My eyes snapped open. Myne's hand was frozen. Caught. Held tight in the grasp of another. A hand that looked strong, capable, utterly unlike the claw of my tormentor.
I stared, huddled on the ground, my body still numb, my mind reeling. Myne's face, moments ago contorted in cruel triumph, was now a mask of shock. His arm was twisted at an unnatural angle.
My gaze followed the arm upwards. It belonged to the person who had spoken. A young man. Wearing a dark green outfit, eerily similar to the one I wore beneath these rags, the uniform of a summoned Hero. But his presence... it was different. He radiated power. Control. An aura of quiet, formidable strength.
He was looking directly at Myne, his eyes cold, his face set in a fearless smile that sent an unexpected shiver down my spine. It wasn't a smile of kindness. It was a smile of grim purpose.
"You must've enjoying all this by making her suffer, right?" His voice was calm, conversational almost, but the words were laced with a chilling intent that made Myne flinch. He knew. He saw what Myne was doing.
The stranger's eyes flickered towards me for a fraction of a second, a brief, assessing glance that felt less like pity and more like... recognition? Before returning to Myne, his smile widening.
"Well," he continued, his voice dropping, becoming a low, dangerous rumble, "I also enjoy very much, that is, by making people like you beg for death."
The words were a sentence. An execution order delivered with unsettling cheerfulness.
Before Myne could even stammer a response, the stranger moved. He didn't release Myne's hand. Instead, he twisted it. A sharp crack echoed through the clearing, a sickening sound that made me flinch. Myne cried out, a high-pitched yelp of pain that quickly turned into a desperate, gurgling sob.
The stranger didn't stop. He used Myne's broken arm like a lever, pulling him off balance, throwing him to the ground. Myne landed with a grunt, clutching his arm, his face contorted in agony.
The soldiers reacted then, drawing their swords, shouting confused challenges. "Who are you?! Release Lord Myne!"
The stranger didn't even look at them. He stepped over Myne, his boot planting firmly on Myne's chest. He was fast. Impossibly fast. Faster than anything I had seen, even in my brief, brutal adventuring attempts. The soldiers were frozen for a moment, intimidated by the sheer force of his presence, the brutal efficiency of his attack.
Myne writhed beneath the stranger's boot, sobbing, no longer the cruel tormentor but a broken, pathetic figure. "Stop! Please! My arm! I... I will complain to the King!"
The stranger's smile never wavered. "The King?" he scoffed, his voice dripping with contempt. "Your King is irrelevant here."
He knelt then, still keeping his boot on Myne's chest, forcing the air from his lungs. He leaned down, his voice a chilling whisper audible only to Myne and to me, huddled nearby. "You like making people suffer? Good. Let's see how you enjoy suffering yourself."
The sounds that followed were horrific. Thuds, grunts of pain, muffled screams. The stranger wasn't just hitting him; he was systematic. Precise. Breaking him. He seemed to know exactly where to strike, how to inflict maximum pain without killing him instantly. It was a chilling display of controlled brutality.
The soldiers, witnessing their leader being systematically dismantled, faltered. Fear warred with duty. They shuffled their feet, looking at each other, intimidated by the stranger's power, by the sheer malice radiating from him. They didn't charge. They didn't intervene. They just watched, frozen.
From my spot on the ground, I could only see glimpses. A boot lashing out. Myne convulsing. The stranger's chillingly calm face above him. The man who had been my nightmare, reduced to a broken, begging mess. It should have felt like triumph. Like justice. But witnessing the cold, methodical brutality... it was terrifying. This stranger... he was a force of nature, like a storm unleashed. A storm that was now... saving me? By destroying the one who was destroying me?
He didn't release Myne. Not yet. The sickening crack of bone breaking was followed by a gurgling cry, quickly cut off. Then, the rhythmic thud of fist hitting flesh. Again. And again.
He was tearing Myne's arm apart, I realized with a fresh wave of horror, deliberately dislocating or breaking it at multiple points before... the punching began. Each blow landed with brutal efficiency. Thud. Thud. Thud. Myne's body jerked with each impact.
His face, contorted in agony just moments ago, now shifted. The anger from being attacked by this stranger faded, replaced by a raw, desperate fear. Then, as the punches continued, the fear morphed into pleading.
"Stop!" Myne whimpered, his voice thick with pain and sobs. "Please! Stop! No more!"
The man didn't falter in his rhythm. Thud. Thud. Thud. But after what felt like an eternity, after Myne's pleas had become ragged, desperate gasps, the punches stopped.
Silence fell again, heavy and tense. Myne lay on the ground, a broken, sobbing mess, clutching his ruined arm.
"Alright," the stranger's voice was calm, conversational, utterly chilling. It mirrored the mocking tone Myne had used just moments before, but amplified by a hundred magnitudes. "This time, I'll obey what you said."
