Virith found the story a bit weird, even by Broken-Soul standards. After all, since when did Broken-Souls start thinking rationally? It went against everything that's—well, broken!
"Prisoner one-nine-nine-seven is on level four, wasn't he? And the little girl… which level is she from?" Virith asked, annoyed.
"Ugh!" Azrith gagged. "As far as I remember, that disgusting creature was of the other gender a thousand years ago."
"Obsessed with little kids," Solgrave spat in disgust. "That brat's been here since the day I created this prison. Don't tell me he, of all people, figured out an escape plan."
While the trio tried to figure out the motives behind the first soul ever to escape Solgrave's prison, Panno focused on the wrong things.
First prisoner? A thousand years? How old is this pipsqueak?
Solgrave puffed out his chest, his presence swelling as Panno's gaze lingered on him, only to scold the officer once his eyes drifted toward the twins.
"Which level was the little girl on?" he barked. "How much time did she have left?"
He kept drilling Panno with questions he already knew the answers to. After all, not even the wind was allowed to move without his permission.
Panno shut down his sweat glands and locked away emotions that would distract him. Searching through his Sub-Space, near the memories section, he found old tomes maintained by a worn-out librarian.
He asked the librarian for information, and the ancient being handed him a tome filled with prisoner details: time left, power slots, personal records, and crimes listed with bookmarks slitting out.
All of this took but a moment, yet Solgrave had already bombarded him with several more questions, either to test his speed or waste precious time; Panno bets on the latter.
Panno compiled the requested data into a fresh tome and read it aloud in a single breath.
"An old man caught in several cases of child abuse during his prime by mortals. Learned to tap into Sani during his execution, becoming a menace to human society until the Soul Snatchers apprehended and sent him here. Warden Solgrave sentenced him to a hundred years, later extending his sentence repeatedly for his failure to reform, to join the Soul Realm, or to die. His sentence was due in seven days, yet he escaped early, freeing several Harbinger-level souls, a couple of Specters from his floor, and…" He gasped in horror.
"Since when do souls need to breathe?" Solgrave snapped. "Spit it out before I rip your memories out and play them on rewind!"
"One from the lowest floor…" Panno's voice fell to a whisper. "Voidborn."
"Who in their right mind would go lower instead of escaping upward?" Azrith snarled. "You nincompoop. Think for once."
"It's like you learn a new word every day just to insult me," Solgrave chuckled, his personality flipping instantly. "Is it a good word or a bad one this time?" He stroked his non-existent beard.
Azrith ignored him, her fiery hair growing bushier as the flames intensified; alive, ready to devour Panno. "Zee is a smart kid; he wouldn't wander into floors he can't handle. And a Specter soul couldn't harm a hair on his head. So what truth is being left behind?"
Her smile distracted Panno from the approaching danger as his legs moved toward certain death.
"She's sweet to everyone except me," Solgrave grumbled. "Is that her way of showing love?" He bit his lip and tried to look seductive.
Azrith ignored him completely. "Why haven't the guards stationed below reported back yet?"
Before Panno could lie, she'd already reasoned it out. "Was there any new prisoner recently?" She glanced at Solgrave, disappointed. Her instincts were screaming that this was his fault.
"Zack," the twins groaned in unison, blocking their thoughts from Panno.
"We always have newcomers; we're a well-known prison, you know," Solgrave said proudly, whispering the latter. "Also, the only one!" He clears his throat. "There's not a soul capable of breaking my domain. Not even a Voidborn." He patted himself on the back.
Virith ignored him and turned to Azrith. "This new batch of souls is problematic."
"Don't they all start that way?"
"Yet here we are while those candles burn themselves out." They said in unison, nodding in agreement.
Azrith ran her fingers through her blazing hair, flipping it to one side as a strand extended, transforming into a snake's head. Still burning red-hot, it slithered around the file cabinets, sniffing out its target. Each record was etched on a bronze plate, the rim scorched with fang-shaped marks. The fiery blue serpent bit down on the mark, dragging the plate back to Azrith.
