Chapter 85: The Price of Third Place I

The room was so dark that Toren could not see his own body.

Two heavy chains ran from opposite walls and locked around his wrists, keeping him suspended above the stone floor. His feet hung uselessly beneath him, barely moving through the cold air whenever his body trembled.

There was little left of the boy who had entered the entrance examination with a spear in his hand and the confidence of a Vespera heir.

His body had been reduced to something painfully thin. His ribs showed beneath skin stretched too tightly over bone, his abdomen had hollowed inward, and his arms had lost nearly all the muscle that had once allowed him to tear through packs of Corrupt creatures without slowing. Bruises covered what remained of his flesh, layered over older injuries and half-healed wounds, while dried blood darkened his chest, neck, and the ragged remains of the clothes hanging from his body.

The cold had become part of him.

His teeth chattered despite the way he clenched them, and every breath left his lungs in a weak cloud that disappeared into the darkness.

He didn’t know how long he’d been there.

Hours.

Days.

Perhaps longer.

Time had stopped meaning anything after the first stretch of torture. There were only three things he could still feel clearly: his heartbeat, his breathing, and the moments when the door opened.

The metal door at the far end of the room scraped against the floor.

Toren’s head snapped upward, sending pain through his neck. He coughed violently, his stomach convulsing before he vomited a dark mouthful of blood onto the floor beneath him. After dragging in another breath, he lifted his eyes toward what he assumed was the doorway.

A figure entered.

Toren couldn’t even make out the outline.

The voice came from the darkness.

"I’m surprised you’re still holding up."

Toren’s lips curled.

His voice came out cracked and barely recognizable, but the anger inside it remained.

"Y-you think... you can get away with this?"

A cough interrupted him. He swallowed against the blood gathering in his throat and forced the rest out anyway.

"My f-father will find you."

His breathing shook.

"When he does, h-he’ll kill every one of you. You’ll c-crawl beneath me begging for mercy."

The figure gave a quiet chuckle.

Toren hated that sound. It had become the only thing he recognized about the person who had kept him alive long enough to suffer.

His mind drifted back to the examination.

He had been waiting in the room the Academy had assigned him, certain that the result would confirm what he already knew. Lucian was talented, but the Hero had never seemed like an insurmountable obstacle to him. Eve was a commoner, and Toren had never considered her someone worth taking seriously.

As for the creature that had appeared in the center of the island, he’d felt the danger the moment it emerged. Whatever it was, approaching it recklessly would have been suicide, so he’d kept his distance and killed the Corrupt creatures that wandered toward him.

He had fought well. He knew he had.

He had expected a high ranking, expected recognition, expected his name to appear where it belonged.

Then the ranking appeared.

Caelus Vespera — Rank One.

The room had seemed to tilt beneath him.

His eyes moved down the list.

Eve — Rank Two.

Then his own name.

Toren Valerius Vespera — Rank Three.

For several seconds, he could not understand what he was reading.

A crippled bastard and a commoner.

They had both placed above him.

It was like watching the sun rise from the wrong side of the sky and being told that he had somehow failed to notice.

Toren had stared at the ranking until his vision blurred.

Then someone had knocked on his door.

He had opened it.

The next thing he remembered was darkness.

He had no memory of the journey between the Academy and this room, only waking in chains before the torture began.

He had stopped counting the times his bones had been broken, how many times he had blacked out, or how much blood he had lost.

His lips trembled.

He bit down until they split, and blood slipped from the wound onto his chin.

I’ll lose my name.

The thought had terrified him at first.

House Vespera’s name had been everything.

Everything that represented him.

But after enough time in this room, the thought had changed.

Take it.

If surrendering the Vespera name meant being dragged out of this place, he would give it willingly. He would give anything.

Even now, some part of him still believed his father would come.

He’ll find me.

The figure stepped closer.

Toren’s body tightened instinctively as the stranger raised one hand and reached him with ease, despite the fact that Toren hung several feet above the floor. The fingers closed around his head.

Then mana entered him.

Pain exploded through his body.

Toren’s back arched violently as mana forced its way through his circuit like a blade being dragged through living flesh. Pathways tore inside him, channels rupturing one after another as the structure of his mana circulation shattered.

His mouth opened.

A scream tore free.

The figure did not stop.

The entire circuit in Toren’s body collapsed, leaving agony without a single point of origin. His core strained to compensate as the mana pathways throughout his body broke apart, every nerve seemingly burning at once.

Then, before his body could recover, the stranger rebuilt the damage.

The circuit reformed.

Toren thought it was over.

Then it shattered again.

His scream cracked.

This torture technique was forbidden throughout the Draconis Empire. Deliberately destroying and reconstructing an awakened’s mana circuit could permanently cripple their ability to circulate mana, deform their core, destroy their senses, or kill them outright.

The figure treated that prohibition like it meant nothing.

Again, his circuit broke, and again it was rebuilt before being destroyed once more.

Toren screamed until his throat felt flayed raw, but the sound became weaker each time until eventually he could no longer produce one. His mouth still opened, yet only strangled breaths emerged as blood ran from between his teeth.

The figure continued.

Toren’s mind began to unravel.

He pictured his father and the expression on Valerius’s face when he found the people responsible. He imagined them kneeling, their bodies broken beneath his father’s feet, and himself walking out of this room while they begged for mercy.

Just wait.

The thought repeated itself until it became the only thing holding his mind together.

Just wait.

He’ll find me.

He has to.

He didn’t care about Rank One anymore. He didn’t care about House Vespera’s expectations, and he no longer cared about proving himself. He wanted his father.

That was all.

Then the door opened.

Toren’s eyes widened.

No one had interrupted the torture before.

A second figure stood beyond the doorway. The newcomer approached the torturer and whispered something into his ear, though Toren couldn’t make out the words through the haze in his mind.

The torturer listened, then nodded. He said something too quiet for Toren to hear before leaving with the newcomer.

The metal door shut behind them.

Silence returned.

Toren hung there, barely conscious. No mana burned through his circuit, no hand closed around his head, and no voice mocked him.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, nothing hurt.

Relief washed through him, and his body sagged against the chains.

They found me.

His breathing became uneven.

They found me.

He almost laughed.

The Vesperas knew everything. They had people everywhere. There was no way his disappearance had gone unnoticed, and maybe his father had finally come. Perhaps the family had already found this place, and that was why the torture had stopped.

Toren closed his eyes.

Just wait.

The door opened again.