Erika lay rigid, eyes squeezed shut, playing his part as a corpse. But Loren's screams—shrill, inhuman wails—were ice picks chipping at his eardrums and his heart. The raw, violent agony and despair in those sounds tore brutally against his memory of the elegant, condescending noble sipping wine in the 'Whispering Gate'.
He couldn't reconcile it. Wolfgang, stern and cold-eyed but seemingly bound by rules; Kaelen, all mocking grins with occasional, unexpected kindness; the silent, cool Lun Qin; even the eccentric, research-obsessed Morrison… How could they now administer such torture with such detached calm?
Had they seen so much darkness, their hands so stained, that they could slip into this brutality with practiced ease? Or was this their true face, hidden beneath clerical robes and scholarly pretense? What kind of things festered in the Sanctum's shadow?
He dared not follow that thought further. A chill shot up his spine, spreading to his limbs. He felt he'd glimpsed a monstrous sliver of the immense darkness lurking beneath the world's surface.
He didn't know how long it lasted. The sustained, butcher-shop screaming gradually weakened, devolving into ragged, wheezing gasps, like a broken bellows, before finally ceasing altogether.
Was it… over? Loren, he…
A powerful, compulsive curiosity overrode the command to 'play dead'. He cracked his eyelids open the merest slit, cautiously looking toward the source of the vanished sounds.
The moonlight was still bone-white, coldly illuminating the desolate ground.
But the scene before him was utterly different from the brutal imagery the sounds had conjured.
Loren was indeed collapsed on the ground, eyes closed, face paper-white, seemingly in shock from extreme pain and terror. The sleeve of his arm was slashed to ribbons, stained with considerable blood, looking messy and pathetic. But the amount of blood was far from lethal 'bloodletting'; it looked more like… the cumulative effect of many shallow cuts.
What made Erika's pupils contract further was that the four cloaked figures hadn't stopped.
Wolfgang still knelt beside Loren, the small knife in his hand moving with precise, steady motions, adding another cut to the already 'scarred' arm. The other three stood silently watching, counting under their breaths.
"…Twenty-five.""…Twenty-six.""…Twenty-seven."
On the twenty-seventh cut, Wolfgang finally stilled. He tossed the knife casually to Kaelen and stood up.
Twenty-seven.
The number struck Erika's mind like lightning, freezing him solid. It was the number of steps he had run from Wolfgang's contemplation cell to his own room—the number burned into the beginning of his training, symbolizing his limit and his struggle. Why… why twenty-seven cuts?
This was no coincidence.
A deeper chill than any he'd felt during the 'interrogation' washed over him. Everything, from the frantic run after his humiliating expulsion, to being taken to the bar, to this absurd and cruel kidnapping… all of it seemed connected by an invisible thread, the other end held firmly in Wolfgang's hand.
This 'bloodletting' of Loren wasn't about revenge or extracting information. It was, like his own test, another meticulously designed 'lesson' or 'screening' with an unknown purpose.
Erika snapped his eyes shut, not daring to look further. His heart hammered in his chest, not from fear of death, but from the horror of glimpsing the edge of a vast design, and a deeper confusion about his own fate.
Did Loren's 'value' or 'flaw' need to be measured and 'corrected' like this?And what of his own? What was his 'value' or 'flaw'? What were Wolfgang and the others truly searching for? Or… what were they 'forging'?
Wolfgang stood and gestured dismissively to Kaelen and Lun Qin. Kaelen shrugged but moved forward with Lun Qin, kneeling beside the unconscious Loren. Faint, barely perceptible energy glowed around their hands—not advanced healing, just the most basic mending, stopping the bleeding and preventing infection on the twenty-seven superficial wounds, nothing more. Morrison stood to the side, scribbling furiously in a small notebook by the moonlight, muttering to himself.
Once finished, Wolfgang walked with his steady tread to where Erika still lay, his mind in turmoil. He looked down at the boy, his hood shadowing most of his expression, but his voice had returned to its usual low, gravelly tiredness, the earlier raspy disguise gone.
"Get up. The show's over," Wolfgang said, his tone flat, as if commenting on the weather.
Erika sat up stiffly, his gaze drifting irresistibly toward Loren, whose wounds were being minimally tended. He opened his mouth, too many questions crowding his tongue, finally settling on a disbelieving whisper: "Why… why do this to him? It's… it's too…"
"It's nothing," Wolfgang cut him off, his voice carrying a strange, almost indifferent calm. "It truly doesn't matter."
