'Akira. Scan them. Analyze every detail.'
My command was a sliver of ice in the furnace of my mind. The world didn't freeze, but my perception of it did. The guard's armored hand, inches from my shoulder; Liana's triumphant smirk; my father's glacial indifference—they became static images in a tableau of my own personal hell.
In the silent space of my consciousness, four translucent blue windows shimmered into existence, overlapping each other.
[Analysis complete. Displaying status information.]
The first two were for the guards.
------------------------------------
STATUS
Name: Borin
Level: 42
Class: Aura Warrior
Race: Human
Title: Eldoria Household Guard
HP: 1250/1250 MP: 150/150
STR: 115 VIT: 98 AGI: 80
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
STATUS
Name: Gareth
Level: 45
Class: Aura Warrior
Race: Human
Title: Eldoria Guard Captain
HP: 1400/1400 MP: 180/180
STR: 120 VIT: 110 AGI: 85
------------------------------------
'Level 40s… Aura Warriors.' My mind processed the data with cold efficiency. Their stats were monstrous compared to mine. A single punch from them would likely kill me instantly. My Agility of 15, which felt so liberating moments ago, was laughably slow compared to their 80s. Beating them was possible… with time, with training, with a plan. But not here. Not now.
The next window, small and gaudy with a pinkish border, was Liana's.
------------------------------------
STATUS
Name: Liana von Eldoria
Level: 3
Class: Mage (Apprentice)
Race: Human
Title: The Favored Daughter
Mana Core: Orange
HP: 40/40 MP: 120/120
STR: 2 VIT: 3 AGI: 4 INT: 18
------------------------------------
An Orange Mana Core. Far superior to what I suspected was my own pathetic Red. Her Intelligence was already sky-high for a child. Physically, she was weaker than even my pre-Chamber self, but that wasn't her path. She was a budding magic-user, coddled and praised. The title, The Favored Daughter, felt like a personal insult, a twisting knife.
Then, Akira displayed the final window. It felt… heavier than the others. Its border was a cold, sharp silver, and the text within seemed to absorb the light around it.
------------------------------------
STATUS
Name: Valerius von Eldoria
Level: 278
Class: Aura King
Race: Human
Title: The Iron Duke, Heartless Patriarch, Vanquisher of the Northern Horde
HP: ??/??
MP: ??/??
--ATTRIBUTES--
STR: ????
VIT: ????
AGI: ????
INT: ???
WIS: ???
LCK: ??
------------------------------------
My thoughts stuttered to a halt.
Question marks.
My system, my all-powerful, goddess-given cheat, couldn't even parse his stats. They were so far beyond my own that they registered as incomprehensible voids. Level 278. An Aura King, a rank Akira had described as legendary. His titles spoke of a man who didn't just rule a territory but crushed armies. Heartless Patriarch. The system itself had judged him.
The guard's gauntlet, with the Eldoria wolf crest etched into the steel, moved that final inch. The cold metal touched the thin fabric of my worn tunic.
And the world shattered.
It wasn't a choice. It wasn't a skill. It was a violation. The cold touch of the crest, the dead stare of my father, the victorious glee of my sister—the confluence of these sensations was a key turning in a lock I never knew existed. A memory, raw and septic, erupted from the deepest part of Kalyth's soul, not as a thought, but as a full-body relapse.
WAIT, WHAT IS THIS MEMORY?
My vision blurred, the storeroom melting away into a scene both familiar and nightmarish.
The grand hall was opulent, its marble floors polished to a mirror shine, reflecting the cold light of the enchanted chandeliers. I was six years old, standing in a velvet dress that felt stiff and uncomfortable. Beside me, my mother, Anastarka, held my hand, her grip warm and reassuring. Her smile was a small, lonely flower in this vast, cold room.
Across from us, Liana, a perfect doll in pink lace, was sobbing. Her tears were magnificent, crocodile-sized things that rolled down her cherubic cheeks. At her feet lay the shattered remains of a crystalline orb, a priceless scrying device gifted to the Duke by a foreign dignitary.
"She did it, Papa!" Liana wailed, pointing a trembling finger at me. "Kalyth was jealous because you let me look into it! She pushed me and smashed it!"
It was a lie. A bald-faced, venomous lie. I had been in the library with my mother. I hadn't even seen the orb all day.
