exquisite slowness.
Liam's body vibrated in violent seizure. "Stop… I beg you… cease this madness!"
The figure withdrew with a gentle, almost fatherly smile. "Merely a jest."
He chuckled lightly and strode toward the chamber wall, phasing through it as though it were mist, leaving Liam once more in solitary torment beneath the blinding white light.
Liam's chest slowly knit itself together, bones realigning with audible, grinding snaps. He stared upward at the featureless ceiling, his empty sockets blazing with deep, smoldering hatred that could incinerate mountains.
"Anki! Anki! Anki!" he roared inwardly, the name a raw, broken scream of fury that echoed only in his mind. No response came.
During these endless nights in the punishment grounds, Liam had gleaned fragments of truth about his captor. The figure's aura was ancient and profound, a presence so primordial it pressed upon the soul like an immovable divine mountain.
From the tales woven into his taunts, he was undoubtedly one of the lords who had thrived in the chaotic Demon Gods era, a being who had strode the world when the heavens and earth were still young, bloody, and forged in primordial mana storms.
"This Tower of Babel… it must possess a flaw," Liam thought, forcing his fractured mind to remain razor-sharp despite the ceaseless pain. He turned his awareness inward, sensing the flow of his mana and aura with meticulous care. "I can feel my body adapting… slowly acclimating to this room's oppressive laws."
Faintly, almost imperceptibly, he sensed the seal of Abyssal Damnation loosening its grip upon his aura points. With each passing day, the binding weakened, like chains rusting in an unseen rain.
"If I endure with patience… if I temper my hatred into a blade sharper than any sword… I will escape this accursed room," Liam vowed silently, clinging to that fragile ember of hope as a drowning swordsman might clutch a splintered plank amid raging seas.
He waited.
Not the pulverizing of his bones. Not the probing fingers in his empty sockets. Not the casual cruelty nor the mocking laughter. Every second of pain, every layer of humiliation, every drop of spilled blood was seared into his memory like runes carved by divine fire, fueling a quiet, volcanic resolve that grew fiercer with each cycle of torment.