System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 311: The Captive Broken Beyond Repair
The laboratory.
Candlelight swayed.
It lit two startled faces.
The results of the captive’s examination had gone far beyond what Letho and Flavius had imagined.
The “mummified corpse” before them, bound tight and muttering to itself like a madman, had a heartbeat and breathing rhythm wholly different from an ordinary person’s, even a Witcher’s.
There was not a single patch of whole skin anywhere on him. From the surface alone, he had endured burning, freezing, electrocution, physical alteration, and dozens of other tortures foul enough to curdle the stomach.
Taken together, the pain of those torments exceeded even the Trial of the Grasses. An ordinary man would have died of agony long ago.
Even most Witchers, with their remade immune systems, would have died after all this from severe infection and organ failure.
Yet he had stubbornly survived.
In a twisted, inhuman shape.
Wounds, muscle tissue, organs, and blood vessels had fused, scabbed, and healed together.
His body was wasted like a dried corpse, yet it held an abnormal abundance of vitality.
“He has been locked up for at least twenty or thirty years...” Griffin stared into the captive’s lava-red eyes, as if trying to dig out the faintest trace of humanity and reason. There was only emptiness. “No food, no water. How in the hell did he stay alive?”
Letho was silent, but an answer had already risen in his mind, perhaps this thing could no longer be called a Witcher. Go a step further, and it could no longer be called human.
“Everyone, look what I found!” Roy’s sudden shout stirred them all, and they quickly gathered around him.
The Cat School blueprints began passing from Letho’s hands to the others, one by one, until they reached Griffin. The Cat School Witcher’s sword hand, usually steady and strong, trembled for once.
“Four Cat School blueprints. So this brother really did come from the School of the Cat.”
Orin looked at Griffin with rare sympathy.
Kael shook his head. “Very likely, but we still can’t rule out another school having found the diagrams. After all, the Cat School medallion proving his identity is still missing.”
They had searched the living quarters and experimental area, and found only unrelated books and expired alchemical ingredients.
...
Then Roy showed them the silver sword, Moon Blade, and the experimental journal.
A strange silence fell around them.
The Witchers ground their teeth. Their breathing grew heavy.
“Irenaeus von Steingard. Matteo Sicula. I’ll remember those names!”
“Whoresons! Worse than swine and dogs! How dare they use a Witcher for experiments?” Orin’s fists, each the size of a sandbag, cracked as he clenched them. “Let me catch them, and I’ll flay them clean one cut at a time!”
“Let them die screaming.”
“That would be too easy.” Kael’s voice was cold as frost. “If it were me, I would repeat every trick on them once. Twice...”
“Given the constitution of most sorcerers, they would not last long enough...” Letho’s face was blank, his voice flat, but what he said made the skin crawl. “We would need a helper skilled in healing spells. Keep them alive. Keep them awake. Let them enjoy it to the last moment.”
“Sorry. The drowners already gnawed one target to death. At most, we can punish the other one.”
Roy shook his head. He had not expected his companions to be even more ruthless than he was.
Flavius, meanwhile, kept rubbing his palm over Moon Blade. His gray-green pupils stared at the “mummified corpse’s” burned face and crimson eyes, and slowly his expression went distant.
For an instant his memory returned to decades ago, to the wilderness, to the days they had traveled together.
Sorrow and remembrance quietly climbed over Griffin’s gaunt cheeks, briefly overpowering hatred and anger.
“You recognized him?”
“Moon Blade, scarlet pupils, Cat School diagrams ... If my memory hasn’t failed me, he is an old friend from long ago. His name was Kaen.” Griffin sighed.
“Tell us,” said the four Viper School Witchers, all looking at him.
Memory flickered through Griffin’s gray-green eyes.
“I can’t remember exactly how long it’s been. About fifty years ago, I took an assassination contract in Cintra and met Kaen on the way to Temeria to carry it out.”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.