"No, I didn't!" I cried, my small voice swallowed by the cavernous hall. "I was with Mama! Tell him, Mama!"
"Valerius, she speaks the truth," Anastarka said, her voice steady but laced with a familiar, weary tension. "We were reading in the west wing library. Kalyth was nowhere near here."
The Duke stood before the grand fireplace, his back to us. He didn't turn. He didn't even acknowledge her words. He simply stared into the flames. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.
Finally, he spoke, his voice dangerously soft. "The word of a disgraced wife and her failed offspring against my favored daughter." He turned slowly, his glacial blue eyes sweeping over us. There was no deliberation in them. Only judgment, already passed. "The matter is settled."
"But Valerius, it's not—" Anastarka began, stepping forward.
"Enough," he cut her off, his voice dropping to a low command that brooked no argument. "A lie is a weed. It must be pulled out. But when the soil itself is poor, it must be tilled with a firm hand. You have failed to teach your daughter her place. You will both be reminded of it."
He gestured to the two guards standing like statues by the door. "Take them to the courtyard. The posts."
My mother's face went white. A terror so profound it stole her breath washed over her features. She fell to her knees, pulling me behind her. "No, Valerius, please! Not Kalyth! She's just a child! Punish me! I'll take her share, whatever you deem fit, just please, don't harm her!"
The Duke looked down at his kneeling wife, his expression unchanging. "You will take nothing. She will learn that actions—and accusations—have consequences. And you will learn that your sentimentality is a flaw I will no longer tolerate. One hundred lashes. Each."
One hundred. The number was meaningless to my six-year-old mind. The reality would be anything but.
The guards grabbed us. My mother didn't fight, her body limp with despair. I kicked and struggled, my small fists beating uselessly against unyielding plate armor. My cries echoed off the marble. "I didn't do it! I didn't do it!"
Liana watched us being dragged away, a tiny, triumphant smile peeking through her fake tears.
The courtyard was cold. Gray flagstones, meticulously clean, stretched out before us. In the center stood two thick wooden posts, stained dark with age and things I didn't want to think about. They were taller than I was. Ropes dangled from them.
The guards were brutally efficient. They tore the top half of my velvet dress away, leaving my back bare to the biting wind. The humiliation was a cold, sick feeling in my stomach, worse than fear. They did the same to my mother, her pale, slender back exposed. I saw her shiver, but her face was a mask of grim resolve as they tied her wrists to the post.
Then they came for me. My struggles were weak, pathetic. They bound my small wrists, hoisting me up so my feet barely scraped the ground. I was facing the post, the rough, splintery wood pressing against my cheek. I could see my mother to my right, her head bowed, her beautiful black hair spilling over her shoulders.
The Duke walked to the center of the courtyard, holding a whip. It wasn't a simple riding crop. It was a cat-o'-nine-tails, a thick leather handle from which sprouted nine long, thin lashes, each one braided with what looked like sharp wire. He handed it to the Guard Captain, Gareth. The same guard who was about to grab me in the future.
"Begin with the mother," the Duke commanded, his voice echoing in the dreadful silence. "Let the child watch."
Anastarka flinched but didn't make a sound. She raised her head, turning to look at me. Her eyes were filled with an agony so deep it felt like I was drowning in it. "Don't look, Kalyth," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Close your eyes, my love. Think of the story of the Star Knight. Just think of the stories…"
WHIIIIISH-CRACK!
The sound was like lightning striking a tree right next to my ear. It was followed by a sound I had never heard before and would never forget: my mother's scream. It wasn't a shout; it was a high, tearing shriek of pure, unadulterated agony that was ripped from her throat.
My eyes snapped open against her wishes. I saw it. A single, dark red line weeping blood onto the pale canvas of her back.
"One," the Duke counted, his voice calm.
WHIIIIISH-CRACK!
Another shriek, this one choked with a sob. A second line appeared, crossing the first.
"Two."
I started to scream then, a terrified, helpless wail. "Stop! Please, stop! She didn't do anything! Stop hurting my mama!"
No one listened. The Duke watched, impassive. The guard, Gareth, was a machine, his arm rising and falling with perfect, metronomic rhythm.
WHIIIIISH-CRACK!
"Three."
WHIIIIISH-CRACK!
