Chapter 22: The Delicacy in Torment
My face betrayed no emotion as silence enveloped us, a thick tension hanging in the air. I stared him down, unblinking. Pan returned my gaze, confidence radiating from him like smoke from a flickering flame.
"So be it!" he hissed, his voice dripping with malice. "When I'm finished with you, I'll hang your corpse high for the sun to dry."
With that ominous proclamation, he melted into the shadows.
Yet I stood unfazed, feeling his presence slither around me like a serpent, searching for weakness.
"Art of Murder — Devil Descent."
A forbidden technique from my past life — the very skill that once brought down gods.
Power surged through my legs. As I lifted my foot, Pan burst from the darkness, his bow spinning with deadly elegance.
"Heh… This child," I muttered, a grin curving my lips. "He's truly dangerous. All the better."
I slammed my foot into the earth. The ground shattered beneath us, and the shockwave knocked him off balance. I seized him by the throat.
But Pan only smiled.
"Fool."
He dissolved into shadowy mist, slipping through my fingers like smoke.
"What the hell?" I growled, blinking.
He reappeared a short distance away, holding something in his grasp — my severed arm.
"Hahaha! You're such a fool," he laughed, placing a hand over his face. "You might be strong... but I'm something else entirely."
His voice trembled with fury, as he flung my decapitated hand to the side. "I've been in this pit for six years. Bathed in the blood of monsters… and forged in madness."
Blood gushed from my shoulder, but I only smiled.
"So… there are more monsters in this hole?" I asked, my hair rising with the wind.
"Malanti... Malanti!" I roared to the heavens. The onlookers trembled in silence.
"Something's not right," Pan muttered, anxiety creeping into his eyes.
"The final laughter of a dying dog," he spat.
"Brave words," I whispered, as shimmering gauntlets materialized over my remaining hand.
"Crazed Step."
Dozens of ghostly mirages of me erupted into the space, each laughing, each dancing like wraiths in a nightmare.
"You said you'd hang my corpse to dry…" my voice echoed from every corner of the forest.
"Let me show you something worse — when I'm done with you, not even your corpse will remain."
Panic lit up Pan's face. He turned to dive back into the shadows—
"Too slow."
My hand clamped over his mouth.
I smiled. Wide. Joyous. Mad.
"Shall we enter?"
In that instant, the world twisted. We were swallowed in black — shadows engulfing us both.
"Ahh… the realm of shadows," I whispered. My eyes cut through the gloom like blades.
"Pan… come out," I called, voice echoing like laughter down a hollow corridor. "Why hide like a rat? You do not deserve the power you hold."
Meanwhile…
Pan crouched behind a massive boulder, trembling.
"Fck… fck, why did he follow me in here?" he whispered to himself, chewing his fingers. "This is more dangerous than I thought. If I don't kill him here, I'll never escape..."
His thoughts spiraled. He remembered what he saw before we entered — the twisted dance of my mirages, harvesting the heads of his comrades like flowers.
"Okay… yes, yes. I'll buy time."
But I had already heard his heartbeat. The thumping was music to me — anxious, frantic, delicious.
I walked toward the boulder with slow, deliberate steps. With each step, I sang:
"One day, the head thief danced upon the palace of a king,
But he was scorned… so he danced furiously.
And soon — the king's head sat in his hand."
"No! I can't die here!" Pan cried, bursting from cover, unleashing a volley of arrows.
I caught them all with my left arm, one by one — like a bored god catching falling stars.
"I don't deserve to die! Stay away from me!" he screamed.
"Torrent Rain!"
Arrows rained from the black sky. I stepped back, weaving through the storm, already sensing his next move.
He charged my blind side — the one with no arm — dagger gleaming.
"Ahh… the last struggles of a mouse," I chuckled, eyes gleaming. "Let me show you what the old bastard Thomas taught me."
"Void Flick."
A swirling bead of chaotic energy formed between my fingers. The void screamed in silence.
Pan's eyes widened. "This energy… it's so chaotic…"
Too late.
I flicked the bead forward. It struck his abdomen like a meteor, launching him backward into the dark with a brutal crack.
"AHHH!" Pan cried as he landed with a sickening thud.
I walked calmly toward his broken form.
"You should have stayed in the shadows when you had the chance."
Pan coughed, blood dribbling from his lips.
"If you kill me… you won't be able to escape the shadow realm!" he blurted out.
"You think I'm a fool?" I said coldly. "It's your Shadow Imp bloodline that allows passage between realms. Not this place. Not me."
His eyes widened in horror.
"But you're useless. So I shall take your bloodline for myself."
I laughed.
I knelt beside him, plunging a finger into his open wound. Blood oozed out, warm, fragrant, intoxicating.
"Ahhh… please, spare me!" Pan begged, tears streaming as I lifted my crimson-stained finger.
The voices in my head whispered:
"Just a taste… it won't hurt."
My lips parted. I licked the blood.
A jolt slammed through my mind. My pupils dilated.
"Crack his skull open."
A timid voice.
But wicked.
"I shall liberate you," I said, placing my hand over his trembling head.
"Please!" he sobbed. "I'll do anything! Mercy!"
But I leaned in close, smiling.
"If I were in your position… would you show me mercy?"
CRACK!
I slammed the back of his head into the cold ground. He twitched. Dizzy.
Still, he begged.
CRACK.
Again.
CRACK.
Again.
"JUST SHUT THE HELL UP!" I roared, rage spilling out like thunder.
He twitched.
Then… he stopped.
Motionless.
Lifeless.
I sat back, breathing heavy, bloodlust rising off me like heat from a scorched battlefield. My eyes rolled skyward, basking in the aftermath of carnage.
"He is finally silent."
I wiped the blood smeared across my face, savoring the knowledge I had ripped from his mind. With my gauntlet-clad hand, I pressed it firmly to the lifeless corpse, drawing out every last drop of essence until the body collapsed — hollow, empty, utterly devoured.
The weapon pulsed.
Hungry. Thirsty. Insatiable.
"More… more… I crave more…" it whispered.
A tremor ran up my arm. It quivered like a demon starved.
"Such a gluttonous tool," I muttered, amused. I called for the willow tree of imagination, yearning to hear her voice— but was met with only cold, empty silence.
Still, the silence revealed something.
"I understand now," I said aloud, rising slowly. "We may exist within this realm of shadows, but even here, the ancient laws of the cleansing pit hold sway."
I spat to the side — a shard of bone from his shattered skull.
My veins surged — the stolen Shadow Imp bloodline coursing through me like wildfire. For a single, electrifying moment, I became one with the shadows.
The techniques of his lineage flooded my mind.
Dark secrets. Forbidden moves. Memories soaked in pitch-black eternity.
A slow smile crept across my face.
"One arm…" I whispered, flexing my gauntlet.
"But it's more than enough."