Chapter 244: No Situations Are Truly Hopeless
"Get up."
High Angel Hensen stood before Kai with what looked like a wooden plate in his hand.
He waited for a second but gained no reply.
Roughly, High Angel Hensen grabbed Kai by his hair and yanked his head up before forcing his mouth to open by pinching his face and then pouring the liquid on the wooden plate down into his throat.
It was extremely bitter, and the taste snapped Kai back to reality.
Kai wanted to vomit it out, but High Angel Hensen kept his head up and covered his mouth.
"Drink it, or I’ll break your throat."
Under duress, Kai had no choice but to swallow the unknown liquid forced past his lips. High Angel Hensen watched closely, waiting until he was certain that Kai had truly drunk it instead of pretending to drink it.
Once he was sure, he rose and circled back behind Kai.
"What..." Kai’s voice was weak and breathless. "What did you make me drink?"
"A solution called the White Flow Paralysis," High Angel Hensen replied while tidying up the herbs and ingredients he used to make the solution on a wooden table that was oddly attached to the wall, allowing it to be folded at a whim. "It would constrict your blood vessels, making it painful for you to use your mana to cast anything."
"Is that really necessary? My mana is already being drained."
"You are dangerous, Lesser Angel Kai, and Ragnar didn’t want to take any chances. Not when you seemed to always come out on top even after two assassination attempts. Either way, the solution requires time to fully settle. Whipping you would only delay the process. So, breathe. Take your time. Savour the moment because when I returned, the pain would continue."
High Angel Hensen walked towards the exit, into the darkness, and then out the door.
The sound of the steel door being closed behind him echoed loudly.
Silence enveloped the entire chamber again.
Kai breathed and focused on the sharp pain that started from his belly—and then spread out to every part of his body. It was the solution that started to take effect on his body, completely impairing his blood vessels.
It was really unfair.
He was drained of mana and then weakened while Chester was empowered beyond his limits.
Achieving victory in the Dragon Ring tournament would be way harder now.
Or at least, that was what Kai thought, but he had forgotten one thing. Forgotten about the one greedy sphere inside his body. Sensing the aggressive influence of the White Flow Paralysis— the Primordial Locks inside him flickered to life.
Both hummed with darkness.
Kai could feel the sharp pain that had been steadily building inside him suddenly stop.
Its growth was suddenly halted in an instant.
And then he also felt the solution being drawn from his blood, pulled inexorably towards his Primordial Locks. Not a single drop was spared from this pulling force. Seamlessly extracted and then separated.
Before Kai knew it, the solution was devoured by the Primordial Locks.
His body returned to normal again; only the pain on his battered back remained.
"I knew it liked to devour Star Beasts and could also be fed with mana, but it can even devour hostile solutions?" Kai muttered inwardly, surprised that the White Flow Paralysis was easily handled by the Primordial Locks. "Does that mean I’m immune to poison or venom?"
Kai shook his head.
It wasn’t the time for him to think about that as he needed to find a way to grow stronger.
Frankly, the only way he could do that was for him to somehow escape.
But escaping from this chamber was highly unlikely, as his mana was completely drained, and the only exit was the steel door looming in the darkness ahead. High Angel Hensen was certainly waiting somewhere on the other side, so he couldn’t go through there.
"Then how...? How can I grow stronger whilst being in here?’
Considering his situation, growing stronger seemed to be impossible.
His mana was being entirely drained by the chains wrapping tightly around his wrists—and he also couldn’t move at all, chained down in the center. It was a hopeless situation. Kai could not think of a way even after ten minutes of contemplation.
And then, like sensing his peril, something emerged from the darkness ahead.
A beautiful figure that Kai couldn’t mistake—Bella.
Elegantly, Bella approached with deliberate, measured steps; her lustrous hair bounced gently against her shoulders until she stood directly before him. Without a word, she lowered herself to her knees and nestled softly against his chest.
Like she was using him as a shield from the entire world.
Seeing this, Kai’s eyes flashed with hope and realization.
"No situations are truly hopeless—the Gods make sure of that..." He smiled inwardly. "That’s what you said to me—sister. Thank you for reminding me. How am I going to keep surviving without you?"
Moments later.
High Angel Hensen walked back into the chamber and met Kai’s eyes.
His grin returned as it was time to continue the torture.
Something in Kai’s scream scratched an itch deep inside him.
One that he hadn’t even known existed.
Had it not been for Ragnar’s strict command that Kai must be weakened even further through the White Flow Paralysis, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from hurting Kai more. He would’ve kept going without mercy.
