Chapter 107: Chapter 107: Echoes of Screams Within the Roots

​The stone floor in the deepest corridor of The Deep Root Cellar felt like frozen iron beneath Dayat’s body as he was dragged forcefully by his shoulders. Gone were the honorary robes of platinum and silk; gone were the adoring cheers of the masses. In their place remained only the rhythmic, metallic clatter of chains against stone and the heavy, ragged breathing of the two Paladin guards gripping his shoulders with calloused hands. Dayat did not resist. It wasn’t because he had surrendered his will, but because every single inch of his musculature felt as though it had been liquefied by the crushing pressure of the Iron-Root Constrictor Nets he had endured on the stage.

​”Walk, you filth!” one of the guards barked, jerking Dayat’s body so violently that his head slammed against the hard, petrified root wall.

​The impact left his vision swimming in a sea of static. Through the haze, he could only see the silhouette of Dola being dragged behind him. She looked utterly fragile; her usually rigid and imposing chassis was now limp, and the frantic red flicker in her eyes cast a ghoulish, rhythmic reflection against the damp, weeping walls. Behind them, Kancil was carried by two other guards. The boy was no longer crying. His bruised face was a mask of shock, his eyes staring blankly forward as if his soul had been left behind on the floral stage of the Emerald Plaza.

​They arrived at a massive, charcoal-black wooden door adorned with carvings of weeping eyes. This was The Void Chamber, a dead-end room at the very heart of the World Tree’s root system, specifically designed for high-tier inquisitions. Inside, the room was circular, its walls lined with jagged purple crystals that hummed with a low-frequency, sound-absorbing energy. In the center sat an interrogation chair crafted from a tangled mess of thorny, living roots.

​Dayat was forced into the chair. Instantly, shackles of living wood coiled around his wrists, ankles, and neck, tightening until they bit into his skin. In the corner of the room, Lunethra was already bound to a pillar, her body slumped and weak under the persistent influence of the Platinum Shackles. On the other side, Dola was laid out across a magical observation table, locked down by Mana-stakes that suppressed her internal reactors.

​Veynar, the High Warden, stepped out from the shadows. Beside him walked Thalmirion. The Elven Elder stared at Dayat with a look of profound satisfaction, as if witnessing Dayat’s suffering was the greatest achievement of his centuries-long life.

​”We meet again, ’Hero’,” Veynar said, his voice smooth yet razor-sharp. He picked up an object from a silver tray behind him. It was a whip of solidified light, its strands pulsating with a blinding, jagged white energy. “This is the Nura-Scourge. It is designed not to cut skin, but to burn your physical nerves directly. Every lash will feel like molten lava being injected into your very veins.”

​Dayat looked at Veynar with hollow, vacant eyes. “I… I didn’t do anything… I saved you…”

​”Silence!” Thalmirion thundered, stepping forward and striking Dayat across the face. “You have defiled the sanctity of Verdia. You healed our Mother Tree only to plant the seeds of the Maiden’s apocalypse within her heart. Tell me, how many more ’units’ like you are on their way to our borders?!”

​Dayat didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His mind was focused on Kancil, who was now being forced to kneel on the cold floor directly in front of him.

​”Veynar,” Thalmirion called out with a predatory smirk. “This human cares deeply for this street urchin, does he not? Let us see how long he maintains his silence when he watches his servant be dismantled.”

​Veynar nodded. Without a single word of warning, he lashed the Nura-Scourge across Dayat’s chest.

​WHIIIPPP—CRACK!

​Dayat had never known pain could be this pure. It wasn’t like the cut of a blade; it felt as if thousands of white-hot needles had entered his pores and exploded simultaneously. His nerves shrieked in a cacophony of agony, his muscles tensing so violently he feared his bones would shatter from the force of his own contractions.

​”AAAAAARRRRGGHHH!” Dayat roared, his head snapping back as he arched in the chair. Cold sweat mingled with the blood from his old wounds, stinging his eyes.

​”Master! Systems detecting critical neurological trauma on Subject Hidayat! Cease immediately!” Dola’s voice rang out, jagged and broken by static. In the air above her, rows of binary code flickered frantically—not in her usual sapphire blue, but in a deep, viscous purple. Her eyes blinked red with a terrifying intensity, a subtle hint that the Maiden protocols were beginning to awaken in response to her master’s suffering.

