The Draoidh were instrumental in constructing the Towers of Day or Night, so it wouldn’t be much of a surprise to find their legacy hidden throughout.

~Dagda, the All-Father, Chief of the Gods

Kitten burned all the clothes, which made Crow cry internally. The man’s actions were more terrifying than when he was beating him. It was setting Crow up to fail, and now that he had no clothes, he somehow knew that the ones he was currently wearing had a limited lifespan.

A massive sigh escaped his lips, and he didn’t care.

After torching the clothes, the man continued the extraction until a wooden object hit the ground. It was one of Crow’s Soul Carvings.

“Oh, you can keep that little Kitty. Call it a souvenir,” Crow told him and took another punch to the gut.

Kitten wasn’t very outstanding to look at. The man was barely above average height, and he was muscular, but not in any way that stood out to others. His light orangish-brown hair was cut short and looked rather drab. The acne scars were the only distinguishable thing on the man’s face other than his dead eyes. In almost every way imaginable, the man was average.

However, Crow had to stop underestimating the man’s punches. They were brutal, and their impact carried a destructive force toward his organs. Crow had no way to defend against them, and even if he had, he was sure normal means wouldn’t stop the energy that came after. Those punches would not scare Crow in a straight-up fight because they maximized damage against prone targets. A moving target would disperse some of that energy and render it a waste of mana. This man’s abilities were targeted toward hurting weaker people or those that couldn’t defend against him.

Curious, Kitten picked up the wooden figurine and felt the accumulating mana around it. Surprised, he activated his cultivation method and found that the little trinket actually assisted. The amount was minuscule, but every advantage was worth it.

“Where did you get this?” Kitten asked.

“Made it.”

“Who is this faceless person?”

“Mother Danu, the Primordial Goddess of Nature.”

Kitten remained distracted until another sound rang out. Both of them looked down to see a wooden ring on the ground. Rather than say Crow forgot about the ring, it was probably more accurate to say he didn’t even think about it. It was the reason it was still inside his Shield. Crow frowned at the sight of the ring sitting on the ground.

“Another item you made?” Kitten asked.

“Nope. A cursed ring I picked up in a trial. Know anyone that can purify curses?”

“You sure this is cursed? I don’t sense any mana from it at all.”

“By all means, put it on,” Crow said indifferently. “I supposed it could just be a wooden ring, but the place I found it was unusual and controlled by a trickster god.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because it’s all useless information. There is nothing on me that’s worth anything. I’m hoping you don’t believe me and put the ring on. If nothing happens, then mystery solved, you can keep it.”

Crow was starting to suspect that this guy and the people backing him weren’t after targeting Nightstar’s auction. Nightstar managed to set up branches on the second and third floors this past year, but they also chose locations near Keystones. The fourth floor was a jungle with almost no roads since the jungle was too aggressive and impossible to maintain.

They came to Eisreachtu because of Blue Tuft village, which was built a hundred meters from the stairs leading up to this floor. They barely managed to cut back the jungle to create farms for their village, so it was only popular because of the Ascenders. It was not a prominent place, but no one caused problems either. Among the market, many residents talked about a city called Eisreachtu. Along with all the talk, one word was mentioned repeatedly—lawless.

The rumor went that it was a city of opulence and opportunity. There were rare resources and treasures in abundance, and they’d be hard to find anywhere else on the first ten floors. Because of that, Mara and Nin wanted to establish a faction branch there, but it would be the first one they’d try to set up in a city without a Keystone.

Crow wanted to refuse and initially did not want to come to this place. In the end, he compromised. They could go if they attuned themselves at the Keystone. He hadn’t realized that the river splitting the north and south of the floor was considered a forbidden zone. If it wasn’t for his magical boat, they’d have all died on the journey. At that point, Crow really didn’t want to come to this city. He wanted to push on until they reached the divide leading to the fifth floor. The jungle was rough, nasty, and more dangerous than any place they’d visited yet.

Regardless, they managed to attune themselves, and he promised. Considering he was now chained to a wall, he felt justified for his reluctance. It wasn’t that bad when they arrived. Nightstar held their weekly auctions, and after reaching Eisreachtu, the girls decided not to set up a branch here. Largely they feared anyone they left behind wouldn’t probably die within a week.

The inner city was the only safe place, and buildings there were astronomically expensive. No one dared cause problems because it was the only territory the city lord managed. Everywhere else could burn, and often did. Theft, robbery, and murder were as common as stale bread. For their auctions, they rented a building and paid them thirty percent of their profits. That seemed steep considering how much money they made, but the owner provided all the security.

Their auctions garnered too much attention, but not for the reasons they suspected. It was the building’s owner that provided them insight into their folly. Ascending wasn’t hard, and people followed two schools of thought. The first was the purists, who ascended without pills or external sources to aid them. In their defense, those things often carried impurities that inhibited as much as they helped, so their reasoning was not flawed. Crow actually would have been a purist except for Night Fire. It slowed his cultivation down dramatically, but it also purified toxins from pills and external sources of mana.

The second group sought all resources and treasures that would expedite their cultivation. Nightstar Auction House had two significant resources that attracted attention. The first was Song Lin’s pills because those were rare enough in a place like this, and the second was Crow’s carvings like the one Kitten took. Both provided a means to speed up cultivation. Even the purists were interested in the Soul Carvings because they weren’t like other means and didn’t harm those that used them.

Crow loved forests, but since he’d arrived on this floor, he hadn’t felt the welcoming connection. The jungle was miserable, and the reason they managed to capture him. It was filled with more toxic and poisonous creatures than all the other floors they visited combined. These bastards actually used blow darts coated in poison to take him down. Usually, it wouldn’t have been able to stop him, but these people had done their research on him and his people. They hit Crow with dozens of darts all at once, enough that even his Night Fire couldn’t cleanse it in a short amount of time.

