In the shadows of a gloomy chamber, barely lit by the dying glow of a flickering flame, stood a silhouette clad in armor of unknown material. Its hands, encased in metallic gauntlets, skillfully twirled a dagger of unknown alloy. Its horns, once imposing, now lay cut and polished, while a scar crossed its right eye, condemning it to partial blindness.

Its lips murmured a sinister melody, contrasting macabrely with the vision unfolding before it: a battered infant, immobilized by bindings extending from its upper to lower extremities.

The child's injuries defied all logic. Its shoulder, dislocated by superhuman force, threatened to detach completely. Its lower limbs, fractured at impossible angles, seemed the work of a demented sculptor. The toes, amputated with surgical precision, lay scattered like morbid trophies. Its once-innocent face was now furrowed with deep lacerations. But most disturbing was its thorax: opened like a grotesque flower, exposing a beating heart surrounded by ribs projecting outward.

"Well, you still persist in your existence after such varied experiences," commented the figure, ceasing to toy with its weapon and resting its cheek on its fist, in an almost contemplative gesture.

The infant coughed weakly, raising its head with superhuman effort. Its eyes, still bright despite the torment, locked onto those of its executioner. A twisted smile revealed its shattered teeth.

"I... experienced... no sensation," it whispered between broken gasps.

Suddenly, a door materialized in the back wall, opening with a pneumatic hiss and bathing the room in blinding light. From the opening emerged a tentacle black as the cosmic void, moving with impossible speed to pierce the child's chest.

Zarakel, the eternal king, glided in propelled by four tentacles sprouting from his back.

"You test my patience, little specimen," Zarakel hissed, his tentacles undulating threateningly.

The child, surprised for the first time, lowered its gaze to its new wound. A torrent of iridescent blood gushed from its mouth.

"It possesses an almost supernatural resistance to pain, my lord," reported the armored figure, resuming the hypnotic twirl of its dagger. "I have applied all manner of stimuli, yet never managed to elicit a scream."

"Curious," Zarakel replied, withdrawing his tentacle from the child's chest with a wet sound. "I could have sworn that when Gigantino played with him, his laments resonated throughout the palace complex."

Zarakel approached the infant, his baggy eyes scrutinizing every inch of the battered flesh. His fingers, ending in painful calluses, palpated the small one's skull.

"What are you investigating, my lord?" inquired the armored figure, its voice tinged with a mixture of curiosity and reverential fear.

"Signs of mutation," Zarakel responded, his fingers pressing with enough force to crack bone. "Perhaps he has ingested some compound from the anhur khabin system or some herb of unknown properties."

"Or perhaps," ventured the figure, approaching cautiously, "from so much torment, his nervous system has recalibrated. After all, he possesses regenerative capabilities, does he not?"

Zarakel stopped pressing the child's head, turning his gaze towards the armored figure. A sinister smile drew on his face before refocusing his attention on the small captive.

"It's true, I now remember your peculiar regenerative ability, don't I?" Zarakel inquired, gripping the child's chin with his tentacular fingers.

The infant fixed its defiant gaze on the multifaceted eyes of its captor and, in an act of rebellion, spat a jet of blood directly into Zarakel's face. The self-proclaimed eternal king straightened immediately, but instead of cleaning himself, he began to lick the crimson fluid with delight.

"Don't let it go to waste, young one," he said between macabre laughs.

After savoring to the last drop, Zarakel extended a black tentacle from his back, caressing with morbid delicacy the child's bruised cheek.

"You see, my skilled torturer has been inflicting unimaginable sufferings on you with a purpose as simple as obtaining information on how to defeat that beast they call Thamuz," Zarakel explained, pacing back and forth with calculated steps.

"Why do you want to know? Are you afraid of him?" the child mocked between gasps and broken laughs.

"Mere precaution. He has defeated two of my best warriors, although I still have three more, including my son. However, his last battle left him wounded. I'm just looking to... ensure myself," Zarakel explained, stopping in front of the child.

"I won't tell you. Stab me, beat me, burn me, drown me... you'll get nothing from me," the infant responded with a defiant voice.

Zarakel noticed something strange in the child's eyes as he uttered those words. He approached abruptly, gripping the small one's head with tremendous force to examine his eyes closely. He discovered blue spots in the cornea.

"Aha! I've uncovered your dirty secret for not feeling pain!" Zarakel exclaimed with a tone loaded with sadism and triumph.

The armored figure approached, intrigued by its lord's discovery.

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"What have you found, my lord?" it asked with a mixture of curiosity and fear.

Zarakel released the child and turned to his subordinate, his eyes shining with an unhealthy light.

"Our little guest has been consuming a very particular substance. Those blue spots in his eyes... are the unmistakable seal of ghunmak nectar, a drug made from a plant that blocks not only pain, but also fear," Zarakel explained, his voice charged with morbid fascination.

"So, all this time...?" the armored figure began.

"Exactly. Our conventional methods have been useless," Zarakel interrupted. "But this opens a new range of... creative possibilities."

The child, despite his state, managed to sketch a defiant smile.

"Do what you will, I'll never betray Thamuz," he declared with a weak but firm voice.

"Thamuz is no longer my priority," Zarakel declared, his voice charged with sinister curiosity. "What now intrigues me is how you managed to obtain the ghunmak nectar. If I remember correctly, only a handful of individuals possess the ability to transmute those flowers into nectar. Individuals like... Tawnylon," he pronounced the name with barely contained anger that made the air tremble.

