Chapter 3 My punishment
I walked through Gate 98 alone.
Fueled by divine power, wrath, and guilt.
The terrain was just as brutal as before—blistering heat, scorched rock, red skies that bled into the horizon. I moved with precision, cutting through lower-tier demons like they were made of paper. My blade sang with every swing, my body sharper, faster, stronger than ever.
I wasn't trying to sneak. I wanted them to hear me coming.
I wanted them to know death had come for them.
And then—I found her.
Bella was chained in a cavernous chamber, arms limp, her body bruised but breathing. They hadn't broken her spirit. When she saw me, her eyes lit up.
I cut her chains.
She collapsed into my arms, and I held her tighter than I ever had before.
We didn't speak. We didn't need to.
I guided her back to the Gate. Every step forward was a step away from the nightmare. When we reached the threshold, she grabbed my arm.
"Come with me," she pleaded. Her voice was hoarse, raw. "Please… you don't need to go back."
"I saw the core on the way in, I'm just gonna destroy it and run out. I'll be quick I promise."
At least, that's what I told her.
The truth?
I saw him.
The one who slaughtered my mother. The bastard who stood over her corpse like she was nothing. The one who tore her limb from limb, and violated her.
Even after ten years, the rage hadn't dulled. If anything, it burned hotter.
I shrugged off Bella's hand. She cried out, tried to hold me back—but I pushed her through the Gate and she vanished before she could stop me.
Then I hunted.
I tore through every guard, every demon in my path, making as much noise as possible.
I wanted him to find me.
But it wasn't him who answered my call.
It was something worse.
The same being I'd seen before. The one who towered over me like a mountain made of shadow and blood.
Before I could react, the world turned black.
An attack so fast I didn't even know it hit me until I woke up.
⸻
I woke up in chains.
A dungeon carved from obsidian. The air stank of rot and blood. My wrists were bound to a stone pillar with thick manasteel cuffs laced with anti-magic runes.
The first few days, he didn't speak.
He just started.
Torturing me.
Pain in ways I never imagined. Burned, skinned, electrocuted. Potions poured down my throat just before the edge of death, reviving me just enough to start again.
But one day, he slipped.
He went too far.
I died.
And twelve hours later, I came back.
The first time I had died, and I didn't even get to think about it.
He was… delighted.
His smile stretched from cheek to cheek. From that day forward, death became part of the routine. Each day: torture. Potion. More torture. Death.
Then revival.
Repeat.
At first, it broke me.
Then it numbed me.
Then I became insane.
I would laugh as if he was tickling me.
And that lasted for years.
5 years of pain, screams, silence, and hate.
Eventually, he stopped pretending to care about keeping me alive. I'd wake up with him already standing there, tools in hand. His smile—unhinged.
But one day, something changed.
In broken Lukeain, he said:
"Today is day we go up. Me no get to play. Wait for me, toy. I come back soon."
Then he laughed and walked away.
I understood what that meant.
The gate opens today.
And I—we—were going to lose.
I cried.
For my people.
For Bella.
For the hope that I failed to protect.
⸻
He returned later. Nothing changed.
Until five more years passed.
10 years total.
10 years of endless death.
Then one day, mid-torture, the door to my cell exploded.
A figure stepped through the smoke and flame.
He was my size, wearing a black tunic. Black hair. Black wings. A halo of dark flame burned above his head. And eyes—glowing red, like magma bleeding through his skull.
My torturer turned.
Then he kneeled.
I just hung there, chained and broken, barely able to breathe.
And then I laughed.
Because if that monster kneeled, who the hell was this?
The figure turned toward me.
"I am Raphelos," he said. "King of Hell. This here is Atox the Merciless, my right hand. Tell me, what is your name Guardian… why can't you die?"
I muttered, through blood and broken teeth:
"Basileus. And you can go fuck yourself."
He laughed. A deep, thunderous laugh.
"I like this one, Atox. Good pick. But… unfortunately, we can't keep him."
He stepped forward, slow and casual.
"You're a problem, Basileus. A very inconvenient one. So I've arranged a little gift. A special box, just for you. My dear Atox came up with the idea—runes that constantly drain your mana so you can't escape. Or at least that's what he claims there for."
