Starting out as a Dragon Slave

The pain had reached an unbearable peak, an intensity so extreme that it now exceeded the boundary of the tolerable. Isaac felt his mind dangerously waver at the edge of the abyss, one last blinding wave surging through him, then his entire body suddenly plunged into a deep, endless black void. His mind let go, finally sinking into unconsciousness.

His body completely relaxed, his head falling heavily forward, his shoulders slumping in an unsettling immobility. The electrodes, still attached to his skin, abruptly ceased sending their infernal shocks.

Marc Lemaire, who had been watching the scene with growing impatience, suddenly backed away, surprised and frustrated. He stared at Isaac for a moment, his face shifting from contained anger to real and furtive concern. He knew he had just crossed the line, that if Isaac didn’t wake up, his career would be definitively over.

- "Stop everything!" he abruptly ordered the technicians, his voice nervous, betraying his anxiety.

The two technicians exchanged a panicked look before rushing to Isaac, hastily removing the still-burning electrodes. They crouched beside him, quickly examining his condition with concern.

- "He’s still breathing," one of them said, carefully feeling his neck for a pulse. "But he’s completely unconscious."

Marc clenched his teeth, the muscles in his jaw painfully contracting. He cast one last nervous glance at Isaac, then looked away, awkwardly attempting to mask his nervousness.

- "Take him back to his cell," he finally said, striving to maintain an authoritative tone despite his obvious distress. "We’ll continue tomorrow morning. Make sure he stays alive. He must talk, at all costs."

The technicians nodded with hesitation, visibly uncomfortable with the situation. As they gently detached the restraints and checked Isaac’s condition, one of them suddenly widened his eyes, incredulous.

- "Wait a second... Look at this," he whispered with amazement. "The marks on his skin... they’re already fading. It’s impossible. It’s as if he’s... regenerating?"

The second technician leaned in, watching Isaac’s skin in astonishment. Indeed, the wounds inflicted by the electric torture seemed to be slowly closing before their eyes, leaving skin that was almost intact again. An icy shiver ran down their spines as they exchanged a look filled with incomprehension and concern.

- "This guy isn’t normal," the first technician finally muttered, his voice slightly trembling. "I don’t know what they’re looking for, but he’s clearly not just a regular hunter."

Ignoring their nervous whispers, Marc quickly turned away, leaving the interrogation room without another word. The two technicians then gently lifted Isaac, carefully carrying him to his cell, their hands trembling, their minds still haunted by what they had just witnessed.

When Isaac slowly regained consciousness, it was in another darkness, different but equally oppressive. He was lying on a cold, hard floor, icy dampness permeating his skin. A shiver of terror immediately ran through him. This fetid smell, this sinister atmosphere... he knew this place too well.

The cell.

He was back in this cursed world, the one where he was nothing more than a slave subjected to the cruel whims of dragons. Slowly, painfully, he opened his eyes, his gaze scanning the familiar walls, covered with mold and rust. A feeling of absolute despair immediately overwhelmed him, submerging his mind already battered by the tortures of the Hunters Bureau.

He barely had time to gather his thoughts before the door to his cell violently opened. Two massive silhouettes, dressed in heavy armor, entered roughly, brutally seizing him.

- "Get up, human!" growled one of them, his hot, rancid breath blowing in Isaac’s face. "Today, your training resumes. We’ll see if you’ve finally learned to endure pain properly."

Mordred weakly tried to struggle, but he was far too weak. They lifted him effortlessly, dragging his weakened body through the dark, damp corridors, toward the room where the dragons conducted their abominable experiments.

Each step toward this infernal room broke his already weakened spirit a little more. His breathing became irregular, gasping, his heart violently beating in his chest. Terrifying images flashed before his eyes: the burning claws, the poisons, the countless injections, the incessant tortures to make him a weapon insensitive to pain. ƒrēenovelkiss.com

The door slowly opened before him, revealing the sinister interior of the experiment room. Terrifying tools rested on tables, chains hanging on walls stained with dried blood. Mordred felt his legs give way beneath him. He didn’t want to go back there. Not again. Not now.

But he was given no choice. His tormentors brutally chained him to the suspended chains, spreading his arms, leaving him exposed, vulnerable. His breath caught, his eyes widened with pure and uncontrollable terror.

- "Today, human," declared a hoarse voice slowly from the shadows, "we will push the limits even further. You will become a perfect weapon, insensitive to all pain. Or you will die in the attempt."