She browsed through the recent transfers. "I just know this is your fault," she muttered, pretending not to care.
Solgrave pouted and ran into Virith's arms. "Just because everything that goes wrong somehow ends up being my fault doesn't mean it always will be the case!"
Panno fell to his knees, for the first time realizing the full height of Solgrave. Still taller than him, Panno bowed deeply until his forehead pierced through the floor tiles and into the ground. "I'm sorry, Warden!" his muffled sound echoed out. "This is all my fault. They blocked my single-slot essence so easily... I didn't know that was possible!"
Solgrave ignored him, cuddling closer to Virith. "We can always blame it on the vice warden. Don't worry too much."
"A kid just died," Azrith hissed, her hair spitting fire.
Solgrave buried his face in Virith's chest, ignoring her rage. "Relax. We have his core, remember? We'll get him back to his original dumb self to die another day."
He placed his palm on the wall, extracted a brick, flipped it over, and then slotted it back into place. A tiny room opened: short, cramped, and filled with adult magazines.
"Now, where did I put that artifact?"
He brushed off cobwebs, picked up a dusty magazine, reached inside, and pulled out something green, then shoved it back in. "Oops, wrong green thing!" he chuckled creepily.
"Is that…" Azrith gawked at Virith.
"That pesky little pervert," Virith hissed, her flamboyant hair flaring.
Panno turned red, averting his eyes from his boss's massive stash, while Solgrave kept fumbling around. "Did he seriously keep all our cores with those…?" His respect for Solgrave shot through the roof. "I must tell everyone of our Warden's generosity!" Tears of joy streamed down his face. "He shall be cherished until we all become True Souls!"
Finally, Solgrave pulled out a glossy green orb from within the magazine. "Astro Vasanigan!" he chanted. The orb blinked like a beacon and shot toward its host body.
"I'll get going," Solgrave said, sinking into the floor like a ghost. "You know the drill. Lock this baby down."
"Something's off," Azrith warned. "Be careful." She wanted to remind him that every domain had its weaknesses, but held back, not wanting to reveal it to an outsider among them.
"Pray we don't find you, Zack," the sisters warned the unseen intruder.
"My, my… is that concern?" Solgrave's voice echoed as he vanished. "I should be in danger all the time, then."
Azrith chuckled and turned to Panno. "Go back to your post and order the guards to block all exits. Don't mention the current situation to the Vice Warden."
Panno frowned. "Just the exits?"
"The Warden can handle the bottom four floors alone," Azrith said, smirking at Virith. Her hair blazed brighter.
"Challenge accepted," Virith said, her flames surpassing her sister's.
Panno burst out of the Warden's office, praying to the Soul King to get him as far away as possible from the disaster about to unfold. An intense heatwave distorted his vision before he even reached the exit; the walls, or perhaps his perception, warped and wavered like a mirage on the verge of vanishing.
"These guys are the real monsters here!" he gasped, collapsing to the floor and crawling the rest of the way to his office.
Behind him, the twins' hair stretched outward, melting and reforming the floor beneath their feet into a spiraling staircase leading to the lower levels. Their prison was an inverted pyramid, lost somewhere in space and time. To escape, one had to pass through the marked exits on each floor.
The lower floors were bound by harsher rules, hosting stronger Broken-Souls, while the upper floors held weaker ones and fewer restrictions. Usually, these exits were the only paths to move up or down, except for when the Warden granted access. Permission lifted restrictions, and one could tunnel through reality itself. Yet in both cases, no one who was dragged in by Solgrave or entered by their own free will could ever leave.
Little did anyone realize that every exit actually led to freedom, not to another floor, as Solgrave had led them to believe. Hiding the true exits in plain sight made his domain more unpredictable and far stronger, while convincing everyone that the "main exit" lay near his office ensured the prisoners kept moving within his world, never realizing that freedom sat quietly beside their very own bedside.
———<>||<>——— End of Chapter Forty-One. ———<>||<>———