Night World Players

Chapter 186 I Want to Conquer You, the Proud Eagle (5k2)

Even sunlight cannot penetrate the hundred-meter-deep sea water, leaving only pure darkness.

The iron coffin made of fine steel and mithril, which looked like a cage, sank into the deep sea.

The cold sea water poured into the iron coffin, bringing a salty touch.

The remaining oxygen in the iron coffin was consumed in a very short time, and what followed was the feeling of suffocation caused by lack of oxygen, which seemed to be endless, making Ingrid in the iron coffin extremely painful.

Along with it came the high-pressure environment brought by the hundreds of meters deep sea water, which was enough to burst the eardrums and damage the organs of ordinary people, as well as the nitrogen narcosis caused by the high-pressure environment.

If it were an ordinary person in such an environment, it would only take a few seconds for him to die from the shattered internal organs.

Even Ingrid couldn't sustain this condition for long... She wanted to struggle to save herself, but the mithril shackles penetrated every bone joint of her body, completely blocking all of Ingrid's extraordinary abilities and preventing her from using them.

After struggling in the pain of suffocation, drowning and high pressure for more than ten minutes, Ingrid's heart slowly stopped beating due to lack of oxygen.

Although the physique of a transcendent is different from that of an ordinary person, she has not broken through the legend after all, and has not completed the leap in the essence of life. She is still in the "human category" - her body still follows the basic rules of the human body, and she will still suffocate to death if the oxygen is completely cut off.

however--

The next moment, Ingrid's heart stopped beating and she lost consciousness.

Her body trembled again as if she had been electrocuted, and her lifeless heart began to beat again.

Ingrid's physical condition was retraced back to the time before she drowned, and what followed was the dark deep sea, high pressure, and the pain of suffocation.

……

Among the many methods of execution, waterboarding, which involves covering the prisoner's mouth and nose with a towel and pouring water on them, causing them to suffocate and drown, is one of the most notorious tortures.

However, the so-called waterboarding is just a pain that needs to be experienced once.

But for Ingrid at this moment, death is not a relief.

Once drowned, one will be retraced to the time point before death and resurrected, then feel the suffocation and high pressure in the deep sea again, die again, and be resurrected again...in an endless cycle.

She wanted to struggle but couldn't escape, and dying was a pure luxury.

All that remains is the recurring near-death experiences, which have formed a vortex of despair.

……

I don’t know how long this lasted.

Until one moment, the metal chains scattered around the iron coffin suddenly tightened again.

Driven by gears and mechanisms, heavy chains pulled the iron coffin, slowly pulling it back to the shore from the deep seabed.

"Senior, in the deep sea, you can neither live nor die..."

"To experience the painful sensation of suffocation and near-death over and over again, a hundred, a thousand, or even ten thousand times... Such an experience must be very uncomfortable."

The sunlight that did not exist in the dark deep sea shone through the cracks in the iron coffin and illuminated Ingrid's eyes again.

Then, she heard the boy's familiar voice.

However, the clear voice that usually sounded quite gentle and refreshing, now made Ingrid feel strange and cruel, as if she had fallen into an icy cave.

This young man named Rast is like a machine in human skin...

Because the fake human appearance seems too delicate and lifelike, no one has ever truly known what kind of empty and numb heart is hidden in that body.

It was a darkness deeper than the night, like a black hole that swallowed everything, not even light could escape.

"So, what do you think of my previous suggestion, Senior?"

Ingrid only spoke hoarsely at Rust's question.

"I was in the sea...how long has it been?"

"I knew you'd ask that question, Senior." Luster smiled, raised his wrist, glanced at the mechanical pocket watch on his wrist, and then showed the dial to Ingrid: "Exactly one full day has passed, twenty-four hours."

"but."

There was a slight pause in his words.

Luster's gaze pierced the cracks in the iron coffin, lingering briefly on Ingrid's face, which had become exceptionally pale from being soaked in seawater, and slightly exhausted and haggard. "I think, in your subjective experience, it's probably much more than just twenty-four hours."

Ingrid was silent.

She had already guessed this.

In an interrogation room without windows and sunlight, or in the deep sea, long-term and frequent torture and interrogation... it is easy for the interrogated prisoners to have a confused sense of time and be unable to distinguish between dates and experienced time.

Perhaps a whole day has passed in the prisoner's subjective perception, but in reality only two or three hours have passed, or it may be completely the other way around.

In the military's interrogation and torture textbooks, there are many interrogation methods designed to address the prisoners' confused sense of time. As the former director of the Inspectorate, Ingrid is very familiar with this.

