Chapter 72 Revenge Is A Dish Best Served… Multiple Times?
Chapter 72 Revenge Is A Dish Best Served… Multiple Times?
This chapter contains light gore. Reader discretion is advised.
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"How proficient are you at using a saw?" Xavier asked calmly.
"Eh?" Eulene was befuddled. What did he mean?
Xavier kept quiet as the wall before him lowered back to the ground. The tied psychiatrist came back to their sight again.
He was lying with his eyes on the ceiling, not bothering to even struggle out of the straps. After the wall completely disappeared, Joseph looked at them with his blank hazel eyes.
The duo could only feel his gaze upon them. As for the other mysterious gazes that had originated from his eyes, they had disappeared.
Xavier stepped forward. Eulene followed.
"Looks like we can finally have a civilised conversation," Xavier said as he stood right beside the medical bed.
"Who are you?" Joseph asked, his voice devoid of any emotions—even the will you live. "No. What are you?"
"That, Doctor Hearts, is an interesting question." Xavier responded. "As you suspected, we are indeed different from your kind."
Joseph's eyes twitched, but he awaited an answer.
"We are human beings," Xavier answered, "while you, Doctor Hearts, are a monster."
Joseph stayed silent, not accepting or denying anything. But his lifeless eye did not lie.
"Why did you kill children?' Xavier asked, "and that too, children with meta-cerebrums."
Joseph did not answer. He moved his gaze back to the ceiling.
"I take 'research' as the answer." Xavier turned to the brain filled shelf, then to the work-desk before turning back to the tied killer. "Who were the 'ones behind your eyes?" He asked. "What Secret Society are you working for?"
Once again, Joseph did not respond—his eyes struck to the ceiling.
[Should I use my eye on him?] Eulene transmitted.
[If you can, why not?] Xavier snapped his fingers. Lumomancy kicked in. Light particles created the illusion that Eulene was standing quiet beside Xavier.
Eulene, sensing the light barrier before her, took off her mask. She put her palms together and closed her eyes, before changing to call upon the celestial eye.
Her third eye opened.
The cave once again turned as bright as day. The psycho was lying on the bed—tied, surrounded by a dark grey aura. He had lost all of his will to live.
She directed her focus to the tens of white strings originating from the killer's chest and trailing to all directions.
Eulene blinked her vertical third eye. The scenery changed. It was like the one she had witnessed moments ago—a bird's eye view of a part of the town with the gallery at its centre.
White strings scattered everywhere from the hill beneath the Gallery. Some went Southwards to Derbury, while an absolute majority, just like Xavier's, went northwards—most probably to Aramon.
She could see all the ends of the karmic links that reached Derbury. One of them even went to Miss Maisel's house.
Eulene's lips twitched. Sarah.
As for the other ones, they were thin threads that pointed to ordinary houses. The thickest of the links ended at his home at eastern Derbury.
Trisha, Eulene thought. A few other strings of average width pointed at Joseph's office.
There was nothing suspicious in Derbury.
As for the ones that trailed Northwards to Aramon, a couple of the strings were on par with the one that connected Trisha. But Eulene could not find the end as they exceeded her range.
She put her mind to it and tried to zoom out, and zoom out the view did.
The range increased by a few more kilometres, but still, she failed to reach Aramon, or any of the endpoints of the links that directed Northwards.
With a sigh, she closed her celestial eye. The view returned to the dark cave.
She shook her head at Xavier.
Xavier snapped his fingers. The illusion barrier disappeared.
"Now," Xavier circled around the bed to the other side of Joseph, "for the real question."
Eulene suddenly felt a chill running down her spine. The temperature of the cave dropped to the point of being icy as the already dark cave turned every darker. An overwhelming pressure dawned upon everything.
Eulene circulated her Qi to drive that pressure out. She looked at Xavier, flabbergasted. Pitch black killing intent was oozing out from his very being.
As a cultivator that grew up in a dog eat dog world, she had seen witnessed all sorts of killing intent, with all levels of intensity. Out of all the cultivators, the demonic practitioners were the ones that excelled the most when it came to killing intent. They nurtured that intent through killing hundreds of thousands of lives—innocent or not.
