Chapter 104: Vivisection
Holred couldn't quite sit still. He'd already sent men to keep watch, and word had come back — Evan Wang had gone out that night, but strangely enough, it seemed the man was nothing more than a lecher, having gone off with some street girl. What game was this? Was there really any information to be had from a common whore?
Failing to get the Fallen Angel's Tear out of Lidis had put him in an impossible spot. He'd cultivated both magic and swordsmanship — fifth-tier earth magic paired with knight-level combat — though he only counted as a black knight, never having been properly conferred that title. The knight system had originated with the Church, but ability-users had borrowed its ranking scheme wholesale, since it mapped so well onto raw physical prowess and close combat.
He'd made up his mind: if Lidis still refused to talk tomorrow, no matter how much he enjoyed keeping her around, he'd have to deal with her. He couldn't afford to drag this out any longer. It wasn't too late yet tonight — he'd question her once more.
A cruel look crossed his face as he turned to head back to the Mage's Secret Room — an alchemical construct he'd taken from a mage he'd since disposed of, so thoroughly that not even the man's bones remained.
He stopped short. Someone stood behind him, silent, and he had no idea how they'd gotten there. He didn't panic — he simply stepped back several cubits, putting distance between himself and the stranger.
He studied the man carefully. Anyone who could approach him without a sound had to be genuinely skilled. The stranger wore a gray-brown overcoat and a black top hat, a cane turning idly in his right hand.
"Who are you?" Holred asked, not raising his voice, perfectly composed. He already knew his men outside had been dealt with — dead or alive, calling out wouldn't help either way.
Evan studied the fat man in front of him. All that bulk wasn't the soft kind — barely any real fat on him at all, just solid, corded muscle beneath the surface. He looked clumsy, but the way he'd just moved said otherwise entirely. Evan watched him reach beneath the table and draw out a greatsword, and understanding settled into place — the walls, the corners, every hidden space in this room probably concealed a blade somewhere. Clearly not a man to underestimate.
"Evan Wang. You can call me Evan."
"What's happened to the men outside?"
"They're all down. No one's coming to save you. You'd do better to surrender," Evan said flatly. There had indeed been sentries posted outside, all of them already dealt with — Evan had used Suggestion, a technique close to hypnosis, to walk right past them one by one before snapping each neck and leaving them where they fell. Stepping in here meant walking straight into the tiger's den alone, and Evan had no intention of showing mercy. In truth, mercy hadn't even crossed his mind. He might weigh a life's worth before acting — but once he'd committed to something, those considerations fell away entirely, and these particular lives hadn't factored into his thinking at all.
"Well! Ruthless of you. No wonder Hollingburton sent you to investigate the missing mages. So you've already decided it was me?" Holred said, trying a psychological gambit, betting that Evan had no proof.
"I don't need to know for certain it was you. Suspicion is enough," Evan said coldly, seeing through the tactic easily. That kind of reasoning would never have flown back on the Earth of Evan's old life — or at least, it would have drawn plenty of moral condemnation. Here, though, it was simply how things worked. Evan represented Hollingburton, and that meant representing strength — and strength didn't concern itself with the objections of the weak. He didn't need to be reasonable. What mattered was never showing weakness, and besides, every thread of this pointed straight back to Holred regardless.
"Everyone from Hollingburton deserves to die!" Holred roared, lunging forward — while his mouth raced through an incantation. An earth spike burst up beneath Evan's feet, but Evan had already stepped clear the instant the chanting began; by the time the spike erupted, he was no longer standing where it struck.
The lunging posture had been a feint from the start, meant to make Evan think he was about to close with the greatsword. The roar had served the same purpose — to plant the impression that Holred intended to fight hand to hand, all while he raced through the earth spike incantation underneath it. Clever, in theory. But Evan hadn't fallen for any of it. Some instinct had already told him magic was coming, and he'd stepped forward before the spell even landed.
The spike erupted and struck nothing. From the speed of that casting alone, Evan had already gauged Holred's level — not yet a senior mage.
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As Evan stepped forward, the cane in his hand swung out naturally with the motion, cutting the air with the whistle of a heavy weight. Holred, his earth spike spent, swung the greatsword up in a flash of yellow light and closed the distance at once.
Spell first, then a seamless transition into melee — Evan couldn't help but respect the experience behind it. A method like that could bring down a mage two or three tiers above Holred without much trouble. Unfortunately for him, his opponent tonight was Evan — a lich forged by years spent running for his life.
Evan took a step forward, then twisted his landing foot, carrying his whole body off to the left in a shift that shouldn't have been possible mid-motion. The greatsword, trailing its yellow glow, swept past close enough to brush his coat and found nothing. Evan's cane, meanwhile, connected. The exchange happened in an instant.
