Mu Yi turned to look at Lafas on the ground. The zombies had devoured and dismembered him again, yet he had regenerated once more.

His eyes were hollow, radiating the pallor of death as he slumped limply. No frenzied screams escaped him this time. No pleas for mercy despite the inhuman agony.

Lafas lay like rotten carrion. Drool and vomit oozed from his slack jaw. A puddle of blood, urine, and filth spread beneath him.

This was his final regeneration. The "Rain of Defiance" had already activated twice upon him. The tenfold agony of having his flesh torn off piece by piece by zombies had utterly broken him.

His bloodshot eyes rolled slowly. Staring at his hands—reformed from bare bone to flesh—he suddenly grinned.

"Heh... hehe..."

Lafas forced his stiff lips into a smile. A low, guttural chuckle rumbled from his throat. He sensed it—he would finally die for real. No more of this torment. Just a few more feedings by these zombies, and true death would claim him.

"Grrr..."

The zombies crouched where they stood, their grotesque faces smeared with Lafas’s gore. Hunger still burned in them. They craved tearing apart this fat pig of a man again, swallowing him whole.

Yet something held them back. They couldn’t sink their teeth into him like before. As if rejecting their own will, they growled lowly. Straining against an invisible force, they pushed themselves upright and staggered two steps backward.

With each feeding on Lafas, the malice within them visibly faded. The madness in their eyes dimmed. A deep, human resistance surged within, making it impossible to attack him again.

Like flickering embers of lost humanity, silent tears traced paths down their hollow eye sockets. Torn between ravenous hunger and the last shreds of human conscience, they writhed in silent agony.

"B... brothers..."

Hank’s knuckles crackled as he clenched his fists. His eyes burned crimson as he watched the zombies battle their own hunger. Even in death, even as monsters, his comrades refused to abandon their humanity.

"Sorry," Mu Yi murmured, seeing the tears on their decaying faces.

Perhaps avenging Lafas had rekindled a trace of their humanity. That was why they suffered now. Forcing human-hearted zombies to devour him contradicted Mu Yi’s original purpose.

"Rest now, everyone."

As Mu Yi spoke, shadows seeped from his feet, slithering toward the zombies. The moment the darkness touched them, their bodies began to melt. Flesh and bone dissolved into thick sludge.

Within two seconds, dozens of zombies vanished without a trace into the inky mist.

"You think I’d kill you?"

Mu Yi turned away from Lafas after uttering those words.

For Lafas, death would be mercy. A release. Mu Yi would never grant him such ease. This man deserved only escalating torment. Until Mu Yi grew bored, death would remain a dream forever out of Lafas’s reach.

"Why... not kill me..."

Lafas lay like spoiled meat, his voice a broken whisper. He watched the monster walk away, despair choking him. As the black swamp beneath him began to swallow his body, he mustered his last strength to scream.

*You don’t deserve it.*

A voice dripping with mockery echoed in his ear—deep, grating, like a demon’s whisper.

Lafas’s eyes bulged, fixed on the retreating shadow. As the darkness consumed him, he understood: death wouldn’t come. Only an eternity of torment awaited him. A hell far worse than any legend.

"Guh..."

Hank stared blankly at the spot where Lafas had vanished into the swamp. That monster clearly had no intention of letting him go easily...

This was the first time Hank had witnessed torture amplified to such horrifying extremes. The memory of the earlier scene churned his stomach again. He knew, with chilling certainty, that Lafas’s suffering beneath the swamp would dwarf everything before.

*Whoosh!*

A heavy sack suddenly flew toward him. Hank caught it on reflex. Golden light spilled from its opening—hundreds of gold coins. Enough to secure a lifetime of comfort for an ordinary family.

"Eh? Why..."

Hank froze. So much gold? But why? Why would that monster...

"Farewell, Hank."

The voice that followed was no longer raspy and grating. It was deep, magnetic, laced with regret. A voice Hank knew intimately—a close friend’s voice.

"Could it be you—"

Hank’s head snapped up toward the shadow-wreathed figure. But before he could finish, his limbs turned to lead. Darkness swallowed his vision. He collapsed like a felled tree.

Mu Yi knelt beside the unconscious Hank. He lifted the man’s wrist, sprinkling a healing potion onto the raw wounds left by iron shackles. The cuts sealed before his eyes.

** Aiva’s voice echoed in his mind.

"Good work. Take Hank to our inn." Mu Yi patted Hank’s bald head lightly. "I have one last thing to do. The Imperial Capital’s guard has arrived. Consider this my greeting gift..."

...

..

.

"Captain! That terrifying aura—is it Demon Kin?!"

Silver-armored guards sprinted through the streets. The ominous pressure from afar chilled them to the bone. Its intensity kept swelling, like a bottomless abyss.

"Likely. But this enemy’s power far exceeds our estimates. Stay sharp if you want to live!" The captain’s face was grim. *Damn it. Why is a Demon Kin of this caliber in the Imperial Capital?*

"C-Captain... look there..."

The guards behind him slowed, staring upward in frozen disbelief.

*What in the gods’ names... how is this possible...*

"Where?" The captain followed their gaze—and froze.

A pillar of flame erupted, devouring the night itself. The black sky ignited, blazing bright as day. A roaring inferno blossomed in the air like a colossal firework.

"Gods..." the captain whispered. *What kind of monster are we facing...*