As the devilish woman subjected him to various deaths and tortures, the expression on her face became grimmer and grimmer. Zenith had already experienced around 600 deaths, but his mind was still as clear and strong as ever.

In fact, it only became stronger.

Zenith was impaled to a cross with more than a dozen vultures taking turns eating his flesh. They gouged out his eyes and continuously pecked at his flesh until all his internal organs spilled out from his body. The vultures devoured him with gusto till his bones were exposed.

Despite being put through such gruesome torture, Zenith was calm. He didn't struggle, nor did he try to make a sudden move to startle the vultures away. He let them devour his body as his bloodied, empty eye sockets stared at the woman blankly.

His eyeballs were long gone as the vultures ate them. However, the woman could feel his gaze on her. He was the one tortured, yet it didn't feel that way at all. He was more like a predator, staring at his prey menacingly. She was the one holding all the cards, yet Zenith still gave her a bad feeling.

"Why won't you give up? Are you really that desperate to live? Is it worth it after all these deaths that you've experienced?"

After asking those questions, she couldn't help but mock herself. Why did she ask him? He didn't even have ears left to hear since the vultures had already eaten it.

The woman knew that he couldn't hear her. Despite that, she had a cryptic feeling that she just couldn't erase. She believed that Zenith could still hear her words despite being basically deaf at this point.

He was like an unfeeling doll. No matter how often she tried to destroy it, the doll wouldn't react, but its eyes would always stare ahead. It was unnerving. She felt a sense of revulsion as if she was looking at something human yet not human at the same time. His very existence creeped her out.

"Who exactly are you?"

When his body was completely devoured, the vultures flew away, leaving behind a small pile of bones below the cross. With that, Zenith experienced another death.

672...

After the vultures ate him, the woman made him experience more gruesome and agonizing deaths. It even reached the point where she was about to run out of ideas.

The woman made Zenith experience dying from being poured molten gold into his mouth. She had his brain stirred and eaten by a monkey, she had him eaten from inside out by rats, she made him die from impalement, hanging, disembowelment, starvation, stoning, dismemberment, burning, drowning, sawing, keelhauling, necklacing, execution by elephant, and even more deaths that would make all of those pale in comparison.

Furthermore, she made sure that each death of his was more painful than the others by using her abilities. She had done everything to ensure he would never get used to the pain. Her plan was perfect. Anyone in his place would've long succumbed to the pain and given up all struggles already.

So why?

Why was he still resisting her?

In the past, countless gods had suffered from her abilities and lost their minds. Yet, why was a mortal like him testing her patience to this extent? Why was he still alive? Why wouldn't he give up? Why wouldn't he break?

"I don't know how you've managed to keep your sanity after all this time," she told him with an emotionless voice, a far cry from the usual flirty and seductive tone she always used. "Perhaps, it's not that you are sane. You were already insane from the start."

Lying in front of her was Zenith, strapped down to a table with a faceless butcher slowly slicing off his skin, starting from his feet up. His body was being degloved, exposing his flesh, muscles, and some parts of his bones.

When he was removed from all his skin, the faceless butcher rubbed salt all over his body and poured boiling water on him.

The woman acknowledged Zenith's extraordinary tolerance to pain. She hadn't seen any god endure as much as he did. However, what was terrifying about him was not his tolerance to pain.

It was his Dao heart.

Even if one could endure the excruciating pain in their body, experiencing all those gruesome deaths was bound to have some negative psychological effects on one's mind. They would've already gone insane, disheartened, and broken.

Zenith was different. He could look at his situation objectively and not be bothered at all by what was happening to him. It was as if the one dying wasn't him but someone else instead, like a spectator watching everything from a comfy seat.

"You're really making this difficult for me," the woman thought grimly as she felt a strong sense of unease in her heart.

1006...

After suffering more deaths, Zenith found himself in a new place. He was tightly bound with a rope inside a cell with walls, floors, and ceiling painted in all white. No noise could be heard, and no shadows could be seen. The place was eerily silent and extremely bright.

