A soul is nurtured through understanding; a simple concept that takes several lifespans, patience, and massive luck to achieve. For a Broken-Soul to grow into something meaningful is as absurd as a psychopath becoming a saint overnight. Two opposite extremes that cannot coexist within a single construct.
"There are still percentages of both one can handle," Solgrave noted, stopping on the fourth floor above Zee's half-eaten body.
He dropped the artifact onto Zee's corpse and swiped the air, replaying the final moments of his employee's demise. Ethereal shadows outlined in silver formed Zee and the little girl, every incident revealed as the silver trails reenacted their movements.
"A Specter using an Eclipse-level artifact?" The corner of his lip twitched upward—the challenge reigniting his competitive spirit.
Solgrave pressed his palm to the artifact and chanted, "Ezzen!"
Wrinkles rippled across its smooth surface as the sphere folded in on itself, cracking open to reveal silver teeth and a pitch-black tongue, its veins golden, shifting within an abyssal interior.
Bit by bit, the artifact tore into Zee, devouring the entire body before Solgrave returned from his stroll through the lower floors.
A crimson-black bat rested upside down in an aviary filled with strange symbols. This room had once belonged to Panno; his office and resting space, until Solgrave assigned this creature as his partner and guard.
The bat, larger than an eagle and adorned with thick black fur like a lion's mane, only turned its head in annoyance as it followed Panno crawling across what used to be its room.
One look at the bat's hound-like face could terrify even an emotionless soul. These creatures did not prey on chemical fear; they instilled fear directly into the soul. Only a True Soul could shrug off the concept they invoked. Which is to say the creature's ability is even more terrifying than a Slot powered by a Broken-Soul's Will.
The bat opened the aviary gate with the tiny claws at the edges of its wings, then curled inward into a furry cocoon. Its form stretched, twisted, cracked, and reshaped into a claw reaching toward the floor. Then another. And another, until the fourth claw lowered while the first transformed into a tail ending in a tiny mouth with two sharp fangs.
The tail shrank to a standard size as four muscular legs began to take shape. Every part of the hound's body served a specific purpose. Its face could split into a multidirectional maw, each layer of flesh and sinew designed to strike, latch, or drag its target closer. Inside, its organs twisted into shapes meant to mimic a soul's deepest terror, forcing the victim to relive whatever memory would break them fastest.
From a heart-stopping hound-bat, it became a terrifying hell-hound. A simple flex of its wings produced enough wind to scatter Panno's belongings and carry the beast smoothly toward him. The heat in the room didn't bother it; its eggs required twice this intensity to hatch.
"Lockdown orders from the Warden. And close the gate on your way out… please," Panno said without looking. Its resting state was terrifying enough; he didn't want to see it in motion.
The hell-hound stretched. The membrane between its limbs thinned as it absorbed subtle shifts in the surrounding energy fields. Its ears stiffened and rotated like antennae, catching the micro-currents of energy displaced by moving souls. Its bloodshot eyes darkened as it released ultrasonic waves that boomed throughout the prison.
More bloodshot eyes opened in distant shadows, reacting to the wave. Each pair blossomed into a monstrous hound, gliding silently through the prison in a coordinated soul-hunt.
Every guard sprinted to their stations, tripping over each other as they suited up with whatever they could grab. Equipment, clothing, even a table or tincap if that's what their hands found.
"We are dead… we are so dead. Head to your allocated exits," they repeated, trembling.
Meanwhile, deeper in the dungeon levels, Solgrave had his arm buried up to the elbow inside a massive inmate's mouth. The inmate, buff, hairy, and several times Solgrave's size, was dragged effortlessly across the floor by his teeth.
Solgrave left behind a trail of unconscious inmates, and others stuffed into the walls like badly carved murals. He drummed a rusty tune on the cell bars with a miniature baton as he continued deeper into the cramped hallway.
When the mood struck, he stopped and looked up at a cell tag, whispering their numbers to see if it would provoke a reaction, or perhaps a warn-up session.
Inside cell '777' sat a man four times the size of the inmate Solgrave had been hauling. He barely fit inside, yet remained still and silent, not complaining.
"Hey, big guy!" Solgrave unlocked the door. "Mind telling me what you know? I don't have the patience to beat it out of you today." He pointed the baton at him.
"Send the hot ones down here, then I might talk," the giant smirked.
Solgrave twitched, and before the giant could blink, a hidden layer of the baton snapped open.
!BOOM!