He smirked.
"Though, personally, I don't think you could scratch the inside if you tried. That prison? I made it myself. It'll hold you until the end of time. Then we're gonna drop you and this box somewhere in the middle dimension where no one will ever find you again."
He turned to leave.
"Any last words?"
I spat blood on the floor.
He shrugged.
"Didn't think so. Goodbye, bug."
Then Atox stepped forward and crushed my skull with one hand.
⸻
I woke up in the dark.
Metal walls. No sound. No pain.
Just silence.
I was in the box.
And I wasn't getting out.
When I sat up, a harsh yellow light flickered on above me, and a screen to my right buzzed to life. I stood and immediately tried punching the wall. It barely left a scratch.
So I did what came naturally. I infused every last drop of mana I had into my fist—wrapping it in raw, burning energy—and struck again. The wall gave slightly, just a shallow dent. That was it.
That's when I realized the colossal mistake I'd made.
When a Guardian hits zero mana, the body doesn't just falter—it collapses under the weight of an invisible tide. It's like drowning in dry air. A wave of exhaustion hit me, and I dropped to the cold floor. That's when it all clicked.
Atox had planned this.
The floor was inscribed with runes, subtle but unmistakable, draining one mana point from me every second. With nothing left in my system to replenish it, the drain triggered the same suffocating reaction each time. I was being slowly strangled by the very essence that kept me alive.
I lay there gasping for breath, my chest heaving as if someone was kneeling on it. "That fucking bastard," I muttered, the words scraping out of my throat like sandpaper. "He made sure I'd keep getting my daily torture even after he was long gone."
I lasted four minutes the first time—gasping, clawing at the floor, trying to pull in mana from the outside. But the cube was sealed tight. No ley lines. No natural flows. No air vents to channel ambient magic. Just smooth, suffocating isolation.
So I died.
And then I woke up.
Same flickering light. Same screen. Same countdown.
With only 170 mana to my name, I had barely three minutes and change before the drain suffocated me again. That became my clock. My twisted metronome. Tick. Tick. Tick. Die.
And I did. Over. And over. And over.
In those short windows of consciousness, my thoughts began to unravel. What was I being punished for? Why me? What had I done to deserve this?
I spiraled—blaming my parents for birthing me, blaming myself for being too weak, blaming the Goddess for the curse of immortality.
And then, one day—I snapped.
Instead of spending my minutes searching for an escape or conserving mana, I started dancing. Laughing. Screaming. I'd whirl in circles, arms flailing like a lunatic. Then, with about thirty seconds left, I'd reinforce my legs with mana, sprint to the far end of the cube, and crash headfirst into the opposite wall.
Crushed skull. Instant death.
I did that twice a day for fifty years.
That's 36,524 times I danced like a madman, then shattered my own brain. Why? Because deep down, I still had hope—some naive part of me believed that Sarien would need me. That someone would come looking.
No one ever did.
And eventually, it hit me.
Bella.
She didn't come.
After everything—I saved her, risked everything for her—and she didn't even try to find me. The woman I once wanted to build a life with, to raise children with after all this was over… she left me here to rot.
Stranded. Forgotten. Tortured.
The next time I woke up, I didn't scream or dance or bash my head. I just laid there and cried. When the last sliver of mana left my body and the air vanished from my lungs, I closed my eyes and wished it would finally be the last time.
But then—I heard something.
A soft, almost imperceptible clink, like metal shifting.
When I woke up again, I crawled over and examined the spot. One of the countless impacts—headbutts, punches, or sheer brute strikes—had finally made a difference. There was a small bend in the metal paneling. A crack.
Microscopic. Barely visible. But there.
I screamed. Joy, rage, something—I don't even know. I immediately started pulling mana through the crack. It was like trying to suck a grape through a coffee straw—damn near impossible. I could only draw in about 0.5 mana per second, while still losing 1 mana per second due to the floor's curse.
Still, that small gap added three more minutes to my survival time.
Three minutes was something.
If I could just increase my Mana Control skill… maybe I could draw more in. Maybe circulate it more efficiently. Maybe hold on a little longer.
