Chapter Thirty-Two: Torment (Part Two)

The skeleton produced a device resembling a microscope and placed it upon Muyang’s body. Suddenly, nails shot out from beneath the lens, piercing into Muyang’s flesh and anchoring the apparatus in place, while the skeleton watched the fluctuating data on the nearby screen.

“Aaah!” Muyang cried out in agony. Ordinarily, this level of pain would have been nothing to him, but now his sense of pain had been magnified a hundred thousandfold. Even the lightest touch would feel like excruciating torment.

It was precisely because this agony far exceeded Muyang’s limits of endurance that his soul power began to surge uncontrollably, and a gray soul ring slowly began to form around his body.

Gray—a dull, hopeless shade of gray—emerged around Muyang, sapping all sense of hope.

The group of skeletons also noticed the appearance of the gray soul ring, but when they tried to scan it with their machines, there was no response. When they reached out to touch it, their hands passed right through as if it weren’t there at all. Unable to analyze it, they set aside the matter of the gray soul ring for the moment and focused on studying the changes in Muyang’s body.

To further test his pain responses, the skeletons even peeled a layer of skin from Muyang. Each time he suffered such an injury, the gray soul ring became more solid, until at last Muyang lost consciousness.

Seeing that he had fainted, the skeletons ceased their experiments, removed all the instruments from his body, and threw him into a pitch-black chamber. The room was utterly empty—devoid of objects, sound, or even the faintest glimmer of light.

It was as if he had been cast into the deepest hell. There was no one—not a soul to speak with, no sound, not even the noise of quarrels or laughter. The solitude was the most excruciating pain of all. No matter what you did, you were still alone here. Physical pain could be dulled or even eliminated by medicine, but the agony of loneliness could not be so easily dispelled.

Muyang slowly regained consciousness in the darkness. His first sensation was one of comfort—a gentle, warm soul force coursed through his body. The solid but lusterless gray soul ring hovered around him.

He focused his mind, sensing the soul skill granted by the gray ring.

Equivalence: Mark a target; the marked target will suffer the same injuries and pain as the user. (Note: There is no limit to the number of marks, only to the user’s soul power.)

To Muyang, this was nothing short of a divine ability—yet he felt no joy. This soul skill had only manifested after he had been tormented to the brink of death, which meant that if he wished to obtain additional soul rings, he would have to endure at least that same degree of suffering each time.

A fate worse than death. In such torment, death would seem a blessing. Muyang would rather renounce this soul skill than ever experience that pain again.

However, he took some comfort in the fact that the toxins within his body had absorbed the liquid from the syringe just now, and he had developed a resistance. If a single drop of that liquid could once amplify his pain tenfold, now even a thousand drops would only increase his pain by the same amount—he not only had resistance, but could also utilize it.

Returning to the present, Muyang swept his gaze around the room, but all was darkness. Only the dim gray glow of the soul ring was visible…