"Four."
My mother's screams faded into ragged, guttural sobs. Her back was quickly becoming a crisscrossing mess of bloody wounds. The sight of her blood, so bright against her skin, made me feel sick. The coppery smell filled the air.
After twenty lashes, she had fallen silent, her body trembling uncontrollably, her head hanging limp. Only the slight shuddering of her shoulders told me she was still conscious.
"Twenty-seven… Twenty-eight… Twenty-nine…"
By the fiftieth lash, her back was no longer skin. It was a raw, mangled tapestry of shredded flesh. Blood dripped freely onto the gray stones below, forming a dark, glistening puddle.
"Seventy-four… Seventy-five…"
I was numb. My throat was raw from screaming. Tears and snot streamed down my face. I could only stare, my mind unable to process the sheer, unending brutality of it.
"Ninety-nine."
The whip rose one last time.
WHIIIIISH-CRACK!
"One hundred."
My mother's body went limp against the ropes, completely unconscious.
"Cut her down," the Duke ordered. "Now for the whelp."
The guard captain, Gareth, walked over to me. His visor was down, but I could feel his gaze. There was no pleasure in it, but there was no pity either. Only duty.
I trembled, my small body shaking so violently I thought my bones would rattle apart. "Please…" I whimpered. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry…"
He didn't reply. He raised the whip, already slick with my mother's blood.
The first lash was a universe of pain.
It was a line of pure fire drawn across my back. The shock was so absolute that it stole the air from my lungs. I couldn't even scream. My world narrowed to that single, searing stripe of agony. It felt like my skin was peeling away from my bones.
"One," the Duke's voice droned, a distant, hateful sound.
Then the scream came, torn from the very depths of my being. It was the shriek of a small animal caught in a trap, a sound of pure terror and pain.
WHIIIIISH-CRACK!
"Two."
Another bolt of fire. I thrashed against the ropes, trying to pull away from a pain that was already inside me. The movement only served to scrape my raw back against the splintery post, sending fresh waves of agony through me.
Unlike my mother, I didn't have the strength to endure in silence. I screamed with every lash. I begged. I pleaded. I confessed to a crime I didn't commit.
"I did it! I'm sorry! I broke it! Please, stop! Papa, please!"
The Duke watched, his expression unchanged. My pleas meant nothing. My confession meant nothing. This wasn't about justice. It was about power. It was about breaking us.
After thirty lashes, my back was a ruin. The world was a blurry haze of pain and tears. I could barely hear the Duke's counting over the roar of blood in my ears.
Sometime around the fiftieth lash, something inside me broke. The pain was still there, a monstrous, all-consuming ocean, but my mind detached. I felt like I was floating above my own small, broken body, watching it twitch and bleed as the whip fell again and again. I watched the guard's arm rise and fall. I watched my father's impassive face. I watched Liana, who had crept into the courtyard to observe, her eyes wide with a horrible, clinical fascination.
The rest was a blur of misery. The whip rising. The whip falling. The sound. The pain. The counting.
"…Ninety-nine."
I was barely conscious, my vision a dark, swirling tunnel.
WHIIIIISH-CRACK!
"One hundred."
Silence. Blessed, ringing silence.
My wrists were cut free, and my body, devoid of all strength, crumpled to the cold flagstones. I lay there in a pool of my own blood and filth, my back a landscape of agony. I saw them drag my mother's unconscious form away. Then they came for me.
The last thing I saw before darkness took me was my father turning his back on me. He walked away without a second glance, his polished boots leaving the courtyard without a single drop of his daughter's blood on them.
ARGHHHH!
The internal scream was so violent it felt like it would crack my skull open. I was back. The storeroom. The guard's hand on my shoulder. The entire memory, a year of festering trauma, had flooded my consciousness in less than a second.
The raw, physical agony of the memory overlaid itself onto my current body. My back burned with the phantom fire of a hundred lashes. The taste of blood and bile filled my mouth.
But this time, I was not the helpless six-year-old. I was Level 5. I had [Flowing Step]. My stats were no longer pathetic. The urge to activate my skill, to twist away and drive my fist into the guard's throat, was a physical, overwhelming need. The rage was a tidal wave, threatening to drown all reason.
Right as my muscles tensed to act, Akira's voice cut through the red haze, sharp and clinical.
