Episode-237

Words : 1486 Updated : Oct 1st, 2025

Chapter : 473 He didn’t laugh. He didn’t reply. He simply rose to his feet, a silent, final dismissal of their pathetic attempts at defiance and negotiation. He had offered them the easy way. They had, with their predictable blend of brutish pride and grasping greed, refused it. A shame. It meant he would have to resort to the harder way. For them. He turned his back on them, walking a few paces away, as if contemplating their offer, as if considering his next move. The brothers exchanged a nervous, hopeful glance. Was it working? Was he considering their offer? Lloyd stopped, his back still to them. He looked at the ruptured, steaming cauldrons, at the foul, bluish sludge that coated the floor, at the pathetic, unconscious forms of the workers buried in the sea of soap foam. He thought of the child with the angry red welts, of the terror in his mother’s eyes, however feigned. He thought of his own team, his loyal, brilliant team, and the cold, sickening knowledge that one of them had betrayed him, had sold their shared dream for a few pieces of silver. The cold, controlled focus of the Major General solidified into a hard, sharp, and utterly unforgiving, anger. He had tried to be the strategist, the interrogator. But the weight of the betrayal, the sheer, grubby vileness of the crime these men had perpetrated, demanded a different kind of response. It demanded not just answers. It demanded a confession. A confession wrung from them by a power they could not comprehend, a pain they could not endure. He slowly turned back to face them. The brothers saw the shift in his posture instantly. The quiet, almost conversational, figure was gone. In his place stood a judge. An executioner. The white mask seemed to glow with a new, colder, more menacing light. “It seems,” Lloyd’s voice was no longer a whisper, but a low, dangerous rumble that seemed to vibrate through the very stones of the cellar, “that you do not yet appreciate the gravity of your situation.” He raised a single, gloved hand. “Allow me,” he said, his voice a promise of impending, absolute pain, “to clarify it for you.” The interrogation was no longer about finding the truth. It was about breaking the will. The weight of their coming confession felt heavy in the air, a physical thing, and Lloyd knew, with a grim, cold certainty, that he would get his answers. One way, or another. The atmosphere in the subterranean factory, already thick with the chemical stench of failure and the psychic residue of terror, became a crucible of willpower. Lloyd stood before the two bound brothers, a silent, white-masked arbiter, his patience worn thin, his initial attempt at a logical, threat-based interrogation having shattered against their unexpected, and deeply infuriating, wall of defiance. Joseph, the bull, spat another glob of bloody saliva onto the soapy floor, his eyes, though wide with a primal fear of the lightning-wreathed goddess still standing sentinel nearby, held a core of brutish, stubborn pride. “You can threaten us all you want, you masked bastard,” he growled, the words a low, pained rumble. “We ain’t rats. We don’t squeal.” Jacob, the schemer, had recovered a fraction of his cunning, his terror now channeled into a desperate, wheedling attempt at negotiation. “Think about this, my lord... Ghost... whoever you are!” he pleaded, his voice a high-pitched, sycophantic whine. “You kill us, you learn nothing! Nothing! But spare us... work with us... and we can be of use! The man who helped us... he is powerful! Dangerous! You will need allies to face him! We can be those allies! We can...” “Silence,” Lloyd’s voice was a flat, cold command that cut through Jacob’s frantic babbling like a shard of ice. He looked down at them, not with anger, not anymore. That was an inefficient emotion. He looked at them with a kind of weary, clinical detachment, the look of a scientist observing two particularly stubborn lab rats who refused to navigate the maze correctly. Chapter : 474 He understood their defiance now. It wasn't born of courage. It was born of a different, greater fear. They were more afraid of their mysterious informant, their patron, than they were of him. The man who had given them the formula, the man who had called himself Jager, had clearly offered them more than just a business opportunity. He had offered them protection, yes, but he had also, undoubtedly, offered them a very clear, very brutal, understanding of the consequences of betrayal. These two pathetic merchants were caught between a rock and a hard place. On one side, a terrifying, white-masked vigilante with a personal thunderstorm for a sidekick. On the other, a shadowy, powerful benefactor who had likely promised them a fate far worse than a simple, clean death if they ever spoke his name. Their loyalty wasn't loyalty. It was a calculated risk assessment, and for now, he was still the lesser of two evils in their terrified minds. A fascinating, if deeply irritating, psychological dilemma, his internal Major General noted dispassionately. Conclusion: The perceived threat from the unknown variable (Jager) currently outweighs the perceived threat from the known variable (myself). To extract the required intelligence, I must recalibrate their perception of the immediate threat. I must become the greater evil. A slow, cold smile touched Lloyd’s lips beneath the blank white mask. A demonstration was in order. A lesson. One that would be far more persuasive than his earlier classroom performance, and significantly more... visceral. “You have made a poor calculation, gentlemen,” he said, his voice a quiet, almost gentle, murmur. He took a slow, deliberate step towards them. “You believe your mysterious friend can protect you. You believe his threats are greater than mine.” He shook his head, a gesture of profound, almost pitying, disappointment. “You are mistaken. His threats are of a future pain. The pain I offer... is immediate. It is absolute. And it is, I assure you, exquisitely, creatively, personal.” He stopped directly before the two bound men. He didn't summon his chains again. He didn't need them. He simply raised his hands, palms open. He looked at Joseph, the brawler, the man of brute strength. “You pride yourself on your strength, don’t you, Joseph?” Lloyd whispered, his voice a hypnotic, chilling purr. “Your power. Your ability to dominate, to intimidate, to break things.” He focused his will, his Black Ring Eyes flaring to life behind the mask, their luminous bluish-white rings a terrifying, alien glow in the greasy yellow lamplight. He didn't project a ring. He didn't try to seal Joseph's senses. He did something far more subtle. Far more cruel. He reached out with his Void power, not the Ferrum Steel, but the Austin control, and he placed a single, invisible, metaphysical seal. Not on Joseph’s body. But on the very concept of his physical strength. Joseph’s eyes widened in sudden, confused terror. He felt... nothing. A profound, terrifying weakness washed over him, a sudden, inexplicable draining of all the power from his limbs. His muscles, which had been tense with defiance, suddenly felt like waterlogged sacks of grain. The strength he had relied upon his entire life, the brute force that was the core of his identity, had simply... vanished. He tried to flex his bicep, to feel the familiar, reassuring bulge of power. Nothing. He was as weak as a newborn kitten. “What... what did you do to me?” he gasped, his voice a thin, reedy squeak, the terror in his eyes absolute. “I simply... turned it off,” Lloyd replied softly. “A demonstration. To show you that the very things you believe define you, your strengths, are merely permissions that I can revoke at any time.” He then turned his glowing, terrifying gaze to Jacob. “And you, Jacob,” he murmured. “You are the clever one, are you not? The schemer. The alchemist. Your mind is your weapon.” He smiled, a gesture that was utterly, terrifyingly, without warmth. “Let’s see how clever you are when you can’t think.” He placed another seal. Not on Jacob’s senses, not on his strength. But on his ability to form a coherent, logical thought. Jacob’s face, which had been a mask of wheedling, terrified cunning, went slack. His eyes unfocused, a look of profound, almost bovine, confusion washing over him. He opened his mouth to speak, to plead, to bargain, but only a string of nonsensical, babbling syllables emerged. “The... the fish... it sings... in the key of... purple...” he mumbled, his own mind suddenly a foreign, incomprehensible landscape. He could not connect a thought, could not form a sentence. He was trapped, adrift in a sea of meaningless, chaotic noise.

Episode-237

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