Chapter 413: Absolute ruthlessness

“Wh-what in the absolute hell is this?” Adam murmured, his body trembling in shock as his soldiers fell dead one after another by the mere touch of lightning.

The crimson lightning was strangely avoiding him, yet the insurmountable pressure he felt from its mere presence was enough to make his heart pound like war drums.

Once the lightning vanished, out of the half million people present inside the pillar, only he and Taranis remained standing.

“N-no way… if he possessed such strength, why did he let me torture him?” Adam mumbled.

Do you know how dangerous it is to torture the strongest cultivator of the Western Continent? It is a miracle you walked out of there alive.

His father’s words echoed in his mind. It was only then that he realized that even though he was the one torturing Voltrex, he was also the one at Voltrex’s mercy. If he wanted, Voltrex could have killed him without even lifting a finger.

The realization struck him like lightning, and he fell onto his back.

“I-I need to run…”

He tried, but he could not move. His legs had given out from the fear of the catastrophe he had just witnessed.

His eyes shifted downward, where Taranis had already begun climbing upward, forming small spiderwebs of lightning beneath his feet. His terrifying dual-pupiled golden eyes glowed in the darkness, staring directly at Adam.

“M-monsters… both father and son are monsters,” he gasped, crawling toward the stairs to reach the higher floor.

Below, Taranis increased his pace of climbing. Using the lightning web beneath him as a platform, he used Blink to hurl himself into the sky, and the moment he slowed, he generated another platform beneath him before launching upward again.

On the othet side, after a minute of struggle, strength slowly returned to Adam’s legs, and he began climbing the floors with all the strength his muscles could muster.

“I need to reach the fortress to activate the teleportation array,” Adam muttered. “Once I escape from here, I will take my revenge along with father’s army.”

He reached the top floor, ran through the cave, and arrived at the basement of the fortress at the peak of the pillar. The guards inside the fortress also lay on the floor, dead.

“Just a little more,” he exclaimed, the corners of his lips almost rising as he arrived before the door of the room where the teleportation array was set.

“I will return this humiliation a hundredfold,” he declared, opening the door.

“You are late,” a deep voice came from within the room, sending chills down Adam’s spine.

The floor where the array had been constructed was completely destroyed. Amid the debris at the center, Taranis sat, his wrist resting on the hilt of the sword that was embedded in the floor beneath him.

The berserk state in which Taranis had been fighting before was nowhere to be seen. His face was unreadable, his expression cold. Perhaps because he had realized that Voltrex had deliberately allowed himself to be tortured despite possessing the strength to break free from the prison whenever he wished, Taranis had returned to his senses.

Nonetheless, that did not mean his rage had cooled. He was furious and calm, a state far more terrifying than his earlier berserk frenzy.

Adam’s feet staggered backward the moment he saw Taranis inside. His survival instincts surged, and he instantly turned to run away, only to find Taranis now standing in front of his escape route.

His head snapped back toward the room. It was empty. He turned again, and Taranis was no longer blocking the exit.

“Am I hallucinating—”

His words stopped mid-sentence as a hand suddenly grabbed him by the face and slammed him to the floor.

Before he could move, a sword pierced through his shoulder, completely pinning him to the ground.

“Aahhh!” Adam screamed as blood poured from his shoulder.

Being a spoiled prince, he had never suffered any wounds and did not understand the concept of pain until Taranis punished him for disrespecting Voltrex in the Sentinel Line. It was the first time he had experienced humiliation and pain.

And now, once again, Taranis was making him suffer.

“Y-you can’t do this to me!” Adam shouted. “I’m the prince of the mightiest empire. My father will slaughter your whole kingdom if you don’t stop!”

Ignoring his babbling, Taranis crouched down, grabbed his head with one hand, and murmured, “After experimenting on Ignis, I found a method to inflict pain that outshines any form of torture.”

Bolts of lightning materialized around Taranis’s arm and began seeping into Adam’s body.

“Aahhhhhh!! It hurts!!! It fucking hurts!!!! Stopppp!!!!!” Adam’s screams echoed through the castle.

“It’s too early for you to scream, Adam,” Taranis murmured. “I haven’t even begun yet.”

Adam’s eyes widened in horror. Tears and snot streamed down his face.

“W-wait—Ahhhhh!!”

“The lightning entering your body will burn your internal organs, break your bones, and boil your blood. Your nails will be slowly peeled off. You will feel as if insects are eating your insides, needles are stabbing into your eyes, and a centipede is crawling inside your brain. I will target every nerve in your body, making it so sensitive that even the slightest touch will send jolts of pain to your very soul.”

While Taranis spoke with a cold expression, the lightning had already begun inflicting all the described effects on Adam’s body.

“Stop!!! I beg you!!! Please stop, it hurts so much!!!”

Adam screamed until his throat tore and his voice turned hoarse, yet Taranis did not flinch and continued staring at him silently.

Taranis rose to a standing position and placed one foot on Adam’s arm. The mere touch sent unbearable pain through him, making him scream uncontrollably as Taranis had amplified his sense of pain a hundredfold.

With a crack, Taranis broke his arm underfoot and tore it apart with his hand.

“Ahhhh!!! Kill me!! Just kill me!!! Let me die!!!”

“That is the most remarkable part of this torture method,” Taranis explained. “The Divine Lightning entering your body will keep healing you slowly and will not let you die.”

Adam’s screams continued to echo through the fortress as Taranis tore apart each of his limbs one by one, with absolute ruthlessness.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep