---

When the black centipede touched Avan's auricle, he completely freaked out inside and panicked, trying to bend his head to get away from Bob the torturer and the Bug, but to no avail.

"No! Please, no!" He whispered more to himself, his voice much hoarsely by now, as he continued to try in vain to fight his handcuffs.

Avan hated everything that crawled and scurried, especially when it crawled on him. Whether it was spiders, ants, beetles, or other critters, he had never had a problem with them leaving him alone, except when they crawled on his skin and he had to scratch everywhere for hours because it itched everywhere.

So he felt an animaltastic panic rising inside him, even more than anything before, when the centipede with its little legs was lowered into his ear and noticeably pushed into the auditory canal. He only glimpsed how his two friends, eyes widened in terror and with the same fear, looked alternately at Avan's face and then at the ear from which the torturer had gleefully taken a step back and leaned on the stone table in the center of the room to watch with the greatest interest.

It tickled and drove Avan almost crazy when he felt the crawling in his right ear and still had the image of the centipede exactly in front of his mind's eye, and how it now penetrated his innermost being in exactly the same way. The tickling was more horror than laughter, because with every fraction of a second that passed, he didn't know when the little creature would start digging through his skin, cartilage and flesh to the bone.

He wriggled wildly and noticed with increasing panic how the crawling in his innermost ear briefly ended, and very briefly the thought flashed through his mind of how the one-inch-thick animal had gotten so deep in the first place, when something in his right head snapped shut and he cried out hoarsely and extremely loudly.

Avan fleetingly remembered the many middle ear infections he had already experienced, and how he had cursed the pain and compared it to a needle prick or knife thrust into the deepest part of his ear. This pain now was comparable to that and was getting worse by the second, while a liquid slowly began to drip out of his right ear and Lea and Nick looked at it, frozen, with horror in their eyes.

Avan screamed like a spit, wiggling and wriggling in the few movements he had left, and after a miserably long time his voice changed to a hoarse and then silent scream as his vocal cords gradually failed, but the pain only became more and more unbearable.

He HEARD the tearing of his inner right ear, the cutting of cartilage, and the rush of blood, and nothing else in the world mattered at that moment, as the blinding white pain overloaded all his senses. His head threatened to burst and his silent scream just wouldn't end as saliva ran down the corners of his mouth and dripped onto his linen shirt, sweat covered his body in drips and streams and he was bathed in sweat experiencing everything that was happening. Meanwhile, the Celestial Mana was already trying to repair the damage, which only prolonged Avan's agony, as the centipede only needed longer to make progress, because the wounds were trying to heal again relatively quickly. So Avan tossed and turned and suffered longer than normal until it turned white in the face when the beast reached the top of his skull and began to work on his bones.

His neck hurt badly and his head was tossed back and forth as Avan felt the centipede tear through the bones and another liquid emerge that had nothing to do with blood.

When the brutal creature reached the first part of his brain, Avan froze and the white before his eyes was abruptly replaced by a cold black as he fell into a merciful swoon.

---

A cheerful whistle woke Avan from his peaceful unconsciousness and with a jerk he opened his eyes and jerked his iron handcuffs as he tried to figure out what had happened. He shook his head in fear and the last thing he remembered was when the centipede had feasted on the outermost part of his brain. His breathing was intermittent and a loud rattle sounded from his throat, which remarkably felt less raw and hoarse than before, thanks to his own healing. He coughed and spat out an indefinable lump of something disgusting while blinking and trying to focus his gaze.

Gone... It's over...! I'm alive... What-how?

The torturer was busy doing something with his back to Avan, but turned to him with a wide and satisfied grin when he heard the sounds.

"Ohhhh, he's awake! I knew you were something special! If you could see yourself now. Like new! The centipede surprisingly came crawling out of the same ear, probably because he had made enough room to turn around, but still! Remarkable, really remarkable..."

When Bob turned around and smiled at him with joy, Avan also realized what the fat man had been busy with in the meantime and just wanted to keep crying and screaming.

Where Nick's left eye had once been, there was now a gaping red and dark hole, full of burnt scar tissue. While Lea's once quite pretty face was now covered with more fresh bloody cuts and her left ear was hanging down in shreds on the side of her head.

The fat torturer had kept his word and occupied himself with the other slaves, only because Avan had fainted.

As Avan stared crying at his two mutilated friends with tons of stones in his stomach, he couldn't believe his eyes when Nick lifted his drooping head and smiled reassuringly at him, revealing only more horror as more than half of his former teeth were missing and his mouth was full of blood. A bloody bubble of air from Nick's mouth only added to the incredible terror Avan was feeling at that moment.

"Ohh, right!" With a clap of his two feisty hands, the torturer beamed a little more, even if one would hardly have thought it possible.

"I had to deal with other objects in the meantime, since you were unfortunately indisposed. So I took some time with these two new canvases and indulged in my art. But don't worry, now that you are awake again, we can continue! I wouldn't trade you or replace you for anything in the world, you know."

