"Aaaarghhhh!"
"It hurts, ma! Make it stop!"
"It hurts!"
The painful screeching of a child could be heard throughout the halls of the Trien Barony Estate. Wherever the screams reached, the servants and guards nearby would furrow their brows and reveal looks of anguish.
Day in and day out, the Trien Barony Estate was never quiet. The towns' people even dubbed the estate as the Ghostly Wails of Trien.
It was till the day of the empire's Orca Knight Order came to visit the Trien Barony that the wails halted.
For it was also the day the Trien Barony Estate was stormed in by the knights and the mastermind of the horrendous screeching was beheaded.
Once the executions were over, the knights were about to head back when they heard the cries of children.
"I thought the Trien Barony only had 2 children under them. Where are the sounds coming from?" The Orca Knight Captain, Joseph Webber unsheathed his sword and looked around the estate once more with a few of his trusted aides.
As the sobs grew louder, Captain Joseph and his knights started to feel chilly.
"It's...here?"
Sword in hand, Joseph swung it in a downward motion, slicing a rather thick brick wall open behind the large oven in the estate's main kitchen.
When the wall collapsed, the sobs of children became loud and clear, while the knights looking at the darkness revealed solemn expressions.
"Baron Trien was a sick, sick bastard. To think he imprisoned children behind the walls of a kitchen. Torturing them both physically and mentally. Sick and deranged bastards!" At the thought of the truth, Captain Joseph became as furious as humanly possible.
Heck, he was so furious that when he slammed the hilt of his sword into a brick oven, half of the kitchen along with the floors above it collapsed.
Seeing his fury, the other knights could only stand still and nod in agreement. The current predicament was very familiar to Captain Joseph.
It took a while but Captain Joseph soon calmed down. Following the stairs down, the group of knights soon emerged into a large cavern beneath the estate.
"What the-?"
"There was a cavern this big underneath the estate?"
"How has it not fallen in on itself yet?"
"Crazy bastards..."
Countless murmurs erupted among the knights upon witnessing the magical scene.
Besides the few thin rocky pillars that supported the edges of the cavern, there were no structural support for the main area where the estate's main house was built on.
One could even see the stone pillars of the main house sticking out of the cavern's roof like sore thumbs.
In the middle of the cavern was a shallow pool with bodies in them.
When Captain Joseph and his knights looked at the pool's directions, they couldn't help but reveal looks of horror.
"That...That..."
"Are those the children?"
Being the first to come to his senses, Captain Joseph kicked one of his dazed subordinates down the steps. He then turned around and shouted, "What are you waiting for? Go and save the children!"
Snapping out of their dazedness, the rest of the knights followed the first tumbling knight towards the pool.
As for Captain Joseph, he remained at the entrance of the cavern with his hand on his sword hilt, looking over the whole scene like a brooding protector.
When the first knight hit a large rock and stopped tumbling, he rubbed his back as he got up and hobbled towards the pool. It was then did he take a closer look at the bodies in the pool.
Doing so made the knight collapse back onto the ground and piss his pants.
"Cap...Captain! These bodies... all of them are...clones of the first child!"
Soon, the other knights arrived at the pool too.
Their eyes were filled with despair as they each took in the depressing scene in front of them.
The pool turned out to be the size of a lake, and in the middle of said lake was a child chained to a stone in bloodied rags. A small mass of dead bodies with red rivers surrounded the child like an island.
Some of the knights who saw this even started to feel greasy, wanting to throw up but couldn't due to their mouthless helmets.
"Get it together, guys...I'll go and...untie the kid." One of the knights clutched his stomach and said. He then jumped into the lake and trudged his way there.
The other knights gave it some thought before they too entered the lake to catch up to him.
"This water isn't water!"
"Yeah, it's blood!"
"The Trien Barony are pieces of shit!"
"Shut up, we'll be executed for bad mouthing the nobles..."
Countless grumbles and murmurs resounded around the lake as the knights swam crossed the lake.
Roughly 10 minutes later, the knights reached the island of bodies where the child was chained on.
Now that they were closer to their target, some of the knights couldn't help but throw up in their helmets.
"Sick fucks!"
"How could they do this to a child?!"
"I...I should've ripped their limbs one by one instead!"
The knights were outraged at the sight.
Chained to a black stone tablet with runic inscriptions on it, the young child was covered in cuts and whip marks all over his body.
His left eye was missing and most of his body was bony, like he hadn't been fed in a long time.
There was blood dripping out of a cut on his left hand, and every time it dripped onto the fleshy surface, red flowers with bony stems would sprout and blossom.
"What the..."
"His blood is cursed..."
"Or blessed..."
"Enough!"
"Swish"
The last knight who got onto the island, took out his sword and slashed at the chains binding the child. With it, the child fell forward but was caught by said knight.
"Enough gossiping. Even if the child is cursed, his fate shall be determined by his Majesty, for he too is a citizen of the Harper Kingdom. We are knights, and our duty is to protect the innocent. The child has done..."
The knight quickly pressed his fingers on the child's neck, looking for a pulse. A moment later, he laid the child down and retrieved his sword from his teammates.
"What happened?"
"We were too late...The child has already passed on..."
The already depressing mood turned even more somber.
Just then, something caught the knights' eyes.
"A moving body part?"
"Quick! There's a survivor here!"