[LotM Roleplay] Chapter 11: One Day to Live Pt2

Content Warning: This chapter contains scenes of prolonged physical torture, graphic bodily injury, mutilation, body horror, psychological distress, and dehumanisation. Reader discretion is advised.

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"Killian!”

Viktor’s furious shout echoed through the manor as he burst through the front door.

The withering had nearly consumed his entire hand. Dry, gray flesh continued creeping steadily up his wrist, and no matter how violently he tugged at the ring, it refused to budge.

It felt as though he would tear his own hand free before the ring itself came loose.

“Killian! Where th—”

The rest of his words died in his throat.

Killian sat calmly at the head of the long table, entirely absorbed in the peculiar mask resting in his hands. Fine, intricate lines spread across its surface like veins of etched silver, and with delicate precision he adjusted something within its frame.

As though Viktor’s arrival had gone entirely unnoticed.

Softly, almost absentmindedly, he continued singing the same melody Viktor had heard before leaving that morning.

~ The poor said, “You rich would do all that you want, ~

~ “You’d do all that you can,” ~

~ “You’d do all that we can’t.” ~

Something about him had changed.

Killian now wore a long, plain black coat, his hair had been carefully styled, lending him an unfamiliar appearance.

For a fleeting moment, he seemed less like the exhausted young Artisan Viktor had raised…

…and more like an entirely different man.

~ “What would you do, with just one day to live?” ~

~ Said the king to his people, ~

~ And the king was surprised. ~

~ For they felt no different; they simply replied: ~

~ “We would do what we need to” ~

~ “To simply survive.” ~

Killian never once looked up.

His attention remained fixed upon the mask, fingers continuing their meticulous work without pause.

Viktor’s breathing grew heavier.

The song continued.

~ The king arose. “Why?” ~

~ He said, “All you could do?” ~

~ “You could celebrate me?” ~

~ “What’s to celebrate for?” ~

~ They said, “Listen.” ~

~ “You take us to war,” ~

~ “And you’ve beaten and killed us already.” ~

~ “So one day… is one day more.” ~

“Killian!”

Viktor’s roar shook the room.

Still, Killian offered no immediate response.

Fury finally overwhelmed restraint.

Viktor strode toward him with long, powerful steps. Even as the dead flesh continued advancing across his hand, he still possessed the tremendous strength the ring had granted him.

He would teach the boy a lesson.

Then he would force him to repair whatever catastrophic mistake he had made.

Worthless fool.

Pathetic…

Just like the wretched woman who had birthed him.

“Done.”

The single word cut cleanly through Viktor’s rage.

Killian studied the completed mask for another brief moment before finally lifting his gaze.

His dark eyes settled upon Viktor as though only now noticing his presence.

“Just in time,” he said evenly. “I’d have hated to miss recording this process.”

Viktor slowed.

Only slightly.

“Fix it.”

His voice was low now.

Dangerously restrained.

His jaw remained clenched so tightly he could almost feel his teeth threatening to crack beneath the pressure.

Once this was over…

He would beat the boy senseless.

He would leave him so thoroughly broken he would fear even looking upon his own shadow.

“There’s nothing wrong wi—”

“Nothing wrong?”

Viktor’s shout tore through the room, cutting Killian off.

He thrust the withering arm forward.

“Look at it!”

The shriveled flesh had already spread beyond his hand.

“Nothing wrong?”

“That’s part of the de—”

“Fix it, boy!”

Viktor interrupted again, his voice echoing against the high ceiling.

“And quickly!”

His fury only mounted as he watched the gray decay steadily advancing farther up his hand even while they argued.

“And get off that damned chair!”

Now he stood over Killian.

Towering above him.

Yet Killian remained seated.

His expression did not change.

He merely regarded Viktor with the same calm, inquisitive gaze one might direct toward an unusual specimen beneath glass.

“If you’d simply let me fini—”

“Fix i—!”

