Novel Full Chapter 418: The Handler [I]
Chapter 418: The Handler [I]
I felt the spatial distortion the moment I opened the door to my bedroom.
Instead of finding my divan on the other side, I stepped into a cold and dark prison cell. The first thing I noticed was how heavy the air felt, thick with the scent of damp stone.
There was also a hint of some pungent, rotten-egg odor that my brain immediately associated with hydrogen sulfide.
The oppressive weight of the air wasn’t just atmospheric. It carried a physical sensation that dampened my mind, making my thoughts sluggish and my movements lazy.
But as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I realized the most jarring thing wasn’t even the darkness, but the contrast.
In the center of the filthy, soot-stained cell with sticky black bricks and a pungent smell sat a wide slab of pristine white marble.
The slab was so clean it looked like it had been carved from a single block of ivory, glowing with some sort of internal, sterile light that felt entirely out of place in this dungeon.
And on it, a figure was bound.
She was in gray scrubs, her long black hair — darker than the darkness around us — splayed across the marble like ink bleeding into water.
Her face, which would otherwise have been far too arresting to look away from, was currently sickly pale and all bony.
A thing to note was that her eyes were closed yet fluttering incessantly, indicating that while she was conscious, she was being held in a state of forced paralysis.
I didn’t need to take a closer look to confirm who she was.
Because there was a certain grandness to people above A-rank, an aura that didn’t just disappear because they were in chains.
It was like seeing a dormant volcano that was quiet for now, but the air around it still vibrated with the threat of an eruption.
That woman was exactly like that. She oozed that same threat.
Even now, drained of her Essence and subjected to mind-numbing suppression, the terrifying edge of Selene Valkyrn’s presence had not dulled at all.
As for what was draining her Essence?
Her wrists and ankles were clamped into heavy, runed cuffs that were bolted directly into the marble. Matching chains of cold iron were wrapped around her torso and the slab, pinning her flat against the stone.
She looked less like a prisoner and more like a sacrificial offering on an unholy altar.
And that altar, that slab of pristine white marble, was what continued sapping her strength.
It was a Siphon Block, a cruel piece of engineering designed specifically to keep A-rankers or above from being anything more than a decorative piece of furniture.
That was how they kept high-level Awakened prisoners.
The Siphon Block took her latent Spirit Force and recycled it into the very suppression field that kept her mind in a fog.
The only way for her to escape was to destroy her own core — which would either kill her automatically, since her soul wouldn’t be able to bear the strain... or leave her as a hollowed-out shell, unable to defend herself when they came to kill her.
So in reality, there was no escape.
This room was one of the captive cells on the Ascent Isles.
No one knew where or on which floating island it existed, but it was used to imprison rogue Cadets and — in rare cases — Instructors.
Only the Grandmasters and those authorised by them could enter this place.
In one of the game’s storylines, where Michael ended up joining the Order of Twelve, he accompanied a senior here.
They tried questioning the Witch Queen of Eternal Night... but as you may have already expected, it led nowhere.
Selene was far too strong-willed to be broken by a bunch of kids. She refused to answer any questions at all.
But I was not them.
So I was here to try my own luck.
I stood by the door that had manifested in this cell before I crossed over the frame completely.
On the far side to my left, I could spot two large carved oak gates that acted as the main entrance and exit to this place.
Outside, guards must’ve been patrolling the corridor, but the Siphon Block’s interference was so thick it acted as a natural soundproofing barrier. I could tell because my ears had been buzzing nonstop ever since I arrived here.
Still, I made sure to be carefully quiet as I walked closer to the altar, my boots clicking against the sticky, damp floor.
Selene must’ve felt my presence, because in the next second, her eyes weakly peeled open. For a second, they were unfocused and glazed over with the milky film of the paralysis drugs.
But then, as her head turned and her gaze latched onto me, the film cleared.
The dazed look on her face was instead replaced by a mix of alarm and recognition, before settling into a sharp glower.
The transformation was slightly haunting. It was like watching a predator wake up behind a glass wall.
Her chapped lips parted as she mouthed something. No sound came out, just a puff of air, but I saw the shape of my name.
She didn’t even have the strength to speak.
That was fine.
It’d be easier for me to kill her if things didn’t go my way.
Yeaaaah.
Yeah.
I was planning to kill her.
I know, I know. It’s not usually my style to kill off such promising prospects unless I am completely sure I could not control them.
If that was the case then I’d have dispatched Juliana on day one. I didn’t do that because I judge a person’s worth by their potential utility to my plans.
But that philosophy could not be upheld when dealing with the Syndicate members. That was the sole reason I killed Rexerd.
He was a once-in-a-generation genius.
However, he had already betrayed humanity by siding with a cult that would rather wake up a false god and watch the world burn than see it thrive under a banner they didn’t hold.
And Selene Valkyrn was going to be an even bigger headache for me.
She was half the reason why the North collapsed and the Queen of Black Rot descended. She alone held back almost all the main characters who were nearly in their prime.
It was because of her that the Syndicate achieved all its main objectives, and everything just went downhill from there.
On top of it, I had no idea why she was even with the Nameless Lords. Her backstory wasn’t explored properly, but from what was shown to us, she never seemed like a third-rate villain who could be seduced by promises of wealth and power.
Originally, she was a mentor to the main characters, someone who genuinely guided them in their lives and struggles. Despite the fact that she claimed not to like children, she was often joked about being the gang’s unofficial mom.
Her betrayal, and eventual death, were heartbreaking. Alexia and Michael both spiralled into a crippling depression for a long time following that tragedy.
Everyone was blindsided by the reveal of her working for the Nameless Lords.
...And that was the problem.
A traitor who genuinely seems to care about their students is a thousand times more dangerous than some mustache-twirling villain.
They know your weaknesses not because they’ve studied you in files, but because they’ve patched your wounds. They know how to break you because they were the ones who taught you how to be strong.
So since I didn’t know what her driving force was, what was motivating her to stay in the Syndicate’s corner... I had no real idea about how to use her.
Besides, even if I did, I’d not have taken any chances with her. She was a variable I couldn’t afford to keep on the board.
If she could single-handedly flip the winds of favor to the side of my enemy, it was better for me to kill her the first chance I got.
Let’s just say... a chance exactly like this — where she was bound and broken and stripped of all her tyrannical power.
Maybe I was being hasty.
Maybe the Order would find out since they already knew I had one of their Keys. Maybe this really was not the best course of action.
But then again, when has the best course of action ever been my style?
Besides, I had a plan — a long con that I had set in motion way back when I was in Ishtara.