Obey? Obey Myne? What did that mean?
A soft glow emanated from the stranger's hand as he reached down. Healing magic. Unnatural in its speed and effectiveness. Myne's broken arm shimmered, the twisted angles straightening, the torn flesh knitting itself back together. In seconds, it looked... whole again. As if nothing had happened.
Myne lay there, gasping, his arm miraculously healed, his body still shaking from the pain that had been so abruptly taken away. He looked up at the stranger, his face pale, confusion warring with terror.
And then, a sharp crack echoed through the clearing. The stranger slapped Myne. Hard. Myne's head snapped to the side. Before he could even react, another crack. Then another. Slap. Slap. Slap. A series of sharp, stinging blows, delivered with cold, deliberate rhythm. It wasn't about inflicting physical damage anymore. It was about humiliation. About control.
Myne cried out, raising his hands instinctively to shield his face. "Stop! Don't!"
He scrambled back slightly, trying to get away. His eyes darted around, wild with panic. He saw the soldiers, still frozen, useless. He saw me, huddled and helpless. There was nowhere to run.
Desperation flared in his eyes. He snarled, a pathetic, cornered sound, and tried to lash out. His healed hand clenched into a fist, swinging weakly towards the stranger.
The stranger moved with impossible speed. His hand shot out, grabbing Myne's attacking fist mid-swing. He held it firm, the contrast between Myne's desperate lunge and the stranger's effortless capture stark and terrifying.
"Hey," the stranger's voice was light, almost playful, the smile still fixed on his face, but his eyes were cold, utterly without mirth. "You're cheating now."
Myne stared at him, panting, trapped.
"It's you who said not to punch, right?" The stranger's gaze flickered towards the soldiers, then back to Myne. A clear reference to Myne's earlier command, the rule he had just broken by trying to punch.
And then, without releasing Myne's captured hand, the stranger swung his other fist.
The punch was heavy. Solid. Not the systematic blows from before, but a single, brutal impact. Myne's head snapped back with a sickening crack, a strangled cry tearing from his throat. His body went limp, collapsing back to the ground.
He lay there, dazed, moaning softly. He was barely conscious.
The stranger didn't give him a moment to recover. He shifted his weight, his boot planting firmly on Myne's shoulder, pinning him down. His hand, still holding Myne's, began to twist.
The sound came again. The awful, tearing crack of bone and sinew. Slower this time. More deliberate. The stranger leaned down slightly, applying steady, relentless pressure.
Myne screamed, a choked, gurgling sound of absolute agony.
He was tearing his arm apart. Again.
I watched, frozen in horror. My body numb, my eyes wide, unable to look away from the brutal spectacle. The man who had terrorized me, broken methodically, healed only to be broken again.
The stranger didn't stop with the arm. Once it was twisted into a grotesque, unusable shape, he moved on. One leg. The sound of snapping bone. Myne's body convulsing. The other leg. Another crack. Then the remaining arm. Systematically. Methodically. Reducing the cruel, powerful man who had been my nightmare to a broken, limbless shell.
Myne stopped screaming. Stopped twitching. His body went utterly still. His eyes, wide with pain and terror just moments before, were now vacant, staring blankly at the sky. He was unconscious. Finally.
The stranger straightened up, his boot still resting lightly on Myne's chest. His breathing was even. His fearless smile hadn't faded. There wasn't a drop of sweat on his brow. He looked completely unfazed, as if he had just finished a mild inconvenience, not systematically dismantled a human being.
He knelt again, a soft glow emanating from his hands once more. Healing. Unnatural. Myne's broken limbs shimmered, knitting themselves back together. The twisted angles straightened. The ruined flesh repaired itself. In moments, Myne's body was whole again. Intact. Physically undamaged. A perfect vessel of terror and pain, ready for... what?
The stranger looked towards the soldiers, who were still standing there, useless, faces pale with shock. He pointed at Myne's unconscious form lying on the ground.
"You," he said, his voice carrying absolute authority. Not a request. An order. "Take him. Take him to the King."
The soldiers flinched, then scrambled forward, carefully, nervously, to obey. They clearly didn't want to touch Myne, but they wanted even less to disobey the man who had just turned their leader into a broken, begging doll repeatedly and without visible effort.
I lay there, watching them carefully lift Myne's unconscious, physically healed but undoubtedly mentally shattered, body. The horrifying sounds of his breaking, the image of the stranger's chilling smile, the crushing despair of my own failed escape... it all swirled in my mind.
I was saved. From Myne. From the soldiers. The immediate threat was gone. But the man who saved me... he was terrifying. Powerful beyond belief. And capable of a cold, methodical cruelty that sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the damp ground.
He turned then, his gaze finally resting on me. The fearless smile remained. What did he want? What was I to him? Just another problem solved? Another person saved, whether I wanted to be or not?