White Noise

Although he was surrounded by utter darkness and couldn't move, he could vaguely hear the outside world. So, when he heard two voices speaking to the woman who had killed Agnethe and kidnapped him, he immediately recognized the voices were Loh' and Robert.

A third voice pierced through, one that resembled the enigmatic figure that had appeared when Al vanquished Avilius. It sounded cartoonish like the voice of what an alien thought a superhero was supposed to sound like.

Although the words spoken were barely intelligible, it seemed the woman was conveying that she was at their disposal. Then, silence descended.

Time seemed to lose its meaning, slipping through Al's grasp like sand through an hourglass. His memories and thoughts became the seconds that ticked by in this inky abyss.

Al's awakening brought with it not only excruciating pain but the relentless replay of Agnethe's fiery demise. "Why, why did she show up alone!" he bitterly kept asking himself.

Gradually, his turbulent emotions found an anchor, his mind crafting lifelines to cling to, like beacons in the overwhelming darkness. He repeated a mantra to himself: "If she could've lived, then she would've. Things happen because they can't happen any other way."

Eventually he tried to cultivate, but it was as if he was severed from reality. Suddenly voices began to echo around him, growing clearer. It was the woman who had kidnapped him, engaged in conversation with a voice that grated like stones grinding against each other.

Suddenly, he was roughly jolted from the bag, landing face-first on the ground. Although he had healed, he remained bound, and his mouth wired shut. "I also picked up this Stubborn Will cultivator on my way there. He has a really strange etheric shell." The woman gestured towards Al's twisted knife, tethered to a plain ring.

"Oh Lapaptzi, I thought you got rid of this nasty immature hobby of yours!" The rough voice retorted. Al couldn't turn to look, but he could make out the figure in his peripheral vision. It was a skeleton, ancient and draped in dark robes.

The woman seemed affronted and protested, "It's not like that!" She then added, "I'm being serious, maybe we can get something in exchange for him in the market."

"I doubt it. You might get more fun out of him than you will get from selling him. Anyway, I know that's what you really want. Now leave me be, I have things to do!" The figure responded dismissively.

Lapaptzli angrily scooped Al up putting him back into her brown leather bag and studded out of her master's cave.

Once again, Al found himself losing himself in the void that had started to become familiar to him. His mind wandered memories resurfaced, and he began to laugh at how familiar this situation was to him, just like when he had gotten Mark killed.

Agnethe wouldn't have died if he hadn't been so persistent in chasing the Dark acolyte. He knew he was ultimately at fault because it was his decision. Yet, the fact that he found himself in such a similar situation made him feel as if his life had been written out for him. The paradox of his life suddenly became funny even comical, and he couldn't help but laugh as he pondered it.

This strangely made him feel an excitement in the dullness and darkness he found himself in. "What will happen next?" he thought. And as if the world could listen to his thoughts, a light broke through, and he found himself landing face first back on the ground.

Lapaptzi, who wasn't wearing her bandages to cover her eyes, was staring at Al. He was clearly inside of her cultivation cave. "The longest a Stubborn Will Cultivator has lasted with me is 2 weeks." The woman said, staring intensely at Al.

"Cultivators used to think Stubborn Will cultivators were actually Immortal under the right conditions without needing to enter the Immortal chasm. That is having their etheric shell intact, a working A.R.C. which requires the ability to breathe, and so on." She explained to Al as she walked over closer to him.

Lapaptzi said with a wide grin "I proved that wrong. A Stubborn Will cultivator can die even under the right 'external conditions'. This happens when the cultivator loses their Stubbornness... Pain can kill a person's stubborn nature so quick. It's really funny to see it happen." She was enthusiastically looking at Al and placed her hand on his chest feeling his heartbeat before stabbing him with her nails.

The two weeks eventually passed although to Al it seemed like an eternity. The woman had cut, stabbed, ripped, burned every inch of his body, however his Stubborn Will still continued to heal him. Although Al's eyes had long lost their luster he seemed to have died long ago.

The pain at first had been absolutely unbearable and just as she had said he had immediately lost whatever Stubbornness he had. By the third day he was praying for death in fact he was trying to actively stop his Stubborn Will from healing him, but it was futile.