The killing intent Eulene herself had used to trap David and his team in that horrifying illusion back at the warehouse, was something she learned from the cultists. As for her own killing intent, it was intense, but not brute.
But the killing intent that was being released by Xavier, it was—demonic. Just how many hundreds of thousands—no—millions have he killed to nurture a killing intent this strong?
Eulene, one of the strongest beings in her own world, had to use her heavenly Qi to fight against the annoying killing intent. The ordinary Joseph, being an ordinary human, was obviously facing much worse.
His whole body was squirming, trying to get out of the predicament as he gasped for breath. The killing intent was enough to suffocate Joseph to death.
But the crazed Xavier could not let him die so easily, could he?
He snapped his fingers. Air began to force into Joseph's lungs—only enough to keep him alive and conscious.
Joseph was now in a state where neither could he breath, nor could he die. And Xavier—he was just getting started.
He took off his hat and brought out a long iron saw, before passing it to Eulene.
Eulene's eyes glinted. Now she knew what that bastard meant when he asked how proficient she was at using the saw.
She looked at Joseph's head which was bobbing up and down gasping for breath. Beneath his head, the metal was rusted with blood.
Anger dwelled in her heart as killing intent speed out from her own eyes.
She did not need Xavier to say anything. She knew what she need to do.
Xavier, on the other hand, looked at the four straps that were tightly tied to Joseph's wrists and ankles before looking at the dried blood beneath Joseph's head.
"You were quite serious with your research, weren't you?" Xavier's tone reached the iciest level of coldness. "So much that you needed the most active specimen—fresh out of a child's head."
Xavier arched forward, taking his masked face closer to Joseph's. The red smile on his mask took the creepiest shape, with an unnatural curve and pointy ends. The red was that of blood, and it shined like the full moon that was outside in the night sky.
Joseph stopped gasping, as if he forgot how to breath. His eyes began to vibrate from the terror Xavier bequeathed to him.
"I wonder how their screams sounded," Xavier asked. His tone was cold, but one could also imagine the smile behind his mask. "When you sawed their skull alive."
Xavier straightened his back. Eulene wasted no time and placed the jagged side of the saw on his forehead.
She placed it at the perfect place, right above his eyes, and at an angle. When it came to anatomy, cultivators could defeat certified physicians.
Before Eulene could start sawing. Joseph subconsciously began to scream his heart out as he wriggled his head, trying to get out of the saw's clutches.
Eulene held him by his jaw, stopping him from moving.
"Don't hold there," Xavier interrupted. "It will hinder his screams."
Eulene could see the smile behind his mask. Crazy son of a bitch!
However, she complied. She wanted to hear the screams as well. Heh! She mocked herself. As if she was any better.
She moved her hand to Joseph's glabella and pushed it with one finger, pinning his head into place.
Without any further ado, she began to saw it to and fro.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" A soul writhing scream blasted out from Joseph's mouth as the saw ground into his cranium. Blood fountained out from the sides.
Joseph's whole body was squirming, trying to get out of those leathery shackles. But alas, Xavier reinforced those straps further. As for Joseph's head, it was pinned in place by Eulene's finger.
Tears endlessly streamed out from his eyes, and moments later he went blind as Eulene cut through some nerves.
Eulene was halfway through when Joseph stopped moving his body, but he kept on screaming in agony, and soon after, the screams began to die down.
All of Joseph's muscles relaxed. His pants were drenched from piss and soiled by faeces.
But neither Xavier, nor Eulene were disgusted. They had gone through multiple battles and wars. Such sights and and smells were common as common could be. They had faced much worse.
Eulene pulled out the bloody saw. The psycho was dead… or so she thought.
Xavier snapped his fingers again. The fresh red blood on the bed climbed back into Joseph's head. The half detached cranium began to reattach at a visible pace. In a couple of seconds, his head was as good as new.
Electricity danced between Xavier's fingers as he reached his arm out. He touched the dead Joseph's chest with the electrified hand.
Joseph's whole body jolted. He gasped for breath trying to sit up. But the leathers hold him back.
"Why are you in a hurry?" Xavier said with the creepy smile. "You just felt the pain of one child."
He tilted his head.
"Wouldn't it be unfair for the 12 other victims?"