25 The Pain Justify The Thrill

Shined by the murky yellow sky amongst the searing black fog, was a gigantified Lothair wearing a cocky smug and folded arms on the chest. No longer naked, he donned the iconic Headless Ichthys cape above his improvised silver nobleman clothings — just to give the impression to anyone who managed to glimpse it beyond the shadowy fog.

Not even surpassing ten seconds after, thunderous roars of projectiles from launchers and spells alike began to deafen the entire wasteland. One after another, the impending black fog was punctured, gasping thousands of both small and big holes at a drastically immense pace.

"Division 6 shall charge up for the next barrage! Gasxes Phalanx! March onward!"

"Captain! You're sending our Gasxes Phalanx for distraction!?"

"The key to win against the Holy Witch is relentless spell firepower, the Phalanx can be recruited easily, but the magus aren't."

"Why don't we send the Merc. Coalition Battalion instead?"

"Our demonic dominion didn't pay them much to abide by our words like a whistling tree." The captain steeled his gaze. "As for that 'Abraxas' troupe... Let's just hope that we won't be met by their crazy gazes."

"The magus troops are ready for the next volley!"

"The Gasxes Phalanx have reached the appointed position!"

"Affirmative!"

"Second volley, fire!"

A layered roaring blast was sent off to the hidden silhouette beyond the fog, a greater volley that was much more intense than the first.

Just as they thought of successfully landing their volley against the menace behind the foggy veil — a gigantic clenched fist harrowingly approached the backline full of magus troops, shattering the black fog into a prismatic clear sky.

Only by then did the captain realize that their magus troops that were scattered all around the wasteland had been taken out, leaving only the vicious ground troops to fight the gargantuan witch head on.

"Garasgakuli!" The voice of Lothair echoed profoundly throughout the chaos. "You piece of indispensable cretin! I know that you're the one behind this!"

With the amount of projectiles being thrown at Lothair nonstop, just to keep him at bay — Lothair decided to overheal the black fog to an insurmountable amount, continuing to mask his gigantic presence as he searched for the demon named Garasgakuli.

"FOUND YOU!"

It was a demon in his thirty hundreds with four protruding horns with bluish flame, wearing the same black-themed armor like the rest.

He was surrounded with a substantial amount of his army and mercenaries alike, ensuring his safety behind the warzone.

Yet, it seemed like such safety is non-existent here.

"Khh…"

Like a canned food who saw the light for the first time, Garasgakuli couldn't do nothing but beheld the gargantuan singular red eyed that peeked through the gap of black fog that was ripped open by the giant hands.

Then, from the center of the eye, a large pool of blood burst. Something could be seen falling down from it, possessing the form of a demon with long silver hair.

But it didn't only stop at one.

There were two.

There were five.

And then ten.

And fifty!

And a hundred!

The amount of clones began to increase at an exponential rate until the whole eye exploded into a tsunami of red, washing out countless of Lothair's clones as it fell like a downpour of sea onto every demon in the ground.

"GYAHAHAHAH! SHRED! SHRED! SHRED THEM ALL INTO PIECES!"

"KILL! TEARS! PEELS!"

"FEAST! DESECRATE!"

The manic chant and laughter engulfed the harrowing screams and pleas of their victims.

While the rest of the mercenary and soldiers were submerged and mutilated in the wake of the overflowing red sea, Garasgakuli was merely stabbed by the neck while he was brought up by the clones who toppled each other.

A bright green could be seen being injected into his throat by the clone's claw, preventing him from kicking the bucket before he arrived at the blood pedestal of the Holy Witch.

When Garasgakuli reached the bloodied throne made out of manic clones, he finally witnessed the atrocious, sinful monstrosity of this land.

"Hurkh! Gah… Lothair… LOTHAIR!!"

"That's my line, Garasgakuli." Lothair snickered as he slowly walked forward, traversing a platform that was made with his own very blood and flesh. His hair seemed to be fully drenched in black, but there wasn't a single pain and hesitation on his eyes. "Not only that you owe me a special invitation to the ball at the Country of Forevermore, but you also decided to come here, not knocking at my door, and wreaking unnecessary havoc at my garden???

