As I finished the last rancid bite, I suppressed the gag for the last time. The mutants Roctiv stationed around me watched with unblinking eyes, ready to pounce at the slightest provocation. I felt the energy coursing through my body, slowly replenishing my reserves. A total of two hundred and forty percent energy isn’t enough. I need more to have any chance of escape.

Roctiv observed me with an unsettling mixture of fascination and anticipation. “Good,” he said, his voice dripping with mock politeness. “Now, let’s begin the real work. I’ve prepared a special examination room for you. I couldn’t help but notice you didn’t bleed earlier.”

The mutant gorilla grabbed me, pinning all four of my arms to my back and sides. I glanced at Shadara and Killa, both staring at me with obvious sorrow. As we moved through the dimly lit corridors, the walls hummed with the same electrical energy that coursed through the bars of our cages. The air was thick with the smell of ozone and the faint, acrid tang of something I couldn’t even begin to guess.

We entered a room filled with a massive steel table. There was a small mercy of how clean the table was. A bizarre array of machinery, surgical tools, and strange devices lined the other tables along the walls.

Roctiv’s grin widened as he gestured to a metal table in the center of the room. “Lie down,” he ordered.

I was placed on the table. Metal bands wrapped around my wrists and elbows for both sets of arms, knees, ankles, and neck. My mind raced for a plan.

What do we do? How do we get out of this?

You are outmatched, Rina. He will kill you if you fight. Your best chance is to let him do what he wants and use the opportunity to learn as much about him as possible. Bide your time and wait for an opening.

Roctiv smiled as he looked down at me. “How about we start with something simple?”

He started taking measurements of my body. He took measurements of my face, chest, legs, and everything in between using a cloth tape measure.

I tried not to flinch when he touched me. He was clinical, but it didn’t matter. Every touch felt like it burned.

After he finished measuring me, he started mumbling as he wrote all the details on a piece of paper. “One meter sixty-three centimeters for height...one hundred sixty-nine kilograms...”

Five feet, four inches, and three hundred and seventy-three pounds.

I weigh, what?!

Your metal epidermis has substantial density that will only increase as it gains levels. The same is true for your synthetic muscles.

When he was done, he stepped back and studied me like the specimen I was. “Interesting. So you were human before. Or you’ve been modified to appear human.” Roctiv grabbed a saw from the table and held it up. “Let’s start with a simple sample of your skin.”

He grabbed my left leg with one hand and tried to use the saw to cut into my metal skin. If he was on my right, I’d be able to stab him with my arm blade. He probably remembers me using it in the fight. My magic will only waste time and not actually do anything worthwhile.

His saw couldn’t scratch the metal skin as he dragged the jagged edge back and forth. He stopped and looked at his lack of progress. “Hmm. Your exoskeleton is more durable than I considered.”

I stared at the ceiling. “It’s not an exoskeleton. I still have internal bones.”

The madman started pacing as he threw the saw on a table. “A dual skeletal structure? How fascinating!” He walked up to my stinger blades. “These are strong enough to damage your exoskeleton.”

He ran his finger along the blade. No, not yet. “It’s made of the same material. Maybe...Requiring a sample will require more extreme measures.”

He fetched a pair of massive shears. My eyes went wide as he positioned them over my stinger arm’s wrist. He’s going to do it, isn’t he? Then he brought the shears down, slicing my stinger clean off in one motion.

I screamed, overcome with a pain that left me shaking as it cascaded through my body.

He examined my stinger arm for a moment before placing it on a counter and watching the stump. The reconstruction was over in seconds. I had to listen to Roctiv’s observations of my reconstructing limb.

He grabbed his chin and tilted his head. “Less than three seconds for the regeneration of an extremity? That is far faster than anticipated. It also shows no signs of necrotizing. Your muscles also—so fascinating. Those were made of some strange metal? A polymer, perhaps?” He took a step back and looked down at me with a cruel grin. “You’re a wonderful plethora of wondrous secrets. I’m so glad I found you.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

He grabbed my stinger arm and took it over to a desk with piles of paper. “The extremity is composed of two metals. Further study is required to understand the grafting process, if they are grafted at all. Both metals do not resemble any alloy I’m familiar with. What is known is that they are both highly conductive materials.”

My breathing was ragged, and tears ran down my face. He lost interest in me and continued studying my stinger arm, muttering under his breath about implementing exoskeletons more.

He moved on to talk about finding nerve endings and some of the little bits of muscle he collected. “A carbon and metal nanocomposite for skin and musculature? A sophisticated series of filaments and veins running through it all? Such efficiency in design and construction. This isn’t the work of a normal human. That kind of sophistication would take decades to achieve a working design.”

