I jolted up as a sharp stroke of pain arced through my body, causing me to writhe and choke. Clutching my gut, I glanced up at Ba Yun"s leering face. He must have kicked me awake.

No, wait…when did I lose consciousness?

"Who gave you permission to fall asleep?"

Another kick, and I shuddered as red-hot agony lanced through my mind. Heaving, I tried to stand up, but he stomped on my spine, pinning me to the floor.

"Who said you can get up?"

"Ugh…"

Wham!

"Who says you can make a sound?"

"…"

I desperately did my best to hold my grunt of pain in, so as to avoid another vicious blow. Ba Yun looked down on me, almost as if disappointed.

Then he smiled as he observed me. He poked my wound with a toe – the injury that Tuo Ta La dealt me when he impaled me with his arm.

"Oh? Interesting. It seems that your wound has already closed up."

Surprised, I clutched at it. Ba Yun was right. The bleeding had stopped and it no longer hurt. How? Was I out cold for that long?

With a roar of laughter, Ba Yun kicked me viciously, reopening the wound and causing me to shriek and flail about. Shaking his head, he curled his lips into a sneer.

"Who said you can heal?"

Huffing, I did my best to still myself, desperately trying to hold my groans in.

"Get up."

I obeyed. There was no point defying him here. Ba Yun was stronger, and more brutal. All I would achieve was suffer a lot more.

The moment I stood up, I regretted it.

"…!!!"

My eyes widened when I saw the emaciated figure strapped in a chair, his head hung low and his flesh stretching thinly over his bones. His chest wasn"t even moving and I sensed no qi whatsoever from him.

The guy was clearly dead.

"Oh? Glad to see you"re taking to your new home pretty well." Ba Yun chuckled as he strode over and unstrapped the dead guy before unceremoniously kicking the corpse to the ground. "The previous occupant…expired and I was looking for a new tenant."

He couldn"t mean…

"Let"s get to know each other over the next few weeks." Ba Yun was rubbing his hands in glee as he tended to the table of metallic tools that was beside the chair. He chuckled throatily. "I"m sure we"ll get to know each other really well."

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d…

I tensed and began to draw whatever qi I could from my own body and the surroundings. I wasn"t surprised that the atmosphere was saturated with ominous yin qi, most likely produced from the death and violence that had been perpetuated in this s.p.a.ce. Having seen the fate of the previous victim, I had no desire to end up like him.

At the very least, I would die fighting to the very last.

"Oho? Interesting. So you still have a little fight in you." Ba Yun applauded. "That"s more like it! That"s how it should be!"

Gulping, I got ready to use a footwork technique, but…

Bam!

"Kaha! Kah!"

Coughing and groaning, I found my face slammed against the floor. My vision turned red and I thrashed about, only for Ba Yun to pin me onto the ground.

"Hmm, Tuo Ta La is right. You seem to be using moves similar to my Demonic Shadow Strike. Your qi feels very familiar."

Ba Yun took a deep sniff and chuckled again.

"But…you"re too weak."

I twisted around and tried to kick him, but he stomped on my back, causing me to shriek in agony. While I writhed in pain, he bent down and lowered his head to sneer at me.

"It"ll be problematic if you don"t stop fighting."

f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Like h.e.l.l I would stop! I wasn"t going to just lie down and watch wide-eyed as you torture me to death! I would rather die sooner than excruciatingly!

Gritting my teeth, I gathered whatever qi I could and clashed it with my purified innate qi, causing a slight explosion that almost threw Ba Yun off.

"Heh, interesting…you still have a few tricks up your sleeve."

I didn"t respond to his impressed tone, focusing on escaping. Using Tui, I tried to widen the distance between us as much as possible.

"As interesting as it would be to see you struggle, as I said, it would be problematic if you don"t stop fighting. I want to spend more time playing with you, after all."

I continued to ignore him and continued to escape out of the room. It was a vast, cavernous s.p.a.ce. A bas.e.m.e.nt underneath the warehouse, if I wasn"t mistaken. Despite the enormous s.p.a.ce, it was largely empty, with only the chair and the table of tools in the center of the dimly lit interior. There was a door on the far side, a heavy metallic double door that used wheels to keep it shut, but no windows. In other words, there was only one exit.

I dashed toward the double doors.

"Going somewhere?"

"?!"

I spun around and saw that Ba Yun had caught up with me in a single bound. He giggled as he studied me.

