The water was bone-cold.
It was dirty and smelled of moss, tasting of iron, but it was cold enough to jolt his system awake. Lysander knelt beneath the trickle, his left palm held over the dripping water, watching his blood coil away between his fingers. His knuckles were split, skin torn, swollen, and his joints resembled rusted iron from repeated impacts.
He tried flexing his fingers.
Pain shot back immediately from his palms, sharp and sudden.
Using his mouth, Lysander tore a strip from his already ruined sleeve and wrapped it around his fist, teeth pulling the knot tight. He almost yelped due to the pain. His vision blurred from the ache, taking a few moments to clear. Breathing hitched, he reached inward, as the Voices had told him.
Focusing on the pain in his palm, he tried to push it away, as if it were an external veil.
The pain gradually dulled in layers.
It wasn't entirely gone yet — never truly gone — but pushed back. It was as if the sensation of pain was layers of heavy cloth draping over his wound, and he was peeling them away. The sting faded into something distant and more manageable. Even though his hands still trembled, the tremor no longer threatened to drop him to his knees.
Told you, one Voice said.
It's real.
"I guess—" muttered Lysander. He was pretty sure this was something unique to him, not something most other acolytes could do—at least, not easily.
Get more food! A voice commanded, followed by a cacophony of murmurs—many unclear, ethereal, some audible. They often contradicted each other, manic and frantic. One thing they all shared was surfacing whenever he used his powers.
Pain. So much pain!
Blood. Your hands.
DIE! DIE! DIE!
Laughing and moaning simultaneously, everything overwhelmed him, feverish, as if being struck repeatedly with a sledgehammer. Ironically, there was no pain.
He loosened his grip on his power. The pain surged back — immediate, brutal, as if offended by the delay.
He sucked in a breath through his teeth and focused again — not on removing the pain, but on lowering it. The sensation receded once more, stopping just short of numbness.
The Voices stirred.
Too much, one hissed.
Too little.
Why stop? Break it. Break it all, a third chuckled.
He pushed them to the back of his mind, partly to get used to their presence, partly to test his limits — of both his powers and the Voices.
He pressed two fingers deliberately into a bruised rib. Enough to cause pain. He felt the spike, then eased the sensation down gradually, until it sat in the background like a distant ache.
It was the right spot — allowing him to gauge how injured he was without hindering his actions. His breathing evened out.
This is useful. I could push myself further in fights and extend my training. Lysander thought. It's a handy trump card; however, it doesn't seem to work when Crazy is around.
He believed he must have gained this ability from the moment of his transmigration, because despite his body being riddled with wounds, Lysander hadn't noticed them until Crazy manifested in his vortex of light and somehow stripped him of his abilities. That was when he finally saw his injuries.
Deep in thought, he cleaned the rest of his wounds with water and a rough cloth, working slowly and efficiently. When his knee flared with pain, he dampened it — not entirely, just enough to keep moving. When exhaustion threatened to dull his awareness, he let the pain surface again.
A reminder to stay awake.
The Voices grew louder when he pushed too far.
Damn coward, one spat.
Smart, another countered.
He tied off the final bandage and leaned back against the stone, chest rising and falling steadily.
Satisfied, he tested his other power next. Last time, when he was barely awake from starvation and his willpower faltering, he briefly felt the Voices take over his body and punch the bark of a tree. Looking at the broken tree, Lysander could again see the damage he had caused.
The tree was strange, able to survive in such a dark environment with infertile rocks as soil — its existence a miracle to Lysander. It had giant, sparse leaves, and its wood was incredibly hard. Its trunk lacked structure, growing along the cracks in the stone, with roots penetrating deep underground.
Until now, Lysander hadn't been able to recreate the state of mind he was in when possessed by the Voices, punching the tree. It was a view of the world in perfect clarity, as if nothing else existed but Lysander, his target, and the desire to kill. He could instinctively feel — not see, but feel —the density, resistance, grain, and countless other factors of his target, all calculated subconsciously in a single, precise thought.
Just do it, one Voice said. Punch it hard.
Yes! Kill it! another supported.
Can we eat it?
The voices surfaced in his mind again. They were usually silent, appearing only occasionally in normal circumstances, when he was neither in danger nor using his power. Sometimes they emerged for a brief period when he was deep in thought, offering suggestions that were mostly nonsensical before fading away. Lysander discovered that they responded to his thoughts; he once attempted to converse with them intentionally. The responses he received were confusing and seemingly random, such as 'I'm in pain,' 'It is heavy, no?' or 'Who are you?' At times, they spoke to each other or even engaged in conversation with other people.