But even so——

When Ingrid clearly felt like she had been tormented in the deep sea for weeks, even months...

At this moment, when Last told her that only one whole day had actually passed, Ingrid found it difficult to accept the huge gap and her mind was shaken.

But after a long silence, she just closed her eyes again.

"I know what you're going to do next..."

Ingrid whispered, "You won't stop until I completely surrender and become a weapon loyal only to you and you achieve your goal."

Although she was the best interrogator in the military and had received the most rigorous anti-interrogation training, when she faced Last in person, Ingrid still felt an indescribable sense of powerlessness in her heart.

The young man before her, named Last, was different from any opponent she had faced in the military interrogation bureau before.

Cult fanatics, battle-hardened elite soldiers, death squads raised by other countries' royal families... these are all extremely tough and strong people, cruel and ruthless people, but they all have essential differences from Rast.

It is hard to imagine what kind of past Rast had that would create such a monster that is not like a human.

But Ingrid still shook her head at Lust.

Her answer was still no.

I don't want to return to the dark shadows of the past, living as a weapon of killing, as a hateful black glove.

Ingrid hated her past self from the bottom of her heart, the self who would do anything to avenge her mother and whose hands were covered in blood.

She would not regret what she had done, because Ingrid had no choice at that time, but in contrast -

After her mother's death, nothing in this world could hinder her, not even Ingrid's own life.

"Alas, Senior Sister, you are really stubborn."

"She's truly the most elite soldier in the military... If it were someone with a weaker willpower, it would probably only take one or two times for their mental defenses to crumble, and they'd be on their knees, tearfully begging me to let her go."

Last sighed: "But from the very beginning, I have been prepared for a long-term battle."

He stretched out his hand and snapped his fingers again: "I'm sorry, senior sister."

"If you change your mind, all you need to do is knock on the front of the iron coffin three times in a row, and I will pull you and the coffin up together, saving you from the sea of ​​suffering."

The sound of chains being dragged across the rocks could be heard again.

Before Ingrid could even catch her breath, she was pulled by the steel chains.

Together with the heavy iron coffin, it sank into the deep sea again.

……

wow-

wow-

After a long period of chaos, the pain of drowning and struggle.

Ingrid was once again pulled out of the vortex of death and despair, and saw the bright sunshine through the iron coffin.

“Thirteen days, or to be more precise—three hundred and fifteen hours.” This time, before Rust could even speak, Ingrid spoke up in a hoarse voice.

Her face was extremely pale, without a trace of blood, and her eyes were filled with fatigue and haggardness that were difficult to conceal. Her originally delicate face now looked numb and withered.

But Ingrid's eyes still gleamed: "I counted my heartbeats and estimated that each time I suffocated to death, my survival period was about 25 minutes..."

"And I have drowned from suffocation seven hundred and fifty-six times."

"In this way, we can estimate the time span of sinking to the bottom of the sea this time."

She said softly, "Laster, it seems you have lost again this time."

Even in the agony of suffocation and near-death, he was still able to clearly calculate the duration of his own punishment and retain a clear mind...

This naturally means that Ingrid never gave in.

"and--"

She paused for a moment and said, "You have countless times restored my body from the moment of drowning to the state before death—"

"This directly involves the retroactive ability of the law of time. When using it, you will definitely not pay any price, right?"

"Equivalent exchange" is the hidden rule of the extraordinary world.

No matter how powerful and bizarre it is, even if it involves special abilities in time and space, it will never be able to be activated without limit and without any cost or side effects.

Time and again, he brought himself back from the state of near-death to a normal physical state - this was almost like making himself immortal in a certain sense, becoming a true immortal.

And since Last used such a supermodel skill that was almost shameless, he would have to pay the price for it.

This is a variable that Last never mentioned, but it actually exists. It is also Ingrid's only chance of winning in this gamble and game.

This desperate cycle of drowning and resurrection in the deep sea cannot continue indefinitely.

While enduring the pain of suffocation and drowning, Last must also be paying an equal price for it.

And when Rast can no longer pay that price, it means he wins.

Ingrid was able to face death calmly without succumbing to the other party's ambitions.

"Should I say that Senior Sister is worthy of being a Senior Sister? Under the Legend, you have already established yourself at the pinnacle of the extraordinary world and are well aware of these hidden power rules."

"Even in such a hopeless sea and suffering, even when encountering unprecedented space-time abilities, he was still able to quickly calm down and guess the general clues."

As if to confirm Ingrid's inference, Rast's pleasant voice sounded immediately afterwards.

"As you said, my 'Time Rewind' does have limitations; it's not a skill that can be used infinitely."

