Shadow energy erupted from the ground beside Lucien, coalescing into a massive form that towered over both him and the broken demon sorcerer. Tusk materialized fully, his knight-grade presence radiating mana that made the toxic atmosphere of Limbo seem to thicken and pulse.
The orc mage's eyes, burning with arcane knowledge accumulated over centuries, focused immediately on Belasco. Even without verbal instruction, Tusk could sense what his master required.
"Break his connection with the Elder Gods," Lucien said simply.
Tusk bowed his massive head in acknowledgment and began to move toward Belasco. The demon sorcerer's eyes widened in genuine terror for the first time since the fight had begun.
"Wait—you can't—that's impossible—" Belasco's words tumbled out in a panic as he tried to crawl backward, his partially healed body protesting every movement.
Tusk's massive hands grabbed Belasco's head, holding it steady despite the demon's desperate struggles. The orc mage began to chant in the ancient language of his people, words of power that resonated with frequencies beyond normal hearing.
Mana began to flow between them, visible as threads of light that connected Belasco to something far beyond this realm. The threads were woven into the very essence of the Belasco's being by entities whose power dwarfed anything present in this dimension.
Tusk's chant intensified, and those threads began to unravel.
Belasco's screams started immediately.
They weren't screams of physical pain, though his body writhed as if being torn apart from the inside. These were screams of existential agony, the sound of someone having the fundamental structure of their being dismantled piece by piece.
The demon sorcerer had been bound to the Elder Gods for centuries. That connection had defined him, empowered him, made him what he was. Having it severed was like having his soul ripped out through his chest while he remained conscious for every agonizing moment.
His body convulsed, ichor flowing from his eyes and mouth as the magical bonds that had sustained him for so long were getting destroyed. His back arched until it seemed his spine would snap, and his muscles were straining.
Lucien stood several feet away, hands in his pockets, watching the process with complete indifference. His expression showed no satisfaction, no disgust, no emotion whatsoever. He might as well have been observing someone changing a tire for all the reaction he displayed.
The screams reached a crescendo as Tusk pulled harder on the mystical threads. Each one that snapped sent shockwaves through Belasco's body, making him spasm and cry out in renewed torment. Tears mixed with the ichor flowed down his face, his voice becoming hoarse from the constant screaming.
"PLEASE—" Belasco managed to gasp at Lucien between screams. "MAKE IT STOP—"
Lucien said nothing.
Tusk continued his work without pause or mercy. The orc mage had been ordered to break the connection, and he would complete that task regardless of how much the target suffered in the process.
Tusk could stop Belasco from feeling any pain, but where would be the fun in that?
As the connection neared its breaking point, something changed in the atmosphere around them.
The air grew colder despite the ambient heat of Limbo. Reality itself seemed to thin, as if the barriers between dimensions were being pushed aside by entities of overwhelming power.
Behind Belasco, phantoms began to materialize.
They were massive, their forms only partially visible in this realm. What could be seen was enough to make even the strongest-willed beings question their sanity. Shapes that hurt to look at directly, geometries that shouldn't exist in three-dimensional space.
The Elder Gods.
They were not fully present—couldn't be fully present in this limited dimension—but even their partial manifestation was enough to make the ground tremble and the purple clouds overhead begin to churn violently.
"YOU DARE!" The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, a sound that seemed to bypass ears entirely and resonate directly in the mind. "YOU DARE TO TAKE WHAT IS OURS!"
Lucien glanced at the phantoms, then looked away. His hands remained in his pockets.
"THIS SLAVE BELONGS TO US!" Another voice, equally overwhelming, equally terrible. "WE BOUND HIM! WE SHAPED HIM! WE OWN HIM!"
The Elder Gods' rage was palpable, a force that should have driven lesser beings mad with terror. Their phantoms loomed larger, trying to impose their will on the mortal who dared interfere with their possession.
"YOU WILL SUFFER FOR THIS TRANSGRESSION!" The phantoms began to coalesce, their forms taking on more definition as they prepared to act directly.
"CURSE OF THE ELDER GODS!"
This wasn't a simple curse—it was a fundamental rewriting of fate, a condemnation that would follow its target across lifetimes and dimensions. Those marked by this curse were meant to know only suffering and despair until they ceased to exist entirely.
The curse manifested as dark energy mixed with starlight. It lashed out from the phantoms, wrapping around Lucien's form like chains forged from malice.
Then it stopped.
The curse simply stopped, as if it had encountered an immovable wall.
For a moment, the dark energy tried to push through, tried to force its way past the protection that Lucien carried.
But, the curse shattered like glass, fragments of dark energy dissipating into nothingness.
A system notification appeared in Lucien's vision.
[Multiple Entities are trying to curse the host....]
[Blessing of Ashborn has completely negated the attack, Elder Gods' influence rejected]
The phantoms recoiled as if struck. Their forms flickered and wavered, unable to maintain coherence in the face of a power they hadn't anticipated encountering.
Lucien looked up at them with the same indifferent expression he'd worn throughout.
No triumph, no fear, no concern. Just a young man standing in a hellish dimension, completely unbothered by the rage of these entities.
He knew he could not face them had they been here physically, but it was not their realm.
The Elder Gods screamed at him—not with words this time, but with pure fury that should have obliterated his mind. They threatened to take away everything he had, to unmake everyone he cared about, to erase his very existence from reality.