"You…those Shadow Steps…I"m impressed you"ve mastered them to this extent. But…"

He seized me by the throat, halting my dash and lifting me off the ground. Dangling from his hand, I kicked and squirmed, but was unable to break free. Ba Yun brought me closer to his bear-like face and grinned s.a.d.i.s.tically.

"But…Shadow Steps is just the most basic of martial arts. You could say that my Demonic Shadow Strike is the advanced version of your pitiful Shadow Steps. But I guess Wu Ling Academy only has access to the first, huh?"

I responded with a kick. Ba Yun merely stood still as my foot caught him in the gut, looking more amused than hurt. He shook his head in mock disappointment.

"This is what you call an attack."

"GAH!"

Ba Yun buried his fist in my midriff and I went limp, coughing and throwing up blood. As I hung there, winded. Ba Yun raised me a little higher and then retrieved a syringe with his other hand. Before I could react, he rammed the sharp point of the syringe into the corner of my eye.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

My vision blurred, I screamed and thrashed about, this time more from agony than defiance. I grabbed his arm and struggled to yank the needle out of the corner of my eye, but Ba Yun"s arm wouldn"t budge.

"Do you know what drug this is?"

I didn"t. Even if I did, I couldn"t answer. I could only flail and wail in excruciating agony. Tears were forming in my eyes, and red-hit agonies lanced from my socket and directly into my skull. The sharp, intrusive sensation of foreign metal piercing my soft, tender tissues and lodging it there. Unable to endure the pain, I dropped to my knees, begging and pleading.

"Please…no…AAAAAH! Get it out! Please! I"m begging you!"

"Oh? But I haven"t even injected the suppressant yet. This is just the beginning."

Ba Yun thumbed the syringe and pushed. Something surged into the tissue in my eye, and I screamed. It felt like molten lava creeping into my veins, spreading through my body in a destructive rampage and burning me from the inside out.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Please! NOOOOOOOOOO! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"You see, qi suppressant drugs are extremely rare," Ba Yun said matter-of-factly, completely ignoring my pleas. It was as if he was explaining an interesting product in display to a group of curious students on a field trip. "This qi suppressant is made from the h.e.l.lfire Toxin, with its lethality toned down and diluted. Even so, its effects are so potent that your body will react instinctively by suppressing it with every ounce of qi it has. I won"t say it"s perfect, because it doesn"t shut down your qi entirely, but it forces your body to devote a significant amount of qi into suppressing the toxins in your system to prevent a messy death. But…even if it suppresses 80 to 90% of your qi, I would say that it already has done a pretty good job."

"NOOO! Please…!!!!"

Sobbing, I begged and thrashed against the needle even as I fought to yank it out, even as the toxin ravaged my system. I couldn"t hear what Ba Yun was saying, didn"t want to listen to him. I just wanted it to end.

And…it finally ended. As the last of the suppressant flowed into my veins, Ba Yun yanked the needle out with a spray of blood. Choking and weeping, I curled into a ball on the filthy floor, not caring how pathetic I seemed. Not caring how pitiful I looked. Ba Yun snickered as he looked down on me, and nudged me with a toe.

"You"re still alive, aren"t you?"

I whimpered incoherently and he kicked me. With most of my qi dedicated to suppressing the toxin, I was unable to muster up an inner force defense and the pain felt amplified several times over, sending me spinning about.

"Gah…!"

"I asked you a question," Ba Yun snarled.

"Y…yes. I"m alive."

"Then get up. Your chair."

I looked up, dazed, and Ba Yun struck me. By that time, I was so out of it that he could have hit me a hundred times and I still would have remained slumped on the ground. Ba Yun shook his head and hauled me up before planting me roughly on the chair.

"I"ll let you rest a bit," Ba Yun sneered in mock mercy. "So make sure you can recover as much strength as you can. You"re going to need it."

He then left, leaving behind an echo of horrifying laughter.

*

I didn"t know how much time had pa.s.sed, but the agony that swirled through my veins had finally dulled down. Breathing a sigh of relief, I leaned against my chair. I was too weak to stand, too weak to get up and explore the room. The suppressants had sapped me of most of my strength and qi, as well as my ability to resist.

"Yo. Feeling better already?"

Glancing up, I glared at Ba Yun. He was pushing the double doors open as he entered the room. Following behind was a gleeful Qi Fu Ren, who was savoring my misery. Ba Yun chuckled as he held my vengeful gaze.

