Chapter 3863: A Method to His Madness (Part 2) The first bundle of black chains didn’t go far. It circled around Lith’s body, revealing the presence of the souls that still possessed enough reason to cling to his body. It was their icy touch that Lith had experienced after Leegaain had lifted the barrier. Their ethereal mass weighed on him like a long shroud made of spectral bodies. Normally, wandering souls had no substance or ability to interact with the world, not even with Lith. Yet here was different. The destruction of the secret lab had released the Forbidden Magic sealed inside the containment arrays that Raum had carefully laid. The sudden influx of life force and corrupted world energy was the perfect nourishment for the vengeful souls that the Eldritch had unwittingly spawned by claiming countless lives for his experiments. It had given the lost souls strength, and, in time, it would have also turned them into Abominations if the Father of All Dragons hadn’t cleansed the area from the lingering corruption with his Origin Flames. The wandering souls were now trapped in the middle, too close to the world of the living to move on but without the strength to take physical form and vent their anger. All they could do was trash and scream around, hoping that someone would hear them and come to their aid. From so close, Leegaain heard every scream and understood the few words that made sense, but he had already tried everything he could and failed. His Origin Flames had destroyed everything that could chain the tormented souls to Mogar short of killing their tormentor. He had cut off their energy supply and restored the land. Yet the souls were still there, and their agony had only gotten worse after losing any hope for revenge. Lith heard the screams as well, and there was one thing that only he could do. Yet for the first time since he had learned how to conjure his Demons of the Darkness, he hesitated. ’These people are not like the souls I usually call upon.’ Lith thought. ’They aren’t warriors who fell during battle nor to treachery. They didn’t die so long ago that they have forgotten everything but the reason that chained them to the world of the living. ’The Forbidden Magic that created them didn’t stop millennia ago after the madman behind it achieved his goal. Whatever Azith was doing here, it continued until this very day, feeding the souls’ resentment, if not even creating new ones. ’Even worse, this time I am not going to give them an opportunity to fight and take revenge, but to unload their burden on me. Reliving the lives and deaths of my Demons is always painful, but this time, I have to take on their grudge. ’A grudge I may not have the strength to enforce for many years to come.’ ’Don’t worry about that.’ Leegaain placed his hand over Lith’s shoulder, the warmth of his touch in stark contrast with the coldness of the dead. ’As I said, Azith is my responsibility. You’ll take on their grudge and I yours.’ Lith nodded and activated the final step of the Call of the Abyss. The black chains plunged inside the souls of the dead, giving them the appearance they had in life and passing their memories on to Lith. He watched everything they had been, everything they had suffered, everything they would never become as though he had been with them every step of the way. As though he had been them. He experienced countless childhood troubles with school and parents. Big and small teen crushes that rarely were reciprocated and even more rarely didn’t fail spectacularly. The souls belonged to scholars, farmers, soldiers, and even nobles. They had lived completely different lives from each other and reached completely different outcomes, but they had all ended the same way. Strapped to an elaborated chair surrounded by needles. They had been bled, slowly, carefully, and efficiently for days. Their captors hadn’t killed them outright like Lith and Leegaain were used to expecting from a Forbidden Magic user. Raum kept his victims alive for as long as he could, feeding them, healing them, and allowing them a short respite between the sessions on the chair. Yet his actions weren’t dictated by compassion or guilt. There was simply a method to his madness. The Eldritch knew that the life force ran in the blood, and he squeezed them both dry before tossing a sacrifice away and putting another one on the chair. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞 The wandering souls that lingered around the ruins of the lab were but a fraction of the thousands and thousands that Raum had killed. Leegaain watched so many people sit on that chair that he almost lost count. Almost because he wanted to turn his head away, ashamed that one of his favorite sons had perpetrated such horrors. Yet the Guardian didn’t falter, memorizing every face and name. Lith endured the needles piercing his skin and reaching his main arteries so many times that real small puncture wounds appeared all over his body. He relived the souls’ agony and despair as they grew weaker. Such was Raum’s cruelty and ingenuity that he split his prisoners into two wings. One where he kept those strong enough to hope to survive until someone came to their rescue, and another for those in the final stages of his torture. This way, no one knew what happened to the older prisoners until they joined them. By then, they were too weak to take their own lives. Hope was part of the Eldritch’s prison as much as the chains and the iron bars. Lith experienced their regret, the longing for the sweet relief of death, and the frustration when the prisoners realized their ward was Hushed and all their attempts to warn the other inmates were pointless. He clenched his hands like them, he gritted his teeth until his gums bled like them, but he didn’t let himself fall into despair like them. Amid the overwhelming darkness, Lith never lost sight of his lights. Solus’ light. She stood right in front of him, a beacon that constantly reminded him that those terrible lives weren’t his own. Their shared memories anchored him, keeping him from being swept away by the tide of souls. Raldarak’s and Elysia’s lights shone so far in the distance that they looked like stars, yet the thought of his children was enough to steel Lith’s mind and allow him to fight the despair threatening to drown him with sheer determination. Enough to allow him to see what had happened after the prisoners’ death. Not all souls had stood by the chair, renewing their pain and vows of revenge by feeding off its cursed magic. Some had haunted their captor and watched over Raum’s shoulder during his experiments. ’What the?’ Lith and Leegaain thought in unison. Once again, the Eldritch defied their predictions and everything they had been forced to learn about Forbidden Magic. Raum practiced only one Forbidden Spell and a small one at that. He needed so many victims not to empower an almighty artificial Guardian or a peerless weapon, but to perform the same spell over and over again. Even weirder, he performed the final step of the Forbidden Spell on himself.