Otto was still fighting when Crow lost consciousness, but he saw they had methods to negate the lightning in his body. It essentially handicapped the giant, but even as Crow’s thoughts faded, he knew his brother was faking it. He was letting these guys capture him, probably because he knew he couldn’t rescue Crow in that situation.

All that to say, these people were prepared and knew everything about them. There was no way this torturer didn’t realize that Crow had sold their entire stock. Sure, he could have had some treasures hidden away, but they never made it a secret that they only wanted gold and Mana Crystals.

Crow still foiled some of their efforts because his wives were inside his Soulscape and out of their reach. They had no idea that such a place existed, and it took away leverage they could use against him. The only thing he wasn’t sure about was Otto. Through their brotherhood bond, he knew the big guy was in better shape than him and that he was really close by.

At some point, Crow realized he’d passed out. The device on his chest was using his Source to supply itself energy. Every pulse was unpleasant, and at this rate, they’d be at it for weeks. Crow realized he had a surprising amount of junk in his Shield.

“Awake again, yes?” Kitten asked. His sinister voice was enough to chill most men’s souls. Crow found it funny that calling the man Kitten somehow diminished the man’s aura.

“Yes, Kitten, let’s talk.”

“Ssss. Repeat it, and I’ll maim you.”

“Repeat what?”

“My name?”

“Oh, you have a name?” Crow was smirking now.

“Kitten,” Mr. Torturer said, and Crow’s mind stuttered for a moment. Was his name actually Kitten? Or was he helping me make fun of him?

“Oh, lovely, nice to meet you, Sir Kitten,” Crow tried to hold out his hand to shake. “You can’t blame me for that. You said your name was Kitten. I’m just adhering to normal etiquette.”

“Then, let me show you the etiquette of a torturer,” Kitten said through grit teeth and grabbed a tool that looked like a fork or a small rake. He stabbed the tines into Crow’s face and pulled it downward. The movements weren’t rushed but well-practiced and showed Kitten to be a master of delivering pain. Even Crow’s high threshold for pain couldn’t stop him from screaming in pain as nerve clusters on his face were stimulated.

The flesh was torn and gouged deeply, leaving behind four long marks from Crow’s right temple down to his jawline. Internally, he cursed and then swore vengeance when he realized the tines were laced with something that burned like salt in an open wound.

“You should feel proud. Only those my brothers and I find deserving get the honor of bearing our signature mark,” Kitten said and grabbed Crow’s hair to pull his head back to admire his work. Like a peacock, he practically preened himself.

“What did you put in my wound?” Crow hissed, trying hard to keep his anger in check.

“You know, some Mediks carry these stones that interrupt a cultivator’s natural healing. Its only real purpose is to disrupt a cultivator’s passive healing while performing their barbaric surgeries. Master taught us how to turn them into a powder and create a poison out of them. The poison isn’t deadly by itself, but it does prevent a wound from healing properly.” Kitten implied Crow was now scarred for life.

Once he understood, he brought Night Fire to the wound in his face and found that it could purify it. However, it would take a lot of time. Unlike a regular poison, they made this one out of powdered stone, which required more heat to burn off.

“C’mon, let me pet you, Kitten. You’re purring so much it’s adorable,” Crow giggled but remembered the cat his mother used to have. His parents thought he was wetting the bed, but it was that damned cat. No matter how much he tried to explain, they wouldn’t listen. “Just don’t grow up, or you won’t be adorable anymore.”

“Does it matter? You won’t live that long. The only reason you are still alive is that you have something we want.”

“Your syndicate sure is going all out to get my goods.” Crow was referring to the device on his chest. He’d heard of them and even read about a lot worse things. Humanity was great at perverting power. The Druid Order taught them how people would use them and subvert their Sheilds. Everyone with an awakened Source was required to attend those lectures, and Crow wasn’t exempt.

“Syndicates?” Kitten snorted. “Those fools—hmph.”

Hmm, not a syndicate, then a faction? Crow was more disturbed by that thought than being tortured. It meant that their reach was greater than he’d thought. Using the Constellation, he pulsed it three times to warn Acco in case he returned. No matter how prepared, they’d never suspect that his group had formed a Constellation.

Angered by Crow’s indifference, Kitten punched Crow until his anger abated and then put a drop of the healing potion into his mouth. Out of all the things this man did to him, Crow realized healing him afterward was the worst type of mind raping. Crow felt himself both disgusted and grateful. It was enough to drive a man mad.

Even angered, the man was professional enough not to kill his little lamb. Regardless, hearing Crow chuckling, the torturer felt a cold sweat soaking his clothes. It was hard to break a man that feared nothing. People like Crow rarely cracked unless he could exert pressure on a weak point. Had Kitten known Crow suffered for years from Soul Burn, he probably wouldn’t have bothered wasting time trying to break him.

Without those women at his side, there was little that would probably affect this kid. Even threatening to crush the kid’s Shield was a hollow threat, and they both knew it. The only reason they chained Crow was to rob him. If the thing they wanted was inside the boy’s Shield, he couldn’t do anything that might damage it.

“It is only a matter of time before our people get a hold of those women of yours. When they do… this Kitten is going to rape each one of them in front of you. Then I’ll bring them to local brothels, the kind that let the men do whatever they want. They’ll be lucky if they come out of it alive.”

Crow’s joking stopped, and eyes eye hardened into emeralds with a golden fire burning inside them.

“You should have kept it between us,” Crow told him, and the room temperature rose drastically. “You had one job, torture me. Kitten isn’t adorable anymore.”