I made sure I tied him properly and blindfolded him as well and I lit a fire to make my knife in the fire. I found a colony of Jack Jumper Ant and made sure to get some of them. I left again to make sure nobody disturbed me as I made sure the tracks lead to different parts of the woods and also went to the stream to get water in my skin pouch.

After I returned the knife was already burning hot and decided it was time to talk to my patient. Took the skin pouch that was holding the water and just drizzled it on him slowly. After a couple of minutes, he woke up with a groan. He was panicking as he couldn't see and he couldn't move as his limbs were tied. "mmmmmmm." he struggled and shook himself to get free as I just watched him and prepared what I needed to make sure my patient cooperates.

"Calm down, we are only going to have a chat, " he was shaking as he was almost naked in the freezing place, he looked around to locate who was talking and tried to talk but he couldn't, and only muffled noise came out instead.

"I ask you questions and you answer them truthfully if I detect any lies or any hesitation.." I took the knife out of the fire as I said that and plunged the knife into his thighs, he screamed as well as anyone who was gagged could and was struggling as tears and snot came flooding out. I put my hands on top of his head and tried to sense his nerves and inner working after I just made sure I could control his sensory nerves and dialed up slowly. Vikings were tough people, to begin with, so I made sure I just increased his pain receptors until I found his threshold. after that I alleviated his pain and dulled his senses cause I wanted to have a proper talk and show his place.

"That's just a small amount of pain you will feel if you do not tell me what I need to know," I said as he was breathing hard and drooling all over, snot coming out and crying.

"shshsh, I think I made myself very clear, right." he nodded as he tried to hold himself from the fear he was feeling and whatever that caught him, because it wasn't human to him as the voice that was speaking to him was a child-like and no child could make him feel that kind of pain.

"Good, now who are you?" I asked him as I pulled the gag out of his mouth.

"My name....huff.... huff.... is Ketil Flat-Nose," he said as he tried to calm down and answer as best as he could to avoid that pain. "pfffft, cough cough" I stifled my laugh as I tried to regain my composure.

"Now Ketil, I will just call you that, you don't mind that right." I looked at him as he nodded and replied "Ye.. yes yo... you can "

"Alright now that we're on the same page, how many people are here, be as specific as you can."

"There are 30 people who came ..." didn't give him time to finish his blubbering as I twisted the knife and yanked it out of his thigh and dialed his pain back up as he screamed and I put his gag back in his mouth.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"I thought we had an agreement, now why are you lying to me." I look at him as I put the knife back into the fire to heat it up. I intensified his pain receptors to feel more as I picked out the ants and put them inside his wounds. he howled to the top of his legs as he convulsed and writhed in pain as he wanted to scratch his wounds to get whatever was inside out. The ants were biting his flesh bit by bit as the patient continued to howl and try to reach his thigh but in vain. [This ant species looks like a small scorpion and is as lethal as one, it bites causes shock, heart attack, severe inflammation, and irritation, and also severely weakens the immune system.]

I left him as he screamed and writhed in pain. I took out the ants and put them aside as I relieved his pain by lowering his pain levels. " now that we have already made ourselves clear, I will ask again. How many people are currently in the forest looking for me."

After an hour or so I left the cave and I made quite a mess as I tried to make my first blood eagle[a gory ritual the Vikings are said to have performed on their most hated enemies. The ritual allegedly involved carving the victim's back open and cutting their ribs away from their spine, before the lungs were pulled out through the resulting wounds.] poorly and crudely. Cleaned the place and left to hunt. If whatever he said is true, then I got nothing to worry about but I mustn't be in a hurry to exterminate them, but first, I had rats that needed to be dealt with.

Back at the settlements:

Just after the backlash of the spell, they looked at each other worried that they couldn't do a simple locator spell. Whatever was interfering was not happy but was lenient and didn't hurt them badly.

"Did you feel that Esther?" asked an anxious Ayana as she dusted herself up and helped her friend.

"Yes, as if the world itself or something equal to or greater is interfering with the spell," said Esther as a glint flashed in her eyes, before vanishing as quickly as it came.

"Yeah but I felt distressed in the brief moment I had connected with the magic before the repulsion, I think he is in some kind of trouble," said Ayana in a quizzical manner as she was more concerned with knowing what kind of magic it was rather than the boy she was trying to locate.

Esther wasn't really worried about her son as she knew that he was different than her other children or even any person she met or saw. That is why she made sure to protect him from Dahlia or the other witches from the other side, as she knew if they found him they will surely use him as a battery. His magic was the purest she had ever seen, the only reason he wasn't found by them was that his magic was thin and almost non-existent at the time of his birth but it grew as he became older.

Meanwhile in the forest:

A group of armed men was standing in front of what appeared to be heads stuck in a pike. there were 20 or so heads as the Vikings just looked in horror. "drip, drip." one of the men felt something wet dripping on his face as he brought his hands to see what it was and looked only to see a red substance mixed with something. So he looked up and saw... "Odin's beared." the men looked at him and when they saw him looking up with bulging eyes, they followed his eyes. what they saw was the missing bodies hung by the trees with their limbs tied and their backs opened up as if they had wings. The look on the face of the heads on the pike was the same as the one they currently wore. Pure terror.

"Well, at least we found their bodies." Nobody paid any heed to his words as they looked at what was happening in front of them in shock.