Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1308  Clarify

"We didn't even know it belonged to you creatures. We killed a monster and took what it dropped. That's how the profession of adventuring is."

Following her statement, Iris crouched beside Ria. Her eyes scanned the blonde assassin's trembling form. Clearly, her teammate was greatly traumatized by that horrible spell.

She cursed under her breath with guilt tightening her chest. She had been one step too slow. The drop of bile had reached Ria before she could intervene, and the image of her teammate shriveling up alive still burned in her mind. Her hands flexed uselessly behind her back.

"I… I should have stopped it," Iris muttered quietly, though the words weren't meant for anyone but herself.

The woman knelt next to Ria. She could not touch the girl properly; her hands remained restrained by their bindings. But almost as soon as she did just that, she began calculating, scanning for any possible way to regain control of the impossible situation she had been thrust into.

That was when the undead took one deliberate step forward. Black fire ignited inside her empty sockets, pure and unholy, burning without heat, swallowing the space around her gaze.

"Unless you desire to experience the agony of a million times accelerated decay of your fragile vessel, I suggest you behave, mortal."

The tone was flat, clinical, but the threat was precise and absolute. No one doubted that she would follow through with her promise.

Iris kept her head level, jaw firm. She did not flinch with fright. Yet every muscle in her body tensed. The presence pressed down on her like an evil, mythical beast towering over her she could not yet comprehend, and even though she refused to show fear, she could not hide the instinctive intimidation clawing at her mind.

Another step. The red orb on the staff flared brighter, shedding a sharp light across the cell.

The voice came again, each word deliberate, layered with cold scrutiny.

"Clarify your identities. Clarify your purpose in hiding behind anonymity."

One final step. Her already eerie and unnatural, guttural tone became ever worse. "More importantly, clarify your classes. Clarify your spells."

The undead's empty sockets fixed on Iris as she began quoting the ledger she read through quickly, displaying incredibly good memorization ability, "'She was taking pain and returning it hundredfold, in a wide range.'"

The black fire in her sockets flared, a cold, heatless blaze. "What spell is that? What is the title of your class?"

There was a pause as she allowed the silence to settle over the cell. The questions remained suspended in the air as this time, Iris wasn't keen on answering. Then the creature began scanning the others with the analytical precision of a mind that had spent millennia on research.

Undead were notoriously efficient researchers. Some could remain in their laboratories for thousands of years without leaving a single time, their existence dedicated entirely to observation, measurement, and experimentation. The aura she radiated now carried that same meticulous curiosity, a mad scientist's hunger condensed into a cold and unnatural form.

Her gaze shifted to Lyra, who was slowly stirring, lifting her head, blinking against the dim light. The undead quoted again, "'Her physical display indicates a level forty combatant, but after spell activation, she becomes as tanky as a level sixty-five tank,'" she noted, voice calm, clinical. "What class allows such an occurrence?"

Then her attention swept to Feng. The oriental teen's pulse stuttered under the weight of her gaze. The black flames in the undead's sockets traced over her as if reading currents and probabilities as plainly as ink on paper.

"'One manipulated currents. Momentum, probability, flows of energy, both physical, magical, and environmental. She did not attack in the traditional manner; instead, she inverted forces.'"

Feng's chest tightened as a result of reflexive seizing of heart and breath.

Finally, the undead's attention lingered on Felicity. Longer than the others. Harder. The helmeted girl, smallest of the group, was dissected in silence, each fraction of a second of observation a calculation in itself.

"'The smallest of them could intervene with our spellcasting,'" she finally spoke up, quoting from her notes with even more morbid curiosity and desire for knowledge than before. "'But not conventionally. She did it with her own magic… acting almost as a mana nullifier.'"

She began surveying the four of them.

"Four anomalous individuals. Four unidentifiable classes. Four previously undocumented spells. I desire to know everything about you."

She leaned down toward Felicity, the red orb of her staff pulsing in time with her proximity. The black fire in her sockets burned brighter, licking shadows across the cell, and her voice dropped to a whisper.

"Everything."

The word slithered across the air like poison through veins. Felicity shivered under it with her breath catching in her throat. The presence pressed on all of them with the absolute, merciless weight of a being who had nothing but time and an immense desire for knowledge.

Then, without warning, the undead shifted.

The red orb of her staff dimmed, accompanied by the black fire in her sockets shrinking back into hollow emptiness.

She took a step backward, then another, turning her back to the subjects of her fervent curiosity. "Alas, with the upcoming events, I will be far too occupied. You mortals expire so quickly that instead of preserving you for a later date of studying, I have decided on a new avenue."

Her head tilted slightly, as if considering the most trivial detail in the world. "Furthermore, my history of working on living subjects has taught me one thing: I lack the finesse necessary to ensure a subject survives long enough for me to extract all desired data."

She paused, letting her words settle in the room like the clink of a scalpel against stone.

"Thus," she continued in a lifeless, monotone tone, "I have decided to make use of our new allies. They are known to be the gentlest of beings. I trust they will acquire the data I require before you expire."

Every word was clinical. There was no malice, no pity, no regard for life, only sheer efficiency. She spoke of death and experimentation as if she were discussing the weather.

She took a final step toward the cell's exit and, just before disappearing, decreed, "You are going to Elvardia to be studied at length."

With that, she walked away.