Chapter 617: A Week Of Suffering
Chapter 617: A Week Of Suffering
The days that followed blurred together into a nightmare of pain and recovery, torture and respite.
And each day, Marcus arrived with a new theme.
A new method of inflicting suffering.
—
On the second day, he focused on Mika’s hands. He drove thin metal nails under each fingernail, one by one, tapping them in with a small hammer.
Then he attached wires to the nails and ran electricity through them—not enough to kill, just enough to make every nerve ending scream.
“ARGHHHHHHH!”
Mika’s fingers twitched and spasmed. His flesh sizzled. The smell of burning meat filled the library.
Charlotte vomited. She couldn’t help it. The smell, the sight, the sound of Mika’s screams—it was too much.
But she wiped her mouth and returned to his side, holding his other hand, whispering that she was there.
—
On the third day, the restraints themselves became instruments of torture.
Spikes grew from the metal, slowly extending into Mika’s flesh, burrowing deeper and deeper until they were embedded in his bones.
Marcus sat in a chair across from him, sipping tea, watching with clinical interest as the spikes grew millimeter by millimeter.
—
On the fourth day, Marcus brought a simple hammer and a diagram of the human skeleton.
He used the diagram as a reference, shattering Mika’s bones one by one—starting with the fingers, moving to the wrists, the arms, the shoulders, the ribs, the spine, the pelvis, the legs, the feet. Each break was precise. Deliberate. Maximally painful.
When every bone in Mika’s body had been shattered, Marcus unstrapped him from the chair.
“Get up.” He said.
Mika, whose body was literally incapable of supporting its own weight, collapsed to the floor in a heap of shattered bones and torn flesh. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t even twitch.
“I said get up!” Marcus kicked him. The impact sent fresh waves of agony through Mika’s broken body. “Come on, boy! You’re my special toy! You can do better than this!”
Charlotte screamed at Marcus to stop. She called him every horrible name she could think of.
She threw herself at him again and again, even though she knew it was useless.
But Marcus ignored her completely. His focus was entirely on Mika—on the broken boy lying at his feet, who was glaring up at him with those defiant eyes.
“Remarkable.” Marcus breathed. “Absolutely remarkable.”
He snapped his fingers, and Mika’s body reformed.
“Let’s try that again, shall we?”
—
On the fifth day, Marcus alternated between extremes of temperature.
One moment, Mika was trapped in an oven-like box, his skin blistering and charring as the heat cooked him alive.
The next, he was plunged into arctic cold, his body freezing solid, his blood turning to ice in his veins.
Back and forth, back and forth, until Mika’s mind was spinning, until he couldn’t tell which was worse—the burning or the freezing.
—
On the sixth day, Marcus brought out the rats.
They were ordinary rats—or they would have been, if not for the enhancements Marcus had given them.
They were hungry. Ravenously, desperately hungry. And they had been trained to eat human flesh.
Marcus released them onto Mika’s body and watched with delight as they burrowed into his skin, chewing through muscle and sinew, gnawing at his organs.
“AHH! AHHHH! AHHHHH!”
Two of the rats disappeared into his abdominal cavity and began to feast on his liver. Mika could feel every bite. Every tooth. Every scrap of flesh being torn away.
He screamed.
Charlotte held his hand and sobbed.
And Marcus laughed.
—
On the seventh day, Marcus covered Mika’s entire body with pins. Hundreds of them. Thousands.
He drove them into Mika’s skin one by one—into his arms, his legs, his chest, his back, his face, his tongue, his eyes.
By the time he was finished, Mika looked like a human pincushion, silver needles protruding from every inch of exposed flesh.
Then Marcus heated an iron rod until it glowed bright red and pressed it against the pins.
The heat traveled down the metal, cooking Mika from the inside out. His flesh sizzled. His blood boiled. The smell was indescribable.
And still, through it all, Mika did not break.
He screamed.
He cried.
But his eyes—those defiant, unbroken eyes never lost their fire.
Even when they were pinned open. Even when the pins were driven through them.
Even when the world should have been nothing but darkness and agony.
He kept looking at Marcus with pure, undiluted hatred.
And Marcus, for all his power, for all his confidence, sometimes felt a chill run down his spine.
‘If this boy ever gets free.’ He thought more than once. ‘He’ll tear me apart.’
But then he reminded himself that Mika would never get free. This was his domain. His playground. He was God here.
And so the torture continued.
—
Charlotte never left Mika’s side. She held his hand through every session, whispered encouragement through every scream, and devoted every evening to lifting his spirits.
She told terrible jokes—”What do you call a fish wearing a crown? A king mackerel!”—that were so painfully unfunny that Mika couldn’t help but laugh.
She performed interpretive dances to the orchestral records.
She built increasingly elaborate forts out of furniture and declared them independent nations with their own flags and national anthems.
And slowly, miraculously, it worked.
The darkness in Mika’s eyes would recede. The tension in his shoulders would ease. He would smile, however tired and for a few precious hours, they would forget where they were.
But Marcus always came back.
—
On the eighth day, after an especially brutal session involving Mika’s bones being pulled out of his body while still attached to his flesh, Marcus finally stepped back with a satisfied sigh.
“Magnificent.” He said, wiping blood from his gloves. “Absolutely magnificent! Right days, and you’re still not broken!
“I’ve never had a toy last this long!”
He clapped his hands together.
“But I’m afraid I have to cut our session short today. I have a charity event to attend—I’m the guest of honor, you see. The public expects to see their hero, and I wouldn’t want to disappoint them.”
He walked toward the door, then paused and looked back at Charlotte.
She was holding Mika’s hand, whispering soft reassurances to him even though he was barely conscious.
