Chapter 17: Thrown Into the Bathtub

Milly thought she could hear her soul sizzling.

She bit down hard, refusing to scream. The thorns coiled around Stacy’s fingertips pierced her skin, carving bloody marks.

“Well? Do the characters in your mind feel any clearer?”

The language system forced into her brain was still shrouded in a thick fog. To lift that fog meant to fully master it, but for now, it had just been dumped on her.

Milly shook her head. Even with the unknown sigils Stacy carved into her, the words were no clearer. The marks had no effect… or so Milly thought.

Then Stacy gave a cruel smile.

“Of course they have no effect.”

What did that mean?

She knew it wouldn’t work, yet she still carved into her, torturing her on purpose?

Milly suddenly didn’t understand Stacy anymore. Or rather, the past few days had given her a false sense of security. She had thought she had seen all there was to Stacy, but now she understood. She had only seen the shallowest surface. Beneath Stacy’s calm exterior, something was on the verge of breaking free.

A searing pain shot through her shoulder blade. Milly instinctively bit her lip to keep from crying out. She saw Stacy’s fingertip trace the thorn-carved sigil. Within the mangled wound, a strange, eerie light seemed to pulse.

A wave of fear washed over her. It was an instinctual fear, not of the flesh, but a tremor from the depths of her soul. The light pulsing in the wound seemed to be able to touch her very essence.

With a flick of Stacy’s finger, the light in the wound began to pour into her body like a mad torrent.

Milly’s pupils shrank to pinpricks from the intense pain. It wasn’t just a simple sting. It was as if thousands of red-hot steel needles were crawling along her nerve endings, carving burning trenches into her bone marrow. A whimper like a wounded animal escaped her throat, only to be sealed by Stacy’s fingertip.

“Your voice is so lovely, Little Milly.” Stacy licked the blood from her fingertip, her smile widening as she watched Milly’s face turn pale with pain. It was as if she were admiring a beautiful painting, and Milly’s agonized expression was the most captivating part.

Beyond the pain, Milly could feel the fog over the words in her mind thinning slightly. Although she still couldn’t see the whole picture, she could now clearly make out the twisted characters in the thinner patches of mist.

They were unfamiliar words she had never seen before, but now, it was as if she understood them intuitively. The characters that had once looked like scribbles were now clear and easy to understand.

She instinctively looked back at the questions she had guessed on earlier. She still couldn’t understand most of them, but when her gaze fell on the thirty-second question, the correct answer immediately popped into her mind. And the first thirty questions, the ones Stacy hadn’t corrected, she could now write the correct answers for.

This change had come from the sigil Stacy had carved into her. But when Milly looked at her shoulder blade, the wound was gone.

There was nothing on her pale skin, as if what had just happened was a hallucination. But the pain she had experienced was real. She met Stacy’s gaze. Stacy was watching her, a dangerous smile playing on her lips.

“See, Little Milly? The words in your mind are clearer now, aren’t they?”

The same question, but a completely different result. The sigils carved into her body pulsed with a special magic. Milly could feel that magic carrying unfamiliar runes, which were absorbed into her body. Just as Stacy had said, the absorbed runes would accelerate her digestion of the language system in her mind.

But the price for this rapid understanding was heavy.

She never wanted to experience the feeling of her soul being burned again. Compared to what she had endured today, the past few days, while not exactly a walk in the park, had been much easier.

“It seems I don’t need to explain further.”

Stacy lifted Milly’s chin. If she could figure it out on her own, there was no need for extra explanation.

The sigils she carved into her body were infused with Stacy’s special magic. The runes, carrying the rules of the language, would connect to Milly’s nerves, and through the intense stimulation of pain, accelerate her digestion of the language system. The price, of course, was unbearable pain. When Milly had completely absorbed the magic within the sigil, the mark would automatically heal and disappear, leaving no ugly scars.

Stacy was quite fond of Milly’s body. A scar would mar its beauty. This method, which could create mangled wounds without leaving scars, was perfect.

For Milly to fully digest and understand in a short time, one sigil was not enough. It would take at least a hundred.

A cruel smile appeared on Stacy’s face. She grabbed Milly’s shoulder again. The small body beneath her hand trembled violently. “Master, I can do it my—”

Milly’s expression froze. Stacy had carved a second sigil above her ribs with a surprise attack. And the magic pulsing in the wound, under Stacy’s control, poured into Milly’s body like a mad torrent.

Stacy squinted, admiring the beautiful sight. The rainbow light in her red eyes grew more intense. Milly’s back arched in pain, more fragile and delicate than the finest bone china in her collection.

But Stacy had no intention of stopping. After a quick scan of her body, Stacy carved a third sigil on her waist…

“What a beautiful stress response.” She caressed Milly’s twitching calf. The newly carved sigil was writhing under her skin. “Little Milly’s body is convulsing.”

…

“How many has it been…”

The voice that came out was as thin as a mosquito’s buzz. Her pale skin was like shattered porcelain, the eerie light writhing in the wounds like a living thing. The carvings, spreading from her collarbone to her ankles, formed a web. There wasn’t a single intact spot on her blood-soaked body.

“Fifty.”

A flash of surprise crossed Stacy’s eyes. Although the magic from the sigils had stopped pouring into Milly’s body after the twentieth one, the remaining ones had still carved mangled, bloody marks into her flesh.

To be able to maintain consciousness after all this, without being completely broken… it seemed Little Milly was tougher than she had expected.

She lifted the bloody figure from the floor. Milly’s weak body could no longer resist. She was carried by Stacy to the bathroom, stripped naked, and thrown into a bathtub full of warm water…