Blaguna smiled, pouring the liquid into the metal tube. The water flowed into the open wound with a hiss, causing Sly to scream. His yells changed into howls of excruciating agony; he thrashed, held by the metal chain, as the liquid reached his muscles, eating its path through them and leaving burns. His voice echoed from the walls, tears ran down his snout, and his eyes went round and wild.

"You piece of shit!" Yuki snarled. "How dare you, how fucking dare you! He can't tolerate pain well; try me, let's see how good you are!"

"As you can observe, Geldi, a little heat stimulus does wonders when applied correctly." Blaguna ignored the scout's outburst, speaking in a pleasant tone. "The dangling, helpless victim trying to gasp another desperate breath is quite a sight, don't you agree?" A hint of a need for validation crept into Nokto's voice. She poured more water into the second tube, forcing Sly to cry louder, and continued until his voice broke and dry whispers came out of his throat.

"Yes… yes," Geldi uttered in a quiet, strangled voice, her eyes two mirrors displaying absolute horror.

Aranea wasn't sure if the woman was fully present anymore or had drifted into an imaginary fantasy land. Her voice was not that of a sane person.

"Ah, his voice has already cracked… Pathetic." Blaguna frowned her nose, watching her victim. "Based on the resilience of the last one, I expected them all to be made of sturdier stuff."

"Where's Kostya, you damned scum?" Aranea had trouble keeping her voice even. Yet she intended to deny this creature the pleasure of pissing her off or getting a reaction out of her for as long as possible. She would try to stay calm until the bitter end, just to spite this thing.

"Kostya, Kostya…" Blaguna glanced at Yasen.

"Shirtless guy," the regulator chuckled, regaining his cool and arrogant demeanor.

"Ah, the old fart! He was excellent, beyond any expectations." Blaguna placed the pot back. "Alas, his heart gave out during the second hour. I chopped him up and sent the meat to your cell to reunite you. It was only fair, considering his sacrifice."

Yuki vomited at her knees, staring in disbelief at Blaguna, who sauntered to several buckets standing in the corner. She pushed her hand into one and rummaged inside, accompanied by wet gurgling and the scraping of sharp objects against the side of the bucket. She raised Kostya's head, holding it by the ear. Both Yuki and Sly vomited in unison. Geldi staggered and almost fell.

"I will end you," Aranea stated. "No matter how long it takes, I will find a way to murder you."

Blaguna let go of the head, laughing merrily. It plopped back into the bucket, splashing red, and the regulator cleaned her hands with a rag.

"Oh, silly girl," Nokto scolded. "You and I are not connected. I have no reason to spare you; thus, you will never get an opportunity to get me. Had you cared for that carcass, you would've tried to placate me, in hopes of survival, rather than announcing hostility. Either way, you owe me a blood debt, so nothing can save you. Your test will be fire.

"You said to try you, right? Fine. For your bravery, you will receive a special treat. Your trial will be a violation," Nokto told Yuki. "We'll play a game. I will give you both a dose of phantom pain. If the wrong contestant screams first, I will torture this boy for weeks. If the right one screams first, then I shall give you a quick death and move on with my business."

"How do we know who is the right one and who is the wrong contestant?" Aranea asked.

"That's the fascinating part. You don't know. Since I am the one deciding it, for all you know, I could be bullshitting you. But if you truly want to spare your male prolonged suffering, if you want an out…" Blaguna's fingers ran over Aranea's arm, pressing into the wound and tearing through the bandage. She raised the bloody fingers to an eye level and licked them clean. "Try to keep your mouth shut for as long as you can."

"What the hell is phantom pain?" Yuki bristled.

Blaguna went behind the chairs, and they heard objects being dragged and clanking over stones. Then, she pressed round objects that felt like oversized suction cups onto Aranea's back.