The guards on the upper levels felt the quake and fell to the ground. "Looks like the Warden just got serious," they whimpered. Sweat poured down the walls in sheets, making the air shimmer. They backed away from the sweating walls and fanned themselves with their silver hats.
"Looks like the sisters are at it too," someone cried. "Why do they even need us? One of them is enough to control this whole damn prison!"
"Shut it, and stay alert," Panno snapped. "Anyone caught slacking will have to tie the hell-hounds later." He gave them a moment for the warning to sink in. "Follow Warden's instructions to the letter. I repeat, to the damn letter. This is no drill."
Panno's Soul-Slot made him the perfect radio officer. Unlike the twins' rare ability to share thoughts, he could insert a suggestion directly into someone's mind—if they agreed beforehand. Likewise, their thoughts could involuntarily bleed into his. This transformed him into a walking, talking transmitter, capable of sending and receiving messages with perfect clarity anywhere in the soul realm. He crafted and handed out physical radios for everyday tasks because maintaining an open mental channel required extreme concentration, something a Broken-Soul utterly lacks.
On the first floor, just the level beneath the guards, Azrith's blazing hair spread across the entire layout. With Panno linking her thoughts to the guards, she could communicate directly into their minds; her intentions turning into action without delay.
Each strand of hair transformed into a fiery snake, lighting corridors and incinerating any unfortunate soul who crossed them. Prisoners plotting behind bars had their thoughts transmitted to Azrith. Most of them were vulgar, yet she satisfied every wish through her soul-burning snakes.
Solgrave's rules prevented anyone from crossing the threshold of the rusted bars. Not because they were locked, but because touching them triggered the countdown that forced a prisoner to begin their escape.
Virith descended to help Solgrave, incinerating the grotesque murals of inmates in a fit of outrage.
"Of course, that little fellow is fast. This is 'his' domain," Virith hissed, picking up the green orb containing a baby Zee attached by an umbilical cord. "Zee recovered," she thought, and the message spread to everyone.
She tightened her grip, and the artifact shattered like brittle glass, releasing a thick green fog that soon collapsed into a musky, red sludge resembling human innards.
Enraged at the thought of losing the game, she had forgotten to disable her senses before opening the orb, and now the stench of burning tar and rubber churned her stomach. Refusing to endure her sister's or Solgrave's mockery, she burned away her own sensory receptors by overheating key parts of her body, melting her nose and a portion of her brain.
Zee woke to an injured Virith. Assuming something had gone wrong during his revival, he rubbed his eyes hard, only to find a pristine, uninjured Virith in front of him.
"One expects results with a high-tier artifact," he joked weakly.
Virith dismissed it, annoyance rising. "Remember anything?"
Zee checked his core, his memory garden, and found the field where he'd stored his final memories covered in viscous black liquid, choking out the crops. "All gone… how!?" His hands trembled uncontrollably.
"Not good," Virith muttered. The snakes coiled around her feet, heating the stone floor until it turned molten red. "I'm going lower. You head up and return to your post. The faster the better." She plunged downward.
It took Zee a while to recover. When he finally did, his first instinct was to lean in and peer into the hole. He wasn't sure what to expect, but the abyss staring back at him was never among the million possibilities he'd imagined.
He never understood the Warden's inverted-pyramid diagram of the domain or the twins' faith in their boss, because common sense dictates that tunneling only makes sense if there's something to land on. "I'm taking the stairs!" he yelled into the abyss, hoping she heard.
Zee looked at the fiery surroundings, the burning prisoner murals he didn't remember, and his naked body.
"Eww!" A chorus hit Zee's mind. "Stop picturing yourself and get up here!" the guards and Panno yelled.
Embarassed, Zee forced out lumps of fat to cover himself. "Why were you all peeking, you creeps?"
"Yeah, because you're such a treat for permanent blindness!" Panno yelled back. "We were doing our jobs until that… you're thing invaded our privacy!"
"I'm erasing this whole damn day from my memory," one guard muttered.
"No!" the others shouted.
"We have to keep every detail intact until the investigation ends," Panno groaned. "Every. Single. Detail." His frustration made everyone shudder through the shared link. "For maybe a mortal month!"
Worse than seeing the image was knowing they could rewind, zoom, and analyze every frame; something Solgrave would force them to do as soon as he grew bored of torturing inmates.
They had no one to blame but themselves. Their desire to watch Virith's dress burn had led them to this nightmare. An image Solgrave would never allow them to erase as long as they served under him.
———<>||<>——— End of Chapter Forty-Two. ———<>||<>———