"Be mindful! Garasgakuli, as your words shall dictate the years of torment that I shall do to you."

But, instead of being intimidated, Garasgakuli began to dance with a confident smile, which then erupted into a mocking laughter, "Huhuhu, HAHAHAHAHAHA-!"

With a smiley face, Lothair grabbed Garasgakuli's left hand and plunged a sharp needle right beneath the index finger nail.

"AAAAAAAAARGH!!!" With the clone's arm that was still attached to his throat, the scream of pain was soon followed by a heavy cough and gurgling of blood.

"You know, I have a good sense of humor. If you can tell me a good joke, then I'll let you free unharmed — far away from this place."

"Gah! W-what the hell are you on about!?"

"So you want me to also fulfill your dream and make you a new castle inside your demonic dominion?"

"Stop! Stop it! You're grossing me out, you witch!

"Good." Lothair cackled. "Now tell me, otherwise I'll make those things come true." Without any warning, he then inserted another needle onto the rest of the fingers.

"AAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!'

"Hmmm? Yaaaaargh~? Is that the sound when you're constipated? I'm afraid that it's not that grandiose of a joke. Should I give you a second chance to live for no particular reason?"

"AAARHH! QUIT! SHITTTING ME!"

"Bzzz! No profanity is allowed!"

Lothair then jammed a large nail onto Garasgakuli's shoulder, disconnecting multiple joints and hitting numerous painful nerves.

Garasgakuli's scream was never this colorful and vigorous before.

While the symphony of pain was left to play in the background, Lothair began to reassamble his self-torture device beneath his skin, due to the fact that the choir of pain he was experiencing right now began to go beyond haywire than normal.

A pain to counteract the pain — to put out fire with fire.

After the mechanism began to churn and wreck his organs as his heart beat, Lothair's hair began to slowly revert back to his usual silver gleam.

"So I can only withstand the near-complete corrosion for one minute, huh."

As if clearing his throat of bad flu, Lothair sighed in relief as he faced the agonized complexion of Garasgakuli.

"Now then, shall we continue?"

Before the sadistic torture progress any further, a mild earthquake couple be felt tremoring beneath the red sea. Lothair knew what's up, and proceeded to cut off the Garasgakuli's healing intake along with his throat and heart, before jumping off from his tower of clones and corpse with a deadpan smile.

Not second after, a towering zig-zagging thorn erupted from the abyssal plain, desecrating the tower of red before replacing the grand scenery with its own veiny steel surface and visible purple energy flow.

"Thunder-like thorn, metallic surface with veins, hmmmmm." Lothair caressed his chin in the middle of his free fall. "Huh…"

Upon the realization, his face was immediately engulfed by the abyssal gaze of singular red. Like a hunter who was searching for hints of his prey, he scanned the processed Ayin signature and traced it all across the wasteland. To make the process even faster, he stimulated his information processing power by directly applying Addition Overheal onto the brain.

"Heh, found you."

Not wanting to waste any time, he immediately overhealed his hand to burst haphazardly — releasing a force similar to an excavating dynamite that propels him downward in much more haste.

Not even bothering to heal the wound from his exploding hand, he immediately sprinted across the red sea of his clones faster than a speeding hawk.

His speed was enough to break the sound barrier, creating a sonic boom as he punctured a hole into the black fog — leaving a trail of green.

"To show his miserable face one more time, I'd like to see a distorted version of that cretin's face-"

With a flaming anger, Lothair traveled towards a new section of the wasteland altogether. The place he was heading towards had barely any mercenaries of the soldiers of Garasgakuli — it was something much worse…

Soon, what seemed to be an empty land within naked eyes began to shift its reality into the new side, revealing a group of demons of all sizes, coated in purple cloaks and neck shackles.

Just as Lothair approached the vicinity of such a group, the flow of gravity began to collapse and reality broke into cracks.

Lothair's focus was thrown out of its course, as the foreign environment led him to crash at the ascending ground, bouncing and dragged by the invisible current of flawed sheets of space.