Unholy Player-Chapter 114: The Kill

Inside a dark, windowless room lit only by a few flickering torches, a small boy sat on the cold floor with his head buried in his arms, quietly sobbing.

"I’m hungry," he murmured.

Beside him, a young woman was chained to the wall. The chain wasn’t especially thick, but her weakened body couldn’t have broken it even if it were made of thread. She looked at the child with pained eyes, then pulled him gently into her arms.

"Just hold on a little longer. They’ll bring something soon," she whispered.

She didn’t believe her own words. They had been trapped in this place for far too long, surviving only on the bare minimum of water, just enough to keep them breathing.

Even if food did come, she wasn’t sure she could eat it. The stench in the air made her stomach churn. A thick, rotting odor hung in every breath she took, clinging to her throat, pushing her toward nausea every passing second. Her appetite had died long ago.

This wasn’t a normal prison. She could tell that much with just a glance. It was something else. Something wrong.

Her eyes moved cautiously through the dim, torch-lit space. More people were chained along the walls, all hollow-eyed, silent, and shivering. Some sat with their heads bowed, others stared blankly ahead. But it wasn’t just the fear or the silence that made the room unbearable.

It was the corner.

There, the source of the stench revealed itself—a twisted display of horror. Meat hooks hung from the ceiling, bearing skinned and disfigured corpses. The walls around them were smeared with blood, as if decorated by a butcher with no sense of restraint or mercy.

And these weren’t animal carcasses.

The woman quickly averted her eyes and held the child tighter, shielding him as much as she could.

"Big sister, what’s your name?"

The boy, no older than seven or eight, spoke softly, his voice strangely calm for someone surrounded by such horror. Maybe he didn’t understand it all. Maybe hunger was the only thing he could feel anymore.

The woman looked down at him, into his wide, gleaming eyes. There was still something innocent in them. Pure. As if the last traces of hope in this place were hidden in that gaze.

"I’m Neris," she answered, forcing a smile. "What about you?"

The boy paused for a moment.

"Boy," he said.

She blinked, then understood. He didn’t have a name. Or maybe he had one once, but no one ever used it. To him, Boy had become his identity.

His eyes dropped again as his stomach let out a low growl. He looked weak. As his gaze wandered, it caught on something—an emblem on her coat. A silver insignia shaped like a pair of angelic wings.

"Big sister... are you working for the angels?"

Even here, even now, Neris managed a small chuckle. "Kind of. I work for the Angel Wing Foundation."

The boy nodded, satisfied with the answer. It made sense. Someone who looked like her had to be connected to the angels somehow. His eyes glistened.

"My mother used to say angels are very kind. They help people who are good. Is that true?"

His eyes flicked toward the corner of the room, to one of the bodies hanging limp from the ceiling. His pupils trembled. The hunger that dulled his thoughts had begun to lose its grip, and buried memories began to surface.

A hand reached up and gently covered his eyes. Neris turned his head away and brought him against her chest.

"That’s right. Your mother was right," she said softly.

She could feel his small frame trembling in her arms. His tears soaked through the thin fabric of her shirt. She wanted to say something more, something comforting, but her mind came up empty.

In truth, she didn’t believe anyone was coming. This place might be where their lives ended.

As that thought rooted itself deeper in her mind, the boy’s voice rose again, fragile and broken.

"My mother also said devils are real. She said they find bad people and take them to hell. Is that true too?"

His voice cracked, interrupted by sobs. He sniffled several times, then continued.

"Big sister... is it wrong..." His sobs grew harsher, each word coming with effort.

"Is it wrong that I don’t want an angel to save me... but a devil to come instead? Is it wrong to want the bad people punished in hell and to make them suffer forever?"

Neris didn’t respond. She held him tighter and listened to the sound of his crying. In that moment, she realized something.

The child in her arms wasn’t really a child anymore.

Not entirely.

Pain and trauma had begun carving adulthood into him, piece by piece, right before her eyes.

—

Outside the fortress walls, a guard wandered lazily beneath the heavy night. The faint moonlight slipping through the cloud cover highlighted his strange, grayish skin tone, making it appear almost metallic under the dim glow.

"I need to pee," he muttered after pacing for a while. He glanced around. The other guards were posted far enough that he could barely make out their silhouettes in the dark, but still, he looked for a quiet spot to take care of his business. He didn’t want anyone catching his little secret and turning it into a joke later.

After some wandering, he slipped behind a block of stone, uncertain whether it was a natural boulder or a piece of some ancient, long-collapsed structure. Either way, it would do.

He unzipped.

A hot stream hit the dirt, hissing faintly as it evaporated on contact. His body trembled with relief, and for a few seconds, he let himself relax and savor the moment.

The sound slowed. He gave a slight shake, zipped up, and turned around with a satisfied sigh, already whistling softly as he prepared to return to his post.

But he never got the chance.

A sudden, sharp pain tore through his throat as something jerked him backward with brutal force.

"Akghkk..."

His mouth opened, but breath wouldn’t follow. The sounds that came out were little more than broken gasps.

He kicked, struggled, and tried to twist free, but whatever had grabbed him was stronger. Much stronger. Resistance was pointless.

His heels scraped the dirt as he was dragged into the shadows.

"Good. Keep struggling. It just shows how much you value your life."

The voice was cold and distant, but it reached his ears like a whisper from the grave. Something about it chilled him more than the tightening wire around his throat.

This was it. He was being killed. And it wasn’t quick.

He fought harder, clawing at the wire with both hands, trying to wedge fingers between steel and skin. But the cable was tight. Too tight. It dug into his flesh—flesh he once thought was nearly invincible. His proud gray skin felt like paper now, straining, nearly splitting.

Even if the skin held, his lungs didn’t. His vision dimmed, and his muscles spasmed. Seconds dragged on like hours. And finally, his body reached its limit. Limbs went slack. The last traces of resistance faded, and his weight collapsed into his killer’s grip.

Adyr looked down at the corpse, narrowing his eyes at the faint line around the man’s neck.

"What kind of skin do you have...?" He muttered.

The wire in his hands was military-grade—a reinforced, high-tension filament recently issued to him by Henry. Two strands of it could haul a car, yet when he’d wrapped it around the man’s neck, he could’ve sworn it was close to snapping.

There wasn’t a single cut. Not even a bruise. Just the faintest mark where the cable had pressed. The man had died purely from suffocation.

Adyr crouched beside the body, studying it carefully.

But first, he had to suppress the rush building in his chest. It was only the second time in eighteen years that he had taken a human life with his own hands. And both had happened on the same night.

He could feel something rising again. Old instincts. Familiar heat.

He needed to push it down before it took root.