CHAPTER 41: CHAPTER: 41 WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?

⚠️ Content Warning

This Chapter contains graphic scenes of torture, violence, and psychological distress that may be disturbing or triggering to some readers.

Reader discretion is strongly advised.

If you are sensitive to such content, please proceed with caution or skip this Chapter.

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"Wake up... Hey, you son of a bitch, wake the fuck up!"

A distant voice echoed inside his mind, sounding as if it came from far away. Vivian tried, but he couldn’t open his eyes.

Slap! Slap!

Two sharp smacks rang out, followed by a tingling sting spreading across his right cheek.

The pain jolted him back to his senses, his awareness snapping into place.

But even then, he kept his eyes shut. A harsh, piercing light burned against his eyelids, painful enough to make him unwilling to open them.

Smack! Smack!

Another pair of blows landed, and this time, a crushing pain erupted from his stomach.

"Guh..."

Vivian coughed up saliva, his eyes snapping open as the world slowly came into focus.

"What a nasty piece of shit," a voice said, thick with disgust. The tone was oddly familiar. Vivian tried to lift his head, his vision blurry, his body trembling.

He gasped.

"Kafrik...?" The name barely formed in his throat, a whisper drowned by weakness.

The first thing he saw was Kafrik standing before him, and behind the man loomed the cold iron bars of a cell, making it clear that he was in a prison.

He couldn’t muster any strength, his limbs felt hollow, his chest heavy. And then, the horrifying realization struck him.

He couldn’t feel any mana. No, there wasn’t even a mana core within him.

’How...?’

The last thing he remembered was dying, his body torn apart by the professor’s strike. Yet here he was, alive... in an unfamiliar place.

And the worst truth sat before him: his killer, watching. A cold, sick twist gripped Vivian’s gut as despair returned, slow and inevitable.

Why was he bound upside down, stripped of everything? Kafrik’s promise from the dungeon, the one that tasted like iron and malice, replayed in his head: "I will torture him until he begs for death."

That thought crawled under his skin. A fresh chill ran along his spine while cold sweat poured down his back; his black hair stuck to his face, plastered with the salt of fear.

"I see you know where you are, huh?"

Kafrik’s voice cut through Vivian’s spiraling thoughts. A cruel sneer spread across his face as he sat back in a steel chair.

Then, with a sudden movement, he grabbed a fistful of Vivian’s hair and yanked his head upward until their eyes met.

"Did you really think I’d let you die without paying you back for that humiliation?" he hissed, venom dripping from every word, like a cobra spitting poison.

In truth, he had believed that Vivian had died from the professor’s blow. But after burning Asmit and Subha, when he turned to incinerate Vivian as well, he suddenly felt a faint pulse.

Startled, he hurriedly used his family’s treasured artifact to preserve Vivian’s life, just so he could torture him until death finally claimed him.

After that, he transported the unconscious Vivian through a hidden teleportation array located deep within the dungeon.

He then moved him to an unknown place and shattered his mana core, ensuring that even if Vivian somehow survived by sheer luck, he would live a life far worse than death.

He is really one nasty bastard.

"Ugh..." Vivian groaned, the pain shooting through his scalp.

Smack!

Kafrik’s fist slammed into his stomach again.

"Cough—cough—cough!" Vivian doubled over, choking as a torrent of saliva spilled from his mouth.

Mixed within it were thick, dark clots of blood, old, dead blood that carried the stench of decay.

"Tsk." Kafrik clicked his tongue as he stared at the limp shape before him. "How weak." He sneered. "You can’t even take a punch, how are you going to survive what I have planned for you?"

He muttered the words as he pulled a metal case onto his lap. The latch clicked open and a row of cruel, unfamiliar tools glinted in the dim light.

Kafrik’s grin twisted wider as he let his fingers trail over them.

"My, my... what should I pick?" Kafrik mused, flexing each tool between his fingers one by one, his twisted smile never fading.

"Ugh..." Vivian groaned, the only sound he could manage. His body hung limp, every muscle screaming in pain.

Kafrik chuckled lowly, grabbing Vivian by the chin and forcing his face upward. "Maybe I should start with that arrogant tongue of yours," he murmured, tapping the edge of the toolbox with a rhythmic clink, clink.

The sound echoed through the room, cold and deliberate.

"Yes... the tongue it is," Kafrik decided at last.

