Chapter 657: Nether Dome
The mood in the room shifted instantly.
The other sisters perked up, their attention sharpening.
"I know what happened that day." Charlotte continued. "I know what you did...what you made Mama and the others do. But I’ve never found any records of what happened to Marcus specifically."
"He’s been marked as missing, but there’s no confirmation of death or imprisonment. It’s like he just...vanished."
She fixed Mika with a keen gaze.
"And I know there’s no way you would have let Marcus go, Mika. So what exactly happened to him?"
"She’s right." Astrid nodded eagerly. "There were others too, people whose remains were never identified. Their bodies were just gone, with no DNA evidence left behind. It’s like they were erased from existence."
Anya’s eyes gleamed with something that might have been excitement.
"Knowing you, Mika, you wouldn’t have given them merciful deaths. So tell us—what did you do?"
Mika leaned back against the headboard, a slow smile spreading across his face.
"Do you really want to know?"
"We’re asking, aren’t we?" Anya said.
"I could show you, if you’d like." He offered. "But I warn you—it might ruin the pleasant atmosphere."
The three sisters exchanged glances.
Then, in unison:
"Show us!"
Mika raised an eyebrow.
"Are you sure? It’s not exactly—"
"Show us, Mika!" Charlotte insisted, her eyes blazing with intensity. "After everything that bastard put you through, I want to see what you did to him. I don’t care how disturbing it is. I want to see him suffer!"
"Me too." Astrid added firmly. "We deserve to know what happened. Especially after what he did to you."
Anya simply nodded, her expression hungry.
Mika sighed.
"Very well. But don’t say I didn’t warn you."
He released Astrid’s tail, which he had been absently playing with and reached into the air beside him.
A small portal opened, revealing a space beyond that looked like a greenhouse—massive and lush, filled with bookshelves and artifacts of every description which was actually Mika’s own house.
He reached through and rummaged around, muttering to himself.
"Not this...not that...where did I put it...Ah! There it is."
He pulled something out of the portal.
It was a snow globe.
But there was nothing whimsical or charming about this particular object.
Inside the glass sphere, miniature flames flickered and danced—real flames, alive and hungry. The scene within was visible through the glass, and it looked like something straight out of a nightmare.
The three sisters leaned in closer, their curiosity overcoming their caution.
"What is that?" Charlotte asked.
"What does it have to do with Marcus?" Astrid added.
Mika held the globe up, letting the light play across its surface.
"Look closer." He said softly. "Look deep inside, and you’ll understand."
The sisters peered into the globe.
At first, they could see nothing but fire—roiling, blazing, consuming.
But as their eyes adjusted, they began to make out shapes—
And then Charlotte gasped.
"Oh my god..."
Inside the globe, Lava flowed like rivers across a blackened landscape. Fire geysers erupted from the ground, spewing molten rock into a sky of churning red clouds. The air itself seemed to shimmer with heat, distorting everything in view.
And there were people there.
Hundreds of people—naked, terrified, screaming.
They were being tortured by demonic beings with cruel smiles and gleaming eyes.
Some were strapped to stone tables, their limbs being severed one by one.
Others had molten metal poured into their orifices, their bodies convulsing in agony.
Still others were being flayed alive, their skin peeled away in long, careful strips.
And then, after each death, they would regenerate—their bodies reforming from the ashes, only to be tortured again.
An endless cycle of suffering.
And Charlotte recognized some of their faces.
"Amanda..." She whispered, her voice trembling. "It’s...It’s that bitch Amanda!"
It was true. Amanda was there, suspended by chains while two demons slowly tore her arms from her body.
Her face was blank, lifeless—the expression of someone who had experienced so much pain that they had simply stopped feeling anything at all.
The demons finished their work, tearing her limbs free with wet, ripping sounds.
Then, before Charlotte’s horrified eyes, Amanda’s body began to regenerate—new arms sprouting from the stumps, fresh flesh knitting together.
And then the demons started again.
"What is this, Mika?" Astrid asked slowly, her voice barely above a whisper.
Mika gently twirled the globe between his fingers, admiring the chaotic flames within like a proud artist.
"I call it the Nether-Dome." Mika explained as if he were discussing the weather. "It’s a miniature localized hell populated entirely by creatures called Nomaks. Their sole purpose for existing is to inflict maximum physical and psychological agony on sentient souls."
He tapped the glass softly. "Back then, I used the last lingering fragments of my power to secretly intercept their departing souls and physical remnants. I funneled them straight into this sphere."
"It is a closed-loop system of absolute misery. They die thousands of times a day, only to be forcibly regenerated."
Mika smiled warmly at the glass.
"And the best part? I placed a permanent Mind-Revitalizing Curse over the entire dimension."
"No matter how many millennia pass, their minds can never go numb. The pain they feel right now is just as sharp, fresh, and terrifying as it was on the very first second they arrived."
"They will suffer like this for all eternity."
A heavy, suffocating silence descended on the bedroom.
Astrid and Charlotte slowly looked up from the sphere, gazing at Mika with a sudden, overwhelming realization:
Note to self: NEVER, under ANY circumstances, betray Mika!
To these people, a quick death was a mercy beyond comprehension. What Mika had crafted for them was a fate a billion times worse than death.
Suddenly, Anya burst into a fit of giddy, sadistic giggles.
