The man who was most likely the chief of this ruthless bandit group frowned deeply as he looked down at the slender, delicate-looking youth sprawled before him. The boy was in a horrific state: heavily injured, marked by numerous cuts here and there, and bearing a deep, jagged gash across his thigh. Contusions and deep-purple bruises, akin to a chaotic painting, covered his entire body, but the worst of the damage was unmistakably hidden along his blood-soaked back.
Yet, defying all common sense, this ordinary village kid wasn't screaming. His jaw would reflexively tighten, trembling with each fresh bout of agonizing pain, but he ruthlessly suppressed the raw groans clawing at his throat.
More than that, his eyes were unnervingly pure. Only a single, terrifying thing existed within those dark depths: a monstrous, unyielding killing intent. Even as he scrutinized the broken boy, the Bandit Chief instinctively understood that should the occasion ever arise, this youth would not hesitate to drag them all down into the abyss with him.
Suddenly, a twisted smirk crept across the chief's face. A perverse, dark desire flared deep within his chest. He wanted to shatter that iron will piece by piece and hear the boy's piercing screams echo across the plaza. For him, breaking a stubborn spirit was nothing short of art—in fact, it was one of his favorite pastimes. He had a sudden, intoxicating feeling that this village kid would turn out to be his most stimulating and entertaining toy yet.
"Very well. Night will fall soon enough, and we need to prepare to return to the base," the Bandit Chief announced, his voice carrying an effortless cruelty. "A few mice managed to slip through our net despite all precautions—most likely because of this little rat running interference. Gather the rest of the brothers. Tell them to wrap up their business and settle everything in one hour."
The scarred second-in-command nodded heavily and turned away to round up the remaining raiders. Before departing, he cast one final, lingering look down at the youth, his hardened features laced with a rare trace of pity.
It would have been better for you if I had just put you down when I first caught you, the scarred man thought darkly to himself. Now that you've fallen directly into the Boss's hands, your fate will be nothing short of a nightmare.
Even the veteran bandit harbored a deep, instinctive dread toward his leader. While he was nominally second-in-command and only marginally behind the chief in terms of brute martial prowess, in terms of sheer cruelty and treacherous sadism, he couldn't hold a candle to him. If anyone accidentally offended the boss, death would be a merciful release compared to what followed.
He had witnessed those depraved, devious methods firsthand in the past. Shuddering involuntarily to clear the grim images from his mind, the scarred man quickened his pace, aiming to put as much distance between himself and the impending horrors of the village square as possible.
Sure enough, not long after he left, the terrifying, maniacal laughter of the Chief echoed across the plaza, accompanied by the suppressed, agonizing groans of the young boy. The second-in-command shook his head in solemn resignation. It had begun—the chief's favorite perverse game, famously known as the torture of a thousand cuts.
Judging by the sheer stubbornness etched into the boy's youthful face, he was the absolute picture-perfect target for the boss's sadistic games. The kid would undoubtedly grit his teeth and try to endure the torment silently, which, to the chief, would only make the agonizing experience all the more exhilarating.
What a truly horrible fate, the scarred man muttered under his breath, shuddering violently one last time to purge the echoes of the screams before disappearing into the gloom.
Back in the center of the plaza, Rain was currently trapped in a living nightmare. Immediately after the scarred man left, the Bandit Chief pulled out a thin, razor-sharp hunting knife and began tracing soft, deliberate lines across the boy's skin. The initial cuts weren't deep—merely designed to peel back the epidermis and draw slow, steady streams of blood. At first, Rain barely registered the localized sting, but before long, the sheer volume of wounds multiplied exponentially, and with them, the agony compounded into a blazing inferno.
Throughout the torment, Rain could clearly see the manic glee radiating from the monster's face, a grotesque expression of sheer pleasure derived entirely from another's suffering. Rain soon noticed a chilling pattern: between cuts, the chief would pause completely, staring intensely into the boy's eyes as if reluctant to miss even the tiniest micro-expression of despair or yielding pain.
A lunatic! A thoroughly depraved thing! A raving madman!
Those were the three inescapable conclusions Rain hammered into his mind as consciousness began to slip away.
During this horrifying display, the captured villagers—consisting mostly of trembling children, terrified teenagers, and weeping women—were forced to sit in the front row, helpless witnesses to the boy's systematic destruction. It was as though their eyes had been forcefully glued in place; paralyzed by terror, they couldn't even turn their gaze away. They were too terrified to scream or express their horror, deeply afraid that drawing the monster's attention would bring the blade down upon them next. Even their breathing was kept dangerously shallow and silent.
