Chapter 528 - 5: Oriane’s Punishment
"Forget it. This is too much trouble."
The young man suddenly muttered to himself. His already pitch-black eyes instantly grew even darker.
It was as if a galaxy had begun to spin within them, forming a dark vortex that could almost pull a person’s soul inside.
Uncle Scar’s gaze was involuntarily captured by those eyes.
The respectful look on his face quickly faded, and his already murky eyes became hollow and dazed.
However, just as Uncle Scar’s mind was about to be completely overwhelmed, the galaxy in the young man’s eyes vanished without warning.
His pupils returned to their previous deep calm, as if the strange phenomenon had been nothing but an illusion.
The young man frowned slightly, murmuring in a voice only he could hear:
’Something’s wrong... I can’t do this.’
He seemed to be talking to himself, a rare hint of hesitation in his voice.
’Doing this... is very dangerous.’
Almost as soon as he finished speaking, Uncle Scar’s entire body shuddered violently, as if a drowning man had been yanked from the water!
His vacant eyes were instantly filled with immense terror. He staggered back half a step, his back slamming—THUMP—against the still partially open iron door, making it hum.
Large beads of cold sweat broke out on his forehead, temples, and back almost instantly, soaking the collar of his filthy shirt.
In that brief moment, he had felt his consciousness drifting in an endless void, on the verge of dissipating completely.
"M-My lord! Spare me! Please, spare my life, my lord!"
Uncle Scar could no longer care about anything else. His legs gave out, and he fell to his knees with a THUD, his head hitting the cold, filthy ground with a dull smack.
"I’ll tell you everything! I know everything! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know! You don’t... you don’t need to control me! I’m begging you!"
He was rambling incoherently, desperate to hold onto the soul that had nearly flown away just moments before.
The young man looked at Uncle Scar, who was prostrated on the ground and trembling like a leaf, but he paid no attention to his pleas.
On his calm face, his brow furrowed even more deeply. His gaze drifted to the air around Uncle Scar, as if he were staring at something invisible to the naked eye.
’Why...’
He tilted his head slightly, his calm black eyes sweeping past Ron, who was slumped in a corner with a dazed expression, before scanning the filthy room.
’There’s actually radiation...’
’Such high levels of radiation... The ambient radiation in this world... it’s not normal. Especially...’
He raised his right hand and observed it carefully.
’Especially after Casting, the radiation in the immediate area spikes... The peak concentration is actually higher than inside a nuclear reactor...’
He lowered his hand, his gaze once again sweeping over the kneeling Uncle Scar and the slumped Ron.
’With such high, persistent background radiation, and the explosive bursts when Energy is active... how are you...’
He paused, his gaze lingering on Uncle Scar for a moment.
’...able to survive?’
He fell silent for a moment, then added:
’I see. You use Nightmare Transformation to evade—or rather, adapt—to this radiative environment?’
Uncle Scar was still lost in his terror. Hearing the young man’s incomprehensible, self-directed questions, he hastily raised his head.
"M-My lord... Ra-Radiation? What’s radiation?"
Hearing this, the young man explained:
"Radiation is a form of Energy that dissipates and penetrates. It is formless and intangible, but prolonged exposure to it will destroy the fundamental structures of life, leading to decay, mutation, or..."
He stopped there.
Because he saw that Uncle Scar’s face was a mask of utter confusion.
"You don’t know what radiation is?" the young man confirmed.
Uncle Scar shook his head in terror.
"That’s right..." The young man seemed to have figured something out. He nodded slightly and mused aloud, "You don’t know. To the native life forms of this world, this radiation is probably just like air or water—a normal part of the environment. Only a being with a different frame of reference would realize its abnormality and its concentration."
Just then, Ron, who had been slumped in the corner, seemed to snap out of his stupor.
He had been listening to the conversation between the young man and Uncle Scar in a daze. Words like "Elementalization" and "radiation" were like a foreign language to him.
Because it was all gibberish to him, he had been staring at the young man and noticed another detail.
His eyes widened, and he stared intently at the young man’s lips. He then looked at Uncle Scar and stammered:
"M-My lord... you... what language... are you speaking? I-I can understand your words, but... your mouth... the shape of your mouth and the sounds you’re making... they don’t... they don’t seem to match?"
The young man was taken aback for a moment.
"Language? I am speaking ’Soul Language’."
Seeing that Ron and Uncle Scar were still completely bewildered, he added an explanation:
"Soul Language, in theory, is the universal tongue of all things. It transcends the limitations of sound and script to convey meaning directly at the level of consciousness. Even beings of different species, using entirely different language systems, can understand its basic intent..."
He paused again, his brow furrowing once more.
’Something’s wrong...’
He slowly shook his head.
’If it were truly a perfect universal tongue, then even when I utter specific terms like ’radiation’ or ’Elementalization,’ the concepts themselves should be conveyed and understood. But you cannot understand them...’
