Chapter Fourteen: Torture

With a crackling sound, a beam of blinding light shot from the eyes of the old man in the red robe, striking Yin Xuege. Yin Xuege let out a miserable howl, his hair standing on end as sparks of electricity erupted all over his body. He was sent flying backward like a discarded scarecrow.

The immense and unstoppable power of the lightning raged within Yin Xuege's body. This lightning was not violent; it even had a gentle, nourishing quality, like flowing water. It seeped into Yin Xuege's body like water, causing him intense pain and disrupting his body's normal functions, but it didn't inflict further harm!

At the very least, Yin Xuege could still breathe, still think, and his nerves remained intact.

"Dark child, I showed mercy because I want to keep your lowly life to experience the suffering that is to come!"

The old man in the red robe gripped his staff, a silver-blue gem the size of a fist on its head emitting rings of dazzling electric arcs. He glared at Yin Xuege with fury, gritting his teeth as he spoke word by word, "Leitning was my most accomplished student. I planned to send him to the city-state exchange conference to secure more resources for the Great Berlin City-State!"

He let out a forceful breath and said coldly, "But you killed him! Very well, you killed Leitning, you've destroyed all my efforts of the past fifteen years! All the resources invested in Leitning have been wasted! Excellent, very excellent! Everything you've done will be repaid accordingly!"

Yin Xuege lay on the ground, electricity coursing through his body, rendering him completely immobile. But this didn't stop him from bursting into laughter, mocking the old man for misjudging him: "This only goes to show, your judgment in students is quite poor! It didn't take much effort to kill him!"

The old man's face turned purple with rage at Yin Xuege's provocative and arrogant words. He clenched his staff, bared his teeth, and threatened Yin Xuege fiercely before nodding with difficulty and forcefully waving his arm.

"Dark child, I remember your provocation and insolence! And please, remember me, the Human Alliance's Third Thunder Emperor, Jolus. When I raze your evil family's lair and hang all your kin on crosses to be turned to ash by the sun, I will let you witness that beautiful scene!"

A surge of exhilaration coursed through Yin Xuege's heart—destroying the Yin Clan's lair and hanging all his kin? This was a dream Yin Xuege had harbored since he was old enough to understand! So, Yin Xuege resolutely continued to provoke Jolus: "Only the Third Thunder Emperor? Does that mean there are two more powerful ones above you? No wonder your student was killed by me so easily!"

With difficulty, he raised his head, glanced disdainfully at Jolus, and threw his head back in laughter: "The teacher isn't good, so the student is bound to be trash!"

"Damn you, you bastard!" Jolus's eyes turned red with fury at Yin Xuege's provocative words and audacious gaze. At this moment, he bore a striking resemblance to a Blood Demon. Enraged, Jolus frantically waved his palm, engulfing the entire deep and long tunnel in blinding lightning. From the prison cells lining the tunnel, countless prisoners' furious curses erupted.

All the prisoners confined here were battered by the lightning. They crowded around the air vents, hurling the most venomous and vulgar curses at all of Jolus's female relatives. The tunnel was instantly filled with obscenities, further enraging Jolus, whose veins bulged on his forehead. He could barely restrain the urge to kill all the prisoners here.

The air beside him twisted slightly, and a handsome, golden-haired man in a black robe appeared out of nowhere. He placed a hand on Jolus's lightning-spewing arm and shook his head firmly, refusing to be swayed.

"Don't be impulsive, Jolus, my old friend. They will eventually be punished, and humanity will remain the masters of this land. Don't forget our main objective. A child who fears no sunlight, don't you think there's a conspiracy involved?"

"Allen, you... you're right!" Jolus suppressed his anger and stomped his foot heavily.

A group of fully armed Blood Prison Guards swarmed forward. They clumsily grabbed the paralyzed Yin Xuege and dragged him toward the end of the tunnel. Led by Jolus and Allen, they passed through one heavy door after another, finally arriving before a massive metal archway.

This archway was over three meters tall. The black portal was carved with numerous scenes of legendary gods and demons battling. The carver was clearly a master; these scenes were lifelike, with at least a thousand vivid characters appearing on the relatively small portal. Among them, Yin Xuege immediately spotted the figure of a winged Blood Demon.

This Blood Demon, engulfed in flames, had a spear piercing its chest and was falling from a cloud. It pointed a finger at a deity shrouded in light atop the cloud, from whom countless drops of blood were falling.

Yin Xuege had also seen this story depicted in the statues on the walls of the Children's Hall. This was the final 'Twilight War' from countless years ago, before the descent of the Era of Dharma Decline, during the time when gods and demons were in decline!

In that war, the Eastern and Western cultivation worlds were thrown into chaos simultaneously. Many Eastern cultivators appeared in the Twilight War; some allied with the gods, while others joined the ranks of the demons. After a great battle, both sides vanished without a trace. Only a severely wounded Blood Demon, whose strength ranked among the top deities and demons, struggled back to the Blood Demon Sacred Hall, leaving the remaining dozens of drops of Blood Demon Saint Blood from its heart to its descendants.

