“Come on, wake up cripple,” the slaver said, banging on the cage of an emaciated boy. “Stand up before I come inside and make you.”

The crippled whelp, as this boy was now known, slowly uncurled himself from the fetal position and stood up, bruises and cuts aching all over him.

The slaver then threw him a piece of bread and dropped a bowl of water into his cage, which made it slosh around and almost tip over, but the boy quickly grabbed it and brought it to his mouth.

The slaver barely gave him a few seconds to shove the bread into his mouth before unlocking the cage and ripping him out, without care of his already broken body.

The armored man led the hunched boy through crowds of both slavers and slaves getting ready to start the day. The other slaves, the ones who’d already been broken, had been assigned to certain slavers, either to carry their stuff, or for other labor.

Those who hadn’t been broken, those who had recently been taken, were kept in their cages, for they did not know yet the foolishness of attempted escape. It really was foolish to even try, since the collars on the necks of each slave locked up their Cultivation, which meant that every single slaver, from their leader down to the lowliest guard had a higher base than any slave.

And then there were slaves like this whelp. Those certain few that the leader, Devar had taken a fancy to. Ones that Devar had tried his very best to not just break, but utterly destroy. And he always succeeded in doing so.

The whelp was one of these special slaves, punished for no good reason other than for the pleasure of the slavers. They’d crippled his Cultivation long ago, just for fun, laughing at him as he had arched his back in agony for days after.

They’d whipped and beaten him just for looking up at them, or because he didn’t wake up fast enough, or he didn’t eat fast enough.

And then. Then, they’d taken the only thing he’d had left to love in this world. He’d broken not long after that.

And so, the one that the entire camp called the crippled whelp was led up to the slaver’s horse and then was tied by his hand to the saddle.

After Devar had considered the whelp broken, he’d created a schedule for him. The whelp would be put with a different slaver every week who would then come up with cruel and unique punishments for him.

All because he’d dared to stand up to Devar in a battle. All because he’d lost.

After the slaver had tied the whelp to his horse, he took off. The slaver turned it into a game, where he would start slow and then speed up just fast enough to where the whelp would fall and then drag him along the ground for a few seconds before stopping to let him stand again. This repeated over and over and over again.

The whelp was relieved as this was one of the tamer punishments. At least he didn’t just drag him along the ground for miles and miles until he finally passed out from blood loss. The bruises and cuts multiplied but this was far, far, far from the worst they could do.

They’d already done their worst.

Hours passed in a blur as they normally did for him, before the slaver was suddenly stopped by none other than Devar himself.

The whelp’s rope was cut from the horse and then Devar dragged him past the entire slave train to the edge of the forest. He dragged him along for a few more minutes before throwing the rope down.

The whelp suddenly saw Devar’s face right before his and startled.

“I bet you’re wondering why I’ve dragged you out here. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t. Your brain hasn’t worked right since the first day I dragged that girl of yours into my tent.

A memory flashed through the boy’s head. A memory of him screaming and clawing at the metal cage that surrounded him as Mera was dragged away from him by two slavers, who were laughing at the atrocities they were about to commit.

Atrocities that every woman in the camp had been visited by.

A memory of the last time he’d been truly whole.

The memory flashed away just as suddenly as it had appeared and the dead eyes of the whelp looked up at Devar.

“You see, whelp. I’ve decided that you’ve become too much of a burden. I had this whole plan written out to break you piece by piece, but you broke too easily. All the pleasure I had planned to gain from destroying your spirit was wasted. And now, after carrying your wasteful ass around for a year, I’ve decided to finally give you the release you’ve been looking for. I’ll give you your freedom because no one in this world wants a cripple of a slave and even the rest of my men have become bored from punishing you.”

There was no contest in the whelp’s eyes on what type of freedom he’d be granted. Death was the only place where freedom still lay for him.

In the end, it was quick. Devar stabbed him through the stomach with a rusted sword and left his body there in the middle of the woods.

“Leave him for the wolves. They have much more use for him now than we ever did.”