Novel Full Chapter 419: The Handler [II]
Chapter 419: The Handler [II]
Of course, just because I was planning to kill her didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to get some information out of her first.
The pressure in the cell weighed down on us like a funeral shroud.
I stood over the Siphon Block, looking down at the woman who could have been so impactful in the upcoming conflicts.
Her death was going to be a huge waste.
The faint blue glow of the marble cast deep shadows across her face. Even in this state, she looked less like a victim and more like a trap waiting to be sprung.
"Don’t glare at me like that, Instructor," I whispered. My voice was swallowed almost instantly by the heavy suppression field. "I barely ever attended any of your classes, but I remember you telling us once that the only mistake a Hunter can make is leaving a threat alive behind them."
I reached into my sleeve, my fingers brushing against the cold handle of a metallic pair of pliers.
I rounded the altar and noted the woman on it was missing one hand. Her forearm ended in a pinkish stump, and there were visible scars on her face and neck.
I didn’t need to guess where she had gotten those injuries. They came from facing the Elder and Unholy Solbraiths during the massacre.
Sighing, I stopped near her feet.
Selene’s eyes never left mine. The milky glaze was gone now, replaced by an intensity so fierce it felt like it was physically pushing against my chest.
Without hesitation, I leaned over and clamped the heavy metal plier against her thumb.
"Here’s how this is going to go, Selene," I murmured, my voice conversational as the cold iron bit into her skin. "I know who you work for. I have questions. I bet you have answers. If you don’t give me those answers, I’ll rip this thumb off."
Of course, such a threat alone wouldn’t deter a seasoned spy like her. For all I knew, she had been trained to resist torture.
So I didn’t stop there. "I’ll keep ripping your fingers off. Then I’ll flood my own Essence into your body. In your current state, you won’t be able to circulate it. The forceful surge of foreign Essence will burn your nerve endings raw. When I’m done with your right leg, I’ll move to your left. Then I’ll come for your hand. These next few minutes are going to be the most painful moments of your life. I promise you that. So I would appreciate your cooperation and honesty. For your own sake."
I tightened my grip on the handle just enough to tear the flesh and draw blood.
Her breathing caught in her throat in a sharp hitch that rattled against her ribs. The stump of her severed arm twitched against the marble slab in an instinctive attempt to defend a body that had nothing left to fight with.
I didn’t let my expression soften.
"First question," I said. "How many moles are active in the Academy right now?"
I was met with silence, broken only by the wet sound of her heavy breathing. The blood from her thumb began to bead, a dark crimson line stark against the sterile white of the Siphon Block.
Selene’s jaw clenched so hard the muscles in her neck stood out like steel cables. Sweat rolled from her hairline, carving clean paths through the grime on her pale face.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t whimper. She didn’t so much as flinch. Her eyes, burning with a mix of agonizing pain and absolute hatred, remained locked onto mine.
And that was it.
She simply kept staring, defying the cold iron tearing into her flesh, denying me any answer.
"Tsk." I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, irritated. "Speak up! How many of you are there?! I know the Crimson Guild will infiltrate the Ascent Isles next year! Tell me whose mission it is to help them?!"
The silence stretched on, but her gaze didn’t waver.
The cold iron of the pliers dug deeper into her thumb, cleaving through flesh until it was just short of breaking the bone. The blood was now flowing freely as if being drained from a faucet.
Yet there was an icy composure in her dark eyes that made me realize, with growing frustration, that she wasn’t just resisting.
No.
She was studying me.
My temper spiked, nearly slipping out of control, until I managed to calm it with a few deep breaths.
Damn it.
I should have known I wasn’t going to break her easily. She knew that after I was done, I’d have to kill her in case she ever got released.
She knew she was going to die either way.
"So be it," I mumbled defeatedly before unclamping the bloody pliers and slipping them back into my pocket. Then I hopped up onto the altar and stood directly over Selene Valkyrn.
Planting one foot on her midriff and making her grunt in response, I took the dark leather glove off my right hand to reveal a charcoal-black limb with small cracks like fissures emitting glimmers of faint crimson light.
If she wasn’t going to be useful, I would simply feed on her blood and ascend.
Flicking back my wrist, I curled my fingers, allowing the obsidian nails to extend outward. They grew and swelled and sharpened until they were the size of long daggers.
The cold glint in Selene’s eyes dimmed. Her blanched face contorted with growing confusion and dawning horror.
She was either intimidated by my monstrous arm or terrified of her impending death. Did she think I didn’t have it in me to actually kill her?
Either way, it gave me some satisfaction in knowing that despite her iron-clad resolve against physical pain, the absolute unknown of what I was and how I was going to execute her could still strike something close to fear into her heart.
"Selene Zen Valkyrn," I declared, drawing my hand back. "For your crimes of the highest form of treason by conspiring against humanity, espionage, multiple accounts of terrorism and sabotage, assassination, subversion, unlicensed telepathy, and sedition... I, Samael Kaizer Theosbane, hereby sentence you to death."
I drove my hand down.
The obsidian claws cut through the stifled, damp air of the cell, aiming directly for the center of her chest where her heart lay.
Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to get my weapons anywhere near her.
High-level Awakened could use their Spirit Force to generate a pressure field around themselves. The only way to bypass it was by coating your weapon in your own Spirit Force and overpowering their defenses.
But right now, the Siphon Block was doing all the heavy lifting for me. Her passive pressure field was practically nonexistent.
So there was no resistance as my claws descended, plunging into her heart.
...Or at least that’s how it was supposed to go.
However, before my claws could even graze the fabric of her gray scrubs, her dry lips trembled again, making shaky sounds as she tried to speak.
I slammed on the brakes.
The tips of my claws stopped a fraction of a millimeter above her skin. The wind pressure from my descent alone tore a tiny slit in her gray scrubs, revealing the pale, unblemished skin right over her heart.
Selene struggled weakly against her restraints and finally wheezed, "N-No..."
At first, I thought she was begging for her life. But that didn’t match her character. My doubts were proven right when she continued.
"Noverneir," she croaked in pain, barely choking the name out her parched throat. "Faceless... King... there..."