"It's quite an ingenious thing. You see, back in the Old World, this fortress was a rehab facility for patients with severe mental trauma or recovering from various incidents," Blaguna explained, working on their backs. She spread their fur, pressed devices to the naked skin, and sounded bored. "The mechanisms behind you can transfer feelings of others into your brain. Love, kindness, that kind of shit. Doctors used it to better understand their patients' problems and stored the emotions of volunteers in an attempt to cure a lack of empathy. My daddy," she mocked, "tried to fix me in a similar manner. The problem is, you can't repair what is wholly broken. As I learned from the records, it is possible to nudge a person in the correct direction, but in my case, I had been screwed in the head since birth. I asked Daddy to do what was right, to save himself. He refused, not wanting to give up on me." She laughed gleefully. "I love my old man, still do, but I am who I am. One day, the urge was irresistible, and I did what I enjoy to him. Later, yours truly took charge over the Regulators. In his honor, I try to rein in my excesses as much as possible, letting Yasen govern.

"But the situation got me thinking. If you could deceive a conscience by sending false signals to the brain and even create false memories… Then living beings are just biological machines. If it's possible to trigger false experiences without subjecting a person to the source of said experiences… By this I mean you can create a fake memory of a person eating a cake without feeding them one. It is a trove of potential for wonders. First and foremost, what is pain? When you are cut, the damaged cells create a signal. It then goes through the spinal cord, all the way to the sensory cortex of a brain. And then it transmits to you in understandable terms that you are hurt. We understand sensations because of such signals."

Blaguna shoved her face to Yuki's ear, changing her voice to excitement. "Now listen well, because the next part is important. What would happen if I were to replicate this signal? You will feel an 'effect' without enduring a 'cause.' No wound, no blood leaking out, and the agony persists. After extensive testing, I learned how to replicate such signals. Cut. Burning. Tearing apart and drowning. Electric shock. These are the types of sufferings I have recorded so far."

Her grin widened. "Needless to say, to obtain these signals, I needed to 'write them down,' so to speak. So the process of self-education was hardly a tedious affair. For me, that is. I don't think the test subjects received any gratification from the experiments. But not only can these machines replicate all these feelings, at the flick of a switch I can magnify them to my liking. I look forward to exploring the limits of your psyche. Your friends had the privilege of sampling this experience first… Anyway, enough of the speeches. Time for a presentation!" Blaguna stood before the prisoners, holding a remote. She pressed a button, and the chairs started sliding across the rails into the spheres behind.

"Do your worst, bitch! It's not like we'll die, so I don't care! I won't break!" Yuki laughed into Blaguna's face.

The devices absorbed both Aranea and Yuki, closing around the Wolfkins and placing them in utter darkness, cutting away every sound from outside.

With a faint 'clop,' some cloth expanded from within the sphere, filling it. It enveloped Aranea's snout, pressing hard against her eyes, nostrils, and mouth. The wolf hag tried to bite through the irritating fabric to no avail. She panicked, imagining herself choking to death on this soft yet rigid material that kept pushing at her. At last, it stopped, retreating slightly to give her more breathing room, and for a long while nothing happened. Cold sweat dripped down her spine.

What will happen? Maybe the machine broke? Or had they been lied to, and their fate was to be entombed in the utter darkness, fearing a punishment that will never come?

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A burning sensation touched her hand. It reminded her of the times when she and Olesya had held their paws over a bonfire. They had been idiots back then, who had heard about the test of the Ashbringer Pack and decided to brave it themselves. Her hide had grown sturdier since then, and the heat no longer bothered her.

Then the feeling increased, coming from underneath her skin, as if an acid spilled itself over her bones. She exhaled, tolerating the experience when the next wave struck her. It was as if a hand had plunged her head into a smelter and held it under the bubbling liquid metal, not giving her a chance to breathe or escape, while her eyes evaporated. Aranea jerked her body, trying to yank her paw and head back, but the cloth refused to let her shift her posture; its confines returned the Wolfkin back to the exact position.