Viktor never completed the sentence.

A hand seized his jaw.

His mouth snapped shut beneath an iron grip.

For a single stunned heartbeat, his thoughts emptied completely.

He had not even seen Killian move.

“I’m sorry,” Killian said quietly.

One hand remained clamped around Viktor’s face.

With the other, he calmly lifted the strange mask toward himself.

The shock vanished.

Rage returned.

Viktor lunged, grabbing at Killian’s wrist with his still-unaffected hand.

Only hours earlier he had crushed another man’s hand to splinters with effortless ease.

This insolent boy would soon understand the magnitude of his mistake.

His fingers clawed desperately at Killian’s grip.

Nothing.

It did not move.

Not even slightly.

Instead…

The pressure increased.

Pain exploded through Viktor’s jaw.

It felt as though bone strained beneath impossible force. Muscles screamed. His teeth ground painfully against one another as the grip tightened with terrifying, effortless certainty.

“As I was saying…”

Viktor’s blood ran a little colder as Killian’s voice drifted from behind the featureless mask.

It was still recognizably his voice, yet stripped of something essential. Every word emerged flattened and hollow, as though it had been forced through a rigid shell before reaching the air. There was no warmth, no inflection, no trace of irritation or satisfaction—only a cold, metallic cadence that reminded Viktor of steel scraping slowly across stone. It sounded less like a man speaking than a voice imprisoned inside an iron vessel.

“The ring does not need fixing,” Killian continued. “Because that is how it was designed.”

He rose from his chair with unhurried composure, Viktor felt his back straighten too as Viktor rose, since he was not leaning over anymore.

Even standing, Killian remained a full head shorter than Viktor.

“This is a little uncomfortable.”

As those emotionless words left the mask, the pressure clamped around Viktor’s jaw deepened.

It wasn’t sudden.

It simply… increased.

Like the slow tightening of a vice, the force pressed into the hinges of his jaw until a dull ache blossomed through his face. His teeth ground together. A sharp pressure spread toward his temples as the muscles in his neck strained instinctively against the unseen leverage.

Viktor reacted on instinct.

His free hand seized Killian’s wrists, nails digging into sleeves and flesh alike. He shoved, pulled, twisted—anything to break the grip—but it was like wrestling an iron statue. Killian did not shift so much as an inch.

The pressure continued to mount.

His knees trembled first.

Then, despite every muscle in his body locking in protest, they bent.

Each inch downward sent fresh pain lancing through his jaw as his own resistance became another force working against him. His neck burned. His spine quivered beneath the effort. He could feel every tendon in his legs straining to keep him upright, yet they yielded all the same.

His knee struck the floor.

Then the other.

Only when Viktor knelt completely did the crushing pressure cease increasing, settling into an unrelenting weight that promised it could tighten further whenever it wished.

“That’s more comfortable.”

The blank mask regarded him without expression.

And somehow, that absence of a face was worse than any smile could have been.

“Sealed Artifact 2-035, Ring of Redemption,” Killian began, turning the blank face of the mask toward Viktor.

“Upon being worn, the bearer’s soul is consumed and housed within the ring. From that moment onward, the ring becomes the true body. The human form is merely a vessel it produces.”

Viktor felt the blood drain from his face as the words emerged through the mask.

That unnatural voice remained utterly devoid of emotion. Every syllable sounded flattened, stripped of all humanity, as though an unseen mechanism were reciting facts that neither understood nor cared about.

“The vessel will manifest once every twenty-four hours, and can remain active for no longer than twelve hours. Its appearance is fixed. Height, weight, injuries, age—every detail is reproduced exactly. It cannot be altered.”

The words continued with the same dreadful indifference.

“At the conclusion of the twelve-hour period, the vessel is intended to be reabsorbed by the ring. Should reabsorption prove impossible, the ring must obtain an equivalent quantity of biological matter before another vessel can be produced.

Killian’s grip never loosened.

