A shiver ran down Bill’s spine as he recognized their captor from their pursuit earlier that day. Victor’s eyes bore into them, devoid of mercy.

“Well, well, well,” Victor sneered, his voice laced with malice. “It seems our little game of cat and mouse has taken an interesting turn. You three are quite the persistent pests, aren’t you?”

Bill’s jaw clenched, his determination shining through his fear. “What do you want from us?”

Victor leaned in closer to Bill, his voice dripping with malice. “Oh, I’ll tell you what I want, boy. I want to know what you are doing here. That pesky friend of yours was quite troublesome last night so I wanted to take extra precautions with you three.”

He gestured to the cuffs binding their wrists. “These are power-dampening cuffs and aren’t just for show. They’re designed to nullify abilities up to level 5 by blocking you from accessing mana. Very handy when dealing with people like you.”

“Please, sir. We don’t know anything. We were just here for a vacation, and we don’t want to cause you any trouble.” Iris said innocently, playing her part as a powerless and scared spoiled rich girl.

Victor suddenly picked up a ceramic vase that was beside Bill and threw it at the wall right beside Iris’ face, smashing it with force.

A piece of the smashed vase grazed Iris’ cheek leaving a small cut on her face.

“YOU THINK I’M A FOOL. THAT BRAT COMPLETELY DEPLETED MY MACHINE’S POWER! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD IT IS TO GET THAT THING CHARGED!” Victor shouted at Iris with anger.

Bill clenched his fist with pure anger as he witnessed such mistreatment happening to Iris, but he knew he had to control himself at this moment.

“Please! We didn’t do anything!” Erin butted in with fake tears down her eyes as she tried to make Victor calm down.

“Not you, but your friend sure did. No matter, he has been dealt with already…” Victor said as he moved back towards a table that was near the door.

“Wait… what…? What did you just say…?” Erin said as she had stopped her fake crying and was now trembling with genuine shock.

“What do you mean he’s been dealt with?” Bill added.

“I sent my men to rig your hotel room to explode and now that entire thing is up in flames along with your pesky friend,” Victor said while grinning madly.

All three of them were stuck in shock as they couldn’t believe what Victor was saying.

“Mako’s… dead…?” Erin repeated as she still could fathom such a thing to be a reality.

“His name was Mako, huh? That name sounds familiar… Oh well, he’s dead now so no point in me knowing his name.” Victor said maniacally.

“YOU MONSTER! WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU KILL HIM!? YOU COULD HAVE TAKEN HIM HOSTAGE LIKE US!” Erin shouted with genuine tears in her eyes as she began to struggle violently, trying to escape from her cuffs, but it was completely useless.

All the while Victor laughed at Erin’s growing sorrow and emotions like a mad sociopath.

Suddenly, Victor lunged at Erin grabbing her mouth with his palm and clenching it tightly so she couldn’t make any more noise.

“You say why I killed him! That pathetic excuse of living being extended our job’s completion time by several weeks!” Victor shouted as he gripped Erin’s mouth with a threatening expression.

Erin’s eyes widened with fear as she felt that any extra force could crush her jaw completely.

“LET HER GO!” Iris shouted in a futile attempt to get Victor to let go of Erin’s face.

Victor turned towards Iris with a creepy grin scaring Iris to her core and then actually let go of Erin’s face allowing her to breathe once again.

*cough* *cough*

Victor walked back towards the table and this time picked up something that resembled the shape of a baseball bat made out of metal.

“We could have cleared out this entire village by the end of the week, but no that brat had to show up at the most inconvenient time and catch my guys off-guard. They had no choice but to activate the machine to try and get rid of him quickly but that bastard lasted till the machine was out of power! Now it will take us at least another week to get recharged again!” Victor said as he activated a button on the bat that seemed to be like a power switch.

The bat suddenly split in half lengthwise and extended horizontally, leaving a gap in the middle where tendrils of electricity frequently bounced between the two halves.

“Now… I am not taking any chances. I can’t risk delaying this job any further which means I need to know who sent you here and if there are any more of you that I have to be vary of. I just have to get that information with you guys…” Victor said as he.

*ZAP!*

Victor swung the bat with a controlled force as he struck Bill’s arm. The electricity quickly began traveling through Bill’s body causing immense pain

“AHHHHHH!” Bill screamed in pain as his arm continued to get electrocuted.

Iris spoke up, her voice trembling but resolute. “We don’t know anything about your operations. We were just tourists.”

