Chapter 04 (part 1/2) - Mind Devourer

  “And since when do you feel disgust?”

  Drestan asked, still trying to make sense of the situation. Vincent lay on the floor, disoriented and filthy, dragged out of the birthing chamber like discarded waste.

  “You’ve been acting strange today… Look me in the eyes, boy.”

  He slapped him a couple of times to bring him back to his senses. With his vision still blurred and his body slipping in and out of control, Vincent failed to realize how dangerous it was to speak now.

  “N-no… get m-me out of here…”

  Drestan’s eyebrows rose in surprise at the sound of coherent words.

  “Holy shit… it’s true.”

  He could hardly believe it; an adult awakening from a husk was nearly impossible. Empty husks couldn’t use magic, much less defend their souls from the surrounding spiritual energy. They were shattered vessels, incapable of housing a full consciousness. Whatever flicker burned inside him, it wouldn’t last long.

  “Hey, you! Go fetch an Extractor. I need someone to take a look at him! RIGHT NOW!”

  The custodian barked the order to one of the husks who had carried Vincent out of the chamber, still drenched in blood and amniotic fluid.

  Huh? What’s happening? Where am I?

  The trauma had left Vincent stranded in limbo, trapped between the physical and the spiritual world. He didn’t know it, but his mind had split in two. One part remained anchored to reality, trying to make sense of why he was lying on a cold stone floor; the other fought desperately to shield his soul and his memories, to cover the retreat.

  Control over his body returned slowly, piece by piece. First came sight in one eye, then hearing in his right ear… his left leg, his arm… By the time he fully reassembled, he realized how close he’d come to dying, gasping hard as his lungs and diaphragm regained control.

  Damn it… getting stuck between both sides could kill me. Is this what Lily was talking about?

  Back in reality, he noticed a group of men surrounding him, examining him as if deciding whether he was worth the effort of lifting. They grabbed him by the arms and transferred him from one slab of stone to another. The stretcher, if it could be called that, was a massive rectangular slab carved with runes that glowed softly, levitating a meter above the ground and gliding frictionlessly as they pushed it forward.

  Feigning unconsciousness, Vincent tried to observe his surroundings, but the moment they noticed his eyes open, the men restrained him before he could sit up.

  “L-Let go!”

  Vincent shouted, not realizing that would seal his fate.

  “He speaks. The custodian was right,” noted the burly man to his right, addressing the one on his left.

  Shit… I shouldn’t have spoken.

  Realizing his mistake, Vincent immediately went silent, but it was already too late. It was obvious he had awakened.

  “Good. Stay still. Moving will make you unstable.”

  The warning wasn’t out of concern for his safety. They didn’t care if he fell from the slab from thrashing around, since these men weren’t healers. Broad-shouldered and dressed entirely in black, they looked more like executioners than medics. A black leather hood covered their faces, the top wrinkled into the shape of a brain, giving the grotesque illusion of exposed tissue.

  This stretcher has straps… but they haven’t tied me down. Do they really think I can’t escape?

  One glance at the studded iron clubs hanging from their belts erased any thought of trying. Even if I ran, where would I go? He had no sense of direction, no idea how many floors they’d descended, nor any clue how to find an exit from this endless tower.

  The tower’s architecture had changed; it did so every few levels. The stone veins and ornamentation varied wildly, but not in the way of old cathedrals where decades of work led to subtle inconsistencies. Here, the levels seemed to grow from one another, as if the tower were a living thing. The stone fused like bone, and its finish dulled as it aged in the open air. The ability to form interstitial floors erased any chance of navigation. Logic simply didn’t apply here.

  He couldn’t tell if it was meant to confuse intruders or if the tower itself lacked a coherent structure. Still, he tried to memorize every detail of the route until they reached a floor made of aged, blackened stone. Its design was clearly ancient: windowless, dimly lit, and oppressive.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  They stopped before a massive black gate reinforced with dull metal bands.

  “Oh, so it’s this one?” asked another man waiting at their destination.

  “Custodian Drestan sent him for examination. He suspects a second settlement.”

  The old man raised an eyebrow as he examined Vincent, who was still pretending to be half-conscious. His face was gaunt and leathery, his lips thin and darkened. Unlike the executioners surrounding them, he wore the robes of a healer.

  “Hmmm…”

  Even through his leather gloves, the fineness of his long fingers was apparent. He placed them on Vincent to examine him, checking his reactions. Vincent ignored the initial clicks and verbal cues, but was caught off guard when a flash of light flared from the man’s palm, blinding him.

  “Uhh—”

  Can you really use magic without a catalyst or medium? I didn’t know that…

  “Only one eye reacts. It must be very recent… I think there’s something here worth investigating,” the extractor muttered, his tone laced with suspicion, as if he knew Vincent was faking.

  “He also stayed still when we told him to. He obviously understands more than he lets on.”

  Vincent hadn’t noticed the subtle test. His act had failed; he’d been found out.

  Damn it… was I that obvious? What did they expect, that I’d piss myself and throw a tantrum?

