The cold, damp air pressed down on everyone’s shoulders like solidified ice water, heavy and suffocating.
Pale magic lamps hung from the towering vaulted ceiling, casting flickering patches of light that did nothing to dispel the darkness. Instead, they only made the immense underground space feel more sinister and twisted, more unnervingly stifling.
Iron cages. Row upon row of cold iron cages, like the fangs of some monstrous beast, embedded in the sickly pale glow.
Inside those cages were the “masterpieces” of Jieluolu’er’s “Purification of the Future.”
Eileen stood in the shadows near the entrance, her golden eyes immediately losing focus, as if her soul had been sucked dry by the sight before her.
Her heart felt as if gripped by invisible, icy, bone-piercing claws, each beat tearing through her with agonizing pain.
Could those still be called “people”?
Broken limbs twisted and pieced together in ways that defied nature’s laws.
Pale white bone spikes pierced through skin, oozing pus and blood;
Writhing tentacles replaced arms, ending in suckers or razor-sharp teeth;
Reptilian scales covered half of a human face, compound eyes spinning wildly in the human eye sockets;
Torn mouths revealed fangs not belonging to humans, saliva mixed with blood dripping down.
Tattered scraps of cloth that might once have belonged to cultivators, fragments of twisted knightly armor, hung on those grotesque bodies like badges of shame.
Some slammed wildly against the narrow cages, emitting beast-like howls of agony, ramming their heads and bodies against the cold iron bars, leaving dark red stains with every impact;
Others huddled in the deepest shadows of the corners like utterly crushed dolls, their vacant, numb eyes only occasionally twitching involuntarily to prove they were not yet completely dead.
The air was thick with an unbearable mixture of pain, madness, and despair utterly defiled by the Abyss—a viscous poison coating every soul that stepped inside this place.
“Ugh…”
Helga suddenly covered her mouth, her body trembling violently, her face instantly turning paler than the dim lights.
She staggered back a step, barely able to stand, overcome by intense physical discomfort and doubling over.
Rosevith gripped her staff tightly, her knuckles white from the strain, emitting faint creaking sounds.
Her beautiful face drained of all color, lips pressed into a pale straight line.
Those eyes, usually filled with compassion and resolve, now burned with a fury fierce enough to incinerate everything!
That flame was even more intense than when facing Heinrich and the Dark Giants, for this was the most thorough betrayal of faith and the vilest desecration of human dignity!
Yet beneath that fury lay a profound, abyssal sorrow and helplessness.
She lifted her head slightly, as if forcing back tears threatening to spill over.
Eileen’s gaze, pulled by an invisible thread, settled on an iron cage near the edge.
A stifled, wind-chest sound echoed.
A figure suddenly lunged against the iron bars!
It was a… once perhaps gallant female knight.
Half her body barely retained a human shape, broken silver armor shards embedded in flesh and blood, while the other arm was completely replaced by a monstrous limb covered in dark purple carapace, ending in massive pincers!
Half her face was relatively intact, just smeared with dirt and tear stains, but the other cheek was torn open, revealing pale white fangs and a slimy, forked tongue dripping ceaselessly.
One eye was a cloudy, bloodshot human pupil, the other a cold, merciless reptilian compound eye.
She fixed that human eye desperately on Eileen, cloudy tears bursting forth like a dam breaking, mixing with pus and blood from her wounds, carving two deep, hopeless ravines down her filthy face.
The pincer-covered claw and the remaining human hand shook the unbreakable iron bars frantically and futilely, producing heartbreaking, harsh yet muffled banging sounds.
“Ugh… ugh… kill me! Please! Kill me!” Her voice was hoarse and broken, each syllable rolling like searing embers, filled with unimaginable, soul-rending agony. “End it… end all this! Have mercy on us… the last mercy!!”
She screamed, the compound eye flashing with madness—that was the remnant desire for utter annihilation after reaching the peak of pain.
At that moment, Eileen’s heart seemed plunged into a sea of eternal ice, weighed down so heavily she could hardly breathe.
Rage churned and roared in her chest like volcanic magma dormant for a thousand years, scorching her reason!
She was furious at Jieluolu’er’s cruelty and madness, furious at the monstrous sin of turning living people into such terrifying abominations!
But deeper than anger was a tangible, suffocating compassion almost drowning her.
She looked into the bloodshot, tear-filled, pleading human eye of the female knight, at the fragments of souls trapped in this abyss of pain…
She could clearly feel that distorted “humanity” still faintly flickering in the depths of despair, twisted by the Abyss and torn apart by agony.
That resonance made her empathize completely, as if she herself were trapped in that cold iron cage.
Time seemed to freeze for several seconds amid the desperate clamor.
Eileen slowly and resolutely shook her head.
Her movement was gentle, but carried the weight of a thousand heavy burdens.
“No. I refuse.”
Her voice was not loud, even somewhat hoarse, yet like a rock thrown into still water, it instantly drowned out all the howls and cries, ringing clearly through this chamber of despair.
There was no hesitation in that voice, no condescension from a savior, only a heavy, suffocating determination.
The female knight’s frantic shaking of the bars froze abruptly!
Madness in that compound eye was instantly replaced by disbelief, rage, and even deeper despair.
“No?! Why?!!”
Her voice shot up sharply, as piercing as glass scraping, “You won’t even grant… this small mercy?!”
Her human eye instantly bloodshot, filled with profound hatred of betrayal and deception, “I know now. I understand. You’re just like Jieluolu’er—you want… to keep using us as experiments?! Like that demon?! To keep torturing us?!!”
The surrounding howls seemed to be provoked, growing even more mournful and frenzied, as waves of despair surged toward the three at the gate.
Eileen did not take a single step back.
She met the female knight’s glare, almost spitting fire with hatred, her golden eyes without a trace of avoidance, hypocritical pity, or accusatory anger.
Only a deep, oceanic compassion capable of embracing all suffering.
Yet beneath that compassion burned a calm, unshakable power like molten lava at Earth’s core.
“No. On the contrary, I can save you.”