Although Al was surrounded by utter darkness and couldn’t move, he could vaguely hear the outside world. So, when he heard two voices speaking to the woman who had killed Agnethe and kidnapped him, he immediately recognized the voices were Loh’ and Robert.
A third voice pierced through, resembling the enigmatic figure that had appeared when Al vanquished Avilius. It sounded cartoonish, like the voice of what an alien thought a superhero was supposed to sound like.
Although the words spoken were barely intelligible, it seemed the woman was conveying that she was at their disposal. Then, silence descended.
Time seemed to lose meaning, slipping through Al's grasp like sand through an hourglass. His memories and thoughts became the seconds that ticked by in this inky abyss.
Al's awakening brought with it not only excruciating pain but the relentless replay of Agnethe's fiery demise. “Why did she show up alone!” he bitterly asked himself.
Gradually, his turbulent emotions found an anchor, his mind crafting lifelines to cling to like beacons in the overwhelming darkness. He repeated a mantra to himself: "If she could've lived, then she would've. Things happen because they can’t happen any other way."
Eventually, he tried to cultivate, but it seemed like he was severed from reality. Suddenly, voices began to echo around him, growing clearer. It was the woman who had kidnapped him, engaged in conversation with a voice that grated like stones grinding against each other.
Suddenly, he was roughly jolted from the bag, landing face-first on the ground. Although he had healed, he remained bound, and his mouth wired shut. “I also picked up this Stubborn Will cultivator on my way there. He has a really strange etheric shell.” The woman gestured towards Al’s twisted knife, tethered to a plain ring.
"Oh, Lapaptzi, I thought you got rid of this nasty immature hobby of yours!” The rough voice retorted. Al couldn't turn to look, but he could make out the figure in his peripheral vision. It was an ancient skeleton draped in dark robes.
The woman seemed affronted and protested, “It's not like that!” She added, “I’m being serious. Maybe we can get something in exchange for him in the market.”
“I doubt it. You might get more fun out of him than you will get from selling him. Anyway, I know that’s what you want. Now, leave me be. I have things to do!” The figure responded dismissively.
Lapaptzli angrily scooped Al up, put him back into her brown leather bag, and studded out of her master's cave.
Once again, Al found himself losing himself in the void that had started to become familiar to him. As his mind wandered, memories resurfaced, and he began to laugh at how familiar this situation was to him, just like when he had gotten Mark killed.
Agnethe wouldn’t have died if he hadn’t been so persistent in chasing the Dark acolyte. He knew he was ultimately at fault because it was his decision. Yet, the fact that he was in a similar situation made him feel his life had been written out for him. The paradox of his life suddenly became funny, even comical, and he couldn't help but laugh as he pondered it.
This strangely excited him about the dullness and darkness he found himself in. “What will happen next?” he thought. And as if the world could listen to his thoughts, a light broke through, and he landed face-first back on the ground.
Lapaptzi wasn't wearing her bandages to cover her eyes and was staring at Al. He was clearly inside her cultivation cave. “The longest a Stubborn Will Cultivator has lasted with me is two weeks,” the woman said, staring intensely at Al.
“Cultivators used to think Stubborn Will cultivators were essentially Immortal under the right conditions without needing to enter the Immortal chasm. Having their etheric shell intact and a working A.R.C. requires breathing. With those conditions met, they can heal from anything so long as they produce Stubborn Will.” She explained to Al as she walked over closer to him.
Lapaptzi said with a wide grin, “I proved that wrong. A Stubborn Will cultivator can die even under the right conditions. This happens when the cultivator loses their Stubbornness... and pain can kill a person’s stubborn nature so quickly. It's really funny to see it happen.” She was enthusiastically looking at Al and placed her hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat before stabbing him with her nails.
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Under the hands of Lapaptzli, two weeks passed, although, to Al, it seemed like an eternity. The woman had cut, stabbed, ripped, burned every inch of his body, however his Stubborn Will still continued to heal him. Although Al’s eyes had lost their luster, he seemed to have died long ago.
The pain at first had been unbearable, and just as she had said, he had immediately lost whatever Stubbornness he had. By the third day, he was praying for death. He was trying to actively stop his Stubborn Will from healing him, but it was futile.