​Veynar showed no mercy. He lashed the scourge again and again. Dayat’s body vibrated with tremors in the chair. The pain was absolute, drowning out every technical memory and every creative thought he had ever possessed.

​”Speak!” Thalmirion demanded, his face inches from Dayat’s.

​Dayat could only gasp for air, his eyes tearing up—not from sadness, but as a primal biological response to a stimulus that exceeded the limits of human endurance.

​”Stubborn,” Veynar hissed. He turned his attention toward Kancil. “What about you, boy? Do you wish to watch your hero die slowly, or do you wish to feel the purity of Nura’s light yourself?”

​Kancil looked up. His terrified eyes met Dayat’s. “B-Bang Dayat…”

​”NO! DON’T! DON’T TOUCH HIM!” Dayat screamed, his voice a jagged, painful wreck.

​Veynar ignored him. He flicked the scourge toward Kancil’s small, shivering shoulder.

​CRACK!

​Kancil let out a scream—a sound so thin and high-pitched that Dayat knew he would hear it in his nightmares for the rest of his life. The boy collapsed to the floor, his body twitching in violent spasms. Kancil’s small frame lacked the Mana-resistance to buffer the sheer intensity of the Nura-Scourge.

​”Stop it! You silk-clad monsters!” Lunethra screamed, her anger warring with her tears. “You call yourselves followers of the Light, yet you torture a child to soothe your own paranoia? I hate that I share your blood! I hate you all!”

​Thalmirion laughed, a dry sound filled with aristocratic contempt. “Your hatred is merely proof of your contamination, Princess. We are merely pruning the seeds of destruction.”

​Veynar lashed Kancil again. This time, the strike caught the boy across his back. Kancil whimpered, his voice beginning to fade into a hollow wheeze. He stared at Dayat, pleading for a protection that Dayat was powerless to give. In that second, Dayat saw something die in Kancil’s eyes—a spark of innocence that had been incinerated by the reality of betrayal and pain.

​”Kancil… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…” Dayat wept silently, his head hanging low.

​Kancil looked at Dayat one last time before his eyes rolled back and his head slumped against the cold stone. He had fainted from systemic shock. A thin trail of blood leaked from his nose, stark and dark against the black stone floor.

​”Take the boy back to his cell. If he expires, throw him into the lower roots,” Veynar commanded the guards coldly.

​Dayat watched as Kancil was dragged out like a worthless sack of grain. He looked at Thalmirion, who stood with a face of smug satisfaction, proud of having “saved” Verdia from a threat he had manufactured in his own rotting, traditionalist mind.

​”You see that?” Veynar whispered into Dayat’s ear, his breath smelling of mint and death. “That is the fate of anyone who associates with you. Tomorrow, we shall proceed with the interrogation of the machine-woman. I am curious to see how much ’blood’ a construct can shed.”

​Veynar and Thalmirion exited the chamber, the heavy wooden door booming shut and plunging the room back into a deafening silence, save for the hum of the purple crystals. Dayat was left to stare at the table where Dola lay motionless, her systems still glitching in the dark.

​In the corner, Lunethra was still sobbing quietly. “Forgive me, Dayat… forgive my people… we have failed you…”

​Dayat didn’t answer. He stared at the purple crystal wall in front of him. In his mind, the memories of colorful pinwheels and the smiles of Elven children were being systematically erased. They were being replaced by the blueprints of Earth’s most lethal machinery. He visualized fires consuming Vaelith; he heard the thunder of explosions tearing through every branch of the palace.

​”Your people don’t need forgiveness,” Dayat whispered, his voice sounding utterly frigid, as if it were coming from the bottom of an ancient, lightless well. “Your people only need one thing… a fear that is real.”

​That night, inside the Void Chamber, Dayat stopped pleading. He began to assemble every shard of his vengeance, preparing his mind to become the very apocalypse the Elves had always feared. Justice had died beneath the roots of the World Tree, and all that remained was a cold, calculated revenge that was being sharpened to a razor edge. The hero was dead; something else was taking his place.

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