A/N: Fair warning. The following Chapters are a bit... brutal and depicts events that may strain the mind of both characters and readers.
I know some readers on this platform are not fortable with seeing the main character undergo such events, but I want you to think of them as character development. As something that Noah has to go through.
In the same way an egg undergoes metamorphosis to bee a butterfly, so must Noah undergo a metamorphosis to bee the Dark Dragon.
Thank you for your understanding. With that done, let’s continue.
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The door creaked open slowly, and Noah turned his head towards it, the chains holding him up rattling softly with the motion.
A tall man stepped inside, his gait unhurried.
His hair was the first thing Noah noticed. It was red and streaked with white, like fire that had begun to fade to ash.
His face wore the pleasant curve of a smile, but his eyes... his eyes were empty, void of even a flicker of warmth. It was as if he had spent his days learning the necessary emotions before a mirror, but his eyes had received no training.
"Oh." The man said, shutting the door behind him with a soft click. "You’re awake. Good."
He crossed the small space until he stood just a few paces from Noah, looking him over with a faint air of appraisal.
"Hello, Noah Webb. My name," he said, "is Osiris Lawless. Head of the Investigation Authority."
Noah’s stomach sank at the name.
"I don’t usually trouble myself with ordinary academy students," Osiris continued, his tone conversational, almost casual, "but when it’s the daughter of one of Camelot’s High Lords who’s gone missing..." His smile tilted slightly. "...rules tend to fly out the window."
Noah opened his mouth to speak, but Osiris held up a hand.
"I won’t be asking you any questions. Not yet. You’re not ready to answer them." His voice was calm, as if he were discussing the weather. "First, I’ll loosen your tongue."
He paced once in a small circle before stopping, his gaze pinning Noah in place. "Do you know why I like the Fire affinity?"
Noah stayed silent, unsure if answering would help or hurt.
"Because fire," Osiris said, "is honest. Its only purpose is to cause damage. No pretense. No disguise."
His eyes were half-lidded, as if savoring the thought. "And there’s one particular fire spell I’ve always been... fond of."
He lifted his right hand slightly, his palm open. "It’s an S-rank spell, due to the level of magic control required, but it’s a very special one."
"Why, you ask? It’s because, you see, it burns the soul."
A shiver ran down Noah’s spine.
"But," Osiris went on, his smile returning, "when regulated... it doesn’t destroy. Not physically. Oh, no. The damage is purely cosmetic. But it es with... unusual side effects."
The air between them seemed to grow heavier as he spoke.
"When I cast the tamer version," Osiris said, "it causes pain unlike anything you can describe. And while you’re writhing, it plunges you into your own fears, drowning in them. Hours, days, whole lifetimes can pass in that nightmare, when only seconds have gone by in reality."
His voice lowered slightly, almost intimate. "And when you e out of it... the mental damage is not to be underestimated."
Noah’s pulse hammered.
"That," Osiris said simply, "is why I like the spell. It doesn’t scar the body. It scars the soul."
Above his palm, lines of molten red energy began to form, curling into intricate patterns, twisting and weaving together into a circular spell formation that shimmered with oppressive heat.
The glow bathed Osiris’s face in red light.
Noah’s eyes widened, his words spilling out in a frantic rush. "Wait! Wait! I didn’t have anything to do with Juniper’s disappearance! I swear! I swear it wasn’t me!"
Osiris’s smile never left his face.
"Well, let’s find out." He murmured.
And then, without hesitation, he cast the spell.
The spell blurred through the air and struck him like a spear of light.
Noah didn’t even have the chance to scream before it hit.
And then, the pain began.
It wasn’t like a wound, nor was it like the deep ache of broken bones or the sharp sting of a cut. It was much deeper than that. It was inside.
It was as if something he couldn’t see or touch, something that wasn’t flesh or blood, had been seized and plunged into boiling oil with the heat turned all the way up.
His body jerked against the chains, the iron digging into his wrists, but that was nothing pared to the burn.
It didn’t stop. It didn’t ebb. It spread, no, it poured through him, burning through his very being.
Every nerve, every thought, every memory felt like it was being set alight and devoured at once.
Then came the emotions. The spell didn’t just hurt, it amplified.
Terror surged first, primal and choking, until his heartbeat was a thunderous roar in his ears.
Anger followed, molten and feral, slamming against his fear and making his chest feel too small to hold it.
Grief, regret, desperation, all of it twisted together until there was no separating one from the other. They bounced inside him like jagged glass in a sealed jar, cutting him from the inside out.
His jaw locked as if trying to hold back a scream, but the sound still tore its way out of his throat.
The air around him felt hostile, like it was trying to reject him from reality. His skin didn’t feel like skin anymore. His body was foreign, wrong, warped in the crucible of pain.
Then came the tearing. Not of flesh, but of him. He felt himself being pulled apart and rearranged, pieces of his mind and soul jumbled, scrambled, and shoved back in the wrong places.
A part of him screamed that this was impossible, but the rest of him drowned in the agony.
And then, death. The slow, deliberate erosion of existence, the creeping cold that came with the end.
He felt himself die. Not once. Again. And again. Each time his mind shattered under the burden of finality, the spell dragged him back, only to kill him again.
Noah lost track of time. Seconds, minutes, hours, it didn’t matter. The pain was all there was. It was a reality of its own, a prison where each breath was fire and each heartbeat a hammer striking glass.
He no longer remembered the chains. He no longer remembered the room. He barely remembered his own name. All he knew was the pain.
And then, somewhere in the haze of agony, his mind cracked. Something inside him broke clean through, shattering into pieces that drifted apart like ash in a storm.
There was nothing left.
Only the pain.
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