Time seemed to freeze in its tracks.
The anticipated horror—the slit throat, the spray of blood, the swift flight of life—never came. The cold blade tip simply rested against his skin, radiating the promise of death, yet advancing not a millimeter further.
Erika gasped, his heart a frantic, pounding drum against his ribs, threatening to shatter them. Bewildered, disoriented by this reprieve, he stared up at the cloaked figure holding the knife. The darkness beneath the hood remained impenetrable.
Then, the impossible happened.
The boot lifted completely from his head. The grip on his wrists vanished. Another cloaked figure stepped forward and, with an efficient motion, sliced through the coarse ropes binding him. The sudden release left his limbs leaden and prickling with numbness, nearly buckling beneath him.
His hands, now free, trembled as he raised them, turning his wrists to the pale moonlight.
No wound.
No flowing blood.
Not even a red mark. The skin was unbroken, bearing only the deep, angry welts left by the ropes.
The clear sensation of being cut, the sticky feeling of blood… all of it, an illusion? A trick of the mind? Or…
His thoughts were a tangled wreck, utterly incapable of processing the scene.
It was then that the lead cloaked figure spoke again, his rasping voice brooking no argument, issuing a new command.
"Go. Drag the other one over. Bind him."
Erika followed the gesture, squinting in the dim light to make out a figure slumped against a withered tree some distance away, similarly bound, a sack over its head. Loren?
He stared warily at the four figures, his body rigid with residual fear and utter confusion. What was this? A moment from death to… this? A new, more twisted game?
"Haven't you figured it out yet, boy?"
Seeing Erika's hesitation—the shell-shocked suspicion—the lead figure seemed to lose patience. With a derisive snort, he reached up and yanked back the heavy hood.
Moonlight fell unimpeded, illuminating sharp cheekbones, a thin, pressed mouth, a strong nose, and those eyes—deep-set and hawklike, even in the night, now holding a glint of something unreadable, complex.
Wolfgang.
Erika's breath hitched. His eyes widened, his jaw slack, but no sound emerged. The shock was a physical blow, short-circuiting every thought in his head.
Instructor… Wolfgang?!
Then… the other three…
As if reading his mind, the other three figures chuckled almost in unison. The sound was no longer the forced, menacing snarl from before, but relaxed, tinged with their own brand of amusement. They pushed back their hoods.
The short Cleric, Kaelen, his face split by a familiar, impish grin, winked.
The tall priestess, Lun Qin, her expression as cool as ever, though the sharpness in her eyes had softened into something… perhaps approval.
And the last, revealing old Morrison's face, flushed with excitement, his eyes gleaming behind his spectacles, staring at Erika as if he were a perfect set of data.
Four of them.
Wolfgang. Kaelen. Lun Qin. Morrison.
The "kidnappers." The "interrogators." It had been them all along.
Erika stood frozen, a statue struck by lightning. All the terror, the despair, the struggle, the resolve… it all collapsed into a farce of absurd proportions, and he was the fool who'd played his part to the end, blind to the truth.
Erika's mind was still reeling, a chaotic whirlpool of shock. Wolfgang's command cut through the daze—"Go. Drag the other one over. Bind him."
He looked down at the rough rope, now shoved back into his hands. He looked at the slumped figure under the tree. He looked at Wolfgang, who had drawn his hood up once more, becoming the enigmatic specter again. A torrent of questions rose, but they were stifled by ingrained habit, by the subconscious trust forged in the crucible of that "test." He pressed his lips together, gripped the rope, and walked on unsteady legs toward the withered tree.
Up close, he could hear Loren mumbling incoherently through the sack, his body twitching fitfully, trapped in some manufactured nightmare. Seeing the noble boy who had so recently flaunted his taste and superiority in the "Whispering Gate" now reduced to this… Erika felt a complicated twist in his gut.
Without hesitation, he followed orders, efficiently binding Loren's hands and feet—making the knots tighter, more secure, than those that had held him. Then, grabbing the boy by the shoulders, he hauled the slightly taller form upright, dragging him back toward the group with considerable effort.