With Viktor’s jaw still imprisoned in his hand, he felt his own head being turned slowly from side to side as though he were nothing more than an object under inspection. His neck resisted on instinct, but the resistance accomplished nothing. Killian examined him with quiet precision, the featureless mask offering no hint of what lay behind its empty gaze.

“Perfect,” Killian said.

The word carried the same detached cadence as everything else he had spoken.

“The perfect test subject.”

He regarded Viktor for another moment, the featureless mask giving nothing away.

“Further experimentation will still be necessary. I must determine whether repeated manifestations accumulate imperceptible changes over time. Cellular degradation. Neurological variation. Residual memory. Minute structural differences.”

He tilted Viktor’s head slightly.

“My expectation is that they will not. Unless an effect directly alters the soul housed within the ring, every manifestation should begin from an identical state.”

Viktor’s struggling intensified.

He twisted against Killian’s grip with renewed desperation, but the hand clamped around his jaw refused to yield even a fraction.

“If that proves true,” Killian continued, utterly unmoved by the resistance, “then every experiment begins with precisely the same subject, in precisely the same condition.”

There was almost reverence in the way he explained it.

“Age. Height. Mass. Prior injuries. Fatigue. Nutrition. Every biological variable resets.”

“Most experimental error originates from the subject changing between trials. Here…” He paused. “The subject never changes.”

“An identical procedure can be repeated indefinitely. Any difference in outcome can therefore be attributed to the procedure itself rather than uncontrolled variation.”

The mask remained fixed upon Viktor.

“A lifetime’s worth of longitudinal research could be conducted in a fraction of the time.”

Another pause.

“There are more ethical ways to obtain data of this quality.”

His tone never changed.

“They simply require technologies this world does not yet possess, or at the very least I don’t possess.”

There was another pause as Killian silently studied Viktor.
“I followed you today,” he said. “I watched your encounter at the tailor. I saw what you did to that poor couple. I watched you waste enough food to feed a family for days. And finally… I saw what you intended.”

“That, more than anything else is what truly makes you the perfect subject.”

The words emerged from behind the mask in that same hollow, unnatural voice, stripped of warmth until they sounded less like speech and more like the recitation of an undeniable fact

“Because I never had to ask whether this was the right thing to do.”

Killian tilted Viktor’s head ever so slightly, studying him through the blank faceplate.

“You answered that question yourself.”

“Every life you’ve ruined. Every person you’ve broken. Every choice you’ve made.”

“They spared me the burden of hesitation.”

A brief silence followed.

“Most people deserve the chance to become better.”

“You deserve the chance to become useful.”

The grip around Viktor’s jaw tightened, the pressure creeping inward with slow, deliberate certainty.

“If your existence advances humanity, even by a single step…” The featureless mask remained fixed on him. “Then perhaps that will be the closest thing to redemption you were ever meant to have.”

“You see,” Killian said, “I’d like to tell myself this is about medicine.”

Viktor’s pulse lurched.

“That with you, I could study disease. Wound recovery. Degenerative disorders. Discover treatments… perhaps even cures.”

Viktor’s breathing became ragged.

The pressure around his jaw continued its slow, relentless climb.

A sharp pop echoed through his skull.

His vision blurred.

It’s cracking.

Another pulse of pressure.

His jaw’s cracking.

He threw everything he had into wrenching himself free. His fingers clawed at Killian’s wrist until his nails bent backwards, but the hand holding him might as well have been forged from steel.

“And I will.”

Something had changed.

Beneath the mask’s flattened, mechanical voice, Viktor heard it—a growing intensity. Not emotion in the voice itself, but in the pace of the words, the certainty behind them. The calm restraint that had defined Killian’s speech was beginning to fray beneath genuine excitement.

The grip tightened again.

Pain shot through Viktor’s face.

Heat flooded his jaw.

He could feel tendons straining.

Muscles protesting.

Something was giving.