  He tried to get up, but the executioners already had him restrained. The extractor grabbed his arm and pulled up his sleeve, inspecting the golden bracelet that clung to his wrist. As his finger traced over its veined surface, the metal shifted, revealing magically etched inscriptions beneath.

  “Twenty-one years old… resurrected thirteen years ago… never fully settled.”

  The extractor gripped Vincent’s hand and pressed his thumb into his wrist... not exactly to take a pulse, but something close. A chilling sensation, like liquid ice, spread through Vincent’s veins as a magical current entered his body, probing for a secondary circulatory system he hadn’t even known existed.

  “Ahh!”

  The extractor tried again, sending two more pulses, but whatever energy he was channeling failed to circulate through Vincent’s body.

  “His meridians are withered. No detectable magical pulse… It’s incredible he’s even conscious. He should be in a level-five deterioration state… yet he seems to understand everything we say. This doesn’t add up.”

  Feigning ignorance was pointless now, and escaping physically was impossible in his frail state. All he could do was rely on his wits.

  “W-what’s happening? H-how can I h-help?”

  But with his half-numb tongue, even his charisma was crippled.

  “Oh? He speaks the language? Interesting,” the extractor said, intrigued.

  But the men ignored his plea. Roughly, they lifted him from the slab and strapped him into a nearby restraint chair like a lifeless doll.

  “Mr. Heidegger, should we put him here?”

  “Yes, yes, right there is fine.”

  The men dragged Vincent into the dim room without another word. It was a more private, almost intimate space: the ceilings were low, the walls narrow. The rectangular hall was divided into sections by columns, each with a single door leading into a “treatment” chamber. Heavy restraint chairs slid along rails in the floor, and in the center, tables overflowed with scrolls and smudged fragments of parchment stacked in chaotic piles.

  “W-what do you n-need to know?”

  Vincent asked, trying to regain some control over the situation, but the executioners simply strapped him to one of the chairs and stationed themselves by the entrance. None of them cared what he had to say. They had heard it all before.

  “I-I can cooperate.”

  He pleaded, but was ignored. Inside the extraction room, several scholars sorted through the papers, discarding the illegible ones into a nearby basket while the extractor supervised, preparing his surgical instruments.

  What the hell do they plan to do to me? Are they going to torture me for information? I’d rather skip the pain…

  He wasn’t the only husk there. Other resurrected sat in the room, some bound, others barely conscious. One even seemed to be there voluntarily, though his trembling hands betrayed second thoughts.

  “D-do you want me to w-write something?”

  Vincent asked Heidegger. If they wanted information, he could give them some, enough to save himself, but not enough to make them want more.

  “I c-can w-write… g-give me a few d-days and I c-can do it in your l-language.”

  “Huh? Oh, that…”

  Heidegger replied, realizing what he meant.

  “You’re confident, huh? Yeah, it’d be much easier if you did it yourself. Too bad you don’t have a few days left.”

  He dismissed the idea as trivial, though something in Vincent’s sharpness seemed to intrigue him, if only slightly.

  “You’re lucid now, but it won’t last. If your delayed settlement had happened a few years after your resurrection, maybe… or if you had even a bit of magical training to defend your soul…” He paused, glancing away as if reconsidering, but quickly shook his head. “No, there’s no point. You’ll barely survive the void.”

  The void… it isn’t a strange concept for them.

  “Little by little, you’ll lose the only thing of value you brought into this world: your knowledge. All in the name of staying conscious. There’s no point… I’ll salvage what I can before you fade.”

  Vincent gave him a questioning look, and the extractor took the trouble to answer.

  “Even if you survive the void, we don’t need another husk. It’s better to make use of you in another way.”

  “I-I know things… valuable things. You w-wouldn’t understand them…”

  Heidegger looked back at him with disdain.

  “Terrestrial technology might be advanced, but nothing your kind has brought to this world so far has justified the complexity of your mechanisms and processes… at least nothing that surpasses magic.”

  He spoke with the weariness of someone who had repeated the same explanation countless times.

  “Although I must admit, I’m quite fond of your medical texts. They’re not advanced enough to be incomprehensible, but they’re still too fragmented to be studied as a complete science…”

  His bloodstained coat and the grim fascination with which he examined the edge of his obsidian scalpel revealed a man who took pleasure in medical experimentation.

  “I’m a man of science. I don’t dismiss your worth as other scholars do. I simply think we need more pieces to make sense of the electric world your texts describe. For now, all we can do is keep collecting.”

  Heidegger turned and instructed a nearby extractor that Vincent was next. There was urgency in his tone, as if he expected Vincent’s consciousness to be only temporary.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to crack open your skull. I’ll just make a clean cut so the mind devourer knows where to bite.”

  Devourer? What is he talking about?

  And as if the universe wished to answer him, the door to the extraction chambers opened across the room. A scholar emerged, his arms overflowing with scrolls and papers, dropping several as he hurried out. Through the briefly open doorway, a nightmare unfolded before Vincent’s eyes...

  (Continues in part 2)