“I might even see your mother there, Lady Charlotte.” Marcus said. “I’ll be sure to say something nice. Something comforting. She must be so worried about her precious daughter.”
Charlotte didn’t look up. She just kept her eyes on Mika.
Marcus chuckled. “No witty retort? No desperate plea? I must say, I’m a little disappointed. You were much more entertaining when you were begging.”
Still nothing. Charlotte’s focus was entirely on Mika’s pale face and his tired eyes.
“Fine.” Marcus said with a shrug. “Until tomorrow, my precious toys. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be very special indeed.”
Even as the heavy door slammed shut behind him, Charlotte’s eyes remained locked on Mika.
Every single day, he told her he was fine.
He would manage a faint smirk and whisper that it only hurt a little bit now, that he was even growing resistant to the agony, building up a tolerance to the nightmare.
But Charlotte knew the truth.
Every single day, a piece of his soul was dying.
It was written in his eyes—the vibrant, fierce light within them dimming, fading, turning into hollow embers.
Yet, despite the unimaginable horror of having his body repeatedly severed and reconstructed, he held on.
He even traded quiet, teasing jokes with her to keep her spirits up.
But she couldn’t ignore the terrifying reality: this realm was slowly eroding him to nothing.
She had tried. God, she had tried to awaken the true potential of her blessing.
She meditated until her mind felt like it was going to crack. She concentrated on the threads of consciousness that bound this realm together, reaching for them with desperate fingers.
She poured every ounce of willpower she possessed into breaking through the walls of Marcus’s domain.
But nothing worked.
SSS-Class blessings didn’t work that way. The whole point was that they never stopped growing.
From the moment of awakening until the moment of death, a SSS-Class blessing continued to develop, continued to expand, continued to reach new heights that should have been impossible.
There was no cap. No ceiling. No point at which the blessing simply said “this is as far as you go.”
But that very quality was also what made it useless to her now.
She couldn’t force it to become powerful in an instant.
She couldn’t will it to skip ahead years of development and manifest the abilities she would one day possess.
Her blessing was a seed that would grow into a mighty tree, but right now it was still just a sapling.
And no amount of desperate wishing could make it grow faster.
All she could do was support Mika. Hold his hand. Whisper words. Pretend to believe his lies about being fine.
—
‘Maybe I should get him something to eat.’ She thought dully.
Marcus, in one of his more bizarre gestures, had actually provided food for her.
“It’s like watching a good show.” He had explained with that horrible smile. “And what’s a show without popcorn?”
The thought of eating anything made her stomach turn, but Mika needed to keep his strength up. Even if his body was just a construct in this realm, the act of eating seemed to help him somehow.
She was about to pull away and retrieve some of the snacks when Mika’s voice stopped her.
“Charlotte…I think we’re going to get out of here very soon.”
Charlotte snapped her head toward him, her breath catching in her throat.
Mika was looking down at her, his gaze weak and weary, but a small, genuine smile hung on his pale lips.
“Really, Mika?” She whispered, her voice trembling with a fragile hope she was terrified to feel. “Are you…are you telling the truth?”
“Really, Charlotte.” Mika replied softly, his voice barely above a breath. “I have a really good feeling. We’re going to get out of here very soon.”
“How do you know?!” She asked eagerly, leaning closer to his side. “Do you feel something changing? Did you find a loophole in his domain?”
In her heart, Mika was capable of anything. If anyone could find a flaw in an SS-Class blessing, it was him.
“Don’t worry about the details right now.” Mika weakly reached out, his hand gently patting hers.
“Just trust me when I say…we’ll be out of here very soon.”
She searched his dark eyes, looking for any trace of a lie, any attempt to comfort her with false promises.
But there was only absolute, unwavering certainty.
Realising this, the knot of dread in her chest loosened slightly, replaced by a surge of frantic excitement.
But before she could ask another question, however, Mika’s eyelids fluttered shut.
He drifted into a deep sleep.
Even though his soul didn’t experience physical fatigue in the traditional sense, his mind was utterly drained—a lamp running dangerously low on oil after enduring endless cycles of brutal torture.
Charlotte didn’t dare wake him.
She gently squeezed his hand, staying pressed against his side to offer whatever warmth her spirit could give, while feeling so excited at the thought of escaping from this treacherous place.
—
After a while, her own exhaustion began to catch up with her.
The emotional toll of watching Mika be tortured day after day was wearing her down as surely as the physical torture was wearing him down.
She slumped against his chair, her head resting on his arm. She was just about to drift off when—
Creak.
The sound of the door opening.
Charlotte’s head snapped up. Her heart, which had been calm moments ago, began to pound against her ribs.
‘No. It can’t be! He just left. He never comes back this quickly!’
Marcus always gave them breaks. Twelve hours at minimum, sometimes more.
He had a life in the real world—responsibilities, appearances, investigations to fake. He couldn’t spend every moment torturing Mika, no matter how much he wanted to.
So why was he back already?!
‘Mika can’t handle another round.’ She thought desperately. ‘Not so soon. He needs rest. He needs—’
The door swung open.
And Charlotte’s mind went completely blank.
Not out of fear, but out of confusion since the person standing in the doorway was not Marcus.
It was someone else.
And the moment she got a good look at who it was Charlotte’s eyes went wide. Her mouth fell open.
For a long, disbelieving moment, she couldn’t process what she was seeing.
She thought she must be hallucinating.
She thought her exhausted mind was playing tricks on her.
The woman standing in the doorway was tall and elegant, with curly blonde hair that cascaded down to her waist and striking blue eyes that seemed to hold the warmth of a summer sky.
She wore a flowing green gown that complemented her figure perfectly.
And her face, that kind, gentle face was one that Charlotte knew almost as well as her own mother’s.
“Miss…Amanda?”
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