"Oh, good. You"re still lucid. You can still feel rage. You still have the intention to defy me."

"Heh. I look forward to see you break him down, Senior."

Chuckling, Qi Fu Ren maintained his distance and watched as Ba Yun strolled up to me. I tried to stand up, but my legs refused to obey me.

"The effects of the h.e.l.lfire toxin remain, huh? Good." Sn.i.g.g.e.ring, Ba Yun stopped and browsed through the a.s.sortment of tools on the table next to him. "I can"t have you getting up and walking around just yet. I need to teach you a lesson."

"…"

I gritted my teeth and glared at him hatefully, but he only seemed to bask in it even more. After some more rummaging, he finally produced a wicked-looking tool.

"Ah…finally."

It looked like a cross between a nail clipper and a wrench. I immediately felt a chill when I saw it. Even as I squirmed, Ba Yun suddenly lashed out and seized my right arm.

"Oh no, no, no. don"t spoil the fun."

Fun? What fun?

"You know what this is, right?"

Giggling ominously, he gripped my struggling hand. With the effects of the suppressant still lingering in my system, and my complete lack of strength and qi, I couldn"t break free. I watched in horror as he placed my thumb into the machine and gently slotted the thin piece of metal under my short thumbnail.

"Relax," he told me soothingly. "The fun hasn"t started yet."

Perspiration began to bead on my face as I realized what this tool was for.

"And away we go!"

With a flick of his finger, Ba Yun flipped the metal.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

I howled in agony as the tool ripped my thumbnail off my thumb in a single go, wrenching the keratin from soft, raw tissue in a spray of blood. Pain pounded my skull, radiating from my thumb and drowning me in a blood-red sea. Tears welled up in my eyes and I sobbed uncontrollably as my wounded thumb twitched, the tender skin exposed to air for the first time.

"Ah…ah…ah…"

"Ha ha ha ha! How pathetic! I should have photographed that expression!"

Qi Fu Ren was guffawing in the background, enjoying the show. Under normal circ.u.mstances, I would have glared at him, but right now I was in too much pain to display any sign of defiance. I could only writhe and moan in my chair.

"Huff…huff…"

"How pathetic."

Ba Yun shook his head as he slipped the device out of my thumb. He gave me a sympathetic look, which was immediately replaced by a smile.

"But don"t relax just yet. We have nine more nails to go."

"No…please…no…"

I trembled violently as Ba Yun placed my right index finger into the device and slotted the metal under my nail.

"Please…"

Ba Yun merely widened his smile, and then flicked the lever.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

*

By the time all my fingernails were ripped out, I was half-catatonic. Ba Yun merely shook his head, disgusted at my frailty, and then left the room with a grinning Qi Fu Ren in tow. They returned the next day, but this time Ba Yun turned his attention toward my toenails.

With all my nails gone, the next day, he broke each of my fingers, one by one. The following day, it would be my toes. Then the day after next, he broke my arms and dislocated my shoulders. The next day, he smashed my legs, crippling me.

As each day went on and on, I just numbly sat there, breathing heavily and trying to blank out the pain as best as I could. Despite my qi mostly suppressed by the h.e.l.lfire toxin, I could draw on the remaining percentage of my qi to heal my broken body as much as possible. I didn"t know if it was the Heaven and Earth Formula, but just like the wound Tuo Ta La left me, I was slowly healing up and piecing my limbs back together.

But it was pointless. Whenever I healed them just a bit, Ba Yun would arrive the next day and break my body all over again. But gradually, I grew acclimatized to the pain, and learned to somehow shut off my emotions and responses, my senses and pain. I just sat there dully, mentally withdrawing to some dark corner of my mind and vaguely registering the physical violence that was meted out on body on a daily basis.

…at least until today.

"Don"t worry. We won"t be doing the usual abuse today."

Ba Yun sounded awfully cheerful when he entered the room today. I barely looked up at him and continued to hang my head, already mentally withdrawing into the darkest and deepest crevice of my mind as I steeled myself for the h.e.l.lish torment that loomed ahead.

Unfortunately, all the excruciating experiences I had suffered so far weren"t h.e.l.l. No, not yet.

"I brought you some new friends today!" Ba Yun announced gleefully and raised a ma.s.sive, transparent tank. Within the clear, plastic walls, huge wasps buzzed and flittered about, banging against the screen with wicked stingers and scrabbly legs. Despite my mind supposedly being dulled, I seemed to awake from a sea of sluggishness and surfaced into a reality of horror.

