Chapter 23: You Remind Me Of Someone.

Unfortunately, defeating hunger with greater pain wasn’t what was happening with Barnabas. At the very least, the pain of his flesh cooking didn’t help him overcome his hunger. Instead, the external pain from being cooked enhanced the internal pain of hunger, making him more volatile.

Eventually, he couldn’t restrain himself anymore. He lunged at the weakest target he could find.

He leaped and went straight for Alex’s face. Alex had his eyes closed, and his senses were sealed, so he didn’t perceive the danger at all.

Alex only heard a loud splash before he heard someone scream in pain, saying, "Ahhhh. My face!"

When he opened his eyes and looked up, he saw Barnabas’s face bleeding profusely. His face was crushed, and his nose was pressed deep into his skull. Barnabas held his face while screaming in pain.

The sight of all of that blood and broken flesh stirred something within him. He felt like leaping and latching onto Barnabas’s face before gnawing on the open wound, engorging himself on it.

But then he remembered that there was only one reason Barnabas’s face would be in such an unsightly state. And when he glanced at Tessa, he saw her grinning and swinging a bloody baton, flicking away fresh blood from it.

’What a pity,’ he thought, calming his restless heart. ’I would have enjoyed it too.’

’I really would have liked to tear into his face and hear him cry in pain while I did so,’ he thought as he took one last look at the bleeding face before forcing himself to look away.

Robert also displayed immense restraint despite his hunger and didn’t try to take advantage of Barnabas’s vulnerable state. Unfortunately, Barnabas had no intention of appreciating his restraint.

Barnabas saw Robert staring greedily at his face and got angry. He raised his hand, clenched his fingers into a fist, and propelled it towards Robert’s face.

But before his fist could connect, a baton came crashing down, striking his arm. His straight arm caved in on contact, fracturing the bones and causing bone fragments to pierce the skin.

Barnabas screamed again, "Ahhhhhh. You bitch. I’ll kill you."

His face was bloody, and his arm had been mangled. But for some reason, he believed that now was a good time to put Tessa in her place. So he stood up and began climbing out of the pot.

Unfortunately for Barnabas, this was exactly what Tessa wanted. With him being all riled up, she didn’t hold back at all.

Blows came raining down on Barnabas without end. His body was battered and beaten worse than a rag. His blood flowed freely as his body struggled to heal the damage.

The beating didn’t stop until he stopped trying to fight her. When he curled up and buried his entire body in the water, she let him go.

The other two had done their best to distance themselves from the sight of the deluge of beating. They were now looking at Tessa in fear because her face was bloody and her grin was wide, nearly splitting her face in two.

When she saw the way they were looking at her, she twirled her baton with her fingers as she said, "Are you impressed?"

Alex didn’t know what to say. Robert didn’t know what to say either, because he was gawking at her.

But Tessa didn’t care that they were starstruck by her performance. She smiled as she said, "You should see what I can do with a real sword."

Alex imagined her using her sword to hack people and immediately decided it wasn’t pretty. He shook his head to dispel the image from his mind and closed his eyes. Then he sank his consciousness deeper into himself, cutting off the world around him.

A few seconds later, Barnabas came up for air. He was hungrier than ever before, but he was strangely fine with it. His emotions seemed to have calmed down, and he wasn’t fidgeting anymore.

Only he knew that the immense pain from the severe beating had reset his brain. The pain recalibrated his senses, and the threat of death that he felt when she was beating him helped him to look at his condition from another perspective.

Now, the pain of hunger didn’t seem so bad anymore. He had nearly died, so he knew that no matter how bad the hunger got, he wasn’t actually dying. In fact, he was far from dying.

Another reason he became composed was that he didn’t hesitate to latch onto the warm feeling of excitement and infatuation in his heart. In fact, he took action to encourage it.

He said to Tessa, "I don’t think I’ll survive your restraint training. So it is likely I’ll die in a few days. I don’t want to die with regrets, so I have to tell you something."

"I like you," he said, looking straight at Tessa.

"Have you lost your mind?" Tessa said as she struck him on the head with the baton.

"Ouch," Barnabas said, clutching his skull in pain.

But he still didn’t stop. He continued to say, "I like strong women. I don’t know why, but you turn me on."

"You also remind me of my mother. She was a big woman, and she didn’t hesitate to hit me with her cane."

"Of course, you’re more beautiful than my mother. You’re also more muscular. You’re simply the ideal figure for a woman.’

The more he spoke, the more she beat him. But the pain of being beaten didn’t seem to discourage him. Instead, it spurred him to confess his love to her.

"If I survive, will you go on a date with me?" he asked with eyes full of hope.

The reply was another strike. Then another strike with the baton.

By now, Tessa was snarling. Her teeth were bared as she said, "You little shit. I’ll teach you to respect me."

Again and again, she struck Barnabas. The commotion was so great that even Alex, in his meditative state, was alarmed.