The sounds of chains clanking echoed the whole chamber. There was no end to his struggle, but if Forus decided to stop, he knew that it would be the true end for him.

Forus had lost track of time long ago because, in the torture chamber, there was nothing but darkness and lanterns. He felt like he was here for an eternity, but maybe it was just one second. Nevertheless, he felt more at ease when he was alone. It was better than he was not.

The gate creaked, and a figure stepped in. The man donned in a blue cloak lit up the lanterns and looked at Forus, examining his body in closer detail.

Seeing the familiar silhouette, Forus turned pale as his struggle intensified. However, no matter how he tried, the pain shocked his mind, and the fatigue numbed his body. He could not get himself to move.

On his body, countless scars and wounds remained bleeding, with various worms and maggots inside them. Strangely, although the bleeding should lead to his demise, Forus could only feel pain, but never tasted the relief of death.

"Scream, and despair more, little one. As long as you produce the Aura of Decay, then your suffering will end." With that remark and that wicked smile, Forus felt a suffocating air of blood drowning onto him.

So, the scream continued where it left off. The body got torn and rebuilt. The mind broke and reformed. The soul went back and forth between the boundary of life and death.

Gradually, Forus stopped screaming, and he began to keep everything to himself. His eyes, concealed beneath the lifeless and despair, was a hint of coldness. He was waiting, waiting for the chance.

...

The pain lingering inside his chest gradually expanded and intensified, but Forus, after a prolonged period of suffering, screamed no sound and revealed no pained expression. In contrast to his silence, the blue-robed sorcerer started to smile more, and he sometimes would talk to Forus about his experiments.

Forus' body had degraded from the healthy one into a thinned, weakened one. In the torture chamber, he ate no meat and drank no water. Only the sorcery within the binding chains had supplied him with strange energy to fix his body.

"If my calculation proved to be correct, then today, we'll get to see the fruit of our collective effort." The sorcerer faintly shivered as he spoke, not bothering to hide his excitement. As he had been with Forus for a long time, the sorcerer began to lax his attitude towards the mortal.

What followed was not what Forus expected. Instead of using all kinds of torture instrument to torment him, the blue-robed sorcerer pulled out a pitch-black crystal and placed it onto the experiment table.

"This is one of my toy, called the Jewel of Death. Born from resentment of hundreds of mortals, it should be the best catalyst for this experiment." Its shape was like a raindrop, but its strange light-absorbing property betrayed away its magical nature.

Once again, Forus watched as the sorcerer placed the Jewel on his chest. A searing sensation radiated from the area touching the Jewel, and it strangely merged with his body. The skin where they merged turned black, and a rotten smell diffused from it, leaking into the surrounding.

Aside from the physical pain, a groan leaked from his mouth. Not because of the rotten sensation, but because of another kind of pain that, no matter how much he experienced, he could never get used to it.

The mental pain assaulted his very core of being. Forus felt an overwhelming sense of panic. It was as if he was drowning under the ocean, but aside from the suffocating pain, he experienced a strange conflicted between his body and his mind.

The body was telling him that there was no harm, but the mind was screaming in pain. Forus was barely conscious, but he knew that no matter what, the chains would never let him taste the sweet relief.

"The experiment had been going on for ten years... And now, it's coming to an end." His voice reeked of profound emotions, and the sorcerer gestured his hands in a strange motion.

As soon as the motion ended, a crimson line manifested on the floor of the torture chamber, forming a bizarre shape of a goat-head three-wings monstrosity. Its dark shadow cast out from the line, and the candlelight that illuminated the room turned blood-red.

The temperature of the room began to drop, and its walls strangely deformed, turning slimy while remaining strong. The shade of the surrounding turned red as if something had dried the world with blood.

The sound of scream and songs of madness reverberated the room, chilling Forus to his core. However, before he could do anything, an invisible force pinned him and dragged him towards the blue-robed man, destroying the chains in the process.

"Great one, I have brought to you, the Aura of Decay." Witnessing the demonic summoning, the blue-robed sorcerer bowed down gracefully. The dignity he had shown disappeared in an instant before turning into a respectful attitude.

In response, the entity sent its tentacles toward Forus, stabbing them into his body. They wrapped around his soul, caressing it as they wanted to consume its content. Their movement caused Forus to feel the sensation of pain. He also felt a familiar feeling radiating from them which puzzled him greatly.

"For this offering, I requested for my wish to come true." The sorcerer spoke again, and with a wave of his hand, an invisible force once more pushed Forus towards the entity.

At this moment, Forus' mind raced, and he finally came up with an insane idea. He was unwilling to die, as he needed to go back to see his daughter. He needed to live, and he had to live.

"Great One, I shall bargain with you! This Jewel of Death and this Aura of Decay, all of them, I'll give it all to you, and you'll help me survive!" As Forus approached the entity, he shouted as loud as he could, disregarding the pain he experienced once he opened his mouth.

Strangely, the entity paused its action, and distorted sound of laughter echoed the whole chamber. Then, a piece of goat-skinned paper manifested in front of Forus, detailing the condition of the deal.

"Impossible! This isn't supposed to happen!" Looking at the scene, the blue-robed sorcerer laughed weakly. His mind was in chaos, and he thought that Fate was toying with him. Gradually, anger began to build up inside his mind.

