Ravaged

Chapter 34

It seems Elliot was the only person here too new and too young to have been corrupted.

Feng spares no one who isn't in chains.

Only once every single level has been purged, only once the mountain is silent save for the moans of the dying and the whimpers of terrified, confused prisoners--some of whom are smart enough to have begun searching for the exit now that their chains are gone--only then does Feng go to Cruciatus.

The God of Pain is on level seven, just above the dungeon. Feng sensed him there with two other heartbeats the moment he entered the lair, but he only goes there now, when there is no chance that anyone will get between him and the man he's going to torture in all the best ways he knows.

Feng pushes the door of the cell open slowly, taking in the scene. Two seraphs--one of the sky dwellers is rare enough, but Cruciatus has captured two, it seems--are chained to the ceiling in the middle of the cell, both on their knees. The one on the left is completely slumped over and unconscious, one arm nearly cut entirely off. It still hangs only thanks to the stretching flesh around the severed muscle, the single tendon still in place.

The other seraph, though, is wide awake. His wings are pure white despite the bloodstains and the holes in them, splayed out to either side and held down by iron stakes. The wounds on his body are angry and infected, rotting as if they've been left there for more than a few centuries. He looks more like a demon than a seraph, one eye missing, his teeth gapped, his body recognizable only in undefined shape. He's covered in bloody, messy wounds that disfigure him to a point that ought to be irreparable.

His remaining eye, a bright purplish-blue, is alight with unholy amusement, and laughter trips off his tongue--the mocking, highly amused laughter of a man who has nothing to lose and has stopped caring about his own life.

The kind of laughter that falls from Feng's mouth when he truly laughs. The only kind of laugh that left Feng's soul in the first thousand years of his life. The seraph's silver hair is shimmering despite the blood dripping from the strands, despite the fact that he's obviously been in here for a very, very long time.

It isn't often that Feng feels anything like admiration or respect.

So he revels in the feeling like he revels in the bloodstains as he steps into the room and kicks the door closed.

Cruciatus--a tangle of red hair, eyes completely gray and pupiless, staring viciously at the world--has been plucking feathers from the seraph's already shredded wings with a slightly frustrated expression. He turns when Feng slams the door, his eyes taking in Feng's appearance.

A second later the power in Feng's body vanishes, snuffed out like a candle flame.

There are weights on his wrists.

Feng looks down at the new set of shiny Caneo Crystal shackles and sighs.

"You're the little rat who escaped, aren't you?" Cruciatus demands, his words dark and malicious and slightly mocking, despite his obvious frustration with the seraph.

The seraph laughs. "Ooh, big scary god. Can't even keep his prisoners trapped."

Feng tosses a lazy, wicked grin at the seraph. "I like you," he says, nodding once as Cruciatus sends a visible wave of what is most likely pain in its purest form at the chained male. He laughs again, winking at Feng--or trying to. Since he attempts to wink with the eye that's been carved out, it ends up not working.

"Oops, wrong eye," he says cheerfully, then winks with the other.

Feng's grin widens. "Been down here awhile, huh?"