Wish upon the Stars chapter 923

I “woke up” strapped to a wooden chair. Metal bands crisscrossed the device, wires sticking out of them at odd angles, all leading to a mach

I “woke up” strapped to a wooden chair. Metal bands crisscrossed the device, wires sticking out of them at odd angles, all leading to a machine plugged into the wall. Atop the machine was a tub of blue liquid in which floated some sort of misshapen octopus creature, it’s single blue eye glowing much like the void mantii. Or maybe not like them. It was hard to say, with the color of the liquid, maybe it was glowing white and just tinted.

Metal mouth stood in front of me, sneering as he twirled a barbed metal chain dexterously between his fingers. “Ah, you’re awake,” he said snidely. “Not much good at takin’ a beating are you boy? Shame, that. I’m not supposed to kill you lot during this part, but sometimes my hand slips.”

“Well, it’s attached to an idiot, so I think we can cut it some slack,” I rasped. His eyes blazed and his hand flicked, the jagged chain slicing through the air to land on my now bare abs. I considered letting it actually leave a mark, if only to keep him focused on me, but I decided that just tanking it would frustrate him more than enough to keep him trying. I could tell this asshole took a lot of pride in his work, terrible as it was.

So…I let it hit me and just bounce off. No cuts, no blood. Mornax took the strike without any trouble, and I just sat and smiled at the man.

His eyebrows furrowed, staring down at the chain in confusion. “What the hell?” He muttered to himself. “What did you just do?” His question was a demand, an assumption of authority and obedience, and I just rolled my eyes in response.

“I sat there and let you hit me, shame you suck at it. Maybe switch hands? Or do you have some friends you could call? Statistically SOMEONE here has to be good at this.” I smiled innocently at him, my voice sugary and clearly mocking. His eyes flashed again, and so did the chain. Once, twice, a third time. His hand blurred as he lashed out at every part of my body with that tearing length of metal, to no avail.

I yawned. “Man, if I’d known you were this pathetic I’d have just stayed unconscious. I think I’ll go back to bed, do me a solid, turn out the light when you’re done? You can keep up the beating, it’s kind of lulling me to sleep. Like white noise.”

“I’ll kill you!” He snarled, lunging forward.

I didn’t even twitch. “Yeah you mentioned you do that. Somehow on accident? I doubt you could manage much actual damage on purpose, not sure how you pulled off any mistake murders. Or am I an exception for you? Maybe your usual victims are starving or elderly. Suffering from some kind of wasting disease?”

“I am an ARTIST,” he hissed. “An instrument of the Void. Their hand in this sickened world. Bodies are my canvas and blood is my paint. I deal in fear and corruption, twisting the hearts of any who come before me!”

Glancing up and down his body, I shrugged, annoyed at the chafing of the metal bands. It didn’t hurt, obviously, it was just annoying. “I don’t see it. I doubt the Void would trust trash like you with anything important. This place is obviously some sort of hideaway for the incompetent. They just stick people like you here to keep you from embarrassing the real operation. ‘Hey, remember that torturer who can’t torture? Put him in that old orphanage, that should keep him out of the way’. I bet they laughed at you even harder than I am.”

“SILENCE!” He howled, swinging the chain so fast and hard it started biting chunks of the chair. My skin remained unscathed. The chair was D-rank, surprisingly, as was the chain. I assumed this asshole wasn’t worth wasting a C-rank weapon on. Presumably there WERE C-rankers among the staff here somewhere, or maybe not. Tilda probably would have warned us. This was a small city, and I doubted even in this zone C-rankers were so common as to be ubiquitous.

I snorted at his feeble flailing. “What a sad little man. Did I touch a nerve? They don’t trust you? Don’t respect you?”

That was a guess, but not a tough one. I’d triggered Dantalion, and I was officially plumbing him for information as I pushed, reading his vitals, finding his sore spots. In the end though, I didn’t even need that. This guy wasn’t tough to figure out. He was a bully. He literally beat helpless people for a living. Nobody who didn’t need validation would take pleasure in something this pathetic.

“They trust me above all others!” He snarled madly, eyes glinting as he leaned into my face. “Dominic is only in charge of this branch because I’m more valuable where I am! I’m irreplaceable!”

I had no clue who Dominic was, but that seemed like a good start. “Oh, sure. I always have my most important people do the grunt work. They have you shovel the walk too? Take out the trash? Maybe you really are important, everyone needs a janitor. I hope you’re better at cleaning toilets than you are at beating people, at least.”

He let out a wordless scream of impotent rage, the chain bitting even deeper into the chair. I winced. It wasn’t cutting me, but it didn’t exactly feel pleasant. Nothing I couldn’t handle.

“Besides, it’s not like they’d have let you work on anyone useful,” I said venomously. “They probably just let you slap around the rejects to keep you happy. Has anyone you’ve tortured even actually been converted? You mentioned accidentally killing them, does that happen alot?”

