Inside the dungeon, Lynn took a step back and raised his right hand.
Several grayish-white soul threads shot from his fingertips and slowly coiled around the short, stocky man's body.
The threads wound tighter and tighter, burrowing into the stocky man's skin like slender snakes.
"Ah—!"
The stocky man suddenly screamed, his voice sharp enough to scrape open the stone walls, making the tall, thin man beside him shudder in terror.
The soul threads were like red-hot wires, tugging back and forth through the stocky man's soul.
With every pull, a crack opened in his soul before it was forcibly dragged back together.
Lynn had not used too much force, at least not enough to kill him immediately.
He merely tightened the soul threads coil by coil, keeping the stocky man conscious through the most extreme agony.
Wailing, begging, wetting himself—one after another.
The tall, thin man beside him had already been frightened out of his mind.
He could not even scream. All he could do was stare wide-eyed, his trembling lips unable to close.
"I'll talk! I'll talk too! I'll tell you everything!" the tall, thin man cried.
Lynn ignored him.
He controlled the soul threads, torturing the stocky man until he was utterly broken, his soul torn apart and stitched back together, stitched together and torn apart again.
The stocky man's cries shifted from screams to anguished howls, then from howls to ragged, intermittent gasps.
At last, Lynn gently clenched his five fingers.
With a crack, the stocky man's soul split apart like a clay jar being crushed.
The fragments did not scatter. Instead, the soul threads ground them bit by bit into ashes, which vanished into the air before they could fall.
The stocky man's body went completely still.
The chains swayed a few times, as though