Yet he stood there, hands in his pockets, looking at the phantoms of beings who could only talk but not actually do anything to him in this realm.
The phantoms began to fade, their connection to this dimension severed along with their connection to Belasco. Their final "words" were incoherent rage, the sound of beings accustomed to absolute authority discovering that their authority had limits.
Then they were gone, leaving only the toxic purple clouds and the continued screaming of their former slave.
Tusk gave one final pull, and the last thread connecting Belasco to the Elder Gods snapped.
The demon sorcerer's scream cut off abruptly as he collapsed to the ground, his body going completely limp. For several long moments, he just lay there, twitching occasionally as his mind tried to process what had just happened.
Lucien gave the space where the phantoms had been one last glance and shook his head slightly.
Belasco's body began to stir again. His healing factor was still functional, but it was slower now, more mundane. Without the Elder Gods' power enhancing him, he was still dangerous but no longer immortal.
The demon pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, his movements uncoordinated and weak. When he finally managed to lift his head to look at Lucien, his expression was one of complete breakdown.
"H-how?" The word came out as barely more than a whisper, choked with disbelief and despair. "This... this wasn't supposed to happen..."
Tears began flowing freely down his face, mixing with the ichor and blood that already covered him. His entire worldview, centuries of certainty about his power, had been shattered in the span of minutes.
"I was... I was bound to them... they promised... I would have become their champion when I freed them..." Belasco's voice cracked. "How could you... how could anyone..."
The demon curled in on himself, his body shaking with sobs that spoke of devastation. Everything he'd built, everything he'd become, had been predicated on that connection to the Elder Gods.
Without it, he was nothing—less than nothing.
Lucien looked down at the broken sorcerer with the same impassive expression.
"You simply chose the wrong person to mess with," he said calmly. "And this is the price."
Belasco continued to sob, unable to form coherent words anymore. The psychological damage of losing his connection to the Elder Gods had broken something fundamental in his mind.
Lucien turned to Tusk and gestured toward the crumpled demon.
"Hold him."
Tusk grabbed Belasco by the arms and hauled him upright, holding him steady despite the demon's weak attempts to struggle. The sorcerer's eyes were unfocused, still streaming with tears, his mouth moving soundlessly.
Lucien's shadow rippled, and five Elite-grade orc warriors emerged. They formed a loose semicircle around Belasco, awaiting orders.
"Beat him," Lucien said simply. "Don't kill him, but don't hold back. Continue until he begs you to end it."
The orc shadows moved as one.
The first punch caught Belasco in the stomach, doubling him over despite Tusk's grip holding him upright. The second came from a different angle, snapping his head to the side. The third, fourth, and fifth followed in succession, each impact producing a wet sound of flesh meeting force.
Lucien walked over to a large boulder that had been part of his earlier destruction of the castle and sat down on it. He rested his chin on one hand, adopting the posture of someone watching a mildly interesting performance.
The beating continued.
They struck with enough force to cause serious damage but not enough to accidentally kill their target, maintaining a perfect balance between pain and preservation.
Belasco's healing factor worked overtime, knitting bones back together only to have them broken again moments later.
Flesh that closed was split open by the next strike. The demon's screams returned, hoarse and ragged, punctuated by the meaty sounds of impact.
Minutes turned into tens of minutes. The orcs showed no signs of fatigue, no hesitation, no mercy. This was the Monarch's order, and they executed it.
Tusk occasionally stepped in to use healing magic, ensuring that Belasco wouldn't die from accumulated injuries.
Each healing was followed by more damage, creating an endless cycle of agony.
Lucien remained seated on his boulder, watching with detached interest. His posture was relaxed, almost casual.
Occasionally, he would bring out something from his inventory to eat while looking at the purple clouds and scenery the Limbo had to offer, completely ignoring Belasco.
Belasco's voice began to change after about thirty minutes. The screams became more desperate, more pleading. Words started to emerge between the cries of pain.
"Please... please stop..."
The orcs didn't stop. They continued their work with the same relentless precision.
"I'll do anything... anything you want..."
Lucien said nothing. His chin remained resting on his hand.
"Just kill me... please... please kill me..."
The begging intensified as the beating continued. Belasco's mind, already fractured by losing his connection to the Elder Gods, began to completely shatter under the sustained torture. His eyes grew increasingly empty, even as tears continued to flow.
After an hour of continuous brutalization, the demon sorcerer was no longer screaming. He was no longer trying to resist or protect himself. He simply hung in Tusk's grip, his body broken in dozens of places, his mouth moving in an endless repetition of the same phrase.
"Please kill me... please kill me... please kill me..."
There was no anger left in him, no defiance, no hope. Just an empty shell begging for the mercy of oblivion. His eyes stared at nothing, tears still streaming down his ruined face, his voice was nothing more than a whisper that had lost all inflection.
"Please kill me... please kill me..."
Lucien stood up from his boulder and walked over to where Belasco hung. He looked at the broken demon for a long moment.
"Kill him," he said to the nearest orc shadow.
The orc's blade was quick and clean. It swept through in a single motion, severing Belasco's head from his shoulders. The demon's body went limp in Tusk's grip, finally granted the release it had been begging for.
The head hit the ground and rolled a few feet before coming to rest, eyes still open and streaming tears even in death.
Lucien stood next to his corpse.
"Arise."
.....
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