She threw her arms around Mika’s neck, hugging him tightly and kissing his cheek repeatedly.
"I knew it!" Anya squealed, her eyes glowing with pure, unadulterated adoration. "I knew I could never match you, Mika! Compared to you, I’m just a cute little amateur!"
She stared at the snow globe with pure awe. "A self-sustaining, infinite eternal torture engine...It’s breathtaking! It’s poetic! It’s absolute perfection!"
She looked up at him with pleading eyes. "Can I borrow it, Mika? Just for a weekend? Please? I have a few subjects I’d love to drop inside!"
"Not a chance in hell."
"Why not?" Anya pouted, her lower lip jutting out. "I promise I’ll be careful with it!"
"Your mind is already cuckoo enough." Mika said dryly. "I can only imagine what you’d do with something like this. It needs to stay in the hands of someone responsible, someone who won’t just throw everyone they dislike into eternal torment."
He returned the globe to the portal, which closed with a soft hiss.
Anya pouted. "You’re no fun."
What Mika didn’t tell them was that the globe wasn’t entirely his own creation.
Back then, even with everything he’d learned, a spell this complex, creating an entire pocket dimension and trapping souls within it was beyond his abilities.
It had been the Eternal Queen’s final gift, formulated in the last moments before she faded, pressed into his consciousness like a farewell present.
He had mixed feelings about that. But he certainly wasn’t giving it away.
"Speaking of projects." Anya said suddenly, perking up. She scrambled off the bed and dug through her small purse. "I have something similar. Not quite on your scale, but—"
She pulled out a small glass case. Inside was a microscope slide.
Astrid squinted at it. "Why are you carrying laboratory equipment in your purse?"
Anya didn’t answer. Her eyes glowed with a rainbow light.
And inside the slide, something began to grow.
Tiny organisms. Disgusting ones. They writhed and squirmed like living tumors, pulsating wetly against the glass.
Charlotte recoiled in absolute disgust.
"EWWWW! ANYA, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?! WHY ARE YOU CARRYING MUTATED BACTERIA AROUND IN YOUR PURSE?!"
"Get that away from us!" Astrid yelped, pulling her tails back. "What if it breaches the glass?! That could infect the entire city!"
"It’s not bacteria." Anya held the slide up to the light, her smile serene. "It’s those doctors. The ones from Marcus’s domain. The ones who experimented on Mika."
Silence.
Charlotte gulped. "You mean—"
"I reduced them to single-celled organisms." Anya shook the slide gently, making the tiny things slosh against the glass. "Whenever I get bored, I take them out and experiment on them. Dissect them. Rearrange them into different forms. Sometimes I make them fight each other just to see what happens."
She shrugged. "It passes the time."
Charlotte and Astrid stared at her with expressions of dawning horror.
"You’re just as crazy as he is..." Charlotte whispered.
"No one compares to Mika." Anya put the slide away with reverent care. "But I try." She turned back to Mika, frowning. "Speaking of which—where’s Marcus? I didn’t see him in the globe."
Charlotte straightened. "She’s right! I’d recognize his face anywhere. He wasn’t there."
"Ah." Mika’s smile turned enigmatic. "Marcus got a completely different treatment. Something special. Just for him."
Both Charlotte and Astrid felt a chill run down their spines at the look in his eyes. There was something in that gaze that told them whatever Marcus had received was far worse than the globe.
"Show us!" Anya said immediately, her eyes alight. "Please, Mika!~ I want to see!~"
"It’s not an appetizing sight." He remarked. "All that cake you ate might come back up."
"I can handle it." She waved dismissively. "Charlotte and Astrid might struggle, but—"
"No." Charlotte’s voice was firm. "I deserve to see what happened to him. After everything he did to Mika. No matter how bad it is."
Astrid nodded. "Show us."
Mika looked at all three of them. Then he shrugged.
"Fine. See for yourselves."
Mika raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
THUMP!
An large, heavy object was summoned out of nowhere and the moment the object landed, a foul, metallic, iron-heavy stench filled the air.
Astrid took one look at the creature on the floor—and her face instantly drained of all color.
"Mmmmm—!"
She gagged violently, slapped a hand over her mouth, and bolted straight for the bathroom.
Charlotte froze. Her eyes bulged in sheer, unadulterated horror. She unconsciously recoiled, backing away until her spine hit the headboard, staring at the floor with wide, trembling pupils.
Only Anya was transfixed. Her eyes gleamed. Her lips parted. She looked at the thing the way an art collector might look at a masterpiece.
"What..."
Her voice came out barely above a whisper.
"What is this, Mika? What is this beautiful creation?"
The thing on the floor was vaguely humanoid, but only in the loosest sense.
It was a mass of flesh and skin, layer upon layer wrapped around a central core, held together with crude stitches that crisscrossed every surface. The outermost layer was dry and cracked, stretched thin over the bulk beneath.
There were no eyes, no mouth...just the suggestion of a face somewhere beneath all that compressed tissue.
"Have you ever eaten layer cake?" Mika suddenly asked.
Both sisters nodded mutely.
"This is similar. Layers upon layers. Wrapped around Marcus’s body. All those stitch marks you see—that’s where each new layer was sewn on."
"What are the layers made of?" Anya breathed.
Mika’s smile didn’t waver.
"The skin of his family."