Chapter 6: Roach
Eight years had passed since Madam Helga Abducted me away from thetford country.
Eight years separated from Anki, my Abyssal Sword,
Madam Helga was unlike the savage demonesses whispered about in tales of Fortsterling. She never raised a hand in casual cruelty, never laughed at suffering. Her voice remained gentle, her touch almost tender. And yet, over time, I came to fear her more than any roaring beast or bloodthirsty cultivator.
The gentleness was a mask, thin, flawless, terrifying. Beneath it lay a coldness so absolute it made the northern blizzards seem warm.
The first two years she kept me confined to a single chamber deep within the mansion's undercroft. she dropped me in there, into a narrow stone pit already occupied by two other children: a boy and a girl, both teetering on the edge of madness. Their eyes were hollow, their bodies wasted. For the first three months I listened to their descent. The boy's screams grew thinner each night until they stopped entirely. Then came the wet, tearing sounds, the girl devouring him alive.
I knew then that I would be next.
Hunger eventually consumed her mind completely. Then one day she lunged at me like a starved animal, nails raking, teeth snapping. I moved with desperate caution, tracing her violent aura flow through the darkness. Her movements were erratic yet deadly, a born superhuman, unpredictable and sharp. She seized a jagged rock from the pit floor and smashed it against my shoulder. Bone cracked. Pain flared.
But I was not one to be soft.
I snatched a stone of my own. We clashed in the darkness of the pit, brutal melee, rock against rock, flesh against flesh, until she finally collapsed, skull caved, breath gone.
That night, for the first time without the Abyssal Sword, I performed the swallow.
I tore into her still-warm corpse, forcing down flesh and blood and aura until nothing remained but her stained stone. The rush came, faint, incomplete, yet no voice announced my stats. No serpentine whisper congratulated or warned me. Anki I wondered where he laid.
From that day forward, every three months Madam Helga sent five more children into the pit.
In that lightless hole I committed acts no sane soul should ever know: I killed. I consumed human flesh. I bathed in the bloodlust that rose like black tide within me. Each cycle hardened me further, sharpened my instincts, deepened the void where my humanity once lived.
The following three years she used me differently.
I became her test subject in the poison laboratories buried beneath the mansion. Six hundred times, perhaps more,I was brought to death's door. Venom after venom coursed through my veins: paralytics that locked every muscle, corrosives that ate flesh from bone, neurotoxins that turned thought to screaming static. Each time my body rebuilt itself just enough to survive, earning me the mocking title "Roach" among the alchemists who watched from behind dark orbs of Mana.
Yet through every agony, I never once felt Madam Helga's gaze leave me. Every night, no matter how deep the drugged sleep or how fierce the fever, her energy signature lingered beside my cot, silent, watchful, possessive.
But those eight years were not wasted.
Through endless torment I forged resistance to hundreds of poisons. My battle senses grew razor-sharp, able to read both aura flow and killing intent through vibration alone. And in secret, using scraps of venom, my own blood, and fragments of devoured talent, I crafted a poison of my own design: Abyssal Touch. Slow, insidious,stored in the blood centipedes heart, weakening it's hold without alerting its mistress.
Now, at last, after eight years of torture, peace seemed possible.
I stood atop one of the mansion's frozen balconies, arms thrown wide to the snow-laden sky. A gentle smile curved my lips, the first true one in years. A strip of black cloth bound my scarred sockets. My body was clad in sleek black combat robes that whispered with every movement. My white hair had grown long, falling past my shoulders like the mane of some fallen immortal.
Then a voice, sweet, familiar, chilling, drifted from behind.
"Ahh, Young Lord Liam."
I shivered despite myself.
"Ahh, Yunna. What brings you here?"
She stepped closer; I could feel her frown without seeing it.
"Young Lord… why have you not ranked up since last I saw you? Madam's observations showed remarkable progress in your talent. Yet you remain stuck at Bronze rank."
"Yunna," I said quietly, turning my face toward her aura, "I did not come here to talk rankings with you. Where is Madam Helga? I need my sword back."
Rage flickered across my handsome features now, sharpened by years of survival, before I forced it down.
Footsteps approached from the front of the chamber, slow, majestic, carrying that unmistakable violent energy.
A woman in flowing black silk emerged from the shadowed archway, her presence filling the room like ink spreading through water.
"Trust me," Helga said calmly, eyes sweeping me from head to toe, "I have no desire to keep that thing in my grasp."
Before I could respond she closed the distance and wrapped me in a sudden, possessive embrace.
"My cute little man… so handsome now. And yet you never once came to check on me. Always asking about that damn sword."
My face twisted. I slipped free of her grasp with practiced ease.
This witch…
But then, something stirred. A faint, familiar pulse brushed against my perception.
"Anki!"
I raised my head sharply.
No answer came.
"What have you done to my sword?"
Helga tilted her head, expression one of mild hurt.
"Liam… I thought by now I would have earned at least a sliver of your trust."
I faced the place where her voice originated, wondering, not for the first time, if something in her mind had fractured long ago.
"Please, Madam Helga," I said, extending my hand. "May I have my sword?"
She did not place it in my palm.
"I cannot give it to you."
Anger swelled hot and sudden.
"Why not?"
"My father, Aron Deveron, has declared a grand battling contest this week. He wishes you to participate. The victor may claim his heart's desire."
I went still.
"So be it," I said after a long breath. "If I do not have it returned to me this time… I will take it by whatever means necessary."
I faced the direction of her eyes. A gentle smile cascaded across my face, cold, serene, promising.
Then I turned and walked away.
Behind me, Helga pressed a hand to her temple, sighing softly.
"Why did you lie to Young Lord Liam?"
Yunna's voice was quiet, almost accusatory.
Helga watched my retreating figure until it vanished around the corner.
"I must show the Demon Continent what I, Helga, Seventh Demon Commander, am truly capable of."
She turned sharply. In her arms, wrapped in a cocoon of restraining violet energy, the Abyssal Sword lay silent and sealed.