CHAPTER 300: A TASTE OF FREEDOM

Deep beneath the bedrock of the citadel lay the absolute security vault, a seamless, doorless cube forged from reinforced runic steel. Inside, there was no light, no draft, and no sound. The silence was absolute, heavy, and deafening, wrapping around the darkness like an airtight coffin.

Space folded with a soft, imperceptible hum, and Caius materialized in the center of the dark chamber.

The dual radiance of his golden-and-obsidian eyes illuminated the metal room. In the center, bound by heavy anti-mana suppression chains, the captured Ruinborne Shadow Adept hung suspended. Up close, stripped of its shadow disguise, its physical form belonged to an ancient, non-human species, one of the three main races conquered and bound into servitude by the Ruinborne.

Caius folded his arms, his gaze cold and penetrating. "Tell me about the Nerathil army."

The creature remained silent. Its fiery crimson eyes glared through its skeletal mask, filled with defying, slave-bound apathy. Bred and bound into servitude for centuries, physical pain held no leverage over its soul.

Caius narrowed his eyes. He realized that a slave locked in perpetual darkness could not be broken by threats of torture. To break a slave, one had to give them a taste of what was stolen from them.

Stepping forward, Caius raised a single finger. A solitary droplet of pure Origin Light energy ignited at his fingertip, glowing with divine, unblemished warmth.

He thrust his finger directly into the creature’s chest, piercing its rotten core.

The divine light surged into the monster's decayed mana channels, violently burning away the putrid rot miasma. For the first time in centuries, the dark, suffocating weight of the infection vanished from its soul. The clean, euphoric sensation of pure life flooded its veins. The creature gasped, its entire body trembling in sheer, overwhelming delight as it tasted the sweet air of unblemished existence.

Then, at precisely one percent of purification, Caius pulled his hand back.

The divine light cut out. Instantly, the dark, weeping rot rushed back into the cleansed pathways, re-infecting the fresh tissue with agonizing speed.

The creature let out a blood-curdling shriek. The contrast between divine purity and foul corruption was an excruciating, unbearable agony.

Caius tapped its chest again with a pulse of light, purging the rot for a brief second, then let the dark corruption consume it once more.

Freedom. Slavery. Freedom. Slavery.

"No! No! Put it back! Give it back to me!" the creature wept, its voice cracking into a desperate, pathetic whine. It thrashed against its chains, tears of black bile streaming down its skeletal face. "I'll tell you! I'll tell you everything! Just 0.01%! Give me just 0.01% of the light!"

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Caius stood unmoving, his golden-and-obsidian eyes icy. "Speak."

"Our home realm... was once a vast, infinite jungle world," the creature sobbed, its crimson eyes wide with desperate hunger for the light. "A realm of giant canopy forests... filled with insectoid civilizations. I was a noble warrior of the Shadow Wasp clan... Before the Nerathil Rot descended upon our skies... Millions of my people were slaughter-turned into rot slaves..."

"Why was your mind not erased like the mindless legions?" Caius asked coldly.

"Captain-tier units like me... Shadow Adepts... do not undergo the full mind-wipe," the creature gasped out, shuddering as the re-infested rot gnawed at its soul. "We are former shadowborn hosts. We retain our intelligence, tactical memory, and higher reasoning to act as field leaders... to plan ambushes, infiltrate cities, and lead coordinated outbreaks from within..."

"How many hordes are amassing beyond the gate?" Caius demanded.

"Three hundred thousand!" the creature shrieked, desperate to earn another drop of light. "Three hundred thousand Nerathil rot-slaves are already gathered at the rift... and hundreds of thousands more are coming! I... I was merely an advance scout sent to test your wards!"

"And your leader?"

"Malthuurn... Malthuurn the Rot Sovereign!" the creature rasped. "A towering abomination of bone, shadow, and pulsing rot-veins... He wears a crown-like carapace and belches waves of lesser Nerathil directly from vents along his torso! Every step he takes blackens the ground, leaving a trail of corruptive mist... He was greviously wounded in the realm-shatter, but the Rot... the Rot healed his hollowed flesh!"

Caius leaned in closer, his Tri-Pupil Eye dissecting the prisoner's soul. "Tell me everything about the army's structure."

The Shadow Wasp captain bared its fangs, words spilling out in a frantic torrent:

"The vanguard is built from low-tier Ruinborn... Skulkins, gaunt, fast-moving stalkers with talon claws to isolate targets... Fleshglaives, twisted beasts with bone-blades fused to their forearms to break shield-lines... and Crawlborn, quadrupedal burrowers that scuttle beneath the soil to flank from behind!"

It gasped for breath, its chains rattling violently. "Behind them march the mid-tier Wretched Knights! Dreadblades, towering brutes wielding fused greatswords that cleave whole units... Ironmaws, heavy, armored beasts with crushing jaws that bite through enchanted steel... and Hollowhands, skeletal caster-variants projecting corruptive pulses to disrupt magic wards and disable enchantments!"

"Their weaknesses?" Caius pressed.

"Fire!" the prisoner screamed. "Fire burns our internal marrow! Ice disrupts our joint functions! We feel no pain... we show no fear or hesitation! The Rot spreads through bite wounds, fever, seizures, and mutation follow within hours... Shadowborn hosts turn instantly, but fire and air affinities delay it... stasis magic suspends it..."

Satisfied with the military intelligence, Caius stepped closer for his final question. "How many realms must I conquer from here until I reach the Mandrakes?"

The Shadow Wasp captain opened its mouth to answer. "It is..."

Before the words could leave its lips, a hidden, ancient curse buried deep within its soul core snapped. Black, weeping tendrils erupted violently from behind its eye sockets.

The creature let out a horrific, bone-shattering scream as a soul-eating fail-safe activated. Its mind essence was violently gorged and torn out from within its skull by the dark curse.

Realizing its end had come, the creature used the absolute last thread of its fading willpower, driven by the lingering, divine memory of Caius's light, to force the glowing, torn fragment of its mind essence forward.

"My memories... are in there!" the creature shrieked in its dying breath, its clawed hand thrusting the glowing soul remnant toward Caius as its body collapsed into ash. "Please... free my race!"

The chains clattered against the cold steel floor. The creature dissolved into dust, leaving only a glowing, crystalline fragment of memory essence floating silently in the dark.