"I wonder, do you know what these are?"

I knew, of course, having read about them in the monster encyclopedias in Wu Ling Library, but I was in no condition to answer. It didn"t matter, anyhow. Ba Yun was in the mood to show off and would give his explanation in that same gleeful manner as always.

"These are Parasitic Wasps. A type of demonic beast. Nasty, creepy things, aren"t they?" he broadened his smile. "But don"t worry. You"ll have plenty of chances to get all intimate and friendly with them."

I instinctively stiffened and leaned back against my chair, as if I was trying to widen the distance between us as much as possible.

It was useless.

"But let me introduce you to your new best friends first. You see, Parasitic Wasps have a very special characteristic."

Ba Yun"s voice was coy now, soothing even, as he stroked the side of the plastic tank. The Parasitic Wasps banged angrily against the plastic screen, but even with the incessant clacking of their stingers, they failed to break out of their transparent prison.

"They lay their eggs inside their hosts. Right under the skin, you see, where the larvae draws nutrients and stuff from the host"s body. They germinate, grow larger and slowly transform into infant wasps. Once their transformation is complete, they break free of their host"s body, tearing the flesh apart in their bid for freedom."

My mind was awash in horror, especially since I fully realized what he was about to do.

"Most hosts do not survive the process. I can"t blame them. It"s one of the most painful things ever especially since some of the larvae germinate within the internal organs."

I swallowed and squirmed in my chair, but to no avail.

"In other words, you"ll be housing their children. What greater honor can there be, for a best friend? They will be your children as well."

…I knew it. I knew it. I didn"t want that to happen. I didn"t want that to happen. I didn"t want that to happen.

My eyes bulged as I struggled feebly on my seat, but my broken and still-healing limbs flopped weakly, deprived of strength and qi. The suppressant continued to ravage my body from within, and my eye throbbed from the repeated injection.

As Ba Yun drew closer, the plastic container rattling from his hands and the Parasitic Wasps" buzzing grew into a crescendo, my sanity snapped. Hanging my head pitifully, I closed my eyes and wept pathetically.

"Please…"

My voice came out hoa.r.s.ely, the first words I had uttered in days. Ba Yun widened his eyes in mock surprise.

"Oh? You"ve finally regained the ability to speak? I"m relieved! You haven"t said anything in days, after all. But I can"t hear you…what did you say?"

"P…please don"t…"

If I were to look back at myself, I would hate myself for being so pathetic. I would hate myself for being so weak. Yet, at that very moment, there was absolutely nothing I could do. I had no means to fight back, my qi and strength had been sapped entirely. I was just a hollow husk, my mind and sanity sc.r.a.ped away, layer by layer, with each brutal act of violence that this psycho meted out on me. I was at the mercy of this lunatic.

The only thing I could do was…beg.

"I…beg you…"

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Ba Yun laughed and laughed and laughed, his voice echoing thunderously throughout the cavernous room.

"And here I thought your mind had gone, that you had finally lost your sanity! But you"re still in there somewhere, aren"t you?"

I didn"t understand what he meant, and I didn"t care. I just continued to hang my head weakly, quietly pleading for mercy.

"This is interesting! Amusing! Even after so much pain and suffering, you still somehow clung to your sanity. Or perhaps you"re so afraid of bugs that your sanity returned! This is amusing!"

Ba Yun continued to chuckle.

"Oh, I should reward you for showing me something so funny."

My heart skipped a beat, and I almost sighed in relief.

"Here, you can have some company with your new friends."

With a bark of cruel laughter, Ba Yun hurled the tank to the floor, smashing it with tremendous force. The Parasitic Wasps swarmed out of the broken cage, but Ba Yun managed to exude an aura of qi that protected him from them.

Realizing the futility of their attacks, the Parasitic Wasps turned and buzzed toward me. With most of my qi suppressed by the h.e.l.lfire Toxin, and my weakened condition, it was only natural that they vent their rage on me.

"I"ll leave you guys to catch up and get all intimate then."

Guffawing, Ba Yun spun the wheels on the double doors and let himself out. Seconds later, the unmistakable click of the doors indicated that I was locked inside the room with the wrathful, gigantic insects.

With a furious buzz, they all swarmed toward me.

I screamed.