Supreme Monarch

Chapter 190: Targets

“Scary huh? I guess you’re right. We might’ve died Huh. Hehe Wasn’t that exciting though?~”

“No, it wasn’t. I’ll rather not almost die every 5 seconds. You’re too much of an excitement junky.”

“—Umm me? Why would you say such a mean thing to your lovely elder sis~” Saying that Citrus lightly pounced on Izabel’s almost non-existent chest as she tried to snuggle up to her.

“Eww get off me you’re sweaty.”

The two men behind the girls dragged the white-haired demon as they trailed steadily behind the two girls who were busy arguing or maybe amid a fight between siblings. Well, whatever it was they were doing, they knew it would go on until they got to the special holding chambers they were currently headed.

As they exited the white room they had appeared in, the room that had a large magic circle engraved on the floor that seemed like it was a room designated for teleportation purposes. They saw a unit of about 10 Mechanical golems wielding magic spears, shields, and swords patrolling the hallways march past them.

They also sparingly saw demons and demoness clad in white lab coats who would bow to them as they casually walked by until they arrived at their destination. The moment they entered the room, a seemingly middle-aged demon, clad in the same lab coat to had seen the others in and guarded by a specialized mechanical golem with an oddly ominous aura came to greet them.

“Hello, welcome to our humble facility lady Citrus and Lady Izabel. I have already been informed of your arrival by Lord Malik and have made the necessary preparations. Please follow me.”

The ordinary-looking middle age demon that wore a pair of spectacles, bowed slightly as he lead them deeper into the large room where several advanced pieces of equipment were kept alongside several other demons that worked in stations as they either read information of a holographic screen or worked on the empty pods in the room.

The middle-aged demon then proceeded to ask the men that dragged Snow along to place her inside a metal pod where restraints were then placed on her as a colorless liquid thicker than water immediately began to flow inside the pod. With that, Citrus could now dispel the Kinetic ability she had used on the restrained Snow as it constantly drained her mana and she did.

The moment her ability was canceled, the eyes of the white-haired lady that had completely been submerged inside the glass pod moved, and her cold gaze rested on them.

Being aware of what had been happening so far, she immediately tried to freeze the pod but something must’ve been neutralizing her abilities as it didn’t work and as she was submerged in that strange liquid for a while, her eyes became heavier as it seemed the pod was forcing her into a state similar to sleep even though her senses were now boasted to the max as she was meant to feel everything so they could get accurate results to their tests.

One of the lab assistants then moved behind the pod and a metal tube was inserted into the back. Several large needles then pierced into her skin from almost all directions disabling most of her resistances which sent immerse pain directly to her brain in order to observe how her body would react while slowly gathering data on her until her mind became weak enough for easy memory extraction, among other things.

The middle-aged demon, Leriol Grover Brimstone, smiled weirdly as he adjusted his glasses and walked over to the other side of the room as he tinkered with the series of machines there and a series of holographic images appeared in front of him. He did not require the glasses for medical purposes but they seemed to be magic items.

He observed the information displayed there for more than 30 minutes before he finally spoke:

“Impressive, very impressive…”

He proceeded to go through the information once more and after being satisfied he spoke to the girls who had been moving around the lab out of boredom as non of the lab assistants had the guts to refute them.

“Her abilities are off the charts, also there appears to be a split in her Neural network for some reason. This must be what Lord Malik had mentioned to me earlier. Interesting… There seem to be two personalities within her. While that is not in itself unusual, the personalities seem to have certain access to parts of her core, giving them or limiting the access to certain abilities. How truly fascinating.”

He continued talking as he walked over to the pod to observe.

“However, it’s truly strange.”

“What is?”

“We’re currently bombarding her with intense pain and various other stimuli to get the other part of her brain to react but it would seem this one is doing its best to hang on tight. Almost as though it doesn’t want the other party to come out. Might be a protective mechanism.”

“Wooow… so you’re saying this white-haired one doesn’t want to blonde one to feel pain. Now I really want one of those.~”

“What is wrong with you sis?”

“Hehe~”

“You’re correct though… Still, the will of this one is too strong. It seems to be the one with access to the innate ability but we need the main one to come out else we might not get anywhere.”

“Oh, can you force the other one out then?”

“Not sure… We might have to increase the pain receptors to the maximum in order to exhaust her hold but that may damage the specimen.”

“Will that affect her memories?”

“That should not be the case. While it may make getting the innate ability harder, the memories or actually stored in the souls and not the brain so it should be fine and would even be easier to extract it after breaking her will.”