Mordred then felt an indescribable terror invade his mind. He was breaking. Mentally, he felt broken, torn into a thousand pieces. The electric torture from the Hunters Bureau had already weakened his mind, but this was worse. A thousand times worse. His will was rapidly crumbling, carried away by absolute despair and terror.

His mind slowly tipped into a dark madness, a complete, irreparable breakdown. He no longer knew who he was, where he was. All he knew was that the pain was infinite, that the suffering was eternal, and that now, his mind was nothing more than a dark ocean in which he was slowly, desperately drowning.

As the dragons approached, brandishing their torture tools, Mordred closed his eyes, letting out a silent scream of despair in his broken soul.

Time had become a foreign concept to Mordred. There existed only suffering, an immense and infinite ocean of pain in which his mind was drowned, submerged. Each second seemed to stretch infinitely, fragmenting into a multitude of atrocious, unbearable moments. He could no longer think, no longer reason, no longer exist other than in this permanent, blinding, total suffering.

The pain had settled everywhere in his body, invading every muscle fiber, every nerve ending, until it consumed him entirely. He no longer felt his own body, he no longer even knew if he still had a body of his own. He was nothing more than a lost consciousness, floating in this endless whirlwind of pure agony.

The limits of his mind had long since given way, carried away by this tide of continuous suffering. Each time he thought he had reached the peak of what he could bear, the pain intensified further, pushing the boundaries of the unbearable ever further. Mordred was no longer able to distinguish the real from the unreal, the conscious from the unconscious. He simply floated in this atrocious existence, without beginning or end.

In this dark and infinite eternity, he could perceive only one thing: suffering. It almost became a separate entity, conscious, malevolent, feeding on him, slowly devouring his soul, his will, his very identity.

And suddenly, brutally, everything stopped.

The suffering disappeared at once, without warning, as if swept away by an invisible force. For a fraction of a second, Mordred was suspended in the void, unable to understand what had just happened. The silence, the gentleness were so unexpected, so incomprehensible after this infernal chaos, that it took him several moments to realize that this total absence of pain was real.

His mind slowly emerged, confused, uncertain, like a castaway returning to the surface after nearly drowning. The first contact he felt was that of an unknown, wonderful, incredibly soothing gentleness. It was as if a veil of silk had come to caress his battered skin, violently contrasting with the atrocious sensations he had endured until then.

Mordred slowly opened his eyes, almost hesitating to discover what he was going to see. Everything was blurry at first, indistinct, as if drowned in a soft light. Then gradually, a silhouette formed before him, a delicate and graceful shape whose contours slowly became clearer. His eyes then met those of Elystria.

The dragon princess looked at him with infinite tenderness, silent, sitting near him in this dark and cold cell. Her silky garment gently brushed against Mordred’s burned and battered skin, a light gesture, barely perceptible, but which seemed to him at that precise moment like the sweetest of blessings.

Elystria’s eyes shone with sincere, intense emotion. In her gaze, Mordred perceived something he had thought forever lost: true compassion, deep understanding, infinite empathy.

The gentleness of this moment, after so much atrocity, was for Mordred like a revelation. He suddenly felt his inner barriers collapse, his resistance finally crack. All the suffering he had accumulated, everything he had endured without being able to express anything, all of it was released at once, carried away by Elystria’s infinite gentleness.

Without being able to control it, Mordred felt hot tears slowly flowing down his cheeks. He cried without restraint, without shame, without any strength to hide this deep vulnerability. Each tear that flowed released a little more of the unbearable pressure weighing on his heart, evacuated a part of the accumulated suffering, of the heartbreaking loneliness in which he had locked himself for so long.

Without a word, without judgment, Elystria moved closer and gently wrapped him in her arms. Mordred immediately felt the reassuring warmth of this embrace, the delicacy of this simple, sincere gesture, filled with a tenderness he had not known for an eternity.

He completely surrendered to this unexpected gentleness, letting his tears flow freely, his shoulders shaken by silent sobs. Elystria said nothing. She simply held him against her, letting him cry on her shoulder, her slender fingers slowly gliding through his hair, reassuring him without uttering a single word.

This moment, so simple, so sincere, seemed to him to last an eternity very different from that of the previous pain. An eternity made of calm, appeasement, gentleness. In Elystria’s arms, Mordred gradually felt his heart lighten, as if a part of his broken soul finally found its way back to the light.

- "Shhh, be strong Mordred, everything will soon be alright," she whispered softly, "everything will be alright."