The fiery sensation crept toward her shoulder and down her neck, spreading over her. Soon, Aranea couldn't calm herself by inhaling because her lungs trembled from the overheated air that burned her stomach. The cloth prevented her from seeing herself; it concealed everything, and her imagination played tricks on her. Her skin became wax, melting in a steaming flow from her bones, dripping upon her feet. She burned, her fur on fire, and her muscles became ash…

Tears appeared in her eyes, and she could have sworn her skin darkened and her lungs finally burst, releasing the overheated smoke into her organs. She marveled at her ability to see and blink, now thinking of it as a curse rather than a blessing. Her entire being ached, pleading for a sweet release. Her limbs grasped the bars of the metal cage, ignoring the heat, for the hellfire licking her legs from above was too much to tolerate. She smelled the burning skin, her flesh cooked by the merciless trap…

Scream, I must scream. The torment will end, I must… Aranea bit her tongue, tasting blood. The Wolf Tribe had taken her in and cared for her. Janine read her stories, Zero brought her treats during her rare visits, and every tribesman stood guard, ready to die for the young girl despite her being an outsider. She would do no less for Sly or any of her soldiers. Panic and horror rolled in again, chipping away at her mind, but Aranea refused to surrender. I have a duty, an obligation to my troop. I won't let myself break or…

The cloth vanished, along with the pain, and the sphere opened up, ejecting the chair with Aranea on it. She ended up in the center of the room, next to Yuki, who also looked horrible and cried and sweated non-stop.

"You lose.' Blaguna smiled, addressing Yuki. "Such a shame. Barely lasted fifteen minutes. Tell me, was it the insects crawling inside of you that snapped you? Maybe physical maiming? Or…"

"How many?" Yuki whispered. "Just how many people did you…"

"Ah, so it's the bone-breaking that you liked the most. Yasen, how many were used?"

"Nine at once, Mistress." He bowed.

"How dare you?!" Yuki tried to lunge; her restraints left deep marks on her limbs and chest. "Butcher you! I'll dig through your flesh, rip it open, and devour your insides!"

Blaguna came closer, maintaining her smile, and looked Yuki in the air, touching the locks.

"Let's see you try."

The locks fell, and the scout leaped from the chair, fangs bared, claws unleashed. She kicked to cut Blaguna's neck open. The maniac leaned back and kicked Yuki in the chest, sending her flying into the ceiling. Before she could fall, Blaguna caught her by the neck and slammed her down, propelling Geldi into the air.

"See? You are boring, your rage is pointless, everything about you is boring." Blaguna drove her knife under Yuki's claw, shoving the blade deeper into the finger and cutting the claw clean, drawing a groan of pain.

"Let her go!" Sly screamed and kicked. His foreleg reached the Regulator and bounced off her arm, not causing the slightest discomfort. Aranea tried to break free, ignoring the chains tearing her limbs. No matter how hard she tried, the chains refused to break or bend.

"Clumsy," Blaguna mumbled. "Didn't expect to get touched…" Yuki's jaws opened, trying to close on the regulator. The scout ignored the blade penetrating deep into her paw, betting everything on this burst of movement. A punch to the temple knocked her out, and Blaguna stood up. "Take her to the chamber eight. Her boyfriend's strike has spared her years of suffering. I'll toy with her later. Let's see how much she can take before she breaks and dies."

"Listen!" Sly shook his chain. "Listen to me! I can lick your shoes, become your slave, do whatever you want! Just let her go." Blaguna looked at him with curiosity, and Sly continued, eager and hopeful. "Think about it. What will you get from her? Nothing, she's a hard-hitting, dumb brute. Hah! Big deal, am I right? Kick her out, let her go free; she'll never bother you again. But I, I can amuse you, be your willing jester ready to obey your every whim. You say jump, and I ask, 'How high?' My goal will be to fulfill your every desire. Come on, it's clearly a better deal than…"

Blaguna stabbed upward; her knife pierced his lower and upper jaw, connecting them and forcing Sly to mumble in panic.

"Such an amusing boy. You think I need your desire to make you lick my shoes? No, we'll undergo many ideas later…" She chuckled, turning away from Sly and reaching to grab another knife from her pocket. Blaguna came up to Aranea, weighing her new hooked knife. "But first things first. The blood debt. Let's make you shirtless."

The blade pierced Aranea's skin near her belly button, convulsing her body. The wolf hag felt the edge cutting her with the same ease as if she were butter. Blaguna moved her hand slowly on purpose, pinning her victim with one arm and relishing the agony the agony in the different eyes. Aranea struggled to breathe as the cut circled her torso, sending a downpour of blood from her left side.

"Whoopsie!" Blaguna faked an apology. "Seems like I went a bit too deep. Oh, well." She pulled out the knife. "How about we play another game? Let's choke you out with your own insides."