He looked up, his gaze seeming to pierce through the low ceiling toward the unseen depths of the void. His voice was low and firm.
"This is not a natural universal tongue."
"This is a fabricated language. Like that net stretching across the void..."
"It’s artificial."
Ron and Uncle Scar sat slumped on the floor, craning their necks to look at the young man’s calm face, their own expressions a picture of total confusion.
...
"So, to live in this place, one needs an identity?"
The young man stared at the low, filthy ceiling, yet his gaze seemed to penetrate every barrier, fixing on some point far beyond it, as if he were studying something there.
He sat cross-legged in the center of the simple wooden plank bed. Though he was on the filthy mattress, he somehow seemed completely untouched by the grime beneath him.
By the stone platform in the center of the room, a corner of the dilapidated, junk-piled wooden table had been cleared.
Uncle Scar and Ron sat stiffly on stools at the table’s edge, facing the young man on the bed.
Two oil lamps had been re-lit. Their dim, yellow light barely managed to push back the darkness in the corners, but it also illuminated the shocking stains on the walls.
Hearing the question, Uncle Scar nodded quickly.
He still seemed shaken, his face looking exceptionally sallow in the lamplight. He quickly reached for a white plastic canister, about the size of a kettle, from beside the table leg. He unscrewed the lid, tipped out a white, fingernail-sized pill, and tossed it into his mouth without hesitation, swallowing it dry.
A few seconds after the pill went down his throat, he visibly perked up.
The cold sweat that had been pouring from him due to his earlier terror seemed to evaporate instantly. His stooped back straightened a little, and even the lingering fear in his eyes faded considerably, replaced by an almost frenetic energy.
"My lord, you’re right. You do need an identity to live in this place. Without one, you can’t get anywhere. You can’t even buy Nightmare Pills."
’Uncle Scar was, in fact, filled with doubt.’
’This mysterious young man before him knew so many words and concepts he’d never heard of, much like those important figures.’
’But at the same time, he was almost completely ignorant of this world’s most basic common sense, like identities and Nightmare Pills.’
’But the young man had power, and that was enough.’
The young man’s gaze fell on the canister in his hand. "Is that what you’re taking now, the Nightmare Potion? You use it to induce Nightmare Transformation and avoid the radiation?"
A bitter smile appeared on Uncle Scar’s face. He shook his head and carefully tucked the canister back into his clothes. "My lord, this isn’t Nightmare Potion. Scum like us who wallow in the mud, what right do we have to enjoy Nightmare Potion? These are Nightmare Pills, the lowest-grade stuff, mixed with who knows how many impurities."
"Enjoy?" the young man asked, puzzled.
Ron, who had been huddled to the side, too scared to make a sound, couldn’t help but interject in a small voice, "Y-Yes, my lord. I’ve... I’ve heard from people who’ve had a taste of the real thing... they say that after drinking real Nightmare Potion, it’s easier... easier to enter a sweet dream. You see wonderful things, your whole body feels comfortable, like... like you’ve gone to heaven."
As he spoke, his face showed a mixture of yearning and fear.
"If it’s an enjoyment, then why is it called ’Nightmare’?" the young man continued to ask.
Ron looked at Uncle Scar. Uncle Scar sighed and took over. "That’s because, my lord, this stuff... it has a fatal threshold. Real Nightmare Potion is potent and has great benefits, but if you take too much, or if your body isn’t suited for it... terrible things happen. A person will... will be dragged into the most terrifying nightmare. Not a sweet dream, but Hell. What’s more, their body will start to undergo a high-level Nightmare Transformation uncontrollably, and after that... even more unimaginable things will happen."
He couldn’t help but shudder as he said this, as if recalling some ghastly things he had witnessed.
"So, Nightmare Pills don’t cause Nightmare Transformation?" the young man pressed.
"They do, my lord." Uncle Scar nodded. "But only the lowest, most superficial level of Nightmare Transformation. The benefits are negligible—at most, it makes your body a little less tired, just enough to endure the labor. But its main purpose..."
He paused, his voice dropping. "...is to keep us from being punished."
"Punished," the young man repeated.
"Yes, punished." Uncle Scar’s voice was filled with piety as he made a gesture of a crescent moon embracing a star. "If you don’t take Nightmare Potion or Nightmare Pills on time, you will incur punishment from Oriane. Your skin will rot, your organs will fail, your mind will break, and then you’ll die quickly. Your soul will be damned and fall into Hell."
The young man was silent for a moment before he slowly said, "Oriane? Punishment? Go to Hell? This..."
Just then,
BANG! BANG! BANG!
a series of rude, impatient bangs on the door suddenly shattered the conversation inside:
"Scarface! Open up! It’s me, Old Viper! Heard you got your hands on some ’good stuff’ the last couple of days? Don’t be shy, bring it out and let your brother take a look! We can talk about the price!"