Chapter 651: I Have Come to Deliver Death

The boy had turned his head upward and to the left, addressing a woman who had once been whole.

Now only fragments of her remained. Most of her torso had been carefully, methodically removed, leaving a ragged cavity held together by crude metal clamps and strips of treated leather.

One hand and one leg were missing entirely; the stumps had been sealed with thick metal plates that looked more like the work of a blacksmith.

Somehow she was still alive. Her chest rose and fell in slow, shallow gasps. Her eyes were wide and staring, fixed on nothing, while saliva and mucus ran freely down her ruined face in long, glistening strands.

A second voice chuckled from somewhere among the group of six standing in a loose semicircle around the boy and what was left of his mother.

The sound was light. “Hehehe. Listen to him squeak. The boy’s already delusional. Look at those eyes—bright with hope, like anything we say could possibly be true. We should stop wasting time and just turn him into raw material already. The crystal’s hungry, and fresh young flesh always yields the cleanest results.”

The rest of the group joined in the laughter, a rough, overlapping chorus that echoed off the high stone walls.

Some of them clapped each other on the back. One wiped a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye.

Through it all, the boy’s gaze stayed steady, still shining with that same stubborn hope and determination, as though the laughter itself were only another test he intended to pass.

My magical senses spread outward like invisible threads, brushing against every living presence inside the lair.

Twenty distinct signatures answered; twenty people who still had active magic in their blood. The count deliberately excluded the majority of the human and demi-human experiments that filled the chambers and side rooms.

Those broken forms no longer held even the faintest spark of magic; whatever energy they had once possessed had been drained away completely, replaced with something foreign.

The small boy strapped to the wall was clearly intended for the next experiment.

He couldn’t have been older than eight.

To be so young and already caught inside the machinery of Lot was a misfortune so complete it seemed deliberate, like the world itself had decided to make an example of him.

I stepped out of the hiding place near the entrance.

Metal bars and thick iron rods that had been leaning against the wall came into my hands one by one.

I set them firmly across the double doors from the inside. A controlled thread of fire from my attribute followed, heat precise enough to melt the metal at the points of contact without setting the surrounding wood alight.

The bars fused together into a single solid lattice, sealing the exit more thoroughly than any lock could have managed.

A sharp collective intake of breath came from the far end of the chamber.

One of the six stepped forward, voice rising in startled outrage.

“Wha—?! Who are you, and what business do you have with the Quintessential Magic Company?! Do you even know who we are?!”

One of the six men who had been taunting the boy — an official of some rank, to judge by the fine cut of his coat and the heavy ring on his finger — lifted a trembling hand and pointed straight at me.

The tip of his finger shook so hard it looked ready to snap off at the knuckle. His mouth opened, closed, but no words came out the first time, only a thin, strangled sound that died somewhere in his throat.

The dried, hunched man with the long nose let his eyelids droop and paid me only the briefest glance, as though I were an insect that had crawled too far into the light and would soon be brushed away without ceremony.

“Fear not,” he said, his voice dry and thin, flowing easily across the chamber despite how quietly he spoke. “It is simply a foolish elf biting off more than he can chew. Elf, I do not know how you managed to slip past the outer wards and the guards, and I do not particularly care to find out. But if you do not turn around and leave this place at once, I can call for reinforcement in the blink of an eye. We have geniuses among us who can open a teleportation gate before you finish drawing that fancy blade of yours. So do not do anything stupid. Walk away while you still have legs to walk with.”

My hand closed around the hilt of the katana and drew it free of its sheath in one smooth motion. The pale metal caught what little light existed in the chamber and threw it back in a thin, sharp line.

I answered without raising my voice, the words coming out steady and cold, each one placed with care.

“I have come to deliver retribution to every one of you who treats mortal life as an item you can toy with, measure, and discard when it no longer amuses you. There is no other alternative left in this place except death.”

“Wait!” another of the officials — an aged woman with silver streaks in her hair and ink stains on her fingers — raised both hands in a gesture of pure, open fear.

Her voice cracked as she spoke, the words tumbling out faster than she could control them. “We did nothing wrong! All these test subjects, every last one of them, willingly chose this fate. We had agreements, signed and sealed. They knew the risks and they accepted the terms. You cannot simply walk in here and declare judgment like some s-s-self-appointed god!”

For a moment the six of them stood frozen, staring at the naked blade in my hand.

Then the truth settled over them like a heavy cloak, and they began to mumble among themselves: short, broken phrases about contracts, the Company’s protection, about how some elf should never have been able to reach this deep.