She leapt off Aranea, ready to fight when the iron door leading into the room was crumbled and pulled out like a sheet of paper by an outside force. A giant man stepped inside, tossing the wreckage aside. His shoulders and head smashed through the narrow doorway, widening it without slowing his pace. Most of his body gleamed with an unknown alloy, and cables and tubes were visible between the plates covering his joints. His hands ended in claws, each one big enough to fold Aranea in two. Only his green, fully human eyes watched from the middle of his helmet, modeled after a human head. They looked at Blaguna.

Behind him stepped a woman in a white leather coat, blue pants, a black turtleneck, and black boots. Tall and as muscular as Martyshkina, she had long blonde hair that reached her waist. Her black eyes darted back and forth, taking in everyone's presence with a hint of disgust. On her shoulder, behind her neck, she held the mother of all scythes. Its curved blade, made of an unknown dark steel, reflected the light.

"You!" Blaguna shouted, veins appearing on her temples. "How are you here? Why? Who told you?!" Blinking through the pain, Aranea noticed Geldi going pale at the question.

"Yasen spilled the beans," the metal man said in a regal and assured human baritone.

"Lies!" the regulator screamed, pressing himself against the stone wall in a futile attempt to hide from Blaguna's gaze. "I swear to you, my mistress! I'm loyal, obedient…"

"Were you loyal when you scratched my debtor?" Blaguna asked sweetly. "Yasen, you exhibit far more initiative…"

"Filth," the blonde said. "Have you lost what few marbles you had, or were you just pretending really well before?"

"Shut it, Jekaterina," Nokto answered, clenching the knife. "You should've heard from King by now about the murder and plunder. I'm simply following the program…"

Faster than Aranea could see, Jekaterina swung her scythe, stopping its tip a millimeter from Blaguna's neck. The woman pressed the remote, opening the ceiling in the room to reveal several unfolding turrets. Before the defensive machines could finish descending, the blonde slashed, sending her weapon in blurry arcs around the room and cutting the turrets into several parts, controlling her grievous weapon with graceful precision, not letting it shear Yasen or Geldi. The metal man simply glanced at the remaining turrets, and they disappeared in their recesses, while the roof returned. Blaguna's eyes went round; she sank her fingers into the remote to no use.

"Don't play with me, animal. The Resistance was established under specific rules simple enough for even a dotard cannibal to understand. Yet you brought shame upon us and King through your actions. I've asked you a question, cretin. Answer, or lose your head." Jekaterina spoke with the same disgust, her scythe returned to its previous position, hovering close to the neck.

"I'm sane, you vapid cunt…" The scythe touched Blagun's skin, sending a trickle of red. The regulator trembled with bottled-up rage, ready to lash out. A thread of green smoke came from her temple. "Do you really want to die so much, Grandma?" She broke the remote. "Think your power can save you? At this distance? If so, let's go; let's test how long you can last!"

"Enough," the metal man said. His plates shifted, and countless guns surfaced from the depths of his frame, taking aim at Blaguna. A light shone in the barrels. "Let out another hiss, and I'll put you down like the rabid animal that you are."

"What. Do. You. Want. Tlaltzin? This is the Regulators' turf, screw off…"

"Cease your pitiful hysteria, flea," the man interrupted her with anger. "Think. Think for once about the consequences of your actions. If you kill and torture enemy soldiers, just imagine what they'll do to our own prisoners." The metal claws gouged lines in the floor. "King talks big, but we all know full well that his rhetoric is all merely posturing for morale." He looked at the prisoners. "We're taking the Wolfkins to return them to the Reclaimers with an apology."

"She owes me a blood debt!" Blaguna shrieked like a vulture, stabbing her finger at Aranea, while Jekaterina walked past her, taking off her coat. She had used it to bandage the wound around Aranea's waist. "Don't touch my toy! She's not even human!"

"You've already taken enough blood to repay any debt. As for the human part, there's only one subhuman around here," Jekaterina answered. Aranea wanted to speak of Yuki, about the rest of her pack, but the woman pressed a hand to her forehead. "Sleep. Save your strength, child. Dream. Drift into the relaxation." Exhaustion and stress took hold, and Aranea closed her eyes and fell into the waiting embrace.

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