Do not fear, Rina. We made sure the whole arm was evacuated of nanites before the amputation.

Thanks, Orange. If he got a hold of my nanites, I’d hate to see what hellish nightmare would ensue.

Roctiv sat at his desk for a little more than an hour, leaving me alone with my thoughts, which weren’t getting me anywhere closer to an escape strategy.

A devilish smile spread across his face as he leered over me again. “Let’s move onto something a little more organic. I want to see what you’re hiding.”

He held my stinger blade to my throat. “Since I know it will cut you, it’ll serve as a useful scalpel.”

Collecting a sample of flesh from my neck went a lot easier for him, as my neck was still soft, vulnerable human flesh I hadn’t replaced yet. The look of disappointment on his face turned to curiosity.

“So you still have organic components, yet your skin is metal?” he began. “Fascinating! So what does this mean? You can regenerate lost body parts. But your eyes—your eyes look different.”

He tapped my eye with a finger. I didn’t flinch. The lunatic giggled as he earnestly grabbed something to hold my eye open before removing it.

The torture only escalated from there. It went on for hours. At one point, he removed my heart. Then he went to work, removing my lungs, my womb, ovaries, and stomach. Afterwards, he decided to split my skull open and poke at my brain.

I did the best I could to ignore him as he sliced away at me like I was nothing more than a piece of meat on a cutting board. I was weeping constantly throughout the whole thing, begging him to stop. He never listened to a word I said and just kept cutting.

The only thing he left alone was my mana battery. He almost looked scared when he first found it. He made note of it and moved on, like it wasn’t of any interest in him.

Please make it stop! Please, I can’t take it anymore!

You have to endure. He isn’t inflicting any permanent damage.

I was running low on energy, and part of me wanted to not say anything and let him kill me. But then I thought about Shadara and the fate she would suffer. Even as Orange pumped my body full of adrenaline, it was still the most agonizing experience ever.

“Incredible,” he muttered. “Your integration of organic and inorganic components is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re killing me,” I said through my sobs.

He waved his hand to dismiss my comment. “It’s for the good of science. Sometimes, sacrifices must be made for progress. What’s your life compared to mine? Nothing. You’re just a directionless puppet with technology you should’ve never had in the first place. If it was in my hands, I’d use it to its full potential.”

“You know nothing about me. But I need more energy.” My voice was weak. “You’re no closer to finding the secret to how my body was created, aren’t you? What about my ability to regenerate?”

Roctiv’s mouth twitched as he grumbled. “You aren’t as dumb as you look.” He straightened up and leaned up against a table. “Despite everything I’ve collected, nothing is telling me how you can regenerate so quickly and survive with organs that aren’t working. Why do you even have them if you don’t need them?”

I gritted my teeth. “I’m not telling you anything unless you feed me and set my friends free.”

The man snorted. “And let them seek misguided revenge? Do you really think I’m that stupid? But if you need energy, I guess I’ll need to force feed you some.”

Roctiv turned on his heel and opened a door at the end of the room, revealing a hallway. He stepped out and came back with an electrically charged canister with a tube extending from the top. Two creatures followed him in, their ears twitching as they sniffed the air. They looked like lizards with reptilian bird wings instead of arms. A single horn protruded from each of their heads above their eyes. Their tongues flicked in and out of their mouths as they let out low, menacing hisses.

The two lizards hopped onto the table I was strapped to and pried my mouth open. Roctiv tilted the canister and let some green liquid drip into my mouth. The liquid went down my throat slowly, with the consistency of molasses.

I watched in the corner of my HUD, seeing that my energy was being replenished. Once it was gone, he turned back and disappeared into the hallway before coming back with more. He repeated the process five times, leaving me with almost two thousand percent energy at the end of it all. The food he was forcing down my throat was strikingly rich in nutrients. The two lizards hopped off the table and scurried away.

However, I wasn’t even one step closer to escaping.

The restraint around my neck disappeared as Roctiv returned with his large shears. He placed them at the base of my neck. “Let’s see which part survives.”

“No, no, no, no, no…”

My voice was cut off as my head rolled forward. Everything spun as the ground rose up to meet me. That was wrong, as I hit the ground and rolled forward until I stopped, looking at my decapitated body.

During my entire journey through the Soul Nexus, I suffered more than a fair share of painful and lethal injuries. My stomach being dissolved by a giant spider, being impaled by countless spikes, blowing myself up with a mana battery, being dissected—all of it paled in comparison to getting my head cut off and seeing my headless body strapped to a table in front of me.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. There were no lungs to push air through my vocal cords. It didn’t kill me, and all I could do was twist my face into the pain and horror that consumed my mind.