[ANALYSIS COMPLETE. HOST'S CURRENT COMBAT POTENTIAL AGAINST TARGET 'DUKE VALERIUS VON ELDORIA' IS 0.0001%.]
The number was a bucket of ice water to the face. Not zero. But close enough to be an insult.
[ENGAGEMENT IS NOT RECOMMENDED. ENGAGEMENT IS SUICIDE. YOU WILL BE INCAPACITATED OR KILLED BEFORE YOU CAN TAKE A SINGLE STEP.]
'But… I have to fight!' my rage screamed back. 'I have to save her! I can't let them take me!'
[NEGATIVE, MASTER. YOUR PRIMARY OBJECTIVE, AS PER URGENT QUEST "A MOTHER'S TEARS," IS THE SURVIVAL AND RESCUE OF ANASTARKA VON ELDORIA. INITIATING COMBAT HERE GUARANTEES MISSION FAILURE. YOUR MOTHER WILL BE EXECUTED TOMORROW AT DAWN. YOU WILL NOT BE THERE TO STOP IT.]
Akira's logic was a steel cage clamping down on my chaotic emotions. It was right. It was horribly, infuriatingly right. Fighting was what my rage wanted. But survival was what my mother needed.
[STRATEGIC RECOMMENDATION: ALLOW CAPTURE.]
The suggestion was so counter-intuitive it felt like a betrayal.
[THEY INTEND TO PLACE YOU IN THE SAME CELL AS YOUR MOTHER. THIS ACTION, MEANT AS A FORM OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE, IS A TACTICAL GIFT. IT PLACES YOU PRECISELY AT YOUR OBJECTIVE'S LOCATION. ONCE INSIDE, I CAN BEGIN A THOROUGH SCAN OF THE DUNGEON'S STRUCTURE, GUARD PATROLS, AND POTENTIAL WEAKNESSES. I WILL FIND AN ESCAPE PATH. I WILL CREATE AN OPPORTUNITY. YOU MUST ENDURE. YOU MUST BE PATIENT.]
[TRUST ME, MASTER.]
Endure. The word echoed with the memory of my mother's face, her plea to think of the Star Knight. She had endured for me. Now, I had to endure for her.
My rage didn't vanish. It didn't cool. It compressed. It condensed from a raging, uncontrolled forest fire into the solid-state, white-hot core of a star. A cold, patient, and utterly absolute hatred.
I made the decision.
The tension bled out of my body. My coiled muscles went slack. My clenched fists uncurled. I let my head hang, my blue hair falling to hide the expression in my eyes. I made myself small, pathetic, broken. I became the girl they expected to see.
The guard, Gareth, grunted, surprised by the sudden lack of resistance. He easily scooped me up, my small form feeling like nothing in his powerful arms. I was light enough that he held me with one arm, my legs dangling.
Liana giggled, a sound like grinding glass. "See, Papa? She knows her place now. She's just a scared little rat, after all."
The Duke didn't even look at me. He addressed the guards, his voice bored.
"Throw her in the cell. Let the rot fester with the rot. I am done here."
He turned and swept out of the room, Liana skipping happily behind him, leaving me alone with my captors.
Gareth began walking, his armor clanking with each heavy step. We left the storeroom and descended down a long, winding flight of stone stairs. The air grew colder, damper, thick with the smell of wet stone and despair. The light from the magic lamps grew scarcer, replaced by sputtering torches that cast long, dancing shadows.
They dragged me through cold corridors, past rows of heavy iron doors from which I could hear faint moans or unsettling silence. Finally, we stopped before a particularly thick, rusted door at the end of a corridor. The other guard, Borin, produced a large, heavy key and worked the lock.
With a deafening groan of tortured metal, the door swung inward, opening into a pit of near-total darkness. The stench of sweat, blood, and human waste washed over me.
Without ceremony, Gareth tossed me inside.
I landed hard on the cold, damp stone floor, the impact jarring my bones. Before I could even push myself up, the heavy door slammed shut with a deafening, final CLANG.
The bolt slammed home.
Darkness. Absolute and suffocating.
And in that darkness, from a corner of the cell, I heard it. A soft, pained whimper. A voice, hoarse and weak, but one I would know anywhere.
"Kalyth…? is that… is that you?"