Chapter 329

"Elis..." Leon spoke with a neutral expression.

*Swish.*

"Master." Elis materialized from the shadow beneath his feet, already kneeling.

"Create me something comfortable to sit on, darling." Leon ordered.

"Yes, Master."

She raised one hand and the throne from the 20th floor disappeared and settled behind him with a heavy, deliberate... *THUD*.

"Good." Leon lowered himself into it slowly, like a man with nowhere to be. He reached into his inventory and pulled Nyxter free, resting the weapon across his knees.

Alren looked at the blade. Then at Leon’s face. Then he smiled the practiced smile of a man who had seen interrogations before and survived them.

"What’s the plan ? A few cuts ? Or are you skipping straight to killing me ? You stupid kids... Can’t you understand ? I am not going to tell you anything."

"I’m going to try something new with you today and I guarantee you that, you will live to regret over those words." Leon’s expression didn’t change. He activated the skill.

"Electric Shocks."

"Converts a continuous stream of mana into electrical current. Output voltage is manually regulated by the user. Sustained use drains mana at a steady rate, the higher the voltage, the greater the consumption. Cannot generate projectile discharge or area-of-effect attacks. Effective range: direct contact only."

’I’d been meaning to make this one for a while,’ Leon thought, the corner of his mouth pulling upward. ’Funny. I wanted to invent a chocolate milkshake maker first and then build this skill. But I suppose this has its uses too.’

A quiet laugh escaped him... not loud, not theatrical. Just a small sound of genuine amusement.

’What the hell is wrong with him?’ Alren thought, watching Leon murmur to himself and smile at nothing. ’Why is he laughing like that ?’

"Electro."

"Learn it."

Leon stood, rolled his neck once, and walked toward Alren without hurry. He crouched in front of him and extended one finger, his right index and rested it gently against the nail of Alren’s pinky.

"...I think you’ve got the wrong idea about me," Alren said, glancing down at the contact with a mocking smile. "I’m not really into guys."

Leon didn’t acknowledge it. "Electro. One hundred volts."

<−5,000 mana>

*Trrr—*

*CRACK.*

"WHAT THE FUCK—"

The current punched through Alren’s finger like a hot needle driven straight into the bone. His entire body lurched shoulders, spine, legs all seizing at once in a single convulsive jerk, the restraints rattling hard against whatever held him.

In the corner, Fruela went very still.

"...Oh." Leon tilted his head slightly, studying his reaction."Nice."

Alren’s breath came out ragged. The smile was gone. "What did you just do?"

"Nothing, yet." Leon’s tone was almost conversational. "Do you know there are exposed nerve endings directly beneath a human fingernail? Completely unprotected. The nail exists, in part, to shield them." He paused. "Yours is about to stop doing that."

He separated one of Nyxter’s blades — smooth, practiced and pressed the edge beneath the edge of Alren’s nail.

"W—what are you—"

*Stab.*

"AHHHHHHHHH..."

The blade carved sideways in one precise stroke, splitting the nail away from the nailbed in a single motion. The sound it made was wet and small and somehow worse for it.

"Oh god." Fruela turned away, one hand pressed hard over her mouth.

*Tick.*

Leon pinched the separated nail between two fingers and peeled it back in a single fluid pull — not slow, not fast. Deliberate.

What remained was raw, glistening, weeping. The nerve endings beneath sat fully exposed to open air for the first time in Alren’s life covered in red blood, every micro-current of atmosphere against them registering as wrongness his brain had no framework to process.

"There." Leon held the nail up briefly, as though presenting evidence. "Those red fibers. Those are yours."

He placed his finger back against the exposed wound. The contact alone made Alren hiss through clenched teeth.

"Electro. One hundred and forty volts."

"You sick fu—"

*TRRRRRRRRRR.*

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—"

His whole arm thrashed uselessly against its restraint. Veins stood out along his neck. His teeth cracked together hard enough that a back molar chipped.

The current ran directly into the exposed nerve cluster and stayed there, every millisecond of it a white-hot signal screaming straight up into his brain with nothing to interrupt it.

Leon released the skill.

The silence afterward felt physical.

"Hehehe." The sound came quietly, almost to himself. "Now that is a proper scream." He looked at Alren with something that might have been appreciation. "I hope you’re enjoying this as much as I am."

Alren’s head hung. His chest heaved. When he finally lifted his eyes, they were wet, not from crying, his body had simply reacted on its own and burning with pure, unfiltered hatred.

"You’re a fucking monster."

"You’re tougher than I expected." Leon said it like a compliment. He stood, rolled his shoulders, and placed both hands flat against either side of Alren’s head, palms over his temples, fingers pressed firm against bone.

Alren’s eyes widened. Something in his senses recognized what was about to happen before his mind could catch up.

"W-What are you—"

"Electro. Two hundred and ten volts." A pause. "Charge."

*TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.*

"AGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH..."

The scream that came out wasn’t a scream anymore. It was something beyond language a sound Alren’s body produced entirely without his permission, torn from the chest and the throat and somewhere deeper than both. It traveled down the corridor and kept going, swallowed by the dungeon’s stone throat, and still it sounded loud.