He could sense that he would have long been freed from the hell he was in if the dark, twisted knife that held Midnight Abyss had not been chained to his ring. He technically had two etheric shells; only one belonged to his Stubborn Will.
After a week, he began to completely disassociate from his body until his mind became like white noise. He didn’t recall who he was or what was happening. Even Lapaptzi began to realize he was not like the Stubborn Will cultivators she had broken. She eventually got bored.
She skinned Al from head to toe and nailed him upside down to one of the walls of her cultivation cave, copper nails every 6 inches all over his body with his mouth wired shut. His skin was unable to heal as it peeled open and nailed. Only his fingers were free. She was using him as decoration.
Months must have passed when Lapaptzi suddenly got up and left one day. She had been cultivating when she opened her eyes, and if something caught her attention, she left her cave.
Al had remained in the same position for an unknown amount of time, his eyes unmoving until now.
Al's mind once lost in a maddening sea of torment, began to regain its focus. The pain, once a relentless invader, now felt like a familiar companion, a part of his existence. He knew that if he wanted to escape his nightmarish predicament, he needed to muster every ounce of concentration and vividly summon his twisted knife's image.
This technique, derived from Benjamin's words, required a deep connection with one of his etheric shells. Al concentrated, the pain grimly reminding him of his dire situation. He needed to distinguish the sensation of his etheric shell from the agony, a task that demanded utmost precision and concentration.
Just as he had done before, he was empty-handed one second and, the next, wearing his ring and holding his twisted knife.
“What a strange technique! It feels as if reality itself is affected,” Al thought before summoning Midnight Abyss. Instantly, the shadows in the room began to stream towards his twisted knife.
Skinless and upside down, wielding a shadowy blade, Al appeared terrifying, like an omen of death. He swung the blade with his fingers, which was the only thing that did not nailed down to the wall.
His blade devoured the top of the nails with ease, letting him pull his arm and hand through the nail’s blood spurted out. He also ripped his meaty arm from the remainder of his skin, which was nailed to the wall, however.
After getting himself down his skin grew back almost immediately, he knew he only had little time and couldn’t risk fighting Lapaptzi. Since he couldn’t kill her, he had to use the power of Midnight Abyss to get out of there as soon as possible.
Al stabbed his shadow blade into the ground and turned it like a key. The darkness in the world converged into Midnight Abyss and crystallized into obsidian armor, which covered Al. He could only wield Midnight-Abyss for one minute. He would summon an obsidian pillar within that time to get out of there as fast as possible. Al began his demonic sword dance in a frenzy.
"So, you really might be worth something," a raspy voice echoed through the cave. It was the entity Lapaptzi called master.
Al had acted swiftly, and a pillar surged through the ground, picking him up like a bullet train. However, the skeleton was quicker. It waved its left hand, and the pillar abruptly liquefied, sending Al hurtling downwards. Just before the black liquid hit the ground, the skeleton waved its right hand, transforming it into a thick, smoky vapor.
The vapor condensed and twisted, forming a giant, clenched hand that reached out to grasp Al. With another wave of his left hand, the hand transformed back into the original dark obsidian stone crystal. Al was trapped, held securely within the unyielding grasp of the clenched fist, and stopped from hitting the ground.
Although Al was completely unharmed, he found himself unable to move. The shape of the obsidian hand that encased him was designed to hold him fast. His right hand, covered by the obsidian, held Midnight Abyss, making it impossible for him to wield it.
The skeleton drew nearer, its eyeless gaze focused on Al's armored head, which protruded from the clenched fist. “Mmmhh, this is a type of Extreme Will I have not seen before. It must be a mutation,” the man remarked, waving his left hand before Al’s head to turn his armor into a similar liquid, but he couldn't.
After a minute had passed, the armor surrounding Al crumbled away, and Midnight-Abyss reverted to Al’s twisted knife. This seemed to amuse the skeleton, drawing a laugh from him. At that moment, Lapaptzi returned. “Who's being immature now?” she asked, her tone lightly teasing, thinking her master was crushing Al for his amusement.
Ignoring her question, the skeleton observed Al. “You were right; this one might be worth quite a lot,” he mused, looking at Al as if he were a fat calf.