As he did, he could hear the four "cloaked figures" had relaxed entirely, their low conversation a world away from their earlier malevolence.
"…Told you he had it in him." Wolfgang's voice, still low, but carrying a thread of something… satisfaction?
"Fine, fine, you win. I'll settle the dinner bill later," Kaelen retorted, his tone laced with familiar mockery.
"Don't celebrate yet. My 'promising student' still needs to perform," Morrison cut in, his voice buzzing with anticipation. "Heh. The comparative data will be fascinating!"
Then, Wolfgang turned to Erika, who had just deposited Loren on the ground. Using the raspy cloaked figure voice, he commanded, "Erika. Well done. Now, lie down behind us. Play dead when the time comes."
By now, Erika was certain this was another test, its purpose unclear, but at least not lethal. He nodded silently, moving to a patch of flat ground a few paces behind the four figures. He lay down, closed his eyes, and regulated his breathing, trying to mimic a corpse, but his ears were acutely tuned to the scene unfolding before him.
He heard one of the figures—the gait and movement suggested Kaelen—approach the newly returned, still-unconscious Loren.
A faint ripple of energy, subtle but perceptible to Erika's sharpened senses. Kaelen must have placed a gloved hand on Loren's forehead.
A few seconds passed.
"Ugh… nngh…"
A pained groan escaped Loren. His body began to thrash violently. He was waking up.
Erika cracked his eyelids open the merest slit. He saw Loren jerk his hooded head, trying to break free, terrified, muffled sounds escaping his throat. Clearly, he was experiencing the same brutal transition from crafted nightmare to waking horror.
The real show, it seemed, was just beginning. And Erika, this time, was a silent observer hidden in the shadows.
The scene unfolding before him was nothing like Erika had anticipated.
He had expected, given Loren de Witt's usual composure—that cool, almost arrogant certainty of control—that even in such dire straits, the noble would at least maintain a facade of calm. Perhaps attempt to negotiate, or threaten them with his family's influence.
But no.
The sack was ripped from Loren's head by Wolfgang, the moonlight falling once more on features that were handsome but now contorted with sheer panic. The return of sight brought no comfort; it was a bucket of ice water, shocking him from his groggy nightmare into the full, stark horror of four cloaked specters and this desolate emptiness.
A wet, ragged gasp escaped him, the sound of a fish drowning in air. His usually immaculate pale gold hair was plastered to his damp forehead and cheeks. Those ice-blue eyes, once so full of cool appraisal, now held nothing but pure, undiluted terror.
A tremor started in his limbs, a fine shiver that rapidly escalated into violent, uncontrollable shaking, as if every muscle was revolting. His bound hands and feet jerked against the ropes.
"I… I don't know you!" he shrieked, the words distorted by fear, sharp and cracking, stripped of all aristocratic poise. The bravado was a flimsy shield, a desperate attempt to build a last defense against the consuming dread.
His eyes darted between the silent, menacing figures. His teeth chattered. "I… I have nothing you want! Money? Or… information? The de Witts will find you! They will!"
His words began to lose coherence, threats and pleas tangling into incoherence.
The cloaked figures didn't respond immediately. Only that low, malicious chuckle rose again, grating in the silent expanse. It was a lash against Loren's already frayed nerves.
One of the figures slowly raised a hand. Not pointing at Loren, but past him, toward the back, toward Erika's still form lying feigningly dead on the ground.
A simple gesture, heavy with unspoken, chilling implication.
See.This is the price of defiance.Just like him.
Loren's gaze followed the pointing finger. He saw Erika lying "lifeless" in the moonlight. The connection was instantaneous, the image of his own impending "execution" flooding his mind. The fear crested, becoming a tidal wave that shattered him completely.
"No… No! Don't!" he wailed, his body thrashing wildly, trying to curl away from the accusing finger. "I'll talk! Ask me anything! I'll tell you! Just don't kill me! Please, I'm begging you!"
Every carefully constructed layer of taste, class, and pride was torn away by raw survival instinct, leaving behind the naked, cowering core of his fear. The trembling voice, the broken expression—it was the total collapse of his defenses.