His eyes lit up with triumph. “Fool! You prove your ignorance. Some of our most promising converts have been turned at my hands. Lyle of Erebor, Strand Delvor, Chrand Vintrek, powerful and stealthy agents embedded in the deepest layers of this pathetic plane-” He didn’t even finish talking before he was embedded in the wall.

In his place, a short, tan man with dark hair and eyes stood glaring. “Franklin, for once in your worthless life, will you SHUT THE FUCK UP?” Hissed the angry man. “He’s pumping you for information you lackwit.” He turned to stare down at me coldly. “Who are you?” He demanded. “Why are you here?”

“I’m from the eastern branch,” I said somberly. “Ted sent me.” He stared at me implacably. “Ted? From human resources? He wanted me to check to make sure this place is up to code.”

His hand blurred, and stars exploded across my vision as my head rocked back. I blinked away the pain, scowling at the hand that I could now see was threaded through a pair of knuckledusters. C-rank knuckledusters. I winced. He’d hit the same spot Tilda had. I didn’t think that was an accident. I must have still had a bruise.

“Rude,” I said as I tried to shake the ringing from my ears. “And you didn’t even introduce yourself. Not that you need to. I’m guessing you must be Dominic.”

He turned to glare at Franklin, who was still embedded in the wall. “Absolute nitwit,” he spat. “I’ll see you banished to the Void for this. See how much damage you can do stuck in some gods cursed temple on a floating rock in the outer darkness.”

“See, that’s just poor leadership,” I lamented. “No wonder he hates you. Slapping him around, mocking him, making threats. Can we say hostile work environment. This is exactly what HR was worried about.” He snarled at me, and his hand blurred again. This time though, I was ready. I flexed my connection to my staff, using its upgrade ability to push Mornax to C-rank. This backhand didn’t make my head ring, instead, it deflected off my skull, smashing a hole in the wall beside me. “Definitely not up to code.” I observed cheerfully.

He stared at me in shock, clearly unaware of how I’d done that. Still. I was pretty sure this little distraction was about as over as it would get. Dominic had completely halted the reverse interrogation, and his knuckleduster COULD hurt me once this temporary boost faded.

So I switched to a new plan. Make him irrationally angry and force him to take a swing. “I wonder if once I get out of here and tear your little operation apart, Frankie there will be in charge? Maybe he’ll make YOU go to some out of the way temple. Man clearly needs an upgrade, bet he’ll take those cool knuckles from you. I was wrong to mock him earlier. You’re WAY more pathetic. He was just using shitty equipment, you can’t even do the job rocking overleved gear.”

Dominic’s eyes flashed. Literally, they lit up blue like the Void creatures. From his hand, black mist began to billow, coating the C-ranked knuckles. Not just coating them, actually, seeping INTO them. I watched with discomfort as the objects became somehow…denser. Heavier and more dangerous. My Danger Sense was SCREAMING at me not to touch them.

With a roar, he hauled back and rocketed a punch toward my head…where it passed right through the illusionary image of me and SHATTERED the wooden chair into kindling. His eyes widened as he pitched forward, having exerted way too much force on something that wasn’t there. It left his back wide open for the lunging stab I used to drive the black razor edge of Glory’s spear into his unprotected back.

He screamed, stumbling away from me, hand going to his damaged back as he spun to stare at me in confusion. Not that it helped. I was already on him, staff whirling, spearhead cutting away at him as the heretic flame blazed on it.

The inner bend of his elbows, Double Trouble again, his achilles tendons, the back of his knees. I neatly severed ligaments until he couldn’t stand, then flicked my fingers, Agares calling stone from the floor to imprison him the same way I had with the Filthsmith. He bucked and writhed as he stared down at the shackles in disbelief. “Heretics? Here? HOW? Release me! Release me now!”

I snorted, walking over to pry Frankie from the wall, dropping him onto a clear spot of floor and creating another set of shackles. These were more of a pillory than cuffs. They held him immobile and stuck to the ground at an awkward angle, and he didn’t stir as I did it.

Walking over to the side of the room, I grabbed another chair. Then I looked at the machine for a second…and I shoved it in my ring. I wasn’t sure if that would kill the octopus…but I also didn’t care. I could give this thing to Benny to play with. I didn’t know what it did, but it didn’t hurt to grab new toys. Dominic was screaming nonsense, and it was annoying, so I flicked my fingers and his jaw was locked open by a bit gag.

Which was how my wife found me about twenty minutes later. She strolled in carrying a big box of papers under one arm, and smiled at me wryly. “I just can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?”

I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a sore winner.”

Her smile dropped as she took in my disheveled state. “Are you alright? Did they hurt you?” Her eyes flared, not pure black like when the Void was Ascendant, but the blue rings of fire on the black backdrop that let me know the heretic angel was feeling righteously protective.

“Nothing much,” I laughed. “They were pretty pathetic at their jobs. Now, what did you find for us here?” I gestured to the box, and she dumped the papers out onto the stone floor. With a smirk, I focused Dantalion on the pages, indexing and slowly gathering information. This was probably going to take a while…but we had all the time in the world now. Nothing like a quiet night in with the wife.