As the minutes dragged on like hours, the sun finally dipped below the distant horizon. The sunset seemed remarkably abrupt, as if the sky itself was unwilling to bear witness to the unspeakable atrocities unfolding within the blood-soaked village. Only two hours had passed since the commencement of the torture, but to Rain, every single second stretched into an eternity of pure torment.
When the night finally swallowed the remnants of twilight, the agonizing groans escaping Rain's throat grew faint and subdued. This was partly because the chief had temporarily ceased his carving, but mostly because the boy's vocal cords were entirely shredded, leaving his throat raw, dry, and screamingly painful.
The burly monster finally stood up, rolling his shoulders and stretching his massive frame with an air of profound relaxation. He looked and acted as though he had just stepped out of a long, refreshing hot bath. Everyone still lingering near the scene shivered uncontrollably, their blood running cold at the stark contrast between the bloody carnage and the serene, satisfied expression on the chief's face.
"Hey, hand me the blue vial," the boss commanded casually, pointing a thick finger toward a shifty-eyed individual hiding near the edge of the bandit pack.
"Right away, Boss!" the man stammered, nearly tripping over his own boots as he scrambled forward to present the item.
"Here you go." The bandit handed the monster a small glass vial containing a swirling, luminescent blue liquid.
Rain saw dancing stars flickering across his vision. He couldn't quite tell whether they were the actual stars of the night sky or merely the visual hallucinations of catastrophic blood loss. Either way, his battered body was rapidly losing its warmth, growing colder and heavier by the second.
Without warning, the burly man crouched down once more right beside Rain's ruined form.
"You know," the chief murmured, his tone uncharacteristically reflective, "I knew you were a tough one from the very moment I laid eyes on you. Despite our little session here, there is still no genuine fear or submission in your pupils—only that same pure, unadulterated killing intent." He paused, a flicker of genuine professional appreciation crossing his features.
He let out a soft, dramatic sigh. "It's a real pity that our time together is coming to an end. Just thinking about all the other fun we could have had..." A profoundly wistful expression settled over his scarred face.
In response, the last lingering emotion surfaced clearly in Rain's blinded, blood-caked eyes: absolute, bottomless disgust.
The Chief didn't care in the least about the boy's look of loathing. "I've only ever met a handful of people with eyes like yours in my entire life. If individuals like that are left alive, they grow up to become a massive pain in the neck in the best-case scenario, and an absolute disaster in the worst..." He trailed off, leaving the ominous implication hanging in the chill night air.
"Oh well, such is the way of the world. As a parting gift to thank you for such a remarkably entertaining session, I have a special token for you." He raised the glass vial, gently agitating it so the dust-like granules suspended within the fluid swirled into a chaotic vortex. "This is Blue Dust, a rare, volatile poison I managed to acquire from a true cultivator. It's potent enough to turn an entire populated region into a barren wasteland of death if utilized properly. Aren't you honored to be escorted to the other side by such a precious treasure?"
He wore a deeply intoxicated expression, entirely lost in his own twisted sense of grandeur.
Seeing that Rain remained entirely silent, too exhausted to even muster a retort, the Chief chuckled heartily. "Well then, here you go."
Simultaneously, he reached out with rough, calloused fingers, forcefully pinning Rain's blood-crusted eyelids wide open, and poured a few concentrated drops of the glowing blue liquid directly onto his raw, exposed eyeballs.
Ssssss!
A sharp, violent hissing sound erupted instantly, serving as the horrifying prelude to a shriek of pure, unadulterated agony that finally broke from Rain's lips. It was the first time throughout the entire ordeal that the youth truly cried out in pain. The heart-wrenching scream echoed far across the desolate village ruins.
The burly man closed his eyes in pure ecstasy, as if he were listening to the most sublime, beautiful symphony ever composed. He savored the haunting echoes for a long moment before finally rising to his feet.
"You only have until dawn before the poison finishes eating through your brain. Enjoy the exquisite journey down into hell," the bandit chief muttered with a dismissive shrug. He genuinely felt a twinge of regret that he wouldn't be able to stick around and personally watch Rain's final descent, but the slavers waiting at their rendezvous point were an notoriously impatient bunch.
"Let's move out," the burly man barked, signaling his men to pack up.
The surviving villagers were hauled up roughly and shoved deep inside a reinforced iron cage bolted onto the bed of a heavy transport carriage. The chief mounted his massive warhorse, taking the lead as the convoy prepared to roll.
Before long, the rhythmic thunder of heavy hooves faded slowly into the distance, leaving behind the dark, smoking ruins of Roken Village. In the stillness of the night, nothing remained in the formerly peaceful settlement except for a young boy left to scream his lungs out against the dark, and the countless silent corpses guarding the ashes of his home.