For him, Kai’s scream was addicting.
Perhaps it was because he knew that Kai was also a serial killer in disguise that made his scream so much more satisfying. High Angel Hensen seized the whip again, and, without any hesitation, resumed the vicious whipping.
Each strike resounded like a thunderclap.
And as the scream rang, his tempo increased from his sheer excitement.
Oblivious to him, there was a change in Kai compared to earlier. A smile that tugged the very corner of his lips. Anyone who stumbled across this moment would think that Kai was a man with a masochistic tendency.
Smiling as he was being whipped would’ve given that impression away.
But it wasn’t the pain that made him smile.
It was the energy that was charging from within.
From his battle against Asher—and his squad in the Second Sky, Kai had learned something crucial. Learned that the Retribution Ending Fragment could be activated at will. It demanded him to recklessly protect people he cared about or people who were weak to trigger it.
But Kai didn’t need to have someone else beside him for it to be triggered.
Or at least, he no longer required that.
It could be triggered through visualization.
Kaelmorath probably wanted to teach him about visualization back then.
But he was already good at it.
Kai only needed to visualize someone he cared about or someone weak right under him as he was being whipped, and that would trigger Retribution. Now—the vicious whippings aren’t only a source of pain but also a source of strength.
Of course, the energy produced through Retribution isn’t mana.
It was something else entirely that Kai didn’t really understand.
But what he understood with certainty was that the energy could be used to strengthen his mana or even his raw punch, doubling the force of his next attack. Regardless, Kai was going to try using this energy to do something.
Remember the root. How it shaped, how it moved, and how it was positioned.
Kai visualized the roots that he saw for a moment inside Damas and Makos.
Fungus-like roots that spread across their bodies from their Divine Locks, making them a lot stronger than new Blooded Angels. He didn’t have mana ores or null crystals to reach Grade-3 Awakened Supernal; he couldn’t learn another meaningful Ending Fragment, and he also couldn’t make his third Primordial Lock.
So, this was his only hope to grow stronger.
Kai closed his eyes as the whip came down again.
A vicious, serrated kiss across his already ruined back, and Retribution was triggered.
He could feel energy blooming from the impact like fire in his veins. He seized it. Before the pain could scatter, before his body could simply endure and let the sensation fade, he caught that energy and channeled it straight toward his first Primordial Lock.
Inside, the dark sphere waited passively.
A bottomless hunger suspended in the void within his body.
And as expected, the moment the energy neared it, the Primordial Lock reached out its dark tendrils like a starving beast and sucked it in. The energy vanished, eaten, fed to the House of Night as it had been fed countless times before.
But Kai did not let go.
He held onto the thread of energy, clamped his will around it like a fist, and refused to let the Primordial Lock consume it. The sphere pulled, and he pulled harder. The struggle was silent, and eventually, Kai wrenched the energy sideways and hurled it not into the bottomless void of the Primordial Lock but against its wall.
The impact was destructive.
The energy struck the wall of the Primordial Lock and detonated in a silent, soul-deep blast.
It tore a hole through the dark sphere’s perfect surface. Light, if it could be called light—bled through the rupture, and for one fleeting moment, Kai felt something shift in the architecture of his own being.
Then, the wall began to mend itself.
Darkness flowed like liquid shadow to seal the wound, but it healed imperfectly.
A dent remained.
A subtle, unmistakable divot in the side of what had once been a perfectly round sphere.
Blood drizzled down Kai’s chin—hot and coppery. The internal shockwave had rattled all of his organs and bruised them. His body screamed at him to stop, to never do that again, to let the Primordial Lock remain as it was.
But the imperfect shape reminded him of the roots inside Damas and Makos.
A smile spread across his bloodied lips.
I can actually do it.
Kai did not know what this method was called. He only knew it existed from seeing it inside the seniors’ bodies. Somewhere along the way, the new Angels would be taught a way to do this, to reshape their Divine Locks.
A careful, measured technique taught at a later stage of their training.
One that would make them physically even stronger.
A tidy method. A safe one.
Kai had no access to that knowledge, but he did it anyway.
He didn’t need to care about the risk. He couldn’t afford to.
He needed strength, and he needed it now.
Now that he knew that he could actually make the unnatural roots, the suffering felt worth it.
Every lash and whip was no longer something to torment him. It was a gift.
High Angel Hensen thought everything remained the same as Kai still screamed in pain—but he did not know that he was only helping Kai gain the strength that he needed to win against Chester.