Lysander forced himself to his feet. Reluctant as he was, he needed to test his powers further. He wanted to access the destructive state of mind that allowed him to command such devastation purely by instinct.
In front of him stood a stone wall, rough and uneven, marked by veins of darker rock like frozen scars. Lysander stared at it in silence, breathing slowly, his left hand flexing and relaxing at his side.
The tree strike had worked once.
That was the issue. It had only worked once. Once was a coincidence — merely a lucky moment when his hunger and desperation aligned perfectly. To replicate it meant he needed to understand it, but the Voices seemed disinterested in providing that understanding.
Hit it harder, one voice whispered eagerly.
No, slower. Slower hurts more, another countered.
You're thinking too much. Thinking is cowardice, a third scoffed.
Break your hand.
Lysander ignored their lack of support. He planted his feet firmly and tested the ground beneath him. He raised his fist, trying to align his wrist as best as he could remember. Taking a deep breath, he prepared to strike.
Pain shot through him immediately — sharp but ineffective. The stone did not even crack.
"Wrong?" he muttered, shaking his hand as the skin began to swell. The Voices erupted into noise once more.
You wanted it too much, one offered.
Violence should be honest. Violence should be cruel, said another.
He tried repeatedly. Thinking about all the nuances that were present in that singular moment where he did it, looking for different angles or different forces. However, they all yielded the same result. It was all pain without meaning. The wall remained indifferent.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Then more. He lost count.
His breaths grew heavier. Sweat stung his eyes. The ache in his arm deepened into something sluggish and dull. The Voices drifted, bored now.
What if the wall is innocent? Ask it nicely, a Voice droned.
Use your head instead, you idiot, one mocked.
This is why you'll die early.
He slumped against the stone and slid down until he was sitting, his injured hand pressed against his thigh. His chest rose and fell unevenly.
There were still no clear instructions. Just noise in his ears that he can't shake away.
"Think," he whispered to himself.
The tree hadn't broken because he hit it with more force; he remembered that vividly. He had been weak, starving, and barely able to stand. Yet the strike had felt… precise. It wasn't just about the motion—it was about the consequence.
Pain had flared again, but it had communicated something to him.
He looked at his bruised knuckles and the raw skin on his hands before turning his gaze back to the stone wall.
The pain he had felt then wasn't merely signals sent from his body to his brain. Both he and the tree had experienced it that way. Lysander wasn't sure how trees perceived pain, but he was certain about the information he had felt back then. The signals he received in his mind indicated that his strike had landed in a way that inflicted the maximum amount of pain.
The pain was not just a physical sensation; it encapsulated how the object perceives the damage it would endure. It was his theory at least, and it was what he felt when he struck the tree.
The Voices grew oddly quiet. It wasn't exactly silent—more like distant and idle, muttering nonsense among themselves.
Cracks are stories, someone murmured.
Everything breaks eventually.
Can we eat it?
Lysander stood up again, this time more slowly. He did not take an aggressive stance. He didn't try to ignore the pain in his hand; instead, he allowed it to exist, to throb, and to inform him of its limits.
He raised his fist, hovering just short of the stone.
Where would it hurt most to strike?
The thought came to him unbidden.
Suddenly, something shifted within him with that thought.
The wall changed—not visually, but conceptually. The stone felt uneven in a way it hadn't before, as if certain points resonated faintly beneath his skin. He sensed hairline weaknesses, stress lines, and places where force would echo rather than dissipate. A certain weight seemed to press down above his head.
Lysander's breath caught.
There, he thought.
He struck.
The impact was clean.
A jarring crack reverberated through the stone, sharp and sudden. The pain in his hand spiked violently, far worse than before, but it also carried clarity with it. For a heartbeat, the world narrowed into lines, fractures, and stress points as if his perception of reality had become brittle, revealing cracks beneath the surface and offering a vision of absolute clarity.
Then—
GONG.
The sound rolled through the cavern like a divine command, deep and reverent throughout the caves. It was the signal to return to the main cave chamber, to resume the combat with Crazy.
The state shattered instantly.
Lysander gasped and staggered back, clutching his left hand as agony rushed in unchecked. Skin split fully this time. Blood seeped between his fingers, hot and undeniable.
The Voices screamed all at once.
Too soon!
You almost had it!
Next time, don't hesitate.
He pressed his bleeding palm against his chest, breathing heavily as he stared at the cracked stone. Whatever was inside him did not respond to obedience or madness, but rather to the understanding that pain is something more than mere suffering.
He readied himself to ascend the cave back to the main chamber. The last time he took this route, Lys had been starving, which made the journey estimate several hours. This time, having been nourished with the potatoes from the ground here and being able to suppress his pain, he had a much better chance of confronting Crazy.