37. Death and Despair II
It is a sunny morning and an old man is currently seeping tea on a balcony overlooking a valley from afar on a villa constructed on a hillside near a dense forest.
Dressed in fine quality violet robe, the old man was listening for his subordinate's report.
"Elder, I do not know who the boy is and what they did to him but I do not think we can get any information from him."
It is none other than the muscular man who tortured Clay as he handed a recording crystal.
The old man injected his Qi to replay the session and observe what transpired.
"He kept saying he is an Alchemist and that our master was absorbed in a spatial tear. Clearly, we are wasting time. He does not know how master was decapitated."
Unknown to the two, Clay was not lying. Aside from Chung Har’an and Dal In, the only masked man he was aware was the Nascent expert absorbed in the spatial tear created by his scroll. As to what happened afterwards, he had no clue that the Nascent expert had a companion.
After a few minutes, the hologram from the recording crystal ended.
"Continue to make him talk.” the old man instructed.
The burly man wanted to refute but he realized he was just a lowly Qi Condensation practitioner so he went back to the underground prison.
It has been an hour since the torture stopped but to Clay, it felt like an eternity. Although the pain has subsided, the pain still lingered and continued to torment him. While he was crying in agony, he heard the sound of a door being opened echoed within the halls of underground prison.
Moments later, his torturer opened his cell.
Clay’s throat was dry so swallowed his saliva and tried to implore for mercy.
"Please senior. I am telling the truth. The masked man was absorbed on the spatial tear. I am useful and I can concoct pills. If money is what you want, I have … please … you can check my spatial.. no…". The burly man held on to Clay’s feet.
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"Aaaaarrrrhhhhh!"
The man did not let Clay finished his sentence as he slowly pinched one of his toes. The fingernails were recently pulled out and even a soft touch would cause Clay to feel pain but the man applied a force breaking a bone.
The chair that was restraining Clay started to move as Clay struggled to free himself. No matter how much he screamed, his torturer did not show any emotions. The burly man even pulled a stick and punctured Clay’s left eye.
Clay wailed and after a few minutes, he felt his whole body has been dismembered, but he still tried to repeat the same thing over and over hoping they would stop and believe him. With his consciousness starting to fade, he smiled and cursed at his misfortune and stopped talking.
The torture continued then burly man took out a box and placed it on Clay’s thigh, mumbled an incantation and a black worm as thick as a thumb and the size of a ruler came crawling out of the lid.
"This worm is pregnant and will eat anything before it lays eggs."
Hoping he could get a better response, he grabbed the Clay’s head asked the same question, "Tell me what happened and where did the masked man go".
As the man is engrossed with making Clay talk, he did not noticed that his master entered the underground cell.
BANG!
The door was kicked and flew towards the wall creating a crack. At the same time, murderous aura filled the room.
The burly man was surprised and immediately moved to the side.
“Is he alive?” The old man entered and scanned the boy with his divine sense.
“Yes, master.”
Relieved that the Clay is still breathing, the old man waived his hand and the black worm was pasted on the wall. Seeing that the boy had lost consciousness, the old man touched the Clay’s forehead and began vitality transference and after a minute, he fed Clay a greenish substance.
Moments later, Clay’s wounds began to recover.
"I will invite a Core Formation expert from Twin River Spirit sect and will arrive in less than six days to perform soul search on this boy. Tell Alchemist Dego to craft a Meridian Restoration Pill and force it to this boy. He needs to be an at a Qi Sensing phase for the search to be successful."
“Master, I do not understand" The burly man could hardly breathe from his master’s suffocating pressure.
"Allow him to recover his cultivation and continue making him talk. Just make sure he does not die" The old man did not further explain and left.
In the cultivation world, there is a practice called Soul Search which allows cultivators to read the memory of another person. Not everyone can perform such practice as it requires strong mental fortitude which comes with Extreme Yin exposure commonly used in demonic practices. If performed by a random cultivator, a feedback will be created on that person's mind creating hallucinations which can lead to being crippled or uncontrollable madness.
Earlier, the old man watch the crystal recording again hoping there is a secret message to what Clay was saying. He himself had tortured people in the past and he knew when a subject is telling the truth.
The only possibility he can think of is that the boy was brainwashed to utter these few sentences when subjected to extreme pain. He refused to give up hopes to find clues on the person who brainwashed Clay when the soul search is performed.
There are some information available on the spatial rings they collected and he already sent a few men to investigate Clay’s origins.