He could sense that he would have long been freed from the hell he was in if Midnight Abyss were not chained to his ring which was the etheric shell for his Stubborn Will.

After a week he began to completely disassociate from his body until his mind became like white noise. He didn't recall who he was or what was happening. Even Lapaptzi began to realize he was not like the Stubborn Will cultivators she had broken she eventually got bored.

She skinned Al from head to toe and nailed him upside down to one of the walls of her cultivation cave, copper nails every 6 inches all over his body with his mouth wired shut. His skin unable to heal as it peeled open and nailed as well. Only his fingers were free. She was using him as decoration.

Months must have passed when Lapaptzi one day suddenly got up and left. She had had been cultivating when she opened her eyes if something had caught her attention, and she left her cave.

Al had remained in the same position for an unknown amount of time, his eyes unmoving until now.

Al's mind, once lost in a maddening sea of torment, began to regain its focus. The pain, once a relentless invader, now felt like a familiar companion, a part of his existence. He knew that if he wanted to escape his nightmarish predicament, he needed to muster every ounce of concentration and summon the image of his twisted knife vividly.

This technique, derived from the word shared to him by Benjamin, required a deep connection with his etheric shell. Al concentrated, the pain acting as a grim reminder of his dire situation. He needed to distinguish the sensation of his etheric shell from the agony, a task that demanded utmost precision and concentration.

Just as he had done before one second, he was empty handed the next he was wearing his ring and holding his twisted knife.

"What a strange technique it feels as if reality itself is affected." Al thought before summoning Midnight Abyss instantly the shadows in the room began to stream towards his twisted knife.

Skinless and upside down wielding a shadowy blade Al appeared terrifying, like an omen of death. He swung the blade with his fingers which was the only thing not nailed down to the wall.

His blade devoured the top of the nails with ease letting him pull his arm and hand through the nail's blood spurted out. He also ripped his meaty arm from the remainder of his skin which was nailed to the wall, however.

After getting himself down his skin grew back almost immediately, he knew he only had little time and couldn't risk fighting Lapaptzi. Since he wasn't capable of killing her, he had to use the power of Midnight Abyss to get out of there as soon as possible.

Al stabbed his shadow blade into the ground and turned it like a key and the darkness in the world converged into Midnight Abyss and crystallized into an obsidian armor which covered Al. He now only had one minute to use one of his obsidian pillars to get out of there as fast as possible. Al began his demonic sword dance in a frenzy.

"So, you really might actually be worth something," a raspy voice echoed through the cave. It was the entity Lapaptzi called master.

Al had acted swiftly, and a pillar surged through the ground, picking him up like a bullet train. However, the skeleton was quicker. It waved its left hand, and the pillar abruptly liquefied, sending Al hurtling downwards. Just before the black liquid hit the ground, the skeleton waved its right hand, transforming the black liquid into a thick, smoky vapor.

The vapor condensed and twisted, forming a giant, clenched hand that reached out to grasp Al. With another wave of his left hands, the hand transformed back into the original dark obsidian stone crystal. Al was trapped, held securely within the unyielding grasp of the clenched fist, stopped from hitting the ground.

Although Al was completely unharmed, he found himself unable to move, the shape of the obsidian hand that encased him was designed to hold him fast. His right hand, covered by the obsidian, held Midnight Abyss, making it impossible for him to wield it.

The skeleton drew nearer, its eyeless gaze focused on Al's armored head which protruded from the clenched fist. "Mmmhh, this is an Extreme Will I have not seen before. It must be a mutation," the man remarked, waving his left hand in front of Al's head in an attempt to turn his armor into a similar liquid, but he couldn't.

After a minute had passed, the armor surrounding Al crumbled away, and Midnight Abyss reverted back to Al's twisted knife. This seemed to amuse the skeleton, drawing a laugh from him. At that moment, Lapaptzi returned. "Who's being immature now?" she asked, her tone lightly teasing, thinking her master was crushing Al for his own amusement.

Ignoring her question, the skeleton turned his attention back to Al. "You were right; this one might be worth quite a lot," he mused, looking at Al as if he were a fat calf.