Erika remained frozen, those chaotic words still tumbling through his mind—Deep Dive? Part with it? A deal? Out?
A split second later, his attention was violently yanked back to reality.
Lynus hadn't turned around.
That hand—the same elegant, pale hand that had just lazily swatted away a nun's prayer—suddenly clamped over his own face. Fingers splayed wide, the palm pressing hard against the skin, dragging frantically downward from his forehead. Across his brow bone, down the bridge of his nose, over his cheekbones, finally stopping at the corner of his mouth—like a madman on the verge of losing control, physically checking if his mask of sanity was still in place.
Then—
SMACK!
A deafening slap struck Lynus's own face.
The crack was so sharp it made Erika flinch, but Lynus's body remained entirely rigid, as if the vicious blow hadn't been directed at him at all. Only the hand dropped slowly back to his side, the fingertips trembling just a fraction of an inch.
"Keep your head buried," a muffled voice hissed from between Lynus's clenched teeth.
Erika had no time to react. In the next microsecond, a vicious hand tangled into his matted hair. The grip was so merciless he could feel every individual root screaming in his scalp. A brutal yank dragged him forward, forcing him to stumble and lurch ahead.
He was being dragged by the hair like a dead weight.
Every step was pure agony. He didn't dare struggle, didn't dare slow down for even half a heartbeat. He scrambled desperately, forcing his boots to synchronize perfectly with Lynus's stride, praying to lessen the agonizing, tearing sensation on his scalp.
His vision was strictly confined to the floor. The pristine white tiles were gone, replaced by dark-grey industrial metal grating, scarred with deep gouges and rusted, dark-brown stains of unknown origin.
Without warning, Lynus let go.
The relentless forward pull vanished. Erika's momentum carried him forward for a fraction of a second before the sudden loss of support sent him reeling backward. The raw wounds on his feet scraped viciously against the metal grating, pain whiting out his vision. He flailed his remaining left arm, trying to grab hold of something, but only caught a fistful of empty air.
In the instant before he hit the floor, his back collided with a body.
Solid, warm, carrying the distinct texture of expensive fabric.
Erika instinctively looked up. In that moment, he met several condescending gazes.
The group of Blue Cloaks, who had been loudly exchanging pleasantries just moments ago, had followed them and formed a tight semicircle around him. Their faces were terrifyingly close—close enough that he could see the burst blood vessels in their pupils from sheer, morbid excitement. They stared down at him like butchers inspecting a freshly slaughtered slab of meat.
The Blue Cloak he had crashed into reached out with blatant disgust, delivering a firm, unceremonious shove to Erika's back that forced him to stand steady, as if touching him for a second longer would soil his pristine gloves.
A drop of warm liquid slid down from Erika's hairline. Whether it was cold sweat from the agonizing drag or blood seeping from his torn scalp, he couldn't tell. The drop traced the bridge of his nose, slid past the corner of his mouth, and finally hung precariously from his chin.
"Lynus really is too hard on himself," a voice drifted down from above, carrying a cruel, almost petulant whine.
"Hard to say. Perhaps he's just a little overly excited." Another, deeper voice chimed in, the tone slow and deliberate, as if chewing on a bloody thought.
"So hungry… I can hardly wait to see this little thing torn to shreds." The third voice was incredibly faint, yet it made the hairs on the back of Erika's neck stand on end. There was zero human emotion in it—only a hollow, bottomless bloodlust, completely soaked through by long-term exposure to the abyss.
Erika stood paralyzed, not daring to move a muscle. He felt their gazes—heavy and possessing a physical, violating texture—sweeping over the crown of his head, sliding down his bloodstained cheeks, ghosting over the empty void of his right sleeve, and finally lingering on his trembling left arm. Stroking. Kneading. Appraising.
He was nothing but an object.
Desperate to escape the nauseating scrutiny, Erika swiftly lowered his head, nailing his gaze back to the metal grating. He practically scrambled forward, desperate to catch up with Lynus.
He didn't dare look back, forcing himself to focus only on the path ahead.
The scenery of the corridor began to change. Lined up against the walls were rows of heavy metal wheelchairs. They gleamed with a chilling, clinical light beneath the pale overhead lamps. Some chairs were empty, their cushions stained with large, suspicious dark patches; others contained "people".
No, they couldn't be described as "sitting". Their wrists, ankles, and waists were ruthlessly strapped to the metal frames by thick, heavy leather belts, locking their bodies into twisted, unnatural postures. Every single one of them had their heads hung low, faces obscured by matted hair. Only the occasional, spasmodic twitch of a shoulder proved they were still breathing.
No one spoke. No one struggled. There was only absolute dead silence, and the deep, black tread marks left by the wheels on the metal floor.
Erika walked past the wheelchairs, keeping his head down. His gaze rapidly swept over the heavily restrained figures and immediately withdrew. He didn't dare look for too long. He was terrified that if he did, he might see his own future among those slumped, defeated heads.
SCREECH—
At the end of the corridor, a heavy blast door slid open. The agonizing friction of metal grinding against metal was infinitely magnified in the narrow passage, vibrating painfully against his eardrums.
A figure emerged from the shadows beyond the threshold. A Black Robe.
Unlike the deep, lustrous blue of the Blue Cloaks that symbolized status and elegance, this was a pure, light-devouring dead black. The heavy fabric completely engulfed the person, practically merging with the darkness at the end of the hall. Only a sliver of a bloodless, pale chin was visible above the collar, along with a pair of downcast, utterly emotionless eyes that resembled stagnant water.
