Ch.409The Road to Mount Cabalaria (2)

In the deep, dark void of the Sky Warden, where even the sun refused to shine, the interrogation of captured prisoners continued.

“To dare raise a blade against the Lord of Radiance… Know that it’s impossible to leave this room with your limbs intact.”

Thud. Thud.

The sensation of the massive steel rod striking the body was despairingly terrifying. After all, no one wanted to experience firsthand the ancient saying of “tearing flesh and shattering bones.”

The number of captured prisoners was around 30. Even if half of them died, it wouldn’t be considered a significant loss.

“Mmmphhh!!! Mmph!!!”

The 30 prisoners were lined up in a single room, with gags in their mouths preventing them from properly screaming.

In this state, steel rods began to mercilessly beat them, deliberately striking to kill. The prisoners who weren’t Aura users struggled to endure the pain, breathing harshly through their noses.

Crack! Snap! Crunch!

Sounds that should never come from a human body echoed in succession. The prisoners’ faces, already red from being unable to even properly groan, could now be likened to radishes.

After an hour of such merciless violence, three of them couldn’t endure and died.

“Remove the gags.”

“Yes, sir!”

The gags were removed from the corpses and those becoming corpses. Since there was no meaningful distinction between the dead and the dying, those whose gags were removed gasped violently, exhaling breaths mixed with blood.

“Huff… cough… huff…”

“Who ordered you?”

“I don’t know… really don’t know… we just did as we were told… honestly…”

“Then you’ve seen the divine flagship with your own eyes yet became heretics blinded by money. Gag them again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No! No!! I really don’t know!!! Truly!!! Mmph!!! Mmph!! Mmph!!!!”

“If you don’t know, then you must be beaten.”

“MMPH!!! MMMPHH!!!!!”

In truth, the prisoners were right. They knew nothing. The non-commissioned officers and officers were already being “interrogated” (tortured) elsewhere, so the Army of the Sun knew very well there was nothing to extract from these men.

Then why torture them? For violence itself. Unbeknownst to the prisoners, recording equipment was attached to the ceiling, broadcasting the torture scenes in real-time to the world’s internet network.

And the title of that video was “The End of Heretics and Apostates.”

These prisoners weren’t captured to extract information. They were living sacrifices brought to taste maximum pain until death, to be brutally murdered.

“Connect the electricity.”

“Yes, sir.”

Thump! Thump!

“KYAAAAAAAH!!!!”

Screams that pierced even through the gags filled the room. Power lines that should never be connected to a human body were attached with explosive force, and soon direct and alternating currents joined hands to begin searing the bodies of the survivors.

“Ubbbbbbbbbbbb—”

Eyes rolled back, blood and sweat poured down. In this room, there was no possibility for the bound ones to survive.

The current would continue to flow until their hearts burst. That was the price for sinning against the Sun.

And in another room where the non-commissioned officers and officers were gathered, a shredder typically used to turn entire logs into sawdust began to spin with a fierce noise.

“No! Please! I told you everything! The Shadow Alliance! The Contractors! The Lords hired us!”

“You did tell us. But I never said we’d let you live.”

“Just kill me outright! Kill me! Not that… anything but that… please!”

The fact that they could speak so clearly even with cracked skulls showed these mercenaries were no ordinary people, but faced with the prospect of being ground alive in the fiercely spinning shredder, even they became common folk wetting themselves in terror.

Crunch-crunch-crunch.

“AAAAARGH!!!!”

Crunch! Splat! Crack! Crack!

Intestines burst from mouths, eyeballs popped out from pressure, bones turned to powder, and crushed organs collapsed into bloody masses flowing downward.

What went in was a person, but what came out was flesh and bone powder. Naturally, this scene too was being broadcast live worldwide.

The punishment for traitors has always been the most extreme and cruel in any era, so there would be no one to sympathize with them.

No one survived.

No one made it out alive.

It is the will of God. Fear it.

*

“That should be warning enough.”

“I hope so. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.”

Victor nodded at the Honor Guard Commander’s words.

Although humans of the Mortal Realm are said to be desensitized to violence for social and cultural reasons, there are limits. Broadcasting people being ground alive in shredders or tortured with electricity until their hearts burst falls under what even the Mortal Realm would consider “cruel acts.”

However, they were traitors who turned their guns on God. They deliberately engaged in artillery fire, prepared missile and rocket batteries in ambush to damage and bring down the ship, all with thorough preparation.

The moment it was confirmed that the ship had left the airspace and entered unclaimed territory, they launched their attack.

It was an act of treason with no possible excuse, making extreme punishment inevitable. If mercy had been shown to them, it would have diminished Victor’s authority. After all, the authority of an absolute monarch stems from the absolute power of life and death over the common people.

If there were those who denied his right to rule because he had not yet ascended to the throne, they too would face extreme punishment. Even setting aside his special status, he was already a formally appointed knight who had undergone the knighting ceremony, giving him judicial authority over civilians’ crimes. Since the mercenaries couldn’t be judged by nationality, the verdict given by him—the ruler of the Army of the Sun and their employer—could not be overturned.

Therefore, no one mourned their deaths. Not even the lords of the Shadow Alliance who had hired them.

If they had been kind-hearted enough to feel sorry for mercenaries who failed to earn their pay and were annihilated, they wouldn’t have dared flee from the radiance of the Sun in the first place.

“What’s the reaction?”

“100% positive, sir.”

“Good.”

Opposition was not permitted. One might defy God’s will, but one cannot defy God’s power.

Some might call this dictatorship… and they’d be right. It is dictatorship—the revival of a theocratic political system from ancient times. But what of it? Wasn’t the Nariaki Empire under the same system when it ushered in humanity’s golden age?

Humans are inherently ignorant and evil beings. Victor learned this clearly on the streets of Parsifal. There’s a saying that kindness comes from a full stomach—people only care for others when their own bellies are full and their backs are warm. When humans’ basic needs aren’t met, a hundred out of a hundred will try to fill their stomachs by taking from others.

This too was wisdom Victor learned in Parsifal.

“How far are we from Mount Kabalaia?”

“About… six more days, sir.”

“Good.”

Yet there was no smile on the divine countenance as he spoke. The information extracted from the prisoners—a group called the “Shadow Alliance”—was greatly disturbing his peace of mind.

A gathering of independent lords who rejected his rule. An alliance of tyrants, dark lords, dictators, and usurpers—it was natural for him to be disturbed.

“The Shadow Alliance. Don’t you think it’s quite a direct name?”

“They are dishonorable ones trying to escape the radiance of the Sun. They don’t deserve to be called lords.”

“Yes. That’s right.”

True lords know how to provide for their subjects. In a world with so many wise and benevolent rulers who share even their own table through successive servings, what makes these vile creatures so special that they dare oppose him under the grandiose name of “Shadow Alliance”?

Victor concluded that they must be desperately trying to stop him out of fear of being on the purge list once he ascends to the throne—and he was right. Only servants of darkness fear and reject the Sun’s rule, for the righteous and just do not fear divine judgment.

“Inform the princes and royal lords of their existence. And remind them that when the world burns bright, shadows have nowhere to stand.”

“If the divine one wishes it, so it shall be.”