Without a doubt, this was the scariest moment in Villin’s life.

Hanging upside down, he felt helpless. The black fire burning just a few meters away from him caused him to feel parched and just barely lit the room up enough for him to see.

He wanted to do something, anything, but didn’t know what. His gauntlet was pierced by a nail, using a saved spell would be impossible. As for his backpack, he spotted it in the corner of the room, five meters away from him, there was no way he could reach it.

Once the two creatures left again, Villin tried moving from his constraints, he was confident he would be able to get through the nails with his strength but the rope was a different matter altogether.

That being said, the upside-down cross he was hanging on seemed to be somewhat rotten, and breaking part of it seemed like an option, the problem was that the sound it would generate was too much, he had no way to resist his captors once they came.

As he thought of the possibilities Villin began calming down, ignoring Leonardo that was hanging just a few meters away from him, possibly dead.

Villin could feel himself grow more distant but saw it as a good thing, it allowed him to think. He thought back to just a few minutes ago when the grey-skinned creatures talked, thinking if there was something he could do against it.

Thinking back to the sensation he managed to identify its purpose. The voices of these creatures were like knives attacking the mind. It passed by the memories striking at the layer where emotions were kept. Luckily it seemed that it was incapable of penetrating as far as the web.

Villin controlled his magic power, he recalled the technique he had learned where he would connect his puppet, not to the magic power in his body but the ones in his mind.

He tried to recapture this feeling in a greater amount. He once more used the nodes he didn’t commonly use and stripped them of their current magic power. But instead of using it to resupply his own magic power, he didn’t bring it that far. Instead, it only moved to the second layer of his mind where his emotions were kept. Then, a shield began to form. A layer of magic power shielded the second layer of his mind. It was an extremely simple shield, as rudimentary as could be, but it was something.

Magic power flowed through his body and mind as a small change was beginning to take place, Villin began feeling more in control of his thoughts and emotions as the shield thickened.

Yet the shield couldn’t be made as big as he wished for. It was simply too difficult to control.

And so he tried solidifying it, making it at home, perhaps if he succeeded he wouldn’t have to control it.

Sadly, he didn’t get to do this as his captors returned.

“WhiCh OnE do we Eat first?” the male creature asked its counterpart.

“The dead one! They are best eaten fresh!” she responded.

Villin once more got a massive headache when they spoke, but this time that was all that it was. He didn’t feel like fainting and yelling wasn’t something he felt like doing either. The only problem was that he momentarily lost control of the mental shield, this caused a part of the gathered magic power to seep into his body, leaving its intended position.

Luckily, the two captors didn’t continue to speak.

Coming from the back of the cave they had taken a massive black iron cauldron with them and so they placed it atop of the black flames.

After the cauldron was placed the female creature pointed at the cauldron “Achtigro!”

Other than causing another headache for Villin, one other thing happened. Red liquid began rising inside of the cauldron as she continued pointing at it. Once the cauldron was half-filled she stopped.

These creatures knew magic!

The male creature walked over to Leonardo, who had part of his head bashed in and it caressed the side of his head. A moment later, it became clear the boy was still alive,

He raised his head slightly and mumbled incomprehensibly as his eyes continued to lose focus.

“Good! He’s still alive!” the creature exclaimed happily.

Then with a flick of its wrist, the ropes on Leonardo’s hands and legs were torn, a second flick, and Leonardo was torn off of the nails that were holding him. Blood seeping down from his hands and legs.

Just like this, the boy floated behind the creature toward the cauldron.

When they arrived Leonardo floated down into the pot, still mumbling incomprehensibly.

It was at this point Villin could hear some sort of hiss that seemed to be coming from the earth itself, and but a moment later, the red liquid inside of the cauldron began to boil. Leonardo who didn’t even flinch when he was ripped off of the nails that held him began screaming as loud as he could and the two creatures on either side of the cauldron began laughing.

Within just a few moments Leonardo looked as if he had aged a dozen years. And he continued doing so, within just a few seconds, Leonardo had grey hair that started falling out. A few seconds later his skin began to melt off of his face, revealing his deformed skull. His whole face melted off until there was nothing but a skeleton left, and then the skeleton too began sinking into the cauldron.

“Let us eat!” the male creature said before jumping into the cauldron himself, soon followed by his companion.

Both of them lowered themselves completely into the boiling red liquid but neither seemed to get hurt. After about a dozen seconds they came out and the changes were incredible.

The two creatures had strayed away even more from their human form. Their ears seemed to have disappeared instead turning into a long streak of black skin on both sides of their head. Their skin as a whole darkened though, it was still grey but no longer so far from black.

“Good, GOOD! This one might be enough!” the female creature said as she pointed at Villin who still feigned his fainted status. Yet through his squinted eyes, he could clearly see the eyes of the creature, it was only now that he realized the eyes of the creatures had grown by a large amount and so had its pupils. It was certainly changing into something different entirely.