Lynus's boots came to a halt before the Black Robe.
Erika immediately stopped, maintaining an absolutely respectful distance, his eyes glued to the floor. But he could feel the sudden, taut tension snapping into the air—Lynus was staring at the Black Robe, while the Black Robe merely kept his head quietly bowed.
"Progress report on the shallow zone," Lynus's voice rang out. The previous arrogance and lazy indifference were completely gone, replaced by an extreme, suppressed tightness.
The Black Robe spoke, his voice as flat as a machine reading off a scrap inventory: "Seventh batch 'shallow' subject testing concluded. Survival time: ten seconds. Cleanup estimated in three minutes."
Ten seconds? Cleanup? Erika's mind raced. A shallow test… and it only survived for ten seconds?
The rustle of footsteps echoed behind him. The Blue Cloaks who had followed them to watch the spectacle had gathered at the end of the corridor, crowding together just a few paces behind Erika.
"Did you hear that?" a voice dripping with sticky, malicious excitement drifted from behind. "Even that iron-skinned freak from the seventh batch only lasted ten seconds. And this cripple is going for a 'Deep Dive'."
A wave of suppressed laughter rippled through the group. Though it wasn't loud, it was as grating and venomous as a nest of hissing snakes. Erika could feel the physical heat of their amusement breathing down the back of his neck.
"Shut up."
Lynus's voice crashed down like a guillotine. Short. Cold. Hard. Carrying absolute, unquestionable dominance.
The laughter behind them was instantly choked off.
Erika watched Lynus's boots pivot slightly, squaring up directly with the Black Robe.
"Terminate all subsequent waste tests," Lynus commanded, enunciating every syllable. "Clear the pipeline immediately. Prioritize my schedule."
He paused, his voice bleeding with a maniacal, absolute arrogance. "Deep Dive."
"Command confirmed." The Black Robe's reply remained completely unbothered, as if aborting a crucial test protocol was no different than being told to dump out a basin of dirty water.
But then, the Black Robe paused.
The hesitation was incredibly brief, barely perceptible. Yet, in the absolute dead silence of the corridor, the pause was infinitely magnified.
"According to Deep Dive protocol," the Black Robe's painfully flat voice sounded again, "Which one is his 'companion'?"
Companion. The word hit the metal floor like a block of ice.
Erika stared at the metal grating beneath him, his mind utterly blank.
"Which one?" Lynus's voice immediately echoed the question.
His tone had fundamentally changed. It was no longer a command directed at the Black Robe, but a question aimed squarely at the audience behind him.
In Erika's restricted field of vision, Lynus's boots pivoted, closing the distance in a single stride. They stopped right in front of him, the polished leather toes almost touching his own. The sheer, towering pressure of the man's presence bore down on Erika's head like a physical weight.
Then, a hand slid around his waist.
Fingers splayed, pressing through the coarse fabric of the straitjacket and resting against the small of his back. The touch was unnervingly light, almost like an intimate, reassuring caress. But simultaneously, the other hand reached around to the back of his neck, the palm pressing against his spine while cold fingertips casually trailed across the sensitive skin of his nape.
Erika's entire body went rigid. He knew all too well that in this devil's hands, "gentleness" was always the prelude to extreme, unimaginable cruelty.
The two forces erupted simultaneously.
There was absolutely no room for resistance. The hand on his waist violently pushed left, while the hand on his neck viciously twisted right. A massive torque forced Erika to spin on his heels like a broken marionette, brutally pivoting him from facing Lynus to directly confronting the group of Blue Cloaks behind him.
Erika stumbled, barely managing to steady himself, his remaining left hand instinctively curling protectively against his chest.
He was forced to fully display his bloodstained, pallid, and utterly lifeless face to the entire gallery.
The Blue Cloaks, who had been laughing so recklessly just a moment ago, now wore spectacular expressions. Some still had sneers plastered on their faces, but the muscles had completely frozen; others had eyes wide as saucers, staring fixedly at Erika—or rather, at the terrifyingly expressionless Lynus standing right behind him. Someone's Adam's apple bobbed violently as they swallowed hard.
But the most unnerving detail was that absolutely no one dared to look directly into Erika's eyes.
The predatory gazes that had been fondling him like eager hands just moments prior now bounced off him as if electrocuted. They stared at the walls, at the ceiling, at the grime in the floor grates—anywhere and everywhere except at the disabled youth standing before them.
Lynus stood firmly behind Erika, his hands still resting casually on the boy's waist and neck, posing him like a supreme sacrifice about to be pushed onto the altar.
"Which one?" Lynus's voice drifted lazily from over Erika's shoulder. It was incredibly soft—as soft as if he were inquiring about the vintage of tonight's wine.
Dead silence.
"Which one?" The tone remained deceptively gentle, but the invisible noose was already pulling tight.
"Which one?" The third time. The pause between words was deliberately dragged out, allowing a suffocating, lethal tension to saturate the air.
"Which one?"
The fourth time. The elegant veneer in his voice had been completely shredded. What remained was a lethally impatient, murderous interrogation. He was waiting. Waiting for some foolish peer to step forward and throw their own precious "toy" into the meat grinder called Deep Dive, just to serve as a control group for his perfect container.
Erika had no idea what a "companion" was.
But he saw very clearly that under the crushing weight of that fourth, hair-raising demand, the group of arrogant Blue Cloak nobles standing before him did something simultaneously. In an act of utter, pathetic synchronicity... they all took a half-step back.