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  “What’s happening?” she muttered.

  “Only your torture, nothing more.”

  A large eyeless creature manifested. Its humanoid meaty form bulged with muscles, veins laced throughout its body as they pulsed.

  Irva’s face contorted, screaming as she crawled backward against the boundary, hitting an invisible force. “What in the devil is that thing!!?”

  “Not sure. It probably isn’t anything.”

  It was a towering 3 meters tall. The creature’s mouth slit opened—salivating.

  “However, it’s impressive. I only had a vague idea of what I wanted. But the gaps were automatically filled. By the way, you may have to be its chew toy for a bit.”

  “Wait! Hold on—I’ll tell you what you want.”

  “It’s no longer about that.”

  The creature leaped, sinking its teeth into her thigh. Her blood-curdling scream was contained within the boundary. She began beating on its head, but the creature gnawed her flesh even more, tearing pieces of skin apart.

  It was as ifshe was being skinned alive. Each bite was bone-crunching. She soon found her movements dulling out, as if she had fallen into hardening cement.

  “Poison!?” Sweat drenched her clothing, her legs tightened as the creature kept sinking its teeth in her abdomen, sending shocks of pain with every bite.

  “Paralytic acid, to be more precise. A chew toy isn’t supposed to move. But don’t worry, he won’t kill you.”

  “C’mon! Please stop!” Blood spurted from her mouth after another bite. Her vision swirled as claws dug into her sides. It was as if she was being assaulted with knives, striking everywhere but nowhere fatal.

  As her focus returned, she saw two more beings beside Hezekiah. One resembled a spider that dripped venom from its fangs, and the other was a scorpion with filthy fur. The scorpion had two tails about a meter long, and the stingers looked like they could kill in a single blow if they wanted to.

  But worst of all, she couldn’t move anymore. Her bloodstream was filled with the paralytic acid, all of her organs and limbs were a mess, and she knew that whatever these creatures were, they were keeping her alive as long as possible.

  “I beg you,” she said weakly, her eyes locked onto the new creatures crawling towards her. “I’ll do anything that you want, just make it stop…”

  “There’s nothing you can offer me while you’re here. For the next 12 hours, it will be nothing but this. You should also be aware that I made it so you can’t pass out or die.”

  He was already effective with torturing in times past, but this pen actually made the job a lot easier. Although it wasn’t necessary in this case, the way she carried herself pissed him off. She should be aware of what she was currently dealing with.

  Maybe I’m taking it a bit too far, but she did try to kill me, so does it really matter?

  Hezekiah added another rule to raise her pain sensitivity to 20 times. In the end, it’s not like I’m doing this for no reason either.

  Her screams echoed more violently after the scorpion stung her spinal cord. Her body twitched before the scorpion repeatedly stung her again. As foam spurted from her mouth, the eyeless creature clutched her neck and slammed her against the pavement, fracturing her windpipe.

  Is this hell…? Irva thought. I have to endure for 12 hours??

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  There was never a second of rest. There was not a single part of her body that wasn't in agony. The spider leaped on her paralyzed form, its venom dripping into her lips before sinking its fangs into her neck, melting her insides.

  Her body felt like it was on fire, but there was nothing she could do to ease the pain. Her voice was gone, and her body was dead stiff.

  Time dilation is already in effect, but should I make it where she perceives time to move more slowly for her? Sure, why not.

  **********

  She had hoped she would grow accustomed to the torment eventually.

  But that hope was only a delusion. How long had it been? Days? Weeks? It was impossible to keep track while being violated every moment.

  It was hard to think straight at all. Eyes had been gouged out, a lung was missing while the other was riddled with holes. Every now and then her form would be fully restored, but the pain remained, and the whole process would just start over.

  Am I even still alive? Did I actually die back at the bridge and this is my afterlife?

  The scorpion’s tail sliced through the air, impaling her throat. Obliterating her windpipe once again, turning her eyes bloodshot.

  An unknown amount of time passed before the creatures suddenly vanished. Silence filled her ears as her eyes rested on the empty void above her.

  Footsteps followed, along with a voice she barely remembered. “Are you ready to start talking?” he asked.

  There was no reply. The soulless gaze remained fixed, not even shifting an inch.

  “Oh right. You lost your vocal cords again.”

  In a flash her figure returned to normal, limbs set back in place and the pain dissipated like an illusion.

  “I kept my promise. 12 hours on the dot. But no way was I going to wait that long, so I stepped outside the boundary for a few seconds and here we are.”

  Hezekiah waited for a reply before nodding in amusement. “Do you not have anything to say?”

  She turned her head toward him, not meeting his eyes. “What are you planning to do to me?”

  “It all depends. Why not start telling me who you really are?”

  “Who am I?” Her chest strained after hearing those words. “What happens if you don’t believe me?”

  “Try to lie, and see what happens.”

  There was no need to write a rule to force her to tell the truth. She wouldn’t be dumb enough to risk it after everything she had been through. But just in case, he made sure to have a rule in place to detect if she was lying.

  It was also more satisfying to just let her speak naturally.

  “As if there’s any point in that. How could I answer something that I don’t know myself? Not even the X-lens knows about my identity.”

  That’s true. At first it seemed the X-lens knew something about everybody, but yet there are obviously some people it can’t identify.

  “Surely you have something useful to tell me. I know all the faces of The Black Flowers. There’s a reason why you’re kept a secret from everyone else, and I doubt it’s solely because you are involved with a hidden assassin circle within the organization.”

  Irva turned away—reassessing Hezekiah’s true abilities. The circumstances around his death were already complex despite her personal opinions. It was impossible Kiann could have killed him; in fact, she wasn’t even sure how the organization could kill Hezekiah in the first place.

  If the organization knew he was capable of this, why would they send me here? They should’ve known I was bound to wind up dead. Deranged lunatics.

  “Gnats… Compared to you, I’m anything but special. Mr. Urimah took me in at a very young age, and gave me my new name. It’s a struggle to remember anything before I became Irva. My only task was to personally serve him, along with a few others.”

  “So you don’t even know your birth name?” he asked.

  She shook her head in response as she raised her back off the ground, hugging her knees. “Does it even matter? What good would it do finding out now? Not that he has any interest in telling me in the first place.”

  So neither she nor the X-lens knows her true name. But the fact that the organization kept her secret means something has to be peculiar about her, and they don’t want others knowing about it. But if she was that special, why send her after me? Were they certain that she could kill me?

  Hezekiah manifested the rules sheet. There were more things he wanted to try with this power. It was possible to bring anything out of the Custom Boundary as long as it wasn’t a direct creation or effect by a written rule, but it would come with consequences according to the toad.

  But as long as it wasn’t anything too crazy, the backlash should be manageable.

  “Aren’t you a little bit curious about your identity? Surely you at least want to meet your parents.”

  “Parents?” She chuckled, taking Hezekiah off guard. “I forgot I had any. Do the Directors of Sunset Garden count?”

  “Anyone could fit that role. Doesn’t mean they won’t be shitty.”

  “Well, they left me here to die after all. So… what happens next?” she asked with a tense expression. “Do you want to know about the others?”

  Hezekiah finished writing a couple more rules.

  “I can ask you that along the way.”

  Irva had a confused look. “You’re not going to keep me here?”

  “Don’t misunderstand, you’re not free. But I won’t miss this perfect opportunity to use you for something else.”