“But…”

Killian paused.

“I’ll be honest.”

The blank mask remained fixed on Viktor.

“The possible medical leaps is not what excites me, it is not even the goal, more so a fortune opportunity.”

Another unbearable increment of pressure.

Viktor’s teeth ground together so hard he thought they would splinter.

It’s going to break.

It’s going to break.

“I want to create power.”

The words came faster now.

“Not Beyonder powers.” He gave a slight shake of his head. “I’m not nearly arrogant enough to think I could achieve something like that, something that is better described as authority over certain things than power.”

A faint, almost embarrassed laugh escaped through the mask’s distorted voice.

“But something close.”

“Close enough that an ordinary person could stand beside a Beyonder and not be completely helpless.”

His grip tightened still further.

Viktor felt agony burst across both sides of his jaw, the fervour behind every word was unmistakable now.

“Power that anyone could use, without worrying about going mad, or turning into monsters.”

Killian leaned forward ever so slightly.

“And with you…”

“I can make it real.”

The first thing Viktor heard was the sickening crunch.

A heartbeat later, pain crashed into him with such force that his vision turned white. His mind simply stopped, overwhelmed by the sheer violence of it. Wet, incoherent cries echoed through the room before he realized, with dawning horror, that they belonged to him.

Killian slowly withdrew his hand.

Dark, glistening strands of blood and torn flesh clung to his fingers before slipping free and pattering onto the floor.

Viktor’s gaze followed them downward.

Blood.

There was so much blood.

A cold dread settled over him.

Don’t touch it.

Every instinct screamed at him not to, but his trembling hand rose anyway. His fingertips found his lips, or where they should have been.

His breath caught.

The shape of his mouth was wrong.

“Sorry,” Killian said.

The apology emerged through the mask in that same hollow, distorted voice, stripped of warmth until it scarcely sounded human.

“I got a little excited.”

“Of course, there will be limitations,” Killian continued. “Some things simply cannot be accomplished through biology alone, but we’ll burn those bridges when we get to them.”

He fell silent.

The blank mask regarded Viktor for several long moments.

Its featureless face remained fixed upon him, lingering over the ruin of his jaw with the detached attention of a craftsman inspecting a flawed mechanism.

“In the meantime…”

“I suppose the next logical step is to establish the vessel’s limits,” Killian said. “How much damage it can sustain before total systemic failure. How its functions degrade under catastrophic injury.”

Viktor struggled to make sense of the words.

His thoughts drifted through a haze of agony, the mutilation of his jaw leaving him barely able to think. Killian’s voice reached him, but the meaning refused to take shape.

That confusion lasted only until Killian calmly knelt in front of him and reached for the hand that was not withering under the rings effect.

Viktor frowned.

Before Viktor had the chance to react—before he could even comprehend what was happening—a violent wrench tore through his arm.

Agony exploded through him.

His hand was ripped clean away.

Another broken scream burst from what remained of his mouth as the blank mask silently watched him.

Critical injuries.

The words finally clicked.

Critical injuries.

Killian hadn’t been speaking hypothetically.

He intended to find the body’s limits by tearing Viktor apart, piece by piece.

Even through the blinding pain, Viktor understood.

Panic seized him.

He stumbled backward, slipping in the blood coating the floor before he crashed down, scrambling away in desperate, futile terror. While Killian was reaching for him.

Then the door opened.

Viktor looked up just as Butler Nosurr stepped inside.

“Nosurr!”

Relief flooded through him.

Someone else was here.

“Help me, Nosurr!” Viktor cried, or tried to cry anyway, the words slurred and garbled, through the ruin that was his mouth as he dragged himself toward the doorway. “Please… help me…”

He clawed with his handless arm at the blood-slick floor, every movement sending fresh waves of agony through his body.

Just a little farther.

If the butler could distract Killian for even a few seconds…

Nosurr did not move.

He looked down at Viktor in silence for a moment before lifting his gaze past him.