The child, feeling the weight of that fury, fixed his gaze on Zarakel with evident terror. Instinctively, he turned his face, as if the simple act of averting his gaze could protect him from what was to come.

"It seems our little guest has suddenly lost the use of speech, my lord," commented the armored figure, a malevolent smile drawing on its face.

Zarakel narrowed his eyes, a spark of understanding illuminating his predatory gaze.

"His silence is more revealing than he believes. It suggests they have in their possession a vial of that coveted elixir," Zarakel gripped the child's hair, bringing his face close. "Come on, reveal its location to me. In exchange, I promise to cease your torment... and that my heir will only 'play' with you twice a week."

"Never!" the child protested, his voice breaking but still defiant. "Do what you will, I'll recover!"

Zarakel let out a dry laugh, turning to his subordinate.

"Youth today. We offer them the best opportunity of their ephemeral lives and they reject it for their absurd moral values. Can you believe it?"

"They are of immeasurable stupidity, my lord," the armored figure nodded.

Zarakel turned his attention back to the child, his eyes darkening until they became wells of absolute blackness.

"So, do you grant me permission to extract that dirty information from your tiny brain by any means necessary?"

"Do what you want. I will never betray my friends," the child responded, his voice trembling but firm.

"As you wish," Zarakel hissed, a disturbing smile distorting his features.

A new tentacle, thicker and more sinister than the previous ones, sprouted from Zarakel's back. With impossible speed, it entered the child's mouth, forcing its way to reach the brain. A dark energy pulsed around the appendage, voraciously absorbing the information contained in the little one's mind.

"I see everything," Zarakel murmured, his body contorting in macabre ecstasy. "Your birth, your childhood... even your family. What a pity you'll never see them again."

The armored figure watched the scene with a mixture of amazement and horror, as Zarakel arched in an unnatural position, his limbs trembling from the information overload.

"I've got it!" Zarakel suddenly exclaimed, his eyes now void of all understanding. "The vial. It's hidden under his bed. Send guards to his room immediately! I want them here now!"

The armored figure nodded quickly and left the room to carry out Zarakel's order. Meanwhile, the eternal king continued his macabre mental exploration of the child.

"Fascinating," Zarakel murmured, his completely black eyes fixed on an invisible point. "I see connections, secrets... ah, and the pain you were trying to hide. What a delight."

The child's body convulsed violently, unable to resist the mental invasion. His eyes, once defiant, were now blank, rolling back in their sockets.

Zarakel slowly withdrew his tentacle, leaving the child gasping and trembling. A cruel smile drew on his face as he stood up, shaking as if awakening from a trance.

"Your mental defenses were impressive, little one. But in the end, everyone succumbs to me," said Zarakel, his voice loaded with unhealthy satisfaction.

At that moment, the armored figure returned, accompanied by two guards carrying a small crystal vial filled with a bright blue liquid.

"We found it, my lord, just as you said," reported the figure, presenting the vial to Zarakel.

Zarakel took the vial with reverence, examining it in the dim light of the room.

"Pure ghunmak nectar," he whispered with delight. "A substance as rare as it is dangerous. And to think that this little rebel managed to obtain it..."

He turned to the child, who now hung limp from his bindings, barely conscious.

"You've been very useful, more than you imagined," said Zarakel, approaching the child. "But I'm afraid your usefulness has come to an end."

With a gesture of his hand, he ordered the armored figure:

"Take him to the isolation cells. He no longer needs the nectar to block the pain. I want him to experience every second of agony as his body tries to recover."

The figure nodded, untying the child and carrying him over his shoulder.

"And what about Thamuz, my lord?" he asked as he headed for the door.

Zarakel smiled, his eyes shining with a sinister light as he contemplated the vial in his hand.

"Thamuz can wait," declared Zarakel, his eyes glowing with an unhealthy gleam as he contemplated the vial of nectar. "With this elixir, I can exponentially increase the chances of victory for my son."

His voice was loaded with macabre anticipation, each word distilling barely contained sinister plans. The armored figure nodded reverently, understanding the magnitude of what his lord was implying.

"Prepare our scientists," Zarakel ordered. "We have work to do."

As the figure prepared to carry out the order, he throwed the kid and took him by his arms, dragging him out of the torture chamber. The battered body of the little one barely offered resistance, his mind still stunned by the brutal psychic invasion.

As they crossed the threshold, the child's muffled screams began to resound through the palace corridors. They were heart-wrenching sounds, a mixture of physical pain and mental anguish, bouncing off the stone and metal walls.

Zarakel remained in the chamber, his tentacles undulating with anticipation as he studied the vial of nectar. His thoughts wandered among the possibilities this discovery opened: increasing the power of his heir, creating soldiers immune to pain, perhaps even altering his own physiology to reach new levels of dominion over life and death.

The child's screams faded in the distance, but their echo persisted in Zarakel's mind, feeding his thirst for power and forbidden knowledge. The eternal king smiled, knowing that the possibilities of his victory had greatly increased.

image [https://cdn.leonardo.ai/users/949f3f4e-1043-419c-8dd6-941c61d0ec71/generations/a608f6ad-300d-4731-9327-a912645e46cf/Default_make_an_fat_humanoid_with_horns_he_wears_a_grey_robe_a_2.jpg]

Zarakel, the eternal king