Chapter 55: Expendable Test Subjects
“Heh, heh, heh…” Eugene let out a cold, dismissive laugh, leaning back against the cage bars. He wasn’t going to cooperate with Abyss, not after being beaten and robbed, his hopes dashed.
Abyss shrugged, not expecting a warm welcome. It was understandable that Eugene wouldn’t be in a good mood after being humiliated and imprisoned.
“Oh, your leg is dislocated,” Abyss said, noticing Eugene’s twisted limb. He chanted a spell, his finger twitching towards the injured leg.
Eugene’s femur shifted, pulled by an invisible force, then snapped back into place with a sickening crack.
“Aah!” Eugene screamed, but the excruciating pain from his dislocated hip subsided, and he could move his leg slightly.
“I fixed your joint,” Abyss said with a smile, crouching beside the cage, observing Eugene’s swollen face through the bars. “Now, can you tell me about the fuel source for those machines your gang is using?”
“Ah… I recognize you now. You’re the mage who defeated the necromancer I hired. Weren’t you wearing a dress before?” Eugene squinted, finally recognizing Abyss in the dim light. Panic flickered in his eyes, then he quickly regained his composure. “What more do you want? You helped Titus destroy my empire. Now you want to crush my last hope, leave me at Titus’s mercy?”
“He hasn’t killed you, has he?” Abyss sat down beside the cage. “If you confess your crimes and quietly rot in prison, you might survive.”
“Hehe, I wonder if he told you about his past. I killed his mother. We’re sworn enemies,” Eugene said, taking a deep breath, straightening his posture slightly. His movements were slow and deliberate, his situation hopeless. “Even if he spares me for the sake of maintaining order, my patron won’t. You think I wanted to defeat the Black Hats and become the king of this city? No, I wanted to escape, to survive!”
Eugene’s words piqued Abyss’s interest in the machines even more. But he had another question for Eugene.
“What were you secretly developing? What did you do to those children?” Abyss asked, his smile fading, his emerald eyes glowing with an unsettling intensity in the dim light.
“Those brats who worked for me?” Eugene asked, glancing at Abyss. “Got a smoke?”
“No,” Abyss said, raising his finger. One of Eugene’s molars was ripped from his mouth by an invisible force.
“Aah!” Eugene screamed, clutching his mouth, blood seeping through his fingers. The excruciating pain made him moan and tremble.
“Tell me, what did you do to those children?”
Abyss remained seated, his gaze fixed on Eugene’s eyes, his voice cold and calm.
The pain jolted Eugene back to reality. He might have nothing left to lose, but he could still feel pain!
“Ugh… Ugh…” The agony of his severed nerve endings made it impossible to speak.
Then, a wave of coldness numbed his injured gum. Before he could react, the bleeding wound was frozen solid, the pain vanishing as the nerves went numb.
He spat out blood and saliva, gasping for air. “I’ll talk! I’ll talk! Our main goal was to make money, but our patron gave us a secret task! To research the applications of the black mud extracted from Shadow Demons! He even sent us a few alchemy experts to guide our research! I offered some children a bit of money, and they became my test subjects! I mixed the processed black mud into bread and fed it to them! When exposed to a specific type of magic, the black mud attached to their stomach and intestinal walls would reactivate! It would start assimilating their bodies!”
“Why?” Abyss asked, his eyes cold. “That wouldn’t have helped your research, would it? If you wanted to create a poison, there are more efficient methods. There are thousands of potions that can kill, and a thousand more that can control the symptoms.”
“We weren’t trying to create a poison. We wanted to grant those who consumed it immense power! But we failed! The black mud is uncontrollable within a human body!” Eugene trembled, his voice filled with fear. “Spare me! It wasn’t my idea! I only care about money and women! I’m not interested in alchemy! I don’t want to be like those crazy alchemists!”
“How many innocent children did you kill for this pointless experiment?” Abyss asked, ignoring his pleas.
“None… We operated within safe parameters…”
“Your soul is trembling. You’re lying,” Abyss said, sighing. He lifted his finger again, and another molar, right next to the previous one, was ripped from Eugene’s mouth.
“Aah!!” Eugene screamed again, but the wound was instantly frozen.
“How many?”
“Three! Three!” Eugene shouted, his voice filled with despair.
“So, you eventually figured out how to use the black mud as a power source for machines. Those children were just collateral damage,” Abyss said, nodding. “And I’m guessing the black mud is more than just a power source. If your men are using those machines to rescue you, they must possess some unique capabilities…”
As Abyss spoke, a faint tremor shook the ground, dust raining down from the ceiling of the long-abandoned basement. Something heavy was approaching.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sound of heavy, metallic footsteps grew louder, closer to their location.
“Hey, Eugene, is there a way to save those children who collapsed after being exposed to your magic? An antidote, perhaps?” Abyss asked, looking at Eugene’s bloodstained face.
But the fear and pain had vanished from Eugene’s eyes. He grinned, his expression cruel. “You should worry about yourself! It’s your fault for not asking! These machines… are designed to kill mages like you!”
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