Where the cane struck, a coppery sheen rippled across Holred's muscle — an automatic reflex, generating a burst of counterforce, the product of earth magic fused with knightly technique. There was a heavy thud, and Holred staggered back several steps before catching his footing. The blow had landed, but he'd taken little real damage from it.
"You're a knight?" Holred said, unable to believe it — that Hollingburton would send out someone who was a knight as well as a mage.
Evan followed up at once. "Bone Cage!" He pointed, and bones surged up from the ground, layering and interlocking around Holred, closing in from every side.
Dual cultivation. The phrase surfaced in Holred's mind. He himself had walked that same path — magic and swordsmanship both — and it wasn't easy. Not everyone had the talent for both; most people specialized in one or the other. Someone like him was rare enough as it was.
He chanted quickly, yellow light flaring around him and hardening into an earth wall, blocking the bones as they closed in — though not entirely. Evan's level was simply too far above his own.
Seeing this, Holred raised the greatsword, yellow light flaring across the blade again, and swung it forward. Amid a bone-grating shriek of sound, the strike tore open a crack in the cage.
Evan smiled faintly at the sight of that crack. The bone cage dissolved abruptly into black smoke, and Holred stumbled forward, thrown off balance by the force of his own swing meeting no resistance.
Not good, he thought, quickly steadying his stance, sinking his weight and catching his breath. His reaction wasn't slow — but it was already too late. Evan's Yin-Chill Strike had already landed. Buried in the smoke, Holred hadn't even seen it coming. A cold shock ran through his body, his soul dropping — and it was only because Evan hadn't intended to kill him outright that he survived it at all. His vision swam, the glow around his body vanishing entirely, and the black smoke suddenly coiled upward, hardening into black cords that bound his body tight. Deep bruises bloomed across his skin wherever the cords touched.
He tried to roar, to tear himself free — but no sound came, only a weak, strangled noise. The cords looked thin, hardly strong enough to hold anything, and yet he couldn't break them at all.
"Don't bother struggling. However strong you are, accept it," Evan said flatly. "Tell me everything you know about the missing gathering team."
"You think I'll talk?" Holred barked out a wild laugh. "That whore Lidis tasted quite fine, hah!" He knew, once in Evan's hands, his odds of surviving this were slim.
"What did you say?" A sudden green light flared in Evan's eyes. He'd caught it — a mention of Lidis.
Holred realized, too late, that he'd let something slip. He'd assumed Evan already knew about her — only now did it dawn on him that Evan hadn't known at all, or at least not the full picture. He laughed harder. "Go find her yourself, if you've got the skill for it. Expecting me to just hand it over? Keep dreaming."
Evan said, low and cold, "Let's hope you can hold out. There isn't a man alive who's kept something from a necromancer, once I've decided I want to know it."
Holred's expression shifted. His mouth snapped open, teeth aiming for his own tongue — but Evan had already anticipated the move. The instant his jaw moved and his tongue came out, Evan gave a cold laugh, pointed a finger, and a bolt of black smoke shot into his mouth like lightning.
Holred's teeth came down, but his tongue didn't sever — only blood filled his mouth, and he found he no longer had the strength to finish the bite, left making nothing but a muffled, wordless noise.
"Trying to die? In front of a necromancer, you don't get that option. Not even your soul gets to run. Where is Lidis?" Evan asked.
"I... don't... know!" Holred forced out, thick and slurred, his voice heavy with hatred.
"Very well. Seems you won't talk until you've suffered a little first," Evan said, smiling as he looked down at him, his eyes full of quiet mockery. "It's a long night, and I have nothing better to do. Consider this a vivisection. Let's see whether your resolve holds out longer than my blade. Don't worry — I'll use magic to keep you alive through the whole process, wide awake, your senses sharper than usual. I intend for you to experience every part of this."
He gestured, and Holred, for all his bulk, floated up as light as a feather, settling down onto the table. Evan snapped his fingers, and five nails rose from the tabletop, pitch black, driving through both ankles and both wrists, their curved tips digging in with blood welling around them. A sixth, thinner nail didn't rise the same way — instead it drove straight into his lower spine, sealing off every trace of his magic and martial power at once. Holred howled in pain.
"Talk now, and you still have a chance," Evan said evenly, sweeping a hand aside. The black cords binding Holred's body dissolved into black mist and vanished — and along with them, so did his clothes, crumbling instantly to ash.
A scalpel appeared in Evan's hand. He drew out a magic lamp, and from his ring he produced a white lab coat, pulling on a surgical mask as he spoke, his voice soft and eerie. "Still not talking? How exciting. Such fine material to work with."