The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 325

Chapter 325: Painless

Lord Granbehl’s large fist struck my side. His guards stood around me, holding me up by the arms with my hands still shackled. The next blow was to my face, then a series of punches to my ribs again.

The broad-shouldered noble was sweating, and some of his hair had pulled free of the ponytail that ran down his back, giving him a slightly disheveled look. After a few more swings, he stepped back and straightened his dark suit.

A young man hurried to mop the sweat from Lord Granbehl’s face. The boy had the same fair hair as all the other Granbehls I’d met, but he lacked Kalon and Ezra’s build.

Someone cleared their throat from outside my cell. “Lord Titus?”

My host turned and stepped out into the dingy stone hallway without even a second glance in my direction.

It had been three days since I’d walked out of the portal and right into this political mess. Every day, Kalon’s father had visited me to ask one question: did I kill his sons? And every day, when I told him I hadn’t, he spent a few minutes beating on me before leaving. The rest of my time was spent alone with Regis and my thoughts.

It wasn’t bad, not at all. My new asuran body was more than capable of absorbing a few punches, and so far there hadn’t been any lengthy interrogations either. The worst part was the anticipation...not of the trial, but about Ellie.

The relic still hadn’t recharged. I’d been checking it every few minutes, but sometime during the second day Regis pointed out that I looked like a crazy person, so I had been holding myself back to only once an hour.

The old man that had led my arrest, who I’d learned as Lord Granbehl’s steward, appeared in the doorway just long enough to wave for the guards to release me, and in moments I was alone again.

‘As entertaining as it is to watch you pretend to be a punching bag, I’m bored,’ Regis thought the moment the guards closed the door. ‘We really going to do this for three whole weeks?’

Go take a nap then, I snapped.

‘Rude,’ he grumbled back.

After glancing out the barred door to make sure the guard at the end of the hall couldn’t see into my cell, I laid down on the cot and withdrew the hard fruit-toy from my dimension rune. The noise of the seed rattling around inside it immediately took me back to the snowy mountaintop village where I had trained with Three Steps.

Picturing the climbing peaks and plunging valleys, and letting myself slip into the meditative state I’d used while training with the Shadow Claws, I released a small amount of aether from my core and pushed it toward the tip of my index finger.

The purple energy hummed softly as it formed into a thin, slightly curved extension of my finger. I slid the aetheric “claw” into the slot and fished around for the pea-sized seed. Although I could get the seed to the hole, when I tried to pull it through, the aether lost its shape and dissipated.

Taking a deep breath, I conjured the claw a second time and tried again with similar results. I kept at the seed for another hour or two before Regis interrupted my practice.

‘You’ve been doing this for hours,’ Regis grumbled. ‘Don’t you get tired of it?’

Not really. It gives me something to focus on...to occupy my mind, I guess.

‘Oh. So sort of like knitting?’

I rolled my eyes. Yes, Regis. Manipulating aether into a solid, deadly weapon is exactly like knitting. I intended to return to my practice, but footsteps on the stairs told me someone was coming.

Quickly storing the seed, I stood, walked to the cell door, and rested my hand on the bars. A jolt of mana jumped into my hand, running up my arm like a bolt of lightning. I grunted and pulled away, flexing my tingling fingers.

The steward appeared once again. He gave me a snide smirk when he noticed my obvious discomfort. “Oh, I’m sorry, Ascender Grey, did they forget to mention the door? The bars are heavily enchanted against physical contact—to ensure our guests don’t attempt to force their way free, of course.

“Now, if you would please step back to the wall...”

I did as he asked. The elder waved a hand and the wall behind me began to move. Restraints appeared, growing out of the stone and around my legs and arms, pinning me to the wall.

“Don’t bother struggling,” he said confidently. “These manacles were designed by the finest Instillers in Central Dominion. The chains and their moorings are unbreakable.”

I tested their strength, flexing my arms and shoulder until the stone began to quake.

Oops, I thought. Almost broke them.

The golden-haired elder was still smirking, apparently not having noticed. I returned the look with a deadpan, almost bored gaze. “Neat,” I said flatly.

His smirk flickered. “I realize, Ascender Grey, that your time in the Relictombs has likely inoculated you against base fear, and you’ve already shown yourself to be adept at holding out through pain. I’ll admit, Lord Titus has been most frustrated with your lack of expressiveness. He would like to see you squirm, to use his word.”

The elder stood aside so another man could open the door and enter the cell. This man was tall and gangly. He wore dark leather armor with gold studs that smelled strongly of oil, which matched his greasy black hair and the gold ring in his ear.

“Where should I start, Master Matheson?” he asked in a high, simpering voice as his black eyes trailed over my body.

The old man wrinkled his nose at the torturer. “Oh, I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to do your job. Just make him talk.” Matheson met my eyes from behind the torturer. “I’ll be back in, say, twenty minutes for the questioning.”

The torturer grinned, revealing black and rotting teeth. “Yes, Master Matheson.” To me, he said, “Grey, is it? I’m Petras. I’d say it’s a pleasure, but”—his grin widened—“I promise it won’t be.”

‘Ugh, that was so cringey it made my nonexistent toes curl,’ Regis groaned.

I didn’t say anything, but kept my expression level and uninterested.

My lack of a response didn’t seem to bother Petras at all. He produced a wicked-looking dagger with a flourish and, in the same motion, drew the blade across my upper arm. It was so sharp I hardly felt it.

The wound let out a trickle of blood before healing over.

Petras’s grin faded. He regarded me warily before cutting in the same spot, slower and deeper this time. I realized that my extreme healing was going to draw unwanted attention and attempted to close off the trickle of aether from my core. It was only partially successful.

Regis, go to my left foot.

‘If this is about my toes comment earlier, I was just being—’

I need to limit my healing factor. Just do it.

My companion drifted through my body into my foot, and the slow trickle of aether redirected, pulled toward him by whatever gravitational force he had on it.

The second cut was slower to heal. Petras didn’t make a third right away, instead watching with interest as the remaining aether knit my flesh back together. For me, the healing was sluggish, but compared to a normal person, it was still incredibly quick.

He ran a rough finger over where the cut had vanished without even a scar.

He checked my mana-suppression cuffs to make sure they were tightly fastened, then took a step away from me. “How are you doing that?”