A sickeningly sweet and joyous laugh rang out from the obnoxious man's throat, and the world once again felt more than a little wrong.

And so it went on for Avan. Minutes stretched into hours, and hours into days. Time lost its importance, and he had no strength left to even know how long he had been trapped in this man's grasp.

Whenever the man himself went to sleep, or when there was the little bit of soup and water for the slaves, it was quiet in the room. Only the heavy breathing of the three tortured rattled through the room. Lea and Nick had only come in one other time, when Avan had fainted again. Bob the fat torturer had now put the millipedes several times into his orifices, sometimes individually or several at the same time.

Avan was trembling incessantly by now, and his bloody and bloodshot eyes spoke volumes as he lay there so powerless in his chair, his head on his chest and saliva running from his tongue hanging out the side.

And it wasn't just the centipedes. His teeth had been split, leaving the nerve roots underneath open to the air, which had also resulted in extreme pain, while his healing magic had even regenerated and regrown teeth after hours.

Bob had at some point begun to mix different torture methods. For example, a centipede had feasted through Avan's ear while some of his tooth roots lay broken, and at the same time a rat had feasted through his stomach under a heated iron bucket. The rat had tried to flee from the heat and the only way had been the tender and soft flesh on Avan's belly, which the rat had used as an escape route in panic.

Thus, in the first hours after his first awakening from unconsciousness, Avan had already begun to erect a spiritual and mental wall in his interior, in order to shield his mind somehow as far as possible, so as not to fall prey to madness.

He continued to feel everything, screaming, shrieking, wriggling, and trying to lash out, while his mind retreated, leaving behind an apathetic and scratchless version of itself. When Avan fell into a nightmarish sleep for short minutes or even an hour, he dreamed of all the torture, the pain, and often talked to himself. With his other self, which gradually splintered off and thus protected his spirit.

Besides all the torture, there were also the typical methods Avan was subjected to, such as small stakes through different parts of his body, a kind of collar with a metal fork sticking up and down and stabbing him in the chest and throat as soon as he could no longer hold his neck upright, his tongue being cut, and many other painful things. His nails had also grown back in a few hours, and to Avan's utter horror, his healing speed and regeneration had become many times faster over all the past torture time, making the torture with the rat and the centipedes a hundred times worse.

From a blurry point in the last few hours or days, Avan had watched first Nick die with a final smile in Avan's direction, eyes glazed over, and later Lea, too, as she had a glowing piece of metal poked through a burned-out eye hole.

Avan himself had only watched with a blank stare as he awoke once again from his black darkness and unconsciousness, and had not witnessed Lea's death himself.

Guilt no longer existed, nor did almost any thoughts or emotions, except for the unspeakable pain that accompanied each day of torture.

He had found a refuge in himself, and had retreated further and further mentally. His torture had become, from an emotional point of view, more of an objective observation, which had gradually given way to cold logic. He observed himself, his reactions, his state, his mana, his body and how everything functioned together. He discussed with himself, with his second self, the self that was still somewhat lucid and possessed the emotions that he now lacked.

At one point, Avan didn't know when it had just suddenly happened, Bob the torturer had lost interest in him. He told him that he lacked a reaction.

So the fat torturer left and left Avan to his own thoughts, or rather to his second self, for many hours.

When Bob returned many hours later, he again had a grinning expression on his face, and the torture continued.

Things didn't change much, and Avan was sure he had experienced over a hundred different of the worst tortures in his own body, when the cowardly man suddenly stepped up beside him to whisper in his ear. Avan had just stared at him emotionlessly with a blank stare and waited.

"Do you know what I learned today?" It came with the usual sweetish tone, which Avan had hated so much at the beginning, but had meanwhile masterfully ignored.

He looked the ugly and fat man emotionlessly in the face while turning his head as best he could, ignoring the centipede in his left ear.

"... Pah!" Bob grimaced, furious with rage, when he saw the expressionless slave in front of him without reaction.

"There's a town to the east! I was told that you were caught there! Namely, when you were not so happy about the death of the guild master. And the good news? The guild master's daughter is still alive!" He whispered again lovingly into Avan's right ear, whereupon he saw a brief emotion flit across the slave's face and eyes for the first time in days.

"And the very best part? The city is being attacked by us again right now! And I was told that the daughter had fought, but then died without a peep! Wonderful, isn't it?" He beamed at Avan, and suddenly took an instinctive step backwards, when he saw a kind of aura full of mana flicker up briefly, which seemed to radiate from a monster and predator without equal.

As quickly as it had appeared, the impression had suddenly disappeared, and Bob scratched the back of his head in shame as he looked away, admitting to himself that he had first thought that this powerful aura of a bloody killer had emanated from Avan here.

The torturer suddenly got cold feet and rummaged around in his torture instruments while he watched Avan from the corner of his eye and wanted to make sure whether he was really mistaken and had just imagined what he had experienced.