His jaw locked. His eyes rolled. Every muscle in his face contracted simultaneously brow, cheek, jaw pulling his features into a rigid, grimacing mask he had no control over. The current arced between his temples through the soft tissue of his skull, lighting up nerve pathways that had no business being lit, sending signals cascading through his motor cortex like a circuit board catching fire.

His bound hands tore at the restraints with the full, panicked strength of a body that wanted desperately to survive.

Leon released him.

Alren slumped. His breath came in shallow, shaking pulls. A thin line of saliva ran down his chin.

"Phew." Leon stepped back and looked him over with mild satisfaction. "That was a decent preview." He settled back into the throne.

"We’re just getting started. So don’t you dare break."

*Swish. Swish.*

Two figures dropped silently into the room — Rees and Dreulis, materialized from nothing, drawn by the screaming sound.

Dreulis’s gaze went immediately to Alren. Then to Leon.

"I heard screaming."

"Small interrogation session." Leon waved a hand dismissively. "Nothing to concern yourself with."

Dreulis studied the ruined finger, the burn marks beginning to form at Alren’s temples, the glassy vacancy in his eyes. "...Isn’t he one of the Royal Castle’s personal guards?"

"He is."

"Are you extracting information about the King? The castle?"

"No, I want to know who he actually answers to." Leon’s voice cooled slightly. "Now be quiet and let me finish."

He rose again. Walked behind Alren’s chair. Placed one open hand flat against the back of his neck, fingers spread, palm against the cervical vertebrae.

Alren felt it. The warmth of the hand. The waiting.

"N-No— please— I don’t—I haven’t—"

"Electro." A quiet smile appeared over Leon’s face. "Three hundred and twenty volts. Charge."

*TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.*

The current hit the cervical nerve cluster like a hammer.

For one full second, every muscle in Alren’s body locked simultaneously... jaw, neck, arms, chest, legs... a total systemic seizure, his body rigid as stone in the chair, every tendon pulled to its limit.

Then the shaking began.

His head snapped forward and back. His spine curved and straightened in rapid, violent spasms. His legs drummed against the floor.

*thud thud thud thud*.

The heels striking stone in a fast, helpless rhythm his body generated entirely on its own. The sound of it was somehow the worst part.

No scream came. His throat had locked shut with everything else. The only sound from him was a pressurized, high-pitched wheeze forcing itself out through a jaw clamped too tight to open.

White foam gathered at the corner of his mouth, crawling down his chin.

Leon removed his hand.

The shaking stopped. Alren’s chin dropped to his chest. The foam dripped.

"...Did I kill him?" Leon walked around to face him, genuinely curious, and slapped him once across the face, sharp and hard.

*SLAP*

Alren’s head snapped to the side.

Then—

"Haaaahhh—" A massive, drowning inhale, like a man surfacing from deep water. His eyes flew open, wild and unfocused, pupils blown wide.

When they finally found Leon’s face, every trace of defiance in them was gone.

What replaced it was something much more honest.

"N-No—" His voice shook so badly the words fractured apart. "Stay away from me— please— I’ll tell you— I’ll tell you everything—" The words tumbled out over each other.

"I work for the King’s third wife— Madam Luna R. Stark— I collect information and pass it to her, that’s all, I swear, I swear on everything, I don’t know anything else, please— please don’t—"

Leon straightened up. Let out a slow breath through his nose.

"Luna R. Stark." Dreulis said the name quietly, turning it over. "I never trusted that woman to begin with." A brief pause, then a small shrug, as though filing it away.

"Can you show me that spell again?" He asked, stepping closer, his eyes fixed on Leon’s hand with undisguised interest.

"Of course." Leon turned back toward Alren with a smile.

"No—" Alren’s voice cracked. "No, I told you everything— I told you everything—"

Leon’s hand closed over his mouth. Gentle. Unhurried. His fingers spread across Alren’s jaw and lower face, muffling the words completely.

He leaned down until his eyes were level with Alren’s.

"You did tell me everything," he said quietly. "Now... You are not use to me and as I said, I would make you regret to say those words."

He stood upright.

"Electro. Ten thousand volts."

*TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR*

What happened next didn’t look like pain. It didn’t look like anything human.

Alren’s body ignited from the inside.

For two full seconds he was luminescent — a deep, pulsing blue light bleeding through the skin of his chest, his throat, the thin flesh of his closed eyelids, the webbing between his fingers, as though something vast and electrical had replaced his blood and was burning its way outward.

Then his body stopped shaking.

The light died.

A thin column of black smoke drifted upward from between his lips.

Leon released him and stepped back.

Where Alren’s eyes had been, two dark, deflated things sat sunken in their sockets, burst by the pressure from within. A wide, branching pattern of black, like leafless winter trees, spread from the corners of his jaw outward across both cheeks, scorched deep into the skin.

The smoke kept rising, unhurried, dissolving into the ceiling and eerie silence covered the room.