The ancestor of the Yin Clan, Yin Tianjue, took advantage of that time to lead a group of Yin Clan Elders in a surprise attack on the Blood Demon Sacred Hall, seizing all the Blood Demon Saint Blood. This marked the establishment of the Yin Clan.

The black-robed man, Allen, noticed Yin Xuege's gaze. He lightly tapped the Blood Demon falling from the clouds on the portal and smiled, nodding at Yin Xuege: "You're particularly interested in this carving? A black-haired, black-eyed Blood Demon child, you're from the Yin Clan, aren't you?"

Yin Xuege's heart skipped a beat, but he remained silent.

Allen looked at Yin Xuege for a moment with a smile, then nodded: "A troublesome little fellow. If it were a child from another clan, a bit of intimidation and some torture would make them spill everything. But your Yin Clan children, while as cunning and insidious as other clan children, you come from the East!"

Allen spread his hands helplessly and sighed, "I detest your Easterners' so-called integrity. Few captives from your Yin Clan captured in the past would confess. I hope you don't have such a backbone, I truly hope so!"

The black portal opened, and a gust of cold air mixed with a strong smell of blood rushed out.

Jolus, with a sinister grin, and Allen, with a pleasant smile, entered first. Yin Xuege was also dragged in by the guards.

This was a spacious hall, or perhaps "torture chamber" would be a more accurate description. Within the hall, dozens of meters long and wide, were densely packed all sorts of bizarre torture devices. There were even several furnaces and a small steel refining crucible, with a pot of molten steel boiling, occasionally splashing drops of viscous red iron.

Yin Xuege's body stiffened abruptly. He stared at the steel refining crucible, unable to imagine what kind of torture this was!

Throwing a person into molten steel? Even the most powerful Blood Demon couldn't withstand such high temperatures, right? Even though Yin Xuege, for some unknown reason, wasn't afraid of sunlight, the natural enemy of Blood Demons, this was molten steel. Yin Xuege looked at his tender body and felt he wouldn't last a second inside before melting.

With all his attention focused on the pot of molten steel, Yin Xuege didn't notice the other peculiar torture instruments in the chamber.

Two guards dragged Yin Xuege roughly to a cross and forcefully secured his hands and feet to it. Specially made metal ropes tightly bound Yin Xuege's limbs at the joints. Faint golden text talismans emerged on the cross, just like the golden text on the prison door, emitting a powerful divine aura that Yin Xuege instinctively found repulsive.

Surrounded by this awe-inspiring aura, all of Yin Xuege's strength vanished.

Jolus and Allen slowly walked to a row of seats on one side of the torture chamber and sat down. Already seated in these high-backed chairs was a middle-aged woman wearing a striking red dress the color of flames. Still possessing her charm, though with a few crow's feet at the corners of her eyes, the beautiful woman in the red dress held a cup of water and calmly watched Yin Xuege.

"Is this the child?" the beautiful woman shook her head and took a sip of water. "Fennice, is this the Sunwalker?"

Yin Xuege looked up. Standing beside the beautiful woman was Fennice, who had cruelly tortured him with flames. With a sweet smile, Fennice leaned close to the beautiful woman and whispered something. The beautiful woman waved her hand dismissively and nodded to Jolus and Allen.

Jolus's expression was gloomy. He said indifferently, "Fire Queen Fainlan, this is the boy. A Sunwalker, don't you find it strange?"

Fainlan regarded Yin Xuege with curiosity. Allen said slowly, "Even we know how important a Sunwalker is to a Blood Demon clan! He has the potential to become a legendary Blood Demon Emperor, or even a Blood Demon deity! What are the Yin Clan's intentions in sending a Sunwalker to infiltrate the Great Berlin City-State?"

Fainlan narrowed her eyes, the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes disappearing instantly. Her smile became even sweeter.

"Perhaps they know something? For example, the person we captured a few days ago from the underground lair of the abandoned cemetery, in conjunction with the Milan City-State? Anything is possible, isn't it, my friends!"

Fainlan smiled sweetly, but her next command was far from sweet or cute.

She waved her hand and pointed at Yin Xuege with a smile: "Break half the bones in his body. Let our little fellow wake up first and know where he is!"

Two burly men, dressed in black leather pants with their upper bodies bare and wearing black leather masks, slowly approached Yin Xuege. They stuffed a dirty towel into Yin Xuege's mouth and then clamped dozens of specially made alligator clips, embedded with small crystals, onto the vital points of Yin Xuege's right side where nerves and blood vessels converged.

These alligator-shaped clips dug deep into Yin Xuege's flesh. The crystals on the clips emitted a faint light, and threads of sharp lightning power pierced Yin Xuege's body, increasing his nerve sensitivity by at least a hundredfold.

"Kid, bear with it, don't die of pain!" one of the masked strongmen grinned and raised a strangely shaped ram's horn hammer.

"Don't worry, I think this kid can take more than others!" the other masked strongman's laughter sounded like a night owl's 'coo-coo-coo', sending chills down Yin Xuege's spine. He raised an iron rod covered with countless inch-long steel needles, gestured towards Yin Xuege's right ankle, and then brought it down with a heavy blow.

