The Monstrous Hero-Chapter 35 - 34: Cruel

Considering Liu Xian’s first trial had him withering in pain, flayed apart in that cotton-candy hell, B67’s was... different.

The opposite, if one dared put it simply.

There was no screech of childlike laughter echoing in the dark. No sticky sweetness clogging the air until it made one gag. No claws ripping flesh, no steel to cling to, no blood spraying across his vision.

There wasn’t even a ground to brace his tiny feet against.

No light. Not even a sliver.

Just... nothing.

A void so absolute it seemed to suck the air out of his lungs.

B67 floated there, limbs hanging awkward, eyes darting back and forth but catching nothing. Every blink felt the same—open, closed, didn’t matter. The black didn’t change. He tried to kick, to paddle like one might in water, but there was nothing to touch, no resistance, no weight. Just drifting.

Everywhere and nowhere.

If one were to judge it logically, they might even call it peaceful. They’d say: compared to Liu Xian’s trial, this was heaven.

But for a child with a bone-deep fear of being alone?

This was worse.

This was pure hell.

At first, B67 thought someone else might appear. That the void would split and reveal teammates, monsters, something. Anything! Pitiful wishful thinking because as the seconds stretched to minutes... There was still—nothing.

Just him and the bone wrenching silence.

His own breath became the loudest thing in existence. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Louder each time.

It bounced back at him, pressing in, like the darkness was listening. Like the void was leaning closer every time he exhaled.

"Hello?" he whispered.

His own voice cracked, pathetically small.

It went nowhere.

Not a single echo returned.

He tried again, louder this time. "HELLO!"

The word tore through his throat, and he swallowed hard, the burn lingering as he waited.

But nothing came.

The dark swallowed everything, and now it was swallowing him. And on the other side of it—past walls, past reinforced glass, past a web of cables and screens—an entire row of scientists and observers sat watching.

It wasn’t a single trial. It was hundreds at once.

Hundreds of little black windows, each showing a different child, teenager dropped into their own personal nightmare. A woman screamed as phantom hands tore at her. A boy ran endlessly down a road that stretched longer every time he blinked. Another sat in a room filled with mirrors, each reflection whispering his own name back to him in distorted voices.

And B67?

A blank window.

Dark as pitch.

"Subject B67," one technician read aloud, tapping his pen against the clipboard. "Current heart rate elevated—160 bpm. Pupils dilated despite lack of visual stimulus. Early onset panic behavior detected."

"Expected," another said dryly. "Child subject. Previous record shows dependency issues—significant fear of isolation. Leaving him in void-space is optimal."

Pens scratched across paper. Taking notes and collecting data. None of them flinched at the faint, muffled cry that leaked through the speakers when B67 shouted again in the dark.

He curled his knees to his chest, shaking now even though there was no cold. He couldn’t even tell if his body was moving through the void or if the void itself shifted around him.

"I don’t like it here," he sniffled, tears welling up in his eyes but he bit them back, trying to be strong. Strong like the older ones. Strong like Liu Xian.

But silence had a way of pulling at you, thread by thread. It stripped you down until every tiny thought in your head echoed a thousand times louder.

What if no one came back?

What if this was it?

What if he was stuck here forever?

The questions stabbed at him sharper than any blade could.

"Don’t leave me..." he whispered, voice trembling as he hugged his legs tighter, pressing his forehead to his knees.

On the screens, red lines tracked the chemical fireworks in his brain. Stress hormones spiking. Fear pathways blazing like bonfires.

"He’s close to breaking," one scientist murmured, jotting down the curve of the graph.

"Good. That’s the point." Another adjusted the feed. "This isn’t a combat stress test—it’s psychological strain. We already know Subject 46-B can tolerate extreme physical trauma. This one—B67—will tell us how children handle extended isolation."

"Still seems cruel."

The words slipped out, soft and reluctant, from a younger assistant at the end of the table. She quickly ducked her head when the lead scientist turned.

"Cruel?" The man’s voice was flat, cold. "If he cannot handle being alone for thirty minutes, then he’s nothing but dead weight. Our duty is to field subjects who can clear portals, not squander supplies on the weak. So unless you want your tenure in this facility terminated early, do your job—and spare me the sermon about empathy."

The assistant’s face drained of color. She shut her mouth immediately. Pens scratched again, filling the silence, every tick of the graphite against paper like a judge’s hammer nailing truth to stone.

The room might have stayed that way—clinical, detached, a machine of people pretending not to notice the boy suffering in the dark—but then it happened.

A sudden alarm cut through the lab. A sharp, metallic beep-beep-beep! that had everyone stiffening. Eyes darted toward the wall of monitors.

And then, almost in unison, every gaze locked on one particular feed.

Liu Xian.

The screen showed him kneeling, body hunched and trembling, blood pooling under him in obscene amounts. His trial had been violent from the start—everyone had written notes about "subject displays reckless aggression," "subject responds with excessive force" and so on—but this was different.

This was wrong...

His mana was leaking.

It poured out of him in thin, glowing threads, almost invisible at first, until the cameras adjusted and the screen flickered with the outline of that strange haze. It dripped from his body the way blood did, heavy, sluggish, like something broken inside was bleeding not just red but raw power.

Someone stood up too quickly. "Impossible."

"He’s still collared," another hissed. Their hands flew across the controls, enlarging the screen, zooming in on the ring still clasped tightly around Liu Xian’s throat. It glowed the way it should, suppression active, safety guaranteed. And yet...

On screen, his blood sizzled faintly where mana dripped into it. Sparks leapt across the gore, little arcs of lightning snapping like impatient whips.

Liu Xian’s body writhed against the floor of that strange "cotton candy" hell, every muscle pulling against invisible strings. His face was twisted in agony, yes—but his eyes. His eyes burned.

Wide open, fever-bright, focused on nothing and everything at once.

The assistant, the same one who had spoken up before, whispered, "He looks like he’s burning alive." 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

She wasn’t wrong.

The suppression collar was designed for one thing... containment. It squeezed down on mana flow, restricting circulation, choking off access until the Awakened could barely summon a spark. Normally, the worst-case scenario was a faint or burnout.

But this?

This was mana trying to claw its way out.

Like a dam had cracked and the flood refused to be contained.

The lead scientist, the cold one, leaned forward in his chair. His hands clasped together, elbows resting on the desk, face calm... but his eyes glinted, sharp as broken glass.

"Now this," he said softly, almost reverently, "is interesting."