Victor’s smile widened, revealing a glint of madness in his eyes. “Ah, but you see, I don’t believe you. There’s more to you than meets the eye. Your little friend Mako and his abilities, they’re quite intriguing, and I intend to find out everything before I resume my plan.”

Victor left Bill to continuously get electrocuted while he fetched another device to use on Iris.

“STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM HER!” Bill shouted with extreme anger as the pain he was feeling from the electrocution was nothing compared to seeing Iris get tortured.

However, Bill’s maddening shouts and screams only caused to Victor laugh in amusement as this was music to his ears.

He approached Iris and placed a weird mask on her face that was full of green gas. Having no other option, she had to breathe in the mysterious gas, and soon after she began screaming madly.

Despite the screams of torment and pain coming from Bill and Iris, Vincent moved towards Erin with his hands manipulating a ball of water. 𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝘭.𝘦𝑡

“I’ll even ask you nicely. WHO SENT YOU!? ARE THERE ANY MORE OF YOU?!” He inquired Erin.

Erin shot back defiantly, “You won’t break us, no matter what you do.”

Victor chuckled, his fingers manipulating the water to engulf Erin’s head. “Break you? Oh ho, my dear, I like a good challenge. Let’s see how long you can last.”

Bill’s defiance shone through the pain as he retorted, “We won’t tell you anything, you monster!”

Victor’s smile widened, revealing a predatory glint in his eyes. “I don’t need you to tell me anything. I have ways of making you reveal your deepest fears, your darkest secrets.”

With that, Victor began his cruel work. Each of them endured a unique form of torment, designed to experience pain in such extreme quantity that they would tell him everything. Bill, Erin, and Iris gritted their teeth, as they struggled refusing to give him the satisfaction of their screams.

*******************

An hour passed, and the room bore witness to their silent suffering as Victor finally gave them a small break.

Bill’s nerves had taken considerable damage and now he couldn’t stop his body from twitching. Erin felt like her lungs would explode from how little oxygen she had managed to survive with, and lastly, Iris was in the most terrible of states as the gas that she had inhaled was a type of fear toxin that caused her to hallucinate and see terrible scenes which cause her to become temporarily mad.

However, despite all of that, all three of them still maintained their strong will and refused to tell Victor anything. All three of them made their mind completely blank and only thought of the reason why they were here in the first place, the reason for their fighting.

This caused them to have a very strong will that still hadn’t crumbled under the torturous methods of Victor Voss; however, it wasn’t that strong at this point as all three of them had endured far more than what they could handle and were reaching their breaking point.

“You guys ready to talk now, or would you like to have a repeat of all that again?” Victor asked coldly.

Just as their endurance seemed to waver, the door to the room burst open, and one of the goons of their small walked up and quickly stood beside Victor who was still facing Bill with an expression that yelled urgency.

“Boss, there has been a breach! Someone has broken in!” The goon reported in a hurry.

Victor turned around and gave a death stare to the goon, almost making him piss his pants.

“DON’T JUST STAND THERE! FIND OUT WHO IT IS!” Victor shouted.

The goon quickly nodded and left not wanting to witness Victor’s wrath. Victor breathed heavily as he calculated what to do next.

He decided to see for himself who was brave enough to break into their hideout and began to move out of the room.

“Consider this a gift. I won’t be so merciful when I return so I expect you to start talking.” He said before shutting the door.

*****************

Outside, in the darkness of the night, Mako, Nathan, Leon, and Angela quickly scanned through the entire north wing of the village with nothing to show for at first but just before they were convinced that the hideout wasn’t here, Angela decided that she would leave no stone unturned by unleashing one of her strongest skills.

The reason for this is that she was convinced that the hideout had to be here somewhere as she had already cleared most of the other village and the surrounding perimeter last night.

These missions usually take at least 2-3 weeks to complete depending on the severity of the mission and the team’s capabilities which was why she hadn’t cleared the entire village in one go and instead decided to clear each area with greater accuracy so that she wouldn’t miss anything.

This was quite a special case as the situation had escalated to this point in such a short time that even she was impressed, but regardless the north wing hadn’t been cleared out by her personally and that was why she didn’t want to leave any behind any chances of the enemy residing in the area.

“This skill requires me a few moments to recuperate after I have used it so if I do find something, your job is to create as much noise and havoc as possible to lure Victor out. Once he is there, I will handle him while you guys take care of the rest, clear?” Angela explained.

“Yes, loud and clear,” Mako replied.