The steel needles pierced the bone and burrowed into the marrow. The iron rod shattered Yin Xuege's bone, mangling the nerves and blood vessels around his ankle. The lightning power released by the alligator clips amplified his pain by more than a hundred times. Yin Xuege felt an unbearable agony surge from his right foot. His body convulsed violently, and blood gushed from all seven orifices simultaneously.

His internal organs twisted and exploded. The excruciating pain plunged Yin Xuege's consciousness into a daze. With just one blow, he was nearly killed! If he hadn't just broken through to a level just one step away from a Moon Warrior, with his physical capabilities recently enhanced severalfold, this blow would have rendered him unconscious.

But the cruelest part was that Yin Xuege's enhanced body also meant enhanced endurance. This blow didn't knock him unconscious, so he could only passively endure all the pain.

Cold, viscous sweat continuously seeped out, forming a layer of gray paste on Yin Xuege's body. Yin Xuege's body convulsed violently, twitching and writhing like a fish out of water. He opened his mouth to shout, but the foul-smelling towel stuffed in it prevented him.

He wanted to take a breath to alleviate the burning pain within him, but another executioner shoved a burning tinder bundle in front of his nose. The tinder emitted acrid black smoke. Instead of fresh air, Yin Xuege inhaled the choking black smoke. His lungs spasmed violently. He wanted to cough but couldn't make a sound. His body writhed intensely, and his vision turned completely red.

"Fennice, my dear child!" Fire Queen Fainlan smiled, watching Yin Xuege struggle and convulse in intense agony. She spoke unhurriedly, "There's no need for mercy or hesitation when dealing with these dark creatures. Torture them with the most brutal methods; perhaps there will be unexpected gains!"

Fennice smiled sweetly and gently, standing beside Fainlan. She watched Yin Xuege, who was on the verge of collapse, with evident pleasure.

"My friends, think about it. Why would a precious Sunwalker, one rarely seen in a thousand years, appear on our territory? Does the Yin Clan have a conspiracy against us? What kind of mission is this poor little fellow carrying?"

Allen tapped the armrest of his chair lightly with his fingers, musing, "Most importantly, if we hadn't received a secret report and captured this little guy at the tavern, and found those potions and a rapier unique to Blood Demons on him, would we have been able to catch him after he integrated into the Great Berlin City-State?"

Jolus's face was dark and sinister. He glared venomously at Yin Xuege, his teeth grinding together with a 'crunch.'

"He doesn't have that peculiar sinister aura of the Blood Demons, nor their scent of blood. His scent is even more sunny and healthy than most human children! And he's not afraid of the sun! If he had blended in with humanity, perhaps one day in the future, we would have discovered his exceptional talent, taken him as a student, and let him protect the safety of the Great Berlin City-State?"

Jolus let out a few cold laughs and smashed the armrest of his chair into pieces with a single palm strike.

"A conspiracy! This is a conspiracy against our Great Berlin City-State!"

A blue light flashed within his heart, and Yin Xuege's shattered ankle bones rapidly healed. On the verge of collapse, he heard Allen's words—they had received a secret report, which led them to capture Yin Xuege at Old Jack's tavern!

'They received a secret report'!

'They received a secret report'!

Without the secret report, they wouldn't have been able to suddenly raid Old Jack's tavern, and they wouldn't have captured Yin Xuege!

If Yin Xuege didn't possess the physique of a Sunwalker, according to the usual practices of the Human Alliance, they wouldn't have been able to extract any valuable information from him through torture. He would have been directly thrown into the sunlight and burned to ashes! It would have been the end of everything, erasing all traces of Yin Xuege's existence.

Those two Yin Clan warriors! Yin Xuege's chaotic mind suddenly recalled Yin 9937 and Yin 9938, who had escorted him into the city-state! Where had they gone? Had they not been captured? Or had they already turned to ash?

His body convulsed violently. The executioner's ram's horn hammer landed a heavy blow on Yin Xuege's knee. The strike almost severed his entire lower leg. Yin Xuege writhed in agony, his body thrashing wildly on the cross. More blood spurted from his seven orifices.

Jolus watched Yin Xuege with satisfaction, clapping his hands. "Well done, children! Keep it up! Let this damned vampire know that they shouldn't have come even a step closer to our city-state!"

The boundless pain made Yin Xuege wish for death. He desperately wanted to just die.

His bloodshot eyes stared intently at Fainlan and the others, at everyone around them. He committed all their smiling faces to memory, remembering them firmly.

Just then, a man in black strode into the torture chamber. He approached the three Grand Arbiters and bowed.

"Respected Grand Arbiters, we have a few guests from the East who insist on seeing you as soon as possible."

Before the man in black could finish speaking, a flash of blue light appeared behind him, and an old man with white hair and a white beard, exuding an ethereal aura, materialized out of thin air behind him.

"Fainlan, your threshold is becoming increasingly difficult to cross!"