While Momo was single-handedly tying down four Spirit Venerates, a Tier 9 Spirit Beast and a Primordial Beast, her two siblings were still caught in the prison of four Spirit Saints. The Allfather’s reach was mysterious, and his curse could work in an array of different methods. If not for the four Spirit Saints sealing the cell from the outside world, it was highly probable that the Allfather could kill the twin Noble Beasts remotely.
Therefore, Shin and the other Spirit Saints had to move quickly. Every second counted, and any information that they could pry out from the two top executives would prove advantageous in future battles against the Black Masks.
“Are you going to talk now?” Shin’s voice went even deeper than he’d ever thought possible. He glared at the Golden Fox and Silver Monkey, doing his best not to rush forward and rip every limb from their bodies. After all, they were the ones responsible for the Alliance’s current predicament and the disappearances of many poor soldiers. However, killing them right now wouldn’t do any good for vengeance.
“You’re making a horrible mistake,” Kin spat. “Once we escape from here, you’ll never get to sleep soundly ever again!”
“...”
As the old adage goes: “Corner a dog in a dead-end street, and it will turn and bite.” Right now, the twin Noble Beasts had their backs stuck at the far ends of the walls. It would be a miracle for them to quietly give in to Shin’s demands like a docile puppy who knew nothing of the world. However, Shin had an ace up his sleeve…
“I see, so you won’t talk?” The tall man took three steps forward and was now nose-to-nose with the sealed Silver Monkey.
“W-What are you doing?” Kin stuttered. The look on Shin’s face was anything but friendly. His eyes were burning with vengeful hate while mana unconsciously flowed out from his every pore.
Their eyes interlocked, the Silver Monkey was acutely aware of Shin’s odd pressure. He was a Rank 79 Spirit Emperor but yet… Gin felt like he was facing an angered Primordial Beast, one that had the power to squash him like an ant. And to squash… he did.
“Y-You! What are you doing?!” Kin screamed, her eyes bloodshot and golden fur all standing erect.
“If you’re not going to talk...” Shin didn’t even bother to turn his head and address the golden fox. Mana flowed to the tips of his fingers, creating a cold mist that was easily below zero degrees. Almost instantly, three long needles made with the pure image of Jack Frost poked out from the gaps in Shin’s fingers. Each one of them were as sharp as any godly blade while their icy powers could quickly freeze a Saint-Levelled combatant’s spine.
“If you’re not going to talk, I’ll make you talk...” Shin’s voice went down yet another octave as he plunged the three needles into the Silver Monkey’s body.
“ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” An agonised cry echoed out from Gin’s furry mouth, sending shockwaves through the dim prison. “ARRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!”
“Hmmm, as I’d thought… Your meridians are really located there… Monkeys are our closest relatives, after all.” Shin admired his guesswork, not at all bothered by Gin’s screams.
“Y-YOU!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO GIN?!” Kin continued to holler. There was nothing more important in the world than her younger brother and seeing him in agony was too much for the elder sister to bear.
“The Divine Needle Bindings,” Shin replied indifferently. “Using my needles, I’ll seal your brother’s mana flow by piercing his meridians. Done normally, it should seal the movements of your brother, leaving him in a painless stasis. However, if done incorrectly...” Once again, Shin created one more ice needle and pierced through the Silver Monkey’s thick hide. And once again...
“ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” Gin screamed, this time with even more volume.
“GIN!!!” The Golden Fox bared her fangs while screaming.
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“If done incorrectly, the target of the Divine Needle Bindings will be subject to the worst pain imaginable, particularly with my Dragon Glacial Needles providing the icy spiritual energies,” Shin explained with his toneless voice. “If inserting the Divine Needle Bindings incorrectly is akin to feeling a billion suns crawling up one’s skin, the Dragon Glacial Needles will bring the frost of absolute zero onto one’s internal organs. Torture using both hot and cold… I wonder how your brother is going to survive this...”
“ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” Gin continued to scream, unaware of his sister’s cries or Shin’s heartless tone. Gin had never felt pain like this ever in his life. Even in the centuries that he’d served under the Allfather, even as he watched his family being ripped apart by the callous actions of Momo… There was nothing that could compare to his current agony.
The Silver Monkey felt as if he’d forgotten his own existence. He wanted to rid himself of this pain, even if it meant taking the one-way ticket down to the netherworld. And Kin could sense it.
They were connected mentally, and the information that Gin was suffering was being transmitted to Kin’s soul. Although she couldn’t feel that agonising pain, just from the fact that her brother wasn’t in the right mind to reply her cries was enough to shatter Kin’s heart in two.
“Are you going to talk now?” Shin asked once more, his voice still as toneless as before.