When, several minutes and many cleaned torture instruments later, there was nothing to indicate that this had really happened, he exhaled with relief and had a slightly redder tone in his face than usual. He had almost wet his pants when the intention of a mutilation and the pure hatred of this aura had blown towards him. Now, in retrospect, he scolded himself for it, since it had certainly only been the corrupted dungeon, or so he told himself.

Avan himself knew better, and even if the innermost and second self in him screamed loudly and tried to distract him with emotions, he had banished the last remnant of human emotions at the last heard, and a cold all-overpowering hatred had briefly burst out of him, only to be immediately overcome by cold and calm logic. A plan began to form.

A way to take revenge, even if Avan was currently giving a fuck about his emotions. But he wanted justice, and he wanted this man here to atone, and for no one to be exposed to him ever again.

And so a cold plan was formed, something that had crystallized more and more from the days of torture.

Avan was no longer suppressed by the mana-suppressing bracelet. His regeneration and rate of absorption of ambient mana had increased so much that he was now at least ten times as fast and strong with his magic as he was before the mana-suppressing bracelet was put on.

As the man muttered to himself as he left the torture room and Avan waited a few minutes to leave, a golden yellow ball floating in the air suddenly popped out of nowhere in front of him.

And a second one. And a third, a fourth, a fifth, and suddenly there were ten spheres floating around him, some of them wobbling slightly and not seeming to follow any fixed shape, while others seemed solid as steel, if you ignored the glow.

Avan grinned, more maliciously than ever before, only to be an emotionless statue again a second later.

He had all his dungeon skills back, and not a second later a dried fruit and some nuts popped out of his mouth, which he chewed thoughtfully. Avan still couldn't access the system itself, but his Celestial mana was guiding him entirely instinctively, and it felt more like something was being uploaded into his mind as he was gradually flooded with more information, almost as if a threshold or achievement had been reached.

---

Bob still hated himself for being so anxious earlier. Now that he'd had his way with a couple of young boys and girls and his thoughts were clearer, he wanted to hit himself and laughed briefly with amusement.

I was afraid of that boy! Tied up, mana-less and broken as he is! What was wrong with me?

He was on his way to the torture room again and was just opening the black stone door when a dark shiver ran down his spine and he stopped short when the door was only two centimeters wide open.

Bob faltered briefly, scolding himself a second time as he finally entered, chest out, shoulders raised and a smug smile on his lips.

Only to stop abruptly again immediately.

The torture chair in front of him was empty. More than just empty, because the iron handcuffs lay partly splintered and broken in several pieces all over the room, while there was no trace of the inmate and his victim.

Bob gulped audibly, and for the first time since his youth and the fisticuffs towards him by other youths of his age and his several near-death experiences, beads of sweat immediately formed in front of his eyes because of the unbelievable situation.

Just as he was about to swallow again and take a step back into the door frame to escape, an incredible weight fell on his shoulders and he went down with a loud startled cry until a painful blow to his temples took his breath and his mind away.

He awoke a short time later, and realized with panic and boundless fear that his worst nightmare had come true.

Bob the torturer was bound, gagged and on his own torture chair, while he blinked and tried to orentate himself, until his gaze was stuck on a cold and emotionless face, which stared not half a meter away from him directly into his eyes.

"Hrmph!" He tried to scream, to plead, to threaten that the slave should let him go, but all in vain with a tight gag in his mouth.

A slight ominous smile on Avan's face boded ill, and a second later it was gone as the slave pointedly turned his gaze away from Bob and slid down the body.

The torturer followed the young man's gaze and swallowed in panic, while his breathing increased hyperventilatingly as he found all his torture instruments attached to his body in various ways.

The magical self-heating bucket was strapped to his belly button, while the metal fork was attached to the collar around his throat, and all manner of knives, scalpels, and other pointed and sharp objects stuck out all over the place so that he would stab himself and cut himself bloody if he moved too much.

Panic-stricken and with horror in his eyes, he looked pleadingly at Avan on the right and was about to turn his head back when he saw the two black centipedes shimmering in both hands of his former torture victim.

Before he knew it, the young man was standing behind him, and Bob felt the two centipedes wiggling into both of his ears. He wanted to scream, but couldn't. He wanted to lash out, but couldn't. And he wanted to curse and threaten and wring Avan's throat, but he couldn't.

---

Avan looked at his work, expressionless, as the metal bucket began to glow, as all the knives and sharp objects were lashed and fastened to the chair, and as the two little black animals disappeared inside the ears of his torturer.

Without further comment and without enjoying it all, Avan turned and marched out into the hallway, his bloody rags of a former linen shirt wafting behind him.

He had already tried to remove the mana bracelet with his regained and much more powerful dungeon skills, but found that it also dissolved any mana that came into contact with it from the outside.

So he had no choice but to move on to the next best thing, and the real reason he had come here. The dungeon core and the corruption had to give way, and he already had a suspicion and his new instincts were literally screaming at him what he could do now.

---