As he observed his new surroundings, the woman appeared before him.

"You won't yield from pain, nor would you ever get dispirited from all the deaths I put you through. Tell me, what should I do to you?"

Truthfully, she had already gotten tired of killing him. She had done everything she could, but he remained mentally and spiritually strong. Nothing she did ever worked on him. She was the one torturing him, but it was her who got dismayed instead.

Despite being frustrated at his godly endurance, she didn't let slip any clue of her true feelings as she spoke to him coldly, "You're only delaying the inevitable. No matter what you do, you're bound to be defeated by me. Your resistance is only wasting my time."

Zenith's indifferent gaze landed on her, and for the first time in his more than one thousand deaths, he spoke, "You're noisy."

The woman was stunned. "What?"

"Stop speaking nonsense and kill me with everything you've got," said Zenith coldly. "But know this, I will have the last laugh in the end."

For a brief second, anger flashed on the woman's face before it disappeared as she gave him a smile.

"Who said I'm going to kill you?" she asked with a sweet, sickening voice. "You're a bright person. You must already know what I'm trying to do, am I right?"

A frown appeared on Zenith's face. In this room painted all white, one thing came into his mind: the White Room Torture.

"Or is that your plan? Are you trying to make me kill you instead? Is death better than complete isolation?" The woman laughed at him. "I wonder how long your mind can last in this place. I really want to find out. I don't believe you can still endure this one."

After saying her piece, the woman disappeared, leaving Zenith in this white room completely alone. He was tightly bound and couldn't move an inch. He sat on the floor with nothing else to do.

The white room was a place devoid of any sound and social interaction. It was said that staying in this kind of room deprived of everything could lead to brain damage in less than three days. In this type of environment, a person could very well lose their personal identity, experience hallucinations, and go into psychotic breaks when forced to stay for an extended period of time.

It was torture designed to break a person's mind.

The brain hated to be bored. It always craved stimulation, no matter how small it was, and sometimes, physical pain was much better than no stimulation at all. However, there wasn't anything here to keep Zenith's mind occupied. Furthermore, he had to stay here for an unknown period of time.

When the woman would come back for him later, would Zenith become an incoherent mess incapable of distinguishing between dreams and reality, or would he still be able to hold on to his sanity?

Only one of the two outcomes awaited him.

Zenith briefly scanned his surroundings before closing his eyes.

For those who experienced the white room torture, people would usually count numbers to entertain themselves. When they get bored with that, they will find creative ways to count, either by counting in descending order or by skipping a few numbers. Those who were creative enough would usually last the longest in the white room.

Zenith wouldn't do any of that, though. For most, the white room might be a place of torture, but to him, this was a place where he could practice meditation and train his mind— a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

There were many things he could do in this place with his mind, and he wasn't going to put them to waste. The woman thought she was torturing him. Unknown to her, she was actually helping him instead.

By the time this white room torture ended—

—it would mark the woman's end.

As Zenith immersed himself in his mind inside the white room, years had passed unknowingly. Throughout the long years, Zenith did not once move or make a sound, nor did he try to open his eyes. He had stayed in the same position for many years until his body made a mark on the floor under him.

He was only a young man when he first got transported into this white room, but after decades, he turned into a wrinkly old man with long, white hair that spread all over the floor.

He had literally spent a lifetime without doing anything and lived more years in this place than the outside.

If anyone could endure the boredom in this room and miraculously manage to preserve their sanity up to this point, they would've most likely gone crazy after realizing that fact.

He had spent 18 years outside, and all of his life's experience shaped him into who he was, but in this white room, he had spent even more time than that. Was the him today still the same as the him when he first came in or not? Had he changed? If so, to what extent?

Anyone would've already been frightened and scared if these questions plagued their minds.

Many more decades had passed, and eventually, Zenith died from old age in this white room. He remained in the same position until his death without doing anything.

It was as if he was already dead from the start. The only difference was he was no longer breathing.

This marked the 1089th time Zenith died from the woman's machinations.

At the same time, it was his last death.

1089