“...” Kin remained silent. However, unlike the last time, her face wasn’t as calm. There was a visible fear hidden within her eyes, and her fox mouth was trembling like an autumn leaf in the breeze. Kin would much rather she be the subject of torture, rather than her brother that was continually screaming.
“Not going to talk?” Shin scoffed. “Another needle it is...” Snapping his fingers, Shin congregated three new needles and so viciously pierced through the open abdomen of the Silver Monkey.
“ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
Just when Gin thought that the pain couldn’t increase any further, a sharp blow snapped through his organs and filled the Silver Monkey with icy gas. With the Spirit Saints holding the Tier 9 Spirit Beast down, there were no defences against Shin’s constant onslaught. All Gin could do was endure the power of the world’s most powerful Spirit Emperor.
“G-GIN!!!” The Golden Fox ground down her fangs, unable to bear looking at her brother suffer anymore. “OKAY, OKAY!!! YOU WIN!!! I’ll tell you what you want to know!!! Let Gin go!!!”
“...” Shin gazed over his shoulder, not in a hurry to unbind the Silver Monkey.
“ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! QUICK, STOP THAT!!!” Fearful that her brother might pass on through the torture, Kin screamed at the top of her lungs.
It took Shin a full twenty seconds before he finally plucked out all but one needle from the Silver Monkey. The piercing pain was no longer there, but Gin was still under the soft influence of the Divine Needle Bindings. There was a slight pain paralysing his vocal and mental functions, leaving him incapacitated for any conversation.
“Y-You… I told you that I was going to cooperate! Why haven’t you removed all the needles?”
“There’s no rush,” Shin laughed. “We have all the time in the world. If I sense that you have given one falsehood, I’ll double the pain that your brother had experienced.” Shin wasn’t going to play into Kin’s hands. He needed to assert dominance, to show that he wasn’t messing around. If Kin tried to buy time until reinforcements arrived, it would be far too late for Shin to milk out any information. Thus, he needed the Silver Monkey to remain in a state of constant pain, to urge Kin to tell the entire truth.
“You asshole… How can you call yourselves the heroes if you resort to torture?!” Kin snorted. Even in this perilous situation, her haughty and foul-mouthed nature was still at the forefront.
“Heroes do anything that they can to save the ones they hold dear. I doubt that vile beasts like you two could ever comprehend that fact...” Shin didn’t want to waste too much saliva changing the incorrigible Spirit Beast’s mind. Right now, his eye was wholly on the prize. “Now, answer my questions. What is the Allfather planning to do next?”
“The Allfather he...” Kin was about to spill everything, but she immediately looked down at her bosom. There wasn’t any change in her mana signature and neither did the obsidian mana within her move even the slightest bit.
Immediately guessing what the Golden Fox was worried about, Shin reassured her: “You don’t have to worry about the curse. The Allfather can’t hear us in here.”
“You bastard...”
“I don’t like to repeat myself… What’s the Allfather planning to do next?” Shin waved the floating ice needles around, all of them pointing straight at the open meridians of the Silver Monkey.
“Tsk, you really are an annoying asshole.” Kin shook her head while withstanding the flaming fury that was rising up at every given second. “The Allfather, no the Black Masks… We’re at the final stage of the Grand Scheme.”
“Elaborate.”
“Our objective is to gain eternal life. To open the door of the Immortal Realm and to allow all those who follow us to enter using the Allfather’s mana. As it stands, the spiritual energies of the mortal realm have become unstable due to the releasing of the Terrestrial Dragon’s mana.”
“I know that,” Shin retorted sharply. “What I want to know... are your future operations. Why are you killing all of the soldiers around the Abyss? What is your next big plan?”
“Hmph! What do you think?” Kin snorted. “All of our plans lie on the Allfather’s shoulders. Once he transcends into the Spirit Immortal Realm, he’ll convert all of us into his phantoms and raise us all into the Immortal Realm as his eternal army. However, that can only work if the Allfather becomes the next Spirit Immortal.”
“So… You’re trying to bring the world back into ruin once more? To wage war once again? To create more deaths so that some elites can grow to contest the Allfather?”
“No, not that...” Kin furrowed her brows and scrunched her face up. She didn’t really want to divulge all of the Allfather’s plans, but what choice did she have? “See, to power the Immortal Gate, we need vast amounts of mana. And vast amounts of vessels.”
“What does that even-... No, you can’t mean...” Shin was about to throw yet another question, but his mind instantly spewed out the answer.
“Haha, that’s right...” Kin smiled. “Do you think we’re feeding the chicken for free? Once it’s time, the chicken will have to pay back some of its meat.”