Erika lay on the ground, eyes shut, but Loren's desperate, terrified cries rang clearly in his ears. His feelings were a tangled knot—a complex pity for Loren's breakdown, and a deepening curiosity about the true purpose of Wolfgang's cruel test.
What were they trying to "prove" with Loren? What were they looking for, comparing his own earlier performance to this… this unraveling?
Loren tried to muster a last shred of defiance. His voice still trembled uncontrollably, but he forced a cold edge into it. "In that case… I… I see no need to cooperate either." It was a pathetic attempt at a stoic front, a bid to reclaim some sliver of control or salvage his crumbling dignity.
"Heh heh heh…" The raspy-voiced cloaked figure (Wolfgang) let out a low chuckle, the darkness under his hood seeming to deepen. "You've a quick mind, little lordling. But…" He paused, his tone dripping with predatory amusement, "We don't care for those who are too clever. Nor for those too stupid. Which do you suppose you are?"
The vague, dangerous criteria made Loren's stomach clench. He scrambled to decipher the meaning. A warning against cleverness? Or a taunt for his lack of cooperation? Thinking furiously, he decided to show some "value," but not seem too pliable.
He moderated his tone slightly, though suspicion and distance remained. "I don't know you. And… I won't know you." He thought it a masterstroke—non-committal, neutral, revealing nothing.
The response was a chorus of exaggerated, derisive laughter from the four figures! They laughed as if he'd told the world's funniest joke, the sound brutally shredding the last of Loren's fragile hope.
He stared, bewildered. To him, the statement had been impeccable.
As the laughter subsided, the sharp-voiced cloaked figure (Kaelen) stepped forward, a small, wicked blade glinting in his hand. "Let's be clear," he said, almost cheerfully, "You're far 'smarter' than the one lying back there. You know how to weigh a situation, calculate the odds."
He shifted the knife, its point coming to rest lightly against Loren's bound arm. The cold touch made Loren flinch. "But we've no patience for puzzles."
"From now on," Kaelen's voice was a venomous hiss, clear to Loren and the listening Erika alike, "every ten seconds, we'll add a new… 'mark' to your collection." A spine-chilling little laugh. "Ha… Let's see how many ten-second intervals that clever mind can endure."
Before Loren could even process the threat, the blade bit down.
"Ah—!" A sharp cry of pain. He felt the clean slice of the cut, the immediate warmth of blood welling up. The wound was shallow, but the terror of being slowly, methodically drained was far worse than the physical sting.
The first ten-second count began, silent and brutal in Loren's head.
"Time's up." Another cloaked figure (Morrison) announced, his tone buzzing with clinical excitement.
A second cut, close to the first. Pain layered upon pain.
"No! Stop! What do you want to know?! I'll talk! I'll tell you!" Loren finally broke, his voice cracking with sobs. His earlier "wisdom" and "principles" were laughable now against the reality of escalating pain.
The cloaked figure ignored him. They were silent, precise instruments of the ten-second rule.
A third cut.A fourth.
Loren's pleas dissolved into weeping, tears and mucus streaking his face, all elegance gone. "Please! Have mercy! I'll tell you everything! De Witt secrets! The Sanctum's— Ah!"
A fifth cut.
His begging twisted into venomous curses, hurling the foulest words he knew at them, damning them to eternal suffering.
A sixth cut.
The curses faded into weak, breathless denunciations, accusations of their barbarism, their lack of honor.
Yet, through the pleas, the tears, the curses, and the accusations, the precise, cold "bleeding" continued. The stinging pain on his arm, the wetness, the relentless ten-second count—it systematically stripped him, layer by layer, of all reason, all pretense, all pride, until only the raw, primal fear of pain and the shuddering horror of death remained.
He writhed and spasmed in his bonds, a fish gasping on a riverbank, his voice reduced to a hoarse, hopeless whimper. Erika, lying behind them, didn't need to see to understand the brutal, dual torture of mind and body being inflicted. It was a world apart from his own test, which had been more psychological warfare.
Through this extreme method, Wolfgang and the others were ruthlessly exposing the fragile, shockingly brittle core hidden beneath Loren's polished exterior.