Episode-227

Words : 1574 Updated : Sep 29th, 2025

Chapter : 453 He heard the heavy, confident footsteps approaching. He heard Debala muttering to himself, a low, drunken grumble about a rigged game of dice. The man was utterly, blissfully, unaware. He was a rat, waltzing confidently into a trap he couldn't even see. The footsteps entered the alley. They stopped. Lloyd could feel the man’s confusion, his sudden realization that he had taken a wrong turn. He heard a muttered curse, the sound of him turning, preparing to backtrack. Now. Lloyd took a single, silent step forward, out of the deepest shadows at the end of the alley into the faint, greyish half-light that filtered down from the city’s sky-glow. He stood there, motionless, a tall, silent figure in dark leathers, his face a blank, featureless, terrifying void of pure white. Debala froze mid-turn. He saw the figure. The impossible, silent apparition that had simply... appeared... at the end of the alley. His drunken swagger evaporated instantly, replaced by a jolt of ice-cold, primal fear. His hand flew to the hilt of the crude, rusty short sword at his belt. “Who... who the hell are you?” Debala stammered, his voice a ragged, terrified whisper that echoed slightly in the confined space. The White Mask did not answer. He did not move. He simply tilted his head, a slow, deliberate, almost curious gesture. It was the gesture of a predator observing its cornered, terrified prey, a silent, chilling question. Are you going to be difficult? The hunter had become the hunted. And the lesson was about to begin. — The alley was a coffin of grimy brick and oppressive silence. The air was thick with the stench of old refuse and the new, sharp scent of fear sweating from Debala’s pores. The distributor, who had swaggered through the slums of Rais like a minor king moments before, was now just a cornered rat, facing a silent, white-masked specter that had appeared from the very shadows of his own insignificance. His bravado, a fragile thing woven from cheap ale and the bullying of weaker men, was shredding by the second. But desperation, and the ingrained instinct of a man used to solving problems with crude violence, made him act. With a ragged, terrified roar that was more bravado than bravery, he drew his rusty short sword. The blade, pitted and poorly maintained, scraped from its scabbard with a grating screech. “Stay back!” Debala snarled, brandishing the sword with a hand that trembled almost uncontrollably. “I don’t know who you are, but you picked the wrong man to spook! I’m with the Gilded Hand! You touch me, and...” He never finished the threat. The White Mask moved. He didn't lunge. He didn't even seem to hurry. He simply raised his hands, and the world dissolved into a nightmare of gleaming, impossible steel. With a sound like a thousand angry metallic whispers, the chains erupted from the air around Lloyd’s hands. They were not the single, almost delicate, threads he used for tripping. These were thick, heavy, brutal lengths of solid Ferrum steel, each link as thick as his thumb, flowing from his palms like twin torrents of liquid metal. They shot across the narrow alley with a speed that was a blur to the human eye, a silent, inescapable assault. Debala cried out in pure, animal terror, swinging his sword in a wild, panicked arc. The rusty blade met the first chain with a jarring clang that numbed his arm to the elbow. The chain didn't break. It didn't even scratch. It simply... yielded for a fraction of a second, then whipped around the blade, coiling with the speed of a striking cobra, yanking the sword from his grasp and sending it clattering uselessly against the far wall. Before he could even register the loss of his weapon, the second chain was on him. It snaked around his legs, pulling them out from under him, and wrapped around his torso and arms, binding him in an instant, unyielding cocoon of cold, hard steel. He crashed to the grimy cobblestones with a grunt of pain and surprise, utterly, comprehensively, immobilized. He was trussed up like a festival hog, helpless, the weight of the chains a crushing, absolute reality. He struggled, thrashing against his bonds, but it was useless. The steel held him fast, seeming to tighten with his every move. He lay there, panting, his heart hammering against his ribs, staring up at the silent, white-masked figure who now stood over him, a figure of absolute, terrifying power. Lloyd looked down at his captured prey, his expression, hidden behind the blank white mask, one of cold, clinical detachment. The physical part of the interrogation was over. It had been efficient. Now, for the psychological part. Chapter : 454 He did not speak. He did not need to. He simply held out his hand, palm open, towards the empty space beside him. He reached into the deep, thrumming well of his bond, the connection he shared with his Transcended partner. He called her. The air beside him did not shimmer or tear. It simply... darkened. A patch of shadow, deeper and more absolute than the alley’s own gloom, coalesced, grew, and took form. It rose from the ground like a plume of living smoke, resolving itself into a figure that made Debala’s terrified, whimpering gasps catch in his throat. She was a goddess from a nightmare. Tall, ethereal, clad in a bodysuit that seemed to be woven from a twilight storm. Her silver-grey hair, a river of liquid moonlight, flowed around her, crackling with a faint, almost invisible, static charge. Her face was a mask of serene, otherworldly beauty, and her eyes... her eyes were twin pools of molten gold, burning with an ancient, predatory intelligence that seemed to look right through Debala’s worthless little soul. Then, with a soft, almost inaudible hum, her power manifested. Her Lightning Cloak. A brilliant, crackling nimbus of pure, azure electricity erupted around her entire form. It was not the gentle spark of a mage’s cantrip. It was a contained thunderstorm, a raging, white-hot aura of pure, elemental power. The air in the alley filled with the sharp, clean, terrifying scent of ozone. The grimy brick walls were thrown into stark, flickering relief by the pulsating blue light. The very cobblestones beneath Debala seemed to vibrate with the sheer, untamed energy she radiated. She took a single, silent, graceful step towards the bound, whimpering man on the ground. She did not look at him with anger or malice. She looked at him with a kind of profound, almost divine, indifference. The way a storm cloud looks at an ant before the lightning strikes. She was a force of nature, and he was simply... in the way. Debala stared up at the crackling, lightning-wreathed apparition, at the silent, white-masked man who had summoned her with a mere gesture. His mind, already reeling from the impossible chains, completely, utterly, shattered. The bravado, the greed, the petty cruelties that had defined his entire existence—they all dissolved in the face of this overwhelming, supernatural terror. This was not a back-alley shakedown. This was a divine judgment. And he was on the wrong side of it. A high-pitched, keening wail of pure, abject terror ripped from his throat. He began to sob, his body shaking uncontrollably, his bladder letting go in a hot, shameful flood that mingled with the filth on the alley floor. “No! Please! Mercy!” he shrieked, his voice a ragged, broken thing. “I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything! Everything! Just... just keep her away from me!” Lloyd gave a subtle, almost imperceptible nod. Fang Fairy, her point made, her terrifying presence having achieved its purpose, let the Lightning Cloak recede. The crackling, azure nimbus faded, leaving only the memory of its power and the sharp scent of ozone. She remained standing there, a silent, beautiful, and deeply intimidating, threat. Lloyd crouched down, bringing his blank, white mask close to Debala’s terrified, tear-streaked face. His voice, when he spoke, was a quiet, cold whisper. “Everything, Debala. You will tell me everything.” And he did. The words spilled out of him in a frantic, desperate torrent, a full, comprehensive confession fueled by a terror so profound it scoured every last scrap of loyalty from his soul. He confessed the location of the main factory—the cellars beneath the old tannery, just as Ken’s report had said. He confessed the names of his bosses, the ones who had hired him, the ones who ran the Gilded Hand. The brothers. Joseph and Jacob Croft. He described them in detail—Joseph, the brains, the one with the rudimentary alchemical knowledge; Jacob, the muscle, the enforcer who kept the workers in line. He confessed everything he knew about their operation: how they sourced the rancid fish oil from the docks, how they bought the slaked lime from a corrupt construction supplier, how they paid street urchins a few bronze coins to gather the Froth-tongue moss from the city’s sewer grates. He babbled about their distribution network, the other enforcers, the market vendors they used. He gave up names, locations, delivery schedules. He held nothing back, his fear a far more effective truth serum than any drug or torture could ever be. He was a man desperately, pathetically, trying to bargain his way out of a nightmare he couldn't comprehend.

Episode-227

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