“All preparations have been completed, Master Killian,” he said calmly.

His voice was as composed as ever, utterly indifferent to Viktor’s broken pleas.

Viktor continued dragging himself toward the open door—toward freedom, if only he could reach it.

“Excellent,” Killian’s distorted voice replied from somewhere behind him. “In that case… you are officially dismissed, Butler Nosurr. I wish you a pleasant retirement.”

“Thank you, Master Killian.”

The old butler gave a respectful bow.

“Please,” Killian said, “Killian is more than enough… Sir Carl.”

For the first time, a faint smile touched the old man’s face as he straightened.

“Very well. Then goodbye, Killian.”

“Goodbye, Carl.”

Without another word, Carl turned and walked through the doorway, no longer shackled by his past.

The door closed behind him with a quiet click, the sound echoing through the room.

Viktor stared at the door in disbelief.

His last hope had just walked away.

For a long moment, Viktor simply stared at the closed door, unable to comprehend that the man he had begged for help had abandoned him without so much as a glance.

Then something wrapped around his ankle.

His entire body stiffened.

Behind him, Killian’s distorted voice spoke with the same calm detachment as before.

“The less you struggle, the faster this will be over.”

Viktor barely had time to understand the words.

A tremendous force seized his leg.

There was a sickening tearing sensation, followed by an explosion of pain so intense it eclipsed every other injury.

His foot was ripped clean away.

The scream that escaped him no longer sounded human.

Soon, the hall was filled with nothing but Viktor’s broken, gargled cries.

Time lost all meaning.

Pain became the only thing left.

By the end, all that remained of him was his head attached by the barest of muscle, flesh and bone to his single arm, its flesh shrivelled and blackened to the elbow by the ring of redemption.

Yet somehow…

He still lived.

His vision drifted in and out of focus. He could feel air on his heart as it beat, nothing more than a distant thud in his ears. Every instinct begged his body to surrender, to slip into unconsciousness, into death.

Neither came.

He had prayed for death countless times already.

It never answered.

Even death had been denied to him.

“Incredible…”

Killian’s distorted voice reached him as though from the far end of a tunnel, the blank mask continued to study what remained of Viktor with quiet fascination.

“Your body appears to exist in a perpetual state of terminal failure.”

He paused, as though searching for more precise wording.

“It is continuously approaching systemic collapse… yet never quite arrives.”

Another thoughtful silence.

“It’s holding itself at the absolute threshold of death.”

A hint of restrained amazement entered his otherwise mechanical cadence.

“And I do mean the absolute threshold. Truly incredible…”

Viktor felt another hand settle against the side of his head.

The other still held him upright by his hair.

“Well,” Killian said, his voice carrying through the mask with that same cold, mechanical distortion, “I think that’s enough for today.”

His palm pressed more firmly against Viktor’s skull.

“It’s time for you to sleep.”

At first, the pressure was almost gentle.

Then it increased.

Steadily.

Relentlessly.

Pain flooded back into Viktor’s mind, eclipsing even the agony that already consumed him. It felt as though his skull were being compressed from every direction, his thoughts squeezed tighter and tighter until they began to fragment.

The pressure continued to build.

Every heartbeat drove it deeper.

Higher.

Higher.

Then it reached its peak.

There was a dull crack.

And suddenly—

Nothing.

The pain vanished.

The fear vanished.

Even thought itself disappeared.

Darkness claimed him completely.

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Additional Notes pt2:

Firstly: This admittedly got a lot darker than I first planned, but I just honestly didn’t think this guy deserved something as easy as death. Also it helped heal me a little too.

Secondly: The song Killian sings is called “One day to live” by “Seb Lowe”.

Thirdly: I had to split it into two chapters otherwise it would've been too long to post, so there might be a possibility of a mistake somewhere, hopefully not, but its not impossible.

Fourthly: I hoped you’ve enjoyed it.