He seemed to read the storm in Erika's mind. Pulling a flat silver flask from inside his cloak, he unscrewed the cap and took a long swallow. The sharp scent of strong liquor instantly tainted the cold night air.
"Secrets? Intelligence?" Wolfgang snorted derisively, waving the flask-hand dismissively. "They signify nothing. Get this straight, boy." His gaze sharpened on Erika, bearing a near-brutal honesty. "If this were an internal matter, you wouldn't have lived long enough to be questioned. We have methods far more direct… and final… than this 'inefficient' bleeding and talking."
He took another swig, his eyes looking past Erika into the heavy night, as if staring down the countless factions lurking in the Sanctum's shadow. "And other powers?" He let out a short, harsh laugh. "Even if they learned something, most of it is useless against sheer power and the rules of the game. That is one of our operating principles."
He snapped the cap back on the flask with a sharp 'click,' stowing it away. Then he turned, his gaze settling heavily on Erika's face, filled with a weight that seemed to carry countless pasts.
"What matters isn't any of that," he said slowly, each word like a stone dropped into a deep pool, creating ripples. "You'll understand… in time."
Erika's thoughts, however, were still tangled around Loren. He couldn't help but press, "But… Loren… his injuries…"
Wolfgang followed his gaze to the unconscious boy, a complex emotion flashing across his face—concern, resignation, and a kind of ruthless resolve.
"For his sake later," Wolfgang's voice dropped, filled with an unshakeable certainty, "we had to." He even let out a soft, almost soundless laugh, but it held no warmth, only a cold mockery. "This isn't a 'privilege'… just anyone gets to experience."
He looked up at the sparse, indifferent stars, his face showing a rare mix of weariness and a sorrow that seemed to see through everything. The moonlight etched his hard profile and lit the unfathomable complexity in his eyes for a fleeting moment.
After a long silence, he brought his gaze back to Erika. A heavy, gloved hand came down on Erika's shoulder, its weight and warmth palpable even through the leather.
"None of it matters," he said, looking directly into Erika's eyes, enunciating each word as if to brand it onto his soul. "None of it."
The words felt like a creed, or a curse. They negated all the night's terror, negated Loren's suffering, and seemed to negate the countless questions rising in Erika's heart.
What did matter? Erika stared blankly into Wolfgang's deep eyes, finding only a still, impenetrable darkness. Everything that had happened tonight was like a bizarre, grotesque nightmare, and Wolfgang's final words provided a chilling, unresolved ellipsis.
Without another word, Wolfgang bent down, hefting the unconscious Loren over his shoulder as easily as a sack of grain. The boy hung limply, a stark contrast to his usual fastidious self.
He adjusted his grip, then turned his hooded gaze, deep and unreadable in the night, back to Erika.
"Remember this, boy," Wolfgang's voice was low and clear, a firm warning. "You stumbled somewhere you shouldn't have tonight. The 'Whispering Gate'… Hah. You two stand out far more than you think."
The words struck Erika like a cold alarm bell. So, their supposedly secret outing had been observed all along.
With that, Wolfgang turned away, Loren slung over his shoulder, ready to melt into the darkness. But before his first step, he paused. Without looking back, he spoke again, each word hammered into Erika's mind with immense force, quiet yet carrying the weight of mountains:
"We are but demons… fighting demons. You need only remember that. Do not… lose your way."
The words hung in the air. Then, without another glance, he strode into the depths of the wilderness, Kaelen, Lun Qin, and Morrison falling in silently behind him. The four figures were soon swallowed by the consuming dark.
Left alone, Erika stood solitary under the cold moonlight, the night wind pulling at his thin clothes.
Demons fighting demons…
He repeated the phrase, tasting its cruelty, its futility, and its resolve. Did the Sanctum's radiance hide a shadow that fought violence with violence? Or was it that, in these forsaken borderlands, to protect anything, you first had to embrace the darkness, even… become part of it?
Wolfgang's final warning—Do not lose your way—hung like a faint, guttering lamp in an endless night. A guide, and a threat.
Erika lifted his head, looking toward the Sanctum, its outline a slumbering beast in the distant dark. He knew he was on a path with no return. A road paved with thorns, steeped in blood and lies. Did it lead to salvation, or a deeper fall?
He clenched his fists, feeling the faint but tenacious strength within him, and the indelible number branded in his mind—the number of his limit, and his beginning.
Twenty-seven.
The night was deep, the road ahead unknown. And he had to find his place in this war of demon against demon, and remember… not to lose his way.