A few more cycles went by and the creature was beginning to grow impatient. Even though Lucius wasn't supposed to know that he was in a simulation, he was starting to be more skeptical of the tricks.
Eventually, he stopped being tricked altogether and they had to resort to more direct methods of torture. For instance, pure 'physical pain.'
Though this proved less efficient than the mental torture as Lucius ended up dying before disclosing any details each time.
"It seems this is all the creature knows," one of the mind eaters said, looking down at Lucius's body.
Lucius's spirit had been crushed. Throughout every cycle, he became more and more aware of one thing, that he couldn't protect anyone. Whether they were real or not, Lucius had failed to keep both himself and those he cared about alive.
"So should we leave?" another mind eater asked.
"Not yet, I want to enjoy myself a bit more. There's nothing for us to do in Necros anyway," the leading figure replied, before picking Lucius up by the horns again.
"I'll make sure that even if the lord turns you, you won't be getting any funny ideas about thinking your special," the creature said before a metal rod appeared in its hands.
~This place- this place is worse than hell,~ Luicus thought to himself as the metal rod was slowly inserted into his chest, every minute detail of pain seemingly amplified as it happened.
This went on for what seemed like decades. This was a place of the mind, so it was easy for the mind eater to manipulate things like that.
Lucius's mind had long broken, this wasn't something that any living creature could withstand. The training he had gone through could not prepare him for lifetimes of pain.
Funny enough the only reason he was still able to function was because of the illusions the mind eater had shown him. He hadn't been strong enough to protect anyone, and in some odd twist, he became obsessed with the fact.
He held on even unconsciously to any slither of hope that he could get back to the village and protect his children. If they were even real that is. Though he long threw away the concept of real and fake, all that mattered was that he could protect them.
"I'm done here. Give the report to the lord's original body in Necros, and have Lucius turned," the mind eater said with familiarity. Perhaps that was an effect of having spent whole lifetimes with Lucius in this place. The creature had come to know more about Lucius than even Lucius knew about himself.
"Captain, are you sure you'll be okay? Spending all this time in this place," one of the other mind eaters asked in actual concern.
"Are you calling me we-" the Captain was about to reply before Lucius's laughing interrupted.
"Don't make me laugh," Lucius said in between gasps for air. The creatures stared down at Lucius, pure confusion fraught on their face.
"Can this creature even still be turned?" one of the creatures asked as Lucius tried to stop himself from laughing.
"Why are you acting like you aren't monsters? Like you aren't all undead, devoid of emotion?" Lucius asked, still laughing.
"We don't expect you to und-"
"'We don't expect you to understand, our lord is trying to save your forest.' I know, you've said that," Lucius said, his laughter suddenly stopping.
"But I don't believe one bit of it. You came here to kill my children didn't you?" Lucius asked in a crazed manner.
"His children?" one of the creatures asked before turning to their captain.
"This creature calls the other creatures in its den its children," the captain replied in an angered tone.
"You're still angry because you couldn't get any information on them out of me, aren't you?" Lucius asked before bursting out into laughter once more.
For some reason, the creature was unable to get any information related to the system, which included all commune members that were linked to it. Lucius had hypothesized that it was probably a built-in system function.
"You dare," the captain asked, before kicking Lucius in the mouth.
Physical damage here didn't work as it should. So although Lucius's mouth was turned into mush, it turned back to normal after a few moments.
Though the pain was real enough.
"You know something, Aziel," Lucius said with a smile, as his mouth reformed.
This caused a shiver to travel down the captain's spine.
"You're wondering how I know that, aren't you? I know about your wife too, oh and your son. I know about the pseudo city that creature built, and how you all play make pretend," Lucius spat out, pure hatred in his eyes.
"It took me a while to figure it out. Why this place felt so familiar," Lucius began saying, before standing up.
"Captain, t-this shouldn't be possible," one of the other creatures stuttered,
"This is MY mindscape isn't it?" Lucius asked, before walking towards Aziel.
"You changed the place up and had me believe that you held all the power and that I held none, so that's what happened," Lucius explained.
"How?" Aziel asked, anger visible on his face.
"If you really had all the power here, you would've just ripped the memories out of my mind instead of going through all this. Besides, you can't create a world you have no knowledge of, this was all my knowledge," Lucius explained.
Lucius had figured this all out a few more cycles ago, though he allowed the process to go on so that he could extract information from the creatures' minds.
"Everyone leave! He's stealing information as we speak!" Aziel ordered, and the creatures disappeared into thin air.
"I'll find you Aziel. And when I do, I'll do what you did to me, only this time it'll all be real," Lucius said with a smile.
~I-I've created a monster,~ Aziel thought to himself before disappearing.
"That you did," Lucius responded, before waving his hand. With that, the entire place turned pure white, and a massive sun-like object stood at the center of the room providing a soothing warmth.
Though this warmth did nothing to heal the psychological scars that Lucius had suffered.
"No one will harm my children," Lucius whispered to himself as he sat with his legs crossed, and attempted to get back to the real world.