"The consumption of magic power and mental energy was only a small amount. After all, you simply died of suffocation in the seawater, and none of your organs were damaged. Compared to those who were seriously injured or even missing limbs, it is undoubtedly much easier to trace back."

"The real price I have to pay is that every time I use a rewind on you, I must personally experience, feel, and experience everything you went through during that rewind cycle."

Rast's words were indifferent.

"Your near-death experience of suffocating and gradually drowning over a twenty-five-minute period, gradually approaching death, is compressed into a very brief moment, and then I personally relive it as if I were there."

"This is the price of initiating a 'rewind' on someone else."

Compress all the pain I felt when I was near death into a single moment and experience it again?
Hearing this, Ingrid in the iron coffin was slightly startled.

Even if the painful suffocation experience and the feeling of near-death were spread out over about half an hour, it would be enough to make a battle-hardened soldier kneel down and beg for mercy in agony.

Under such painful torture, "death" itself became a kind of relief.

Ingrid herself was able to hold on and not surrender thanks to her experience of using the "Yin Iron" countless times, her near-death experiences in battle, and the hardworking and tenacious character forged from her poor background.

It’s not that she is not afraid of pain, but because she has suffered more, so she can better endure torture and pain.

Ingrid asked herself on this point, even other senior military officials could not be compared with her.

But—Last said that the price of every time he looked back was that he personally felt his complete near-death experience in an instant?
Compressing a half-hour death experience into one twenty-thousandth of a second means that the degree of pain is increased by dozens or even hundreds of times...

How can this be?

"To be honest, I had already guessed that my task of winning you over... wouldn't be so smooth."

Rast looked through the gap in the iron coffin and met Ingrid's gaze.

The boy's face remained calm, his dark eyes clear and bright, not at all like he had just experienced the same pain of drowning as herself, but the pain was intensified tenfold or a hundredfold due to compression... She couldn't help but suspect that Last was deceiving her.

But Ingrid's intuition told her that Rast was not lying.

"Time travel", such a cheating ability... Only what Last said is the price that matches such a powerful ability and the gift from fate.

"I know that although I came from a humble family and started from humble beginnings—"

"But you, Senior, are like a lonely and proud eagle."

"You clearly lack resources and connections, and clearly started out unfairly compared to your peers... but you've never once resented the unfairness of fate."

"You've never proactively sought refuge with any aristocratic faction, nor have you approached wealthy professors or deans for additional help and support...even though you know many are waiting for you to ask them for help."

"Countless powerful figures would love the opportunity to invest in you and recruit you into their faction."

"But deep down, you are a proud eagle who refuses to bow to anyone—"

"If not, how could you, with such a humble background, have risen step by step to the position of Director of the Inspectorate without relying on anyone's support?"

Luster paused for a moment and said, "You are willing to become the gravekeeper's black glove in order to avenge your mother."

"But in fact, in your heart, no one in this world is qualified to be your master, and no one is qualified to judge you."

"So you didn't leave the empire with the gravekeepers, nor did you obey Hiltina's orders and return with her to face the judgment of the empire's laws."

"The Gravekeeper is not qualified, the Granville Empire, and the Starry University are not qualified..."

"but me--"

He smiled and said, "You are also not qualified."

"But it just so happens that what I'm attracted to is your pride."

"Like the eagle on the vast snow-capped mountains, looking down upon all living things with aloof pride."

Last's gaze shifted slightly, looking towards a distant direction: "Senior, do you know?"

"In my hometown, there is a people who live between the snowy plains and snowy mountains and make a living by hunting."

"Hunters from that tribe would tame a falcon as their companion to help them hunt in the vast snowy plains."

"But eagles are naturally ferocious and unruly. To tame their wildness and make them accept the hunter as their master, a special training method must be used. That people call it 'hawk training.'"

Last's gaze was far-reaching. "The so-called falcon training is to deprive the falcon of sleep, gradually wearing away its unruly nature, and ultimately making it able to obey its master's commands with ease."

"This process requires great skill and patience, and usually takes a week or even half a month."

"During this period, both the hunter and the eagle need to work tirelessly. It's a battle of wills, day and night, until the eagle's will breaks and it becomes docile and surrenders to the hunter... If the hunter falls asleep before the eagle, all previous efforts will be wasted."

His voice remained calm: "And what I want to do is to use the 'hawk training' method..."

"Go and conquer, you proud eagle, Senior."

Luster snapped his fingers again. "Since you've already mastered your own method of measuring time, I won't hide it anymore."

"This time..."

He chuckled.

"Three months."

The iron chain rolled, dragging the iron coffin that imprisoned Ingrid into the deep sea again.

(End of this chapter)