As the primal clash erupted behind him, Luke's attention drifted to the infant, his expression unreadable, but his mind a storm of long-buried torment. Thirty-six years. That's how long his first life had lasted—if it could even be called living. Thirty-six years of servitude and mutilation, of his family's flesh carved for the nobles' pleasure, their bones discarded like kitchen scraps. He remembered how the skins of his loved ones were peeled like fruit and thrown to the slums to be devoured by the starving. And the women—if they birthed children, were forced to eat them. That was the price of survival. That was mercy, back then.
The Duke—seventeen when he took them in—had grown bored after those three and a half decades. He'd moved on, found a new family to play with. But before leaving, he offered Luke and the others one last "performance." A demonstration of how replaceable they truly were.
Now, standing in this retribution-soaked present, Luke stared down at the infant swaddled in regal silks. His eyes, cold as tombstone marble, locked with the wide, innocent gaze of the boy.
"The young duke was seventeen when he took us in," Luke said softly, almost thoughtfully. "But now he's just an infant. That's quite troubling, isn't it?" He tilted his head, a crooked smile forming, equal parts cruel and amused. "Hmm... Bingo."
He leaned in, voice a near-whisper, rich with venom and memory. "Are you ready to be an adult?"
Then, with a flick of his fingers, time surged. The child aged instantly, bones stretching, flesh warping, innocence vanishing in a blink. Where an infant had once whimpered, now stood a seventeen-year-old—young, confused, and naked in both form and comprehension.
Luke wasn't done.
He amplified the temporal flow of their isolated space, sealing them in a bubble where thirty minutes outside equaled thirty years within. No exit. No mercy. Only the boy. And Luke. And the time to remember everything the Duke had done.
And now... to return the favor.
Luke clamped a gag on the now-teenaged Transmigrator, prying his eyes open without mercy. He wanted him to see everything. Before them, the former Beast Kings and Emperors—once regal, now reduced to primal animals—descended into madness. They tore into Mary, the once-proud Goddess of War, now nothing more than a feral creature overtaken by hunger. Blood sprayed in every direction as flesh was devoured and bones shattered, only for the device embedded in them to regenerate every wound in an instant.
The Transmigrator felt it all—every bite, every tear, every humiliation. Not through sight alone, but through Luke's magic that transmitted the full sensory overload directly into his nerves. He couldn't scream. He couldn't look away. He could only endure.
Eventually, the battle devolved. Mary, overpowered and disoriented, was ravaged. The beasts, their instincts corrupted by an unnatural lust, invaded every orifice even as they continued tearing into her flesh. Her own sexual desire, forcibly reversed into raw agony, made the experience a never-ending torment. And yet, the cycle did not stop.
A month passed in their twisted world. Mary became pregnant. The beasts continued. Three months later, she—driven by something dark and unexplainable—ripped the fetus from her own womb and, in a moment beyond horror, joined the beasts in devouring it. The Transmigrator lived through every second of it, his mind splitting at the seams.
The hell persisted for thirty-six minutes in Luke's accelerated pocket dimension. But inside that prison, thirty-six full years passed. Time enough to break anyone. And at the thirty-sixth year, it did. The souls of Mary and the beasts, pushed beyond comprehension, shattered, vanishing into the void.
Luke watched in silence, arms crossed, before letting out a low, almost casual chuckle.
"A pity," he murmured. "I should've anchored their souls better. I had five more lives planned for them."
He paused, then added, almost wistfully, "Ah, that's right. Thirty-six years... the exact number they made that family suffer before their own souls exploded."
He smiled faintly.
"No matter. He's dead now."
With a calm motion, Luke reached down and lifted the Transmigrator's soulless body, the flesh already beginning to slacken from lack of essence. He absorbed it into himself without ceremony, the body dissolving cleanly into his form. A faint sigh escaped him—measured, almost indifferent.
"All these years of growth. All this meticulous planning," he murmured, his voice flat but edged with quiet dissatisfaction. "And this is all I get?"
He stared for a moment longer, as if weighing the moment's worth. "I should've preserved the soul. Its destruction significantly diminishes the value."