The sorcerer felt as if his heart was going to burst. Blood-red shade had already dried his soul with rage, and he was going crazy. He had spent too much time for this ritual, and it was nearing its success. If not for his extreme excitement to blind his judgement, then he would not be careless like this.

"Deal!" Without any hesitation, Forus immediately completed the contact and used his blood to sign his consent.

The paper slowly turned black, and it melted and morphed into the strange black mist. It then shot toward Forus and seeped into his body, fusing into his soul. With this sequence, an unbearable pain, comparable to when the Aura of Decay invaded his mind, surfaced.

Forus felt a lot lighter than before, and his mind became clearer than ever. His broken and exhausted body was repairing itself at the terrifying rate, shocking even the blue-robed sorcerer.

"You maggot! How dare you destroyed my plan and ruin my wish?!" Losing control of his anger, frozen snakes formed in front of the sorcerer. They dashed toward Forus as he pointed his finger at the mortal.

Forus tried to shift away from the trajectory of the snakes, but his feet got frozen by the blue flame concealed beneath the room. It was one of the traps the sorcerer had prepared for an unexpected ambush.

The snakes stuck Forus and pushed him into the wall. His body, paralysed by the freezing venom, could not move at all. He could only watch as the man walked toward him. His eyes were shining with anticipation, and there remained no trace of the previous madness.

"Now that my plan had failed, I'll have to reconsider my future path. Although I want to kill you, there are still many things for me to gain from you." The blue-robed man chuckled lightly, feeling delighted for his new toy.

The sorcerer lived alone, as he was a rogue sorcerer. He had no friends nor love, and he had no intention of seeking one either. He had learnt to control his emotions to avoid unnecessary recklessness, and he had already subdued his outburst.

"What... are you going to do to me?" Forus spoke with difficulty. His body was numb, so he had to delay the time to regain his breath.

In response, the sorcerer used his invisible force to injure Forus, cutting his flesh apart. It was only when he could confirm that Forus could not move his body did he relax.

"We'll begin our experiment anew, and this time, I'll make sure to let you experience the real pain." The sorcerer spoke slowly and clearly, he wanted his every word to engrave in Forus' soul.

"... Again? Don't you worry that I would do it another time?" Forus answered sarcastically. Despite his spiteful words, he knew that he could not move, so he had to provoke the sorcerer into coming closer to him.

The cut previously hurt, but Forus simply revealed a numb expression to lure the sorcerer in.

Suddenly, laughter echoed as Forus felt a strong force hitting his abdomen before he flew up and crashed onto another corner of the chamber, falling onto the ground with several more broken bones.

"This time, I'll be making sure that you won't be able to do anything." As the sorcerer kicked Forus, he made sure to break all crucial joints in Forus' body, preventing him from lifting even a finger.

It only then did the sorcerer slowly advanced towards Forus.

Before the blue-robed sorcerer reached Forus, he flicked his hand and sent out a strange dart. He watched as the dark stabbed onto Forus' heart, and glowed in faint, black light.

"The dart will continuously send a fixed quantity of Death Aura into you, so you can give up trying to move again." As if he was describing his favourite toy, the sorcerer took his time to introduce Forus to the magical dart.

After making sure that Forus was indeed immobile, the sorcerer used a new set of chains to bind Forus and dragged him out of the torture chamber, into the small wildness that he had never seen before. For the first time in ten years, Forus came back to the outside world.

The ray of light shone onto Forus' face, piecing into his dimmed pupils. The brightness caused him to instinctively close his eyes, despite his desire to look around.

From what he had heard from that man, he had been in that torture chamber for ten years straight. Although he felt like he was in there for an eternity, the sorcerer had no reason to lie to him, so it was up to him to come to term with the reality.

The scene of greenery lasted not very long, and before Forus could accept it, the sorcerer threw him inside another dark room and bound him back onto another experiment table.

It was apparent that the blue-robed sorcerer was a paranoid man, so he had designed many traps and underground shelters for himself.

Like before, Forus tried to struggle, but this time, not only the chains were a lot stronger, but the dart on his heart also pulsated, causing him to feel immense pain as if the Aura of Decay had manifested in his body again.

The Death Aura ran among in his body, bringing Forus to the state of living dead, but, unlike before, Forus could feel something strange inside his body, slowly yet steadily consuming Death Aura without any break.

As he closed his eyes, Forus could somehow see a strain of grey light flickered inside his heart. Whenever Death Aura circulated into his heart, the light would devour it a little, turning slightly bigger and larger every time it feasted.

Before Forus could explore this strain of light thoroughly, the sorcerer opened the metal door and came in unhurriedly. His cloth was now clear-white, and its surface glowed in faint, multi-coloured light, evidently covered in magical symbols.

Forus then realised that the cloth was for protection against the spilt blood, and he was going to get tortured again. However, at the thought of the mysterious grey light, Forus forcefully calmed himself down and showed the expression of panic and dread.

"Don't disappoint me, mortal... As long as this experiment bears fruit, I'll let you die peacefully, so cooperate and let me study your new power thoroughly." The sorcerer smiled wickedly. His laughter echoed the silent chamber as he began to dissect Forus alive.

Forus, paralysed and bound, could only watch as his blood get drained, and his own skinned get cut.

There was no sight of the end in this torment.