Then I could start forming a real plan to get out.
⸻
Status Window
• Name: Basileus Narciss
• Age: 22 (87)
• Level: 65
• Job: Eldritch Knight
• Title: Goddess's Guardian
Stats
• HP: 200/200
• Mana: 112/170
• STR: 205
• VIT: 200
• INT: 170
• AGI: 112
• PER: 60
• XP to Next Level: 2,450/8,000
• Available Stat Points: 12
• Available Skill Points: 0
⸻
Skills Window
Basic Skills
• Innocence (F)
• The king (A)
• Swordsmanship (A)
• Mana Control (D)
• Charisma (F)
• Crafting (B)
• Longsword Mastery (A)
• Mana Manipulation (F)
• Healing (C)
Unique Skills
• Immortality (EX)
• Oversight View (EX)
• Haggle (SS)
• Misfortune (D)
⸻
Looking through my stats, a few things jumped out. My Mana Control was only at Rank D. If I could raise it—even to A, no, S—I might actually stand a chance of escaping.
My inventory was locked and cleaned out besides a few things for some reason, and I couldn't use my stat points.
More than that, most of my skills were gone. Only a few good ones remained—those that didn't require active triggering or were already burned into my soul when I awakened as a Guardian.
I figured it must've been the king of Hell's doing, he was probably the only one who had enough power to do something like this.
So I adapted.
I spent every waking moment learning to feel mana in ways I never had. Sensing its vibration. Its weight. Its movement.
Five years passed. Nothing.
I stayed stuck at six minutes of life per cycle.
I nearly gave up again. Considered going back to smashing my skull into the wall just to make the crack bigger.
But then—
DING!
⸻
##Congratulations!
Mana Control skill has leveled up to Rank (C)!
You now have a better understanding of mana and can see mana particles in the air with Mana Vision!
⸻
It was the push I needed.
I kept going—pulling mana in through the crack, watching it form an orb in my lower abdomen, watching it thread through my veins.
Death. Mana. Death. Mana.
Thirty years passed in this loop.
Then—
DING!
⸻
##Congratulations!
Mana Control has increased to Rank (B)!
You can now identify and separate different types of mana flows.
⸻
The streams shifted—no longer just blue. Now I saw colors: red, yellow, green, purple.
I started experimenting. Drawing in only one color at a time.
Red. Then blue. Yellow. Green. Purple.
Purple resonated with me the most—it flowed smoother, entered faster, and replenished me better than the rest.
So I focused on it.
Every day. Every cycle. For two hundred years.
Until finally, I reached Rank (SSS).
And the truth of mana became clear.
If you can maintain a mana circle around your heart, with a constant flow to and from the orb in your core, you don't need to pump stat points into INT. You can grow your capacity organically. Same with strength, although my stat points didn't rise I felt myself getting stronger the more mana I had in my body.
I also learned the elemental affinities:
• Yellow: Light
• Purple: Darkness
• Green: Healing
• Red: Damage
• Blue: Defense
I couldn't form a defense circle. My affinity was garbage. Same with light.
I had better luck with green —healing—but only managed to form a weak circle.
But red and purple?
They flowed like blood through my veins. Natural. Powerful.
Red was for attack magic—projectiles, fireballs, pure destructive force.
Purple, though… purple was deeper.
Darkness mana manipulates atoms and matter. With it, I created skills like Phantom Step, which let me blink through shadows, and Void Nova, a spell that compresses darkness into a single point and detonates it—erasing everything nearby.
The system didn't register these skills so I had no way of knowing how powerful they were. I tried re-learning some of my old skills and although I was able to use them they were weak and also didn't register with the system.
Darkness was my domain.
I crafted twenty-seven dark mana circles around my heart. One weak green, and four red. Each circle increased my mana threshold by 1,000—or 800 in red's case.
I didn't even notice it at first, but the mana had begun altering my body. My eyes turned deep violet, surrounded by a smokey black aura.
My mana capacity?
32,000.
Unthinkable. Divine.
Now, all I needed to stay alive was a few minutes of meditation. I could draw in 50 mana per second and was only losing 0.1 per minute.
From despair, I was born anew.
Because without despair—
There can be no hope.