As we lay back down, I gazed at Elara, examining her toned body, seemingly lost in her own world, unaware of the thoughts running through my mind. My mind churned, thinking about the deranged things I could do to her, but then I realized I could do them to anyone using my current identity. There was no shortage of sultry women in the world, and I even had a Mother, who would happily become a lapdog for me at my single command.

So, I wanted to keep Elara pure, I wanted her to remain sheltered, innocent, only knowing what I would allow her to know. She looked at me, her face beaming, making me feel happy and strengthening my resolve even further.

The sound of the doors opening brought me back from my trance-like state. I looked towards the door and saw my mother, who had just entered. I felt something off about her, a gloomy aura lingering around her.

"Come with me, you guys should see this," she said.

We got up and followed after her, navigating our way through the complex layout of the hall before ending in a string of halls with glass windows on each side. I swear, even a thousand years were not enough to make me remember every nook and cranny of this castle.

We followed behind her, and as I looked through the glass into the room, I saw a man with blue hair and blue eyes hung up on a cross. Even from outside, I could see that the temperature inside the room was extremely hot, as the room had no tiles, but red hot lava bubbled on the ground, and the person was slowly being extracted of his body water, almost like hanging clothes to dry in heat, his body constantly being burned from the heat before trying to heal, but being ineffective, blue mist leaking from his body.

Then, there was a woman with purple hair and eyes chained to a cross, stark naked, but her nakedness served no purpose, as half of her breasts were ripped open, her flesh hanging in tendrils, while the rest of her body was badly mutilated, almost leaving patches of skin on her body, as all one saw was red meat. There was something looking almost double the size of a baseball bat being continuously thrust into her pussy and similarly in her backdoor, stretching her beyond what was possible, even for a vampire, while she cried, whether in pain or pleasure, no one could say, as there were still purple juices pooling between her feet. But even her tears brought her agony, as they touched her mutilated face, making her cry out in agony.

Then, there was a man with red hair, the color of his eyes I could not tell, as there were empty sockets in place where they should have been, and blood flowed out of the empty space. His tongue was cut off, and he was hung to the ceiling, though his chains were continuously lowered, making his feet have metal spikes that were fixed in the ground poke through them, making him cry out in agony before he was lifted, causing the spikes to rip out of what remained of his legs. It looked like this made the process of ripping him to pieces automatic, as chunks of red meat, still moving, were littered on the ground, even his wrists were cut, causing crimson blood, different from the normal one, to drip to the ground slowly.

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I made sure that Elara did not see any of this by having her focus her attention elsewhere, as my hand was in her shorts, fondling her behind, though I could say that this time I had her best interest in mind.

Then, after passing by such rooms, some of them empty, we reached a window at the end of the line to our left. When we looked inside, I saw Father sitting on one end of the table, while a middle-aged man sat on the other side, having pitch-black hair and eyes.

"This is the accomplice of the man from before," Mother said. "We found him trying to escape along the border of our territory."

I wanted to ask her what happened to the man himself, but I did not want Elara to hear about it, so I kept quiet.

I watched my Father asking the man some questions before turning towards my Mother.

"I think Elara is still tired from her fight," I said in an authoritative tone. "I should take her back to rest. I will be back in a while."

I turned around and walked back out the long corridor, using one of my techniques to cause Elara to keep her head down and blush. After reaching the room, I laid Elara in the bed, watching her blush so profusely, which lightened my dark heart, especially after what I had seen and what I was just about to do after returning.

I then walked out of the room and back to the corridor, though this time, after reaching my Mother, I was opposite the window where the man was being interrogated, and I felt that my earlier decision was right.

As it was a room lit up to the nines, not even a single shadow in sight, and the man with the missing heart was hung to the ceiling, as his body was riddled with star-shaped blades, not a single patch of skin left unharmed on his body, not even his face, eyes, or tongue. Both his hands were also ripped off, yes, ripped, whoever did it wanted him to feel it, as black bones peeked through from where his hands used to be. He hung to the ceiling, red blood mixed with black pooling at his feet, as he occasionally twitched.

"Is he dead?" I asked.

"Almost," she replied, her voice calm yet deliberate. She continued, "It's not easy to kill a Nocturnal. They regenerate from almost anything as long as they have essence in their body. The only way to truly kill one is to keep them far from their source of essence, while repeatedly inflicting enough pain to force their essence to heal them, over and over again. You have to repeat the process until they've drained every last drop of their stored essence. When that happens, they'll experience such unimaginable pain that even the torture leading up to it will feel like a mere tickle in comparison. Only then will they die, slowly—agonizingly—as their essence runs out and their body can no longer repair itself."

Her explanation brought clarity to the scenes I had witnessed earlier, filling in the gaps in my understanding.

"He was nearly depleted of his essence during the long fight, and his heart was removed—the organ that requires the largest supply of essence to regenerate. Now, after that brief torture, he's in the final stage. His body is almost devoid of essence, and though it may seem as if he's barely holding on, be assured, the pain he's enduring is far worse than his appearance suggests."

She turned back to the room, her gaze lingering as I followed it, my eyes slowly shifting to a cold, silver hue.

.