He reached into the case and drew out a pair of heavy, stained scissors.

They weren’t the kind used for cloth or paper, their design was rough, meant for something far less forgiving. The dull, darkened blades told their own story; they had been used before.

Kafrik grabbed Vivian’s jaw and forced it open, his grip cruelly firm. Vivian’s eyes widened, filled with terror and disbelief.

"Don’t worry," Kafrik whispered with a manic smile. "It’ll only hurt for a moment... or maybe longer."

Click!

The sound that followed was sharp and metallic, then came Vivian’s scream, raw and ragged, echoing through the chamber.

Ahhhhhhh!

Pain exploded through his mind, blotting out all thought. His world narrowed to nothing but the sound of his own voice and Kafrik’s laughter ringing over it.

"Ah, that’s it! Scream for me!" Kafrik howled with delight, pacing before him as if drunk on the sound of agony.

Vivian’s consciousness flickered, the edges of his vision darkening. Cold air seared his throat as his body trembled, refusing to collapse.

Vivian’s eyes rolled back, and after a long moment, he somehow forced himself to endure the agony.

When he finally looked at Kafrik, his gaze was dull, pleading silently for release.

"Oh, that look in your eyes..." Kafrik laughed, a low, cruel sound that echoed through the chamber. "I’ve wanted to see it for so long. But I’m afraid I can’t grant your wish just yet."

With a sudden movement, Kafrik grabbed Vivian’s hand and pressed one of his tools against it.

Vivian cried out, a scream tearing from his throat, his body wracked with pain. Each movement, each sound seemed to fuel Kafrik’s twisted delight.

He leaned closer, his grin widening. "Yes... scream. Let me hear every bit of it."

Vivian’s vision blurred with torment, every nerve on fire, every breath a struggle.

And through it all, Kafrik watched, savoring the fear, the helplessness, the raw despair he had created.

’Please let me die,’ Vivian begged inwardly, his voice refusing to work.

The relief of unconsciousness was snatched away; Kafrik was deliberately holding him back from the void.

’What did I do? What is this payment for?’ The agony was a shrieking, unbearable constant, far exceeding anything his past life had prepared him for.

He stared up at Kafrik, pouring every ounce of his ruined being into a look of pure hatred and revulsion.

Kafrik’s smile vanished. "Hey, hey, why are you looking at me with those eyes?" he demanded, his voice dropping to a dangerous snarl. "Wipe that disgust off your face before I give you a real reason to hate me."

He paced around maniacally as he spit out saliva at Vivian.

"I don’t like those eyes," Kafrik muttered as he pulled two rod-like sticks from the ground.

Judging by how easily they appeared, he had clearly prepared them beforehand.

He gripped the rods in both hands, channeling his mana into them. Soon, they heated up, their color shifting to a deep crimson from the intense heat.

’No. No!’ Vivian screamed inwardly and struggled, but there was no way to resist as Kafrik gripped him with his aura, rendering him powerless.

"Don’t worry. You won’t be able to see anything from today," he said, moving the rods toward Vivian’s eyes.

Heat licked at Vivian’s skin; the smell of scorched flesh filled his nose before the pain even reached him. His eyes constricted, a choked sound catching in his throat.

Then he shut his eyes, and his scream ripped through the cell.

"Ahhhhhh!"

Laughter followed, low and echoing. "Hahahaha..."

"Yes, this is it. From today onwards you won’t be able to see anything." Kafrik spat poison with every word. The bastard was cruel enough to deny Vivian even death, simply because Vivian was better than him.

He had hated Vivian since childhood for being good at everything. Vivian had even stolen Princess Charlotte, the very woman Kafrik had marriage talks about.

Now, given the chance, he would not let Vivian escape. No matter what, he would make him pay.

’Let me die,’ the soundless word scraped against his soul. ’I’m begging you.’

Vivian struggled for the air to form the plea, but his severed tongue reduced his voice to a choked silence.

He could only writhe and plead in his mind, desperate for an end to the agony.

’Please, if there is a god, grant me this mercy. What did I do to deserve this?’

A bitter, cold truth settled in the midst of his suffering: he had done nothing.

In neither life had he earned this punishment; he had, if anything, earned peace after the crushing hardships of his first existence.

Yet, here he was. Fate, it seemed, had only one plan for him: an unending debt of suffering.