“Well do that then. The possibility of actually getting the innate ability is quite low, to begin with, so it might be fun to take the risk as long as the memories wouldn’t be damaged. Although an Analysis of the ability would be nice, it would be dangerous if we let her use them. Hehe~”

“Hey, why do you have to take everything too far. Isn’t it better if we just induce the other personality by forcing her into an illusion?”

“Huh~ but where’s the fun in that?~”

“I’m not a devil, I don’t see any pleasure in tormenting someone that no longer has any means of defending themselves.”

“Oh, my dear Lil sis is still so adorable.”

Saying that Citrus tried to snuggle up to Izabel again but was immediately pushed away. That seem to go on for a while as Leriol focused on the white-haired lady as the pod did its job and gathered various biological analyses on her. 

The suggestion from Izabel was a decent one but it wasn’t something he believed would be possible as it would be hard for them to place a demoness of this caliber in an illusion. While her resistances were being suppressed at the moment, her will was truly something to admire as evident by the ice-cold gaze that had glared at him.

Her expression had remained the same throughout the process that caused enough pain to drive other demons of her level insane and yet she did not scream. This tickled the curious bone within him and thus excited him to no end.

He wanted more than anything right now, to test the limits of this absolute Beaty that could be called the Queen of ice. He couldn’t say that he hadn’t been moved by her Beaty but his twisted personality would only allow him to gain satisfaction through his research on whatever partner he chooses.

Although there were other methods he could employ aside for illusions or pain, he had chosen to go with his original idea instead. He wanted to witness it. How long would it take before she breaks, before an expression of pain was plastered across the perfect beauty’s face?

He was, in the simplest term, a genius. Born in one of the Great Five families as a demon noble, his future should’ve been secured. Yet, he was born with the lowest possible magic potential a demon noble could get, Tier 2. What an outrage. His life had been full of arrogant idiots with muscles for brains looking down on him. 

Still, he had survived the odds and ascended through the ranks on his intellect along, and now he was running one of the most valuable research facilities of the Brimstone family. Attaining a status superior to his own combat prowess, he had surpassed those that had originally mocked him.

To see such superior individuals break in front of him was something that gave him the greatest joy. He had been in charge of conducting experiments on those arrogant assholes and had delighted in watching them scream in agony as he tried to harvest their innate abilities even though every single one of those experiments had ended in failure, he had still falsely reported that he was close and thus required more subjects to experiment on.

Naturally, that meant the chances of actually acquiring an innate ability with technology was less than 2%. Still, that 2% had been a result of his hard work albeit perverse. That was probably the reason why the demon lord had allowed his recklessness so far as all other facilities had failed to achieve even a 1% success rate. 

However, most of his experimental targets had only been aged demons at the end of their lives and the occasional demihumans as aside from demon nobility, innate abilities were insanely rare for the rest of the world and it was near impossible to find that many of them that were disposable.

Of course, there had been those failures he had set up so he could torture them till his satisfaction but aside from that, his choice of toys had been very limited. And now, a world-class beauty that even surpassed the beauty of the Lady Izabel and Lady Citrus who had been the prettiest girls he had seen in his lifetime had appeared before him. 

A beauty that resembled an unattainable ice gem that was at the highest peak of the tallest mountain was now within his reach. Why wouldn’t he get excited? He increased the pain receptors in Snow’s pod as he watched in excitement as she struggled to hold back her expression from twisting in pain.

He felt a sensation in his pants as the moment he absolutely loved the most was about to come.

However—

Contrary to his expectations, her expression had twisted but not to one of pain. Not the usual agonizing expression he craved. Rather, one of absolute fury. The mood in the lab changed in an instant as her eyes opened and glared coldly at him in a blue glow.

“Impossible, you shouldn’t be able to use any abilities inside that pod. What the hell is this!?”

His hands trembled as his instincts screamed danger at him. He felt a pressure the likes of what he had never felt before come upon him as his lab assistant stumbled back in terror. His face twisted in an ugly expression as he retreated behind Citrus and Izabel.

‘For daring to hurt her. You three have become my targets. Know this, nothing in this world will stop me from killing you all. Ice will be your grave.’

Her mouth hadn’t moved yet the three had heard her cold icy voice deep in the depths of their mind which wipe away the smile from Citrus face for some reason. Still, she was just about to say something to calm everyone down when the entire fortress suddenly shook.

“This is? Oh my… We may have stepped on the dragon’s tail here. In more ways than one. I think it’s about time we take our leave. Our job here is done after all, hehe~”

Citrus said in her usual playful tone even though Izabel could see the seriousness in her eyes. 

“This is bad.”